The Doll's Storybook

Stories about dolls who live in our world. Although these stories are suitable for children, they should check with their parents before reading and always be careful online. Readers are invited to donate to a charity supporting pediatric cancer treatment and research. Images shown are taken by the author or from a free image website with attribution and appreciation. The author has no connection with Götz Puppenmanufaktur, but gives them credit for the amazing dolls they produce.

Friday, February 24, 2023

Giving Up Disappointment

"Well, Mandy," Pippa said, "when are you leaving to go up to Portland for the Yarn Crawl?"

Pippa knew the Yarn Crawl was an event where human people who knit get to go from one yarn shop to the next, getting ideas of what to knit, finding what they want to buy and having a good time. The Writer always took Mandy along, because Mandy likes to knit. She noticed then that Mandy looked a little disappointed.

"We're not going," Mandy told her. "I’ve just been trying to get up the energy to take everything back upstairs."

"Are you giving it up for lent?" Pippa asked.

"No," Mandy replied. "It’s the weather. It isn’t safe." Mandy motioned to the window.

Pippa went and looked out.

This is what she saw.

She turned and said, "We’ve had this much snow before."

"Yes," Mandy agreed, "but there are mountains between here and Portland, where the Yarn Crawl is happening, and they’re getting much more snow than here, and the whole area where the city is is getting lots of snow. It’s dangerous, even if we get to the city safely. Some places traffic is just stopped. People have been getting out and walking."

"It's OK, though" Mandy said, when she saw that Pippa looked concerned. "The Writer and I will be able to do it online. It isn't the same, but sometimes we have to change our plans because of weather," she pointed out, "like when Veronika's cruise was canceled because of the hurricane. She found out when she was packing to go. She was very disappointed, but she knew she had to stay safe."

"To cheer her up, we held a disappointment party," Mandy added. "It was different from what Veronika had planned, but it was fun, and she got to wear the dress I knitted for her to wear for dinner at the Captain's table. She put it on, and everyone complimented her on how she looked and told me what I great job I did. We pretended we were all sitting with her at the Captain's table."

"Well," Pippa suggested, "maybe you can give the Yarn Crawl up for Lent, then." She thought that would be an efficient use of a disappointment.

Mandy laughed. "Giving something up for Lent has to be a choice, not something that’s forced on you."

Then she had a thought. "Are you giving up something for Lent?" she asked.

"I’ve been trying to decide," Pippa responded.

"I know you and Jolena give up pretending to eat chocolate for Lent," she said, "and I thought about that, but I don’t really like to pretend to eat chocolate, so it isn’t really giving it up if you don’t care about it anyway, is it?"

Mandy agreed that Pippa had a point.

"Then I thought about giving up playing with Pauly for Lent," Pippa continued. "Playing with Pauly is something I like to do."

"But that would mean he would have to give up playing with me," Pippa pointed out, "and I didn’t think that was fair, because he doesn’t have any other dolls to play with at his house, and it would be awkward if he came to play with Emil and Billy, and I just ignored him. Then I thought about giving up my bear for Lent," Pippa went on, "but who would play with him? He might think I don’t love him anymore."

"No," Mandy said, shaking her head, "we don’t want what we give up to hurt someone else."

"Then," Pippa said, "I thought I might give up reading another chapter in Alice in Wonderland, but I thought that might be too hard to keep up."

Hardly a day went by that Pippa didn’t read a chapter from her favorite book.

"It should be a sacrifice," Mandy said, "but not something you know you can’t complete."

"That brings me to my next idea," the smaller doll said. "I thought about giving up wearing my new snowsuit for Lent.

"But then it finally snowed." She tried very hard to roll her eyes while she pointed to the window where the snow was falling again, but she couldn’t roll her eyes, so she rolled her head instead.

"So then," Pippa concluded, "I thought about how Mariah doesn’t pretend to eat or drink anything all the time it's daylight during Ramadan."

"She helps with the cooking, but she doesn't eat or drink anything," Pippa said.

"She gets up when it's still dark to pretend to eat breakfast, then she pretends to eat a big meal at night, after it gets dark," Pippa explained, even though she knew Mandy was aware of how Mariah celebrated Ramadan.

"She lets me help get food together to give to real people who don’t have any food," Pippa remembered. "They have to eat for real, not just pretend! She says one reason not to eat or drink during Ramadan is so we can understand what it's like for people who have to go hungry because they have no food."

"Mariah is the only one who celebrates Ramadan in our family," Pippa told Mandy, "so I think I’ll celebrate with her this year. I'll give up pretending to eat all the time she does. That way, she won't be alone."

"That’s a great idea," Mandy agreed. "I think I will, too! This year Ramadan starts during Lent. It will be good to celebrate together!"

"So we’re giving up Lent for Lent," Pippa suggested.

"No," Mandy told her, "giving up something is only part of Lent, just like fasting (or not eating or drinking) during the daytime is only part of Ramadan, but I think I’ll still give up pretending to eat chocolate. I can pretend it will be good for my figure," she said."

The two dolls thought about their little vinyl bodies.

Then they looked at each other and laughed.

Cast--
Veronika: Götz Classic Kidz Vroni
Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
Jolena: Götz Happy Kidz Lena in Aspen
Charlotte: Götz Happy Kidz Anna in Paris
Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend
Billy: Götz Happy Kidz Lily at London
Emil: Götz Happy Kidz Emilia

Pippa: Götz Little Kidz Lotta

Pauly: Götz Little Kidz Paul

You can follow The Doll's Storybook here.

Do you have questions or comments for us? Would you like to order an autographed copy of one of our books? You can email us at thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

Note: No dolls were harmed during production of this blog. All dolls shown are Götz Happy Kidz, Classic Kidz or Little Kidz. If you like these stories and are willing, please make a donation of any amount to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital or any organization that supports pediatric cancer research and treatment. We are not affiliated with St. Jude in any way other than these donations.

"The Doll's Storybook" is not affiliated with Gotz Dolls USA Inc. or Götz Puppenmanufaktur International GmbH.
Watch for the next story each Friday afternoon at 1:00 PM Pacific Time.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook are available from BookBaby and other booksellers worldwide, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Author's page on Amazon.

Royalties (net proceeds) go to support pediatric cancer research and treatment. If you don't get free shipping elsewhere, buy from Book Baby. Half of the price goes to charity (specific information available upon request). Autographed copies of all three books are available from the author. (Multiple books to the same address have a discount on shipping.) To inquire, email thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

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Friday, February 17, 2023

Taxed!

The two dolls stood in the doorway of the workroom and watched The Writer trying to straighten out the the disarray.

"How did it get to be such a mess?" Veronika asked.

"They haven't had time to clean," Mandy replied, "but they've been working on their taxes, and The Writer had to go through all the receipts she had to find what they needed. She's still missing some, so she was trying to clean up, in hopes of finding them."

"It has been very difficult to clean for the last month," Mandy added. "She's had too many other things to deal with. For instance, she found out that the washing machine was broken. There was water all over the floor!"

"They had to order a part to fix it," she continued, "and that took a while, so all that laundry piled up."

"That's right," Veronika agreed. "Then the space bar on The Writer's laptop stopped working, and she had to send it away to be repaired. While the laptop was gone we had to make all the stories on the iPad."

"Writing it is easy enough," she pointed out, "but making the photos bigger on the tablet takes more time, and The Writer kept making mistakes. Sometimes whole paragraphs would disappear."

"Now we have the Yarn Crawl coming up," Mandy reminded Veronika. "She had that project she was working on. I helped some, but my fingers don't bend, so I can't knit as fast as she can. She had to do most of it. Knitting is fun, but she wanted to have it done in time to wear during the Yarn Crawl. When we go from one shop to another, everyone wears their project. We get to see it in lots of different colors. She was under pressure to finish it."

Veronika remembered that Mandy always goes along with The Writer when she goes to the Yarn Crawl. The Writer's husband goes, too, to visit their grandchildren. "That starts next week, doesn't it?" she asked.

"Yes," Mandy confirmed. "It's just a short trip, but then they're going on a long trip in the trailer the following week. There will be a lot of work to do to get ready for that, and the house is a mess. It would be sad to come home from a trip and find the house a mess. As soon as they're done unloading and cleaning the trailer, they would have a house to clean, too."

The two dolls were worried about their human people. They know that stress isn't good for real people.

Just then, Billy came up behind the two girls. He had heard them talking. He looked to see what they were talking about.

"I think it's time to help again," he told them. "It will be fun! It always is."

Veronika and Mandy agreed. They called the other dolls from other parts of the house, so they could have a meeting. They sat on the stairs, because the workroom was such a mess, and they didn't want to get in the way while The Writer tried to tidy up.

Pauly was visiting Pippa. He had offered to stay and help, so he joined in the meeting. They discussed what needed to be done.

The dolls all volunteered for what they would like to do to help. Then they got to work.

It was good that Jolena was home from her ski trip, because she is the best cook. She looked to see what there was in the pantry and the refrigerator. She would fix supper and make up some meals for their trip with the trailer.

She started some bread, so The Writer and her Husband would be able to slice it for sandwiches while they were gone on their trip. When the bread was done, she would put it into the freezer for them to take with them.

Then Jolena made some TV dinners to freeze for the camping trip. It's so nice to have easy meals when you're camping, and each metal tray had enough food for one person to eat. They have a stove in the trailer, so they can heat up their dinners.

While Jolena was cooking, Emil and Pauly dusted.

Then they ran the robot vacuum cleaner. (It was Pauly's first time to ride on the vacuum.) They decided to wait until Jolena was finished cooking before they vacuumed the kitchen.

Meanwhile, Veronika watered the plants.

Then she arranged for the mail to be held while her human people were gone. She used the computer to reach the post office website. She told them the dates they did not want to have any mail, so their mailbox wouldn't get stuffed too full. The lady who brought the mail would bring it the day they got back. Then she did the same thing for the newspaper.

While all that was happening, Mariah and Pippa started the laundry. They wanted to be sure The Writer and her husband had the clothes they would need for both trips, because there wouldn't be much time between the first trip and the second one.

While the washer was running, they emptied the wastebaskets from each room into the trash.

Charlotte and Mandy were busy cleaning the bathrooms.

That took a long time, because there are three bathrooms. That was three toilets, four sinks, a tub and a shower. They didn't have to sweep the floors, because Emil and Pauly would take care of that with the vacuum cleaner.

Mariah and Pippa took the laundry out of the dryer when it was dry.

They worked together to pull the big laundry basket down the hall to the bedroom, where they would fold everything and put it away.

Then Veronika helped them make the beds with clean sheets. Pippa slid under the covers to smooth out the sheets. It made Veronika and Mariah laugh to see Pippa's feet kicking as she smoothed out the wrinkles.

While the other dolls were busy working, Billy took photos of what they were doing. He took all the photos for this story except when he had to be in one.

As dolls finished their work, they came and helped The Writer tidy up the workroom. While they were doing that, Emil looked through the receipts to find the ones The Writer had been looking for. He put them all in a pile separate from the others.

When the dolls had done everything they could, they sat down again on the stairs again, because The Writer was still busy in the workroom. Each doll told Mariah what they had done for this story, and Mariah wrote it all down. She asked them questions, so she would know what to write. Billy listened carefully, because knowing what the other dolls had to say would help him select the photos.

Billy used the laptop to pick out the photos to use. He put the ones he liked into a folder. Then he went through the folder and fixed a few things that needed fixing, like if a photo was too dark.

When he was done with the computer, Mariah used her notes to write this story.

When Mariah thought she had the story almost ready, she called Billy, and they worked together put the photos in the right places in the story. There's more than one way you can do that with each story, so they talked it over and decided together. Sometimes Mariah changed what she had written. She says that's called editing (ED-it-ing).

The Writer's husband finished the taxes. He put the forms into an envelope, attached a stamp and walked to the mailbox with it. The Writer, very much relieved, sat down, while Jolena fixed her some tea.

It's amazing what little dolls can get done when they work together.