My Beautiful Bargain Skipper

   I'm still here, and the leg is on the mend. Whether it's because of the massive, (and extremely painful)  pop it did as I was climbing into bed the other night, or because I'm not climbing into bed the same way any more, or a combination of both, I don't know. To explain a little bit, I have an old four poster bed, and with the box springs, (These days they call it a box, because there are no springs in it.), and modern thick mattress, the bed is about waist high for me. (When I was a kid this bed seemed  like it was on a whole other plane.) I have trouble climbing in. So I had taken to climbing up on the side rail and jumping up on the bed, but to do that, I put my foot sideways on the rail, and then lifted all my weight on my sideways leg. That's a lot of weight. I knew it hurt after my leg started acting up, but the theory that that was what was causing the leg pain was something that was only a vague thought until the 'pop'. Anyway, I have stopped climbing in that way, and the leg seems to have gotten so much better so quickly. My new method of climbing into bed involves flopping up as far as I can and bracing one foot against the bed post and shoving. (I'm waiting for the post to snap.) It reminds me of the scene in "Only Murders in the Building" where Steve Martin has been poisoned, and is trying to get himself down to the lobby of the hotel, and ends up sort of upside down in the elevator, trying to push the buttons with his feet.

  But what you are here for is dolls. Today we're looking at one I got at the recent doll show I went to with my sister. I haven't added much to my Skipper collection for a while, but I did get Skipper's Sunny Suity play suit for a dollar at the show, and the girl we're looking at today, for $5!

  I should have taken before and after pictures, but as usual, I was so keen to get her rehabilitated, that I only took 'afters'. But when I got her, her hair was all bunched up on the sides of her head, and her bangs were really frizzy, which is a common problem with pre-mod era Skippers.

She turned out quite nice though. You can't really tell from these pictures, but she has a great shade of bright orange hair.

  She has a bit of an eyebrow rub on one eyebrow, but I could fix that if I wanted to bother. She still looks good.

Her hair is so bright orange that I thought at first she must be a color magic Skipper.

She isn't though, or she would have a brunette painted scalp, and not a red one. (If you don't know what I mean, click 'color magic Skipper' in the sidebar.) Oh well. She still looks great, especially for $5!

I have had a sinus headache for three days, so I am going to take a nap, before Emma picks me up to go to Detroit. I'm Emma's default concert going buddy, and tonight I get to tag along to see Florence and the Machine. I'll see you soon with another doll I got at the show.

Betsy From the Doll Show

   Let's try this again. You don't know this, but I tried to do this post before. I set all the pictures to loading, and then, because it takes ages, I went about doing some other stuff. When I came back the pictures were all loaded, so I 'selected' all the pictures and clicked to load them onto the post. Of course, what I didn't realize  was that while I  was gone the laptop had gone offline. So the pictures didn't show up. It said 'update failed'. I signed back on, but the pictures still weren't showing up, so I assumed I would have to do everything all over again. At that point it was late, my leg hurt, and I was tired, so I gave up for the night. I kept putting off doing it again because it frustrated me. When I did come back to it, I found that the pictures had loaded after all, and were here all the time!

  So I'm doing this today, instead of being out on Fun Day with Ken, for two reasons. One: last night climbing into our tall bed, I popped something in my bad leg. It was excruciating, and it hurts REALLY badly today. I'm staying off it as much as possible, not least of all because moving it hurts so much. The other reason we're home today is that we have finally been planning our trip to England, but Ken discovered a couple of days ago that he can't find his passport. The last time we used our passports was five years ago, when we went to Canada for our anniversary. (We went to Canada on our first date. That's a story and a half, which you might have read in THIS POST.) When we came back I wanted to put our passports in the vanity, where I keep our birth certificates, social security cards, and my passport. I made the mistake of saying, "Let me put yours in here too so it doesn't get lost." Ken was very indignant. How dare I insinuate that he couldn't keep track of his own passport! He wouldn't lose it! So he refused, and found his own storage place for his passport. Five years later we are trying to plan this trip, and he wanted to get the names exactly right on the tickets, because the last time his sister booked the flight and got something slightly different in the names, and they weren't going to let us fly. She had to pay extra to change the name. (She was treating us to the trip.) So he wants my passport, which I got out of the vanity a couple of weeks ago and laid up in the bedroom with some other things I don't want to forget to take. He then proceeded to try to find his passport, and couldn't.  He's torn the house apart looking, and can't find it. I have been vindicated. So now he won't book the trip because he's afraid of getting the name wrong and not being able to use the tickets. I told him, it's almost certainly his full name, and just book it and find his passport later. It hasn't left the house. We'll see.+

  Anyway, today what we're really here for is to look at this doll I got at the doll show recently. Remember I said I went to two doll shows in the space of a week. I went to one on a Sunday, by myself, and the second one I went to the next Saturday, with my sister. We went to the same show last year and it was all really expensive fashion dolls, and just basically things I either couldn't afford or didn't want. So I wasn't crazy about going, but my sister had enjoyed it and wanted to go again.  So we went. But this time I found quite a few things I wanted and could even afford. I even won a door prize! Again! This time it was $25 to spend at the show. Before entering the main sales room, where I placed my entry in the box to win the door prize,  there were a bunch of tables out in the hallway to shop. One table belonged to a guy who knew nothing about dolls, but who said he had 'bought a collection from my buddy". From his table I got this girl.

She's a pre-teen Betsy McCall. You may have seen my other one HERE. This one has a bit of an eye problem, and a haircut. You'll notice in the first few pictures that her one eye  is not sitting in the socket properly. I managed to get it fixed though, and now it stays in place. You can see that in the rest of the pictures.

This is pre-eye fix. She also needs the edges of her eyelashes touched up, but that's no big deal.

That eye was twisted in the socket, and the metal socket was showing at the bottom.

This looks really bad. I kept shoving the metal part down, and it looked fine, but came right back up in no time.

We're getting there!

And fixed!

The eyes on these dolls look a little alien anyway. I had been shoving it so much it started to go sideways. Then I shoved it another direction and it popped into place. I wish I could do that with my leg!

   This one has darker hair than the other one I got. It's a very pretty auburn colour. 

  I did a little part reweaving on her, and her hair is a bit choppy at the back, but it doesn't show much.

  When I got her she was wearing a dress belonging to the Kellogg's Calico Lassie, or  Elly May Clampett doll. I had this dress from some other stuff I bought and it has been waiting for someone to wear it. I think it suits her colouring pretty well. It matches her lips.

It was a windy day at the park!

Ken and I have been going through that park often, to see if we can see any animals. The day I took these pictures we saw some deer, some vultures, and a heron.

She almost looks photoshopped into this picture, but she's not.

This one kind of looks photoshopped too.

  When I went into the woods to take these pictures, so I could get the water in the background, (There's a pond or part of the reservoir back there somewhere.), I found some hickory nuts. Ken helped me and we picked up a bag full. Well, half a bag.

  Then I started taking her picture on this rock, and found that I had lost one of her shoes. (They aren't actually her shoes. I think they're Ginny shoes. They were straight pinned onto her feet!) They don't fit well, but they matched her dress.

I had to back track to where I entered the woods, and I found them. 

  She's not very posable, just neck, shoulders and hips, but I like her.

Especially now that I got her eye fixed.

Next time I'll show you what else I got and tell you what I did with my door prize money. See you then.