Because it made me smile...

Lauren stopped watering her plants on our front porch and having to walk past them everyday and watch them progress thru the various stages of dying and decomposition was difficult for me. A couple days ago I noticed that something appeared to be growing in her squash plant pot. It is growing really fast and, while i was originally a little bit grossed out, i am now embracing my new fungus friend. His name is Squish- Squish the squash fungus- and I would like you to meet him:


I got a notice that I had a "parcel" in the office and I was super excited because I knew the only thing I should be getting was the 3 dolls I ordered from ebay last week. So i went to our parcel room and was obviously looking for a cabbage patch sized box, but there were very few large boxes in the room. After looking at EVERY package (twice!) except for one sad looking package on the top shelf that was being held together by 5 lbs of packing tape (nobody would ship an ebay purchase in THAT!), i almost gave up and asked the office manager for help. Just for laughs I checked the sad box to see what poor sap would be receiving it. Look what came home with me:

just in case this pic doesnt make it painfully obvious, the sides are both caved in, there was doll hair sticking out the side, and the box had all the sturdiness of a target bag. I'm wondering where all my shipping money went...
Once I finally broke into the box (and lemme tell ya- it took some time!), I found this note:

Not gonna lie, I teared up :)
I think Virginia's dolls will be very happy here.

Paris Hilton makes me laugh

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

and good for her for standing up for herself against the old dude :)

Patrick and the gerbils

Just a typical Tuesday night here in Durham...

Where are all my dolls???

So I had a visitor this week who proved to be an AMAZING help in cabbie rat check and organization (thanks Amanda!!!!) and after only 10 short hours (and i think that might be a low estimate) of unpacking, we finally got all the cabbies out into the fresh air (and they needed it!) However, i am still missing a significant number of dolls (at least 2 bags) and most of my very favorites are among them (mom reminded me that i gave them to my cousin for safekeeping when the others were being stored in the rat hole- good idea, too bad i forgot!), so here are pics of SOME of my dolls, minus the favorites and about 20 dolls still residing upstairs in various stages of de-ratting :)

My New Favorite Commercial

because i dont think people laugh enough...

Day One of the Project: Cleaning the Rat Patch

So while the patch was stored for 8 years or so, rats decided to snack (and do other horrible things) on them. So far I have found 2 bags that contain dolls with chewed up and/or stained clothes and hair.

So that means bath time!

Everybody in the bags who had a possibility of even SEEING a rat gets clean!

And I'm just getting started...

For Those of You Who Said "You have HOW MANY dolls?"

A visual...

We're Gonna Miss Her...