Friday Foto Friends...Hailstones and Barbie...

Good Friday morning! I am sure you are wondering what this picture is all about:

Have you figured it out yet?  Well, that round marble looking thing in the middle is a hailstone on our back porch! Yes, we had hail a couple of nights ago during a fierce thunderstorm that blew through here with many flashes of lightning and loud thunder and high winds and rain, and hail! Thankfully no damage was done here or anywhere around that I've heard of, but it was scary for a few minutes until it worked its way across the county. We could still see the frequent flashes of lightning in the distance for quite a while.  So, I would like to say "thank you" to the Lord for protecting us during that storm. It could have done some serious damage!

I really don't have any new pictures to share with you this week.  Seems like we've been busy with stuff and also just trying to stay inside where it's cool.  No exciting bird activity beyond what I've already shared earlier.  I'll show you this picture again of Mr. Bluebird on top of his house, looking rather angry about something! I posted this on Facebook yesterday and asked for people to come up with a caption.  There were a few good ones.  Actually, this is the last time I've seen this fella or his mate this week. They came back and checked out the house again, and then flew away and haven't been back since. I think they finally gave up on nesting this time.  It's just too doggone hot out there for man or beast! Maybe that's why he looks so angry! His wife was refusing to settled down on the nest and make new babies! LOL.

So, since I don't have any REAL pictures to talk about or share this week, how about this?

Did you know there was going to be a movie about Barbie? And Ken too, of course?

I've been hearing bits and pieces here and there from other Barbie fans. I am not really in the loop nor do I keep up with the latest Barbie trends.  But I was a huge Barbie fan way back in the beginning of her life.

***News flash***  Update: I did not know about the concerns regarding this movie when I posted this today.  I have been made aware that there are some issues that might make you want to think twice before taking your daughter or granddaughter to see this movie, or even watching it yourself! I apologize for not doing my homework first. Thank you, friends, who have shared this information with me.

https://www.christianheadlines.com/contributors/michael-foust/movieguide-warns-parents-dont-take-your-daughter-to-see-barbie.html

This is when I got my first (and only) Barbie doll...for my 10th birthday, yes, that's me in the middle with my special friends who came to my party, and there's my Barbie doll down in front of me. She was a gift from my grandparents.  My cousin Becky, standing on my left as you look at the picture (but on my right in reality), also received a Barbie doll that year from our grandparents. And so the saga began.

Here's that same Barbie today, standing in her crystal palace (in my china cabinet), where she is being preserved for all time...

When one of my blogging and Facebook friends, Susie Klein, a.k.a. Walking Butterfly, showed a picture of her Barbie doll on FB the other day and mentioned this new movie, I had to go tell my Barbie the news, and she immediately wanted to get out of the crystal palace and come see the world around her...so I managed to find her old bathing suit (and amazingly at age almost 63 she can still fit into it!), because she said she was so pale and needed some sunshine before she gets ready to go see the "real world"...and she sat out in the sunshine for a little while, soaking up the sun and enjoying hearing the birds singing.

But that's as far as we got. No, I am not going to start a new blog about my Barbie. She is retired now and enjoying a quiet life out of the limelight.  But back in the day, when she was brand new, my cousin Becky and I spent many hours in the summertime together with our Barbies.  We created a wonderful little world for them. This was before Mattel went all out with all of the new fancy stuff they have for Barbie these days. We had to create our own Barbie houses and furniture, sew their own clothes, and make up their dialogue as we pretended where they were going and what they were doing. We didn't have any Ken dolls either.  We were still too young at age 10 to be pretending all that boy-girl stuff. LOL.  I wish I had pictures to show you how marvelous our houses were that we built out of pieces of cut wood paneling that we could tape together and make different rooms. We hung curtains on the walls, made furniture out of boxes and plastic dish detergent bottles, complete with upholstery, we found little dishes and things to make a kitchen and made appliances out of boxes. 

Sadly, all I have left of my amazing creation is this box of some old Barbie clothes, mostly homemade by me, using scraps of material from what we had at home from making our own clothes.

The only remnant of our creative talents in making furniture and other items is this "radio", shown below:

I used an old Kodak black and white film box from the 60's to make that radio! That is a relic in itself!

(and look at that fabric on that skirt...definitely from the 60's!)

You may ask whatever happened to the Barbie house, etc.? Well, after I was married, my then 5 year old niece Debbie saw my Barbie doll and house stored at my parents' home,  and asked if she could "please, please, please play with it"? And so I cleaned it all up and did some necessary repairs and "refurnishing" after it had been packed away for quite a few years, and I gave it to her for her 5th birthday. She was beyond thrilled!! 

I know she loved it and played with it for a long time, but then, like what happened to me, my niece grew up and put away her dolls and the Barbie house went someplace in their attic or who knows where. I was thrilled when my sister found this little box of clothes and my Barbie doll and they gave it back to me a few years ago.  I promised my niece that I will make sure her name is on it in my "will", but for now Barbie is in a safe place where she can live out her years in peace and quiet.

1 Corinthians 13:11-12

11 "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, (or woman!) I put away childish things. 

12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known."

So tell me, how many of you played with Barbies when you were young? Do any of you still have your dolls? I also had a "Midge" doll, but she disappeared somewhere along the way.  Do any of you plan to see the new Barbie movie? *** I am sure I won't, unless I can find it on TV someday,*** (see my update above) but it was still fun to walk  down memory lane and remember the happy days I spent so many years ago in the land of make believe with my Barbie doll and my cousin Becky.

Okay,  that's it for this Friday Foto Friends.  If I find something else more newsworthy to write about later, I will, but hopefully this will bring back some fun memories from your childhood days too...