Mystery in the Briarberry Woods

   I am still alive. I've been cleaning away soot and trying to get our things unpacked from moving back from Emma's. You accumulate a lot of things in a year, and especially if you are bringing things from before the year started. I had brought a lot of things to Emma's to clean up, or save from the unheated house, and also art supplies for the various things I made while I was there. 

  I feel I am never going to get done with this, and I am feeling daunted by it. I don't know where to start. I got this fortune in my cookie the other week.

I should be, but can I?! I kept it to inspire me, but I think I need more fortunes...

  We also took a couple of days off this week to celebrate Ken's birthday. One of the things he wanted to do for his birthday was go to a bin store, because he hadn't been to one for a long time. We had a few things we needed, including some of that plastic stuff to put on the bathroom window, since the window that came from Lowe's was supposed to be frosted, and wasn't. This might not be such a big problem, if the window wasn't IN the bathtub. Anyway, so that was on our list, along with dog poo bags for my sister, and squeezable treats for her cats. Also, I wanted wallpaper, because we'll have need for a lot of that. So those were all on my list, AND WE FOUND ALL OF THEM! What are the odds of that?!  Okay. The universe let me down a little bit, because the wallpaper was ugly, but it was there! 

Today we are  still getting snow, after a pretty full day of snow yesterday. But it's warm in here now, and we know our boys are not freezing. All three spend a lot of time with us. At night they fight and drive me crazy though.

  Anyway, as I was packing up Ivy's kid books I came across a lot of doll booklets or catalogs. She has some really old American Girl catalogs, a My Twinn catalog, and some booklets that came with dolls. If anybody is interested in seeing the My Twinn and American Girl catalogs, let me know. I can photograph the pages and do a post on those. Today I am showing you a Briarberry booklet. I could have done it as a Doll Book of the Month Club post, but it goes with all the other doll booklets I found in Ivy's room, so here we are.

  Does anybody remember Briarberry? Briarberry was a line from Fisher Price in the 1990's. The line included plush, jointed bears and other animals, old fashioned looking furniture, carded fashions,  and a tea party set, etc. I always thought the bears were cute, and the furniture was really nice. The clothes were nice quality. Some of the dresses and things were made of a heavy velvety velour, as were the cushions to the kitchen chairs. The bears were soft plush, with jointed heads, arms, and legs, and plastic faces with flocking. Through the years I've had, (mostly through second hand finds), the armoire, the canopy bed, the couch/bed, the table and chairs, the tea set, the stove and accessories, and a boatload of the bears of various sizes. I'm pretty sure I sold most of the stuff, but I know I still have a canopy bed in the box, and maybe an armoire, and I came cross some bears in our stuff just the other day. There are probably more somewhere. I don't think I've ever found any of the non bear animals in the wild. They came out later, and maybe they didn't make as many of them. There was a lamb and a bunny, and a dog and a cat.

  Ivy had a Briarberry storybook magazine in her stuff. I don't remember where it came from. I don't know if it was a promotional thing handed out somewhere, but Ivy didn't have any of the Briarberry stuff except a couple of the outfits I got on clearance that she used on baby dolls. So I don't know where she would have gotten it. Maybe it was an insert ion a magazine. Possibly it was an insert in Good Housekeeping or something, because Ken's stepmom used to get that. Anybody else have one of these?

  I'm going to start by showing you the back cover, because there's some information on it. For one thing, the baby bears and the Briarberry Friends, which were the non bear dolls, were introduced in December of 1999.

  There was a website.

  Now for the story. Here's the front cover.

The story is fully illustrated with photo scenes with the toys. 

There's that stove.

  The last page is a big two age spread, so the wording is shown smaller and harder to read. So I have shown it in full, and in individual pictures of the pages.

  The story manages to showcase all the dolls and some of the accessories. Of course, it also shows a bunch of things that weren't available.

  I hope everybody enjoyed this. I have a few more booklets to show you, of other dolls available about the same time as the Briarberries. We'll see those soon. Also, there's a doll show next weekend! I need the fun, but definitely not more dolls. I'll go anyway, and try to show you some dolls, but I promise I'll ask before I photograph them!

The Doll Book of the Month Club: The Bad Times of Irma Baumlein/Irma's Big Lie

   It's time I caught up a little bit here, and delivered last month's Doll Book of the Month Club entry. It's "The Bad Times of Irma Baumlein", also produced in a Scholastic version as "Irma's Big Lie". 

That's the version I have from when I was a kid. That's the version I read to my kids when they were little. For my refresh to my memory, since I was at Emma's, I used a second hand hardback copy I rescued from the books from the fire. Luckily it didn't suffer any damage, and is in really nice shape.

  Whichever title you want to use, I always liked this book. It's by Carol Ryrie Brink, who  I didn't even realize wrote the famous "Caddie Woodlawn", and another kid's book I read a couple of years ago, just because it looked like the kind of book I liked as a kid, "The Pink Motel". She published her first book in 1934. 'Irma' is one of the last books she wrote, published in 1972. 

The illustrations are by Trina Schart Hyman. Her work was used in a lot of kid's books when I was growing up, so her illustrations always give me a warm, familiar feeling. She illustrated about 150  children's books, and her art included black and white illustrations like the ones in 'Irma', as well as beautiful colour illustrations in editions of  "Snow White", "The Secret Garden", and  "A Christmas Carol".  

  "Irma's Big Lie" concerns a girl named Irma Baumlein. Irma has moved with her father, from her 'cozy' apartment in New York, to the huge Baumlein mansion in another town. 

Irma and her father, (Her mother is finishing painting a mural and is supposed to join them when she's finished.), now live with Irma's grouchy great uncle and deaf great aunt, as well as their two servants.

 Irma's father has come to help his uncle modernize the family department store, founded by Irma's grandfather. The Baumleins are big names in town, but Irma doesn't feel big. She feels lonely as the new kid in school, and in the big house, where her father doesn't have time to talk to her very much, as business and his uncle have been taking all his time.

  Irma makes a habit of trying to look disinterested. But one day, weeks after their move, one of the girls from school strikes up a conversation with Irma, and invites her to her house on the way home from school. She's  a very friendly girl, who explain she has a big family, with a baby, a dog, and a bunch of hamsters. After reeling off all that news she asks Irma, "What do you have?" She wasn't trying to brag, just explain her family. She very likely meant, did Irma have any siblings, or, a dog or cat. But Irma feels pressured to top her, and blurts out, "I have the biggest doll in the world.". Irma doesn't even like dolls, preferring chemistry sets. She has no idea why she said it, but she goes on with the pretense, explaining that the doll can wear her clothes, has hair the colour of ripe oranges, and eyes that are cerulean blue.

  After her lie, Irma feels terrible, and doesn't know why she said it. She wishes she could take it all back, but the lie spreads to all the kids at school. 

  Irma is asked to bring her doll for a fundraising exhibit at school. She can't let her class down, as the class who raises the most money wins a prize. Irma searches desperately for a doll that can pass for the biggest doll in the world. Her great aunt offers Irma her old doll, which is, she says, very large. Irma gets excited, but the dolls turns out to be old and somewhat big, but can no way pass for the biggest doll in the world, and definitely does not have hair the colour of ripe oranges or eyes that are cerulean blue. Irma takes her anyway, and bonds with her great aunt, who obviously loved her doll very much.

  Irma's father mentions that the new shipment of dolls is in at the store. Irma puts together all her money, including birthday money she's been saving, and would rather spend on a chemistry set, and goes off to her great uncle's store. Her search of the doll department is fruitless, but on her way out, Irma sees a mannequin that has been removed from the window, a mannequin the size of Irma, with hair the colour of ripe oranges and eyes that are cerulean blue...and she's standing right by the exit door. You can guess where this is going.

  Irma's experiences with the doll are funny and tense. Does she get it home undetected? Does she manage to get it to school undetected? What happens at the school exhibit? Does Irma's lie get exposed? I won't say. It's an enjoyable book though, with a satisfying, if unlikely ending.

  That's the book for January! I'll be back very soon with February's book, and maybe a doll or two.

  

I'm Back!

   Hi everybody! I'm back! Back to the blog, back to our house, back in spasm... Yes, my back is in spasm. That's why I didn't write this last night when we got our internet back. 

  You see, when we were still at Emma's, we lost internet when she was moving to their new house, (They have bought a house.), and she took the router to the new house. Ken hooked ours up, and he was able to get internet on his computer, but not mine, but only for about half an hour. Then it disappeared and he wasn't able to get it back again. I had my phone, but I couldn't get into my blog on it. So, for weeks now all I've had to communicate on, get emails, or watch anything, has been my phone. That tiny little screen. I don't type well on that tiny keyboard either. So even if I could have gotten into the blog, it likely would have been an unreadable mess, like the email I sent Raging Moon the other day. When we got back in the house a few days ago, Ken couldn't get the internet to work here either. But the Frontier person came yesterday and got it going. Halleluiah! 

    I got over my Covid a while back. Emma thought mine lingered on longer than normal. It was at least two weeks before I could do things without feeling sick and getting unusually tired. But I'm over it now.

  As far as getting into our house, that's been a story and a half too. We had the electricians here. They did some rewiring and set us old people up with a plug in for a washer and dryer in the kitchen, because we are too old for the basement stairs these days. They moved our electrical box, because it was in a bad spot and the previous guy had backed it in a damp basement with a piece of wood! They checked all our circuits, and told us which ones  were okay,  (which was, fortunately, most of them.), and which ones not to use until we get more rewiring done. We got the windows replaced that got knocked and burned out in the fire. Of course, the guys who put the windows in didn't rebuild the frames first, and installed windows into CHARCOAL. That's not going to last in the long run, is it?! Now I have to yell at Lowe's. We got the gas back on, since they had removed the meter while we weren't using any gas, (Why?!) So we got our het on...and the pipes that were apparently frozen and burst, thawed, and all...water broke loose. We were 'lucky' enough to have a water company valve right at our house, so even though we turned our water off, they didn't. So we had to get the plumber out to fix a bunch of leaks, and another plumber who cut holes in our wall and did nothing, and yet another plumber who cut a hole in our ceiling and fixed a couple of leaks. We have been keeping the repair people in business lately. And remember, our mortgage company hadn't paid our insurance, so this is all out of pocket. Yay.

  On the good side, we finally got our cat Arky out of the basement! He had been down there the past year. He wouldn't come up while we were here, wouldn't let anybody touch him. That meant leaving the basement door open, so when we got the heat back on, we were also heating the basement. I got him up to the top step for treats last week, and he took them from my fingers, but he wouldn't let me touch him. Then a few nights ago, he came all the way upstairs, (Not even the ground floor, but upstairs!), and he actually came to me and let me pet him. He started rubbing on me and purring. I got him in the bathroom and shut the door Then I managed to slip out and hobble downstairs and lock the basement door so he couldn't go back down. Then I let him out of the bathroom as quickly as possible so he didn't feel like I was being mean to him when he had finally consented to be petted. But he didn't hold a grudge, and has been cuddling with us ever since the second night or so. He got back in the groove pretty quickly. The three cats have been hanging with us most of the time.

  We have been carrying a lot of stuff, and moving from Emma's, with all those stairs. So, it's been a bit much, physically on both of us. My back finally called it quits yesterday, after a bunch of sweeping and bending over to dustpan it. It started with a bit of a catch, painful, but manageable. Then my back went crazy, so I took a shower before I got to the point where I couldn't. It's a good thing I did, because it only got worse. Our neighbours must have thought somebody was being murdered in here, because I screamed every time I moved. Any time I wanted to turn over in bed, I went to the bathroom too, because I figured if I was going through all that pain, I wasn't going to do it again when I had to go to the bathroom. (You thought I meant I peed myself, didn't you?) I also did a lot of sleeping, and I'm not sure why. And no, I don't have Covid again. I hope.

  So I'm back now. There's loads of work to do here. I scrubbed the bathtub walls and the tub, and cleaned the floor the other day so we could bathe. I still need to clear out the cupboard so we can keep our stuff in there again, and do the ceiling and walls, which are sooty. Up to now most of what I got done was clearing four years of college life and other stuff out of Ivy's room so we can live in here until I redo our room. Our room is blackened, and so is everything in it. At least it's starting to not smell as smokey. I still owe you a book for last month. I had one ready and everything, but no internet! Give me another day or two and I'll get it up. I'll be back soon.