AG Spotlight: Kirsten Larson

My name is Kirsten.  It's my turn to be be in the spotlight.

FULL NAME:  Kirsten Elisabeth Larson

NICKNAME:  "Yellow Hair," though only Singing Bird has ever called me this.

BIRTHDAY:  June 8th

HOMETOWN:  Rural Minnesota

HEAD MOLD:  Classic

HAIR COLOR:  Light blonde

EYE COLOR:  Light blue

FAVORITE COLOR:  Pink

THINGS I LIKE:  Quiet nights in the woods, starlight, cats, ice skating, fishing, quilting, going barefoot on summer days, long drives on country roads, and the Minnesota Vikings.

THINGS I DISLIKE:  Wearing a sunbonnet in hot weather, bears, getting lost, fire, being outside in bad weather (one blizzard was enough for me, thank you)

MY CHOICE OF MUSIC:  Anything that I can square-dance to!

PETS:  I'll soon have my cats, Missy and Stormy, by my side.

BEST FRIENDS:  I share a bond Felicity, Samantha, and Molly, since we were the only American Girls for awhile.  I also like the little Hearts for Hearts Girl Mosi, because she reminds me of Singing Bird.

SOMEONE I'D RATHER AVOID:  Bears

HOW I CAME HERE:  Another Christmas present!  Felicity was planned, and I was a surprise.  The Moon Girl tells me she tore off the wrapping paper, saw the box, and whooped "NO!!!  Y'ALL DIDN'T!!!  WHICH ONE IS SHE???"  Heavens, I even remember hearing her yell!  I admit that I was a little disappointed when I learned I wasn't her first doll, but Felicity and I became close in no time.

ABOUT ME:  I'm quieter than Felicity is, but behind that quiet I try to be grit-tough.  Since I grew up on the frontier I know how to live off the land, raise food from mere seeds and water, and cook from scratch.  I care deeply about my friends.  I laugh when they laugh, I cry when they cry, and I try to calm them down when they get angry.  Indeed, I think I may be the only reason why Felicity and Maddie haven't killed each other yet.  They both need to grow up!

Regarding my life in the modern world, I admit that I'm not quite used to it.  I still jump when a telephone rings, for example.  I still wear my long-sleeved prairie dresses and my sunbonnet, even when it's hot, and even though I hate it.  However, I will admit to occasionally wearing a Vikings shirt and a pair of capris in the summertime.  Yes, I know summer isn't the season for football, but comfort is key, and the Vikings are my team!  Comfort is key...speaking of, it's getting quite warm here in Missouri!  It was cool and rainy at the beginning of the week, but now the heat is back.  I only have so much clothing that I can take off!  I do hope the Moon Girl can find my summer dress soon.  It has short sleeves, and it also has stripes!  I love stripes.

Side note from the Moon Girl:  So do I!  Stripes are almost as good as polka dots.  And your wish is my command, because the dress arrived on Monday.

Hooray!!!

It's so nice to have something clean and new to wear for the dog days ahead.  I even have my little bird whistle!
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Blow this in the event of bears.

Side note from the Moon Girl:  It doesn't really whistle, but I'm not tellin' Kirsten that!

No need to keep secrets.  I heard you loud and clear.  Luckily in the Land of Make-Believe I can make this puppy work.  Or birdie.  Whatever.

There's not much else to say about myself.  What you see is what you get.

Love,
Kirsten Elisabeth Larson

That's life

I am NOT, nor will I ever be a big Frank Sinatra fan, as his voice was flat much of the time.  However, for much of the past week I've gone around humming "That's Life."  Why?  Because life happened again.  Mama's pain came back with a vengeance early Monday morning, and after much ado and some wasted time she finally got to a hospital that could diagnose her properly.  The gallbladder was the problem and the gallbladder came out, and as of writing Mama is at Southeast Hospital in Cape Girardeau with a drain in her side.  The gallbladder was severely inflamed, parts of it had turned necrotic, and an infection had set in.  In addition Mama's blood pressure was bottoming out, and that suggests to me that she was dangerously close to going septic by the time the hospital got her treated.  Right now she's where she needs to be, and she's in a lot of pain but staying...well, relatively positive, considering the circumstances.  She says she's been treated very well, and if I know her like I do then she's trying to be nice to everyone in return.

To kill some time I'm gonna talk about two dolls that I saw at Wal-Mart yesterday.  Neither of them are super-unique, but they caught my eye.  The first one is this My Life doll, the Dream Team Captain.

I don't know how well y'all can see, but her hair is this unusual mix of purple, green and blue.  The rest of her is typical My Life fodder, no different from Airy, and since I have too many dolls in this size as it is I didn't get her.  There are better images of her hair on Wal-Mart's website.

I didn't get a picture of the other doll, but she's one of the new Shadow High dolls.  Here's an idea of what they're like; the one available at my local store is Heather Grayson, second from left.

I love the idea of Rainbow High's rivals being in grayscale!  Hey, gray has its place in the color world too!  I used to hate wearing gray, by the way, as it reminded me of surgical tools and the walls of the hospital where I spent much of the summer of 2004.  I've since grown to love wearing gray, but I digress.  As noted above, Shadow High is Rainbow High's rival school, since every good school has a rival (Malden's archrival is Kennett, for example).  These kids are fine art students like the Rainbow kids are, and....that's all I know.  From left, their names are Natasha Zima, Heather Grayson, Ash Silverstone, Nicole Steel, Sunny Madison's antithesis Luna Madison, and Shanelle Onyx.  Betcha a dollar to a doughnut that Sunny and Luna are related.  Their hair is exactly the same style, and their names are both a play on celestial objects (the sun and the moon).  The two extremes, uber-pale Natasha and very dark Shanelle are my favorites, and I'm excited to see these kids moving into Wal-Mart.  Too bad they're thirty bucks a pop.

Speaking of black and white, bird crap is black and white, and I've been seeing a lot of it lately because Mama's carport has swallows again.  Only one baby bird is visible, but this morning I watched the parents visiting and I saw three little mouths begging for food.

Last year there were five babies.  There was so little room in the nest that one bird had to sit on the ledge...but then again those babies were very close to fledging by the time I took the picture.  The current babies are nowhere near big enuff, but they're healthy and the parents are taking good care of them.  I love swallows; they can be ornery, and like all birds they produce a lot of droppings, but as wet as this year is we're going to need as many swallows as we can get.  We'll need swallows to SWALLOW the mosquitoes!  LOL, I wonder if that's why they're called swallows?

Tomorrow's AG Spotlight will go up as scheduled (it's Kirsten's turn).  Dang those posts are easy, especially for the historical girls, since all I have to do is snap a couple'a pictures.  As insane as my life has been lately, I haven't had the energy for much else.

Hugs, rainbows, and bug guts,
RagingMoon1987

AG Spotlight: Felicity Merriman

Greetings, readers.  The Moon Girl has decided to give each of us American Girls our very own post...but in order to do that she had to sit down and interview every single one of us.  That is no small task since there are almost thirty of us.  Since I am the oldest, I get to go first.

FULL NAME:  Felicity Merriman

NICKNAME:  "Lissie."  The Moon Girl rarely calls me this, but the other dolls do it all the time.  Lindsey also jokingly calls me "Duracell," since I have a copper top.  Aye, I may date from the eighteenth century, but I know what batteries are.  I remind myself more of Energizer batteries, since I keep going and going and going...

BIRTHDAY:  April 21st

HOMETOWN:  Williamsburg, Virginia

HEAD MOLD:  Classic

HAIR COLOR:  Red

EYE COLOR:  Green

FAVORITE COLORS:  Green, blue, and pink

THINGS I LIKE:  Music, animals (especially horses), being outside, playing my guitar for my friends, reading (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is my favorite author), 

THINGS I DISLIKE:  Animal cruelty, sewing, dancing, being inside too long, sitting still too long (unless I have a good book), and Amazing Maddie

MY CHOICE OF MUSIC:  I like the baroque classical period, which is the music I grew up with.  I am also catching up with the times and am learning to play more modern songs.

PET:  Posie, a lamb.  

BEST FRIENDS:  Elizabeth isn't here, but Molly fits the bill nicely.  I am considering starting a red-headed league with Robyn, Reagan, and Sasha, since we're the only large redheads in the Moon House.  Lastly, I am quite fond of Kyle, a fellow Patriot.

SOMEONE I'D RATHER AVOID:  If I could kill Amazing Maddie I would.  I also don't always see eye to eye with Julie, Kailey, and Lark, but they are nice, down-to-Earth girls so I make an effort to get along with them.

HOW I CAME HERE:  Christmas gift!  The Moon Girl was eleven or twelve, neither of us quite remember which.  She chose ME over Amazing Maddie that year.  That's right, Maddie.  Me.  Get over it.

ABOUT ME:  I was the Moon Girl's first, and for awhile, her only.  Her sister had Molly, and despite a two hundred-year age gap we got on quite well.  We are still very close.

In the time since my life in the 1700's I have grown accustomed to wearing long dresses.  The only time I wear modern clothes is for jujitsu class.

Aye, I practice jujitsu.  These modern martial arts are a wonderful way to learn to control one's temper, which I never outgrew.  So far I have never had to use my physical skills against anyone, but if Maddie keeps pushing her luck I may have to.  

In other news, I like to garden and to take care of animals.  I also like to read; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a century younger than I am, but I do love his stories.  I am the only girl in the Moon House that hates dancing.  I became good at the minuet after practicing, but I hated it in 1776 and I hate it now.  I prefer to play my guitar and back up Zoe's singing while the others dance.  Or I WOULD prefer...the Moon Girl hasn't gotten my guitar yet!

*Side note from the Moon Girl:  Good grief, gal, do you know how much your accessories cost nowadays???  With inflation becoming a problem I can't be buying much!

Oh, I see.  Well, I suppose I will have to be...dare I say it...patient.  According to that odd man that Luciana watches on television, patience is for wimps.  Regarding my personal beliefs, I am a staunch conservative and a devout Anglican, which sometimes puts me at odds with Julie, Kailey, and Lark all of whom are leftists.  I can usually turn Julie and Kailey inside out when it comes to debates, but Lark little more well-read.  I do not like to quarrel with my younger friends, so we usually agree to disagree, and then focus on something we all like, like music or animals.  We all also agree that preserving the environment is important, though I cannot seem to impress upon Julie the dangers of large hail to solar panels.  Just because softball-sized hail hasn't happened here doesn't mean it WON'T.

I think that covers me for now.  If I can think of anything else worth sharing I'll add it in.

Faithful friends forever be,
Felicity "Duracell" Merriman

Random blather about My Twinn

Since Monday is my day off I passed some time fooling around with my larger My Twinns.  I kept thinking back to...February, was it, when I bought Rosemary?  No, it was late January, when I was convalescing from whatever illness it was that kept me home for a week.  Anyway, on a whim one morning I took this picture of Rosemary and my other then-new Twinn, Justin.  

Rosemary and my other two girls (Rael and Salome) are quite fair, and Justin is significantly...more orange than the girls.  See?

Yay, I fixed Rael's eyelash!  Anyway, I spoke to some friends on Failbook and the consensus is that Justin is an Outstanding Orange Blossom.  I don't know what the consensus among collectors is about Outstanding Orange Blossom dolls, but I quite like Justin's unusual complexion.  In real life he's got a lovely peachy glow, like he's spent some time outside. 

Speaking of outside, Salome has been enjoying the fresh air.  The weather here has been summery, then rainy, then springlike, then the cycle starts again.  I could handle a summer like this, LOL.  Anyway, Salome has a new dress and some new shoes.

Salome is my resident tomboy and prefers her overalls over dresses, and she's not usually fond of pink either.  But when I told her the shoes were a gift she happily slipped them on.

Oh yes, the shoes.  Barb the Evil Genius sent these to me after finding them at a doll show.

Pink kitten-heel sandals!  LOL, kitten-heels with a kitten dress?  How fitting!  I had a pair of shoes like this at one time time, only they were blue.  The heels are clear, making me wonder if these lit up at one point.

Barb didn't know this beforehand, but for me May got off to a terrible start.  Mama had...had something wrong with her stomach and spent two separate nights in the emergency room.  The second night was really bad; a woman in the back of the building started screaming like a banshee.  Turns out the poor thing was a mental patient having a bad night.  As scary as it was for Mama and me I can only imagine what it was like for the nurses...or the patient herself.  Anywho, Mama recovered and is fine now, but the month started bad.  Receiving these shoes in the mail was a tremendous pick-me-up, and I owe a debt of gratitude to Barb for that.  Thanks, Barb!

That will just about do it for now!  Unless I can find a red-haired Twinn I won't be discussing them again for awhile. 

Stay sober,

RagingMoon1987 

Sunday randomness: quick post to break the monotony

Hello, dearest readers, it is I!  I'm sorry for the long lull in posts, but...well, life happened.  Nothing super-serious, but enuff to keep me busy.  Anyway, I have a long string of American Girl posts planned, so if you hate American Girls feel free to don your life vests and jump ship.  To keep this post from being super-boring, here's a quick view of what's to come in the months ahead.  My new girl is a bit shy yet.

Her name is Rebecca, and she belongs to a doll line that I remember from childhood but had forgotten about until recently.  It'll be quite some time before Rebecca's review is done, even though she's a fairly simple little doll, but I'll state right now that she has some ties to the Carpatina dolls.

Speaking of Carpatina, here's Ana Ming after a long absence.  She is modelling something nice and new-to-her.

This is NOT a Carpatina coat, but rather something that belongs to a friend of Rebecca's.  It obviously doesn't match Ana Ming's meet outfit, but I'll find something that does match!  Something blue or gold, maybe.  

That's all I have to say for now.  Again, sorry for the long dry spell.  

Love and warmth,
RagingMoon1987