NAMI - Our Families Walk for Scott

My family is participating in the NAMI walk in Salt Lake City on September 27th, Franklin Covey Field at 9:00 am. This will be our second year participating in this walk in remembrance of Scott .
I will probably blog a few times before and after this walk about Scott. He was someone that made an impact on my life and the lives of my husband and kids. Scott was married to my cousin. Bill and Scott became good friends shortly after he married into the family, we had kids close to the same ages so we spent lots of time together, and they were the couple when we wanted to go out with others were the ones we would call first.
Scott and I work for the same company for many years, we were also on the same team in that company, and were able to spend time together there. I can remember people spreading rumors until they realized that we were family. But Scott was almost like having another brother for me, and another father figure for my kids. Bill considered him his best friend.
I'd like to share one memory about Scott in this post. I have been having so many things happen with my dolls recently and Scott would have been so happy for me. I'm bless to have many people in my family that are supportive, it was different with Scott, maybe because he was married in to the family I felt that his opinion was a bit more objective.
Scott and I never ran too much together because he was much faster them me. But there were a few times, once we ran along the Ogden River Parkway. At the top, in the mouth of Ogden Canyon is a gift shop, as we approached he asked if I had been in there in a while because they had some cool dolls. I hadn't so he talked me into going in. It was nice to have a break any way because I was tired. When we got to the dolls, he was right, they were very cool. He looked at me and said, this can be you Lori... you are talented enough. He was very sincere with his praise and I have to say I was surprised at the time that he would feel that way. It felt so nice to have someone think that because it was so early on in my doll making. I think he would be so happy with all the recent things happening with my dolls.

New Doll Adventures!

It has been surprising to me all the doll things that are suddenly happening with me. I’m very excited to participate in so many things. Usually they are few and far between. So you ask what it happening? Well let me tell you.
I had seen a contest on the web at a reborn baby site a few months back. I thought it would be fun to try, so I made a like size baby. (The one that gave me all the heart ache, in some older posts of this blog). Now she is a finalist in the contest on the web. Here is the link: www.lifelikedollsmag.com please vote she is number 6. While my family was at Bear Lake my Mom said I should enter something in the Weber County Fair, so since I had this baby I entered her, she won Best of Show in her catergory and I won a whopping $25.00! Pretty fun Huh!

I have helped at Jack Johnston’s professional class for a few years, last year his son had come to help, so I was surprised to get an email from Jack asking for me to help out this year. Of course I said yes, I always have a wonderful time there and get to meet so many fun doll people.
A few months back my friend and fellow doll artist Debbie Sampson called to see if I would be interested in taking a class from Diane Keeler, one of my favorite doll artists! Of course I said yes, so October 16-18 I will be with my fellow Utah and Idaho doll friends taken a class from Diane Keeler! So exciting!
And last but certainly not least, you all have seen here in the blog that I have been working at making a BJD. Well, last year I seen a BJD retreat, but when I found it I was too late, I had missed it :( so; I have been checking this site all year to see when they would post the dates for the new retreat. When the dates were posted they also told of three scholarships people could win that would cover the costs of tuition and food. I entered and won the LilyKoi scholarship!!! I am over the moon!! So I will be attending this retreat in Ohio October 3-5!
I will make sure I take a camera and document all these fantastic doll happening and tell you all about them.
So, wish me luck in all my new and exciting doll adventures!

Ramblings and Wishes

Has anyone had this experience? You are at work, or the gym, somewhere where you know the people, and are friends with them, but not someone you hang out with all the time. I guess that it is more that they are acquaintances.
Some how the subject comes up, “What are your hobbies?” What do you do in your spare time? Usually sometime after where do you work. I don’t know about you but I cringe at these kinds of questions. No matter how I phrase my hobby I usually get very strange looks and a disappointing “Oh that’s nice…” I guess grown people are not supposed to sculpt dolls. Or play with them or I guess even talk about dolls. I try to play it off sometimes by saying simple that I just sculpt, but the problem with that is that it leads to the next question. “What do you sculpt?” to which I have to answer “Dolls” and that almost always gets a very quizzical look and the response “Oh”.
It seems to me and maybe its because most of what I read and look up on the internet is all about dolls. But there seems to be plenty of people in this world that love dolls just like me, so it begs to wonder, why I keep getting all the funny expressions when people find out my hobby? I guess I should be happy that the people who love me don’t seem to mind my hobby, in fact I think my sweet husband is rather proud of me most of the time. I have to beg him not to take people who visit the house into my doll room, or even call it a “doll room” for that matter.
But then that also brings up another issue that I’m having with myself. I can’t seem to figure out what I can call the space in my house where I sculpt my dolls. I usually call it the doll room, and that is OK for the most part. There is a part of me that wants to call it my studio. It sounds so much more professional then “doll room”. But in my mind I think I can’t call it a studio unless I was doing this as a profession and not a hobby. Doll room = Hobby, Studio = Professional. Maybe sometime soon, it will be a studio.

A Twilight Vortex

It has been a while since I have posted anything; but quite literally, all my time has been consumed with reading the Twilight series of books. I know, I know, I’m very slow on jumping on this bandwagon. My youngest daughter had read them all last year and I think all the ladies at work, my sisters etc. But when I was at Bear Lake with my family this year they were all talking about it so much, I felt totally out of the loop. So I figured that since I was on furlough for a while I would read a good book. I purchased the first two because they were on a good sale. I read the first and started the second before I went back to work. Not thinking that I would get so caught up in the book.

I feel like I need to explain some of my apprehension to reading. First, I’m not that fast of a reader and the books were very long so I knew it was going to take me a while to get through it. Second, I know that once I get into a book all other things fall by the way side. So here I am a few pages from the end of the third book… (can’t wait to start the forth) hiding in the bathroom at work, doing the minimal expected of all my house hold chores. Trying to sneak a few more pages while I’m standing in line at the grocery store, and forget about sculpting, it has been non-existant since I started the books. I have been acting like a complete zombie with my head buried in the book. AHHHGGG! THE GUILT !!! I feel so guilty for wanting to spend all my time reading about Bella and Edward, when there are so many other things I need to accomplish. I wish that I enjoyed listening to audio books, but I think there is something missing from that, sitting down and getting lost in a good book is like candy to your brain, and if most books are candy, Twilight must be heroin!