RAGGEDY ANN AND ANDY

Through the years I have made these dolls, I made them for my daughters, a friend and I made some one year for some kids that needed a comfort doll. I have enjoyed doing them and have worn out at least two sets of patterns . In case you don't know about them they are the rag dolls with yarn hair, She has a pinafore and he has a sailor type hat and overalls. These dolls have been around for probably 75 years.

When I worked for IRS one of our appeals offices, a gentle giant of a man , was known to mumble about things ending with ' I'm going to rip their face off". As I said he was gentle giant who stood about 6' 8". he was always willing to lend a hand at anything from moving furniture in the office or help others work in the yard, move furniture, whatever. When he accepted a transfer from Sacramento to San Francisco, I wanted to give him something that he could always remember me by. So I made him a face ripping doll. You start with an ordinary Raggedy Andy doll, Then you make an extra face. Sew strips of velcro on the head and on the back of the extra face. Be sure to add eyes, nose, and mouth to the extra face. Presto a face ripping doll. My grandson Joe had a friend who didn't beleive there was such a thing. So I recently made him one.

Joe also works as a therapist for autistic children. One of his clients needs to learn to do buttons,he asked me about how to get one or where to get one. Now I know there are learning dolls, that have buttons to button, zippers to zip, shoe strings to tie. But from what I have observed is that clothes now days have zippers for them to learn to use, most shoes don't have strings to tie.
So out came the pattern and I have created another in the line of fun dolls for kids and adults.
I think Joe will post them on the face book for me .If not I'll try to do it. I made pockets that can really hold things, tabs that button over the pockets, belts that button and snaps that can be snapped. All of this to encourage small muscles to work better.I had a lot of fun doing this Hope you will enjoy seeing them The clothes come off too

TIME OUT

My friends;
When was the last time you took some time off just to smell the roses, the lilacs, the new mown grass and view the world thru the eyes of a small child and actually played like you were a small child. If you are like me it has been a while, because it is too cold, too hot, too much to do . I will look silly. It bothers my allergies, Oh! My! the list goes on and on.

Today was my day to do just that I had reached the end of my rope, couldn't and didn't want to hang on any longer. What difference would it make if I didn't do any of those things. Would any one really notice . Then my adopted great grandson, who is five called and asked me to pick him up from school today. He called last night. I said yes and since I never break a promise especially to a child, I went to pick him up. He had the class mascot with him, This is a monkey named Bananas. He must go everywhere with the student.So he came home with us, went to McDonald's and played on the play structure, he sat on a chair as Shane and I made a lake and creek/river in the side yard. We added water to the lake and creek/river. I explained to my friend that cornmeal will kill ants, which we both dislike. So we made a cornmeal trap by an ant hill. Much less caustic than bug sprays. You cannot buy little amounts of cornmeal and since I had some in the frig, just setting there waiting for another occasion for cornmeal. Besides it makes a cool looking road. We were just two kids having fun. how wonderful it felt. Later my other friend , Hunter , my other adopted great grandson came over. We drew pictures with magic markers, ate pretzels, talked about the sand box. Ate crushed ice with a spoons.

Thank God for kids, they always seem to bring out the best in me.

OFFICAL FOOD TESTOR

In my branch of the family, I am the official testor of all new types of food, snack, main menues, new drinks, juice, soda, tea. I have been the go to person for the grandkids. In fact my kids have often used me to test or encourage their children's eating habits. This is a very honorable job and one I have taken great care to ensure that I never lead them astray. Of course when we were throwing newspapers during the nine years that I did this and they visited we sometimes had some strange things for breakfast. but be that it as it was. We always went to the store to check out new main menu things.

But when Shea posted the picture of the sweet potato and how the boys loved them, I had to think if we had ever tried them. I quickly did a survey among the grandkids and they informed me we had not done them as fries , I felt duty bound to try them. So I bought some frozen ones and have now tried them. they are delicious. I would definitely give them a two thumbs up .

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