She’s here! Summer Dream came today and she’s so beautiful I nearly cried!! There’s always that small, nagging worry that a doll will look worse in person than she did in a catalog, but nope. She’s even more gorgeous in person. She’s in the music room due to how she’s posed. Her head is turned sideways as this particular doll you kind of want to display mostly from behind to show off her beautiful backless dress with the floral sashes and bows hanging down the back from the waist. When we move, I’ll try to have things set up so she can be viewed easily from the back, front, and side. With the way the furniture is laid out in the living room, and due to the furniture’s size, she can’t be displayed nicely in there. Although I’d prefer her to be in a room I’m in most often, like the living room, she’s best off where she is in this house.

I’ve decided to leave her dark blond hair (Anne and Jessica have light blond) piled up as it is, even though it can easily be taken down. I looked and saw that it was not such a complicated hairdo after all. All they did was basically put it up in a ponytail on top of her head, then curl the ends and splay them all over the crown of her head. But I’ll leave it up for variety (that way I’ll have one with it up, one in braids, one with it loose) and taking it down would’ve covered some of the beautiful dress and the real-looking detail of her back, shoulders and arms. This dress is absolutely stunning. Its straps are off the shoulders and that’s where the joints are. Right where I broke my arm, actually, in the middle of the upper arms, so that you can swivel the arms and position them how you want. I was wondering how they hid the joints so well. On Patrice, you can see where her arms are attached since her dress has thin straps. Her arms attach at the shoulders as most dolls do. Can’t wait for Patrice, too! For now, I have Jessica and Summer Dream in the music room and Anne in the living room. When Patrice comes, Summer Dream and Jessica will stay where they are, but Anne will go in the bedroom, and Patrice will take Anne’s place standing in the living room on one of the stereo speakers.

Anyway, Summer Dream wears pearl earrings. There are pearl dots in her earlobes, and then dangling pearl drops. I’m surprised she doesn’t wear any necklace or bracelets, but she’s got a wedding band on, of course. The hands, which are shaped to hold her bouquet, have their fingers molded together like most dolls, and her wedding band, is just a half circle of gold that was glued onto the indentation of the ring finger on the left hand. I might make her a bracelet with my tiny beads. Her nails are painted red, but not quite as dark as Jessica’s (Anne’s nails aren’t painted).

Will you shut up! It’s coming up on 11:00 and that fucking beast is still going off. The high-pitched one is worse. Well, it ought to settle down soon enough, but again, these people are lucky I’m out of here in ‘99.

Anne and Jessica really do look like girls while Summer Dream really does look like a woman. I get dolls for different reasons, of course, and while I got Anne for her long knee-length hair, I got this one for its dress, since blue eyes and blond hair aren’t typically my thing. Her eyes are nice, though, as far as their shine goes. Instead of looking just shiny, they look wet like real eyes. I also like the hand-painted eyelashes better than the false ones they stuck on my other dolls.

I finally got something with pink, too! Yes, this doll’s bouquet is of pink flowers. I love the soft pastel colors between the blue sash and bows and the pink flowers.

Her shoes are white heels that are molded to her feet. They’re not real shoes you can take off and put back on like Anne’s shoes.

So it took her 3 weeks to get here from the day she was shipped. Tom was right. Parcel post is really slow. So if Patrice isn’t shipped till after December 12th, I’m probably not gonna have her till just after the New Year. She’s worth the wait, though, just like in the end, Summer Dream was worth waiting for.

I can’t believe this doll was only $92 and not $150-$200.

Like I thought I would, I didn’t get a catalog enclosed with Summer Dream, so I’ll call Monday and have them send one. Since Tom decided that we’ll probably each have $500 to spend after all our bills are paid, I’m hoping to find a big doll for around $300. Rapunzel and the lollipop doll from Ashton Drake’s catalog are each about $100, so I’m hoping to get those 3 dolls. Fuck CDs and clothes. I still may get some CDs, and maybe a couple more bigger bras, but I’m all set for winter clothes. All I really want, since I’m gonna be staying at around 115 pounds, is maybe a couple of sundresses and a couple of pairs of shorts and it’s not the time of year to go shopping for that, even here in Arizona.

I also want to enlarge my wedding band to my indefinite 115 pounds. I awoke at 114 today, though, to my surprise. I haven’t been gorging since it’s never been in my nature to do so, but I haven’t been eating just one bite a day, either. I’ve had to have been having around 1500 calories a day.

I scanned in Summer Dream’s certificate, and I intend to keep her papers, even though I refuse to ever sell her like the papers suggest I may want to do. There’s a winter, spring, and autumn bride, too, and according to this one’s certificate, the series ends forever in the year 2001 and the doll’s molds will be broken and no more porcelain will ever be cast. But why break the molds? If I was such a gifted artist/sculptor, I’d want to keep the molds forever. That was quite an ugly woman, too, who created such a beautiful doll.

I can’t believe how fast my doll collection’s starting off, but I’m psyched! By the spring I may very well have 3-5 more dolls! Guess that depends on what I get for my birthday. I’ll have to ask Tom if we’re gonna do Christmas with each other, at least, and if he wants to tell me what he wants, or if he wants me to use my imagination and pick out something to either buy or make. I’ll also ask him if he wants me to tell him what I want for my birthday, or should I let him just do what he wants? If he asks what I want, I’ll suggest that $30 Edie doll. They had two of them at the store.

I wonder if Tom was here when the mailman came with Summer Dream, or if he came and left her here before Tom returned from the tracks. I’ll have to ask him when he gets up. He’s been asleep since I got up at 7 PM.

She wasn’t as packed as I thought she’d be. She did have foam pieces as wide as the box she was in to steady her so she couldn’t slam around in her box, but only her feet and head had a plastic wrap. The wrap was actually a bag with rubber bands. Jessica, though, had layers of tight plastic wrapping. She was in her own box with her name on it that slid snuggly into the outer box that had their company address on it, our address, and the invoice. Her bouquet was in a bag and at the bottom of the box.

I hope her soft white chiffon dress doesn’t turn yellowish in time. They recommend dusting her regularly, but with what? A feather duster? A damp cloth? Maybe it’d be best to take the dolls outside periodically and shake their hair and clothes free of dust.

I plan to do some pricing homework on Monday. I’m gonna check out the home shopping channels and see if I can find out what company manufactures the dolls that they have on their doll shows, and I’m gonna call some collector’s stores to see what they’ve got, too. Tom will check online stuff.

Unfortunately, he’s got a cold. A little later than I expected, but it looks like his immune system is still not as strong as mine’s been since I’ve been out here. I hope he doesn’t give me this one. He used to get 4-5 a year, but I guess it’s now 2-3 a year. Well, hopefully it won’t last long and interfere with his doing whatever he needs/wants to do. I’m surprised he didn’t get it about 10 days from now when he goes to do the roof. Maybe it’ll rain instead. I’m also surprised he didn’t get it when I was mid-cycle, even though I don’t have a mid-cycle. He left a message saying that his throat got really sore at the tracks. He obviously didn’t win, or else he’d have said so, but I hope he had fun despite his sore throat.