The Bow Belle

I've been a fan of van Gogh's work for much of my life, and when Mama found me the earrings I knew I needed a bow to match.  The search proved to be like finding the Ark of the Covenant, but I found one that suited my fancy and matched the earrings. This one is yet another Etsy find, from FieryFoxBoutique . Here's the earrings; I've actually got two Starry Night-themed pairs, but these are big and in-your-face.  Plus, I love the pallet. I've never been as mentally ill as Vincent van Gogh was, but I've always related to his paintings more than I do those of any artist.  He painted what he saw, but he painted what he felt as well.  One could see the love he felt for the workers in the wheat field , for the night sky , for the vase of sunflowers ...but at the same time one could sense his own self-loathing as his self-portraits grew darker and darker and darker .   My fondness for van Gogh's work goes back a long time, long before Vince took a spin in the TA...

On this day in 1939 Judy Garland recorded the song she was most known for. I claim not to be a big fan of The Wizard of Oz , but...oh gosh, I think every day I'll mutter some line like "Half you go this way, half you go that way," or "I'll bite you myself, you wicked ol' witch!"  And the Cowardly Lion's wailed "I WANNA GO HOOOOOME!" is one of my mantras when work gets tough.  So I like that goofy movie more than I say I do.  I just wish that it weren't so different from the book.  In the movie Dorothy spends much of her time crying about something, and by the end of it all I'm about ready to "give her somethin' to cry about," as Mama would say.  In the book Dorothy isn't afraid to cry if she's sad or scared, but she also isn't afraid to sass the witch or help her friends if they're in a pickle. As to the song, I...I actually prefer Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's version .  He was Hawaiian, and I tend t...

...wear them!  Yep, more yellow!  Yellow is special to me because my mom loves the color.  Plus, it's lemonade season.  osewpretty is the shop this time. Not that I need an excuse to drink lemonade; I love the stuff.  Have ever since I was a little kid.  But y'all already knew that, because I've said it in the past. Lemons, on the other hand...hmmmm.  I liked lemon-flavored stuff when I was a kid (still do), but as far as biting into a lemon itself, forget it!  I never was a fan of sour things.  My sister, on the other hand...she'd peel a lemon like it was an orange and eat the slices straight, and she could do it while barely puckering!  She's always loved sour stuff, the more sour, the better!  I never saw the allure of having one's jaw and cheeks clenched so tightly it was painful, but...ah well, who knows?  Maybe my crazy sister LIKES the pain!  But yeah, my favorite flavor of pudding is lemon, and I particularly like...

I can't remember ever wearing this bow, so today it steps out. There's not much to say, really.  This one speaks for itself, being a yellow-on-yellow stripe with a vague horizontal pattern thrown in.  Kinda veronal for the blazing hot weather most of the country has been having. Yellow, like purple, is a special color to me.  It's not my favorite, but it's my mother's favorite and the color always makes me think of her.  It helps that just about everyone I know looks amazing in yellow.  Mama looks good, my best guy friend looked good, my dolls look good, and I daresay that I look okay as well.  Yellow also accentuates other colors well; one of my favorite combinations is yellow and pink.  I don't know why, but I've always loved how pink and yellow look together, especially if they're both soft shades.  The eye-splitting neon shades look pretty good together too, though. Okay, that's enuff bloviating!   Love, RagingMoon1987

This is another of those bows that I forgot I had. I picked up at Wal-Mart because purple and because it has L.O.L. Surprise emojis all over it.  The green one is my favorite.  For those unfamiliar with L.O.L. Surprises, the dolls come with a sticker sheet that has four or five emoji on it.  These show which gimmick your doll could potentially have. The four original gimmicks were a color-changing feature (always my favorite), a little brat, a tinkler, and a crier.  Later models also had an option for water to spew from the doll's ears, which sounds painful.  The secret messages that come in with the dolls also have these emoji-type images, but notice that in this case my little devil is purple. So far I've never gotten the green devil in any of my packages, but then I've only bought a handful of these.  I'm willing to bet they ARE part of the secret messages somewhere. Love and dollies, RagingMoon1987

This one is kinda unusual.  It incorporates unicorns with a fabric that looks vaguely like Pucci...or tie-dying, take your pick. The unicorn is Afro-American, with a curly black mane AND a little crown on her horn.  She's the Queen and she knows it!   I saw this at Wal-Mart and fell in love, because when's the last time any of y'all saw a unicorn of this type?  Of course unicorns can be any color they want, but this one depicting a black girl tickled me to death.  Just goes to show that we can ALL be unicorns! Love and unicorns, RagingMoon1987

I've shown this one before, but this is the first time I've worn it.   Etsy shop is  beautifulChaos101 .  They specialize in stuff that glows under blacklight, for laser tag, moon golf, blacklight bowling, or just for the heckuvit.  I love things that glow in the dark or under blacklight, and this bow fills that void .   I'm not really sure what else to say, other than that this bow is extremely comfortable.  It has a double loop of elastic and sometimes those bows are NOT comfortable, but this one is.  I suppose I could also ramble on about the Doors and how hot Jim Morrison was, but...well, everyone knows that! Love, RagingMoon1987

Sounds like an unlikely combo, but with hair bows no combo is too outlandish.  Dig this one! This one is another present from my mama, from AdoraBowStore...which appears to have disappeared since the last post I made about their products.  Too bad; I really loved their bows.  I guess now I can appreciate the ones I've got even more! Ah, pink.  I have a very unusual relationship with pink.  I'm fond of the color in small pops and doses, and I even own a few pink blouses, but when one's wardrobe is drowning in it...blech.  Barbara Millicent Roberts, I'm looking at you.  During the nineties everything Barbie owned was pink, and while I don't mind someone wanting things in their favorite color it...it just got old after awhile.  Probably if everything she'd owned had been green or lavender I would've gotten tired of that after awhile.  Now that soft baby pink, I do like.  That's the shade that a lot of baby yarn comes in, and I associate it ...

Today is one of my dad's favorite holidays.  I don't know why, but it was.  It's National Hot Dog Day.  My clip today is actually a corn dog, but in my family corn dogs counted. Crocheted corn dog from CreationsbyCronisha .  I never would've thought of it, LOL, but I'm not gonna ask too many questions.  The earrings aren't hot dogs either, but they are something good to eat with hot dogs.  These are from EyesOnYouHandmade . Yum!  I'm not a huge fan of tons of ketchup, but a little bit of it is good.  I prefer my French fries with spices, or with salt and vinegar, but I'm not too picky. Oh yes, National Hot Dog Day.  My family didn't have weenie roasts super-often, but when we did my dad went all the way.  We'd char our hot dogs until they were black on the outside, and then we'd load on the kraut and the relish and whatever else we wanted.  Daddy always had a few bratwurst in the mix, and we'd have lemonade and Kool-Aid, and usually...

Today's bow is one of my plainer ones, black satin with a big fake pearl in the center.  As usual, the story behind it makes it special.  Up until about a year ago, I had a friend named Karen.  Karen was a single mother and had worked as a janitor at the school, so she had no end of funny stories.  We enjoyed her company so much at the library that we'd pull a chair behind our workstations and let her sit.  There we'd talk and cut up until closing time.  If other patrons came in we'd invite them to join the fun.  Unprofessional?  Maybe, but we all enjoyed it. Karen was crafty and good in the kitchen, and every so often she'd surprise us with homemade cookies or a knickknack for the library or something like that.  One day she came in with this bow and another nice clip in her hands.  "My hair is too short for these, and I know you like hair do-dads," she said.  Oh, did I have a big smile on my face that day! Karen is sadly no longer...

This one reminds me of the scene described in " Lookin' Out My Back Door ."  It's got roses, plaid, unicorn profiles, AND a rainbow horn.  Now all it needs is a flying spoon. On the other hand, this one kinda goes with everything I have! Interesting thing about "Lookin' Out My Back Door":  it is NOT a drug song, despite the kooky lyrics.  John Fogerty was inspired by a Dr. Seuss book , one that was among the controversial six entitled To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street .  Well, well, well, all you wokies out there, put that in your bong and smoke it!  I don't know what Fogerty's opinions are on the book now, but he'd have very little room to gripe since it inspired one of Creedence Clearwater Revival's more popular songs.  Oh well, leftie or no, I love me some CCR, and I like some of Fogerty's solo stuff too.  " The Old Man Down the Road " makes me think of a very bizarre murder case here in Missouri...one that has n...

This one is another of my favorite bows, and yet I rarely wear it.  More often than not I deem the shirt I'm wearing unworthy, LOL. I shouldn't be that way though, because most of my shirts are nice.  But anyway, JoJo Siwa and her wuppy dog BowBow make an appearance on this bow, and for once JoJo isn't clad in a rainbow skirt.  She's wearing an outfit that I wish I could find in American Girl doll-size, complete with a cute red jacket.  Couldn't be too hard to approximate such an outfit! Cheers, RagingMoon1987

Ah yes, the dog days.  I remember the long, hot stretch between Independence Day and the start of school as a bittersweet wild card for my family.  The sweet consisted of afternoons spent in the pool, of day trips to Cape Girardeau or Fort Massac or wherever, of staying up late playing Uno or Pop-o-matic Trouble, of weenie roasts with s'mores and lemonade, of stargazing and bat watches.  On the other hand, the bitter consisted of bad sunburns, of the occasional spanking or family squabble, of long periods of heat followed by waves of violent thunderstorms, of the impending school year and the changes it would bring, of MOSQUITOES!!!  There are times when I wish the gates of hell would open and devour the mosquitoes, but the swallows, the bats, and the house spiders (all of whom I love) live off mosquitoes, so maybe I need to just shut face.  I have a pretty good relationship with most of the insects summer brings out (mosquitoes and red wasps are the exception),...

A great many of my hair bows are gifts, usually from my mother and less often from someone at the library.  Today is one of those; my mom knows how I love polka dots and bright colors, so she got me this.  The Etsy shop is one we both love, AdoraBowsStore .  It has hidden rhinestones on the side, like a couple of my other bows do. The colors in the center remind me a little of a pearl necklace that I got Mama for Mother's Day one year.  She doesn't remember it, to my considerable surprise, but I do.  It was one of those pea pod necklaces that mamas get, with the "peas" being pearls in the colors of the children's birthstones.  The pea pod I selected had a blue one for my sister (September/sapphire), a pink one for myself (October/opal or tourmaline), and a yellow one for my brother-in-law (November/topaz).  Just like the pearls on this particular bow. To my chagrin, Mama has yet to wear the necklace.  I forget how many years ago that was, and she'...

Today is Chick-fil-A's Cow Appreciation Day, and y'all know what that means!  Pity that the nearest Chick-fil-A is eighty miles away.  Etsy shop is LittleBowsJust4you . Ah, Chick-fil-A, going strong despite controversy!  I like the place myself, but at the end of the day it's really just another fast food joint, albeit one with an amusing memory attached to it.  Doesn't EVERYTHING in my life have a story???  Anyway, this one begins the summer before Sister and Brother-in-Law became engaged.  Pert near ten years ago, in other words.  Sister's apartment was in a dangerous area, Brother-in-Law's apartment was out of Cape Girardeau's city limits by quite a hair, and the rent for both was ridiculous.  Thus Sister and BIL were moving into a safer apartment that was right across the street from SEMO campus.  One wicked hot day I volunteered to help do some moving, mayhem ensued, and by the end of the day we were all tired and wanting something to ea...

I refer y'all to my post yesterday for my opinions on ice cream.  I love the stuff, but it doesn't love me anymore.  But today is National Ice Cream Sundae day, right on the heels of Strawberry Sundae Day.  What can I say, July is National Ice Cream Month.  Thus I finally get an opportunity to wear this. This is the last of my bows from AMWBowtique ...for now, at least.  As I've said several times before, the proprietor does have a new shop where she sells things, so I probably am not done with this crew.  I've always loved the little figurine on this bow, by the way. Those eyes are inset, y'all!  They are not painted.  I don't have anything against painted eyes, but when the eyes are inset and this straight, it shows someone gave a crap about the quality of their product. Now...regarding ice cream, I think I conjectured yesterday that I've developed a mild sensitivity to milk products, since milk and ice cream tend to sit on my stomach like a bri...

I dare not eat ice cream, as the stuff tends to make me nauseous nowadays.  But I can still wear strawberries on my bow!  Etsy shop is CutiePatootieBow17 . Mmmm, I do love me some strawberries!  I can take or leave ice cream these days, but strawberries are a summer ritual in my household.  Every year either Mama or Daddy would buy us a whole mess of 'em, price be damned, and for the next few days that was what we had for desert.  When we kids were little Mama would cut the berries up and put a ton of sugar on them, but now we just eat 'em whole.  Sometimes we even find them with little divots slashed in the side, the calling card of a box turtle (I love box turtles). Now ice cream, as I said above, I can take or leave.  I used to love the stuff but now it sits heavily on my stomach and makes me feel queasy, especially if I have a large amount.  Sherbet does not have the same effect on me, making me wonder if I've developed a sensitivity to dairy ...

Hockey season is a long way off...and then I'll turn around and it'll be here.  Behold, my favorite team.  Etsy shop is JoyJoeyKangaroo ; they are currently not selling anything, but have not completely closed up shop. My father watched just about every sport except for golf and pro-basketball.  LOL, he liked both sports, but he didn't get much enjoyment out of watching.  But during the spring it was St. Louis Blues hockey.  Of course part of hockey is fistfighting, and after I saw my first fight I too was hooked on the sport.  Hell, even when they're NOT fighting they're rough on each other, and they do this all on skates! One of my favorite memories is attached to hockey, albeit tangentially.  I was fifteen and having to put together a picture board for a school report on comets, and in order to do so I had to lay out the pictures before placing them.  I'd done this on the living room floor so I could watch the hockey game while I worked, but it...

With Fourth of July over, the next closest big event is...dare I say it?  Back to school time.  I think this one is from AdoraBowsStore , but I'm not for sure; as is often the case, my mom gave me this one. I included "rhinestones" in the tags, but they're carefully concealed.  Both of them are located in the little bows on the sides, like so. Yep, it's getting to be that time.  Just a long, dull stretch of hot weather with no holidays even remotely in sight.  My family always found ways to have fun, but it wasn't always easy because three of the four of us had school hanging over our heads.  Sometimes we had fun at school, believe it or not.  While Mama got her room ready my sister and I would roam the halls, exploring the unlocked classrooms, playing hide and seek in the cafeteria, chatting with any other teachers we ran into (Mama was friends with most of 'em).  Sister and I made a verbal agreement with each other:  no stealing, no making ...

I feel like I'm referring to American Girl's list of Truly Me dolls when I look at this bow's packaging.  Here's the bow, first and foremost; it's a JoJo bow, and it's apparently part of the JoJo Bow Club.  It's a nice, big bow, perfect for the time of year. Now, here's the drawstring baggie it came in.  Apparently this is Bow #8 in the club. I almost embarked on a search for the other numbered bows...until I saw a bag marked 40!  I've already got two big crates full of hair bows and I'm working on a third!  The last thing I need is forty-plus JoJo Bows, some of which...aren't that pretty, shall we say.  I like #7, #23 , and #47 , for example...oh, and #17 for March Madness!  But #52 I can live without.  Too much pink, too many hearts.  #13 is also a hard pass for me, as it looks a lot like a bow I already own.  So no, I don't believe I'll be completing the JoJo Bow Club collection, but some of those sure are cute!  I want the ba...