In which it's Christmas Eve....

None of that "White Christmas" stuff here, thanks to winter storm Gemini. We were very, very lucky to be well into the warm sector of the storm, but while we were enjoying 68F, northern NY and New England (including my ancestor Hitty's home state of Maine) got whalloped with a nasty ice storm.

We're all hoping everyone gets their power back on for Christmas....





Meanwhile, back here....

Me: Don't you look festive?

Cat: Prepare to die.....

Shel: And when Ebenezer Scrooge looked around, who did he see but the ghost of his late partner, Bob Marley....

John-John: Wait. Is that right?









Tiny Hitty Caroline: So are we leaving Santa milk and cookies?

Samantha: No way. A big fat guy who's driving all night isn't going to want milk and cookies.

Tiny Hitty Emeliee: So what are we leaving him?

Samantha: A huge pot of coffee.

The Woodlee girls and friends: We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year....

Leonora: ...as he whistled and shouted and called them by name: On Dasher, on Dancer....

Tiny Hitty Caroline: Wait. What about Rudolph?

Leonora: He didn't join the team until the 1930s.

Robin: There. That should do it. That's the last ornament back on.

Tiny Hitty Emeliee: Did we find all of them?

Samantha: I think so.

Me: The cat stays in the bedroom from now on.

Sohalia: So this is a poinsettia?














JT: I think I like this better as a doll. I don't have to do all the shopping.

Val: You don't have to wait until Christmas Eve to shop, you know.

JT: Yeah, actually, you do. It's part of the Guy Code.

Val: Humans are weird.

So, from all of us to all of you...

Merry Christmas!

In which it's Sunday night....

Not a whole lot going on this weekend - which isn't necessarily bad, per se....

Maddy has the Paulette Morrissey book (I think she has one of the only spiral-bound versions)  and is trying her hand at making a polymer clay doll. She has arms and legs ready to go, but ran into a couple of small problems with the body and head. Well, one big one, really - the neck totally broke off when she was trying to form the head around it. She thinks that either 30 minutes wasn't enough time in the craft oven (she's using Fimo Puppen) and/or the clay was still too warm when she started working with it. She said she's going to try it again and reinforce the neck this time. The other, smaller problem is that she realized that she was going to have to wait until her set of silicone-tipped tools comes in from eBay to work on the face. The tools she uses for making beads and stuff just aren't what she needs for that sort of detail work. (Although she did remark that some of her texture plates had motifs that might make awesome tattoos. I wonder if she'd object to me getting one? She shouldn't - she has a butterfly on her leg.)

I also have a feeling that she might have to wait until after the upcoming heat wave breaks, too. The house doesn't have central air, and the dining room, which serves as her craft/sewing/everything but actually sitting at the table and eating room is the warmest room in the house. She's been known to have the back patio door cracked open in midwinter just to get some air.

~*~

I bought another book on blogging today. It kind of had me wondering if I'm doing it wrong for awhile there.

"You're not a tech blogger," John-John pointed out. "You already have your niche."

"Which is---?" I wasn't sure wha he was getting at.

"Your life story. Our life stories," he said.

I hope that's good.....



~*~

Maddy found the Phoenician beads she got awhile back at the place in Cold Spring. She said they were two thousand years old. They're kind of odd-looking, but very cool. I wonder what kind of stories they'd have to tell if they could speak?

She has some Roman glass beads that are about a thousand years old, too. Especially interesting since I've been reading about the Roman emperors and some of the weird - and nasty - things they did. Some of it is pretty funny, though. Caligula appointing his horse to the Roman senate, for one. (Maddy said that the horse was probably better qualified in the first place.) Then there was Commodous, who renamed not only Rome itself, but the Roman Legion, the Roman Navy, the Romans themselves and just about everything else, including the months of the year, after himself. Narcissistic, much?



Well, back to reading more about blogging....

*And an update: the Hittygirls auctions have raises $2,073.96 for Moore, OK! Way to go, Erin!*

In which it's a quiet Thursday evening....

I'm pleased (and John-John was quite relieved) to report that the nasty line of storms mostly fell apart before it reached us around midnight. We only got some rain. And this is the first time in over a week that we've had the air conditioner off and the windows open. The only downside is that with the air conditioner no longer drowning out the phone, Maddy keeps having to tell the same telemarketer she isn't interested....


Maddy's not happy with the way this came out, but Samantha is. I keep reminding her (Maddy, I mean) that she hasn't sewn for someone four and a half inches tall before.

Maddy also said I need a raincape, but she's going to have to do the hood differently because of my hair. She said she also ordered me a pink umbrella. She thought she might be able to find me a pink Harley where she got the umbrella, but apparently Barbie's ginormous collection of stuff didn't include her Dream Harley. We looked on eBay, too, but didn't find anything - although I wonder if Barbie knows her boyfriend is into posing for pictures in leather chaps and nothing else?

(Maddy's note - this may be a side of Ken I really didn't want to know about....)

Maddy had to get some stuff at Lowe's today, so she bought an outlet strip with a super-long cord to replace the one we found floating in the puddle caused by the air conditioner flood of a couple of weeks ago. Now she can plug her CD player back in.

"You know, I put that little plug in a bag and tied it to the power cord so I wouldn't forget to replace it - and of course, I ignored it," she said.

"Okay, smiles, you two...."

Shel, looking at the photo: "My hair looks weird."

John-John: "What's this little thing in the corner here?"

Maddy, looking at the display: "My battery about to run down...."

Given that she hasn't charged it since Woodstock, that's pretty good.


I think she was looking at dSLRs on Amazon, but given how green she turned at the prices, I think they're a little out of her reach right now....

It's not a wooden sea chest with my name picked out in nails, but it's still awesome.

Ever wonder what baby spiders look like? Maddy said they'll be long gone by the time it gets cold enough to have to bring the plant in, so she left them alone.











Camera's charging, all is quiet and as soon as I get done here I'm borrowing Maddy's DVD of the Furs and watching the video for "Heaven' for about the three bazillionith time. I think I'm getting the hang of Thursdays....

In which the rain rain won't go away....

No, it's not twilight - or at least, it's not supposed to be. It's just about to rain yet again...

And to think that a month and a half ago they were fretting about our being almost a foot behind on precipitation for the year. Not the case anymore.

This is from earlier today. The picture is deceptive. It's not that light out there at all. In fact, it was pouring.

Since we couldn't do what we'd originally planned - the Walkway Over The Hudson - Maddy took Leonora to the ASPCA to pick out a dog instead. She's really been wanting one ever since before she came here. They'd named her Snowflake but Leonora renamed her Scully. I don't think it's bad luck to rename a dog like it is a ship.....

John-John and Shel brought home a cat - I should say, another cat. This is Mindy. They also have a large and very camera-shy Maine Coon Cat named Dexter.









Plushie pets don't need walking for the reasons non-plushie pets do, but they do need exercise. It's been a little tough on Coco having to stay inside so much the past week or so. Samantha likes having a dog to play with, though. Coco's good with everyone. He wouldn't hurt a fly. Maddy, on the other hand, is currently stalking the room with a flyswatter. She thinks the flies may be coming down out of the attic via a hole in the downstairs ceiling that the guy who installed the new chimney a few years back didn't quite fully patch. It's a little creepy. It reminds me of this one story in Pete Townshend's book Horse's Neck, where the narrator keeps finding flies in the house in the dead of winter. Maddy said that where she used to work down in Westchester County, the same thing happened one winter, except with ladybugs. Those I wouldn't mind so much...




Robin looks quite, ahem, pretty in pink herself, doesn't she? Leonora, like Maddy, prefers dark colors. (They have almost the same hair and complexion, BTW.) And this is Skye, the little bird we rescued in Stockbridge. She's had her first restful nights of sleep in awhile now that she doesn't have to worry about the wolf and the two bobcats going after her. Mindy and Dexter don't bother birds and Coco and Scully just want to play.





And I just have to show off my new dress. Isn't it awesome? I love how the two prints go together, don't you?
















Not sure what this week will bring - I'd say it's going to be highly dependent on the weather, which hasn't been entirely cooperative. Oh well. I'll take this over possibly breaking the all-time record high temperature ever recorded on the planet.... *waves to everyone out in Death Valley.*

In which we learn something about videos, rain and Emmaline's family....

"Here sweetie, try this on. I - uh-oh, what did I do?" Maddy tried making a dress for my little sister today, but it didn't go quite as planned.

"All the puffs are in the front," little Caroline said.

"I think I'm going to have to iron pleats into the skirt, not gather it," she concluded. "Sorry, baby."

All three of us got a laugh out of it, though. And at least we know the pattern fits. It looks like Paulette's toddler dress is just perfect for a tiny Hitty dress. Like Maddy said, that's known as good planning.










~*~

We had to run by the place with the fancy garden center again this weekend. Here I am with a fig tree.

As green as Maddy's thumb is, this is one thing she says she has no luck with - orchids. She said most of them were moth orchids, although some were oncidiums. She was kind of hoping to find a particular one she said was called a "Sharry Baby." Apparently it smells like chocolate...







~*~

Robin and Alexis are getting more and more worried about Emmaline. The poor girl just doesn't seem happy.

"We were wondering if you knew how to get in touch with her grandmother," Alexis said.

"I think she said her grandmother lives in Key West now," Maddy said. "I don't have an address."

Alexis looked thoughtful. "Do you happen to know what kind of doll her grandmother is?"

"There was a picture in the eBay auction showing her with a china doll," I said.

"That's probably it," Alexis said. "I bet you she was raised by china dolls. That's what she reminds me of."

"Is that bad?" Maddy said.

"China dolls aren't bad, they're just fragile," Alexis said. "They have to be so careful not to get broken that they're almost afraid to do anything. One false move could be the end for them, while you or me or Robin here would just get up and walk away. I think that's why Emmaline is so afraid to try anything new. She was raised to think that everything new is dangerous."

"Most of them are also kind of stuck in the nineteenth century. Maybe even the eighteenth," China Girl said. "Believe me, I know."

"You don't worry about breaking,"John-John said.

"The Wizard cast a spell on me before he sent me here to make me more or less unbreakable," she explained. "I'd have to be much more careful otherwise."

Food for thought....

~*~

 At one point we were almost a foot behind on rain for the year. Not anymore. I think after this week we'll be over the average....

"I keep telling myself it's like that Psychedelic Furs video," I sighed.

"Which one? "Heaven"?" Maddy said.

"That one. It look totally awesome but it must have been no fun to film."

"I think it took three days and it was like, freezing cold in that bus depot," Maddy said. "I spent three hours out in rain - actual rain like that once and it was bad enough."


"Did you tell me this story?" I said.

"Probably not. It's another Tale From Where I Used To Work," she said. "We were bidding out a rather large project and had a site showing scheduled - this was in the middle of October. Well, the day we were supposed to show the contractors around the project site, it was pouring rain and about 36F. When we got out there to set up, the rain had more or less backed off to a drizzle, so we were thinking "Great, we're going to get this over with before the rain comes back in." Yeah, right. Two minutes into the presentation, it started freaking pouring, Pouring. Plus the wind started whipping all over the place. So putting up an umbrella was out. I resigned myself to putting up my hood and trying to keep the pad I was taking notes on dry with my raincoat - only to realize about thirty seconds later that my so-called raincoat was not repelling any of the rain, Perfect time for the waterproofing to wear off. Anyway, my steno pad disintegrated in the rain, my coat and everything I had on under it soaked through - about the only thing that went right was that it didn't turn to snow. Luckily, some instinct had warned me to bring a change of clothes to work that day. But it was still that night, in bed with the comforter, two blankets and the hot water bottle before I started feeling even remotely warm again."

"Too bad you didn't have John Ashton to snuggle up with between takes," I said.

 "Yeah, right..." She looked around. "You're even more obsessed than I am."

I hope she doesn't think I've forgotten about Woodstock. Just not in all the rain we're supposed to be getting....

In which we spend a relaxing Sunday....

*Warning - Hitty nudity ahead!*

"Would you mind too much if I tried one of your dresses on?" Robin asked, coming out to where we were enjoying some fresh air and sunshine on the back porch.

"Of course not," I said. "Mi - wardrobe - et su wardrobe." Okay, that's sort of a fractured mix of Spanish, French and English, I think...

"Thanks!" I noticed she'd picked out the one we refer to as the first Hitty dress.




"Let me give you a hand with it," Leonora said.

"Outside?" Emmaline said.

"We're behind the house," I pointed out.

 "I like the style, but not the color on you," Leonora concluded.

Maddy, who'd come to see what we were up to, nodded. "Robin, you and I need to go through the fabric stash and see what's going to look best on you." Maddy herself has the same hair/eye color and complexion as Leonora.

"Try the purple," Ramona said.  "I'll change. I'm not picky."

"Huh?" I looked around. "Wait. What are you doing?"




 "Avoiding tan lines. What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Oh." I'm like Maddy - I prefer to maintain a Victorian pallor. But to each her own.

"Ramona, for heaven's sake, you can't - put something on before someone sees you!" Emmaline exclaimed.

Ramona rolled her eyes. "You act like we're not even behind the house."

"But there are men around!" Emmaline protested.

"Really? Where?" Shel sat up, looking around.

"If I were awake, I'd - well, something..." John-John mumbled.

"Yeah, right." Shel kissed him.

"Wow. That looks great!" Maddy said. "I would have figured you as more of a Spring, but I guess you're a Summer."

"What?" We both looked around.

"Seasonal color analysis. It was really popular back a few years ago," she said. "Winters and Summers look better in cool colors and Springs and Autumns look better in warm colors. The first book about it was too limiting, though. It gave you thirty colors for each season and those were the only colors you were supposed to be able to wear. Period."


I wear mostly pink and even I think that sounded boring. "Does it work?"

"The idea of dressing in warm or cool tones does, but not the thirty-colors-only." Maddy looked thoughtful.


~*~



"Rain again?" The weather forecast isn't looking very cheerful. At least they're not predicting anything severe for us, like tornadoes or anything. Just heavy rain.

"Don't worry. I just ordered Paulette's raincoats pattern," Maddy said, then winked at Samantha and the tiny Hittys. "And her toddler wardrobe pattern."

I have a feeling we're going to be needing them....

In which we go bead shopping and find out it's World Doll Day, too....

"So, can I drive on the way back?"

"No."

'How about steer? Promise not to crash."

"No."

She never lets me do anything. "Okay, can I at least pick the CD?"

"Okay...."

And that, my friends, is the secret to negotiating. Start high and work your way down to what you really want....although I really did want to drive.

By the way, this is how we usually roll on a road trip  - provided Maddy doesn't get an iced coffee somewhere along the way.

T.S. Andrea was on her way to Nova Scotia by this time and the clouds were breaking. I Dream Of Beading is in an odd place - an office park with a library, the VA office, a Montessori school, an eye doctor and I think an oral surgeon. Maddy said that it took her an hour to find it the first time. (It's not her sense of direction. It's called the Freedom Road Office Park and lists an address of Freedom Road, but it's not actually on Freedom Road, which is a road about five miles east of the office park. No, Maddy doesn't understand that, either.)

Like any big sister worthy of the title, I'm showing my little (Mo) sister around. Emilee stayed home with Val.

And yes, that is who you think it is in that photo in Maddy's bag. She was planning on going to Joann's to look for a jacket pattern like the one John's wearing in the photo, but realized her 40% coupon is for next weekend. Like she said, 40% is 40%.....

When we got back, Alexis asked us if we'd heard that it's also World Doll Day. We hadn't.

So Maddy decided a little sewing was in order.

She apologized to Leonora for it not coming out as well as Paulette's dresses, but Leonora loves it. The color is perfect on her, don't you think? It's made from Paulette's easy dress pattern.

Leonora and the Woodlee girls talked Emmaline into at least trying on this dress Maddy got awhile back. Turns out Leonora also has an eye for color and style.

 Robin and I approve...















And take it from a doll - you're probably pickier about our clothes than we are. Odds are we're going to love it even if you think it's not perfect. So don't stress about it so much. Okay?

In which - they're here! And I find out something very interesting about John Ashton...

Our Little Mo friends have arrived! Left to right - Leonora, Samantha, Robin, yours truly, the other Hitty Caroline and Hitty Emilee. Their bus got here before the really heavy rain did, so it all worked out well. We spent the afternoon relaxing and getting to know each other. Leonora shares my, Shel's and Maddy's passion for all things supernatural and Robin, like Maddy, aspires to write a novel some day. Samantha likes riding her bike - I was a bit let down when I realized she didn't mean a Harley, but oh well.

We thought little Caroline's dress was the same print as one of ours. It wasn't quite, but it's close. I think we saw the same print as the big dress up at Hobby Lobby. Maddy wants to try to make everyone some new clothes, but didn't have time this afternoon.











With the rain, we couldn't do all that much today. I think tomorrow is supposed to be a lot nicer.


I spent some time snooping the bookcase....

And made a discovery that could change history as we know it....

"Hey Maddy? Did you know John Ashton lives in Woodstock?!"

"Yeah. I knew that."

"Woodstock's near here, right? Right?!"

"Caroline, not so close..."












"But it is near here, right?!"

"It's about an hour and a half or so across the river..."

"ROAD TRIP!!!!!"

"Not so loud. You're going to wake everyone up."

"Aw, c'mon. Road trip?"





"We are not going to go to Woodstock to stalk John Ashton. C'mon, I'm not into that."

"But could we go anyway? Please?"

"You said you know how to get there. You were just there awhile ago, weren't you?" John-John said.

"Well, yeah, but not on purpose, exactly." Maddy looked sheepish.

"What happened?" I said.

"I was supposed to be driving to Delhi for a meeting last spring and well - I kind of got screwed up," she said. "There's this stupid traffic roundabout outside of Kingston and well - I thought I was all the way across the thing and I wasn't. Instead of the road I wanted to end up on, I ended up on I-87. So I thought, "okay, I'll turn around at the next exit." Problem was, I'd forgotten the next exit was Saugerties. So by then, the quickest way back to the road I should have been on was to cut back around through Woodstock."

"Is that why you bought a GPS? Shel said.

"No, I had the GPS. I just thought I could get to Delhi without it," she admitted. "I finally pulled over somewhere outside Woodstock and did what I should have done before I left the house - plugged the stupid thing in and entered the address I was supposed to be heading to. I should have stayed lost in Woodstock. That turned out to be better than the meeting." She rolled her eyes. "Another bunch of "teambuilding" games, a lecture on the new employee ranking and compensation plan that was word-for-word what they'd gone over at the two other all-staff meetings, a presentation on the documents that I spent all day every day working on, sandwiches and a trip to a farm to stand around in the mud and look at a water tank."

I had to admit, it wasn't my idea of a good time. "So? Road trip?"

"We'll think about it," she said.

That better not mean "no...."