The Bow Belle

<pauses to look>  No, Clemson is orange.  They're tigers, so they WOULD be orange.  This looks more like University of Georgia.  Either way it's black, white, and red with paw prints. UGA for the win !  My family is intensely fond of bulldogs.  We've never owned one, but we HAVE owned several Boston terriers over the years.  While not the same as bulldogs, Boston terriers do have some similarities.  Oh yeah, and they're hilarious. Boston terriers are the funniest dogs on the planet in my book.  They've got delightful little personalities, and they're hyper enuff to play while still calm enuff to take a nap in the grass.  Some other breeds don't have an "off" switch (jack russell terriers), but Boston terriers are a lovely in-between.  The dog we had during my teens loved to play tug o'war with his rope toy, and if I held it out of his reach he'd jump for it!  Thus how we kept him from getting too fat, LOL. Regarding colleges, my siste

I'm a fan of Peanuts, and today is Charles Schulz's birthday.  Thus... ...I guess I should've titled this post "Good ol' Snoopy" since Snoopy's the one on the bow, but...well, oh well.  Peanuts has always been big with my family; during Halloween and Christmas we'd drop everything to watch the appropriate specials.  "I got a rock" and "YOU! ARE! COMMITTED!!!" are family catchphrases (the second one stems from the more obscure Snoopy's Getting Married ).  We had characters that we related to; my music-loving father liked Schroder the best, while my mother was the oldest of three kids and related most to Lucy.  She has always been very quick to defend Lucy's actions, unless they involved being mean to Snoopy, which Lucy sometimes was.  In Lucy's defense, Snoopy sometimes needed it; I never understood what crawled up his nose and died at the beginning of Snoopy Come Home , for example.  Snoopy picked a fight with both Lucy

It's over, thank God, Thanksgiving is over!  Then comes Christmas, which also isn't as fun now that I'm grown.  But oh, do I love the lights and the decorations and the spirit!  That said, today's bow doesn't show that.  I'm not quite there yet. Etsy shop is skullxcrusher , the same shop that supplied my Karen bow . For some inexplicable reason I had a fixation with road signs growing up.  I think it was because a lot of 'em utilized short words that my toddler mind could read.  I knew "stop," "go," "left," "right," "turn," "enter," "exit," "dead," and "end."  I also learned "street" quickly because Malden has a handful of signs that read "dead end street."  I needed a little help with "yield" since it wasn't in any of my kiddie books.  I also learned the word "bitch" pretty quickly, because someone had graffitied a stop sign

Today I wore a new blouse that covers my neck and arms ('cause it's cold), and it has a lot of pink in it so I paired it with an old standby.   My old pink bow from the craft section at Wal-Mart.  I wore this once before , pairing it with a set of My Child earrings.   Ardent readers of my doll blog will know that I'm not the biggest fan of a lot of pink.  Oh, I like pink.  Some of my best bows are pink.  But being a doll fan means that all too often one is exposed to a lot of pink, especially if one likes Barbie (not all dolly fans like Barbie, believe it or not).  My main beef with the color is the overuse of it, especially in Barbie's world.  Her house is pink.  Her car is pink.  Way too many of her dresses are pink.  Her HORSE was pink once, if I recall correctly!  If you like The Wizard of Oz then you know there are humane ways to color horses pink, but still!  Having a pink horse is taking it a bit too far.  One of the Barbie Extras did have a teacup pig as a pet

Today is one of those days where folks my mother's age will turn to folks my age and say " You know what day this is, right? "  If you're American, odds are that you'll know, but if you're not American and/or don't know, here's a link.  Mama says that JFK's assassination was their equivalent of 9/11; everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when they got the news.  But today I'm doing something completely different, partly to vocalize my feelings about a situation that is now almost a year old, and partly to (hopefully) get some feedback.  First things first:  the bow.  Tomorrow is Doctor Who Day, and that ties into the story I'm about to tell.  Etsy shop is AandMsBOWtique . The TARDIS is a cheer bow, and the Doctor himself is a teddy bear.  I've officially seen everything. Now buckle up, because I'm about to start bloviating.  Last December I met a young man, and NO, WE DID NOT FALL IN LOVE!!!  Not romantic love

Today's bow is a turkey bow, one that came in the Right Box.  Shop was AdoraBowsStore. As I'll elaborate on my doll blog in a few days, Thanksgiving is not the holiday for my family that it once was.  Indeed, this year I'd prefer to have a pot of spaghetti and be done with it.  Mama is good company, but when you're with someone every day you run out of things to talk about after awhile.  And Uncle Man-Child is NOT good company.  So I'll load up a few books and my favorite American Girl doll, and while that man-thing talks about himself all the livelong day I'll read and take pictures...after I'm done helping with meal prep, that is.  We're not gonna do the full turkey thing since there's only three of us, but Mama will still need my help.  I'm usually the "gopher," LOL.  Go for this, go for that, etc.  I don't mind that, though...unless I'm reaching for something just out of my grasp and do a face plant, like I almost did a few

Today is Minnie Mouse's birthday.  Etsy shop is ThreeDoesBows . Minnie is the original Queen of the Bow, and she didn't even start wearing a hair bow until the 1940s, with the end of the pie-eyed era.  Before then she was a flapper type , with patched bloomers, ridiculously big shoes, and sometimes a hat.  I'm not really sure when the red polka-dotted dress and bow became her thing, but by the time I was around that was how I knew Minnie the best.  One of my college friends painted her nails red with white polka dots because she too associate the pattern with our beloved rodent girl, and I had another friend (a teacher and thus an older woman than me) who often wore a red dress with white polka dots to church.  She also had Minnie on her watch, and I loved that because it made me think of my dad (he had a watch with Daffy Duck on it).  That teacher didn't live to be very old; she sadly died of ALS when I was in college.  Her grave marker has a silhouette of Minnie Mouse

Today is the anniversary of the "Heidi Bowl."  I love football anyway, and it's football season (the Titans aren't doing so well), so I'm wearing a football skin bow.  Etsy shop is kraftyelves , the same bunch that brought y'all my baseball skin bow . Oh, the Heidi Bowl.  For the uninitiated, the Heidi Bowl was a regular old NFL football game between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets.  In 1968 the Raiders and the Jets had a rivalry that equaled those between Auburn and Alabama or between the Cardinals and the Cubs.  The resulting game was a donniebrook that ran long in its three-hour time slot.  That was a problem because NBC, who was airing the game, had Heidi scheduled to start at 7 P.M. sharp, and they'd promised Timex (sponsoring the flick) that there would be no delays .  Long story short, NBC cut the game with the Jets ahead and one minute, one second left on the clock.  While football fans were being forced to watch a dumb movie about a du

Well, actually this is a different pumpkin bow from the last one I wore . This is another one that my mom surprised me with, and believe you me, I've needed it!  I've been depressed since the beginning of the month, and I can't seem to shake it.  Both Mama's house and mine need renovations, and we're kinda, sorta, REALLY strapped for cash, and we've got a lot to do before we can even think about professional work, so I'm feeling overwhelmed.  It's nothing that can't be fixed, but I don't like it.  Not one little bit. Now pumpkins, I like.  I can take or leave pumpkin pie, but pumpkins in general I like.  They're such a bright, happy shade of orange, and they're very useful.  One can eat the seeds when they're roasted, and one can eat the rind in any number of ways.  There was even a scene in one of the Little House books where Caroline Ingalls cut up a green pumpkin and made a pie out of it.  Apparently when cooked and seasoned it ta

November 10th was  Sesame Street 's birthday, but I waited a bit too long to order this bow so it wasn't here in time.  Etsy shop is one I'm quickly growing fond of, AbbeysAlley . Oh Lordy, I loved Sesame Street growing up, and I still love it.  Predictably, Oscar the Grouch is my favorite character, though I also relate to Cookie Monster pretty well.  C'mon, who doesn't love cookies???  I also retain a soft spot for a more obscure character Forgetful Jones , because he was the first character that showed true emotion that wasn't being played for laughs.  Or at least he was the first character that I saw; not long after that I learned that all the muppets on Sesame Street are capable of crying or flying into a rage.  But in the Sesame Street Magazine  story, Forgetful's steed and BFF Buster was heading away to see family (or so Forgetful thought), and he was distraught over the pair being separated.  Buster subsequently reminded Forgetful that it was HIS fa

Today is National Pickle Day, National Guacamole Day, and National Spicy Guacamole Day.  I like guacamole and I like pickles, but I LOVE teddy bears.  It's also National American Teddy Bear Day.  Etsy shop is RoxysBowtiqueShop . September 9th is also Teddy Bear Day.  I wonder what the difference is between National Teddy Bear Day and National American Teddy Bear Day?  Oh well, I always wear purple on September 9th anyway , and who needs a reason or a special day to celebrate teddy bears?  But yeah, I've told my mother on more than one occasion that if I didn't collect dolls I would collect teddy bears instead.  My bosses said I couldn't have dolls at my work station, but they said absolutely nothing about teddy bears so I have a few small ones.  These are all Boyd's teddy bears, though the two little ones remind me of Ty Warner's Teddy variants (there were twelve of those, two face shapes and six colors for each face shape).  I had intended these bears as props

Two days ago I was wavy, and now I'm loopy!  Etsy shop is ElizabethVirginiaAve . Mama said that in the pictures it looked red, and in my picture it looks almost pumpkin-colored.  But in truth it's this really beautiful coral shade, one that will look amazing with a contrasting color like blue or yellow.  Despite my chirpy beginning I'm feeling a little sad today.  Lola, one of my cats, fell ill and had to go to the vet.  There the vet found a tumor in her belly and long story short, I had to put her to sleep.  This is what she looked like in the prime of life; she decided to crash a dolly shoot and thus is seen with Licca-chan . It was the weirdest thing ever; a week and a half ago Lola was medium-chonky and springing onto my shoulder for hugs (she loved hugs), and as the week passed she dropped a ton of weight, stopped cleaning herself, and by yesterday she was too weak to jump onto the counter.  It was a shocking decline, one that my vet told me was typical of cancer.  Li

Recently life was a little bit crazy for one of the library's patrons, and while we were chatting with him he made some sort of remark about all of us being a little or a lot nuts.  That got me to thinkin' about my favorite lines from Alice in Wonderland, and that led me to order this bow.  Etsy shop is CherryBlossomsBows . The Cheshire Cat utters this line to Alice at the end of the pair's first meeting .  LOL, I always liked the scene because it had a double meaning, and also because I appreciated the Cat's honesty.  Truthfully we probably all are not there to a certain extent.  I wholeheartedly embrace my own insanity. I talk a lot about Disney on this blog even though I'm not a hardcore, live-strong, die-hard fan.  Alice in Wonderland is one of the movies I grew up with from the word "go," along with Bambi and Lady and the Tramp .  I liked the flick as a child due to the colors and the all-around nonsense of it all, but my sister wasn't a fan.  T

Here we have another bow from AbbeysAlley .  It's trippy and big and brightly colored, just like I like. LOL, I wonder what these would look like under 3-D glasses?  Kinda reminds me of a severe weather warning that ran in South Dakota during the 1970's.  BRRRRRRRRRRR!!!  This is a tornado warning, a tornado warning.  BRRRRRRRRRRR!!!  LOL, weather warnings like that are the stuff nightmares are made of.  My area's local CBS affiliate is creepy enuff with a Don LaFontaine-style voice declaring "We interrupt this program for a Storm Team weather advisory," but for the most part we don't get trippy graphics, blocky letters, or creepy sound effects.  As far as I know, our ABC affiliate in Jonesboro never went the creepy route either. This bow attaches to my hair with a band of soft, knitted, extra-stretchy fabric.  I like this method of attachment because it doesn't pull the daylights out of my hair, but the downside is that bows like this are notoriously har

This one was a freebie, one that came with a clip I bought from MoFunAccessories .  I love that shop! Idiot Uncle Man-Child was snooping over Mama's shoulder, and when he saw the picture of this bow he thought it was a cat.  The colors make me think of Alice in Wonderland, but I'll save my discussion of Alice for another time and another bow.  The flourishes in the center make me think of Faberge eggs . I told Mama that if I were a rich lady I'd buy one piece of Faberge jewelry.  Just one.  After all these years they're still very much into Easter eggs, and a lot of their necklaces pay tribute to that.  But shee-yoodie, some of those prices!  One could buy a nice house or a REALLY nice car for the price of some of those necklaces...and wouldn't y'all know, one of the most expensive ones is my favorite necklace.  I like it the best because it's modelled after one of the imperial eggs .  I wish there was a necklace that was modelled after the Winter Egg , as

On this day in 2016 the movie Trolls was released here in the U.S., so I figure now is as good a time as any to wear this bow. This one showed up in the Wrong Box from AdorasBowsStore last summer.  The flash caught on the bottle cap bit, so here's a better look at the center. Princess Poppy, who made several appearances this past Halloween. Sigh...these Trolls are a LOT different from the ones I collected as a kid.  Between the Cabbage Patch craze and the Beanie Baby bonanza there were trolls.  Mama called 'em Wishniks because that was what they were called during her youth, but I knew 'em as trolls.  I had one in just about every color and just about every size.  I had Treasure Trolls, Magic Trolls, generic trolls with no special gimmick, and the guardians of my fleet, two Battle Trolls.  LOL, yeah, Battle Trolls probably the most ridiculous of them all , but they were a thing.  Battle Trolls were geared towards boys, but I liked 'em too.  Since Nunchuck Troll and Tro

Well...I like a lot of invertebrates, but I do think jellyfish are particularly cool.  Today is Jellyfish Day, but alas, I've just got a plain jelly bow for my hair (Etsy shop is perfectprincess ). I did have jellyfish earrings, dangly vinyl ones that fluoresced under blacklight, but one of my cats destroyed them and I haven't replaced them. Admittedly I got tired of discussing the phylum  Cnidaria during invertebrate zoology, but in truth jellyfish are some of my favorite animals.  I won't say they're my absolute favorite invertebrate since I love so many insects and am very fond of echinoderms and cephalopods, but I do think jellyfish are pretty dern cool.  Like tornadoes and split rainbows , there's a lot of mystery surrounding them.  Scientists aren't really sure how long these boneless, brainless creatures have been around.  They have no brainstems or ganglions, just a ring of nerves that helps them to function, and yet they catch fish and breed and live l

I like circles, but I didn't know there was a day for them.  Today is Look For Circles Day , and the circle happens to be my favorite shape.  Etsy shop is KeeliesCheerBows . Mama wasn't lying when she said that every day had some sort of goofy made-up holiday.  By the way, I wonder when polka dots stop being polka dots and start being circles.  These look pretty close to the threshold, but I don't know where that threshold is. <pauses to look it up>  According to designpoolpatterns.com , circles are hollow or contain some sort of motif (like the Chessie System logo sort of does), while polka dots are a solid color all the way through.  So it sounds like all polka dots are circles, but not all circles are polka dots.  But seriously, circles have always been my favorite shape.  They're smooth all over, and some of my favorite things were circles.  My favorite game was whiffle ball, and most of the best balls are round.  My favorite candies (Skittles and Smarties at

I was sixteen when I learned what Day of the Dead was.  I'd already decided by then that I wanted to be a mortician, so a holiday that celebrated the dead was right up my alley.  That was the year that my Spanish teacher taught us how to build and decorate the shrines, and then graded us on our efforts.  My team picked the recently deceased Ray Charles and had a wonderful time doing it, so much so that our teacher gave us full credit.  "You all worked together so well!  You're the only ones getting full credit." she said.  I've never built a shrine since, but I love the sentiment behind Day of the Dead, and of course I love the decorations and the colors.  Yeah, yeah, y'all get the point.  Here's my bow.  Yeesh, I didn't know my hair was so tangled!  I don't know which Etsy shop this is, but it kinda looks like a bow that AbbeysAlley would sell. I've also got these, which my mama got for me.  They smell of nail polish. I don't know if that