On End of Year Blog Maintenance:

Another year comes to an end. Some people are making resolutions. Others are out to ‘party‘.

I do maintenance on my blog first. (Not that I do the other two things anymore. Well not much.)

But still we all have to do it. Even if it is just changing your copyright date to protect your property, its gotta’ be done.

So just a reminder here for the coming year. Have fun, don’t sweat the small stuff, hang in there when times get tough, learn to laugh at yourself and your mistakes because everybody makes them, and be your Gothy self on the inside no matter what the outside is doing. And keep up with your blog maintenance.

Happy New Year Everybody!

On Ideas for New Years Eve or Most Any Occasion:

(Old picture but you get the idea.)

There is a Wonderful, Generous, Gothy, Gentleman by the name of Ray O’Bannon. Without whom some of my better parties and my latest New Years Eve celebrations would have been a flop.

On his website of ravensblight.com he has Gothy scary stories, pictures, music, movies, video games, and paper toys all for free and of his own making.

And you can print out the paper toys and build them for yourself.

Need a skull for a center piece? A skeleton for the door? Or some coffin boxes to put favors in? Some monsters for placemarkers at the table? A mask? A haunted house? A small cemetery complete with hearse, coffin and attendant? Board games? Greetings cards? Magic tricks?

There is ever so much to work with there at Ravensblight toys.

Yes, I should have told you about it before Halloween. Or Creepsmas. But I didn’t think.

I use his Hidden Cemetery playset and his Hearse Playsets together along with a few other pieces to kill off and bury the old year on New Years Eve each year.

I used to go out to a real cemetery and bury a jar with a list of the significant things in the last year and a piece of paper with the old year clearly printed on it with a knife through the center on New Years Eve.

But times being what they are and having guests on some years I’ve changes my method of burying the old year along with our yearly build your own pizza party on New Years Eve.

So whether you spend the afternoon making pizza dough and cutting up toppings for yourself and/or your guests. Or you just make of few play things to Goth up the place. Enjoy the toys and the ringing in of the New Year.

* I have no affiliation with Ray O’Bannon or Ravensblight. I just happen to like what he does for others and Goth, and think that more people should know about it. Lady Euphoria Deathwatch

On A Wigged Out Blast from the Past:

So today I was cruising on the internet looking for vintage advertising to get some pictures to paste on the Out House’s inner door and a wall or two. Yes, people did that back then.

And I found this Ad link to Vintage plastic play wigs for girls.

(I don’t steal other peoples things so you’ll just have to see them for yourself.)

They are three semi soft plastic molded hairstyles just like the ones that my little sister had back in the day. My friends and I were too old for this stuff but we got to being silly and played with them one day pretending to be singers.

Goofy stuff that young people do, I know. But we were all there at one time or another.

What a rush to be a silly teen pretending to be a 60’s rock star again, while looking at those silly kids toy wigs.

I’m old and I know it, but I still like to have a bit of silly fun every once in a while. I wonder what ever happened to those wigs. I could use one to have a granny Lady Gaga moment.

On A Good Day for a One Seater:

So I’m trying to ease back into making stuff for the dolls and doll houses again.

Yes, I should have made copies of all of the stuff in the envelope folder. Hind sight and all that.

I needed to make something that I had no references to in the missing envelope file. So I decided to make an Out House! (Not done, only a primer coat of paint so far.)

But I hope you find this just right considering the day. It is the first day of the last year of the Mayan Calendar. If you believe it, the end of the world is coming in one year from this date.

So we are in the crapper or out house as it may.



















The door is not hinged on yet. So the doll is holding it up.
















The catalog TP I spent the day making from reprint old catalogs; copied, resized, printed front and back, cut, folded, pasted together and hung.

Yes, I know it still needs a seat. But for now we will just make believe it is hanging on the wall behind the wood stove keeping warm for later.

It’s the end of the world as we know it and I’m trying to feel fine! Thanks REM.

On Comments:

To the many comments of late:

I know that most of you have been trying to help me, and I do appreciate that, I really do. But there are some people who have made fun of me or used my desperation to promote themselves or something they are selling.

I know most of you are only sharing a joke or cartoon to make me laugh, or a helpful email from a friend.

Still I will not and never do open any attachments unless I know what they are and who they are originally from. I’ve been burned by viruses from well meaning emails in the past and have learned my lesson.

I love most all of your comments and appreciate all the support and encouragement you have given me in the past. Even the corrections have been enlightening and therefore helpful so I loved them too.

I don’t have so many friends that I don’t appreciate any long distant, cyber friendship. And in some ways the cyber friendships have been better and more frank.

So please do keep commenting. But don’t expect me to open your attachments or post the trash that sometimes shows up in my in box.

Oh, I’m glad that you took the time to send it. But I just don’t have the money to keep on having my computer cleaned out from the few viruses that get through. I just can’t take the chance any longer.

So I whole heartedly thank you for your comments, both the ones I’ve gotten and the ones to come. I’ll keep on being grateful to all of them. Because even the bad ones mean I’m not alone.

Have a happy holiday season whether you partake or not. And thank you all very much for just being there.

On In Need of Intervention:

I need a support group for people who have miss laid things and can’t find them again, but can’t let it go.

Just before Thanksgiving, back in mid November to be more accurate, I took an important to me thing and moved it from one place to another ‘better place’ to keep it safe, but easy to get at, while cleaning for the up coming holidays.

This large, multi pocket, brown envelope that I have been keeping all the patterns I have been making for my dolls and all their clothing, plus the measurements for a lot of their other stuff, is no where to be found.

I franticly search day after day. I methodically look as I go about moving my belongings from one place to another in search for it. My husband is also looking.

I repeat this moving and looking daily, getting little else done.

This is 17 years of my work and math that I can no longer do since the chemo messed with my brain.

Without it the project stops dead. The books never see the light of day.
Dolls sit without faces or hair, naked and wanting. Windows and doors never get put into walls. They all collect dust until I die and my husband throws them out into the trash to make more room to actually live in our house again.

I have turned into a crazy woman who thinks of little else. It is just not here any longer. No matter how many times I look over, under, around, and in the things I own. The universe sucked it into a black hole away from me to make me crazy and it is working.

When I’m not looking I’m either depressed about it or franticly searching my brain for another place for it to be in even though I have looked everywhere to the point of moving all my furniture in my search.

I’ve found things I haven’t seen in years. Tossed things I don’t want any longer to make more room for the searching.

And the saddest thing is that I can’t, I’m not ready, or just won’t let it go. It is eating the soul right out of me. And I don’t turn my back on it.

I need help. Its not worth my life but for the past weeks it has been nothing but my life.

I’ve tried to walk away but find myself looking again and again in the places that I know for a fact that it is not. I’ve looked here, there and everywhere multiple times already. It is gone and I can’t let go.

If you can, please help me move on.

On Happy News:

I spent the last hour making a mega batch of cookie dough for the freezer.

I used up the first batch and then some more. Visitors the past few days came early this season and I am glad that I was cookie ready.

So it looks like I’m mostly done with holiday visitors this year already, unless some come back or new ones arrive.

Now the news! I am to be a grandma times two in late Spring. They are waiting to find out what the baby is until the birth like with the first one. So far all is well and the morning sickness is subsiding.

I have a lot of knitting to get into. New stuff for the new kiddie. Knit toys for the most part. I knitted a hollow log house with some knitted fairy bears (Bears with leaf wings on their backs.), the bears were made in autumn leave colors. The Grand-kiddie loves them and they are part of his good night ritual.

Grand-kiddie is growing in leaps and bounds. Walking and talking now that he is just over a year old. I wish I lived close enough to see him daily. The computer helps us see each other in real time. But it is not the same as hugs and kisses close.

They are a mixed culture family and do a generic mix of holidays. I’m the kind of grandma that has gifts when I see him. I’m not the gifts in the mail kind. But that may change if they move farther away. A possibility in this economy. One must go where the job is.

But for now I’ll take all I can get and hope for the best. Today is a very good, good news day.

On Getting with the Season:

I’m almost caught up with the blogs I read. Two weeks worth. And a lot of info.

I’ve made a batch of cookie dough and froze it in a log for easy cutting, ready incase company comes over with little advanced notice over the holidays. Pop it in the oven and we’re good to go in only 15 minutes.

I’ve pulled it out of the freezer, cut the log like dough, placed them on the cookie sheet; all while the oven warmed up. And fresh baked cookies were being pulled from the oven as the company came up the driveway.

It helps to make the house smell great for the arrivals too.

Not that we do the holiday thing. But friend and family do and make us part of the round of visits.

I do decorate but in winter theme. Snowflakes and snowmen, icicles and sleigh bells.

The kids (mostly the girls) all (even the adults) like to look at the mini world of the doll houses, dolls and their things. And if there is snow outside there is sledding down the hill past the oak grove.

No gift giving but plenty of love and enjoying each other. No pressure to find the right gift or spending money that I don’t have on something they don’t really want. No gifts that I don’t need or want to find room for.

It was hard in the beginning to make others understand our way of thinking. But now it isn’t as hard. And with the added economy issues others are having a harder time buying extras now and are happy to not have to add us to the gift list.

Winter comes with its holidays even if we don’t indulge in all of them. We all have a good time visiting in spite of our spiritual differences. I have no feelings of ill will to those that follow different life rules or holidays. To each their own, I say.

Happy holidays everyone!

The Gall of it All

What a year! It seemed like the harder I tried to blog the more the universe got in my way.

We had a very good Thanksgiving. Mom and her friend had a good time. The food turned out very good. We all ate too much.

This led to a gall bladder attack for me.

Not to worry, my gall bladder is still with me. Though I wish it wasn’t. Back to living on beets and apples again for a while.

I wasn’t the only one to have a gall bladder attack this year, but my younger sister’s was so bad she had emergency surgery and missed her daughters birthday party. My sister is now doing much better.

My attacks are bad, but not bad enough to put me on the emergency surgery list. This means I never do get rid of the offending body part.

Money and a heart problem are in the way of just having the thing yanked out at my bidding.

So life at Deathwatch Manor goes on much the same. Cooking, cleaning, knitting, crafting, playing games and watching DVD‘s.

I did get most of the way through a coloring book while stuck in bed far away from my computer. (I didn’t feel much like knitting while sick.)

There is just something comforting about the smell of crayons while sick.

I may need to get a new coloring book for the grandkid before he comes again, but it was very nice to have it while I was sick.

All in all, life is good. Its just those galling bad parts that get in the way sometimes. I hope next year is better for all of us.