The Bow Belle

Hmmm, sounds like something that Mattel would've named an old Barbie outfit, even though my bow doesn't really have satin on it.  Regardless, here's my bow for today, an oldie but a goodie from the defunct MyBubblyLittleBaby . This bow is one of my special ones, as it was the first patriotic bow my mom got for me.  I knew it wouldn't be the last since Independence Day is so special in my family, but it was my first.  Putting it in is a little fiddly because the pinchy part of the clip is on the left, I'm right-handed, and the left side of my body is weaker overall than my right.  I don't know why. Right now it is hot and dry in the Bootheel, with copious smoke in the air from forest fires far north.  The heat is not scheduled to break until Sunday, so Mama and I are camped out with Uncle Man-Child.  Last night he hid in his room and I didn't see or hear from him until midnight...when he woke up to have breakfast of all things.  I was up visiting the fa...

Yesterday's meeting went alright, but regardless of outcome dealing with the superiors put me in an inflammatory mood, and the ridiculously hot heat hasn't helped my mood much.  LOL, alliteration!   Anyway, today's bow is arguably my most controversial bow.   I voted for Trump, and I'd do it again.  Sue me.  LOL, kinda ironic considering that I was extolling the virtues of kindness yesterday.  Despite what the lamestream media will tell you, Trump supporters are fully capable of being kind if given the chance.  Indeed, one of my favorite things to do is give a sad friend a big fat hug, regardless of who they voted for!  Anyway, the Etsy shop was CheerBowFactoryInc, and big surprise, they appear to be defunct.  If you swing to the left Etsy has options for you too. Okay, enuff soapboxing.  The meeting actually went very well; we talked about a whole bunch of stupid rules that the state of Missouri is putting in place for librari...

Today I have a meeting with the bosses and I'm freaking out.  The last time the county had a meeting like this it turned into a ream-Malden-for-everything session, so I'm not looking forward to this.  Probably by the time this post goes up we'll be starting, so...say a little prayer.  To remind me to be on my best behavior, I put in an autism awareness bow.  Be kind, Moon Girl.  Bite your tongue and be kind.  Etsy shop is bowsforthebelle . "Be kind" is a tagline often attached to these bows (and indeed ANYTHING autism-themed), and it's usually directed at the person talking to an autistic person.  But it's not a bad idea to be kind no matter who you're talking to...unless the person you're talking to is going out of their way to be a jerk.  Then it should be okay to be a jerk back.  Hey, it's what I do, LOL. Today is no particular holiday unless you want to be like SpongeBob SquarePants and make one up, so I'll just call it quits for today....

No, not the mushroom.  This little goober! These were called My Precious Puffs, and they were made by Matchbox, the bunch better known for small cars.  They were produced in 1987 (meaning that they're as old as I am) and came in three sets.  The Beauty Puffs came in soft pastel shades and were perfume-scented (perfume makes me sneeze).  The Music Puffs were neon-colored and weren't scented at all.  Thank goodness, because my particular Puff is a Music Puff.  The last group also was scented and was called Party Puffs .  That last bunch had names, typical kid names like "Sunny" and "Lucky."  Mine doesn't have a name, so I'll have to change that. When the website said these were wearable, I think they meant one's wrist rather than one's hair.  My Puff fits very comfortably around my wrist, but getting him around my ponytail is another story entirely.  It's a challenge, but I always manage to get the job done.  No hair decoration tell...

Yet another patriotic one.  This one came from Etsy, but I don't know what shop it was. This one is one of three that my mother got for me in one fell swoop.  The others are the jellybean bow from June 3rd and the flag bow from June 14th . Like them, this bow is a big one. Let freedom ring, baby!  I remember sharing my memories of Flag Day, but I don't remember sharing memories of the Fourth of July...at least, not here.  Oh, I've got so many!  Halloween is my mother's favorite holiday, and Independence Day was my dad's for reasons unknown.  May have had something to do with his love for history.  But anywho, about April Daddy would start setting aside a little money here and there for fireworks, and as July 4th rolled around he'd buy fireworks with that money.  A few here, a few there, a whole sh!tload at Reeve's Boomland in Charleston...oh, Boomland.  I liked going there, but as I grew older I began to realize that it was kinda a dangerous...

Okay, that was back on June third, but today's bow wasn't ready then.  Indeed, since these bows are apparently made to order they take awhile to ship.  Anyway, despite me being located in Missouri the phrase "sleepy, dusty, Delta day" fits pretty well.  It's warm (but not hot, thank God), it's a bit windy, and most of the Missouri Bootheel is sand so the dust is stirring.  It's a good day to do nothing, but of course, I have to work.  Work means a hair bow, so...well, it ties in tangentially with Billie Joe McCallister and his fatal jump of the Tallahatchie Bridge.  The protagonist in "Ode to Billie Joe" was chopping cotton when she learned that her friend had jumped. Etsy shop is TincysCorner , down in Louisiana.  Fitting!  This particular bow is made out of linen, and linen is new territory for me because I don't have too many bows made out of that.  The vast majority of my bows are grosgrain, and indeed this one has a knot of grosgrain at ...

I'm not a Sneech and I don't live on a beach, but I do have stars.  Not on my belly, but on my bow.  Another patriotic one, as we are drawing ever closer to Independence Day. This bow is one of my all-time favorites, because a lot of my shirts are either blue, red, or both.  It also fits me very well without pulling or sliding.  Some of my other bows will do one or the other.  It's a heckuva note when you think your bow is secure, you go about your day, and in mid-stride it comes falling out of your hair.  I've only had that happen twice, but it still is a shock when it happens.   Shucks, now I wish I had a bow with Sneeches on it.  I love that story! Freedom, RagingMoon1987

Today is Dog Party Day.  I've never had a dog party myself, but I have some crazy friends who would do such a shenanigan.  To celebrate, here's a bow I've never worn before.  It has one of JoJo Siwa's dogs on it. Once upon a time Miss JoJo had a Yorkie.  Guess what it's name was?  BowBow !  BowBow wasn't JoJo's first doggie, and she wasn't her last either.  Indeed, JoJo's youngest dog tragically fell victim to coyotes not too long ago , something that I can relate with since my area has a lot of coyotes.  I wasn't present when Peep got killed, thank God, but Daddy found her remains and said it wasn't pretty.  Darn it, Grandma should've kept her fenced in, but then y'all know how beagles dig (Peep was a beagle).  Anyway, as of 2022 BowBow was still very much alive and apparently living with one of JoJo's friends .  In the linked video JoJo obviously still cares about BowBow, but the little dog had bonded with JoJo's friend so t...

It isn't often that I get two of those days in one week.  Here's what I chose for today.  Etsy shop is Tulazohairbows , a shop that I love. This is my third bow from there, and I opted to get one with a tassel rather than a pom-pom.  Tulazo has both options, as well as options that have neither and are just bows that hang out and look pretty on a ponytail.  This is another one of those bows that would never jive in front of a green screen, LOL.  Those green stripes are the exact color as a green screen.  But again, I'm not expecting to ever step in front of a green screen, so there's that out of the way. So that's it for this week!  Life continues to be kinda dull, but really smooth.  I'd rather have life smooth and dull than rough and exciting, especially after LAST summer, when Mama was in the hospital (gallbladder).  Take care of yourselves when you're young, folks, or you'll end up spending a summer with drains in your stomach...or a quar...

I'm blue, da-ba-dee, da-ba-dye, da-ba-dee, da-ba-dye...yeah.  I know " Blue " landed on plenty of lists about obnoxious songs, but I always liked it.  According to my favorite online source for holidays, the whole week has Men's Health Week, and apparently Friday of that day is Wear Blue Day.  So this is for the handful of men in my life that I love. Just a plain blue grosgrain bow, one just like the pink one I wore on May 19th  and the black one I wore on June 8th .  But no, most of the men in my life are either dead or just friends, but I do have Brother-in-Law and Uncle in St. Louis (better known as the twin of Uncle Man Child), and a few other family members that are the husbands of cousins or second cousins.  And Uncle Man Child, I guess; he's obnoxious, but my mom loves him, AND he knows what it's like to get kidney stones! Be sure to wear some item of blue today if you've got a male in your life that you love, especially if they're stubborn abou...

On this day in 1994 one of my favorite Disney movies was released.  For that, I present my sister's childhood friend, Simba. Oh, The Lion King is special to me for so many reasons.  It was the first movie that made me both laugh and cry, because who DOESN'T cry when Mufasa gets killed???  I was used to death and loss in Disney movies, having seen both Bambi and Dumbo , but one doesn't actually see Bambi's mother get killed, and Dumbo eventually gets reunited with his mother.  So that was a first for me.  Then there's the music, done by the one and only Sir Elton John, whose music I love.  Had no idea who the guy was when I was little, but when "Circle of Life" kicked in my attention was captured.  I loved the whole score, and I even waltzed around the playground more than once singing "Hakuna Matata" (I read once that Elton John HATED writing music for "Hakuna Matata"), but " Circle of Life " was and still is my favorite son...

You're a grand old flag.  LOL, this one was one that Mama gave me, so I have no idea where it came from, but I know it's Etsy.  It came from the same lot as the jellybean bow. A nice big bow!  The bigger they are, the better, though I draw the line at bows that are bigger than my head .  Seriously, I dreamed once that I was wearing one big enuff to catch the wind as I walked. Regarding Flag Day, Flag Day was a day I grew to loathe as a youngster.  My dad had a large number of historical flags, most dating back to the Revolutionary War (the time frame that he and his friends liked to re-enact).  June 14th was the day he'd put them up...and by "he" I mean my sister and I did the bulk of the work.  We'd have to ferry the flagpoles and the plastic pipes that held up the flagpoles from the backyard to the front.  We'd have to cut the strings that held the flags to the poles.  Daddy would tie the flags to the poles, and then Sister and I would have...

Today is the only day of this particular week that I don't have a specific bow picked out, so I chose something at random.  I love getting to do that. Kinda wish I had a Rolling Stones bow, for that song about being free : I'm free To do what I want Any old time! Repeat that several times, over a sea of airy guitars.  I love that era of Rolling Stones music, the sixties and early seventies when the Mod era was still alive and well, and "I'm Free" is one of my favorite songs by them.  I need to see what I can do about finding a Stones bow; Muse is apparently not popular enuff to have hair bows themed after them, but I know the Rolling Stones are.  Probably now that I've harped about not being able to find a Muse-themed hair bow, I WILL find one. Anyway, it's nice to be free!  True, I'm not always free to do what I want, but for the most part I have the ability to do whatever.  I have the freedom to wear green to work, for example.  The meteorologists t...

Not to be confused with Guys and Dolls, LOL.  In honor of World Doll Day, today's bow has my other love on it. If you don't like dolls, kindly swipe left, because this post will contain much geeking out over the various American Girls.  SouthernClassicBows made this puppy.  Her bows are usually based on kids' books, so when I saw this bow with the honest-to-God dolls on it I knew it had to be for me.  I call bows like this "bottle cap bows," because the bit in the center looks like a bottle cap.  Decorated bottle caps were all the rage a few years back. The center shows Addy Walker , Rebecca Rubin , Caroline Abbott , and Kaya'aton'my in their BeForever clothes.  For the uninitiated, BeForever was a reboot that was...kinda divisive among AG fans.  Most of the existing historical dolls got new clothes (Caroline and Kaya were the exceptions), and the books were redone to eliminate illustrations (and as it turned out, parts of the stories).  Some f...

I want to kick things off by sending warm birthday wishes to Muse vocalist Matt Bellamy, for whom I have growing respect.  My sister told me YEARS AGO that Muse was a decent band, but I'm only now realizing how right she is.  If you've ever heard Matt's wailing vocals in " Survival " then you'll understand why my respect for the band has grown, as his voice sounds hauntingly like that of the great Freddie Mercury, especially right at the end.  " Madness " is also a special song, as my sister and brother-in-law have it picked as "their song."  Y'all know how some married couples do that?  The spring before they were married my sister came home for spring break, and she happened to come home during the height of March Madness.  Sister reported later that every time she turned on the TV "Madness" was playing, and when she returned to Cape Girardeau Brother-in-Law reported the same thing.  The two had missed each other, of course,...

According to my favorite source for daily holidays , the word of the day for today is "tenebrous," which apparently means dark and gloomy.  Since today is also an auspicious day for tornado buffs, and since I associate tornadoes with the color black, I chose a simple black bow.  This one is another of my Wal-Mart cheer bows. I haven't had an excuse to wear these earrings in a good long time, but they're some of my favorites.  The Etsy shop, CorvidArtsBoutique, is no longer selling. I've been a tornado buff ever since I was three.  It was 1991 then, and that particular spring was an active one.  One particular tornado, one that struck Wichita and Andover, Kansas, left a huge impression on my toddler mind.  The video of that tornado striking McConnell Air Force Base is one of my all-time favorites (link is HERE ; parents cautioned due to language).  Seventeen people died in that tornado, but none of them were on the air base.  You'd have guessed fro...

You didn't give me my way without batting an eye and now I'm mad!!! Yesterday's bow was one of my biggest, and today's bow is one of my smallest, at three inches across.   Admit it, if you're reading this you're probably a bit of a Karen too.  All of us have it in us, but most of us keep it hidden until it's needed, and most of us probably don't go to the extremes that the Karens on rSlash do.  LOL, do any of y'all watch rSlash's "r/entitleparents" videos?  The voices that rSlash uses are hilarious, and some of the stories he reads are...well, they're both hilarious and infuriating, since some Karens are full-tilt ridiculous.  HERE is a link to rSlash's channel. If y'all have read my doll blog then you may have seen that I...actually kinda resent the "Karen" label a bit.  I agree that this breed of woman has to have a special name, but why couldn't it have been some old name that no one uses anymore, somethin...

Or rather, one of my biggest.  I have two in this size, one in LSU colors and one in Auburn University colors.  This one is the LSU-colored bow. Both these bows are nine inches across, putting them bigger than my jellybean bow. LSU is another of those schools that my family roots for in the fall, and for a very humorous reason.  As I've stated before I suffer from the occasional kidney stone.  I had my first one when I was sixteen, and then I had another one shortly after I turned twenty.  Both times my doctor was this short, fatherly type who wore LSU-themed hats and scrubs.  It never occurred to me to ask him if that was where he'd been to school, or if he just loved the colors like I do.  But either way I always think of him when I hear about LSU doing well at some sort of event. I think it's kinda funny, by the way, that Auburn and LSU are both the Tigers, but their colors are completely different.  I think it's interesting, and pretty cool to...

No thanks, I'm good.  I positively loathe jellybeans...unless they're on my hair bow. Mama hauled off and surprised me with three huge hair bows shortly after the beginning of May.  Two of 'em are patriotic, and the third one is this one, my jellybean bow.  Even though I don't particularly care for jellybeans, I love the colors!  It's a nice big bow too, exactly 7.75 inches across.  Okay, I lie a little bit about jellybeans.  I'm just VERY.  VERY.  PICKY.  I like the Starburst-brand jellybeans, and certain flavors of Jelly Belly (peach is my favorite).  Peach is just about my favorite anything, LOL.   Funny story about jellybeans.  After a story got loose in England about George Harrison and his fondness for Jelly Babies (a softer confection that isn't available stateside), well-meaning fans started throwing the sweets at George and the rest of the Beatles.  News travels fast, and when the Beatles started playing Amer...

MikeMikeMikeMikeMike...what day is it, Mike???  LOL, it's actually NOT Hump Day, but I couldn't resist.  Until Mayhem took over as Allstate's spokesman, GEICO commercials were my favorites...and I've gotta admit that GEICO commercials are still some of my favorites.  I'll never get over watching the gecko do the cheesesteak shuffle, for example.  But anyway, it is NOT Hump Day, nor is it National Cheesesteak Day (that was back in March).  IT'S NATIONAL DOUGHNUT DAY!!!  Guess who loves doughnuts?  <raises hand> We got a big box to share with the patrons as they come in.  Besides, it's Friday.  All the more reason to celebrate with a doughnut or two or ten. Of course I've got doughnuts on my bow.  Etsy shop is AKsHiddenGems . It's a nice big bow, like many of mine are, and some of those doughnuts look ah-maz-ing.  I like the basketball ones the best, LOL.  I've always liked seeing food items decorated as other common but in...

I think I've established this in the past, but I identify as a Hufflepuff.  This one came from LittleLondonBowtique . Truth be told, I don't really feel like I'd have fit in ANYWHERE at Hogwarts!  Gryffindor requires bravery and I'm a sniveling coward.  Ravenclaw requires intelligence, and I'm...well, I'm not stupid, but I'm not a genius either.  I'm not ruthless enuff to belong to Slytherin.  So by default I sorted myself into Hufflepuff.  It's all in good fun anyway, LOL. I think I said this in my post about the Marauder's Map bow that my sister is an out-and-proud Slytherin.  I can remember us discussing the houses at Hogwarts as teenagers, and she said, casually as all get-out, "I'm a Slytherin.  I'm not the least bit ashamed of it."  I remember laughing and saying "Yeah, that fits you!"  It was hilarious.  My mom, as always, shook her head and said "I have no idea what you two are talking about."  LOL, ...