Buttoned Up

The buttons were a day late due to the weather, but I'm happy with them, and they're on the Kultainen käki sweater now, which means I can wear it.

The pattern was for a pullover, but I find I wear cardigans more, so I knitted it with a steek in the front. I like how it fits, although I didn't choose my turtleneck color very well to go with it. I'm happy with how the colorwork turned out.

I had to move the motifs over. Otherwise the front opening would have gone right through the design. I needed seven buttons, and they came five to a package, so I had to buy two packages, giving me three extra. I decided to fasten one of the extras to the inside of the cardigan, so if I lose a button, it will be handy. 

This is the second time I've ordered buttons from Button Bin Etsy, and I've been pleased with them. Their buttons are lovely, and reasonably priced, even taking shipping into account. These are natural olive wood. I'm also very impressed with the yarn, Kelbourne Woolens "Camper", which came from Starlight Knitting Society in Portland. The yarn really made the colorwork look good, even before blocking. I think the color of the buttons goes well with the Autumn Heather (the camel color). The green is Moss Heather. The name "Kultainen käki" means "Golden cuckoo," which appears in the Finnish epic poem "Kalevala." The pattern is from the book Knitted Kalevala by Jenna Kostet, which is full of patterns inspired by "Kalevala."

The rest of Clue #1 for the Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery Knit Along came out on Wednesday. I had finished it by Saturday evening. The next one comes out this coming Wednesday.

Attaching the beads can be a challenge, but this time was more so than the last time I did it. The holes in the beads are not uniformly large enough to use my Boye size 11 crochet hook for each bead. Also, my vision and manual dexterity have diminished, which doesn't help. Last time I used a needle and thread, but someone on Ravelry suggested dental floss for this project, so I gave it a go. I found using a needle threader helped. I pull the floss through the stitch with the crochet hook, put the threader into the bead, then pull the floss through so the bead is on both ends of the floss. Then I pull the floss until the stitch comes through the bead. I had the beads in a little bowl, but they skittered all over the place, and it was hard to grab them with the needle threader, so I cut a piece of fleece and put it in a little tray. That went better. 

When I finished the first clue, I picked the EmPower People Kerchief back up. (It has been hibernating.) It was easy work to finish it. It's soft and warm. You wear it like a cowl.

When I wasn't knitting or sewing on buttons or working on my knitting projects, I took some time to work on Zachary's quilt. I had already cut the strips needed. I decided to use my Featherweight, since I wouldn't need to do any zigzag stitching, and I had stuff piled in the cabinet for my Eversewn Sparrow 15.

With rotary cutting and strip piecing, this quilt is quick and easy. Here's what my blocks look like.

By Friday I had all 20 blocks finished and sewn together in the diagonal setting, which is my favorite.

I got the borders on Saturday (a one-inch inner border out of the red fabric) and Sunday (the four-inch paw-print used in the blocks). Now to buy the backing fabric. I'm hoping the ice has melted enough that I can go to the store.

I should be able to to deliver it to the quilter sometime this week.

Peter, who was here to help out after Charlie's cataract surgery, left to go home on Monday and arrived home safely late in the afternoon. We had an appointment with the ophthalmologist late Monday morning. (Everything looks good for the recovery of Charlie's eye after surgery.) We knew some bad weather was moving in, so we decided to take the pups for a walk in the woods while it was still "nice" out. 

It was good we did, because the anticipated bad weather moved in on Wednesday, causing a disruption in trash and recycling, as well as delayed mail.

The pups had an appointment with the groomer on Tuesday. Sandy's color gets lighter every time he gets a haircut. He's a very pretty color now, but he has lost a lot of hair.

Besides the snow and then rain, we had extremely low temperatures followed by thawing and then freezing again. The robins, who had been flitting from juniper tree to juniper tree, loading up on berries, suddenly found themselves with a salad bar. The rain had knocked lots of berries to the ground. The birds spent a good part of Friday in our back yard, feasting.

The birds were mostly undisturbed, because Dusty and Sandy didn't have much interest in spending time outdoors. Instead, they either snuggled with a pillow on the couch or tried to dig a hole in the carpeting. Figuring they must be cold, I pulled out some old dog sweaters for them.

The sweaters are a little snug, because they have been washed and dried so many times. I haven't had any complaints, though.

Our next-door neighbors gifted us each with a book as a thank-you for looking after their plants and collecting their mail while they were gone for a few weeks before Christmas. Since I had my dog-related accident and was recuperating the whole time they were gone, I really didn't do any of it, but I appreciate the gift. Charlie's book was about geology, and he seems to be very interested in it. Mine was a cookbook, Cook's Illustrated Vegetables Illustrated. 

The last shopping trip before his eye surgery, Charlie came home with regular brown lentils instead of red lentils, so I went looking for a good recipe that calls for brown ones. I found "Moroccan Lentil and Swiss Chard Soup" on page 432.

I had to make some substitutions, because we were missing some ingredients and aren't going anywhere. I found passable substitutions. For 1 T grated fresh ginger, I used 1 teaspoon powdered ginger. For 3/4 C minced fresh cilantro, I used 2 t dried. I cooked dried chickpeas instead of using canned. I used cooked rice instead of orzo (same quantity) and Chinese cabbage instead of chard. All the other ingredients were as-written, except I didn't find that it needed added salt, because there is salt in the canned tomatoes. I think it turned out great (although I still don't have much sense of smell yet). I baked a small loaf of Dutch oven bread to have with it. Yum!

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 "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 or 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: Finished the Kultainen käki cardigan. Still working on the Happier Days Shawl, the Mystery KAL for the Rose City Yarn Crawl 2024. Clue #2 is due out on Wednesday. Just started a sweater for Zachary's birthday doll. In my queue is the Milk Thistle Shawl, for which I have the kit.

What's on my loom: Still folded up and waiting.

What's on my sewing machine: The binding strip for Zachary's quilt.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In Trouble at School came out in 2019. In it, Billy got into a fight protecting Mariah from bullies. The dolls discuss why dolls become bullies and how to deal with them without getting into a fight.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished listening to The House at the End of the World

by Dean Koontz. For something entirely different, now listening to Ginny by M. C. Beaton. Still reading Harry Potter und die Kammer des Schreckens by Joanne K. Rowling (in German), the physical book, which I received for my birthday.

What's in my wine glass: Dominic Hentall Puglia (Sangiovese/Negroamaro 2020). Not bad, but I should point out that my sense of smell still hasn't returned, so I may be missing something.)

What's my tip of the week: For placement of buttons, if I haven't made buttonholes on the other side, as I do when the button/buttonhole bands are knit along with the body, I like to use stitch markers (the kind that open and close like a safety pin) to test the location of the buttons. Depending on the size of the buttonholes, they can be clipped on and used as buttons to verify that the location is right. Then, when I'm happy with the placement of the buttons, I sew each button on and remove the stitch marker as I go.

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

Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook is available from the BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. Poems included are Valentine's Day, Keeping Pets, Back to School, Victor the Vulture, The Week Before Christmas, Insomnia and Veronika's Vocabulary Verses.

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

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, 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. 

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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Play and Work

Life is exciting, when you're a puppy or when you live with a puppy. There are lots of puzzles to work out. We wondered, for instance, why Sandy was letting a bunch of dog toys sleep on the dog bed and then sleeping on the floor instead of on the bed.

All of those toys had been out in the yard. He takes things out there, then often brings them back. Sometimes something from the yard comes in with him, like that stick on the floor, or a pine or fir cone. (Those items get dismantled, which makes a mess, but he doesn't swallow them.)

I found this arrangement a few nights ago. Art? Message? The interesting thing is, these are meant for dogs to chew, and we've had dogs who liked them. However, Sandy won't chew them. I've decided that he found them in the toy bin and thought they didn't belong. When I ignored them lying randomly on the floor, he made this arrangement, so I would notice.

We've had bad air a good part of the week, which makes me grateful for our air conditioning. Our last summer before we had it put in was the first year since we moved here that the smoke was bad in August. Now it's every year. We have occasional breaks of a few hours or a day when the wind carries the smoke from our annual wildfires away from Bend. When that happens, we get outside with the dogs, unless it's too hot. We visited the dog park twice this week and managed several walks on the trail. Sometimes there were other dogs at the dog park. If not, our pups still enjoy the smells of other dogs, and they always enjoy the walk from our house to the park and back.

The RPod is going to see some more use soon. I hopewe can get a break in the smoke. We've been getting Our Pad ready to go. We signed up all the warranties that required a registration, and we've been looking at the instruction manuals and YouTube videos to learn how our various pieces of equipment work. For instance, we learned that we can leave the solar connected to the battery when we aren't using the trailer, and the solar will keep the battery charged. When the battery is full, the solar will stop charging until the battery runs down a bit. 

Based on our first trip in Our Pad, we decided we needed a few things we didn't already have, so we did some shopping. 

The items are (clockwise from 3:00) wheel covers, level indicators, a baking sheet, pizza pan and cork puller, over-the-door hooks, an unbreakable mirror (in which you can see our dining-room ceiling) and a toilet paper holder.

The wheel covers came in a set of four, but our trailer only has two wheels in use, so we have spares.

The one on the bottom is for the spare, which we bought separately. It's the same as the one we had on our old fifth wheel.

The level indicators will help us level the trailer in a campsite. One is right to left (or port to starboard) and the other one is front to back (bow to stern). We had these on our old fifth wheel, too. They were very useful, but they went with the old rig when it left us.

Now for the pans. We had to wait until we actually had our new trailer to find out how big the oven was and what would fit. The oven is a High Pointe convection/microwave designed for small trailers. The small cookie sheet I used in the old fifth wheel doesn't fit. Our pizza pans don't fit, either, although in that case, the pans are too big for the size pizza I usually make anyway. This one should be perfect. We will only be able to bake the pizza on convection mode because we want it to bake, not just heat up, and the metal pizza pan should work fine. 

The cork puller is similar to one we usually take with us but sometimes forget to bring, and then we have to use one that doesn't work as well, so since we were shopping, we added it.

We needed the over-the-door hooks because the only hooks for anything are on the outside of the bathroom door. Towels take up a lot of space, and we need them on the inside anyway. 

We also needed to replace the mirror you can see hanging on one of the existing hooks. I bought it at Freddy's in Florence, so we would have it to use while we were camping. It has to be stowed away carefully, because it could break, and it could damage the door anyway, hanging on a chain. It was a temporary fix, but now we will have an unbreakable mirror designed for camping, that comes with its own stick-on hook. We hadn't thought about a mirror until we were actually living in the new trailer. Our old rig had mirrors in three of the upper cabinet doors in the main room, a big one on the wall, one in the door of the bathroom cabinet and another one on the back of the TV shelf in the bedroom. We don't need that many. I guess they thought it made the main room look bigger and brought in more light.

Now for the toilet paper holder. I don't think it will work well as a dispenser until some of the toilet paper has been used and the roll is smaller, because it's tight, and only one sheet pulls off, leaving the end of the paper completely inside the holder. We think it will work, though. What we needed was something that could stay in the bathroom all the time except when someone is taking a shower. This will hang on one of those over-the-door hooks until the shower is needed, and if the person taking the shower forgets to move it, the case will protect it. That's the plan.

In case you're wondering why the toilet paper needs to be moved when someone takes a shower...this is what's called a "wet bath."

We're hoping to go camping next week for a few days. It will give us a chance to figure out what else we need.

My brother-in-law, Jim, installed his piece of the Berlin Wall in his front garden. We have pieces, too, but very small ones. He and his wife were living in Berlin when the Wall came down on November 9, 1989. They were there and managed to come away this this nice souvenir. He has placed it in the front yard of his home in Florence.

I managed to get a few rounds of the Kultainen käki knitted this week. The cuckoo's legs are starting to show up, although you can't really tell unless you know what you're looking at. The pattern repeats are between the stitch markers. The two cuckoos are on each side of the center, facing each other. The tails and feet started a round before the legs. (That section of vertical stripes is where the steek will go.)

Here's what the finished sweater will look like, except that I'm making a cardigan, and I've moved the motifs to each side, so the design doesn't get broken up. (Photo from the book, Knitted Kalevala, where you can find the pattern.)

I also finished sewing together the inside part of the quilt top. Here's what it looks like. 

The inner border, 3" wide black faux batik, is cut out. All I have to do is sew it on, then on to the outer border. I'm hoping to be done with the top before we go camping next week.

There will be an all-new story out on Friday. I'm hoping to keep to a once-a-month schedule for new stories, and reposting the old stories, one at a time, in between. It gives me a chance to edit them with the perspective of time, although I find I'm only making slight changes.

The proof copy of the latest book should come this week, probably tomorrow. When it does, I'll reveal the cover and what it's about. I'm hoping we don't need to make any changes, but there is still time to get them done, if needed, and still have the book out in time for holiday shopping.

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 "Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. 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 and Mariah, 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 the Kultainen käki cardigan and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating).

What's on my loom: I didn't make any progress on the placemats.

What's on my sewing machine: Still quilts. Veronika has been helping. Here she's pinning two rows of blocks together. 

What's in The Doll's Storybook: What Are Dolls For, Anyway? The five girls discuss what their purpose in life is. They talk about kindness, looking after others and what children learn from having and playing with dolls.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Die Unendliche Geschichte by Michael Ende. Still enjoying it.

What's in my wine glass: Giardino Pinot Grigio delle Venezie 2022. OK, but not my favorite. Maybe it was the food pairing that didn't work. We had it with Thai stir-fry vegetables and tuna.

What's my tip of the week: Olive oil is good for a lot of things. One of the things I use it for is making salad dressing or sautéing vegetables, but when I use my pressure cooker I have another use for it as well. I dab a little olive oil on my finger and apply a thin layer of oil on the gasket of the pressure cooker. This keeps the water from leaking out during cooking, and maybe has extended the life of the gasket. (Other kinds of cooking oil will also work.) I don't know if this will work on an instant pot, as I don't have one.

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

Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is available from BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. The stories are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, 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. 

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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Growing Up

Spring is here, as evidenced by the beautiful flowers! We have thousands of these lovelies in our yard!

We may have to use them to make wine. Or "coffee." Or salad! Some people consider dandelions to be weeds, because they grow so fast.

Something else that grows fast. These were our pups on April 8th. Sandy was somewhere between 7-8 lbs. (We didn't get him weighed the day this was taken, but he was 8 lbs a week later.)

This is what we had on Thursday. We visited the vet the next day, and he was 11.22 lbs.

That was a very important visit to the vet! Sandy got the final dose of the vaccine in the series that should make him immune to Parvo (after a week or so for it to take effect). That means we will soon be able to go out on the trails with him. It means he can take a puppy training class. It means we won't have to take our shoes off at the door and sanitize the pups' paws anymore! We have an appointment to see the vet again when Sandy is six months old to evaluate the location of his potential dangly bits that will need to be surgically removed. It would be nice if our vet didn't have to dig around in there to find them. Our other males have been neutered at five months with no problem, but this line of dogs likes to hold them back much longer. 

We haven't had any more "accidents" since we put up Dusty's old wire puppy play yard in front of the stairs. Sandy got the message quickly that it was against our cultural traditions to potty in the living area of the house, but he didn't seem to realize that the upstairs hall was living area. This is working well.

One thing I really like about this pup is that he prefers to leave his poopies around the very edges of the backyard, instead of out in the middle. I pick them up if I'm with him, because it's easier to find them. While I have a bag open, I look around for any others I might have missed. It's getting harder to see them, now that the grass is finally growing again.

Sandy has become quite comfortable with letting himself out through the dog door to potty, to play or just to check things out. Sometimes he takes a a toy or a friend with him. His friends need help getting through the door.

Snowball has been through the dog door (with help, of course), but it's a struggle. Snowball is pretty big. It's easy to help him out of the playpen, though.

Sandy hasn't figured out how to get Dusty through the dog door. That problem falls to me to solve. I have to either hold the flap up for him or open the door. They have a lot of fun playing in the backyard, once they're both out there. I prefer they not play with sticks, so I've been removing them and substituting a rope tug, but Sandy doesn't seem to be eating the vegetation, other than a little grass. When he chews things, he spits out any pieces that come loose, so I don't worry too much. 

Dusty seems to have let up a bit on his obsession with having a ball thrown. He's happy to chase the ball or a toy if we throw it, but he really seems to enjoy Sandy's games of tug, chase, roll around on the ground and try to rip the other dog's throat out, etc.

When the play moves indoors, it sometimes changes the feel of our decor. This is a little more casual than we intended. (The bits of mud from the backyard on the quilt are a nice touch.)

He has a bit of a rebel in him. He took a chew toy out to the backyard the other day. I went, got it away from him and brought it inside, leaving my backyard shoes by the back door. I left the chew toy in the playpen and came back to find this.

It's good this one is here, but I needed two. He had the other one outside. I got the message. He thinks I took something of his, so he took something of mine. You don't get something back by chasing him, though. That's how his game is played. You have to pretend you don't care and start playing with something else. Dusty is very useful at helping with this. When Sandy took the dog comb out into the backyard, Dusty and I played alternately with the Frisbee and a toy, throwing and chasing, and totally ignoring Sandy. Soon Sandy dropped the comb and went after the toy. I snatched up the comb but kept up the game, so maybe Sandy doesn't catch on to my ploy.

Sandy is beginning to behave a bit like an older dog. He spends less time in the playpen now. I don't have to enforce "quiet time" after breakfast anymore. The other day, he sat for nearly a half hour, just watching the birds.

He has begun to "mark" our route when we go for walks. When I come home from being out, he wants to jump on me, of course, and bite me, but I praise Dusty for "good down" and "good no bites" and ignore Sandy. When he starts behaving the way I want, I praise him, too. Sometimes he challenges Dusty for the right to have a toy or a chewy, or Dusty gets after him for doing something he isn't supposed to do. They have an altercation. If it gets too serious (in my opinion), I tell them to knock it off. They do, usually within a few seconds. Sometimes they make up by kissing each other.

Sandy is getting very shaggy. Dusty needs a haircut, too. That's happening today. Sandy won't look like this anymore.

One of my online friends likes to color. She made this for me in honor of Sandy.

It has been a busy week, but Sandy doesn't need constant watching anymore. I was finally able to get more done on my Talvinen sweater. I decided to make the buttonhole and button bands before cutting the steek and use crochet reinforcement instead of sewing on the sewing machine, because this yarn is fairly sticky/clingy.

After I cut the steek down the middle, I had to trim the facing next to the crocheted row. If I had made the steek only five stitches wide, I could have saved this step.

I used the main color yarn to sew down the facings on the inside with an overcast stitch. The blue vertical line is the only part of the original steek left exposed.

I used lace-blocking wires to help with the blocking. My wooly board is really useful when the sweater has a drop shoulder, making it T-shaped, but this one has a round yoke, so that doesn't work as well. It took less than two days to dry.

I used stitch markers to decide where to put the buttons when they come, today or tomorrow, I hope. 

These are the buttons I picked out, the 15mm ones. They are made of abalone shell.

Daphne's birthday was Sunday. She has had a lot of dancing and music in the past few days. I can't believe how much she has grown up!

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 "Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. 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 and Mariah, 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: Ready to sew the buttons on Talvinen cardigan. On Saturday I swatched for the Kultainen käki sweater from Knitted Kalevala, which I ordered during the Rose City Yarn Crawl. And of course the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating).

What's on my loom: Dust, but I still plan to make some placemats.

What's on my sewing machine: Still ready for back of T-shirt quilt and quilts for Soren and Johan.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: A Picnic by the Lake. Charlotte and Jolena make some sandwiches and then go to an imaginary lake for a picnic. We don't see Jolena eat her sandwich. Find out why not when you read the story.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to White Silence by Jodi Taylor. Didn't get very far. Crazy week.

What's in my wine glass: Colossal Reserva 2018 from Lisbon. We've had this one before. It's very nice.

What's my tip of the week: I've discovered that I only need to use the sourdough starter from one jar (of my two), so I've been putting the newly fed jar behind the one already in the fridge, so when I need to use the starter again, I can just grab the one in the front.

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

Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is available from BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. The stories are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, 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. 

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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