Naturally, I haven’t heard back from Paula, but I did hear from Mary. She says she’s been crafty lately, making dream catchers. I assume she’s making them out of frayed blanket fringes. She asked what my two favorite colors are. I don’t know for sure if it’s related to the dream catchers. She wouldn’t say. All she said was that it was a surprise. Anyway, I told her pink and purple were my top two favorites.

She sent more pictures to scan, including a note and a poem from Murphy. I have a few picture sheets to send her of both hers and my pictures, but I have to send them one by one, of course.

I told her, after she asked, that I decided it’d be best to forget about the dollmaking venture and just keep on collecting. I’m so used to doing what others/fate tells me to do that I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I suddenly could do what I wanted to do anyway. I’ve learned from experience that it’s best for me to just go where fate leads me. There’s less trouble that way. At least I can still get dolls. I just won’t be able to get as many of the expensive ones as often. Besides, every time I make plans, they fall through. Life really isn’t what we plan it to be, that’s for sure! But most of the unplanned things have been good, so I can’t complain too much. I didn’t plan on meeting Tom and he’s a wonderful thing. So I’ve been as blessed as I’ve been cursed. If I’m not destined to be more than a homemaker, that’s fine as long as I have Tom, animals and hobbies.

She’s going to be in for a real treat over the next 2-3 years, wherever she is. I just printed up 175 envelopes with a zillion different pictures. Naturally, I only put the return address on, since she could move anytime. I printed 1 chipmunk, 1 guinea pig, 1 tiger, 1 cactus, 2 coons, 2 butterflies, 2 canyons, 2 skyscapes, 2 forest, 3 swans, 4 squirrels, 4 rabbits, 4 bears (assortment of regular, polar, panda, koala), 6 rats (mine), 6 waterfalls, 7 birds, 8 mice (mine), 10 ocean, 16 palms, 20 dogs, 32 cats, and 38 flowers.

Still being ignored by PG. The question is, are they intentionally ignoring me, and if so, why? And when am I going to get these damn dolls? The Amelia problems are my compensation for the discount I wasn’t supposed to get, no doubt. I just worry that they’ll recharge us for her when they re-send her. And of course, who knows what trouble I’ll have to go through to get Tasha here. Like I said, I’ll be taking a break from them for a while. They just can’t seem to be able to stick the dolls in the mail and send them to me, though not all of the screw-ups are their fault. If something up there wants me to fight for dolls, then I’ll go through the same shit when it comes time to order the fashion dolls.

The stock very well might not sell this year. At least if worse came to worse and January’s stock fell through, we could always use our tax refund to buy fences, though that would stall it a few more months. Then they really wouldn’t be up till the end of the freeloader’s reign.

I asked Tom, and he thinks that Anne and Harry simply sold their business and moved. They’d be coming up on 70 by now and definitely retired. Where they would move to, other than Florida, is a mystery to me.

Yesterday’s trip to Walmart in Casa Grande was fun, though we didn’t find everything we wanted. They didn’t have any glass fish.

They only had one nice $30 ballerina Barbie, but I said no to it cuz there are other dolls I want more than that right now. I also said no to a coffeemaker that brews by the cup and has a permanent filter, but I do intend to get it eventually. It was only $15. I did get a coffee bean grinder, though. When we go grocery shopping this morning, I’ll pick out some flavored beans. I am sick to death of regular ground coffee! It’s so boring.

We didn’t get an algae eater yet, but we got 3 beautiful bettas for 3 or 4 bucks each. We also got them their own half-gallon bowls, since they can’t live together. They’re also known as Siamese fighting fish. They’ll kill females too, after mating, and not just other males.

Just like at Walmart, they came in tiny plastic cups with lids. The cups were the size of juice cups, smaller than yogurt cups. They don’t need much space, though we wanted to give them more than what they had.

The one on the kitchen island is mostly royal blue with hues of dark red, the one in my office is lavender and red, and the one by the bed is turquoise with traces of green. They’re a good size, too. Like 4 inches long and I love how they appear magnified when looking into the bowl at them at certain angles. They have long shimmering fins and tails. They have long fins (if that’s what they’re called) streaming from their undersides, too. It looks almost like velvet fringes hanging from them. They’re easily 3-4 times bigger than the glass fish. They’re much braver too, swimming up to the top when I stick my finger just through the surface.

The one in the kitchen is the most skittish, the one in the office is the bravest, and the one by the bed is the most active. Every now and then they break through the surface and take a gulp of air for some strange reason.

They only eat a few pellets a day. They can even go days without eating. These pellets are tiny, too. Smaller than coffee grinds. They cost virtually nothing to maintain. The bottle of food I got them will last forever. All I have to do is change 1/3 of their water weekly.

We also got a packet of 6 live plant bulbs, guaranteed to grow in 20 days, so they say. I stuck one in with each of the bettas, and the other 3 in with the glass fish, along with the 3 fake plants I got that are weighted down with plastic bases. I buried the bases under the gravel and took Barbie out. Now it looks more like an aquarium is supposed to look.

We got colorful gravel that’s similar to the glass fish’s gravel, and even more colorful beadlike gravel for added colors. I think they really are tiny beads. Sometimes a few even float.

The renters are definitely still in back. We passed a guy and a little boy in the white van as we were returning home yesterday morning and we waved to each other.