I usually start my newsletters with the picture of a wonderful doll, but I just loved this picture.  Jim and I got back Sunday after a terrific road trip from Albuquerque to Reno.  The scenery really was therapy!  I found myself truly relaxed and focused on rock formations and desert plant life.  I even saw some critters.

The busy Spring show schedule is behind us and we are looking forward to having a quieter Summer, mostly at home.  After having a drug allergic reaction to statins recently, I have been noticing an increase in what looks to be food allergies as well.  So this Summer we are going to spend more time in the garden growing our own food to see if that makes a difference.  That’s me – volunteering to be a science experiment! Read More→

Today I have been thinking about Jim on his mission trip to Belize and how much joy he will have near the healing, soothing waves of the ocean.   I found it interesting to learn that 70% of the earth is covered with oceans that have an average depth of 12,400 ft. Light can only about 300 ft. so most of the ocean is in perpetual darkness which would explain why only about 5% has been explored.  I’m thinking we probably have better maps of Mars. Thinking about it, I got a true sense of my smallness in the complexity of this life that we live.  I’ll call it a health dose of insignificance.

So, what does this have to do with doll & teddy bear shows?   I’m not exactly sure, but it did satisfy my love of trivia.  So here we are with Spring trying ever so hard to get here.  And it will, just not today.  I’m thinking we should turn our thoughts away from the quirky weather and towards the Crossroads show schedule that promises a forecast of warm and sunny dolly days! Read More→

OK, confession time.  I’m a collector.  I love beauty, and dolls fall into the ‘beauty’ category along with my garden and my home.  Teddy bears make me smile, so they belong in the ‘beauty’ column as well.  Guess I had better stop there, ‘cause this newsletter could get long.  I remember a friend telling her husband, “I collect dolls;  it’s what I do”.  Hmmm… wonder what would happen if I told Jim that.

I produce shows so that I can be near dolls and teddy bears and the first shows of 2014 have been amazing – hard work to be sure but fun. And about the shows, WOW is all I can say.  The vendors have been a national and international group that pretty much blew my socks off.  I saw teddy bear and critter artists, as well as a great group of antique doll, toys and antique bear folks mixed in.  The visuals have been amazing, the creativity was leading edge stuff, prices reasonable, and the crowds were having too much fun to describe. Read More→

  Here we are beginning a New Year and I feel the introspective tug that arrives each year at this time.  2013 was crazy busy and I am glad to put it in the rear view mirror.  My time was overly consumed by stuff and I became too consumed by time – most of it rushing by me in fits of anxiety over what I perceived as needing to get done (right now).  2014 is on the horizon like turning to a fresh page in a journal.  Instead of writing resolutions that I will break next week, today I will write about a word that will be my personal mission for 2014.  The word is GRATEFUL.  Grateful is a happy face word.  The word can be as big as my relationships with family or the people that I work work with, or as small as thinking about the heat that came on this morning in very chilly weather.  This is not a ‘stick your head in the sand’ word, it is a reminder that even in the darkest hours, a tiny light flickers – I’ll focus on that. Read More→