Haha, just as I doubted whether I’ll have the stamina to keep the blog going, I find myself posting another entry! Yay!
After 2 long years of hiatus, my lil girl (she’d say big girl) is making a come back. She’s still got it! Picked up right where she left off and aced the beginner level (again) in her first session back. Today she’s at the intermediate class, working on the remaining 3 skills to move up to advanced. You go girl!
Oh my goodness it’s been 2 years since I last posted! Two long years! 😮
How time flies, even when we sometimes feel like one single day can be dragging on forever. That’s probably how things go with a lingering pandemic — I thought working from home would give me more time to be with my family and do more of what I like to do. Turned out I was completely wrong with this. I thought going back to in person would make a change. But I was wrong again… We seem to be perpetually in need of more time, more time to learn, more time to work, more time to play, more time to sleep, more time to prep for food, more time to eat… It just feels like there’s never enough time to do anything.
At the beginning of the pandemic, we thought if we’d just quarantine for 2 weeks, our life would go back to normal. Then, it became after this year’s working from home and e-learning, after this next year’s go back in person with masks and social distancing, after this and that… And it’s still going.
What if life as we know has changed forever? What if we’ll never go back to where we were before? Actually, there is NO what-if’s. It has already happened and is still happening. Kiddo had e-learning for almost a year and missed a year of socializing with friends in person (although we did arrange FaceTime for her and her friends). We rarely traveled or went to parties. We missed out on life in order to live.
Would I have done differently? Probably not, ’cause without life and health, there is no social life or traveling anywhere, or anything. But still, part of me laments the time we lost when we could grow in a more natural way and enjoy it, as well as the numerous blog posts that I/we would have made. I still have the travel photos that she took when she was 6 years old waiting to be posted. But time has changed and the pandemic has stolen away the impulse to post…
I’m not even sure after this post, when my next post will be. Maybe soon. Maybe a while from now. But definitely not never. I will. I promise to myself.
This post is just gonna be mommy talking about her own hobby 🙂
A Little Pullip came by on eBay — got it with a really good price. The face up is gorgeous! But for me personally, I really really don’t like the flimsy stick figure body. So, I decided to rebody her. Got a factory middie blythe jointed replacement body for her. The neck connector of the new body was really too huge. So I took it off. At first I was a bit sad to have to take the little pullip body apart — but on second thought, I won’t be able to put that tiny body on any doll my daughter has at all; no head is that small. So, I used a saw to take off the neck part.
Then I used a carving knife to make the inside of the jointed body more spacious and put the little pullip neck part in. It needs to be glued to be stable. So I put orginal tacky glue into the neck hole to glue them together.
Next, I put the original neck caps into the little pullip head, put the neck part in, and screwed the nails back. Then the head back and the wig.
Voila! Her proportion looks so much better to me now!
Hopefully I will have time to make her a dress soon (I doubt, LOL)
😀
Moon Kid and I just really don’t like the tiny stick figure like Pullip body with her big head. So we decided to do a bit of a body swap 😀
I found this really nice doll body on eBay that’s less than 7 dollars. It was fully articulate with double joints and extremely movable. The knee and feet joins can be tighter, but can’t ask for more when it’s a less than $7 buy 😛 ~ After sanding off the inside of the neck part (it’s just a little bit taller/thicker than needed), the neck fits perfectly into the tiny Pullip neck hole, the same as the original body! We were both very impressed. The body looks much stronger, even though it’s still thinner than we would want (REALLY wish these doll companies make more curvy bodies). When we made her the dress and put it on, she looks so much more porportional! We both LOVE her sooooo much!
For the even bigger (and heavier) face up practice head (Mommy did her face up), we used a Barbie Made to Move body. To be exact, we put the head in hot water for a while, and the body came off really easily. Then it took mommy many tries to get the body into the big head (which had a very small neck hole), eventually by carving off some plastic to make the neck hole bigger. It was actually so easy to carve — should have done that in the first place instead of trying with the blow dry and all those other ways LOL.
What did we do with the Barbie head? The Pullip body? At first it didn’t seem to be a good fit, as the head has a slightly more tanned tone than the Pullip body. But it doesn’t hurt to try. So we tried it anyways and it looks AMAZING! The neck part was so very easy to get in and stay in. And there really isn’t that much difference in the skin tones. We were both so happy with the result!
This is truly a fun thing to do on an otherwise boring weekend! 😀
My second video! Please follow along with me and have fun! 🙂
Sweetie, I love this little game that you “invented”! You were really bored and then suddenly thought of this idea! It made our outside time so much more exciting and fun. Love this!
We invite our friends who see this post to join the fun and come up with more creative chalk drawing and posing ideas. Have fun! 🙂
Happy 4th of July weekend! This time last year, we had a lot of fun traveling across 3 states, visiting 2 family friends. We came back home on the day of July 4th and had a blast watching the fireworks. This year, we watched and video-taped from our car, with window closed and AC on, to ensure social distancing. We still had a great time, though, and are thankful that we still have firework to watch. Stay healthy and safe!
This is a method that Mommy Ally “invented” for our Whimsical Moon Kid, who thinks out of the box, colors outside of the outline, and refuses to draw as perfectly as a computer program… She really enjoys this and decided to share! Have fun!
This is a kitty I drew. I drew this with my mom. Then, I painted it. My kitty looks like it’s alive and moving! I like to draw things whimsical 🙂 What about you?
It’s been a long while since we went out to the park! Today we decided to venture out — it’s already summer, after all… Sweetie pie, I know, we’ve made so many fun plans to go on trips, go out in nature, and go shopping in the malls… But none of these we can do this summer.
A walk in Nature is all we can do now to stay safe and healthy. You were content and perfectly happy. You listened to birds chirping, watched fish swimming up the stream, and spotted a squirrel chewing on nut. Using our retired digital camera, you took a lot of pictures of what you saw, including mommy and daddy and a lot of trees. You eagerly made plans to for us to travel with friends families when the virus is over. It’s really been a long while that you, the kid who dislikes hiking, even enjoyed hiking today.
Our most recent trip (to Cincy) was last December, almost 7 months ago. We did have a great time traveling together with A’s family and visiting M’s family. Seems like a lifetime ago, though. It feels so good to be surrounded by the tall, green trees…
On the other hand, just a while ago before I started writing this post, I read on the Washington Post that Dr. Egon Ozer from Northwestern University discovered that the virus is mutating to become even more infectious… Sigh. Maybe we’ve still got to stay at home more. Sigh, the kiddos can’t wait to play with each other, but social distancing is really hard for kids playing together. And, really don’t know what’s going to happen when school starts.
There’s so much uncertainty. Yet despite the uncertainty, we’ve got to carry on. Life will not be the same maybe for a long time. However, the fun loving heart remains unchanged. We’ll do this as much as possible, as long as we stay healthy and safe. We’ll also find all those other different ways of having fun. I promise, if you let me, my sweetest.
I love you.
Whimsical Moon 