Feeling A Bit Better and Thrifting Sights Lately... Also The Story of God Telling Me To Write Blog In First Place...

Hi Doll Friends! 

Thanks so so so much for the kind words of encouragement so many of ya'll sent me after my last post, they really mean a lot to me! I am happy to report I am feeling better and better and while I still feel like I am walking in a 'valley' in my life, I am getting to where I can see the incline to the mountain again. Maybe I'm not climbing yet but I can see it and that, after the last few months, is improvement! Sometimes improvement is all you can ask for, eh? I'd like to tell you more details about the reasoning behind my post and/or who it is that hurt me and made me question myself and my worth in the first place... However, my disclosing that information would likely just beget even more drama and I'm just wanting the drama to die down and be over.  I promise I won't delete my blog... I've been really sporadic about posting for the last few months and that is bad enough! When I would get the inclination to come delete it I know it was just the enemy (or satan or whatever name you want to give the father of lies) trying to get in my head and make me go against what God originally told me to do. 

That story is a good one. About five years ago, I went to my annual womens retreat thru my church and my prayer all weekend was to get a 'word' from God. Be careful what you pray for I guess because God showed up, as He does, but with only ONE WORD. The word?

"Write"

I'm like "Write?! Ok, but write what?!?" 

I'd started my doll blog a year before but had kind of ran out of steam in writing it after an argument with a person I thought was my friend who gave me all manner of grief about the name of my blog. Penniless Caucasian Rubbish was my chosen nom'de'plume from clear back in my Myspace days... I explained how it came to be in the post I just linked to. However, my friend took it as some manner of slight or something because it contained the word 'caucasian' and... Well... Sadly, after much trying to mend, we stopped being friends. It kind of ruined the fun for me for my little blog and I just stopped in January of 2014. I didn't really know what else to write about though... I mean, I'd written loads of somewhat depressing poetry and that is where my pen name came from originally... But poetry isn't something I 'actively' write, it's more like words that come into my head, unbidden, and I just capture them and write them down. Not something I can force really...

So... Being as I had already started the doll blog and that I still loved dolls so much I thought, "Well, it's writing and God being who He is, perhaps He can use a doll blog to His glory somehow...?"

I figured I'd at least follow what He told me to do until He gave me a different direction with it. 

So, low and behold, God being who He is, He has made some amazing things happen in my life from this little blog. I've met a couple of friends here over our mutual love of dolls and I am certain they will be friends for my entire lifetime. I have also, as much as I can without being obnoxious about it, tried to share Jesus's love here and how much He means to me. 

One of the more delightful places I've found that this shared the Gospel and Jesus's love was a Podcast from Kenneth Frankly where he talks about my blog and him liking it and, then at the end of what he talks about, he repeats something the Holy Spirit told me to write the day that he happened to use it in his podcast; "Jesus loves you" at the end of what he talked about. It literally made my day/week/year when I heard it. He starts talking about it at 11:29mins in and portion about the blog runs till 15:10mins in. I just listened to it again and it made me smile again. So give it a listen to it again if you are so inclined. WARNING: It has a bit of curse words in it. But it still makes me smile that someone who I likely never would have thought would like my blog enjoys it. 

 It really touched my heart. 

If you still read Kenneth Frankly, Hi! Thanks for the mention. 💗

I've also heard from many other readers that they appreciate my blog and it's been a very amazing thing in my life to meet other people who love dolls as much as I do. The internet makes the world such a small place! 

So, thank you dear readers, for your words of encouragement all along thru the time I've written here. Especially on my most recent post! I mean to come and answer all those sweet comments one by one but am still treading water in my real life and haven't had a chance yet. Don't think I haven't read them and that they haven't really really helped me feel better because they have!! 

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

All the photos here are of items I've 'left behind' lately at thrift stores... I didn't really get into the details but this will have to be one of those 'let the photo tell the story' times because I have got to go herd the cats take the teens to high school! 

Thanks so much again dear readers! I promise I will never ever delete this blog no matter how crummy I might feel about myself at any given moment. 

Love ya'll to the moon and back!

XXOO
Heather 

PS I've been trying all day to get this to post... For some reason it would niether post nor save and I finally had to resort to copying the whole text and pasting it into a different draft paragraph by paragraph. So I am actually posting this at like 8:09PM :)

Aubrianna Visit's The Fairlfield!

Doll Friends!

This past weekend I went to a Ladies Retreat with Flatland Church. Unlike prior years, it was held at the actual church... So a friend and I got a hotel room so we could still have the slumber party aspect of the retreat and it was so much fun! Of course I brought along a doll... This time it was the beautiful Aubrianna! So, here are the photos... I also made a YouTube with more photos as well if you wanna check it out...

Better run!
XXOO
Heather

Crazy Month For Health In The Doll House!

Greetings and Salutations Doll Friends!

Happy May first!! I am so glad it's a new month... April first this year brought with it both Easter and a continuation of a long whirlwind of ailments and illnessess in the Doll House! I am a bit reticent to say we are out of the woods finally because it seemed like every time I said it in the month of April I'd jinx myself and we'd end up with some new manner of health issue. So... I'll pray it's over and we can finally enjoy Spring now that it's finally decided to arrive in the midwest. 

Given all the illnesses and ailments we've had, I decided to do round two of Under The Weather At The Doll House and was shocked to realize that I'd posted the first one in late March... I had been thinking that pestilence and plague illness had struck in early April but now I realize it's been more like a month and a half. No wonder I am worn out! I have joked with my church family that the reason is because I had a really profound Word from God at the Women's Retreat this year. So the devil is working overtime to snatch it away from me. He can't have it though! Afterall:

"But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."

2nd Corinthians 12:9

I decided to mark the time period with some more 'dolly sick in bed' photos though since it has been my life for a month and a half nearly... This time with actual Heather Doll even so it'd be more authentic. LOL

Heather is reading "A Purpose Driven Life" since it was part of the the revelation of the word I got at the Retreat. It really is a great book. Naturally Heather Doll has her laptop and a Doll Magazine as well... Can't convalesce without the essentials afterall. Haha. 

This is Heather's room that I recently reconfigured into a different space in the Doll Room. Speaking of which, I need to do an updated 'tour'. I've even considered doing a video tour for my YouTube channel... So many projects, so little time! I'll get it done some time or another. One reason I haven't done it yet is that I am not a fan of my voice when I hear it on video or audio! Hahaha. Every time I hear it I want to apologize to the human race for having subjected them to it all my life or something. Kidding! It does sound weird to me though and so I haven't ever 'said' anything in my videos. Maybe someday...

Better run... Hope this finds you enjoying health and nice weather yourself!

Till next time!
XXOO
Heather

Frann Doll Attends Weekend Retreat!!

Greetings and Salutations Doll Friends!!

Once a year my church has a Women's Retreat. It only runs from Friday evening until Saturday afternoon but for it only being 22hours, it really recharges my 'batteries'. Something about getting together with all my church sisters and chatting, praying, worshipping, eating, playing games, doing crafts and giggling until the wee small hours of the morning creates some manner of healing that you don't really know you need until you get it. If that makes sense. I've gone every year for over half a decade now and wouldn't miss it. Last year I decided to bring Frann Doll along so I could get some photos of her at the amazing facility we have it in every year, Carol Joy Holling Camp. It is a lovely venue with beautiful scenery and a 'silence' you just can't find in the city. So, as is what I imagine will be my yearly habit as well, I brought Frann along with me this year too! I wish I could bring the real Frann (someday!?) but in the meantime, it's fun to have her doppelganger doll with me. Kind of like a virtual visit with her. Teehee. I think I've gotten quite a lot better at taking doll photos in the year since I took her last year...

Here she is in the lobby...

I think playing with perspectives is so much fun... I am not perfect at it yet but I think I nailed it in the above photo. Frann Doll, I think, looks like she really is 'human size'. Don't you think so? 

I should've taken photos of how you go about getting perspectives like this... Wasn't thinking of 'how to' when I was taking photos, only of trying to get right angles. I took all these photos at about 5am Saturday morning after my walk... I am strange, it doesn't matter what time I go to bed, my internal alarm wakes me up at about 4:00am everyday. So, per my Fitbit,  got 3 hours and 16mins of sleep Friday night. Haha. It's so odd though because when I wake up, I am awake! So, why fight it, I get up and make the most of my quiet time where the entire world is my own.

I don't think I did as well on perspectives on this photo (above)... Unless you don't know what size the fireplace really is and it could just be a huge one... 

I didn't move her, I just changed angle..... Hmmm... Was trying to get the letters in the photo.

I think I did pretty good on the perspectives on these photos... See all the tables with items all over them? Well a neat idea they came up with last year was to have a handful of the ladies from our church bring in 'all my favorite things' to put on a table. Kind of like Show&Tell or something. It's a fun way for the rest of us to get to know fun things about those particular women in church. I mean, we all know each other pretty well but how often does it really come up what your favorite books or foods (etc) are? So it's fun to look at all their tables and find out fun facts about them. We have a lot of ladies in our church and so I've not been asked to make a table yet (which is fine because I think it's probably a lot of work to put together!!) but should I ever be asked I bet you can guess what there would more than one of on my table? Hahaha. Yes, dolls. I got no shame. Hahaha. My church sisters mostly all know about my hobby... I mean we generally always have new people (because any healthy church should be having new people, right?) and I sometimes wonder what they might think of my doll bringing habits but.... Life's too short to worry about such things, right? Just kidding! I don't want to alienate anyone by them thinking I'm bonkers but, if they stick around long enough, they'll find out I am in any case. So might as well know it up front, right? *giggles*

The rooms they have at Camp Joy Holling are so pretty! I love the chairs in this room!

They have the most amazing snack room at Camp Joy Holling!! See all those yummy snacks and goodies? They are all part of the price of the weekend!! Did I mention a lot of eating goes on at retreat? LOL

Frann went out and walked to the other building. We have such a large group that we take up two buildings! Haha. They are both lovely though.

Isn't the Swanson building pretty all lit up at night? As you can see, there was a lot of snow on the ground... I didn't take Frann to the little village this year because it was really pretty treacherous outside. Pretty though!

I discovered something I didn't even know was there this year... This nifty little work out room is available! Isn't it neat? I actually did my yoga on Saturday morning but just tucked into an empty meeting room near my room to do it because to get to this little workout room you have to go outside. Haha.

Here is Frann in the ginormous room next to the cafeteria where they serve us our meals. The food is really pretty good and plentiful. I can't say enough nice things about Camp Joy Holling. I think they are the bees knees.

Here is where we eat. So many fun conversations have taken place at these tables!

And the room where we have our large group talk and worship. They also cleared the chairs in this room Saturday morning and a group of dedicated ladies did Jazzersize at 7am. I helped move the chairs but I don't think I am coordinated enough to do that sort of thing. Haha.

Well, I better run if I am going to get to church on time...
I hope this finds you having a peaceful Sunday (or whatever day it is when you're reading this!)

XXOO
Heather