My favorite season!

Nooooo, not Tornado Season.  I'm not THAT nuts...not yet, anyway.  Probably if I were a chaser I would be that nuts.  But no, IT'S SPRING, and here in the Bootheel it has been for a couple'a weeks now.  Uncle Man-Child is mooning around like it's the end of the world (damn fool hates spring), but I couldn't be happier.  I never outgrew my childhood mentality, in which spring meant that the school year was winding down and that everyone could relax a little.  A little, mind y'all!  We still had a full quarter to go, but the end was in sight!  I love the way things smell and sound too; in the Bootheel things are always a little (or a lot) dusty, so the air smells of dirt, cut grass, growing flowers, and often rain.  In the ditches the spring peepers and the crickets start calling, the farm equipment starts puttering around in the fields, and of course, the birds have a field day.  Sometimes you can also hear foxes yarking in the fields; Daddy always said they bark in pairs.  There's also the crop dusters, who fly too low and too fast, but so far we haven't had any calamities.

My springtime children this year are largely going to be Cabbage Patch Kids, with a few other random dolls thrown in.  I'll start with the little ones and work my way up in size.  First, here are my bean-butt girls, Ingrid Jessica (right) and Sandy Eden, in little dresses that Mama supplied.  Alexandria Florida's bare legs are also visible. 

Indeed, the dresses prompted me to buy Sandy and Ingrid, as the only bean-butt I had beforehand was a boy.  Unfortunately it's not easy to find springtime clothes for bean-butt boys, or else I'd have included Esmond Brant.

Up a couple'a sizes we go now, to sixteen inches.  Alexandria Florida has been wearing this since I got her in February...and for that matter, y'all saw this last Sunday when the weather got bad.  A gift wearing a gift.

I'm fond of redheads in purple for some reason.  Case in point.

Oh, it's been a long time since I bought a new Fashion Avenue outfit, but Amy is worth it.  I love how retro this looks!  It's a smidge tight on Amy's Shani-sized body, though.

Back to Cabbage Patch Kids now, Joyita Emilia is rocking the Care Bears. 

One eighties trend meets another, LOL!  As y'all might remember I'm fond of the Care Bears, and thus I was pleased as punch to see this dress.

Just as I like redheads in purple, I love brunettes in yellow.  I promised Christa that Beryl June would make an appearance as things warmed up.

Another gift from Mama, LOL.  In truth it's a smidge short for Beryl June, which surprised me since she's one of my smaller full-sized Cabbies.  But she looks okay.  I'll scrounge up some shoes and socks and she won't look as leggy.

Happy spring, y'all!  So far ours has been...oh, I'll say moderately stormy, and this weekend it's supposed to be hot!  We're talking mid-eighties hot, which is insane for March.  I hope that doesn't mean we're in for a scorcher of a summer.  And OMG, Barb and Tam, I forgot to ask y'all about the meteor!  Sounds like that was pretty wild!  I freaking love meteors, but my feelings would probably be different if one blew up right over my head.

Spring love,
RagingMoon1987

So random, January/February '26

Another winter is almost behind us!  Winter is a part of God's natural cycle, but that's hard to appreciate when the cold makes one's joints ache.  I understand Daddy a little better now, as he was always cranky during winter.  Not mean, mind y'all, just grumpier than usual, and he'd always say "I'm not mad at y'all, I just hurt."  It sucks, and I'm glad it's almost over for another year.  Indeed, except for that bad cold snap in January it's been a pretty chill winter for the Bootheel.  That said, the ants aren't out yet.  They never come out until after the last freeze.

'Nuff chatter, let's get down to business.  On January 3rd I was able to get this lovely little trio together for a picture.

Y'all know how I like odd groupings, and these three are it.  The one in pink white is an obvious Li'l Miss doll, Li'l Miss Candi Stripes.  I'll be unoriginal and call her just "Candi," cutesy spelling and all.  I knew that she had stripey hair, but I had no idea that her clothes changed color too!!!

I know, I know, I said Li'l Miss Magic Hair was my favorite of the Li'l Miss dolls, but I ended up liking Candi's smiling eyes better.  I remember Treesa being surprised by teeth on a doll once, and I too was surprised to see that Candi has teeth showing.

Being an early nineties doll often means having big bangs, and this is what Candi looked like when I pulled her out of her box.  Thus why her bangs are currently bound with an elastic.

Interestingly, Candi didn't come with shoes.  I think she's the only Li'l Miss doll that didn't.  That's fine and dandy for summer and for the beachy clothes that Candi is wearing, but during a Midwestern winter it looks uncomfortable.  I can probably find some shoes somewhere, though.  Candi is probably used to it anyway, as she hails from a place in Kansas called Rossville.  Rossville's latitude is higher than Malden's is.  Not much, but enuff to make winters a smidge harsher.  Add to that the fact that the temperatures here in Malden wildly fluctuated during late December and early January.  On the 3rd it was cold and overcast, and by the 7th it was sixty degrees and threatening rain.  ANYWAY, the tall girl in the middle is Selene, and she's a Famosa doll.  Her city of origin is Scottsdale, Arizona.  Unlike Rossville, I've heard of Scottsdale.  With eyes like this, Selene LOOKS like she should be from Roswell, New Mexico.

NGL, I like Famosa dolls almost as much as I do Furga dolls.  Like Furga, Famosa dolls are proving to be quite diverse.  My Selene isn't wearing her original clothes, but she's unique enuff without 'em and she looks nice in white so I'll not worry about original clothes for now.  Selene is Nancy's friend, and she's...well, an alien of some stripe!  Her eyes once glowed green, just like Emerald the Enchanting Witch's eyes did.

I don't think they glow anymore, but they do sparkle.  I also love Selene's hair; it's this unusual silver blue color.

The last little doll is Italian, but is NOT a Furga doll.  She has just as much personality, but this one is from Italocremona.  I've chosen to call her "Cassandra," and her former home is Totowa, New Jersey.

Cass has some sass!  Here it's possible to see that, at least in Cassandra's case, Italocremona eyes are more realistic than Furga eyes.

On the evening of January 4th I took Candi outside to see if her color-change feature still worked.  Her instructions imply that she'll stop working over time, especially if she's exposed to extreme temperatures..  It was forty-one degrees outside that evening, so I crippled out with her.

Forty-one degrees...the weather we had not long after that made forty-one degrees look like a heat wave.  Anyway, the color change began before I even had the door shut.  As y'all can see, Candi's clothes and hair have turned pink and orange as they should.  Her lips also shifted; inside they were bubblegum pink, but when exposed to cool temps they turn fuchsia. 

I wonder how warm she'll have to be before her clothes turn white again.  Casa Pizarro is comfortably warm, but Candi's clothes remained pink and orange when I brought her inside, and they didn't change until I touched her.  I'll have to wait until summer, I guess!

January 10th.  Candela Laura pops in.

My phone's battery was too low for a flash, but I took the picture anyway.  Candela Laura looks the same regardless of the lighting.

January 11th.  These dolls are all standing on top of my great-grandfather's bookcase.  There's about thirty-five years worth of doll history in that lineup.

Okay.  The pink bunch consists of Alexis (Pretty Crazy Curls), Flower Magic Mary, Surprise Hat Susie, and Twist 'n' Style Tiffany.  Then there's Billie, Mosi, Dell, Zelia, and Camille.  Crystabella rounds out the bunch.  The black thing behind Tiffany and Billie is Grandpa's old globe, long out of date but still fascinating.  I think this bunch is interesting, by the way, as one YouTuber I ran into notes that dolls this size were at one time kinda unique.  They weren't American Girls, and they weren't Barbie, and in the nineties dolls didn't come in this size unless they were glitzy toddler dolls.  Note that my four glitzy toddler dolls do vary in size a bit; Alexis is the tallest and Tiffany is the shortest.  Please forgive the dust and the terrible angle; the bookshelf is six feet tall, and I'm both five-seven and standing slumped.

I haven't yet thrown Candi into the mix (there's no more room on the top of the bookcase), and I haven't thrown in my other two new fourteen-inchers either for the same reason.  January 16th.  Kenya is on the left, and Philly girl Olivia is on the right.  Olivia is an I'm a Wow doll, the smaller counterpart to the I'm a Girly dolls.

Bet y'all forgot I had an I'm a Girly, LOL!  Robyn is still around, but Olivia is not analogous to her, not in appearance, anyway.  She's got blue hair like I like, plus highlights that change color in the sun.  As for Kenya, she's cute.  I'll be reviewing her...someday.  I've had zero energy lately.

January 22nd.  One of my favorite YouTubers had dropped a new video, and I was about to share a soda pop with Rubia Emilia. 

Swengle Studios and pineapple Fanta for the win!  Swengle Studios specializes in tornadoes, but he does other odd meteorological phenomena too, and he dumbs it down for idjit galoots like me.  For the record, I've since changed Rubia's first name to "Joyita."  That sticks with my old shipwreck theme, and I never really liked the name "Rubia."  So Joyita Emilia she is.

January 25th.  It was bitterly cold outside by then, I was recovering from the other type of cold, and Cotton Candy Mia wanted to show off her new hair bow.

We wear hair bows in Casa Pizarro.  Hair bows are cool.  LOL, this one was a freebie; it accompanied two larger bows that Mama got for me.

January 30th.  Random pic of Joyita Emilia. 

Joyita had her new pacifier by then, as well as an outfit change, but I was still waiting for the shoes.

February 4th.  A tale of two Sindy dolls.

Crimp and Style Sindy is on the left, and the wary brunette on the right is the late-model Pedigree that y'all met on Valentine's Day, before I put her in the pink dress.

February 6th.  Bella (one of my dogs) took five years off my life when she got her head caught in the bars of the dog kennel, and Uncle Man-Child didn't help when he told me Bella wasn't moving.  She ended up being fine.  This lovely young lady then turned up in the mail.

She's a chimera, a 2025 Barbie Basics head on what appears to be a Shani body.  These Basics are supposed to have Made to Move bodies.  Still, whoever rebodied this doll took the time to match a head to a body, because both parts are very pale.  "Amy" will be this doll's name, for reasons that might be obvious to some of y'all.

February 11th.  It was unseasonably warm after that cold snap, and I had spring fever.  Ayla Diamond thus fell victim to an early spring redress.

Etsy shop is MiniMediMo.  I'm with Miss Emily, by the way; these little babies need to be made with open eyes!  I'd hoped the Valentine's Day wave would have some awake and alert little ones, but no dice.

February 14th.  It was cool and rainy, perfect for cuddling dollies.  Enter Sandy Eden. 

Sandy is a bean-butt baby, my second.  Mama told me that she'd ordered a cute outfit for a bean-butt girl, but I didn't have a girl...or so I thought.  I forgot that Taniyah Yasmin can wear bean-butt clothes too.

February 17th.  I had my Baby Alive dolls (numbering four by then) on the couch, and Lily took a liking to them. 

Lily likes my dolls for some reason.  Doesn't matter who I've got scattered about.  She rubs them and purrs, like she's marking them as her own.  Maybe she likes them because they smell like me.  I dunno. 

February 18th.  My new dolls of the day struck a pose.  Better Now Bella is on the left, and her friend Ingrid Jessica is a Hasbro-era bean-butt baby. 

They're both Hasbro, come to think of it!

February 22nd.  Two of the Philadelphia bunch get acquainted. 

Treesa sent me both of these, albeit in different packages.  Alexandria Florida is the Cabbie, and Lina is the Magic Nursery baby.  They don't have much in common, but they're cute, and deeply appreciated gifts.  Indeed, I have several Magic Nursery dolls, but Lina remains my favorite.

February 24th, another sitting down image, since that's about all I can do nowadays.  These two are Gary Collier and Autumn Leah, and apologies for our unkempt bed.  Mama and I both hit the sack not long after I took this picture.

Mama isn't Gary Collier's biggest fan, but she likes Autumn Leah okay.  When she saw Gary from a more flattering angle she warmed to him.  He'd fallen backwards when she first saw him, see, and since Gary's mouth is a little open he looks kinda, sorta, really DEAD when his head lolls back.  

February 25th.  This is literally a spur-of-the-moment picture, caught when I was riding to work.

Shelley is the blonde and Sindy is the aforementioned brunette.  The blue expanse behind them is my knee, sheathed in its usual denim.  Seriously, I live in blue jeans, practically.  Sindy has already been redressed, by the way, but I won't show that until mid-March.

Same day, different dolls.  I was inspired by this image to pair up my matching two dolls.  

I've got two Magic Nursery babies and like 'em both, but I was piddle-pooting around with Lina around then, so she and Pineberry got to sit together.

That rings down the curtain on another winter, for the most part.  I know some of y'all are still dealing with snow and I don't envy you in the slightest, but for me it's time to shake out my T-shirts and make sure my flashlight has batteries when severe storms come to call.  No more sandals because my ankles need some support, but that's life, and my doll kids can wear sandals.

So random, December '24

December 1st.  I'd just learned that Twyla Boogeyman's eyes glow in the dark, and I was planning on doing a post on that.  It fell through, but I still have the picture I took.

I don't talk much about Twyla, but she's always been one of my favorite Monster High characters due to her smaller size and her coloration.  Unfortunately my Twyla is falling victim to time just like Lagoona Blue has, and her hair looks pretty nasty.  I'm hoping I can save it.

December 2nd.  Bae Day Monday was for Jesmars.  I only have the one, Candela Laura, still in her fall dress.  Here she'd offered to help me shake out the winter quilts so that the family can avoid another spider bite (that lovely saga is here and here).

The ninth and the sixteenth are for Lily Ledy and Tsukuda, respectively.  I don't have any of those, but I'm looking forward to seeing the other folks' dolls.  The quilts got a clean bill of health, by the way; I guess the only spider in the pile was the one that bit me.

December 3rd.  Autumn Leah (right) finally arrived in the mail (she was listed as "out for delivery" for a solid twenty-nine hours).  Here she leans on Gwenda Cecile; my friends on Failbook wanted to see them both.

Y'all have met Autumn Leah, but I never talked about Gwenda Cecile, even though the two arrived around the same time.  Gwenda Cecile is a poseable Kid from the Hasbro era, with thick, pale blonde braids and bright blue eyes.  She has a head mold that reminds me of the crazy-expensive Coleco #19 head, which has a big toothy smile.

December 7th.  It was a Saturday, and I'd been to work and Mama hadn't.  When I came home that evening I found this.

Adora was wearing Bluebelle's hat, and poor Bluebelle was in the floor!  I presume that Mama brushed against their shelf at some point during the day.  Her coordination isn't any better than mine is at this point.  Bluebelle's hat is too small for Adora, but it still looks kinda cute!

December 12th is about as random as they come.  This headshot of Rosemary turned up in my Failbook memories.

Rosemary doesn't look like that anymore!  She's got a new wig and no eyelashes, and I need to fix that latter bit.

December 15th.  I was putting Jazzie's post together and decided to fool around with the rest of my Barbie dolls.  For some reason I included Marlo, even though she ended up not being in the post.

Y'all know how I like opposites, and Dionne and Marlo are about as opposite as it gets.  New and old, red and blue, brunette and blonde, black and white.

Since I once compared Marlo to Midge, here they are together.  Marlo is slightly in front of Midge here; in reality the two are the same size.

Hmmm, maybe she doesn't favor Midge as much as I thought she did.  She doesn't look much like TNT Barbie either.  It doesn't really matter much, but I like to nitpick.

Lastly, here's Marlo with Jazzie.

These two don't look a lot alike either, but that's to be expected since there's at least twenty years separating their production dates.  I have to admit that even though Marlo can't pose worth a doggone, she IS photogenic.  I need to think of some other scenarios for her.

December 16th.  This is a Failbook memory, of Yasmina and Raya together. 

I don't remember why I had them together, but I did.  I've always loved Yasmina's yellow, slightly creepy eyes.

December 18th.  Another Failbook memory.

Imani was so new that I didn't have her whole outfit yet.  I only had her sleep sack.

December 18th, present day.  Shelley (left) got a new dress that coordinated with Barbie's.  Y'all can see what happened next.

Now Shelley needs some shoes of her own!  I'd like to find a similar outfit for Midge too, so she and Barbie can pose together again. 

December 21st.  Saturdays on that Cabbage Patch group I like are called Seasonal Saturdays, and the Saturday before Christmas doesn't get more seasonal than this.

Besties Elisabeth Clara and Shelley Fred are ready to deck the halls...or they would be if we were bothering with a tree.  My goofy tree at the library is up, but both Mama and I are too crippled up to put a big one together, and Uncle Man-Child would be of no help if we tried.  So Elisabeth and Shelley are just chilling out, staying warm.  Elisabeth's left pants leg has the Grinch on it.

Everyone oughta love the Grinch! Unlovable as he's supposed to be, he's...pretty darn lovable.  

December 22nd.  Two radically different Barbie dolls.

Malibu P.J. is on the left and Isolde is on the right.  I think they're discussing the differences in their joints and how P.J. can sit comfortably with her legs outstretched. 

December 23rd.  Bae Day Monday is for Tri-Ang Pedigrees.  Again, I have one, my beloved Kitrick Randolph Fergus.

My friend from Newfoundland got her first Tri-Ang Pedigree doll a few days ago, and we had a discussion about Tri-Ang eyes.  Because the paint used was absolute crap, these dolls have very distinctive eyes.

Kit's eyes used to be brown, and the Newfoundland doll's eyes appear to have once been green.  Now both of them have...well, mud-colored eyes!

December 24th.  Failbook memory from 2020.

I apparently had just gotten Justine-Marie, because I showed this random headshot to everyone. 

December 26th.  This popped up in the mail.  Another gift from Mama. 

Nathan Hunter looks fine in his blue corduroy suit, but it's nice to change things up a bit.  This should hold him until the end of winter.

December 27th.  I took this in preparation for another series of posts. 

Barbie and Sindy.  Mattel and Marx.

December 28th, the not-too-smiley day that really wasn't that bad (for me, anyway).  Courtney got a new outfit in the mail.

Any of my balloon-headed Skipper dolls would've looked alright in this, but I love hot pink with dark hair.  Oh, and fringe.  I love fringe. 

December 30th.  Friend from Newfoundland needed a way to fill in the last Monday, so she declared it IC and UT Day.  These factories were both based in Taiwan, and Cabbies from there have their own special attributes.  In this case I have one of each; Shelley Fred is an IC3, while Elisabeth Clara is a UT2 and has the cheeks to show for it.

UT Cabbies have VERY rosy cheeks, and IC Cabbies have very pretty complexions when they haven't discolored (some of 'em do).  Shelley Fred is lucky and has not discolored so far; indeed, his face reminds me a little of porcelain.  This porcelain look is also common for IC kids.

Later that same day.  Fluff and Farrah cuddle.

Farrah is the younger of my two Malibu Barbies.  I unfortunately don't know where her older sister is.  However, I do have a rough idea about where to look.  I'm very fond of the Malibu Barbie line, so I'd like to have 'em all together. 

Still December 30th.  Two of my blue-eyed girls.

Danica and Martina, complete with That One Hair for both dolls.  By the way, it should be remembered that blue-eyed Furga dolls can look possessed if the camera's flash is wrong.  Martina, Caroline, Eva, and Gia have all fallen victim to this. 

I was restless on the evening of the thirtieth, and while waiting for Mama to come home I ventured outside with Martina. 

We were both in the mood to enjoy the last few hours of mild temperatures before a strong cold front pushed in.  The last week of December has been delightfully mild (with tornadoes for the south), and the first week of January is predicted to be "colder than a well-digger's butt," as my family puts it.  With snow.  Blaaaaaaaahhhh!!!!!!

And with that, the year has come to an end!  It was an okay year, free of a lot of tragedy and illness...well, for me, at least.  I know that people in Appalachia are still digging out from Hurricane Helene; that recovery is gonna take a long time yet.  But for me, thank God, all is well.  My family has a home, we're all alive and well, we've got enuff money to pay bills, that's a lot to be thankful for.  And the eclipse...that was the highlight of my year, and I hope I never forget it.  As to you, my dear readers, I thank all of y'all for popping in with comments or with views, for the gifts, for everything.  This blog would be pointless without readers.

I love y'all, and happy new year!

Cheers,
RagingMoon1987