I officially started collecting and acquiring knowledge of Barbie dolls about 1986. (I actually first collected antique dolls (which are still a major passion) before going on to Barbies, Madame Alexanders from the fifties, 8" Betsy McCalls, Ginny, Muffies... you get the idea.

I have been selling mainly Barbie dolls & others since the late 1980's. My selling started with antique and other dolls before I rented my first sales table at a Barbie doll show. (I had too little to even fill even one table, just a few Bubble Cuts and some outfits.)

A few years later I was running what is now called the Peterson Barbie Doll Shows. I started them here in California and rode the wave of Barbie popularity until they became monthly shows. With the growing of the internet, I have been slowly cutting back the number of shows per year, but it seems this niche of the doll world, large or small, will forever remain highly collectible.

The third wing of my business after selling dolls and putting on trade-shows is the production of doll and clothing boxes. I went into the business of boxes because of the need sellers and collectors have to protect and organize their dolls. My husband's business is package manufacturing so it put me in a position to do this at competitive pricing.

Finally, I buy dolls. I buy both for my business as well as for my collection. People who cannot bring their items to sell to me because they are too far away, or the collection is too big, can always ship them. If I end up purchasing, I pay the shipping.

Some not so useful things about me:

I still have my original husband, Steve. We have a daughter, Natalie, who helps me in my business while going to college. Some of you have met her on the phone.

As probably is the case with many of you, my pets are like family. Indoors we have our two cats who adopted us as kittens. Max is the black one who found us first. Then, one day he brought Tootsie, think massive blue eyes and a little pink nose. How they survived the coyotes for the first several weeks after they were born, I don't know. Their original owner, who feeds dozens of cats, was glad they found us.

Outdoors is where I go, almost daily, for mini breaks to clear my mind. As soon as I trot out I hear a whinnie from Piccolo, our miniature horse, for his handful of oats, or grunts from Caesar, our potbellied pig, in hopes of old banana. Just the sound of the patio door brings the flock. Thirty-five ornamental, or simply clinically mental, top-hat chickens. The five bantams that adopted us remain askance. These banties came from next door, but I have no idea why they left home. They spend the days on our property and nights in a tree refusing to roost in the coops with our flock.

The bantams snub our flock for the most part. Except for a crush one of these little roosters had on our Buttercup. Because he is a bantam he is very small, and because Buttercup is a full bred Cochin she is very big so the courtship came to its inevitable end, and sadly so did the load of slapstick humor they provided.