So Random, July-August '25

At the beginning of July I was unsure what my immediate future held, so I combined two months again.  First picture was taken on June 30th, a few hours after the last random post went up.  I had yet another new dress for Chatty Cathy.  I was only then realizing that I had nothing patriotic for her, but this getup will do nicely. 

Or rather, it was new to her.  I'd had it laying aside since she looked so cute in white, but I was ready for a change.  I had someone comment on Cathy's hair when I shared this image on Failbook, by the way; the friend noted how red Cathy's hair is, and I don't remember it being this red.  I do know that Mattel hair from this era can change colors with time, so maybe that's the deal.  But if that's the case, then the change only took ten years.  But either way my Chatty Cathy is a strawberry blonde now and I'm not gonna knock it.

Also from June 30th came a Failbook memory, dating back to 2016.  Alistair decided to channel his inner C.C. DeVille.

I'd just gotten a fukubukuro wig bag for my ball-jointed dolls, and Alistair promptly claimed this one.  I'd gotten some beautiful champagne-colored eyes in another package, and the pairing made Alistair pop.  Up until this point I'd had a hard time bonding with him, but this combination made him.

Failbook memory again, this one from July 1st, 2021.

I'm glad I found this picture, as it's the only one I know of that shows all three Magic Nursery triplets in their original outfits.  Not long after this I threw Lulu (left) in a Build-a-Bear Small Fry dress and she hasn't been out of it since.

Another Failbook memory, from July 1st, 2016.  This one also concerns Alistair, and my attempts to tame his hair.

I thought Alistair might make a good decora boy, but as y'all can see Alistair is having none of it.  He reminds me a little of that scene from Beauty and the Beast, where the Beast is getting gussied up for his date with Belle...and a hairstyling session goes a smidge awry.  

July 2nd, in the aftermath of my visit to the hospital with a torn-up ankle, and possibly Day One of a depressed spell (I didn't really start perking up again until July 22nd).  One of my Failbook groups declared it Maryellen Week.  Alas, I have no Maryellen, but Silver Bird does.

Had I the room I would add Maryellen and Addy to my collection in a heartbeat.  I freaking love them both. 

My ankle was killing me that afternoon, so I passed the time by monkeying with the dolls I had within arm's reach (quite a few, LOL).  During this time Aimee gently reminded me that she hadn't been played with in awhile.  By the next evening I was in much less pain, so I moved Aimee up front and let her pose with Flower Magic Mary. 

My, oh my, the aesthetics sure changed in the twenty years separating the seventies and the nineties.  Big eyes were prevalent both decades, but...oh, I don't know.  There's more than just the clothes that tell me Aimee is older than Mary.  But of course dolls are ageless!

July 4th, 2016.  Another Failbook memory, another goofy wig for Alistair. 

I didn't like this one on him as much as I did the golden wig, and I think Alistair was ready for me to just pick a look for him already. 

Same day, present day.  I changed Terri Lee out of her patriotic dress and into something else.

This is a case of "I saw it in a window and had to have it."  I saw those jewel tones and knew my doll had to be the one who got it.  It's not tight across the shoulders like the patriotic dress is.

Same evening.  My mobility sucked on Independence Day, so I'd let quite a group of dolls accumulate on the back of the couch.

Flower Magic Mary and someone else's My Child doll are the focus here, but Candela Laura can also be seen on the right of the image.  On the left Aimee chose not to look at the camera this time; I joked that she was trying to be artsy like the members of Pink Floyd did back in the day.  In the linked image Syd Barrett is staring into space, while Roger Waters is turned away from the camera in an Alfred Hitchcock sort of way.

July 10th.  One of those pictures that I grabbed while I was getting ready for work.

Chou Chou and Xue don't look like the happiest little dolls, but they've become fast friends due to their somber expressions and their similar heights.

As I stated in a prior post, it gets chilly in Casa Pizarro, and Candela Laura decided to steal my blanket.

We can share, LOL!

July 13th.  I was watching a distant lightning show, and my pretty Francie was watching me.

Like me, Francie is thankful for what she's got (a home, new friends, a soft coat), but she also dreams of a life without pain.  Unlike Ilaria, Francie's broken knee does hurt her some.  Not long after this I stabilized it with some brightly-colored duct tape, and now Francie is happy again.  Treesa, Francie and the rest of the Pennsylvania Gang send their love.

July 15th.  This is Mariannina. 

Mariannina is another Furga doll, one that is quite popular on one of my Failbook groups.  Seriously, EVERYONE in that group has some variant of this doll.  Mariannina is small enuff to ride in the bag on my walker, and sometimes she does exactly that.

July 26th.  Alistair sort of got a redress.

All I had to do was take off his cardigan, cap, and scarf.  He was wearing a red T-shirt and a black tank underneath all along.  As if y'all couldn't tell, Alistair's favorite color is red.

July 27th.  Suzette made a reappearance after a long battle with mold.

I'd just cleaned her eyes, and one of them momentarily stuck shut.  Normally these dolls don't wink unless one manually holds their eye shut, but Suzette did it for me.

August 1st.  Johnny Hailey made a reappearance, with my present for Courtney Moore in tow. 

That, in his arms, is a Pillow People character, Mr. Sandman.  The Pillow People were pillows and stuffed dolls rolled into one, and they had a number of different themes.  Thunderclap, from the Nighttime Sounds category, is my favorite, though I'll maintain to my dying day that things that go bump in the night don't necessarily want to be my friends.  Yes, apparently the tagline for that subgroup of Pillow People was "These noises in the night want to be your friend."  When I was growing up the absolute last thing I wanted to hear in the middle of the night was a friggin' thunderclap, and I still don't 100% love it because it means I have to pop out of bed and unplug my phone, lest it get fried by an errant lightning strike.  But I still love the Pillow People character.

As for Johnny, his clothes are a little worse for wear than Alistair's, because Johnny was right next to my open window during a couple of very hot summers.  He's dusty and his clothes need a bath, and as usual Johnny is none too happy about it.

"Admit it, you forgot about us."

Y'know, I never realized until just now what a sad expression this head has!  Not the paint, but the head mold itself.  Here's how it looks without spectacles.  

Those eye wells...but then again, that's what I wanted.  All of my ball-jointed dolls have backstories with a healthy amount of tragedy, and Johnny lets his feelings show.  Alistair tries to hide his.

Oh, and that musical instrument by Johnny's side?  He's taken up playing the balalaika.

I have no idea why, but I like a well-played balalaika so I won't complain.  Marillion may have had something to do with it; I love their song "Estonia," and it features a balalaika.

August 2nd, 2025.  The resin takeover of Casa Pizarro continues.  This is Wozzeck, my eternally sleepy, eternally chill Wishel.  Despite my claim on his original post, Wozzeck is not a Festivous Wishel, but rather an Unbeknown.  Festivous had angel wings and a halo, and Wozzeck does not have those features.  Unbeknown Wishels COULD have angel wings and halos, but they could also have demon wings and little horns, or a single horn like a unicorn, or none of the above!  Unbeknown or Festivous, Wozzeck is a Wishel, and Wishels are tough to find.

His hair isn't that red IRL.  Surprise of all surprises, none of my ball-jointed dolls are gingers...not yet, anyway.  I do have a red wig, waiting for a doll to wear it, but that'll have to wait...that is if bugs haven't eaten it.  More on that at eleven.  I apologize for the glut of ball-jointed doll chatter.  I spent a decent amount of money on those dolls and am only now trying to pay attention to them again.  In the time that I've been away most of the Etsy shops I went to for BJD stuff have closed, so finding things for Alistair, Johnny, and Wozzeck is going to be no easy feat, but I've got several crates of stuff so it's all good. 

August 7th.  The first picture I got of Ayla Diamond.

I like these My Mini Babies a lot, but I only want the one.  I don't want her to have to share clothes with someone else, LOL!

And now for the eleven o'clock news!  August 9th I retrieved Chloe from Casa del Luna...and the aforementioned bugs had destroyed her wig!

Darn it, the shop where I got that wig isn't open anymore!!!  

August 16th.  Johnny got some new threads.

As usual Johnny doesn't want his picture taken, but since I'm bigger than him I prevailed.  His new clothes came from ETDolls, and since most of my favorite haunts for BJD clothes are no more I may hit this ship up often.

August 22nd.  Mama nearly measured herself in the middle of the night and knocked over some of my dolls in the process.  While I was setting things back up I got this picture of Bunnie Candie and Malinda Irisa.  Please ignore the Blue Emu in the background.  That stuff is good stuff.

Once again it's possible to see the difference between a neon Preemie and a non-neon.  These girls need Halloween clothes, but unfortunately finding themed clothes for Preemies is pretty tricky.  Take that back, Christmas items are semi-easy, but Halloween and fall?  Forget it!  I really need to whip out my sewing machine and start making doll clothes myself.

I must say, the past two months have been very dynamic.  At the beginning of July I was depressed, tired, and hot, and now the end of August has come and I'm...well, not depressed.  But I get frustrated more easily, and that's new.  I don't like that.  What can I say, going from gimpy but ambulatory to full-tilt crippled in less than a year is infuriating, and I don't think fibroid surgery is gonna be the cure-all I was hoping for.  But it's a step in the right direction.  Come the middle of September I'll know for sure what the future holds.

All of my love,
RagingMoon1987

Jaylin and the amazing technicolor bell-bottoms

It's been awhile since I did anything with my factory Blythe doll, so here's a post for Jaylin.  Y'all have probably forgotten the poor girl, so here's a reminder of what Jaylin looks like.

"Peek-a-boo!"

Her baggie of clothes is currently buried in storage, so I've been putting together a new wardrobe, one that can be combined with the old one to make a nice big clothing lot.  Kinda like what I've been doing for my American Girls, in other words.  I'm actually quite annoyed that I managed to misplace that stuff, especially the newspaper hat that I don't think I ever photographed Jaylin wearing.  Katsumi, my Morimura baby, got to wear the thing even though it didn't really suit her, but I never thought to take Jaylin's picture.  I DO know where Jaylin's fur hood is, so that's something.  In fact, the hood is kind of important, as it was that item that helped me determine a facet of Jaylin's personality.  While my favorite ball-jointed doll and most of my American Girls prefer warm weather, Jaylin is best suited to fall and winter.  It was November when I took this picture, for example.  I distinctly remember it being cold enuff that I could see my breath, LOL.

Yep, I still know where the hood is, but everything else Jaylin is wearing vanished into Storage Hell.  Oh well, that stuff is here somewhere...seriously, I never throw anything away, so I know it's here somewhere.  In the meantime, here's the new bell-bottoms...

...and here are the T-shirts (three of 'em, to be exact).  These came from Poland and Brazil, if y'all can believe that.

The Beatles shirt and the heart shirt both came from SweetBlytheStore (the crew from Brazil), and I thought they'd NEVER get here.  The smiling top came from MoniCraftsShop (the bunch from Poland).  Filledereve supplied the bell-bottoms.  Filledereve has some cute stuff, by the way, just about all of it in bright, splashy colors.  Anywho, since the green smiley face shirt arrived first I'll start with that.

Hmmmm...the slacks do have green stripes, but they're a totally different shade from the shirt.  IRL this combination looks okay, but in pictures the colors are darkened and they don't jive as well.  I also wish Jaylin had her newspaper hat, LOL.  For some reason I wish she had her hat for the Beatles shirt too, though I can't figure out why.

The shirt with the Fab Four looks better with those rainbow slacks than I thought it would.  It's hard to see, but all four of the Beatles are holding brightly colored umbrellas, and they appear to be sitting on wooden chairs or benches as well.  While the colors aren't perfect matches with the stripes on the slacks, they hold their own.  This combo is workable.  The next blouse...

...eh, not crazy about it.  I thought some of the colors might match, but none of them do.  This blouse might be better suited with a solid skirt or pair of pants.

I've also got Jaylin's old space cat shirt (I've started calling the cat Doctor Mew, LOL).  Jaylin has already spent...I think two years in this thing, so what's a few more minutes???

Since the shirt has rainbow hems it might look good with the new bell-bottoms...

...or not.  Jaylin's not feelin' it, and I'm not either.  Doctor Mew is rainbow-colored, but his colors are more subdued than the stripes on the pants.  Besides, I prefer the denim jeans with the cat shirt because cats, that's why.  The jeans have a cat too.  See?

I try to let my dolls develop their own little personalities (like inanimate objects can do such a thing, LOL), but almost all of them like cats and/or like the color green.  Oh, and almost all of them are fans of at least one classic rock band, as Jaylin's Beatles shirt attests.  Ringo's her man!

In addition to the goofy slacks and the T-shirts Jaylin has her new dress and a nice cable-knitted hat for when it's not cool enuff for the fur hood.  The dress is sized for a RealFee doll, but Jaylin can wear it just fine (meaning that by default Licca-chan can wear it too).

The hat came with two pairs of socks, which I wasn't expecting but appreciate greatly.  Now Jaylin has something witty to wear on her feet when she wears that polka-dotted dress.

Of course when one buys a ton of stuff at once there are swings and misses.  This next outfit is an example of that.  The Etsy store does offer Neo Blythe-sized stuff, and I thought this overalls set was one of those things.  I was wrong; it proved to be WAYYY too tight and too short for Jaylin.  Indeed, the Etsy shop shows it modelled on a small doll, so the joke's on me for not paying better attention.  But...lemonade from lemons!  The tiny outfit is a comfy fit for my Wishel, Wozzeck.

Worked out pretty well!  Now I have a better idea of what Wishels can wear.  

Having fooled around with Jaylin and her clothes, I understand why Gina Garan wanted to use her old Blythe doll as a photography subject!  Too bad I don't have the patience or the equipment to do what she did.  Oh, and I just learned that she used a Susie Sad-Eyes doll for a similar photography project.  Ah, Susie Sad-Eyes...not as bizarre as Blythe or Little Miss No-Name, but strange enuff.  Strange enuff that I may or may not own one.

Stay tuned.

Hugs and ice cream (seriously, GIMME SOME!!!),
RagingMoon1987

My Christmas gifts to me and other stuff

C'mon, y'all have probably done it in the past too, bought gifts for yourself.  LOL, I seeing as I buy myself dolls all the time anyway this one probably is a poor Christmas present, but I wanted a Velvet to go with my old Crissy, so I got one.

I won't be reviewing this doll fully since she's too similar to Crissy for that, but here she is!  Velvet came from Hatton, North Dakota, not as far from Malden as Wozzeck's former home in Massachusetts is, but certainly far enough.  My doll is the Look Around version, just like my Crissy is, but instead of her pretty plaid dress she came in this adorable yellow frock that I couldn't say no to.  The yellow getup looks like an official Ideal dress for Velvet, a 1972 ensemble called Lemon Hang-Up.  The plaid dress will be easy to replace (eBay has a trillion of them), so I'm not terribly bothered by it's absence.  Indeed, I love this bright shade of yellow, particularly during these bleak winter months.  The cute little vest is made of corduroy, one of my favorite fabrics.

Interestingly, my doll's vest is different from the vests on Crissy and Beth's site.  The vests had eye holes for brightly colored yarn ties to go through, but my doll's vest...does not.

Someone, I don't know who, but somewhere along the way someone sewed the front of the vest together with yarn.  It looked good while it lasted, but it also meant that I had to cut the ties to get the vest off, AND it means that it'll hang open from now on unless I can come up with some sort of way to tie it shut.

In fact, this dress doesn't match Lemon Hang-Up exactly either.  It has trim along the hem of the skirt, trim that Lemon Hang-Up does NOT have.

The skirt is a bit longer too, and the print on the vest's fabric does not match either variation on Crissy and Beth's site, and the sleeves of the dress are longer...I clearly got a very skilled recreation of Lemon Hang-Up rather than the real deal, but it sure is a nice recreation!  It certainly had a novice like me fooled, so if you're new at collecting Crissy and Velvet be sure to research carefully.

So Velvet may not be wearing an Ideal outfit (not that that's a huge deal), but she does have something that Crissy didn't have until here recently:  shoes.

Crissy has shoes NOW, but as I said they're a very recent acquisition.  Velvet came with hers, though I doubt these are her original shoes.  Look Around Velvet's white self came with red shoes most of the time, and even if this dress were the real Lemon Hang-Up it wouldn't have come with shoes.  Nevertheless, my Velvet came with shoes and I am glad of it.  And because I like doll feet, here's how both of my girls' feet look in their shoes.

I've always loved Crissy and Velvet shoes, and I'm thrilled to finally have a couple pair.  Moving up now, notice that Velvet's eyes need some cleaning.  They aren't as bad as they were in the eBay pictures, but they still could do with a touchup.

I hope that's not mold, but it looks like that is indeed mold.  I spoke of mold in Crissy's review, this nasty white crud that forms on the eyes of Crissy and her friends and is unfortunately contagious.  Looks like I'm going to need some rubbing alcohol, AND it also looks like I'll have to keep Velvet quarantined until I get those eyes cleaned.  Y'know, just in case that nastiness IS mold.  I only know of this mold spreading to other Crissy dolls and not to American Girls, but better to err on the side of caution and keep Velvet away from the AG crew for now.  Velvet's eyes are much prettier than Crissy's, by the way, with or without crusty white crap.  She has blue-gray (violet?) eyes rather than the vacant black eyes that Crissy has.  See?

I'm positive that Crissy's eyes are supposed to be brown rather than black, but they don't LOOK even the slightest bit brown.  Even though Velvet's eyes are a prettier color than Crissy's I still find them...well, I'll admit that I find them just an eensy bit creepy.  I've always thought that Velvet's friend Cricket and her sister Cinnamon are the best looking of Ideal's Crissy crew, and I think that Velvet's other friend Mia has the prettiest eyes.  Or...okay, it's a toss-up between Mia and Crissy's other cousin Kerry as to who has the prettiest eyes.  So why did I bother with Velvet and not get Cricket instead?  Because Cricket didn't come in a Look Around version that coordinates with my Crissy like Velvet did, and because I like for things to coordinate because I'm WEIRD!  Mama would blame it on my being a Libra (Libras supposedly like balance), but I think it's just because I'm weird.

In addition to cleaning Velvet's eyes, I'll also have to do something with her hair.  It's very dingy, and the fall is pretty tangled as well.

Nothing a good soak with some Downy and Dawn won't cure.  Velvet's crank doesn't work, by the way.  It's always fully out for this gal, and since the mechanism is broken my Velvet's fall is longer than a Velvet doll's fall should be.  Usually Velvet's fall goes to her waist, but mine is noticeably longer than that, falling to her knees (spoiler alert on the wardrobe change).

Normally only a first-issue Crissy has hair longer than waist-length, and since Cinnamon is a small doll she also has a floor-length fall.  Velvet and her like-sized friends only have a fall that length when their internal mechanism is broken or if it's been replaced.  My doll's fall has never been replaced that I know of, so that can only mean that her mech is broken!  No worries, I'll just keep it braided and the extra length will not be a problem.  I always keep Crissy's hair braided anyway, so why shouldn't Velvet follow suit?

Of course I had an ulterior motive for owning a Velvet, as I often do.  Another lady on one of my favorite Facebook groups put her Velvet in a Glitter Girls outfit, and she reports that the fit is a little tight but super-duper adorable.  I don't have any Glitter Girls clothes yet, but I do have that B.F.C. Ink outfit that looked so cute on Mosi, and Abigail's cute little space-themed dress.  If I recall correctly I vocalized a curiosity about Velvet sharing clothes with Mosi and Abigail during Abigail's review, so it's time to whet that curiosity.  Here's what Velvet looks like in Abigail's spacey dress, which is sized for a Wellie Wisher doll.

The good news?  Velvet looks super-cute in this dress, and once I get it on her it fits her almost perfectly.  The bad news?  Putting this dress ON Velvet was a living nightmare due to her widely spaced arms and big head, and I have no idea how I'm going to get it off her.  Looks like the B.F.C. Ink outfit will just have to wait for now...or not!

First and foremost, the Wellie Wisher dress came off much easier than it went on, and much, MUCH easier than I thought it would be.  That said, with the exception of shoes the B.F.C. Ink ensemble fits Velvet like it was custom-made for her.  It's an eensy bit tight around the waist where her hair knob and pull string are, but not prohibitively so.  I even daresay that the hood of the jacket might fit over Velvet's head if her hair were fully retracted.  It's good to know that Velvet can wear B.F.C. Ink clothes though, because they're a little too big for Mosi and way too big for Abigail.  As for Wellie Wisher clothes, I'd advise caution since my particular dress is tight, but looser garments and dresses might work.

In addition to Velvet I completed the murder of my bank account by purchasing these two, who won't get a review until sometime in the spring.

Their names are Claudie (left) and Gigi.  They're both clone dolls of various stripes, one of whom has something very important in common with Crissy and Velvet.  Y'all might be able to tell what that something is from looking at her, but if you can't...well, you'll have to wait until mid-March, because that's how far back I've got posts set due to my constant procrastinating.

In other news, here's my Christmas tree.  I took it to the library since I can't enjoy it at home (because CATS, that's why) and since the library doesn't have a tree of its own, not one that's easy to put up and take down, anyway.  My tree is about two feet tall and is thus easy to deal with. 

See what I mean?  Small, low-maintenance, easy to put up, easy to take down, everything that the old tree is not.  Seriously, I wanted to drag in my old radio and play "Hard to Handle" on a loop while wrestling with the old tree, rules of silence in the library be danged.  The top part weighed a ton, none of the lower boughs wanted to fit into their slots, and I couldn't get all the plugs put back into place so half the lights didn't work (the tree is allegedly pre-lit).  Not to mention the old tree always makes a huge mess with its cheaply made needles shedding everywhere.  So...my goofy little black and white and orange and pink tree it was.  Everyone seems to like it except for one obnoxious little dame who's always causing trouble anyway.  She informed me that I was lazy for refusing to put up the big tree...but strangely enough, when I suggested that she put up the big tree by herself she didn't go for that. 

Silliness aside, those are legit presents under this new tree.  My little friend's L.O.L. Surprise is in the center, and the baggies are for Coworker B's grandchildren.  There's a light-up football for the littlest girl, a Spiderman figure for the boy, and matching Chelsea dolls for the two oldest girls.  I couldn't find any more like my Calypso, so I got them both this one instead, the one with exuberant orange curls that I myself like quite a bit.  It took some getting used to, but I've grown as fond of Chelsea as I was of Kelly back in the day.

In terms of other gifts, one of our patrons gave Coworker B and me this last Wednesday.

It turned out to be something that NEITHER of us needed...a huge box of chocolates.

But mmmmm, were they good!  The library is very blessed to have sweet, thoughtful patrons like that.

Of course not all of our gifts were for us humans.  Wozzeck got some new things too, barely visible underneath his huge coat.

His new wig arrived, and some clothes from Nubanded that are really too big for him arrived as well.  Wozzeck does not seem bothered by his PukiFee-sized clothes, so I guess I shouldn't be either!  If I get a wild hair I can take them in some.  All he needs now are his shoes.  Wozzeck and his Wishel brothers and sisters are unusual little beings, by the way.  They are too small for PukiFee clothes and WAY too big for PukiPuki clothes, but they can wear PukiPuki shoes...or I hope they can because that's what I ordered for Wozzeck!

In non-doll news, something new happened to us this holiday season, and NOT in a good way!  Mama ordered a push sweeper for me in the middle of the month, and the delivery date came and went...but no sweeper.  Mama waited a week and then started to do some sleuthing.  We both assumed that the mail had delivered our box to the wrong address, but unfortunately that proved not to be the case.  Apparently the box was delivered on the correct date to the correct house...and some scoundrel absconded with my box!!!!!!!!  So I didn't get my sweeper, though it made me grateful that Velvet wasn't stolen as well; one of our neighbors reported that she too had some things turn up missing.  Moral of the story?  Be extra-diligent about checking your mail, especially if you're expecting a package.  And to the jack wagon who stole my sweeper, sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.  While that whirlwind is ripening, I hope they have a bumper crop of goatheads in their yard and subsequently step on the seeds in their bare feet.  Seriously, stepping on Legos is not fun, but it's nothing compared to stepping on goathead seeds.

More minor bad news, but this at least segues into very, very GOOD news.  The bad news is that my sister and brother-in-law are moving to Vermont.  Right now they live in Lexington, Kentucky and that's far enough, but Vermont is...WAY FAR!!!  However, the good news is that my sister got accepted into a doctoral program up at Burlington after a long, frustrating search for a college that would accept her.  She's already visited Burlington once on a visit to said college, and she fell in love with the place.  As an added bonus, Brother-in-Law should have no trouble finding work since the demand for decent plumbers in Burlington is apparently pretty high.  So while we will undoubtedly spend another few years lonely for Sister's company, it'll be worth it if she can get the schooling she needs.  And this time she won't be alone; she spent the first half of the year in Edmonton, Alberta for more schooling, and Brother-in-Law had to stay at home due to his own schooling.  This time, thank God, the two will be together, AND they'll have their cat.  Mama and I got this news on the same day that we learned my package was stolen, and the news helped brighten the day quite a bit.  I can leave the theft of the sweeper in God's hands and praise Him for Sister's triumph.

In short, it was a quiet but enjoyable Christmas for Moon Girl and her family.  We talked and ate homemade soup and laughed like a bunch of fools.  In addition to some much-wanted corduroy slacks, a coffee machine, and some other nice wearables, I got this.

He's a kidney stone from Giant Microbes, and he was a gift from Sister and Brother-in-Law.  I'm going to call him "Dave" after Dave Mustaine, a well-read and somewhat handsome musician who suffers from kidney stones on occasion, just like I do.. 

Now...now that Christmas is for all intents and purposes over, I have New Years' Eve to look forward to, and then...well, the next holiday after that that means anything to me won't be until St. Pat's Day in March.  So I've got NOTHING to be excited about, and God only knows when I'll get to see Sister and Brother-in-Law again!  <cries wildly>  Actually the first part of 2019 looks to be rather busy for the blog, as I've got stuff backlogged until late March anyway, so stay tuned.

Merry Christmas and God bless,

RagingMoon1987