Grace's Scone recipe

It is dawn in the Baggaraggs. It is a quiet moment in bed where Grace Tenderstitch thinks of the strange things that have come to pass. Her body aches, and she stretchs her legs into the cold spots of the bed. Prunella Fig-Pink is gone. Melted like the Wicked Witch into a puddle onto the floor. There is the question about what to do about the return of Peg-Leg the Pirate. Her crew has been scattered. She was captured in the melee and locked in an errant birdcage, suspended by a rusted hook in the library. No one heeded her calls for freedom, and Murray had already begun to grumble about the smell of a rat in the house.
It is deeply winter. Grace rises and makes a fire at the kitchen hearth. She feels her Father's memory and maybe his spirit as the fire is built, and comes to life. It is one of the things about the winter that she loves, the crackle of the fire and the smell of the wood burning. The life of the fire talked in spits and crackles. Grace did not reply. Her energy was low and she struggled to honor the slow season of winter, hating to hibernate, worried that it would not pass. It was a walk in the dim shadows of depression that always visited in winter. Grace did not like it, railed against it, instead of honoring its purpose.
She turned from the fire and began the process of making the scones while the residents of the Baggaraggs slept. Here is her recipe:
2 cups of flour
2teaspoons of baking powder
1 tablespoon of sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick of butter
2eggs, well beaten
1/2 cup of heavy cream
1 cup of dried cherries or cranberries or blueberries, or what ever the summer has left you.
Preheat the oven to 425
Butter a cookie sheet. Mix the dry ingredients together work in the butter with a pastry cutter or your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse meal.
add the eggs, and the cream. Stir it up and Knead  for a minute or two. Pat the dough into a round about 3/4 of an inch thick. Sprinkle with raw sugar and cut into wedges. bake on the cookie sheet about 15 minutes.

Bugs

For your Insect Pleasure, I present:

Rebecca Barbour.

Rebecca Barbour was my grandMother. I have named this first Izannah Walker Style (attempt) after her. I will not sell this doll. She is only a first attempt.

Here is my first effort at making an Izannah Walker doll. Coming along slowly.

I am of course wondering where Grace Tenderstitch has been. We have left her in the lurch. I like that word lurch, I wonder if there shouldn't be a tree called a Lurch. It would be shadowy and trembling with fine hairy boughs and shaded darkly green. Piled around its trunk would be a deep litter of old green hairs and a pathway to a door. But That is another story.
Let us begin again...
Prunella Fig-Pink lurched forward dragging Murray with her, his teeth deeply embedded in the droopy flesh of her buttock. Prunella screamed aloud in pain. I am not sure what she was saying exactly, but it sounded like "Ahhhhhh, Get off MEEEEE." Peg-Leg leaped. It was the leap of one who does not care about the outcome, blindly giving oneself to a single purpose, and brandishing her sword struck Prunella broadside across the cheek. Prunella collapsed forward, wrenching herself from Murray's tenacious grasp,knocking the glowing Jar from Grace's hands where it cracked open with a sickening crunch on the floor beside the nightstand.
What happened then is difficult to describe. Purple vapors enveloped Prunella as she crumbled on the Floor. "My Party, My Party " Prunella cried as she disappeared into the glowing purple pool of vapor. She seemed to be consumed by the glowing purple goo.
Peg-Leg managed to leap free of the dissolving Liquids.
There was a foul odor that filled the room, rather like rotten eggs.

Izanna Walker Workshop

I am excited to Take this Izanna Walker Workshop beginning the 18th of January. Always good to learn something new. It will challenge me because I am not a techincal doll maker. Something good for me to learn.

99 things I have done

1. Had three children
2. worked as an adolescent psych nurse for thirty two years and counting
3. Indoor sky dived
4. watched a butterfly hatch from a chrysallis
5. became a Master Gardener
6. pretended to be French and Scottish while out to lunch with my Daughter
7. swam with sting rays
8. helped deliver my grandchild
9. was thrown from several horses
10.did the Market Square show in Valley Forge with my sisters
11.write my own stories
12. lived in Japan
13. married at age 16
14. have made thousands of dolls
15. painted my own home
16. installed a sink faucet
17. performed cpr
18. seen a meteor shower
19. have made a half court hook shot
20. flown on a helicopter up the Rhine river 21. swam in the Mediterranean sea
22. rehabbed a pigeon
23. petted a cat in the Colliseum in Rome
24. had a child in Germany
25. driven a front end loader
26. have a website on Etsy
27. have a blog
28. have driven a car 110 MPH
29. gotten drunk
30. slept on a pool table for a whole night at Travis AFB
31. been to Acadia National Park
32. had a bear in my campsite
33. taken medication for depression
34. Became a Christian
35. wrote poetry
36. lived in Wakkanai Japan
37. had my appendix removed in Italy
39. visited a butterfly farm in St. Martin
40. have been knocked unconcious
41. been with a lover when he died
42. been awake through shoulder surgery and chatted with the surgeon
43. have owned a haunted house
44. cried myself to sleep
45. peed myself laughing
46. saved a child from drowning
47. dialed 911
48. grieved
49. dropped out of high school
50. got my GED
51. went to New College (for a while)
52. learned to mediate
53. teach relaxation breathing
54. Taught a doll class
55. had stitches in my head ( more than once)
56. learned to control my temper
57. learned to pray
58. learned to forgive
59. read Sartor Resartus
60. have been hit, kicked, punched, spit upon and thrown up on by angry children
70. skinny dipped
71. studied the Bible
72. married a good man
73. worked with sexual offenders
74. arranged flowers for a couple of weddings
75. zip lined
76. went to camp as an adult
77. tubed in the Smokeys
78. loved deeply
79. took a ferry to Nova Scotia
80. grown alot of things from seed
81. Made friends
82. Ate beignets at Cafe Du Monde
83. said I was sorry
84. made my own clothing
85. have been knocked to the ground by an electical shock
86. landed in Wake, Guam and Hawaii
87. been divorced twice
88. planted a garden
89. made Chocolate Mousse from Julia's Recipe
90. Set the oven on fire making Duck L'Orange
91. Dressed as Mary Poppins for Halloween
92. Sang in a choir
93. read scripture in Church
94. raised a baby bird
95. climbed alot of trees
96. been on my roof (with some regularity)
97. kept a marine tank
98. cooked alot of meals, made alot of soup, and baked alot of cookies
99. loved alot of people

The Waiting

This one waits with a patient look upon her face for her clothing and her story to be written. This is where her small journey has begun. She knows who she is, but is waiting for Robin to listen.

Where Love Lives

This is the House where Love Lives. It is worn, and has been occupied by many different families throughout the years. The one language that these walls understand is LOVE. For Valentines Day, soon on My Etsy.

Random Thoughts

I feel like there is a giant clog in the drain of my ability to express myself. There are so many stressors that are not expressed and get logded somewhere in the creative process, clogging up the works of free expression. This is supposed to be a time of Happiness and JOY and I am stuck in a quagmire of gluey depression. There I said it. I would encourage you to say it as well if it is happening to you. I think its the best and healthiest way to move past it and get the drain open again.
New years Resolutions?
I resolve to honor my feelings, and pay attention to my need to create. I will pay attention to those coping skills that help me feel good about myself.
I will make a business plan. I am not sure what that is or what that looks like but I think I want to figure it out.
I will have a garden. I will have a vivarium and raise caterpillars. I will learn all I can about BUGS and make them. Well, only God does this, but you know what I mean. I will pay attention to what is blocking me from being successful and try to work to remove those BLOCKS.
I will take Chances.
I will not make my happiness dependant upon others. I will take responsibilty for my own emotional well being.
I will make patterns of my dolls and offer them for sale.
I will make a better forum for taking photograhs of my work.
I will eat less cookies. Maybe.

A New Year

A very Happy and Prosperous New year to all.