In which = an update!

You know, I think I'd actually like autumn if it went right back into spring. Or maybe we could have just a month on winter - like say, December - then it turns nice and warm again. Although Celine pointed out that, with global warming, I'd probably better be careful with what I wish for....

Anyway, before I go any further - I don't know if you've heard of "reshelling," but it's basically like regeneration. More common with BJDs, but it's an established character taking on a new body. Sometimes a new sculpt. Lenore was actually once a character named Eleanor who was reshelled as a larger doll, for example. Well, Maddy and Celine looked into it and decided that it seemed like it might be a good idea. If you're just slightly bigger it opens up all kinds of clothing options that aren't available when you're six inches tall, so...they went for it. 

Maddy figured she'd try it first. I think she'd just gotten back from a trip to Rhyl, Wales in 1984 here I think she met the guys from the Alarm. 

Celine and I have very similar taste in clothes. She went a bit more ginger this time around. 

Celine's other new project is is making Emmie believe she's awesome. 

That, I think, is going to take some work, but I think Celine's up to it. 

We're also awaiting the arrival of a fella who will be the biggest member of our crew to date. 

Maddy said Celine had a little bit of a "She's a woman - and she's the TARDIS!" vibe going on here. I thought it was more colonial Williamsburg chic. Celine said neither of us knew what we were talking about. 

Another shot....

Maddy getting nautical.....

Maddy: "Earthlings....."

In which - just some random photos

In a straw maze. Did I mention that my hair seems to be a magnet for straw?













Rats!

Actually, this guy only looked scary. Rats are, in fact, pretty cool.

"There's a ship......the Black Freighter....."

If you haven't Nina Simone singing "Pirate Jenny" then go check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7awW5nrDHk

The Pumpkin Queen.

Just a seriously cute sparrow, presumably not named Jack.

Why taking photos under the gerbil cage is a bad idea.

On the other hand, Spike should kick for the NFL.

A deva and her spider.















"That's not a carrot, mate. THIS is a carrot!"

The paring knife is as long as Aura is tall, so yeah, that's a whole lotta carrot.

Daisy with the perfect Christmas tree, courtesy of Norm's Dollhouse. Yes, that is the dollhouse from downstairs. It's upstairs now and in the process of being renovated. More on this to come...

And finally - Happy Halloween, everyone!

In which - introductions and random pictures....

I think I'd like autumn better if it went right back into spring, but it is a pretty season.....

Leaves won't be changing for another few weeks, but we have some color.

Although Maddy insists that green is a color, too.....

Aura said it was good fishing weather. If - no, let's say when - I'm ever lucky enough to meet John Ashton, I'll have to ask him about that. If he and Aura don't end up talking hooks and lines, the whole time, that is.

Someone, however, forgot to tell the fish - or maybe warned them, I'm not sure....

"Aw, come on, fishies, Why don't you want to eat this nice, fat, juicy worm?"

Besides the obvious, she means? And you really have to hear that last line with Aura's Scottish accent.

The sisters....

Even storm devas like to just watch the clouds go by sometimes.

 And now some introductions....

Meet Kira. She's the sea star (aka starfish) deva who Scaramouche met down in Australia when she was trying to help find that missing Malaysian plane. Kira's hoping to learn how to communicate with - well, just about everyone and everything, the way Scaramouche does.

Kira's very outgoing, outdoorsy and down to earth, as they say. I think winters here might be a bit of a surprise, but I think she'll be able to handle it just fine. And I just love the color of her eyes.

And this is Tempest's friend Zephyr - yup, like the fish :). Zephyr is, appropriately enough, a wind deva. She's very, very shy and hasn't told us much about herself. I think John-John, our intrepid stylist, may be planning his first devic makeover on her. His first words to me were "The poor dear is so cute, but her hair just isn't doing anything for her face!" Don't get him wrong - he's not being nasty. Anything but.

"The only really ugly people - or dolls - I've ever met were ugly because of their personalities, not their appearance," he told me once. "I have, however, met a lot of people - and dolls, for that matter - who have no idea how beautiful they really are. Sometimes you don't even really need to change anything about them. You just have to make them see themselves the way they really are."

And people actually wonder what Shel sees in him.....

In which - just a bunch of random photos

This is me on the top deck of the Vassar Hospital parking garage. We stopped by week before last to drop off some flowers for a friend's mom (who's now out and doing fine.)

That's the top of the main building behind me. It was just too crowded to get any good pics of the front entrance, so we didn't try.

Maddy said that there's one really odd thing about it now - what's now the lobby used to be a big courtyard in front of the entrance. Sometime between 1983 and 2002, they put a window wall around it and turned it into a new, larger lobby. The thing that makes it odd is that now several rooms in the Cardio-Thoracic Unit have a lovely view of the lobby instead of outside.



You can't beat the view from the parking deck, though. This is a nice moody shot of the Mid-Hudson Bridge.

That's Illinois Mountain, of NOAA Weather Radio transmitter fame, in the background. I think the taller one is the transmitter and the smaller one is a cellphone tower. (It's also the transmitter for the local classic rock station.)

The Hudson River.













~*~

And the Hudson again, this time from Cold Spring. This was taken about a month ago. Believe it or not, the sun actually does come out around here. It just wasn't out either of these two days.

It reminded Aura of Scotland, though, so it wasn't all bad. I asked her if she ever gets homesick, but she pointed out that she's a deva and can travel pretty much wherever and whenever she wants, almost by thought. I admit I'm a bit jealous of that. I think Maddy is, too. :)









Just a picture from near Beacon to prove that yes, we do have sun here.

More sun. Maddy usually makes taking these look easy. This one, not so much. I think she discovered a rock the hard way when she scraped her elbow on it.

She said it was worth it for these shots, though.

Pink? Purple? Purkle?

That last one sounds like a cross between a pug and a turtle. Or would that be a purgle?

Caterpillar girl. Trust me, there's one there even if it's not in the picture...

In which - random photos!

Aura's new dress. Fishface back there is less than impressed. 

Fresh dandelion season!

There are many, many more out in the yard where these came from.

Not so fast, Spike.....

"Jungle life, I'm leading 'neath the open, all alone, like Tarzan Boy...."

Maddy: "We're going to get thrown out of this garden center,,,,"

 My kind of tree

Awesome! We can finally haz leavez.....

Aura: "And it was believed that if you ever heard the bluebells ring, it was time to start preparing for a funeral."

Me: "How the heck do flowers ring?"

Daisy: "They don't. Faeries just like to mess with humans' heads sometimes....."

Daisy watching Aura explaining to a bunch of ants that they can't move into Maddy's kitchen....

Spring! At last.....