My Friend Becky's new identities

My Friend Becky restored as Annie

Now here is a creation that unites two of the great passions of my childhood...dolls and Annie, the musical! I was a great singer as a child and had big dreams of performing on Broadway one day. I played the Annie record shown at least five times a day and sang along with all my heart. The neighbors who walked by our house would come to tell my mom how sorry they were for her, as she had to listen to about 8 hours of Annie a day played loudly enough to be discernible from the street! I can still remember the thrill of being taken to Dayton to watch the musical in person; it was my first musical! The only thing I loved more than Annie and my dolls was my giant barn full of Breyer horses. The barn is visible in many of my pictures, including the Little House and Wizard of Oz posts. My grandfather built it for me and I played with it (sometimes with my dolls inside) every day.

I've done a couple of these Becky as Annie dolls and they are probably my most popular. I get lots of requests for Becky in different guises as well. What's her allure? Is it the red hair? The dimples? I just ordered and received a new Becky. She's dirty, but that's easy enough to fix. This time I'm thinking Madeline, per a suggestion from one of my customers! I got a new Madeline book at the thrift store during my run this week, so I think I'll do a doll and book lot.

I'm way behind this week; in fact, except for the Dorothy doll I haven't done anything. Those of you following this blog know that's due in part to my new Fitbit, which tells me how long I am sedentary each day. But guess who walked the most steps of any Fitbit user last week? That's right, ME, even though I didn't even get mine until Tuesday afternoon. It confirms what I've long thought, which is that I hardly ever get to sit down for more than a minute or two at a time. Jerry, my husband, was laughing at my graph, which shows a lot of up-down, up-down movement all day. Each day I walk like 6 or 7 miles, but the pace is something like a 154 minute mile!

Anyway, now another hitch in my make-one-thing-a day plan: we are relisting our house for sale. We had the house on the market for a year before we adopted our son and were unable to sell. It's a really nice house, but the market is just SO bad. I am for just waiting another 3 years or so, but it really is cramped. Our oldest son is living in my office, which doesn't have a closet, so we're hanging his clothes on the back of the door. Our bedroom is a colossal mess, since that's where I'm working. Last week, we went to my sister's new house for a birthday party and Jerry came home and announced we are going to try to sell!

So, yesterday I began the clean-up to meet with the Realtor. First, I cleaned the kitchen and swept the floor. While I did that the baby went into the living room and threw blocks and pillows all over the floor. I went to clean that up and the baby got a bunch of food out of the fridge and scattered it around. Once I cleaned up the living room I cleaned the birdcage. The baby went into the dining room, where we keep school supplies in a drawer of our sideboard, and threw erasers and folders all over, as well as cut and tore papers all over the floor. So, I cleaned that up and started making lunch. The baby came in the kitchen and hit me with the tv remote, which means he wants to watch Curious George. So I went in the kitchen and turned on the tv. While I was in there the baby pulled his bowl of cereal and bananas, which he had not eaten, off the counter. It flew across the floor, scattering wet granola and banana all over the kitchen, sunroom, and living room (we have an open floor plan), so I was back to square one! All that cleaning, and the house is actually messier than yesterday! After dinner last night, despite all my cleaning, the baby pulled an old piece of toast out from under the couch and began nibbling on it. One of his charming habits is to hide food for later! So, it doesn't look good for the creative process! It's taking houses around here 2-3 years to sell. I don't know if I can take it!