Heart-sick was a good word to use for the flooding in the studio. It made my heart sick on several levels at once. I am always looking for omens that God (or the Universe or my Higher Self ) wants me to be doing this business with dolls (that I seem to love so much). Having all that water run off the mountain into my studio gave me a pause. Or is it only the small creek that flows through our property remembers running through the portion of the land that the original builders made into a garage and insists, when it has enough water power, to resume its old ways? Dollies do NOT make good dams.
I have brought all of them into the house, in the living room where they are not allowed to be, where they are dry and protected. The wide swath is for WR to walk through to the kitchen. That is Lester sitting on the un-used wood stove waiting on me to change his Christmas sleeper. A lady wrote from Reborns.com to ask if he had other clothes to wear besides this holiday get-up. Means I need to get that done and photographed.

Actually there are two piles.

This group fills the corner where the Christmas tree was until Thursday. Just the day before the water ran in Amazon delivered all the poly-fill I had on order at once. So that is securest in the farthest dry corner. The collection on the other wall got richer when all the studio babies piled in. Thank Goodness the Spirit Child blesses and watches over all of them.

This makes the studio look even more cold and childless.

You can see the sun is pouring in the windows but so is water on the floor. Water is still flowing down off the mountain. It is hard to want to work with this damp outlook on life. So I have been healing my heart by taking many naps and crocheting peace pal dolls in the much warmer, and cozier, house.

I had heard the  phrase "sick at heart" and there were a few times in my life when I thought I had experienced it. Today I know what it means and how it feels.
Over half my morning was given to trying to reach customer service at the bank with the hope of someone finding the error in my bank statement that was their fault and not mine. After a dozen attempts I finally called the local branch and got a lovely lady who did everything she could by telephone to untangle the statement. In the end I accepted the blame and sucked it up. This was guaranteed to give me the screaming willies and lower my self esteem a couple more notches. However I determined to keep my head high and continue with making babies - after lunch. I did get two bodies sewed and was holding myself in check with the idea of that pleasure. The address Annie needed to head her box in the right direction had come, I had printed it out and feeling proud to get that box finished up and in the passenger side of the car. That exhausted me so I plopped in the recliner to catch my breath and get started on the fun  part of the day.
As I leaned over to look at the rug under the chair it was darker than it had been and over waves of heart-sickness I knew  El Nino water was leaking in across the floor. Four years ago we had had this trouble and put in a French drain along the studio side which faces the hill. Three summers of drought made it look as it this had solved our problem. It didn't. Finally the storm last night pressed enough water through a crack under the cement floor and up into the studio. Werner was napping so I did not want to wake him to this kind of news so I started moving what I could to get to the water source. I was able even to shove the recliner to the drier garage side and wiggle the rug out the door.  I even got the babies all carried into the warm dry living room. This is what greeted him in the studio
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He agreed to keep the car outdoors as long as we are having these repeated storms so I could drag more stuff into the even drier places on his side of the room.

He helped me put the chair up on blocks and got the bamboo rugs upright so they drain.

The living room looked like this. Or this.

And we soon had babies slithering all over the floor as if on holiday. I was thankful Annie was in a box in the car. I got everyone and everything (on the other side of the room are bags and boxes of poly fill) as safe as I could. I was able to mop the floor of the studio so it was dry again and there was no where we could see water soaking in. The couple hours of sunshine did help to dry all the floors but boots are going to be at the top of the dress code the rest of this week. I still have three babies waiting on their bodies. . .

Annie is eager to  be on her way to Florida (the studio does get cold at night) so she helped me get her dressed up the trip. She couldn't stop turning her head this way and that so I would admire her new wig. It looks great on her but I was too tired to make a new portrait and replace the one on the web. So tonight she is in her box and it is all my fault. I forgot to get a postal address so the USPS can take her home.

In the morning we had sunshine warming the window and shining on the limbs. Through the viewfinder the reflection of other babies on the shelves showed up better. It was a good feeling to have them observing how they had come into being.
By afternoon, as the next storm moved in on us with its darkness, I was able to get all three of the new babies stuffed and ready for their bodies tomorrow. They will have to wait until better light with the day so I can paint their faces. Here they are, waiting.

 What a merry band of kids ready for their  painted faces. After I took this photo I realized it looked too neat and organized, so I lowered the camera for another shot of the work table with Sweetie overlooking the tools. She is still wearing the funny glasses from BB that make lights look like gingerbread men. I do not know if I can take them away from her or just let her enjoy them until she tires of the magic. She still had her blanket from the night.

My world is back in order, like this sleeping baby I photographed today only because she looked so peaceful which was the way I felt inside. At first when I saw the rain coming down in gusts, the trees thrashing about, and the house as cool as it was I was afraid I would let the elements keep me from doing what the big urge inside of me wanted done.
Although I had bought Annie a new wig last night on eBay, it was the idea that everything I wanted to do to her to finish her that depended on finding a wig that satisfied me. I made one more pass beside the sitting babes and there it was. The wig that was big enough, hair long enough and cap small enough that would please her and me. We tried it on and that was it. Strange how perfection can feel so right.

Oops I see I took a photo of her sitting among her clothes, still waiting on her wig and not one with the wig making her complete. You see I let her play with the peace pals while she waited on me to make up my mind about the wig so we could get on with things.

There, even with bad lighting, isn't that better? Even she, without a mirror, can feel that this wig is right for her. Thank goodness I did not have to go far to find this photo. She was sitting in the kitchen with other parts with glue drying.

In front of her is this week's crew doing the gluing the eyeballs in straight act.  Though you can only see them by craning your neck over that is Samantha, Punkin and the last one of my Ching kids. Behind them is the monkey standing on his head supported by cans of ginger ale while his neck strengthens.
Now it is 4 o'clock, dinner is in the oven (boneless pork chops with a yam and an apple), I did get Annie on her way to being ready to go this morning with a new hairdo. I was then able to go over Kameko and all the things in her box to make sure nothing had crawled in with her. She was still perfect so obviously she has already taken on the national attitude of Japanese with neatness and the ability to hold still for long periods of time. I even found a smaller box (cost less to ship) into which she fit perfectly and was able to print out her address, tape it on, and lay the box on the passenger seat of the car with prayers for a safe arrival. If the storm does not get worse, I am trusting Werner can take her to the post office in the morning.

It really unhinges a blog when you take a week, drop a two-day holiday in the middle of it,  add a weekend on the end of it, garnish it with three generations of family, and slip an order for a new doll in between it all while waiting for news from Germany of the arrival of a new great-grandson.
First of all, photos of the family. Hans, and his son Ian flew over on the morning of New Year's Eve, bringing Han's wife Carol and Conner, Ian's son. Here is Ian, taller than ever before, and his son, Conner deep in Lego kits.

Hans still looks like the little boy I remember him being. It is so amazing to hear him talking about the boat business in numbers I cannot comprehend and to know he is my child - or at least that ornery little brother who bugged his sisters.

Carol handled everything so beautifully that I was completely astounded. She and I need a good talk without the guys listening to every word.

At least Conner got to see whales "in our front yard" and that made his day. He is a great kid to take on trips and is so well-behaved!

 Everything is calm today and all is in order, yet I cannot settle down to work in the studio. Well, it is very cold in there because there were three days without heat so the urge to stay in the house is overwhelming. I have compromised by bringing Annie, the new doll headed for Florida, into the house in an attempt to finalize her. I have her clothes spread all around my chair and yet I want to crochet. My interior self knows babies are to be worked on in the studio, not the living room anymore. I really want to work on Annie as I love that work the most but the cold has herded me inside. So I whine and walk in circles. By tomorrow the studio should be warm again and Annie and I will have our day together and my blog will be caught up until we get new baby pictures from overseas.

The best news is that the Japanese post office found Kamiko and were good enough to return her - when they found out someone was looking for her. I had shipped her out at the end of August and all this time she has lived in this box. We had a good cuddle and rocking session in the chair to get reacquainted. But when I put her in the box for this photo she started to worry that her fate was to stay in the box forever. Tomorrow, if I can, I want to box her up again. Machiko sent me her address partly in Japanese so I am hoping that will assure that Kami will be brought to the right house this time.
Customs had opened the box, kept it for 3 weeks and then sealed it back up with Amazon's tape so it would look as if they hadn't peeked. Everything was back in the box but the blanket was folded around Kami in a way different from the way I do it. She refused to talk about what had gone on while she was under their investigation. However she seemed to enjoy looking around the studio. I think she wondered if anything had changed since she had been here,
This morning I did take down the kids' Christmas tree and put it back in the closet. All the packages and mail that was supposed to arrive on Christmas came today. In the one package were the 5 inch babies I had ordered to go into the crocheted cradles. I was eager to see if they fit even though I had made a couple with no doll to measure. To my joy they are perfect.

And also we have. . .

And this one that created its own lighting without me knowing what was happening.

While I was doing this I heard smothered giggling coming from the area in the room where the boys' swing is. I peeked and then remembered that in my haste to get my arms unloaded from putting things away, I had slipped Annie in the swing, too.

I think the boys were figuring out new ways to keep warm on the nights when the studio cools off so much. I took pity on Annie, and the look on her face, to return her to the safety of the crowd on the display rack.

Pig, being pig, needed a snack before I even got all his strings cut and glued. He really does well with the bottle already. Everything about him was easy today. He went together quickly and easily with no problems with his body.
Soon I had him on the photo table, which was very dark because a storm was moving in and the studio was already too cold to open the big door. So I moved on to finishing Kameko and finally got her into some jammies. I worried about her being naked in the cold last night. Thank goodness my hands warmed up enough I could paint her face. I wanted to put her with the other older babies around the tree but she said "no" because she felt shy. I asked her if she wanted to be alone tonight to acclimate but she started whispering, "pig, pig, pig" so I let her sit with him on the photo table. Evidently while sitting in the trays waiting to get their bodies, Kameko and the pig started a friendship. What is not on a photo is how she pulled on him so his head was under her chin. I was so shocked that this delicate little being loved a pig that I could not point a camera at them.

 When I went to work on the monkey, Chez, I discovered that yesterday I had neglected to sew his body. Because it is brown and every one else has white thread on their bodies, I laid it aside to re-thread the brown thread with more light and then I forgot about it lying on the desk. Today however, I came in, happy to get warm, and just then the clouds open up for enough rays of sun for me to see the eye on the sewing machine needle. I sewed the first seam and ran out of bobbin thread. Usually that makes me huff and snort, but I was so happy to be where it was warm I patiently re-wound that and even dusted out the inside of the machine.
Those good vibes stayed with the monkey body so I soon had him together.

 Then I saw that tiny place showing on his neck that indicated it was not fitting in. Within seconds of checking the connection to see if it was secure Chaz looked like this.

Even he was shocked to feel his head lifting off of his body. I tried and tried to get that knot at his neck to be tight enough to hold his head on but the cold and my tiredness of the day would not give my fingers the strength to tie the knot properly. Taking this as a sign to quit, I picked up my new baby from China and we both came in the house already at 4 o'clock.
I wanted to see if the Sony camera would take a better picture of her and the tree than the little Canon camera did yesterday with Jenny Wren. You decide. First here is the China baby, so new she does not yet have a name.

And yesterday's attempt with Jenny Wren.

They are worlds apart and tonight I cannot decide which one I prefer. The cameras certainly see my world differently. I am on a mission to have sharper photos and now I am not sure I can handle the clarity!