Hearing Aids are Cool (Or: Aunt Hannah is a Hypocrite)

Let me be clear, even though I wrote a book for my Hard of Hearing Niece entitled Hearing Aids are Cool, I secretly wanted to high-five her when I found out that at the age of 3, she went outside to play and when she came back in they were gone...as far as I know, her parents never found them. I couldn't blame Evie for burying her hearing aids in the dirt. I spent a few awful years as a child fighting with my mother about wearing hearing aids. If I had been the free spirit that my niece is, I would have buried them half way to china and then danced on their grave with an evil cackle.
And while I'm told by audiologists that I've missed a LOT by not wearing them, and I could gain a lot by wearing them now, I would rather be blissfully ignorant about what's going on around me than to hear every squeaky shoe, and the clocks ticking and the water dripping and...yeah, I wore them for a couple of months recently and it was one of the more unpleasant experiences of my life. Nevertheless, I have many cousins who are fortunate enough to have their hearing impairment diagnosed at an early age so they can start wearing them as babies and have no idea what it's like to not know how to hear. It is for the cooperative hard of hearing children in this world that I post my book here. The original was a scrapbook that is in my niece's possession now, the pictures below are of colored photocopies of the original. I ripped pictures off of Google Images, and while I enjoy scrapbooking, I never claimed to be Martha Stewart, so please don't go all judgy-mcjudgy-pants on my scrapbooking skills :-) It's not copyrighted, so steal whatever you like if you feel it may help someone.

Impromptu Date to NYC

I hate NYC, and with my hearing loss I hate going to shows, though I tend to do well with music. I went to a classical music concert a few years ago with my boss, and it was very nice. But it's not something I would go out of my way to do, nor would I consider it "fun". I have recently gone as far as saying, "I will NEVER go to NYC for a performance again!"

Then Saturday I went to NYC for a performance.

My boss and her God Son had plans to go see Joe Bonamassa as a late birthday present to him. Then my boss had a migraine, and it was only right that I went with him. I was told this was "Blues and Rock" and I thought "mmmm...blue's one of my fave colors" "I like 'blues'" but I can honestly say it was a very unpleasant experience. I think I am deafer today than I was before, and I do not understand how normal hearing people can go to things like that!!! AGH! Boss' God Son loved it, and fortunately didn't ask me if I enjoyed it because I'm a terrible liar.

On the bright side, I found NYC much more tolerable since I was 1.)a passenger, 2.) didn't have to pay for anything and 3.) didn't have to have a clue where I was or how I was going to get from point A to point B....just followed my date, and it wasn't bad at all :-)

Moral of the story: if you go to NYC, don't expect much, and have someone else do all of the work for you, and you probably won't come home cranky.

"Hiking" the appalachian Trail - Post Surgery

I just -*GASP* - hiked (read: Walked) for FIFTEEN -*wheeze*- minutes! *cough cough cough* on the Appalachian trail. Water! I need water!

Okay, so I just finished PT, I haven't exercised in like, ever, so I've been walking 10 minutes a day (or 10 minutes on the days when I can squeeze it in between all my sitting around)and today I pushed myself a little bit further on the AT near my house. Hiking the entire AT has been a dream of mine for several years. Only a dream, because my common sense kicks in whenever I start to think I'll ever actually do it. A woman should not hike the trail alone, and the only man I can think of who would *think* of hiking it with me is a massive baby about bugs, dirt and no showers, so it's not gonna happen, until my nephew (who just turned 7) is old enough to go with me and protect me. By then I'll be preparing for my total knee replacement surgery.
Bill Bryson wrote a wonderful book, A Walk in the Woods It was hilarious, educational and inspiring. Inspiring, because Bill brought his old HS buddy (who he hadn't seen in years) along with him. The guy had nothing better to do, which is why he went along. He was overweight, had never exercised a day in his life, and had a backpack full of twinkies when he started. And he made it half way through the trail! There is hope for people like me. I've been watching I Shouldn't Be Alive on Netflix. I normally hate TV, but I heard about this show years ago - from a pastor at a church I was visiting, and I immediately knew I wanted to see it. I <3 survival stories, ever since reading Lost on a Mountain in Maine when I was a kid. It has also been a dream of mine to be on that show some day. I fear that the worst that would happen to me on the AT is what happened to that guy who Bill Bryson wrote about - the one who was a legend on the trail because he had been hiking it for years and just kept going around in circles. Apparently a very difficult thing to do. And I don't think I want that on TV.

Who knows that tomorrow may bring. I may get off my butt and learn how to use a gun, and then hike the trail, armed. With a pistol and some Twinkies.

Where was the cow going?

A friend of mine was telling me that she was driving her usual route to work and she passed by some green pastures and rolling hills that had a bunch of black cows. She had passed by these cows many times, but on this particular day, one Lone Cow was running as fast as she could away from the other cows, in the opposite direction of the road. My friend wondered what the cow was running from, and I have to admit, I've been wondering ever since she told me about this.
Because this is serious stuff, I have spent some precious time thinking about it and I have come up with a few possibilities. I hope my readers will contribute to my speculations as well.


1.) The most obvious answer is that she heard there were going to be cheeseburgers for dinner. The others didn't follow because they didn't realize the seriousness of the situation. Maybe, because they're cows they don't speak English, but the Lone Cow took ESL back in HS.


2.) The Lone Cow is schizophrenic and believed she was being watched/followed/chased, obviously because she has a beautiful mind and the government wants it.


3.) Maybe the Lone Cow really does have a beautiful mind and the government wants it.


4.) The Lone Cow is young at heart, and couldn't resist bounding through the pastures with merriment on a sunny and breezie day.


5.) It is quite possible that the Lone Cow has a special relationship with someone (an other farm animal, or a child perhaps) and this friend was in distress. She either heard the friend calling for help, or she just new in her little bovine heart that there was trouble, and she was on it. Now I feel obligated to write a children's book, though my illustration would frighten small children.


6.) One of my favorite radio dramas, "Chatterbox audio theater" did a very disturbing 3 part (3 hours long) episode about some miners who dug so deep in to the earth's center that it discovered and unleashed hell. As you can imagine when hell breaks loose, scary things happen, and among them, livestock started attacking and killing each other. Obviously that didn't happen, but this isn't a radio drama, this is real life! maybe somebody unleashed hell and, per Proverbs 27:12 (She is a wise cow), she was looking for a place to hide.

7.) Maybe she was running because a big truck drove by and spooked her.

Who's Lovin' You?

After destroying Terence's Birthday cake AND brownies, and maybe crying a little bit over it....and having to clean up my mess in the kitchen....and whining a lot...this was posted on FB and I had to share with all of my millions of followers. It made me happy so I hope it makes you happy too :-)

Adoption Update!

Some of you may remember my post about my dolls a few weeks ago. I put three of them up for adoption, and they all found Forever Homes in just a few hours.

*Harriet moved to Arkansas to live with my 2 year old third Cousin, Hailey.
My Cousin (Hailey's Gramma) tells me that the other day, Hailey looked under Harriet's shirt and said "Ucky" (Yucky?) and brought her over to the toilet and sat her on the seat. And poor Harriet fell in! I'm sure she feels loved by now :-)



*Petrushka went to stay with a friend in Louisiana for a week or so before leaving for her new home. When she arrived, I received this message from my friend:

Just letting you know, Petrushka made it here safely! I had to open the package because she was begging me to let her get some air after the long journey! And she is so wonderful - I don't know why you think she was a failure because she has been a fabulous guest so far and her dress is beautiful! She will camp out here until the weekend, when she will hitch a ride with Jon to her forever home! :)

A little while later, her husband sent this picture when he was getting ready to deliver her to a friend, who intended to give her to his niece (It is still unclear about where she went, but it is possible that she left the country to go live in India! I will post an update on that when I know more)

Petrushka's first trip in a car (not in an envelope)






*And Louise traveled over the Hudson River to live with the 6 year old niece of a close friend from church. Louise is greatly loved in her new home. There is no picture available, but I trust she is in good hands. I think her Grandfather is a pastor :-)

Michael Buble'

Yay! Oh Yay! I've just downloaded Michael Buble's latest Album: To Be Loved *sigh* Michael Buble' is certainly God's gift to...ME! :-)
As a rule, the only songs I don't like that he does, are the ones that I fell in love with before I heard him sing them. "That's All"? Only Rod Stewart can do it. "Moon Dance"? Van Morrison. Okay, I'm actually sick of it after listening to it a hundred times in a row, which is probably the real reason I don't like it. "How Sweet it is" -James Taylor, "You're nobody till somebody loves you" -Dean Martin - *dreamy sigh* I <3 Dean Martin about as much as Michael Buble' so let's not go there. But "Have I told you lately that I love you?" - Maybe it's because, in a fit of (my thesaurus is failing me at the moment....) self love? Big-Headedness? I fell in love with my own piano version of it. But Rod Stewart's version isn't too bad either. That being said, it's on MB's latest album, and it's pretty good. I might even listen to it again :-) I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, so I can't give a proper review of all the songs. But can you believe it - he did "You've Got a Friend" - yes, the Toy Story song :-) Life is good.

p.s. I just remembered - about a year ago I dragged my non-crooner-loving friend (NCLF) to a tiny little music hall in Westchester to hear Michael Buble's Trumpet Player. It was totally awesome even if, as my NCLF pointed out, we were the only young people there. I was just sure that Michael Buble' would show up as a surprise guest or something, but the guy was almost as good as MB, that I forgot about my ridiculous fantasy and therefore was not the least bit disappointed when he didn't show up.

Iliad House -a New Radio Drama!

I'm so excited right now, I could implode (Because I'm an introvert. Extroverts EXplode). Phil Lollar, Co-Creator of Adventures in Odyssey has just announced the creation of a new Audio Drama series. Yaaaay! Just in time, since I've listened to all the Father Gilbert mysteries and there will be no more :-(
Get thee over to their Facebook Page and "Like".

And then over to the website and listen:Iliad House

My computer is giving me problems at the moment so I can't view the website, but I'm looking forward to listening this weekend.

Putin on the Ritz

Haven't posted anything in a while, so I thought I'd check in with this:




1.) Because it's funny.

2.) Because I secretly (Not so secretly now that it's on my blog for all the world to see) think Putin is a hunk (*drool*)

What I'm Reading Today

I'm reading a book "Healing the Shame that Binds You" by John Bradshaw. I'm about half done with it. It's quite depressing, so I put it down after surgery because my life was a comedy for the first few weeks, so I couldn't take the book seriously, then, up until a couple days ago, my life was a tragedy so I couldn't add anymore drama. All drugs have worn off finally and my life is a reality tv show again. I picked up the book this morning.


It's now talking about compulsions and addictions (neither of which do I think I have), and it gets to the Fat/Thin Disorder, and this is what Mr. Bradshaw has to say on the subject:

"I've personally groped with this disorder for years. I go through cycles of exercise, good nutritional non-sugar diets and then (usually after months of control) I eat a donut or a piece of carrot cake....Once I eat the sweets then the release phase starts. I start obsessing on what I've done. I've blown it now. I might as well eat some more. I'll binge for just a day and start my control tomorrow. Ah! But tomorrow never comes! The sugar craves sugar. The mental obsessing keeps me thinking about sweets, and I'm off and running into the release cycle...."

At this point, my jaw is hanging open and I'm thinking, "Yeah! This describes me perfectly!!!! This is ME!!!!" then I continue reading:

"This cycle usually lasts until I start developing breasts! Then I know it's time to start exercising and give up sugar"

bwahahahaha! Oh man! If that were my criteria I'd have to starve myself to death. I laughed so hard I nearly fell off the couch and dropped my Reese's PB cups all over the floor.

Dolls

(Not a "regular" post, but will be linked to my "Knitting" page for user-friendliness)




Meet Harriet. She was my first doll. She got off to a rough start. I decapitated her (onceortwice) but she's thriving now. My cousin has claimed her for her granddaughter, so Harriet is off to a new home!





Meet Clara. She was my second doll. She now sits in my boss' home office looking pretty and stuff.




Meet Louise. One of my first tries at color work.




Clara and Louise are best friends. They still visit each other from time to time.




Meet Petrushka, my Slavic knitted friend AKA the biggest disappointment of my knitting life. She had a lot of potential which she did not live up to. Her dress has the most impressive color work I have ever done, but there's something about her that is just so ugly. Thinking of making her again at a tighter gauge with brighter colors. And making her head differently. Carol Anderson, the designer of the pattern, makes all of her dolls with rather large heads/faces, which I don't like.



Meet Liesl, an Alpine knitted friend. I made her for my niece, Persephone. She's also a Carol Anderson design. I was very pleased with her. Made at a tighter gauge, and the face is pretty :-)




Meet Arnold Schwar- whoops - Solveig, a Scandinavian knitted friend. I don't know what happened to Solveig's chest and arms. I think it had something to do with the ambitious colorwork across the yoke of her sweater, but I don't want to think about it. I made her hair extra long in the hope that it would cover her massive pecs and misplaced arms. Meh. My niece, Evie, loved it anyway (So says my sister-in-law)

Knitter in the Twilight Zone!

For those of you who don't knit, I'll just explain what "gauge" is, really quick. Every knitter's "tension" (The tightness or looseness of their hold on the yarn and needles) is different. So a knitting pattern will give the pattern's "gauge" which usually goes something like this: "20 stitches =4 inches" meaning that a swatch should measure 4 inches for every 20 stitches. If you have too many stitches, you need to do it all over again in a bigger size needle so you have less stitches to the inch and vise versa. You keep doing it till you get the right gauge, then you know what size needle to use. This is important for things like sweaters, when you're going to spend ages working on it and you want it to fit. not so important with shawls or hats or mittens.

So I'm going to make my first big-people sweater, and I whip out my size 8s and knit up a swatch. I need 22 stitches over 4 inches. I get 18.5 stitches over 4 inches. I need to go down to 7 and see what happens. It is a fact that size 7s will give me smaller stitches, thus giving me MORE stitches to the inch.

I got 17.5 stitches over 4 inches. I feel like I just broke the law of mathematics or soemthing. The world as I've always known it has crumbled around me.

I texted my friend, Kelli, who is a temperamental knitter and she was most unhelpful in her response:


Kelli: "That sounds like something that would happen to me

(Note her use of the phrase "happen to me" rather than "I would do". This makes me feel better. Like I am a victim, rather than a criminal)

Me: That's not helpful! What should I do?!

Kelli: Well my solution for everything is to throw it in the trash. I wouldn't recommend that.

No, not such a great idea. My solution is to usually stuff it in between the couch cushions or throw it behind the recliner for a few days.

I can't check my gauge again, as I've "lost" the ball of yarn (It's probably in a couch somewhere) and all I have are two retarded swatches and a size 6 needle staring at me in....the twilight zone.

God Punished me This Morning

So "S" keeps a bottle of Milk Thistle extract on the counter. I have a bottle of liquid stevia which I sometimes forget to put away. One day last week I saw her taking the milk thistle and I commented that it sure would be funny if she grabbed the stevia bottle and took half a dropper full, instead of the milk thistle. Hahahaha. (Stevia is very bitter tasting if taken in excess).

This morning I was making myself some iced Jasmine Green Tea and I "sweetened" it with milk thistle.



Touche'.

The Weekend!

(A rambley post about the boringness that is my life today because I'm avoiding taking a shower and leaving the house....)


I'm going on the Hudson Valley Yarn Crawl tomorrow with a very good knitting friend. I've spent a good amount of this week looking at sweater patterns for that coveted Spud and Chloe sweater yarn. I've yet to knit myself a sweater because I'm terrified of gauge and I've heard too many horror stories of people who actually know how to check their gauge accurately and they STILL end up with a garment that's too big or too small. But I can still spend a couple hundred dollars on Spud and Chloe Yarn, plus the $6 or so for the pattern. Right?!

As for today, I've consumed an unholy amount of gluten last night and this morning and I have made myself good and sick. Nothing a gallon of water and milk thistle won't fix.
It's 1:30 pm and I am still in my night clothes, listening to Jimmy Buffett rather loudly because no one else is home. My plans for the day are to drive to a nearby farm that has cows and is NOT licensed to sell raw milk, and beg them to sell me some raw milk, cuz I hate driving 40 minutes to the middle of nowhere for it, which I try to do without murmering or complaining because the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 "...is like the merchants' ships; she bringeth her food from afar." (I'm pretty sure the first part of that verse is NOT a fat joke) I may be far from virtuous (Which is evident from my intent to bully some poor farmer into doing something illegal), but I do travel far for food. If I have to. But I hate driving.

Last night I had a dream that my brother died. My Sister in law called to tell me and I promptly forgot about it until later when she posted about it on Facebook and I was all like "OHNOIFORGOT!!!!!" I texted her as soon as I woke up to see if he was still with us and she informed me that, unfortunately, he was.
I also dreamed that Stephen King was my Knee Surgeon. I never got to see him before or after the surgery, but then I needed a follow up surgery for complications, and he was my surgeon again and...once again, I didn't get to see him.
I wanted to text him this morning too, but I've misplaced his number...



Okay, it's time for me to stop rambling and get going. Please feel free to share the boring details of your weekend in the comment section :-)

What a Wonderful World (Blogging under the Influence)

I did too much walking yesterday, so I had to take a percocet tonight...I will check in tomorrow and do any necessary editing :-)


"The world is full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings" (Robert Louis Stevenson)

Just sitting here thinking of all those wonderful things and I thought I would share them with ALL (heh!) my readers.


1.) Michael Buble'. I <3 Michael Buble' and I think everyone else should too. He has a new album coming out in April, but he's released one song from said album. Here it is:


2.) Green Jasmine Tea This is about as wonderful as chocolate, as far as I'm concerned.



Add ice and a little stevia..yummmm.


3.) Chocolate





4.) Tulips


After killing the tulips Jaime brought me, I bought myself some planted tulips (I only killed one out of four of them, the remaining three are thriving!) and put them in a nice pot next to Avery the avocado tree. I think he likes the pretty company :-)

5.) Spud and Chloe Sweater Yarn



(okay, I haven't actually worked with it yet. I don't even own any. But I squish it everytime I see it and I am GOING to buy some soon.

6.) This video:





If I have any readers, please share with me the little things that make your world wonderful :-)

Good night, and Sweet Dreams...

Radio Dramas

I don't like watching TV. Not primarily for moral or intellectual reasons - though I do believe most TV is trashy and insults my intelligence, I also acknowledge that you can find some good stuff on there too - but I was born with a 40% hearing loss. Growing up in a loud family that loved having the TV loud, this wasn't always a problem. But after years of living with a hearing impairment, I've come to know that what sounds normal to me is loud to others, so out of respect for other people, I don't watch TV.

Though I don't do it often, I have become somewhat of an expert at watching TV with the sound off. I used to wander into my friend's bedroom while she was watching TV with the sound off and wait for a commercial so I could talk to her....one day I discovered the sound was not actually off. Once, I wandered in on another friend who put the tv on mute to talk to me and after a while we just quietly watched the tv and I started telling him what was going on and he said, "You've seen this before?!" ummm......nope.
And very recently, after watching Les Miserables at the movie theater, I realized that 90% of the time I have no clue what is going on. But for some really weird reason I enjoy movies anyway! I think I use the visuals in movies for day dreaming/fantasy fuel. I am very grateful for the International Movie Database, because I can go and read all the discussions about the movie afterwards and then I know what's going on...basically, movies and TV are a guessing game for me. Sometimes guessing games are fun :-)

Anyway, now that you know all that about me, you are probably going to find what I'm about to say to be very strange. I am addicted to Radio Dramas.
I should first start by paying homage to...Focus on the Family's Adventures in Odyssey. For several reasons, there will always be a special place in my heart for Whit and the gang. My mother bought me a few albums when I was about 7 or 8, and I think they had a huge influence on my spiritual life. Possibly one of the only good influences I had. Also, since I was hard of hearing, I listened with head phones. I think it was a form of "hearing therapy" for me. Now, I can sit in the audiologist's sound booth and listen to words spoken out of context and get 98-100% of them right (This is not to be confused with having excellent hearing, as I'm not actually hearing the words, but merely "figuring them out") Unfortunately, this doesn't work so well in crowded and uncontrolled environments.

I think Radio Drama works for me because the sound quality has to be excellent, since there's no visuals to pick up the slack, and there are also no visuals to distract from the sound. It also
gives me the opportunity to exercise what hearing I do posses, in a non-threatening environment. I think it's helped me cope with my hearing loss in many ways, including how to listen more efficiently and I am trying to encourage my sister-in-law to do this for my niece who has speech problems due to hearing loss.


About two years ago I became the knitting addict that you all know and love today. I won't go in to how bad my addiction is, but you can only listen to music for so long while knitting before you want to rip your ears off. So I went and found adventures in Odyssey and downloaded their latest album. After that, I was addicted. Focus on the family also has "grown up" audio dramas with dramatized classics like the Hiding Place, Oliver Twist, etc. They also had a radio drama called the Father Gilbert Mysteries, about a detective-turned-Anglican priest who is always solving mysteries of the spiritual nature. These are occassionally played on their website for free, or available to purchase on CD or download...I've dowloaded about 6 of the Father Gilbert mysteries, and sadly there are only a few others left, only available on CD. I don't think they're making them anymore, which is sad because I have a crush on Father Gilbert.


Further research has led me to some pretty good radio drama podcasts, which I will link to below:

Adventures in Odyssey

Focus on the Family's Radio Theater

The above radio dramas are all available to purchase at CBD

Chatterbox Theater (Most of these are horror, but excellent acting)



Icebox Radio (bad acting, but totally lovable characters and stories)

19 Nocturne Blvd. (I haven't listened to them in a while, their sound quality is lacking a bit much for me, and at some point they started playing piano music in the background which made it impossible for me to understand what was going on. But the stories are great, and others might enjoy them)



The Mask of Inanna (a very bizarre series, about one hour each. It was very addicting, but I stopped listening after the 4th one because I had to wait for the next one to come out, and I waited too long and forgot what was going on....I would like to start the series all over again.


And if you're really into radio theater, there's a great site, run by a guy in Portland Maine, Fred Greenhalgh at Radio Drama Revival a great resource for finding all kinds of radio dramas...it's been a semi-serious dream of mine to submit a script to them for a radio drama...but it's been sitting, half done, in my computer for, ummm....two years. I'll keep you all posted on that ;-)

Tulips

When I was 7 or 8, I told my mother that my favorite flowers were tulips. She told me that tulips were "stupid looking" and I was supposed to like Carnations, because they were her favorite O_o so carnations it was. The only time anyone ever gave me flowers was when I was 17 and my boyfriend brought me carnations because my mom told him they were my favorite.
I told my friend, Jaime, about this a week or so ago. And she brought me purple tulips after my surgery! I've never seen tulips up close, and it was night time when she brought them, so they were all closed up for the night...I had to ask if they were tulips :-/
They opened up the next morning (I think they were happy to see me...their new mamma) they were anything but stupid looking. And I named them. All of them. Meet my babies:




Their names are:

Charlotte, Abigail, Juliette, Rose, Lilly, Bambi, Fay, Tabitha, Violet and Amelia

I'm thinking I might plant me some tulips in the front yard this spring! I'll need to break out my baby names book if this happens.


By the way, for those of you who were concerned about me, after reading my last post about the 10 things that could go wrong...most of them did not happen. I'm still waiting on the HIV and Hep C results, though (j/k - I probably won't be tested for those until I donate blood again. Or get married.)

Top 10 things that could go wrong tomorrow

Tomorrow I'm going to have major arthroscopic knee surgery. I've spent the past week worrying about everything that could go wrong, and I am pleased to share with you the Top Ten things that could go wrong, just in case any of my readers are also in the same boat and looking for something worry about.

Here goes:


10. I'll barf all over my friend who drove all the way from Danbury to bring me.

9.) I'll barf all over everyone and everything.

8.) I'll wake up at home in my bed and have absolutely no memory of what happened between the time I "woke up" from surgery and when I woke up in my bed (This would be truly horrible.)

7.) They catheterize me

6.) They won't catheterize me and I pee all over myself.

5.) I'll have that weird thing happen where I'll be wide awake for the surgery but unable to move and no one knows it but me...like in that movie with Jessica Alba.

4.) I'll wake up with no knee (and I guess no lower leg either)


3.) I'll catch MRSA. Or Hep C. Or HIV.

2.) I'll wake up paralyzed.

1.) I'll die



After all of this worrying I am exhausted and really looking forward to being knocked out tomorrow and possibly for the whole weekend.

For Girls

I was at Barnes and Noble yesterday and was pleasantly reminded of a line of books that I absolutely loved when I was a kid. American Girl. They make the famous American Girl Dolls and the American Girl Magazine. They also have several books for girls, ages 8-10+, on growing up, taking care of your body, managing feelings, learning to like yourself, social skills, etc. (Note: These are not the same as the books about the dolls/characters....these are written to and about present day american girls) A lot of them are fill-in-the-blank/journal type books, so it's a great way to inspire writing/journaling and expressing one's self.
As far as I know, when I was that age, they only had a couple of them. Their website shows 4 pages of these awesome books. I bought three of them for my niece's upcoming 9th birthday. I think I'm more excited about this than she will be.
Here's the link:

American Girl

Although I'm the only one I know who had these books, I would still recommend these for any girl, 8-12 years old. Especially any girl who is struggling with growing up, anxiety, school, home life....(pretty much any girl that age) along with

one of these pens

I kinda wanted to buy one of these books for myself, but I'm a grown up, now...:-/

*Hides American Girl book behind Teddy Bear*

Saturated Fat -specifically BACON

I'm not ready to talk about peanut butter yet, as I only just ordered 5 pounds (FIVE.POUNDS) of raw organic peanuts yesterday, and will have to wait until after my surgery to do anything about them. But I was looking up raw peanut butter recipes, because I wasn't crazy about what I found in "Nourishing Traditions"...and there was one blog I happened upon that mentioned nut butters on bacon, though the blogger denied having ever tried such a thing....it made my mouth water and I decided I have to talk about bacon, which is full of saturated fat and "no good for you" according to politically correct nutrition.

I laugh at politically correct nutrition...bwahahahahahaha! Suckers.

I am also entirely too lazy (or my knee hurts and stairs are involved) to get all of my saturated fat info, so I'm going to link to Dr. Mercola's article on 7 reasons to eat more saturated fat because he sounds a lot smarter when he says exactly what I was gonna say, so he might be more convincing. (This is called "lazy blogging")

My main sources of saturated fat are Raw Dairy, Coconut Oil, and Bacon. But bacon is the most important one, because it's the tastiest. I make it often and save the fat in a glass measuring cup and use it for frying potatoes mostly - one of my favorite meals consists of bacon-fried potatoes, spinach and scrambled eggs (or some other animal protein...usually chicken or organic chicken sausage if eggs aren't available) It's easy to make and easy to get everyone else to eat it with me.

What does this have to do with raw peanut butter? I'm gonna put peanut butter on my bacon...I've already done potato chips and nutella (NOT a health food) and Ben and Jerry's Phish Food with potato chips (Also not a health food) so I really don't see what the big deal is, combining these two delicious health foods...

And lookie what I just found in my favorites.... Organic Lard! cheaper than organic bacon (if you're just after the fat), though probably not as tasty.

But remember: