Time for another update! (Really More of the Same)

Hello Dear Readers,

Checking in with another update, although there isn't too much to really update with. I'm still working from home. I am enjoying working from home, I just wish it was for better reasons. I did get moved into a different aspect of the job, which is actually a lot less stressful (most of the time). It was a little tricky at first, but after getting more familiar with my new duties, and I really like it a lot. Not enough to think it's what I want to do for the rest of my life, but I dislike things less.

Still plugging away at eBay. A month or so ago I went through and counted my boxed dolls, I have around 150 boxed dolls that I'm planning on selling. Usually after stealing the shoes or some other accessories. I'm nowhere close to being finished, but I've made some good strides and feel like it's a more obtainable goal. I've even been listing some vintage dolls. Including one that was part of the collection for several years. It's a very TLC vintage Ken doll. I feel a little guilty getting rid of him, but I need to train myself that I don't have time for for every doll and I should focus on really makes me happy. I know I keep saying this, but there's several dolls in the collection that I'm ready to let go of that I wasn't before. I have been having some success with eBay lately, one week I had over 20 sales. Won't lie, was a bit stressful trying to get everything packed up within eBay's time frame. I like having a lot of sales, but I am a one man operation on top of working a full job. There's only so much I can do!

My purchasing has picked up. Not as bad as before in terms of the amount of dolls coming in, but I did buy my second most expensive doll of all time last week. I mostly paid for it with eBay profits, but I'm still 200 in the red. I did get one of those new Rainbow High dolls from MGA, but we didn't click, so she's been listed on eBay as a nude doll and her outfits separately. I did keep the shoes because that's what I do. :D Right now I have the strongest urge to buy a display case for the dolls. I have them on a bookcase that I've had forever, but I want a nice wooden one with glass doors. The problem is they're expensive, especially when you have to factor I'd have to rent a truck or van. Also, would need a big one, and most of the ones I see would hold less then the bookcase I currently am using. I'm hoping that I will get over it without buying something, but if I love something I will have to get it. So far I haven't found anything close to love. I did buy a piece for a non-doll collection I've started recently. It's still within the realm of toys, so if people are curious as to what that is, let me know in the comments and when it arrives I'll share it with you all.

I did do a little sewing this month, but I think I'm back into the "I don't sew any more" mindset. Even with the 2020 Barbie Convention cancelled I am in peak "I wannnnna goooooooo to convention" feelings. Part of the reasons why I don't want to go is because it's so expensive. I thought that if I could sell clothing I made, I could recoup some of my expenses. And since it wouldn't be until 2021 at the earliest, if I tried to do two dresses per week, I could have a decent amount before then. I got two done. I attempted to make 8 dresses, but only two got finished. I was having a lot of issues with the fit in the bodice, some weird rippling issues, and the *worst* time with pleats being super uneven on skirts. I wasn't having fun, nothing was working, so I gave up. I also thought about convention a lot. It's just so expensive and I don't really do trips, so if I was going to do one, it might be worth it to go somewhere else (in better conditions) and not do a Barbie convention. It looks fun, but you don't get a whole lot for how expensive it is. I'm sure I will flip flop a million more times, but right now I am back into the "it's not worth it for me at this time". Hope everyone is doing well and keeping safe!

Until the next update!

2020 Update

Hello Dear Readers,

How is everyone? I hope everyone is safe. I've been doing quite a bit of isolation and wanted to check in with everyone. I'm not sure if anyone will read this since I haven't updated in ... forever, and you all might have moved on.

I'm not even sure how possible it is to read the blog with pretty much all of the blog posts in draft form. I promise to go back and restore them, eventually, but there's a lot of them so that's a pretty big undertaking.I would like to edit some of them and I know a couple projects got dropped along the way, so I would like to finish those, but I don't know when I will find the time.

I am still working. Since March I have been working from home and I really like it. The long commute to and from work was really wearing on me so I've been a lot happier working from home. I was taking strides to work from home before this all happened, but I wasn't sure how much I was going to like it. There's some things I prefer about going into the office, but overall my life is a lot better when I don't have an hour commute to and from work each day. I recently got asked if I would like to step up in another aspect of the job that I am hoping it will make the job more enjoyable. I am actually training this week, so keep your fingers crossed for me.

I have also been working on eBay. Oh boy, have I been working on eBay. I've been trying to get 12 new listings done each week. I have been doing a lot of listing and a lot of selling. I spent a huge chunk of today packing up eBay sales. Still pretty low end in terms of price point, but I am making a profit and the most important thing is I am having things move out. I am really focused on selling what doesn't spark joy and keeping what does spark joy. I am still working on clearing out the things I bought to take pieces from (usually shoes), but I have sold some vintage dolls. There's still a long way to go and quite honestly once eBay stops giving me free listings for every week, things will slow down, but I have really upped my selling game. It really is becoming a part time job again. Here's hoping I can keep working from home full time and I can keep giving it the attention it deserves. I'm not going to lie and say it's fun, but I need to keep it it so I can get space and get my money back. It's a long term project, but each sale gets me a little bit closer to my goal.

Normally I follow this with if I could keep shopping, but I have been incredibly good when it comes to shopping lately. Since I have been working from home, my spending has dropped considerably. I think this is for two reasons, I am doing less retail therapy and when I home I can see how much stuff I already have. My shopping hasn't stopped completely, and I have bought a couple dolls including some expensive ones, but things have really changed. This month, I have bought two dolls for myself (I have to add that disclaimer since I am being a shipping liaison for an international friend). And my spending has not picked up elsewhere. I bought a fat quarter of fabric, and I think two doll outfits from Walmart and that's it. I spent less than 50 dollars this month on doll stuff. Which frankly, is absolutely unheard of.

I have even been doing some sewing. It all started with the fabric I bought. I found at Walmart some fabric with little cars and trucks on it. I thought it would be super cute for Joe since he now collects cars and trucks. I wanted to make a button up short sleeve shirt for him. I was working with a pattern, but I am not sure what I want to do with the collar. I am not sure if I want a button up or an open collar. So that project is on hold for now while I think about it. However, instead of stop sewing altogether, I just shifted gears. Several months back I bought a doll. I found her locally at an antique mall. I pretty much know nothing about her. I believe she's from the early to mid 1950's and is totally unmarked. I think she's a no-brand doll. She is made from hard plastic and has what I think is nylon hair (wigged). All that mattered is that she was cute and only five dollars. Ironically, this is the same store (and even floor) where I found Chatty Cathy. She was also 5 dollars I think and that was the doll that started my sewing journey. Anyway, I bought the doll. She still hasn't been cleaned up. I did a little work on her wig, but when a chunk of hair came out, I stopped. However, she's not nude anymore. Let me show you the doll and the dress:

No shoes, because if you're not Barbie, you don't get shoes around here.

The dress pattern is from Cherylwood. I did change the neckline slightly and lower the hem, but other than that it's her original pattern. The fabric and trim were things I had on hand. There are a few things I would change if I made it again, but I made something! It's been like a year since I sewed anything. Not sure if it will lead to a new boon of sewing, but I at least showed myself I can still sew. And I think she looks pretty cute.

A 6 Month Update

Hello Dear Readers,

How is everybody? Sorry for being so MIA for the past several months. I would like to say it's because I was off doing something fun, but it's really just the general drudgery of life. I would like to check in more, but I'm so overwhelmed with life I don't really have a lot of time to update the blog. I know the blog is a total mess and part of me wants to restore it, but part of me just thinks it may need to stay in draft form.

I'm still working. Back in July I got hired by the company I was under contract for. It was kind of a surprise since they extended my contract back in March until the end of September, but they offered me a permanent position. I was the only person from my class that was hired (although, out of the 14 people we started with in October of 2018, only three were still working there in July including myself). They did hire some other contract people from other departments. I know that I was there the shortest out of everyone that were hired. It did come with a pay raise so that was nice. Still don't like the job. There's a lot of stress and not a lot of support for it. They don't really give you the tools to do the job well, they just tell you to do it and do it well. Figuring out how is your problem. Despite their worst efforts, I guess I'm doing well. Last month in September (which I found out on October 24th), I was the top rated employee in my department. Out of a possible 10, I got 9.9. I got an email from a much higher up congratulating me, which how I found out. My bosses also sent out an email to everyone on the floor telling them, so I guess it's a pretty big deal. I've been working there for almost a full year and I haven't seen that happen before.

I'm also still working off and on on eBay. I took some time off in July from my full time job and got everything practically filled up, but luckily they don't stay filled. I've been working when I can on keeping things filled, but I am so tired after working a full work week it's hard also having a small business on the side so I don't always work on it. However, I really do need to keep working on it. I have way too much stuff that I need to get rid of. I keep buying things on sale or things to keep parts of and I really need to get it listed. Things just come in faster then they are going out! I have quite a backlog of stuff to list.

I'm not all just buying things for resale, I have added several new dolls to the collection. I've been pretty lucky getting some less common dolls for good prices, but I really need to work on being better. I still have long term plans to go through the vintage collection and scale that back. That's on the back burner while I work on clearing out the dolls I know I don't want, but I have listed a couple vintage dolls recently. Right now I am really thinking about spending a LOT of money on a vintage doll (Like, a *lot* of money), but before I do that I would like to have things more organized around here. I say that, but I most likely won't ever buy that doll. I think about it, but whenever I think about spending that much money I just can't. It's just too much and honestly, I worry about getting ripped off. The doll I want has been faked and I'm afraid that I will get ripped off.

I've also been working on generally getting my life together for my future plans. That stuff is slow since there's a lot to do and I'm doing it all on my own (and there's some ... situations working against me), but I am working on it. I am even working on a creative project that's possibly part of my long term plans. I can't talk much about it, but I'm enjoying working on it. I have a lot of coals in the fire, but not a lot of time or motivation to work on everything. Hopefully I can make process.

That's everything I can think of to update. Can't say you'll hear from me any time soon, but at least you all know what's going on.

~Aubrey

Let's Talk about February

Hello Dear Readers,

February is over and we’re pretty far into March and I figured I should at least try to keep everyone updated. It’s not the most exciting thing in the world, but it does help me. Even if it bores everyone else to tears, it at least gives me a record where I can look back and see what happened in the month.

February started off rough. That first weekend was my Grandfather’s funeral. That was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. I might have already talked about some of this in the post I shared about his passing, but I don’t want to go back and see if I’m repeating myself. Honestly, I have no intention of reading that post again. I am glad that I could be there for my family, but it was rough. I miss him. I try not to think about it a lot, but sometimes it just hits me. I know the rest of my family is missing him too.

I have been trying to be better about keeping in contact with my Grandmother, but I’ve fallen into my old habits where I’m not calling. I seriously have to force myself to call. It’s just tricky because I have nothing new to talk about, work is boring and I don’t talk dolls with extended family. However, I really need to get back into it. I figure that if I can be a distraction for her that would help take her mind off things even for a little bit.

I have been working a lot this past month. The week after getting back from Connecticut I started putting in overtime. Since then I’ve started doing a little over 51 hours each week. It’s awful and really sucks up all my time, but I need to. I’m saving up for the next step in my life plan and quite honestly, I need the money. It’s going to be rough and it’s certainly not fun, but I need to do it. Right now, I am projecting the second week of August for when I’ll have enough saved up. Hopefully I’m able to keep saving up and won’t have to dip into savings.

I have been doing a lot better on doll related purchases for February. I did buy some dolls at the thrift store when up in Connecticut. I found a TLC Jewel Secrets Whitney and a played with but not too much 2015 Birthday Barbie. I already sold Whitney, her outfit, and the Birthday doll’s body and dress, and more than made my money back. I also bought a cheap Dollar Tree clone doll that was wearing a very nice condition vintage Barbie Registered Nurse outfit. There’s some rust stains on the hat and the zipper needs to be tacked down on one side but it looks really nice. It was so white in the bag I thought it might be the reproduction from a couple years back. I got the hat, dress, and cape. I’m not looking forward to hunting down the little accessories, but it might be nice to have. Still haven’t found a doll to wear it yet.

I was fairly good with doll purchases this month. I bought seven dolls at the thrift (it was Savers where they bag up their dolls in multiples). I sold two, and will be using some of the others for the doll donation project at the end of the year. I also bought the Mary Poppins’ Returns dolls, the standard Mary and Jack. Per usual I am just keeping parts of them. I’m keeping Mary’s shoes and body and Jack’s shoes and hat. Hopefully the parts I don’t want sell and I can get my money back. I also got lucky and bought the Pink Haired Silkstone doll when she came back in stock at Barbie Collector at the end of January. I don’t like paying 75 for a doll not in a formal dress, but I was super smitten with her. I’m planning on reselling her outfit and she’s already been rebodied onto Mary’s body since I hate how delicate the articulated Silkstones are. I wish I could have given her a belly button body but she’s that super pale almost white color and I didn’t have a match. I really like her. I also bought another of the “Blue Chiffon Dress” Silkstone, but only because I needed to spend 100 to use my Barbie Collector coupon. I’m most likely going to sell her off piece by piece to get my money back. I also bought the Barbie Celebration doll for her shoes and sunglasses (I’m a sucker for heart shaped sunglasses). I also way overpaid for a vintage doll. It’s my first vintage doll since December! I was looking for a different doll, found this one online and fell in love. I’m going to be mean and not tell you who she is and keep you in suspense (even though I doubt I’ll ever share her since I can barely do a once the month update). How about this, if I get 3 people commenting on this post asking to see it before I post another post, I’ll do a quick and rough introduction post for the doll.

Despite working so much, I am still working on eBay. I try to do one weekend day each week getting about 8 things done. I have had some decent sales, but with me it’s never enough. My goal for the month of February was to have more single sales than full dolls come in. I was ultimately hoping to make more sales than individual items (Head, body, and clothes), but it was not meant to be. However, I did do my first goal, so that means for my tallies for next month, the first doll doesn’t count!

See everyone in March (Most Likely April!)

A Sad Update

Hello Dear Readers,

My apologies for not blogging lately. I would say that I'm hoping to get back into it, but I just don't think I'll have the time. Back in October I started a full time job and that just takes up all of my time. I do get weekends off, but I've been working really hard on eBay trying to get a handle on the excess stuff I have around here that I want to sell. I haven't been doing much with dolls, but that certainly didn't stop me from buying more. I did keep a running list of how much came in versus how much I sold and the bought side was a lot more than what I got. I will just say I cannot be trusted around Walmart's after clearance Christmas especially when I find out the Harry Potter school uniforms look pretty cute on my Mimi dolls and they had Ginny for 5 dollars. I bought all six they had over the course of two days.

I did think about starting a monthly post where I talk about my top addition to the collection this month, but I can't this month. Despite buying a lot of dolls, I mainly bought them for their shoes, or their bodies, or their clothes. I only bought one doll head to actually join the collection, but he doesn't have a body yet since the one I bought for him, doesn't work. I don't have anything I like better for him so he's been banished to where I keep the other doll heads and who knows if he will ever get a body. I don't even want to admit to myself how long some of those heads have been waiting for bodies.

This post isn't just about me talking about dolls. This month I also lost my Grandfather. He passed away exactly a week ago today. I won't lie, it's been extremely hard for me. He was fine until two weeks ago . He had been having some health related issues in recently year but nothing major but two weeks ago he fell and fractured his arm. He was on the mend and did come home, but a few days later he had a massive heart attack and things went from bad to worse. He hung on for a few days, but started to get worse and on Monday he was gone.

On Friday my family and I went up to Connecticut for the funeral. That was one of the hardest experiences of my life. All of my Aunts and Cousins were there. I'm glad we could all be together at this time, but it was such a sucky situation for why we had to get together. I am very glad we were able to go, but I never want to relive this experience. I barely held it together myself and it's even more heartbreaking seeing everyone you love being in so much pain and not being able to do anything.

My Grandfather is playing the banjo. I never heard him play it, but he still had it.

I am absolutely gutted for my poor Grandmother. We are all rallying around her and she's dealing with it the best she can but my heart is absolutely broken for her. They were married for 68 years since she was 19. I've been working with my mother to think of ways how we can help her. We are at a disadvantage since we are so far away but we are going to work on making more of an effort to call my Grandmother and just keep in touch and we were thinking of things we could send her to help keep her mind off the situation. It's tricky since she's never been a stay at home kind of person, but the things we're thinking of are things to help her at home. She and my Grandfather lived in the same house since 1952, there's a lot of memories that she won't be able to escape from. Right now we're talking about any types of hobbies we can send her supplies for, books we can get her, and movies we can get she would like. 

My Grandparents at their 25th Anniversary. He was not usually so silly in pictures.

It's hard to explain my relationship with my Grandfather. It's been hard to communicate with my Grandfather my entire life since he had massive hearing loss. He had gotten sick as a child and lost a lot of his hearing and as time when on he had some genetic hearing loss. Despite always having a hearing aid, they never found one that was perfect for him. We would talk and when I got older our relationship changed where we did communicate more, he was one if the smartest people I know. He was incredibly mechanically gifted and would come up with amazing solutions to problems. I was talking to my mother about him and I just couldn't come up with words on how to describe him, he was just Grandpa. The best I came up with was he was a consistent, he was just who he was and his presence brought us all comfort. It's hard stating exactly what's changed, but everything has changed.

We weren't able to stay long, and we never went to my Grandmother's house. Part of me wanted to go and get that over with, but part of me just couldn't bear it. It's going to be rough figuring out a new normal. It's going to be rough.

I'm going to miss you Grandpa.    

You can really hear the echo without any posts...

Hello Dear Readers,

I assume people have noticed the lack of a blog around here lately. You see, I was having some issues regarding the blog and had to .... retire it for a bit. Everything was reverted to draft form so I am hoping to eventually restore everything and get it back to as what it once was. I can't say it'll be any time soon, but hopefully it won't be too long.

I've had some changes in my life the last time I've made a post. I have a new job! I haven't started it yet, but training begins at the end of the month. I'm a little nervous about the job (it's a customer service job) and I don't love the drive but the pay is a lot more than I was making (and more than I've ever made before) so it certainly has some perks. It's also Monday through Friday! It was funny, in the interview they asked how I'd feel working some additional Saturdays I was like, "I've worked retail, weekends mean nothing to me". And really, I wouldn't mind working overtime since it's a really good rate. It's especially good since I have a very large (non-doll) purchase to save up for. I got hired through a hiring agency and it's a six month contract but hopefully they will keep me after that. Either way, it'll be a job for six months and I can figure out what to do after that.

Even with job hunting and several interviews I've also been putting effort selling stuff online. I haven't been as good as I should be, but I've been spending some time listing things in the hopes that it sells. I still have a lot more to go, I really let it build up more than I should have, but I've made quite a dent in what I had for resale. And if I'm being honest, I keep beating myself up for having too much stuff, but in a comparison with some collectors I know they'd look at my collection and my resell pile and say "Is that it?". Things are kind of slow right now, I've found that spring is when people are really buying but I keep listing stuff. It doesn't even have the chance to sell if it's just sitting around here gathering dust. I haven't started working on trimming down the collection just yet, there's still a lot of things to sell before I get there, but I'm making a mental plan for what I want to sell. In a situation like this is a lot better to mentally say goodbye to something before I actually do it, just to make sure I'm ready for it.

I have been kind of at a weird impasse with my doll collection, I know I keep saying that but it keeps being true! I've been kind of bored with Barbie and other 1:6 fashion dolls. I still have my favorites but things have been changing. I'm kind of taking a break from vintage. I have a lot and I've gotten several of my grail dolls so the drive just isn't there at the moment. There's still several grail dolls I don't have, but those are very expensive which are just out of my price range at the moment. I'm always still looking for a bargain, but I'm being a little more selective as to what is a good deal for me and the collection. Not saying that I haven't been buying things, but I've certainly slowed down and changed what I buy and for what reason.

I have been focused more on antique dolls lately. It really started when I won that bisque doll at that luncheon in April. It's a little tricky delving into this new dolly genre, I'm finding I have some of the basics (or at least figure them out using internet searches), but there's so much to learn. It's kind of frustrating going from Barbie where I have a lifetime of knowledge to antique dolls where I'm very much a novice. I'm having a hard time figuring out good resources for information. I just want to know it all now! If anyone has suggestions for resources or books I'd love to hear about them in the comments.

I'm trying to be smart with my antique doll purchases. I don't want it to be like Barbie where I wake up and find myself surrounded with them and overwhelmed. Also, I like them but they're fragile and I'm clumsy. I'm planning on keeping my collection very small (another reason to keep it small is they tend to be bigger than Barbie so space is a factor). As of right now I own two bisque dolls, five china head dolls, and two wooden dolls. I would like to add a male china head doll to my collection as well as a small felt doll like a Lenci but that's all that I'm really wanting. I did see a really cute bisque doll on eBay I put an offer in for but it was ignored until it aged out of the system. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. She was cute but nothing I had to have. All in all I'm hoping to keep the antique doll collection to about a dozen in total. I know I've added a lot to it recently, but even as the focus of my collection right now, I'm still not buying a lot. It's a lot of window shopping, which isn't a bad thing.

I think that's the big things that's been going on lately. I can't say for sure I'll be around that often, but hopefully there will be more content sooner. And maybe one of these days I'll actually take a picture to share!

It's my Birthday!

And once again I'm shamelessly posting this picture for attention!

Let's talk about shoes! (Really, when aren't we talking about shoes?)

Hello Everyone.

Happy June! In a shocking turn of events, the Disney Store released all of the new Classic dolls today, color me shocked! They usually get released in June but traditionally it's been mid June and lately it's been dragging on until almost July with the dolls getting clearanced and slowly selling out during the course of the month. But not this year! This year it looks like they just pulled everything and put up the new stuff. They are having a sale right now on clearance stuff, but when I checked out of curiosity a week or so ago none of the classic dolls were on sale so I don't even think they did a big push to get rid of what stock they had left, they just took them off the site.

*Coming soon to a Disney outlet near you, I assume*

There's been a few changes this year. The princesses got their changes per usual. The biggest and most noticeable change is that the sidekick figurines are now gone and have been replaced with a plastic rings. Not terribly surprised over the change, the sidekicks were a really nice addition, but they were sometimes a lot of plastic and some of them had pretty small painted details. I'm sure a simple, but character appropriate, ring is a lot cheaper to make. Glitter is also back in the line, for most of the princesses. Several of the princesses now have a tulle overlay that has glued on glitter detail and some now just have the glitter applied to their skirts. Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine, and Rapunzel all have the overlay and Mulan, Tiana, and Pocahontas all have glitter as part of their outfit. Technically Elsa could be part of the glitter overlay club, but she usually has that, she really didn't change beyond losing Olaf and getting a ring. Ariel, Merida, Elena, and Moana didn't appear to change any either. I think Moana is now officially part of the Classics line, her box looks to be in the same style as the rest of the dolls, but we'll see if she's part of the sales promos for the line, if they're still doing that. She might have already been part of the classic line and I missed it, I wasn't checking for her. I still haven't seen the movie and she doesn't even come with shoes!

Speaking of shoes, there's only one doll that shows her feet (and is wearing shoes), good old Snow White with her tea length dress. It looks like they've continued the rubber legs with the flat feet and the internal clicking knees. But instead of what they did last year where they were on the high heeled flats, they now have the flat foot shoe mold that originated in 2012, I think, back when the dolls were a lot more articulated. Not terribly surprised, those shoes were designed for that type of foot and fit a lot better. Since nobody got an outfit change, I assume their shoe colors are going to also stay the same. That being said, there are a couple variables among them. Now that the flat feet are back, I'm curious if Merida is going to get her unique brown ankle boot style shoe again. I'm also curious if Rapunzel is wearing shoes since her dress now covers her feet, traditionally she does not get shoes but you'd think if they put her in a gown, she'd be more inclined to. I'm wondering if Elena has red flats or if she got to keep her unique shoe mold (or if they modified it for the flat feet), and I'm curious if Cinderella will have the same color shoes. She's the classic doll with the most shoe variations among the years. Sometimes they're clear, sometimes they're clear with glitter, and sometimes they're just blue.

I am curious enough to want to do some picture and video searches when they start showing up online, but not curious enough to buy them. You see, I don't like those shoes. I own two pairs, purple and gold. I find the toe part of them is a bit bulbous and looks weird on the doll. Also, the bottoms are totally flat and the sides are rather high so a lot of the dolls who are designed to stand on tip toe can't really wear them. So I'm not planning on getting these dolls for their shoes. I *might* buy a couple of them in time, but I'm not going to be hunting down these shoes in every color of the rainbow like I do with the other flat shoes that I adore.

There's been a few other changes to the Classic line, Gaston is back. He's the only villain currently in the line at the moment. Ursula came back briefly, but she's gone again. Not sure why Gaston is back, it's not Belle's year or anything. He's the only new doll, but several dolls are not online right now. I'm not sure if they're not online yet, or if they've been dropped from the line for this year. Hans is gone which is surprising. Also missing is Snow White's Prince, Prince Phillip, John Smith, Prince Naveen, and Flynn Rider. Several of the remaining Princes did get new outfits, Aladdin is now in his Prince Ali outfit, and Eric is now in his wedding outfit. It's funny for Eric since Wedding Ariel was part of the line last year, but not this year. I do think the wedding doll will be back, a couple months back people found three Princess dolls in their wedding dresses in stores (Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Tiana) so I think that's going to be a new line. I would not be surprised if Ariel comes back as part of that line. The wedding dolls did have the flat shoe mold, which is why I wasn't surprised to see it in the classic dolls this year.

If I was going to get any of the new dolls, I'd be most likely to get one of the wedding dolls if they came with white shoes. I'm not in love with those shoes, but I can use a neutral color like that. I might also get Belle since I have a doll that uses the fully articulated Disney body and right now she's using the high heeled flats but I'd prefer her in the flat shoe mold. However, these are low priorities since like I said, I don't really like those shoes.

Shame about the lack of the high heeled flats, but it's good for my wallet. Hopefully they do come back at some point since there's still a few colors I'd love to add to my collection (orange and light purple especially), but this year they're at least helping me be more kind to my wallet.

Barely Doll Related, but you do get to see me as a baby!

Hello Dear Readers,

It's been almost a week since I got back from my trip and I'm now in a place where I can talk about it. I went up to Connecticut to see my extended family. We made the trip because my dad's idiot brother made the ultimatum that either my Dad comes up when he's visiting or else he and my other uncle were going to come visit us, and we certainly do not want that. So my parents and I packed up the car and made our way north. I had the option of not going but I wanted to see my Mother's side of the family. On my dad's side both of my Grandparents have passed and the one good aunt doesn't make up for dealing with the rest of them. I half jokingly said the only time we'd be together as a family would be at my funeral. I feel a little bad since there is a couple people on that side I'd at least like to know as people, but it's kind of a package deal and in this case it's a package you refuse delivery on for your sanity. I was able to spent a lot of time with my Grandparents and my favorite aunt. Those are the people I really miss seeing since we moved south. The trip up wasn't terrible, it was 12 hours but that's the best that it's going to be. The trip home was terrible, I got sick, and we got stuck in traffic and it ended up being 15 hours. By the time we got home, I was very fed up with being in the car.

I did do a little thrifting while I was up there, I didn't find much. I bought a (found out later rather TLC) Barbie Basics Ken and a Birthstone Beauty Steffie doll in a crushed box. The thrift stores were kind of lame, most of them didn't have any dolls, and not even just a lack of fashion dolls. One of them had one mass produced porcelain doll and two baby dolls, and that's it for dolls in the entire store. Kind of a clunker in that aspect, but I wasn't there for shopping and it's not like I really need anything. I should still be working on downsizing, not adding more.

I got a lot of time to work on scanning up there. One of the things I worked on when I was there last October was scanning. Back then I got around a thousand pictures scanned, this time I did over 500. There's still a LOT of pictures to scan, but I got a big chunk done, and that's more than anyone else has done (seriously, I'm the only one whose ever scanned anything). And since this is my blog and you're my rapt audience, I'm going to share select ones with you (I promise it'll be less than the full 500).

They kind of jump all over the place, they're mostly kids since I didn't want to post any adults for *security* concerns. 

My Grandmother, age 13 or 14. She's extremely photogenic. I did not inherit that from her!

My Grandfather, age 6. He turned 90 last September.

My two oldest aunts, I wish the doll was better in focus so I could identify it. I'm not totally sure where this picture was taken, it looks like the den, but the windows are reversed to how they actually are. I think this is 1956?

My first birthday, June 1987

Me, Summer 1988. I wish I was still blond.

Christmas 1992 (I think) at my Grandmother's house

My cousin in my Grandmother's kitchen. My Grandmother's kitchen looks basically the same, new dishwasher but the same cabinets. My Great-Grandfather built those cabinets. That cousin is turning 40 in less than a month, don't need to say that, but I wanted to.

Me again. The dog behind me is Mac. Mac would go on to bite me in the face, leaving me with several scars. I assume this is before then (Mac lived a long full life post the biting).

"Red with Jewels" my mother's favorite childhood pet, wearing one of her favorite pieces of jewelry. The record cabinet and that small table are still in my Grandmother's living room. Red lived a full life, this picture was taken before he lost an eye in a bar fight.

My Great-Grandmother, you can see where my Grandmother got her good looks.

There's still plenty of work to do with the pictures. There's still tons left to scan, and I've done nothing with identifying or cataloguing anything. I did keep track of anything that was written on the backs of the images, but didn't do anything beyond that. I'm pretty good at identifying my Great-Grandparents (especially I only alive for one of them and they died when I was 6 months old), but there's a variety of people I don't know. It's a long term project, as I was telling someone, there's six generations of pictures in that house. There's a LOT of pictures.

And P.S. The cat didn't lose an eye in a bar fight. He did lose an eye, but we don't know how.

April Update? And on time?!?

I'll give you a moment to pick your jaw off the floor. 

April was a much better month than March, for a variety of reasons.

For starters I had an *amazing* eBay month, with a record breaking 59 sales for the month. There is now an official weekly record of sales being tracked so I can state those numbers with accuracy. I got lucky since eBay kept giving me free listings (and I think people's tax refunds helped), but I did work a lot on refilling the empty spaces so there was a lot of things listed. There's a lot of slots I need to fill, and plenty of stuff that needs to get listed. I even sold two dolls that were part of the collection. There are twinges of sadness saying goodbye to a doll I liked enough to add to the collection, but I've realized that I just don't have enough time for everything and it's good to let some things go. I'm really working hard to trim down the collection to a more manageable amount. There is still a lot to go, but this past month really did help a lot. I feel that what's left (and I cannot stress how much there is to list still) is a lot more manageable of a goal.

My spending was down too. I did buy some things, more than I needed to but with so much going out I was able to pay for everything with my eBay profits. April was the first month since I've started this endeavor where I was in the black at the end of the month. I'm working hard to change that as we speak, but I had a very profitable month. I know every month won't be that good, but I am very pleased with how April went.

I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to go to the doll meeting at the start of the month. We're down to one car at the moment that can do long trips and my father needed it for work and his time off request was denied. But thanks to my sister I was able to go, and stayed the night overnight at her house, that was weird. But it was the doll donation meeting and I like going to those. We were able to redress over 70 dolls for charity. And I was able to swap out for a few things. I got a couple pairs of shoes, some clothing pieces, and a few dolls (some of the dolls I plan on reselling). Overall it was a very good day and I'm glad I got to go to it. I am skipping the May meeting since I'll be out of town on that date.

I did get to see everyone at Bradley Justice's luncheon for the UFDC. The theme this year was Mod Barbie and it was AMAZING! I'm so glad I got to go. I will say that the sales floor was a little pricey for my tastes (I saw two people selling 75 dollar Bubblecuts, which is funny since I had brought a 25 dollar Bubblecut with me of similar condition), but I did buy a TLC Casey and a TLC Talking Barbie head on a 70's era body that was missing half it's limbs. I needed another project like I need another hole in my head, but I had to buy something.

Since I didn't buy anything else I ended up buying additional 25 raffle tickets. And I *cleaned* up in the raffle. I won SIX things. This is the third event he's hosted and I've gone to every one and have never won anything. I certainly made up for that this year. I think part of why I was so lucky is that some of the things I won weren't as popular. I won the chocolate factory I Love Lucy doll, the 2016 African American Holiday Barbie, a Taraka Jenny friend that was personally given to the person who donated it by Carol Spencer, a poorly restored antique doll (which I really wanted), the 2015? convention heart shaped box full of reproduction spike shoes (which I also really wanted, I put the most tickets in for that), and the most unique a box mock up for the New Years Japanese Barbie, also from Carol Spencer. It's the correct style of box, but it's totally white. The doll is wearing the correct hair and outfit, but wasn't given a face. The box backer is also made up of other packaging that Mattel had handy at the moment. I was really lucky to get her!

I think part of the reason why I got that prototype doll is because she wasn't properly marked. I remember Bradley saying he had gotten a prototype for the auction, but when the bag for tickets for her was only marked "Japanese". I did mention that she wasn't your average Japanese doll to a couple people in my club, but really only talked to the people I knew. So I think lots of people passed her by one they saw the outfit but didn't notice her lack of a face. And I think out of everything I put in tickets for I had the greatest chance for the antique doll. Most people there were Barbie collectors who aren't into that sort of doll, and the people who were there that collect antique dolls like the really expensive ones. This poor doll had lots of repairs done to her, and most of them pretty sloppy. I bought a book recommended to be about repairing them that I bought that I'm waiting to arrive. I've been doing a lot of research on this doll. She needs a lot of work, luckily she's pretty common and cheap so anything I do will only be an improvement. I've already removed her wig, pates (wig cap), and her improperly set eyes. She originally had sleep eyes and that's sadly been removed. I am thinking about building a new set of rocker eyes, but it's quite and undertaking and I don't have hardly any of the supplies. I am hoping the book will answer some questions. I also need to learn how to clean bisque, poor girl has lots of glue drips on her head from the wig. I'm just worried about stripping the color. But we shall see what happens. I can ask my friend for guidance since he also collects antique dolls, but I'm trying to do as much research as I can before I ask him. I'm always asking him questions and I don't want to annoy him. I'm at least trying to get a base understanding on my own before I start pestering him.

So that's where things are right now. I'm not working on eBay for the next week due to some unusual (but good) circumstances. I however do need get back to it, things keep piling up and I want more stuff to move out, I need to buy some glass eyes!

See everyone next month! (But I still owe everyone some the doll related post for this month)