Newest Collar

The newest collar creation is this lovely striped number. Its his business casual look, the sort of thing he wears to the office or on a date!

Lace Collar

I created this lovely lace collar for Gil, last night. The photos aren't very good, but I think you can see how adorable he is. He'll wear it for formal occasions like weddings and christenings and obviously for Thanksgiving, since it does give him a bit of a pilgrim look.

Busted Pipe

 Seems we had a pipe freeze and bust, so we had quite a time yesterday afternoon. Suddenly water burst from the ceiling in the front room, in the old part of the house. Within minutes the room was flooding and water was pouring through the floor into the basement. I had no phone numbers, hubby was out of town and the landlord in in another country. I ran over to one of the neighbors and they helped get the water turned off 

and brought over a water vacuum and helped get the water sucked up and everything dried up. They also found the number of the contractor and called him.

He came over, along with his plumber, and they sorted out the problem, got it fixed and got the water back on. Next week, they'll come back with the heating guy and determine the cause.

Probably too cold! But whether the heating system is to be blamed or me just not having it warm enough, is the question.

Kale Chips

I finally got some kale to try making some kale chips. A friend had some at book club last week and I liked them. Of course I love chips of any kind! These were a bit of a pain to make because you had to get them dry after washing, them rub oil on them including up in the curly edges. Once in the oven, they had to be watched carefully because they get done at different times, depending on size and thickness. I only added salt. The other gal had some ranch dressing for dipping, but I ate mine plain. They were very good. And since the boy wouldn't even try them, I ended up eating the whole bunch by myself! I was a little more gassy than usual the next day.

Chia Seeds

Have you heard about the latest superfood, chia seeds? In a single tablespoon you get 6g fiber, 3g protein & 2.9g omega-3 fatty acids! They're great for energy, digestive health and weight loss. What has taken us so long to discover this? But don't take my word for it. Look it up yourself! Anyway, I got a package and am trying them out. I'm going to try to eat some everyday(or so) and see if I feel or look any better. Today I made some chia chocolate chip cookies. They're pretty good. Even the boy liked them! 

Old Paper Dolls

I got a lot of things today in preparation for doing some crafting. I got into my old box of paper dolls from when I was a kid. Needless to say, I never got around to doing any crafting. But I had a great time going through all my old paper dolls. Thought I'd show you some photos.

The top photo is Crissy & Velvet. I had the real Crissy and Kerry dolls too. My cousin had Velvet.

 The Tiny Tot Shop was one of my favorites because you could set it up like a shop. There are 3 of each piece of clothing in sizes 6, 8 and 10. I had little pictures of toys and things cut from magazines to put in the shop as well.

 Of course I had the Dawn dolls and also the Dawn dolls paper dolls. This bunch even included lots of clothes that I had colored myself. There must have been a coloring book that I had as well.

 I don't really remember Valerie but she had these cool hair pieces so that she could wear her hair up or down.

 

 The Star Charmers were pretty cool. Apparently had something to do with the zodiac.

 Next is Sabrina and the Archies. Some of the dolls are missing.

 The Baby Peewee paper dolls were one of my favorites.

Betsy McCall was pretty good. I also had dolls of her cut from the McCall's magazine.

 A favorite real doll of mine and also a paper doll, Tippy Tumbles.

 Flatsy dolls, another favorite.

 This box was not filled with the correct dolls. The dolls inside were a group I used to Grace and Them. There were 6 paper dolls but only 3 had official names...Grace, Dottie and Stevie.

I still love paper dolls! But you certainly can't find them as easily as you used to. Let me know if you recognize any of these or tell me what some of your favorites used to be.

Last week's hike

 Braving the cold temps, the hiking group met on a sunny morning for a 5 mile hike through the wilderness. Everyone enjoyed the day, especially the dogs! Note, my dog isn't here. He's far too delicate for this!

Philadelphia Art Museum

 The boy had some school activity last weekend, so we took the girl to the Art Museum in Philadelphia. We had a great day out. The museum was nice, the weather was gorgeous. Can't wait to go back.

 The girl left us on Sunday and went back to school. A little lonely around here now!

Hiking Group

 A small but dedicated group of us went hiking last Friday morning. It was a bit icy and we had to turn back about 1/2 way through because the trail was still not passable due to super storm Sandy. I'm only now getting the photos together.

Pottery

My Oshaberikai group had a pottery class at the end of November. Our pieces just came back from the kiln, so I thought I'd show the set of little plates that I made. They are small, to hold small amounts of soy sauce or dipping oil or small appetizers.

Stomach bug, eye update, car update

The girl and I had some sort of stomach bug.......I'll spare you the wretched details. We seem to be on the mend. Have eaten some solid food and had no upsets or accidents. Good news.
The eye is turning colors, hopefully in preparation for going away.
The car repair estimate is nearly as much as we paid for the car to begin with! Should be finished
next week. That'll be 3 weeks, but to be fair, it was over the holidays!

NYC

Went to NYC yesterday. First time since Sandy. Our usual PATH station was closed, so we drove to a different one. From this one, the closest you could get was World Trade Center, so we got off there and took a cab up to the theater district, where we got tickets to a show. After we got the tickets we had about 3 hrs to kill before showtime, so we did some shopping and had a nice lunch at a Turkish restaurant. The girl met up with 2 of her classmates from college who happened to be in the city and then we went to the show.

It was pretty good, starring Paul Rudd, Michael Shannon, Kate Arrington and Ed Asner.

We had seats about 4 rows from the stage. It was a good play, with good acting except for Ed Asner who did the worst attempt at a german accent that I've ever heard.

Black Eye

 Playing with Gil on Friday evening, we conked heads pretty hard. He got me on the edge of the eye brow. I don't know where he got hit, since I was blinded by pain at first. After I was able to look around, I noticed he seemed to be unaffected. I, on the other hand, had a green knot on my brow and a throbbing headache. The next day it began to change color to a reddish purple. Its still sore, but will probably start going away soon.

New Year's Day

This year we went over to Edgewater to the Mitsuwa Market place to have New Year's Day in the Japanese style. Well, not really, as there were no shrines to go to, and no arrow with new year's fortune to buy. They did have a Taiko drum performance, mochi pounding and a teeny little dragon dance. While there, we got some good Japanese food and got some supplies from the grocery. Also got a lucky bag, from one of the shops. The contents are shown in the last photo. While it wasn't like the old days, it did give a chance to reflect on our time in Japan and how nice it was there.