Helen and Teacher

Helen and Teacher
The Story of my Life

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Also for Dr. E's Greening Tips-Happy Halloween!

It is The Samhain, Blessed Be!!


Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Collectdolls.About.com Newsletter for Oct. 20th

Very Uncanny; Nutcracker Maker Files Bankruptcy
Truly, frost was on the pumpkin this week. We covered our plants Friday night, including a pumpkin vine I grew from seed. Leaves are falling, and I've pressed one red leaf in my copy of James Patterson's "Kill Alex Cross." Falling leaves mean the West Central Illinois Doll Club's annual field trip to Gigi's Dolls and Sherry's Teddy Bear. Sadly, Steinbach recently announced that after 200 years, they would file bankruptcy.  We will truly miss the beloved maker who made the figures that inspired Hoffman, and later Freud.  This year, Lestat by Crees and Coe came home with me. Last week's trip through the Spoon River Scenic drive yielded even more treasures. Theriault's Matter of Circumstance Auction takes place Monday. If there were ever a better time to be a doll collector, please let me know!!
Ellen Tsagaris
Doll Collecting Expert
Nutcrackers
Very Uncanny  
Dolls that are too realistic often attract attention from the scientific, medical, and psychological communities.
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A Renowned Scholar Publishes Postive Doll Book  
Review of an early doll book by G. Stanley Hall, student of William James and first person to receive a PhD in psychology in America.
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Ravyn
Dolls and Disobedience  
Dolls in "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" and Puritan Culture. Children in 17th century American lived lives dictated by discipline and restraint, not whimsy and imagination.
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Patti Playpal
Patti Playpal; still Playing Patticake after all these Years!  
We are taking another look at a beloved doll of the late 50s and early 60s.  Thanks to our reader Terri Lee for recommending this post.
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Lucy Gets A Paris Gown
Dolls in Sitcoms: Bebes in TV Land  
Read about how dolls infiltrate their way into your favorite past and current sitcoms.
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Autumn; also for Dr. E's Greening Tips for the Common Person- A Fictional Memoir

Below is an example of writing fiction in the genre of memoir or a journal entry.  This is all made up, folks, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental!

Fall has come, and it is only ten days til Halloween, my favorite holiday for many, many reasons.  There is a shortage of pumpkins this year, but I have manage two or three. I am going to try to carve a Jack O Lantern this year, but not an elaborate one.  I want the pumpkin of my youth, glowing on the front porch.  My pumpkin vines are not having much luck, and the weather has been mad.

Nearly 77 today, and too sultry for almost late October.  Last week, highs in the 50s, and very cold, and a rabid, insane storm last night that pounded us.

I love trains, took a short ride on Amtrak last week.  I would gladly ride it from one coast to another.  All these things remind me of my mother; we would have been canvassing fall festivals and antique shops, and organizing the Xmas stash by now, heading for Marshalls and TJ's to make up the slack.  I wouldn't feel sick as if I would implode, and someone would remember me at Xmas, too.

She is only memory, now, as if she never were.

She was right when she said that when I lost her, I would have no one.  Now, it's Dad and me.  My husband has his own agenda, his own interests, his own family  I'm not high on the roster.  The holidays are a night mare, and the  Feloni family Xmas awaits me, where I learn what else my drunken whore of a sister in law has barred me from.  I wonder if my brother in law will show up in a skirt again, or if they are even together.  I wonder what zinger my mother in law will fling at me like feces, if I get into the house for two mins before I run out for my  life.

Other than the dog, I wonder if anyone will speak to me at all, and why my in-laws prefer people who have stolen from them, abused them, taken advantage of them, to us, who work all the time, and drop it all to help them when they need it.

It was fine till I married their son, aka, their indentured servant and chauffer.

One piece of holiday advice, never ride with my sister in law, poster child for Ashley Madison, aka, Aunt Zima; she is soused to the point alcohol has replaced her blood.



My goal is to try to learn to accept things as they are, and to deal with the holding pattern of my life right now.  Being the sole provider of elder care is hard enough;doing it cross country, with two families to worry about here, one on the coast, and one in Europe that is trying to drain my dad financially is too much.

"Me" is not a word in my vocabulary.  Not that I want much, a walk in the leaves, a day trip to look at foliage, to watch the reds and golds that haven't fallen from the trees no just glow, but fairly vibrate with color in the cloudy skies.  I'd like to buy some mums, even if it is late, to write a Xmas list, get a flu shot.  I'd like to take down shelves and rearrange the things on them, sleep without worry, draw, work on shadowboxes and needlework, finish that Anne Boleyn novella I've been writing.ow,

Now, I send packages for holidays, and pay other people's bills when I can to keep them home. Roles do change.  I've a thousand things to do before I work, or get to my desk.  I'm so tired.

Our son worries me, and I may have to homeschool.  With good reason.  My dad worries me; and dear MPD, you are completely incompetent, and have violate your own laws. Can you spell hearsay boys and girls?  You deserve what happens to you. The DPR will earn more, soon.  And Miss Heather Douglas, of an assumed name of Hope Creek, well, you too can talk to DPR about assaulting the elderly at 847 23 d avenue, as will that beastly, behemoth of a woman who is your accomplice at 851 23d Avenue.  Shame on you!

I hate to see October go; it is my favorite month, but then again, 2015, barring my mother's death in 2008, is the worst year of my life, with no doubt.

Here's to 2016

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Doll Museum: Photos of More 20th Century Dolls

Doll Museum: Photos of More 20th Century Dolls: From my Files: Anna Avigail Brahms, Vinyl 1930s Tyrolean Cloth Doll Baby Sara Lee Living Dead Doll, Frozen Charlotte UNI...