I still think fondly of the Lab...

Current Mood : Pretty well pleased with m'self. 

We got the best news last night - the person who kinda left us in the lurch last month made good, so we're all right. Things are still tight, and will likely remain so for some time, but we have a bit of breathing room. As usual, I was beyond upset at Persona Non Grata for doing this to us - especially Beloved Hubby ! - last month, but now I'm so happy and proud he took care of his responsibilities, I almost wanna make him cookies !

Beloved's side job postponed on him, too, so he has the whole weekend off. Not even Airsoft going on. Wanted him to get plenty of rest today, because I got a looong list of minor stuff for him to do - starting with Dearest Son's room. He's ready for a change, and wants the remote control cabinet in there now, so we'll be moving furniture around, hopefully tonight. That'll liberate a nice chunk of space in what we used to call the Playroom. I've started calling it the Studio again, since pretty much all the toys - Airsoft and RC - have moved out. It's mostly Beloved's art supplies and space, and my sewing stuff and doll clothes in there now. So, if you hear me refer to the Studio from now on, it's where the sewing stuff and doll stuff is !

It was kinda hot last night, so most of us had some trouble sleeping. It seemed silly to turn on the air conditioning when we'd had the heat on Tuesday night. So I activated all the ceiling fans, and when I woke up early, opened the doors. Much cooler outside - that dropped the inside temp five degrees in ten minutes.

While Beloved crashed for a nap, I found myself in Want. Strange, because I just got that Frankie Stein Mirror Bed last week. I knew what I really wanted - a lengthy thrift store and Target prowl - but I also knew it wasn't a good time for one yet. Beloved's hoping to keep things tight for a while longer, and maybe get my new car fixed. Remember 'Starlight', the Honda Accord ? He's hoping to have her up and running this month or next. I can put off a prowl if it means I have my own transportation soon !

Besides, while new Monster High merch images are starting to show up on eBay and on fansites, none of it's widely distributed yet. And we're often dead last on the 'new shipments' list anyway. Even if I did go prowlin', there's very little chance I'd find something. Yeah, part of me hopes, but when I really admit to 'the way things are' instead of 'what I wish', I know differently.

Still, I wanted to see all those new goodies on the slab, soon to be causing another spending and hunting frenzy. Somewhere. Just not here. When I really looked at it all, there were only a few pieces I really wanted. Deuce, from the 'Dawn of the Dance' series, and all three 'Higher Deaducation' dolls - the ones with the lockers. Sure, I'd love to have more -  namely the 'Day at the Maul' clothing set, the Hydration Station, and Ghoulia's 'DotD' or Gloom Beach doll - but I don't need six Ghoulias, three Lagoonas, and eight Frankies.

Further study of each doll I narrowed down showed there was mostly one or two pieces of each that I really wanted. The lockers, the two pair of Ghoulia's glasses, the clothes, the shoes...stuff like that. Like Lagoona's 'Mad Science' set. I loved her shoes, her little froggie 'bro', the locker, the lab coat...especially that lab coat. Hmm. What makes a thin white jacket a lab coat ? Not much, really. Lapels, pockets, maybe some embroidery. I could probably make one m'self...

Just not with the pattern Doll Shop Deluxe gave me. I programmed 'Boxy Lapel Jacket', low lapels. I still have no idea how that's supposed to go together. Maybe if I looked at my thousands of Barbie patterns, I could figure it out. Well, no. There's pieces to DSD that don't make sense...but if all I'm looking for is a loose-fit lapelled jacket, I could probably use a pattern for a button-down Barbie shirt. It'd certainly be loose-fitting. Going from Barbie sewing to MH sewing is like being used to sewing for a chopstick, but now you're gonna do the same thing for a toothpick that's nearly the same height. Lotta similarities, lots of differences. But worth a shot. Goss knows doing often defeats Want around here. If I could only figure out how to make my own potato chips and Goldfish crackers...

Didn't get a real start on it 'til after dinner, although I got it cut out and Fray Checked while Beloved napped - I'm still a total sucker for Blazing Saddles, and it showed up on the 'Goofy Comedy' scroll on Netflix today. It went OK, but that collar looks *huge* ! If you knew what a PITA it was to install (each of the six times I tried), you'd understand why I'm probably not gonna alter it much. Need to iron the lapels down, and shorten the sleeves a bit more. I'd already moved the sleeve hems up before I even cut out the pattern, but it looks like another quarter-inch should do it. A couple patch pockets would add to the verisimilitude, too - and I'd love to add an 'MH' logo to the front, but there's not much space. Maybe on a pocket... Anyway, attaching the collar was the huge hang-up, and I ended up doing what I normally do on collars - run a stitch line where the seam line goes, and clip to it, and later remove the stitch line. About two hours, start to finish. Can do better on the next one. This is altered a bit from View C, blouse, from McCall's 9605, a near vintage pattern set from 1968.

We're up early tomorrow - wanna get some groceries shopped before the crowds, so it's gonna be up-and-out-the-door morning. I'm looking forward to it ! Hope your Saturday was stellar !

Sorting Some Stuff Out...

Current Mood : Wistful

Here's a laugh for Friday for ya - I can get paid to blog here ! <snort>  It's true - if I sign up for ads, and everybody clicks on 'em, I get a few pennies. Not worth it, in my opinion. People hate clicking ads, and either never do so, or never do so and feel slightly guilty about it. I unsubbed from that one guy's feed - while I occasionally got neat wallpaper and semi-usable graphics, the constant 'Buy Me A Coffee !' button on the e-mail, the one that followed your scrolling on the website, and download site one got on my nerves. I'd rather have your visits instead of coffee - hey, I can make my own coffee, burnt or otherwise ! - so unless Google suddenly orders me to do so, no ads here. And if they do order 'em, don't click on 'em ! It won't bother me any.

Tripod sent me a nice e-mail late last night, referring to my change in service, asking me to take an exit survey and such. Whew. That answered that question - and I won't be billed in a few days, I'm all done. When the survey asked why I was leaving, it was a tossup between 'found better alternatives' and 'no money', so I went with the kinder option. And I also mentioned the 'no remote linking' thing, since it really bothered me.  Would have been a bit more honest, but it was a very short survey.

Taking pictures of all the dolls has me thinking of all of them, usually at once ! It's easy to plot and plan and daydream for the Monster High crew, they're right on my desk. But all the rest aren't in my line of vision, and lately, it's been a 'if it's not right in front of me, and I don't have to deal with it, fix it, figure out how to make x of of y minus q, or cook it, it doesn't exist' kind of month so far. Even Elphie and Fiyero, who are on my desk, aren't in my immediate sweep, which is why I had to go back for their photo.

I found m'self thinking of my sole American Girl clone, a made-for-Target Battat doll I call Debbie. I had a blonde named Jenny, too, both flea market / yard sale finds, but I decided to keep just one. Honestly, I would have donated them both, but I have a ton of dollar-sale patterns for AG dolls that I wanted to use, and evidently AG clothes sell. So I kept Debbie as a model more than anything else, not out of the same sort of 'want' that shimmers around pretty much all my other dolls.

So that sort of puts Debbie in an odd position. I don't really like her that much, and don't see m'self playing with her anytime soon. She's literally a clothing model. (grin) Two or three times now, I've bought MH dolls with the express purpose of making her stay on the sewing desk for perpetual fittings, but I keep falling for them and it never happens. Yet it is happening with Debbie. It seems so weird to me, to have a doll I don't really like - her sleep-eyes are perpetually at half-mast, even when she's fully upright, her hair is very coarse, and her skin tone is an odd, muddy color, and I've never been fond of the vinyl limbs / stuffed body type dolls. Only reason she's still here is because I thought I might one day wanna make clothes to sell for her size, and may need her. And, let's face it, I really enjoyed buying all those patterns.

I thought that, maybe if I gave her a makeover tomorrow, that'd help, but when I'm truly honest with m'self, I know it won't. So I pulled out the doll pattern basket and went through it, organizing as I went. I'd bought 11 patterns for AG-size dolls, and not one of them had ever been opened. (sigh) Spread them out, and decided to keep five. Two had shoes I wanted to keep, and the rest had either techniques I wanted to try, or I thought maybe, with some alterations, the clothes could fit Timey and Dottie. Can always donate the finished items, and patterns can be rescaled or drafted all-new once I learn the techniques. The six I culled mostly repeated the outfits I kept, or don't contain much I want to try now. Two of the six, I have no idea why I bought in the first place.

Before I donate Debbie, I'll see if K, the little girl across the street, wants her - but I'll ask her parents first. Always do. Not sure what to do with the patterns I pulled, though. Since everyone who sews knows about 99c sales, it's not like these are gonna sell on eBay or anywhere. Anyone here sew for AG dolls ?

It's an odd feeling. I'm glad to finally have it resolved, and I know I'm doing the right thing for me, but I am just a bit sad to see her go. Hopefully I won't repeat this in a year, the way I did with those 'My Friend Mandy' dolls. And now, all my patterns fit *inside* the basket ! Ah, well. Truth be told, I regret spending the cash on the patterns more than I'm sad about sending Debbie along. And ya don't get nowhere with regrets - only action can get new wheels turning.

On to the next big challenge...isn't that always the way of things ?

Current Mood : Mentally and physically wiped out - but almost satisfied. 

Whew ! At 10am this morning, after a solid two hours of deleting and checking, proofreading the checked boxes before hitting that 'delete' button, then checking the File Manager total disk space totals again, I got the Tripod site and blog down to 19.8mb. They say. My calculations show 16.8mb, but whatever. I found another file where every image I ever used - even stuff I erased years ago - had been backed up, often several times over. I had a merry time dumping that stuff, lemme tell ya. And if I hadn't, I'd still be trying to figure out where all that used space was. Kinda ticks me off if you want the truth - there really was no reason for me to click on that folder, since it was labelled Webon, some aspect of Tripod I've never used. And I quit deleting once I got it under 20mb, so I'm sure there's still acres of space that's tying up for no real reason save that I'm too wiped out to go through each and every file.

Anyway. I feel sorry for Somewhere That's Green, that poor site is gutted. There's only 11 pages, and that includes the Home one. But all the tutorials were saved, and I even kept a couple smaller pages, like the Midge Factor, due to request and just plain favoritism.

Tripod was not happy with me. Hadda jump through hoops to downgrade my service, but I did it. Sorry about the ads, but somebody's payin' somewhere - and I can't anymore. Right afterward, I went to PayPal and cancelled my monthly payment agreement with Tripod as well. They have no reason to hit my account when the usual bill comes due on the 11th. They always bill ahead, so I've already paid through this current cycle. Of course, despite changing it seven or twelve times, my site still shows as 'Plus', so if it still does tomorrow, I'll call to verify. You'd think an online company would know that a client wanted to downgrade their account after clicking through all the warnings and notifications several times throughout the day...

Forgive me for this, but I'm taking the rest of the day off. I should restore all those Catwalk Kitties, Barbie, Elphie, and the other really great images to Flickr, but I'm wiped out. All the Webon files were listed as alphanumeric sequences, so I had to click on them to see what they were, and I still have numbers and random letters flashing in my eyes when I blink.

On the social side of life... yesterday, I got tagged with a challenge on Flickr. My instructions were to photograph my dolls without changing anything, hit 'em exactly as they are. No hair brushing, no clothes changed - as is, where is. Post the photo(s) and ask five friends to join in. Now, to me, tagging is like watching other kids get tossed into the pool. Yeah, it seems kind of annoying, but deep down, you kinda hope someone pushes you in, too. So I was secretly (well, maybe not so secretly now ! (grin)) pleased, and took the challenge. I did crop all of 'em, and had to move Ghoulia and GB Cleo so I didn't need five photos. And I totally forgot Elphie and Fiyero, so I took four. I felt so included, so valued, if that makes any sense. And there's one of the photos, the gang in the living room. I really need to spend more time with them. Too many dolls have been in the same clothes for *years* while I focused on the next shopping trip, the next doll, the next whatever.

Time for me to change more than site providers ! 

Can't wait 'til the Tripod monkey business is over - and I am soooo close !

Current Mood : Eyestrained.

Current Image Notes : Ya can't be surrounded by images from your past and not get a bit nostalgic for a few of 'em...

Well, all the original blog photos are gone from the blog itself. I still have some 'photo not found' icons to ditch from back when I had to store the image on a photo album and post then link to the blog. Those things are a major pain to get rid of, so I'll delete them later. You know what's annoying ? Even if the image was already on Somewhere That's Green, I couldn't remote link it to appear on the blog as well. Nope. If I wanted the same image on the site and on the blog, I had to put it in two directories, and the blog one was saved in a third. And guess who's paying for all three chunks of space ? Plus, I've recently discovered that, if you posted 'ElphieBlouse.jpg' and decided it needed to be resized or something and deleted it, then posted 'ElphieBlouse2.jpg', so as not to confuse the image uploader, it'd save both. It never deleted the first one from disk space, just what the blog displayed. I'm not really surprised, it's actually to be expected, but no wonder you'd run out of space so quickly on the 'free' version.

On the original blog, I had to start a photo album - an option only available for paying members - save the image there, grab the URL and cut/paste it via the html editor. No remote linking at all, not even to other places you were paying for, like a website. It's stuff like that - and kludgy Tripod work-arounds, posting the same image numerous times and paying to store the image each time - that made me start looking around a couple weeks ago. Now I'm kinda glad we're broke, so I'm not payin' another ridiculous year of paying too much for too little space.

Today's efforts finished gutting the original blog as far down as it can be gutted and still exist. Disk space now rests at 42mb. Not bad, considering this whole business started at 153mb ! Still gotta get the combined site and original blog down to under 20mb, so tonight's your last night - if you really, really liked anything at all on Somewhere, go get it tonight, because I turn my blade on it tomorrow morning, about 8am Central time. And I don't stop until it's at 19.9mb. The earliest I can tell Tripod not to bill me, the less likely they are to do so anyway. Still, once I revert it to 'free' with Tripod and tell PayPal to cancel payments, that should do it. I'd love it if I could do that sometime tomorrow...

Beloved Hubby asked, after seeing me devote nearly all my available time to this little project, what I was gonna do when it was over. Shoot, I got a ton of photos to put up on Flickr, dresses to make and sell on Etsy, and some much-needed naps to take !

But right now, I have too many neglected dishes to catch up on. (sigh)

See ? I still have dolls that never had 'Monster High' embossed on their boxes ! (grin)

Current Mood : Dazed from deletions.

So far, I like Blogger ! It's been super-easy to use, and fun. Thanks for coming along !

Realized today that I made it through another month without buying any embroidery designs ! That's three months in a row, a full quarter of the year. Not too bad. I'm lucky that the one set I'd consider buying is too expensive, and nothing else has interested me in some time. And there's the whole 'no money' thing. Sometimes being broke is a great freedom. For one thing, we won't fall for any get-rich-quick schemes. We're too poor to get rich in any fashion !

It may sound petty, but since I'm not buying, I'm unsubscribing from a bunch of the embroidery design newsletters. I hardly ever read them, and feel guilty taking the freebies when I already have so much - tons of designs I'll never use. Yet my frugal (i.e., cheap and petty) nature still has me harvesting points for future use at the SiCK site, even though I got the two singles I wanted last month. At least it's not extravagant- it takes about 130 points to buy a single design most of the time, and the usual methods only yield 5 points per day.

Ya'll are gonna laugh at me, but I redid my whole desk to accommodate Frankie's mirror bed. And I still couldn't squeeze it in anywhere ! So I ended up cleaning off a nearby plastic cabinet and setting up a little display there. At least I got some of those dusty, hard-to-clean places behind my monitor cleaned up ! And the cabinet needed attention, too.

I also deleted most of 2009's blog images - still no change on the all-important disk space, and I was beginning to worry a bit. So I wrote the Tripod Club Blog, a sort of user-helping-user place, and asked where the images are actually stored, since I didn't see them anywhere in File Manager or any of my site files. Turns out they're stored under some server I've never heard of - not Tripod, not Trellix, not even Webon. Experimentally dumped a few images I knew I'd already erased off the pages, and that did it. The disk space went down almost immediately. Whew ! There for a while, I was starting to mourn the original blog, since I didn't see a way of keeping it.

And, since I'm erasing the photos in the blog editor, that means there won't be ugly, annoying little 'image not found' icons all over the place. Since it doesn't take long to delete the image from disk space, I'm gonna keep on deleting the images via blog editor, a year a day, and then dump them off the disk.

Won't you be glad when all this is over, and I go back to going on and on about the 38 new Monster High dolls being released next month ? Or soon, how the wonderful and cheap dresses I have up on Etsy aren't selling ? (grin) One way or the other, it'll be over and done with by the 10th, so it won't be much longer now ! Believe me, I'll be glad to call this finished, too.

Thought you might like to see Baby Crissy, since I talked so much about her yesterday. I love this little outfit. It came with cute little shorts to go over a diaper - her packaging proclaimed that she could wear real 9mos. baby clothes - brilliant marketing, I think ! -  but I've found clothes that fit her were marked anywhere from Newborn to 12mos. Guess babies are bigger now ! I used to have dozens of cute second-hand outfits for her, but I scaled it down when we moved. Her arm/body structure really requires a fully-open back, so it was easy to ditch the ones that were difficult to get on her. 

Baby clothes, especially shoes, are so inexpensive on the yard sale circuit that I've never made her anything but a simple nightgown - and the print was bright enough to keep an entire post-Thanksgiving feast family awake. Kinda wonder what GoodWill thought of it when they opened the donation bag. 

I'm ready for bed, too !

Current Mood : Slightly dazed, but I've nearly worked my way through the images of 2008 !

I've been testing and playing with Blogger so much, I forgot to tell ya'll - when a photo's a bit small on the entry, like today's, mouse over it. It'll be clickable if you wanna see it larger, but still small and cute if you don't. I noticed back in the original blog's early days, I mostly used small photos, and that was OK. They were big enough to see whatever I was yammering on and on about, and a larger one was usually on the site already. Kinda the same thing here. And I like not having huge photos on the blog. But if you want bigger, you can have it. It's the best of both !

You can also feed the fish ! Several sites I've seen have these, so I'm happy to have my own 'tank'. If you mouse over the tank, the fish will follow your cursor - just like real koi will follow a hand over their pond. I think they're all hoping to be fed ! Click on the tank, and small yellow pellets of chow will appear, and they sure love it !

And I forgot to list the link to the whole photo story of Frankie's new bed. ARrgh. See what mundane repetitive work does to my head ? I forget everything ! It's over here - http://flic.kr/s/aHsjuCzooA  .

Speaking of forgotten, I passed a pleasant hour today, brushing Baby Crissy's hair, cleaning some dust and the odd spot from her arms, and changing her clothes. I know she's been in that particular baby dress for over a year now, and it was dusty and dirty. She looks so pretty again ! I also straightened out Princess Dorrie and Prince Hubby - they've fallen over several times, and their hair had become messy. Since I was over there, I also brushed up My Size Barbie Gracie and Debbie, my brunette AG Battat clone. It felt so nice to spend time with them that I'm renewing my ambition to spend at least an hour a week with dolls who don't have monster attributes. Although a few minutes several times a week is preferable.

It's a nice break from all that repetitive photo deleting - it's really draggin' me down. About ten minutes in, I forget what I'm doing and have to repeat some efforts. What's worrying is that, when I check on my current useage, far as disk space, it remains exactly the same. I don't know if they only update sporadically or if all this effort is for nothing, and I'm gonna have to ditch the original blog wholesale. Gonna do all I can to avoid it, but like Michelle said, sometimes it's good to start fresh.

And it's always easier to do that when you have friends. 

A new beginning...and a new bed !

Current Mood : A bit nervous and worried.

Sorry. First new entry, and I'm already late. Don't even have an excuse, other than Beloved Hubby was home, and we spent the day together, and suddenly, it was 1am, and I was too tired to mess with anything but sleep. Told you guys I was lazy !

Beloved had Airsoft this morning, and Dearest Son was with his grandparents'. I had all morning to get soooo much done - on whatever I chose ! I could sew like a maniac monkey, or edit down the blog and get it done and ready, since target shuttering date is 06 May. So...what did I do ?

Pretty much not a darn thing. I just...couldn't make myself go in to either location. Yesterday was so tedious, I couldn't push m'self into doing it again, and my eyes already felt strained, no way was I sewing anything. So, I took today off. Didn't think about selling stuff - although one of my auctions finally has a bid ! - or sewing stuff or deleting stuff. I watched Penn & Teller Bulls#it! episodes on YouTube and Wii Netflix, then watched an episode of MST3K on Netflix.

I'd about convinced m'self to get up and do something when Beloved came back home. It'd begun to rain, and ordinarily, that wouldn't stop these Airsoft warriors ! But it was also rather cold, and while rain or cold won't stop the weapons, the combination sometimes will. So we had a late lunch together, and did a bit of shopping !

And there went the rest of my day. Not the shopping, of course - we're still broke and only went to one place, to pick up something Beloved needed for work. Still, it was Mal-Wart, so you know I was over by the Monster High display, just looking things over. Ours has TONS of Dawn of the Dance, the first three dolls, and some Gloom Beach. Of the original release, only a couple Frankies and DracuLauras remain.

Rumor has it that there'll be a big release on the 13th - yup, it's a Friday ! - so stuff will probably begin to appear soon. Not sure what, but I got to see something new to me - Frankie's mirror bed ! All the MH furniture so far does double-duty - Frankie's bed has a mirror on the underside, DLaura's coffin has a jewelry box on top, Lagoona's not-yet-released hydration station makes a neat night-light. But I'd only seen the bed and coffin online, never in stores. Our Mal-Wart had one Frankie bed...

And I got an early Mother's Day gift ! Wheeee ! Spent the rest of the day taking pictures, and I posted the whole photostory on Flickr, where I'm a Pro member now. Yeah, it drained my PayPal account, so now I *really* have to make sure I don't pony up for another month of Tripod website/blog, but that's ongoing, and I'm not gonna worry about it right now. I'm really enjoying remote linking images here !

It's kind of funny. Seeing all these old photos - as I'm deleting them, unfortunately - takes me back. Even though it was just a couple years ago, it's like it was last week and a century past. I can hardly remember having a Lab, but there it is, with a jam-packed closet and ugly blue walls. So much has happened, and there's so much changing.

Thanks for coming along. I really appreciate it.