Monday, May 19, 2025

Going to the Dolls....

By the time you read this, we're probably already on the road to La Pine State Park, which has become a favorite, because of the access to their great hiking trails and the river, which has a calm eddy at one location, great for the dogs who like to swim. I plan to get some knitting done, both on my The Love of Spiders shawl and the smaller Cables and Herringbones doll sweater, which is almost done. Pam has picked out her buttons already.


Here's a closeup of the buttons she chose. Nothing flashy, but still elegant.



The layout for the new book is done. I plan to re-read it when we get back from camping at the end of the week. I've found that a little time allows me to read my writing as if it were someone else's, so errors jump out at me. The following step is to hand it over to my proofreaders. I can thank this little guy for helping me remember how to use Microsoft Word. I only use it once a year, and it's like starting to learn it all over again each time.

🙄



If you read my post about our camping trip on the coast, you may remember that Charlie accidentally turned on the power to the water heater when it was empty. That burned out the heating element, although the water heater still worked on propane. We will be paying for electricity in La Pine, so we might as well use it, so we had an RV repairman come to the house and change the element in the water heater. He said it was easy to do on our R-Pod. He showed Charlie how to do it. The repair and the house call were quite a bit less than the quote, because he didn't know how difficult it was going to be until he did it. We tested it, and it's working, so we'll have hot water without using propane. 



Sunday we went to a concert by the Central Oregon Symphony. In the lobby was this cute dollhouse, which was going to be auctioned off to raise money for the Symphony.



It comes fully furnished. I would love to bid on it, but we have no place to put it, we already have the bear house and I'm sure I'll get outbidded anyway. Some child should own it and play with it anyway.



We heard Mozart's Concerto for Clarinet in A Major. The soloist, J. Lawrie Bloom, was amazing! He has been a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and has soloed with them and many other orchestras. We were lucky to get to hear him! I have this concerto in my iTunes library, and I was tempted to hum along, at least in some places, but I restrained myself.



The other piece we heard was Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 4 in F Minor. I had heard it before, but was not really that familiar with it. It was beautiful and exhilarating in some place, even loud.


Knowing the pups would be left alone while we were at the concert, I took them for a walk along the trail to Bear Creek Rd. and back. We managed to walk every day during the week, although the weather wasn't as pleasant as the week before. We mostly stuck to the trail, but on Friday, when I was walking the dogs by myself, we left the trail and went through the woods. I didn't let them off leash, because there's occasionally some disgusting trash they somehow find fascinating, even delicious.




Charlie decided he wanted to know what the white flowers were that were growing on the slope beneath one of the houses on the trail. He thinks that they, like the yellow ones I photographed a couple of weeks ago, would be nice on our slope in the backyard. I identified it online as Iberis sempervirens, or Evergreen Candytuft.



Saturday, Daphne did a daddy-daughter dance recital with David, our son-in-law.



One interesting note: I have been getting emails from a variety of people who all claim to work for SEO Services, Inc. They claim to have looked at my "website" and to have some suggestions for what they could do to improve it and get more traffic for my "business." No option to "unsubscribe" was given. Every time I opened my email, there was at least one, sometimes four, all worded slightly differently and from different names and emails. I contacted the company that went by that name, gave them a list of names and emails, and learned that none of those people worked there. There might be another SEO Services, Inc. in the country, but I was sick of having to delete all these emails, so I made up a mailing list with all the email addresses. The next one I received was forwarded to all of them. Then I hit "reply" to the email and cc'd all of them with it. It has been three days, and I haven't heard from anyone yet. If not, I'm prepared to give them another dose. See how they like it!


Some time this week was spent getting ready for our trip: cooking, laundry, packing and list-making. I'm prepared to do some serious hiking, knitting and relaxing!


In other news, our Social Security automatic deposits showed up in our credit union accounts, although later in the morning than expected. I'm just happy the Social Security people are still functioning and hope it lasts. Our income tax refund arrived, but by snail mail. We are padding our savings accounts while we can, just in case. Bless the people who work in both divisions of our government!

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry or Spoutible if you need information.


If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for More Classic Tales Retold or Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart". Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil, Mariah, Classic Tales RetoldOur Favorite Verses or More Classic Tales Retold, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.



Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still working on The Love of Spiders shawl by Melanie Berg and my Cables and Herringbones Cardigan for dolls.

What's on my iPhone: Still listening to Secrets and Lies by Selena Montgomery using the Chirp app.

What's on my sewing machine: Still waiting to do some repairs.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: 
n this week's story from Billy and Pauly have to stay after school because they broke one of the school's rules. Here's Staying After School.


What's my tip of the week: I often use honey in place of sugar in recipes and olive oil in place of butter. When I have to measure, say, a half cup of each (or 1/4C oil and 3/4C honey, I pour the right amount of oil into the measuring cup first, then the honey to the line that's right for the two added together, such as 1/2C oil to the 1/2 C line and then honey to the 1C line. When I pour them into my bowl, the honey doesn't stick to the measuring cup. 

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes. 


The stories in More Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Welcoming a StrangerThe RescueUnmaskedFuzzy Town––A Play and Sky Blue.

Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook. Poems included are Valentine's DayKeeping PetsBack to School, Victor the VultureThe Week Before Christmas, Insomnia and Veronika's Vocabulary Verses.

The stories in Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Little Green GreatcoatThe Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

The stories in Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Best BudsGetting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The stories in Mariah are Being LittleBesties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less, because the publisher gets a cut. Find my books at Barbara's Bookstore as well.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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