Little Miss Sunday Best is still pretty much nameless. I’ve been trying out names on here over the last two weeks and so far these are the names that I have tried and decided against because they didn’t really fit:

• Hannah/Hanna/Hannelore
• Tess/Tessa
• Lillie/Lily/Lilly (because I somehow forgot that my blonde Kenner’s name is Lillian Rose?!)
• Beth/Bess/Bessie

The next couple of days I’ll be trialing the name “Willa” and see if it sticks.

Am I a Willa?

My first BL, a Mondrian, is named Lottie (which is a nickname for Charlotte). I’m sort of trying to find another ‘nickname’ for my second BL’s name. I’ve been very good about rejecting names so far though, gold star for me there, but have been failing to find a name that I feel “fits” her.

I can’t remember the last time I had this much trouble naming a doll.

I’m beginning to feel a little bit ridiculous.

Sunday Best is wearing: dress/Endangered Sissy.

Once upon a time, I used to get very stressed out if I didn’t have posts to go up here. I made a plan to get three posts up every week and by golly, I was going to do it. As the years have gone by (have I really been writing BlytheLife since 2010?!), I’ve gotten a little bit more lax with my post scheduling. Part of it is because I went through a fairly intensive post-secondary program that sucked up a lot of my time, and the other part (in more recent months) is because I’ve gotten a job that keeps me fairly busy.

Something that I have discovered since graduation and subsequently working, is that it is hard to find time and energy to work on things that aren’t just: work, sleep, eat, repeat. Playing with dolls has fallen to the wayside because of the fact that other things (sadly) take priority. I still very much love Blythe dolls and think that they’re wonderful (and very much still love getting new ones!), but it’s hard to find the time to do things with them. Plus, now with my rotating shift schedule (hello world of nursing), it can be difficult to find time to go to meets or meet up with local dolly friends. It’s hard to go to meets at noon when I get home from work at 8am. (Actually, it’s just hard to find motivation to do anything after a night shift, let’s be perfectly honestly and frank about that!)

Lately, I haven’t had a lot of motivation to do much outside of work, sleep, spending a small amount of time with people in the outside world. Last weekend, when I went to a friend’s house to watch a sporting event of sorts – I knitted doll clothes while I was there because I was in front of the television anyways. And you know what? I felt productive! Like I was doing something with my dolls (for once). And the dolls benefit – including the Middies because I finally made them something too. It was a nice feeling, and I’m going to be making an effort to include the dolls in more of my everyday activities (when I can).

How do you find motivation or find time to spend on your hobbies?

Remember way back when I said I had that New Doll Itch and how I wasn’t going to buy a new doll because funds and how my money would be better off saved up for that little trip to the Big Apple in October? (Spoilers ahead.)

“What am I? Chopped liver now?”

Yeah, that didn’t last very long because I currently have a doll waiting for me at the post office. I just need to go get her but have been unfortunately mostly snowed/iced in at home (and driving in very questionable weather when I go to and from work).  The weather’s been rather frightful, and (in short) annoying as it is now February. Despite living in Canada, my part of Canada rarely gets a lot of snow. Vancouver typically gets a small amount of snow that easily washes away with rain a few days after snowfall. Instead, the west coast has been hit with multiple snow storms since the beginning of December.

Photos soon of my new acquisition doll. I’m very excited about her, and haven’t told that many people about who it is – yet! I didn’t even go through the process of getting her some kind of fancy dress, although maybe I should. I can give you a few hints about the new girl though, she’s stock, blonde, and not a recent release.

It has been a few months since the last Middie Monday (#16 was published in October) – have you missed it? I still have just the two – Kitty Brighton (Jackie Ramone) and Lydia Melbourne (Yellow Marshmallow). Sometimes I muse with the idea of getting a third Middie Blythe (because everything is better in threes?), but then I stop myself.

I can barely clothe and shoe the two Middie Blythes that I do have. And I’m still operating that ridiculous challenge to myself that I’ll make the majority of their clothes by myself. Which is fantastic, because it means I can stop myself from shopping for them because I’m not allowed to buy new things. Yet on the other hand, it means that they don’t have a lot of clothes because I may just be physically incapable of setting aside time to sit down and sew or knit or crochet for them. That and I am the queen of making excuses for why they don’t have a larger wardrobe at this point. I’m pretty sure that since I got Kitty that I’ve made myself goals of crafting for her/them once a month, once every two months, etc. And those goals have not come to fruition.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother with this goal. Maybe because I’ve so publicly declared that it’s a challenge, or just for the fun of it. That and I really don’t bring them to meets that often, so it almost seems “okay” that they don’t have very many clothes to choose from because nobody is going to see them anyways.

In the mean time, these two lovelies have been in the same outfits for at least as long since I moved (back in July…) and much longer than that. But I’m currently working on something new – so that’s something, right?

Do you have any Middies? Have you made any clothes for them or do you buy them?

I used to keep various parts of my life fairly separated from people I knew in “real life”/offline. The only people who knew about my dolls were members of the doll community online. But with how interconnected everything gets on the internet nowadays (mostly with Facebook), there’s a trickle down effect that results in me occasionally being asked at work “So what are those dolls that you keep posting on Instagram/Facebook?”. I do add coworkers to my Facebook, which then results in coworkers being added to Instagram. And for the most part I actually don’t post a lot of photos of dolls anymore – it’s mostly tea these days, and photos of dolls when I’m at doll meets. I’ve just gotten into this weird constant phase where I am active but I am not active in the doll community at the same time. Yes, I still blog here, but I don’t have the motivation to take a photo of a Blythe on a daily basis.

“I’ve been wearing the same dress for months. Is there a dolly neglect hotline?”

Is this what adulting is like? Gosh, I hope not. Also, I still need to make a pair of scrubs for my dolls, because the idea of matchy outfits with me and a doll make me smile.

And yet I still find myself explaining dolls from time to time. I generally start with the fact that Kenners existed, how they were picked up by a Japanese toy company, and the dolls have the pull string and the ability to change eye colours. Usually that earns me a confused look that reads why I did even ask or it garners me more questions that usually consist of “Do you have any more photos?”. And just like a proud mama of a toddler or a fur-baby, I gleefully pull up my Instagram or Flickr and show more photos, or try to find a video I have on my phone of me clicking through the eyes.

Sometimes it goes into a conversation of “But why?” and then I just shrug and go “Why not? It’s a hobby just like crafting or video games.” (which, surprise! are some of my other hobbies). I ask them about their hobbies to which I get replies about baking, crafts, dance/yoga/jogging/other forms of personal torture and then I go “we all need something to keep ourselves sane when we’re not at work”.

How do you explain your doll hobby to the muggles in your life?

Lydia Melbourne’s wearing: dress/Endangered Sissy.