Gazingus pins and stranger things…

Current Mood : Well-fed

 If you knew how much time and effort
it took to strip that shoe.... oh, well, one down, one to go !

Was putting some new-to-me MH shoes away – I’d traded some made-by-me headbands and duplicate Mattel bits for them, so the only price was mailing our respective items to each other – when I started thinking of gazingus pins. I’d read the term in some ‘how to save money when you don’t have any’ manual or another, before I scrapped the lot to a second-hand shop and decided to save money by being  careful and practical, instead of buying idiotic books about it. In short (too late !), a gazingus pin is something you always buy, whenever you see it. Maybe it’s books, or a shiny pretty guitar pick, or socks… thing is, once you have it, you’re happy – but it ends up in a drawer with all the other gazingus pins, and the drawer only gets opened to add the latest one. I always thought of it as sort of a gris-gris, or talisman, but I don’t think a gazingus pin is that revered. It’s just something (usually inexpensive) that makes you happy for a little while, and it doesn’t hurt anybody that you have quite a few of ‘em. Unless you just keep getting ‘em, and you’re soon drowning in gazingus and you have no idea which ones you have and don’t have anymore.

I think I started out with MH dolls as a new gazingus, maybe a week after I got the first three. They somehow gave me so much more than Barbie ever did. They were a challenge, they were unique, they were sought after, they were mine. While I loved dolls, I wasn’t fond of teen dolls, but soon, I had the whole set. And Ghoulia and Holt. I was soon scouring sites and groups for more. I literally had it all, even things like beds I really didn’t care that much for, because if I found it, I bought it. That was around December 2010.

Then my semi-wish was granted, and new dolls and series came out so fast and frequently, there was no way I could have them all. No more doll room and far less money curbed that gazingus pretty darn quick ! But I think I just switched it – to their shoes. With trades and eBay’s kind arrangement of ‘low to high’ prices, I’ve assembled quite a collection. My big splurge this year was four pair of still-don’t-regret-it Jemgirl Creations shoes. If my last count is any indication, I probably have about a hundred pair now. There’s maybe three pairs I like that I don’t own, and I routinely trawl for them, even when we’re broke beyond belief. I won’t bid, but the urge to look is ever there.

I once had one soft-sided box I made just for the shoes. Added baggies of belts, jewelry, glasses, hair accessories, and hosiery as well, so it was all together when I went to dress my dolls. Had to make a second box for the baggies, because I had so many shoes, I had to take out everything to root around for specific or likely pairs. Yes, I think I have a gazingus pin overload here. And I think, for me, simple awareness normally eliminates it. After all, who wants to admit to a gazingus addiction ?

I think it was the fabric clean up that started all this. Yeah, I still can barely pass a Mal-Wart fabric section without claiming a 99c fat quarter. Decades old gazingus ! I’ve probably donated more fabric than I’ve ever used, twice over. But now that I’m sewing nearly every day, I’m starting to make a dent – and decided I need new storage options, not new fabric. Thinking of relocating the ‘guy’ selections to the bedroom nightstand cube, and keeping the more girly options out here. Mostly because the cube is one of the smaller storage choices, and it’s already half fulla UltraSuede and upholstery leather scraps. One of the big problems about sewing for the guys these last two weeks has been finding fabric that wasn’t floral or pastel or just didn’t say ‘dude design’ to me. Once I did, I was sooo ready to sew it. I was inspired all over again by seeing all that 'new' material ! I’m thinking that, once I know getting to it is easy, I’ll dig through it more often !

Hmmf. May have knocked down two gazingus today. It’s not that either’s been expensive, it’s just that ever-present nagging feeling that ya want more isn’t part of enjoying what you have.