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Take a look at what else you can do on my blog besides reading my posts: 

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• And of course, if you haven’t already, familiarize yourself with the theory that Marie-Grace Gardner is actually Grandmary

Here’s a good example of when to replace instead of repairing a wig.

Nareen is a My Imagination doll. I bought her secondhand, but she was in her original box and even her hairnet had never been removed. Despite that, her wig was the low point in her otherwise high quality features. It became frizzy almost immediately with very little handling. I tried every method I could to soften it, yet nothing worked, not even heat treatment. I looked at some other reviews of this brand and poor condition wigs seems to be a universal complaint.

So I figured there was nothing else I could do to save it, and put an American Girl wig on her, and we’re both much happier with it. It’s a slightly darker shade of brown, which I really like!

Zelia lives on a coffee farm in São Paulo, Brazil. She’s proud of the work that she, her family, and all the workers do to plant, cultivate, and harvest the coffee beans that will travel all around the world. With its ideal climate, Brazil is the country that produces the most coffee beans, accounting for nearly 40% of all coffee produced! It amounts to over 2 million metric tons grown every year. It’s also the most abundant product made in Brazil.

Coffee beans begin their life encased in little red fruits called cherries, growing on short-statured coffee trees. These cherries are of course not the same thing as the orchard fruit, but they’re round and red and look pretty similar. They are harvested from the trees either by machine or by hand. Then the cherries are spread in the sun to dry, and then hulled to separate the bean from the fruit and the husk. The beans are then ready to either be roasted, or shipped out to be roasted at their destination.

Zelia loves living on a coffee farm, but she’s concerned about the environmental impact the farm has on the delicate ecosystem of the nearby Amazon Rainforest. She learns in school how important the rainforest is to the entire world, supplying much of our oxygen. She also learns about some of the easy ways for farms to become better for the environment:

“We can plant all kinds of fruit trees above the coffee plants. This will make homes and food for the birds and other animals. We can recycle waste from the coffee mill and use it to fertilize the plants.”

After learning this, she goes home and tells her parents about this, and encourages them to implement the changes. She says:

“My wish is to send the seed of a rainforest tree to everyone in my country and ask them to plant it. I know if we find room in our hearts for the forest, it will give love back to us.”

Zelia is my Hearts for Hearts Girls doll. She and the 11 other dolls in the lineup have stories to share from all around the world.

When you lie on your resumé and get the job anyway……..

Addy opened the scroll and looked out at the congregation. She swallowed hard. She had never spoken in front of so many people before. Then she saw her family looking up at her, their faces full of love and pride.
There was Sam, who had lost his arm in the war to end slavery. And Esther, whose babyhood had been lost to them all. She saw Poppa, and remembered the night back in their cabin on the plantation when he had first whispered the word freedom. She saw Momma, whose hope and strength had never failed.
Addy started to speak, and the words came easily. Her voice was loud and clear as she read the proclamation, with its words that had changed the lives of everyone she loved.

Addy’s Patriotic Party dress is another piece I have reproduced to add to her collection. The fabric was easy to find, and the dress itself was easy to make. I also made the ribbon sash and glued on the little portrait of Abraham Lincoln.

While I was making this, I thought about the moment in Changes for Addy when she first wears this, and how significant it is that she is specifically chosen to read the Emancipation Proclamation.

Addy learned to read and write very quickly, and she uses that skill to help her family when they were trying to find each other and reunite in Philadelphia. But Addy is obviously close with her church congregation, and many of the people in the church were like her and also escaped slavery, and undoubtedly a lot of them hadn’t yet learned to read. I think it’s likely Addy also wrote and read letters for other people trying to unite their families. And she was certainly very involved in the freedmen’s society and at least once donated her own money to it.

When she stands in front of the congregation, reading to them the Emancipation Proclamation, she sees her family watching her, but imagine how proud everyone else is as well, considering all she has done for them. Addy in that moment is embodying the dreams every enslaved parent had for their own children. She’s reading in public, something that is illegal in many states of the Confederacy. And not only is she reading in public, but she’s reading the document that proclaimed her freedom.