When I was little, very little, my mom always seemed to be making something whether it was sewing or cooking. Up until we spent the night at a friend's house and her mother served us Campbell's soup, we didn't know that soup even came in cans. In retrospect, I can't tell if that was spoiling us by not feeding us the overly-salted, substance-less liquid (though that didn't stop us from loving it) or not, but even now I haven't found a match for my mom's home made chicken soup.
As a young girl I really liked playing with dolls. Less so than I liked going outside with my neighbor's grand daughter and making mud pies, but I liked dolls all the same. Here is a picture of two of my oldest and most favorite dolls.
The one on the left is my American Girl of Today doll, and she never really had a proper name. Towards the end of my doll phase the name Molly seemed to stick, so that's what I ended up using. The Pleasant Company, which was bought out by Mattel several years ago, was originally founded by a woman who found her grandmother's dolls in her attic once upon a time, and decided that she wanted little girls to have dolls that they could pass on, in time, to their daughters to play with. So was born the American Girl dolls. It used to be that there were American Girls of Today, which you could get with different hair and eye colors (I think Molly was A12, light brown hair and brown eyes) so that they looked like you. The style of them has changed now, since Mattel bought the company, but I think that they're still pretty cute. Also, there are historical girl dolls, modeled after girls from different time periods. Each girl had a series of five or six books that featured them doing courageous things and overcoming hardships and all kinds of fun adventures. As a girl, I loved them. I still do. When I first learned of them, there were only Felicity from colonial America circa 1774; Kirsten and her family of 1854 pioneers; Addy, a slave girl who escapes to freedom with some of her family during the civil war; Samantha, a priveledged young girl in the very early 1900's; and Molly, a girl grownig up with her father on the front lines of world war two. There's a few more now, including a native american girl in the early 1700s, a new mexican girl in the early 1800s, a girl growing up during the great depression, and a girl from the 1970's. Well, that's enough on the company and the dolls themselves, let me tell you about my Molly.
My grandmother got all three of us these dolls for Christmas several years ago. I was five at the time, or there abouts, so these dolls are almost 14 years old. I loved Molly dearly when I got her and despite a new head (I gave her a hair cut) and a replaced leg (long story) she's survived all my love with only two trips to the doll hospital. Hopefully she'll survive long enough for me to give to my daughter, if I have one. If not, I'll trim her hair and tell my son that's what action figures used to look like.
The doll on the right is Madeleine, a hand made treasure from my mom. All three of us have dolls like these, each with a different dress. Madeleine has been with me even longer than Molly; it feels like I've had her all my life. She's dirty, worn, ragged, and her yarn hair is starting to unravel and fall out, but I love her still, probably even more than I did when I was little because I have all the memories of playing with her still to look back on.
Well, that's enough nostalgia for now. My mom might start getting teary-eyed if she reads it.
In knitting, I've turned the heel of the HP socks and I'm a good inch into the foot. So enjoy some pictures to make up for all the words I just threw at you.
"The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking."
~Christopher Morley
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