Snippets and Snatches

Someday our grandaughter, Carmen, will get to play with the army of Polly Pockets her excited grandfather (abuelito) brought home from a yard sale!  She isn’t born yet and the hundreds of  rubber clothes and shoes are so tiny she will have to wait until she’s old enough not to swallow toys before she can play with them.  But they are safely stored away, all cleaned up and sorted, waiting for her little hands and big imagination…or any other grandchildrens’, to discover them and play with them for countless hours.

I had pretty much forgotten all about Polly Pockets and since I rarely visit a Toys R Us (after practically living in one for over a decade!) I didn’t even know if they were still in the stores.  So, I did a little research (which nowadays means I googled it) and learned all sorts of things!  Even Polly Pocket is in Wikipedia, which surprises me!  Of course, the Polly Pocket line has a series of fashion dolls with names and quirky character descriptions (as well as videos, books, toy houses, cars and vacation getaways).  One of the male dolls has a crush on Polly, no surprise there!  In my Polly Pocket research I also learned the hard plastic clothes with the tiny magnets were recalled several years ago and need to be discarded.  I remember our daughter had some Polly Pockets, but we didn’t keep them when she outgrew playing with them. I’m pretty sure she sold them in a yard sale herself and none of us were thinking about the future!  We did save the Legos, however!  (Now there’s an investment for which we are waiting on a return for our money by saving them for the grandchildren!)

As I washed the rubber clothes, the most laundry I’ve ever done in a day, I was amazed at the durability and flexibility of the rubber.  Why hasn’t some green-minded fashionista thought of this yet?  Imagine a closet full of soft, colorful rubber clothes made from recycled materials that stretches with a “few” extra pounds and never wears out!  I suppose it would be too hot and would still need to be laundered somehow (a garden hose comes to mind) but maybe those issues could be…never mind, I just had a blast from the past of our teenage sons wiggling into rubbery wetsuits to go surfing, nothing I ever want to experience or wear to work or even to clean the house in on a Saturday morning, I’m sure.  Though it might help tighten up a jelly belly!  In any case, we are now ALMOST prepared for a Polly Pocket World…still have to invest in a house, a really cool convertible and a vacation beach house for the Polly Pockets to enjoy life in (it will be crowded for an army this size but that’s life)!

I was out of space in my studio/writing room and the longer it took me to accomplish its reorganization, the more it was bugging me out of my mind.  It was a long time coming and though a previous picture of my partial progress encouraged me to finish, it still took awhile this summer.  Here is the other half of my sanctuary, all the piles gone, the space I’ve been enjoying beyond words the past few weeks.  Finally, my creative side has fertile ground in which to be inspired!

This quest for a room of my own is a process that has taken years, really. I went from a desk in the livingroom of our first home when the kids were babies then toddlers, to claiming the intended formal diningroom in our current home during their school years, to this spare bedroom turned studio with a door that actually closes to keep the noise out.  Ironically, there isn’t much noise now that the nest is empty, so I don’t necessarily need it now like I needed it then.  My creative space was always in the midst of the hullabaloo.  Nevertheless, I will enjoy this room of my own since I have wanted it and waited for it for so long. I still have two dogs and a cat causing hullabaloos that make me glad I have a door to close when the time is right and the creative juices are stirring.