Izannah Walker Dolls

Some dolls are scary. There. I said it.
Come on, you know the ones I'm talking about. Those old, wooden dolls just have a creepy look to them. The porcelain and china dolls can be really frightening. I've always wondered what it was exactly that attracted people to collect them.
One day, while searching the web, I stumbled upon photos of Izannah Walker dolls. At first glance, these dolls are incredibly scary, in my opinion. Of course, they were made over a hundred years ago and those that have survived may not be in the best condition. They do not, I believe, actually have "short" hair, as I thought at first. I think their painted heads actually had been styled in some sort of a period hair style that had ringlets around the face, hair parted in the middle and probably swept up into some sort of a bun or twist. Now, this is just my best guess as a complete newcomer to the Izannah dolls. I am at once rather frightened by them and intrigued at the same time.
While I am working on a couple of long-term projects that I must keep under wraps for now, I think I'm going to try my hand at making a knitted/felted Izannah reproduction!
Here is a great place to learn a little about the dolls and the woman who invented them. Go here

A Great Movie for a Summer Afternoon ...

A friend of mine and I went to the movies this afternoon ... just a spur of the moment ... at 1 p.m. "Want to see the 2 o'clock show?" YES! For once, we both could get away! And it certainly sounded like a movie we both could appreciate (my friend helps take care of her elderly mom) ...

"Mid-August Lunch"

The film is in Italian with English subtitles and is only 1 hour and 15 minutes long. I'll just post a link here and you can read the review and watch the trailer for yourself. BUT let me just say it is about a son who takes care of his elderly mom ... and then is pressed into service to watch three other elderly women. It's a really sweet film and great for a summer afternoon ... only it made me miss my Mom all the more ...

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/455357/Mid-August-Lunch/overview

Unwanted Mocha Has a New Home

I was at Starbuck's today and someone didn't want the Mocha that had been prepared for her. Evidently, the order had been taken improperly. The woman didn't even want this poor Mocha even after her order had been corrected. "You can have this one, too," the clerk offered. "No," the woman replied forcefully, picking up her new coffee and making her way to the door.

So, this Mocha was just sitting there, all by itself. When my coffees were ready, I asked meekly, "So, are you just going to throw that Mocha away?"

The clerk eyed me with marked irritation and replied in a disdainful tone, "You can have it, if you want it."

"Okay," I heartily agreed (without a hint of hesitation, I might add!) "I'll take it." I tried to ignore the fact that I felt vaguely like a beggar. After all, it was just going to be thrown out ... and it was perfectly good.

So, here it is, hours later, and I'm sipping it. It tastes great. Cold and all!

Of Ballgames and Blasting Caps ...

Randy and I really enjoy going to baseball games in small towns. Last night, he took me to Kannapolis to see the Intimidators. We had a great time. Although it was a little warm out there, even at twilight, it was "Thirsty Thursday," so drinks were discount priced!
And no trip to a ballgame is complete without a bag of salted-in-the-shell peanuts! I love these things! In fact, I was taking this photo when the best play of the evening happened! A triple play, no less, for the home team!

I pretty much ate the whole bag by myself and yes, they were fantastic.

I love the 7th inning stretch when everybody stands up and sings "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" ... it's really fun.

Another interesting part was the elderly woman who sat in front of us. She kept notebooks full of the players' statistics! She was taking notes as the game went on ... and making kind of mean comments, too, like "Do you need my glasses out there?"

And she kept yelling out, "What, did they send all our good players up?"

I couldn't help but feel sorry for the guys out there. What happened to a little encouragement?AND

while we're on the subject of ballgames, the other day, for no apparent reason, I started thinking about an advertisement I had seen ages and ages ago when I was little. I mean, I think this was before I was even in kindergarten. I remembered a few things about it: It had an African-American sports person in it ... and it was warning kids not to play with blasting caps. Well, I took these two pieces of information to GOOGLE and lo and behold, I found it!

Here it is for anyone who is interested (or if you want to just have a good, old trip down memory lane ... I mean, it might just ring a bell!) This is so great, you have to watch it! I mean it! Who can forget Willy Mays instructing you to "Play with these, not those!" "Don't touch them!"

http://homepage.mac.com/pjfraser/blastingcaps/iMovieTheater104.html and here it is, a little bigger: http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/462154/

Blasting caps must really have been laying all over the place back then! Remember the horrible stories about the kids who HAD played with blasting caps and blown their fingers or hands off?? I even remember colorful posters lining the school halls that warned about the dangers of blasting caps! Why, they must have been everywhere!

More on the Addition!

Here are a few photos for an update on my Dad's addition!

My Dad's future bathroom. The hole is where the roll-in, curbless shower will go. Lots of grab bars and a really great shower fixture picked out! The door will go, obviously, and instead there will be a pass-through laundry chute. The washer and dryer are on the other side of that door.
Here's a view from Dad's bedroom.

And here's the view from the sunroom!

And here's a view from the side of the whole thing!

Brown-Sugar Fudge! (or Penuche!)

Okay ... I know I probably shouldn't have, but I did. And I'm loving every, single, rich, delicious piece of it!
I made brown-sugar fudge!!! Have you ever eaten the Butterscotch Squares at See's Candies? One taste of those fabulous, melt-in-your-mouth pieces of candy and I'm done. I'm hooked. I can't stop myself from going back for another ... and another ... and yes, even another! It doesn't matter that my stomach feels queasy. I want MORE. The only thing that See's Butterscotch Squares have that my Brown-Sugar Fudge doesn't have is the chocolate on the outside. And that's quite all right, because it's what's INSIDE the chocolate that I crave!!!
Well, over the weekend, for no apparent reason, I just had a yen for Brown-Sugar Fudge. And yet, my plans were foiled every time I thought I had everything ready. Oops! No evaporated milk! Oops! I can't find my candy thermometer, etc., etc.
FINALLY, yesterday, I had everything ... okay, well, I didn't have the light corn syrup, only dark, but I was determined that would do. And, boy, did it ever!
You will find the recipe here.
I omitted the nuts, but they'd be very good, I think. Give it a try!!!

A New Project! (and it's got nothing to do with knitting!)

Yep, it's official. I've started a new project. Only I have help on this one! We're building an addition onto our house so we can move my Dad home! Two weeks ago, the man came and scraped all of our stairs right off the house! He scraped up all of our patio, our gas grill and, sadly, even our 30+-year-old blueberry bushes (which, I might add, were loaded with unripened berries. It looked to be a bumper crop this year *sniff)
This is what the back of our house looked like two weeks ago.

And then it rained.
This is how it looks after the rain. There are so many frogs, toads and croaking things in there that it's really hard to sleep at night with all the noise!

I'm hoping the proper permits will be procured soon and that the actual building will start. Every day that my dad stays at the assisted-living facility is another day gone by.

My mother's death is still so fresh for all of us and some days are just really, really hard. About a month ago, when my sister was visiting, we started talking about how lonely it is for my dad without my mom (they had been married for 62 years, you know) ... and we started talking about moving him to our house. Right now, our house is a typical, 1974-era, two-story traditional that is absolutely not handicapped accessible in any way! So, the only solution was to add a few rooms that would be ... and make sure the doorways to the rest of the rooms on the main floor were wide enough to accommodate the wheelchair.

We're adding an all-season porch that will have a wheelchair ramp outside the entrance from the yard. From this room, my dad will have a master bedroom with a large bathroom. The shower is going to be one of those great roll-in showers (no curb to get over!) with wonderful hand-held shower heads. It will be large enough to fit not only my dad and his shower chair, but another person, too, so we can help! We're going to make sure the sink can fit a wheelchair under and move the mirror down low enough so he doesn't have to crane his neck in order to see himself shaving.

A fabulous feature: A laundry chute from the bathroom directly into my little laundry area!!! No more hauling all his laundry down the halls at the assisted-living facility out to my car! Imagine that!

But the best part will be that my dad will be home. With us. We are going to keep some of his private-duty staff, but we won't need all the shifts, which will save an incredible amount of money.

And one other thing we're planning: A koi pond in the yard!!

In the midst of all this, though, I am, believe it or not, still working on knitting projects. I have two major ones in the works right now that are going to take a long time for all the pieces and parts, but I'm really excited about them and I hope you will be, too!