bday42

Ah, crikey. Another ding-dang b-day's on the horizon. Really getting sick of these...

I jest. Partially. As I've said before, I tend to get birthday depression, and sometimes making wish lists is fun. So I'm here with this year's edition.

Firstly, I'm looking to get a chair for my second desk -- which I call my "sewing table" because I have good intentions. The chair must be adjustable in height and not have wheels. This pink one is what I've tentatively picked out. This is all so I can sit at that desk to sew and film videos without having to drag a spare chair in from the dining room.

Secondly, I would like some simple sewing supplies! In a moment of buffoonery at my desk, I knocked over a drink, and it fell into a little plastic storage box where I was keeping some WIPs and a few spools of thread. The spools happened to be my most-used colors. As the spools are now sticky and discolored, I'd like to just replace them.

Plus, I could really use another disappearing ink pen. This double-sided one is a good one. The purple side's more visible on darker fabric and I like that it is air soluable! But I've used up the purple side, and am on my way to using up the blue side as well.

Lastly, I have been looking at Time After Alice for some months now, and saving up with my eye on the prize that is her. And, actually, I have bought her!!! AAAHH!!!

I immediately got tummy flops after finally purchasing her. I'm not sure if it's gauche to talk about the cost of these dolls, even though everyone who collects them knows they can get ludicrously expensive. But the amount I paid for her is the most I've personally paid for a Blythe. (I've been incredibly fortunate to have some pricier girls gifted to me in the past; I would likely never have even tried to attain Shelley Victorian, for instance.) I definitely feel like she was a big splurge for me, even in terms of these pricey dolls.

But I'm pretty giddy about it! I'm not sure she'll arrive quite in time for my birthday on May 7th, but that's totally okay. I'm all about having things to look forward to.

PS: I have been non-stop dolly sewing for the last few weeks, and still intend to post about that pretty soon!

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It sure is April 2025!

Look at this cute dress I got a couple of weeks ago! Seems made for Beatrix! Here are the 'fit deets.

Beret: Dear Darling
Glasses: ChocolateHandmade on Etsy (seems to have closed)
Dress: AtelierPetitesfolies on Etsy
Shoes: eBay ~14 years ago

Beatrix is such a trooper because her pale face clashes with her more tan Licca body so much. Girl, same. Except my body is fishbelly white and my face is red.

Anyway, this whole year thus far has been "off" for me. For the majority of it, I have not been productive or creative. I keep a running list, every year, of projects I have completed in that year. By the year's end, the list is pretty long, populated with "wrote this story" and "crocheted this thing" and "sewed 45 of these items" and "made such-and-such video." It's not unusual for me to have 30-50 items on that list. But by the time the calendar flipped to April this year, I noticed I had only two things on the list, both of them small crochet projects.

I have had the desire to do doll sewing in particular, but have found it really difficult to start anything at all, even simple and non-demanding hobby things. And so, I just... haven't crafted, or written, or been proactive with regards to much of anything. All year.

My best friend said, "That's pretty unusual for you."

It really, really is. I am always up to something.

I think partially it's The Horrors. I talked about finding it hard to be online lately already, and I find that's evergreen these days. A lot of my creative hobbies are tied to the internet and thus even when I'm only trying to look at hobby stuff or keep up with friends, I wind up exposed to The Horrors.

A thing I have been doing is bullet journaling. And I have been really enjoying it, especially since my mom has been doing junk journaling and we have sat down together several times to work on our repsective journal pages. But it doesn't feel like a creative project, per se. It also is an ongoing thing, so it is never a completed project. Although I do enjoy making particular little pages.

Here's a Cure Touch page (left) with post ideas and housekeeping items listed, and an "ambitious ideas" page with a couple of personal/hush-hush things blurred out. The point is not for you to read the lists, lol, but to post an example of what little I have been doing. As you can see, I am not bereft of ambitions or ideas. I certainly am not bereft of hobbies. But I have been bereft of that critical link in the chain between "I want to" and "I will do it right now!"

Perhaps another aspect of this is that family time has been really important to me in the last year, with my sister's pregnancy and the birth of my nephew, and all the resulting family gatherings that have ensued. Nephew is eight months old now (!!!) and every time I see him, he's grown; he's learned to do something new; he has new quirks and tendencies. This first year of his life is just amazing. He is the absolute light of my life. All this to say: My focus has been doing things with my family a lot this year thus far, and my schedule currently prioritizes that above everything else. Sleep, for instance.

Here's some screen caps from a video my dad took of me and Nephew hanging out. I'm in my pajamas here and normally do not like to ever display my bare arms, but this is a video I revisit all the time these days, and I just can't help but want to put it here because of how much it makes me smile. Nephew's just squealing and cooing and giving me big grins, and I am listening, talking back, and booping him on the nose.

Happily, I can tie up this post by reporting that a few days ago I broke through the terrible executive dysfunction barrier and did a bunch of doll sewing. So I will post about that soon!!

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