...2.4...a Friday Update...

...I think the little Madame Alexander Doll's hair has had ample drying time...

...I mean the glue I brushed around inside her head over the little nubs of hair has had ample drying time...I wasn't sure how long it would take to fully dry...but I can stick my fingers inside and it's definitely dry...like a plastic coating on the inside keeping everything nice and snug...

...so I got out some packing paper...because I'm going to cut her hair now...and I want to minimize the mess...

...and I centered the doll's head on the packing paper...and made a mark under her nose...

...and stretched the hair out on both sides...and made another mark...you can see the braids I used to keep everything tangle free during the months that I worked on it...

...so...I made a mark for the length that I wanted...

...on both sides...and taped everything down...

...this is the center mark where her nose was...

...I taped a string there...

...and then attached the marker to the string...and stretched it over to one of the side marks...

...checked that it was the same on both sides...

...and then drew an arc from one side to the other...

...so I'll put her head back in the center and stretch out the hair and cut it along that line...

...here she is...all lined up...

...and the cutting begins...

...I stretched out the first braid...

...unbraided it and brushed it out...

...fanned it out over the semi-circle...

...and cut it off...

...then I undid another braid...fanned it out and cut it off...

...and did the same with her other braids...

...it was a little bit awkward as the hair I harvested from the wig was a bit wavy...but I just combed it out over the arc and continued cutting...

...and then cleanup was super easy...as I just gathered up the paper...hair and all...

...and here she is post haircut...front...

...and back...I'm really happy with how her hair has turned out...and I'm really excited to get her put back together now...and dressed...it'll be fun...

...now...on the reading front...

...when I finish a book that I've penciled in...I'll write it in ink...haha...I've finished all of the James Heriot books now...and I really enjoyed them this second time around...I think I was about 13 or 14 when I read them the first time...definitely Jr. High...anywhooo...now I can focus more on the Read Harder Challenge...

...I've only penciled in a couple more options...for the book that's been on my To-Be-Read list the longest...I've got a couple of ones out there...Kerouac's On the Road...which I've been meaning to read since college...and for the poetry...The Canterbury Tales...I've read excerpts from it both in High School and in college...but never just sat down and read the entire book...

...I finished The Bookseller of Kabul...and somehow I thought that it just didn't really ring true...overall it left me with a sort of negative feeling...and I was not surprised to read about the controversy surrounding the book...the authorÅsne Seierstad was found guilty of defamation and “negligent journalistic practices and ordered to pay damages...it's listed as non-fiction...but I thought it was a pretty fictionalized and stereotypical...and again negative portrayal of these people ravaged by war...just so sad...all the destruction...and inhumanity...so very sad...

...so I just got this from the Library this week...and it's a sad story too...I know that going in...and again based on real characters...Shakespeare his wife and young son and daughter...it's going to be a quick read too...for some reason it's very easy to read...the author switches back and forth between two timelines...and often when that happens in a book...I'll read one entire timeline and then go back and read the other...I don't particularly like the switching thing...and of course...I've already read the ending...haha...

~Have a lovely day!

...2.3...What I Ate in a Day...as a Vegan...

...breakfast was some homemade bread toasted with Earth Balance...and a bowl of mixed cereal and oats...with almond milk...and the container of raisins is there...because...I like exactly one raisin per spoonful of cereal...haha...and it's easier to just apply it to the spoon before it goes into my mouth...the Man thinks this is hilarious...and I guess so do I...haha...

...later in the morning...I made a glass of chocolate milk...with Abuelita chocolate...I'm happy that Food Lion now carries Abuelita chocolate in these little octagon blocks...because that's the way I first had it...Daddy had been on one of his many trips to Juarez...and he brought some back...it's got just a hint of cinnamon...and my teenage self thought it was just so exotic and delicious...and it always makes me think of Daddy...

...I drank this glass as cold chocolate milk...but because it's a solid chocolate you have to heat it up with a little bit of hot almond milk to get it to melt...

...and Peta Latino lists Abuelita chocolate as vegan....

...I made a vegan vanilla pudding using up some of the vegan vanilla wafers we'd gotten from Mom's...

...and put that into the fridge to chill...we had it for...I guess you'd say a snack...between dinner and bedtime...

...and lunch was some leftover Camembert Quiche...spinach...a few leftover carrots...and some leftover sauteed peppers and onions...

...for a snack in the afternoon...I just microwaved one of those frozen packets of edamame...I love them...so salty and fun to eat...back when we used to go out to eat...before the pandemic...haha...I used to get them as an appetizer anytime we went out for Asian food...the Man never partakes...so I ate the whole bowl myself...

...and then for dinner...I made a pot of rice...steamed some broccoli and added some cheeze sauce...mixed up some vegan stuffing and baked a Chick-un patty...

...and then as previously mentioned we ate the banana pudding...it was so delicious...I really do love banana pudding...

...what did you eat yesterday?...

~Have a lovely day!

...2.2...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...so...it's February...and I really need to get my ducks in a row...so to speak...I've got a lot of projects 'In Progress'...with specific deadlines...i.e., Birthdays...Anniversaries...Easter...and some of them need to get to Japan before those events...

...so I've swapped out our calendar page...it stays on the fridge...and I use it to keep track of things and to mark off the days that I exercise...instead of the 100 days charts that I used to use...

...the 1st always looks a bit busy...because I always jot down the things that need to be completed once a month...
Jack's heartworm
Change airfilter
Clean Berkee
Clean Aquarium
...there are probably a lot of other things that need to be done monthly that are not on the list...haha...

...yesterday...the weather was really nice...about 42° F (about 5° C)...so we bundled up and took Jack-Jack up to the little park...

...and we had the park pretty much to ourselves...

...we saw a few ducks...

...and geese...

...it was a nice little walk in the sunshine...

...progress on the cross stitch continues...I'll finish that this week and get it into the mail to Japan...and the yellow thing-y is a birthday present for our littlest one...so that was started kind of out of order...as Easter will come first...

...so...I've started a little something for Easter in Japan...there will be two of these...obvi...

...and...just because I was thinking about them...I whipped up two little bookmarkers for my niece and nephew...I just cut out a printout of their name with an exacto knife...glued it to a contrasting paper...and covered (kind-of laminated) it with some packing tape...punched a hole and added a ribbon...they turned out super cute...and they're already in the mail...

...ok...now for something I can actually show you...haha...

...remember when I took my hand-me-down white jacket that Mom gave me up to Mom's and I got some unknown substance on it...

...well...I thought it was time to do something about it...or harvest the zipper - wink - and throw it in the rag bin...so not knowing what the substance is...I first tried removing it with mineral spirits... as it seems to have some substance to it...like dried paint or varnish...Mom and I had already tried oxy-clean and bleach at her house...

...that had no effect...absolutely no effect...so I've had good luck using WD-40 to remove oily stains...so I thought I'd give that a try...and again...nada...

...so...I finally decided to just paint over it with white paint...

...using a small paintbrush...I tried to just cover the spot...but you can see that the paint is not the exact shade of white that the jacket is...

...so I tried dabbing a little of the paint off with a paper towel...

...well...there's that 'fix'...and it's pretty much a fail...I mean...it's probably ok for say...riding my bike or something...haha...

...but whatever those spots are...they're there to stay...

...I'm still deciding if I want to spend any more time on this project...haha...

...what's in your workbasket?...

~Have a lovely day!

...2.1...Tuesdays with Julia...

...we made a delicious Vegan Quiche au Camembert...to use up the leftover Vegan Camembert from last weeks biscuits...

...remember back in August...when we put up all that corn...well...we're thankful now that we did that...as we got some of it out of the freezer...and it's so good and sweet and summery...

...this quiche is delicious...and all of the particulars are over at The Vegan Version...

~Have a lovely day!