Happy AGiversary to me!

 

I was looking through my pictures and found this picture of my very first American Girl doll, Kit.  And... sigh... I had her hat on wrong, as I hadn't folded back the brim.

But that's a rant post for another day.

When I got Kit, I had been collecting dolls for over a decade.  I actually started collecting dolls in about 2000, but again, that's a story for another day.  I focused on 50s dolls in those days, and was somewhat dismissive of American Girl and other modern dolls.

Despite that, I remember looking at an American Girl catalog in about 2011 with the girl I nannied, and seeing Kit.  She wore her original meet in those days, as pictured.  At the time I was completely obsessed with the 1920s, so I was intrigued by how much 20s-like Kit seemed.

That girl was almost grown when I encountered Kit again.  I was selling 50s dolls at a doll show with my mom, and saw Kit on another dealer's table.  I wasn't sure yet about buying that specific Kit, but I was interested, and a friend who was visiting me at the show (who still denies responsibility for my AG obsession (*cough*GARY*cough) encouraged me to get her.  Instead, I went home, did some research, and hunted down a Kit for a good price on eBay.

From there, I was completely hooked.  For a while, everything was about Kit.  I was an experienced eBayer, so I put to work all my best strategies hunting down all her things for cheap.  I found doll groups on Facebook and joined them.  I discovered she had a best friend, so of course I needed Ruthie too, if I was going for the whole collection.  But that was all I was going to collect.  Just Kit.

But then there was the Girl of the Year who was a Colorado girl, had curly hair, and loved horses...

When I learned there was also a New Mexico Girl of the Year with horses, I knew I was all in.

It turned out though that all my years collecting 50s dolls had taught me a lot of transferrable skills.  I wasn't afraid to take a doll apart and figure out how to put it back together.  I had a surprisingly domestic ability to get stains out of doll clothes.  (I still refuse to learn on my own clothes.)  I could do doll hair even if I hated doing my own.

Through completing collections, learning to rehab and restore, and befriending other doll people, I got sucked into the AG world.  All in.

Four years ago today, my AG journey began.  I hope it's just the beginning, honestly.  I hope my journey with dolls never ends.