a crystals & jewelry adventure

I’m getting an increasing amount of forwarded chain email that threatens my wellbeing in some way or tries to guilt me into sending it on. The threats are things like “16 years bad luck” from one recent one, and guilts are like “If I don’t get this back I’ll know why” hinting that it’s because I don’t like the sender from another recent one.

I’m sorry if you believe those things. The fact is that I don’t ever send on chain emails. I find that chain emails often make people feel scared or bad in other ways, and are not in line with the good will I try to spread. I don’t believe a chain email of any sort has the power to give me either good or bad luck, but if I’m mistaken I’ll take on that bad luck if need be, but I won’t pass it on to anyone else. And the fact that I don’t return or send on a chain email that purports that the reason why is because I don’t like them is incorrect. I don’t spread chain emails to friends, family, or even people I may dislike. I simply don’t do it.
Before sending any chain email, consider these things.

• Chain emails that can potentially frighten people of getting bad luck can make people feel bad.
• Chain emails that purport to know anything about why a person sends or doesn’t send them can make people feel bad, guilty, and are probably inaccurate.
• Chain emails clog email servers and slow more important emails down sometimes.
• Chain emails can make your own email address sent to spam catchers so that your other emails may get caught by black holes or other spam catching devices.

I do not believe that chain emails are useful or kind. I simply won’t send them, and now you know why.

Free Priority Mail shipping is now available for US orders of $75 or greater.  I held out and didn’t raise it from the earlier $50 level for the better part of a year in spite of postal increases, but am unable to continue to do so.  I’m glad to be able to still do it for orders of only $75 or more, while still self-insuring orders under $100, which is almost unheard of in small business.  Many companies, especially small businesses like mine, are no longer offering any free shipping at all or are doing it for orders of $100 or more. I appreciate your business tremendously, though, so I am still offering this service.  Woo!

I’m back with my new pc. Well, some new bits and pieces in my old pc, really. I had to do it, though, because my old pc was slowing down my work so much that it was taking way to long to do everything. But rebuilding the pc took all of 3 days just to get the hardware together and Windows installed so it works right! I’m blaming that on the RAID instructions stinking. It couldn’t possibly be that it’s been 6 years since I’ve built a pc, after all, right? hehehe I don’t have even half my software installed yet. I had to take a few hours off yesterday after those 3 intensive days, so I only got my email and browser and a few miscellanous things installed.

I have email, though, so I’m moving as fast as I can today to get all emails answered. From there, I’ll be doing everything else I normally do. It will work out. Life always does, somehow, and this is just a part of life.

Before - Some new bits

After - New bits in the machine
(And a glowing blue ghost too, it looks like hehehe)

As you can see from the before and after shots, it’s somewhat nuts to build your own pc. Many thanks to Chuck for taking so much time over the weekend to help me out by phone. Next time I’m going to pay someone to do it for me. Definitely. Chuck says it won’t be him, though.hehehe

I am out of the office and will return Monday, March 17th just in time for St Patrick’s Day.

Orders will continue to be shipped out while I’m away. (Thanks, Chuck!)

I’ll return my emails and phone calls when I return. Thanks for your patience

I don’t get new photos of myself up very often. Frankly, I think crystals and stones and jewelry are more interesting to look at.

I happened to look up when I was photographing the last batch of stones and thought “oh this is funny” so I snapped a couple of photos of me and my camera in the mirror. The mirror is there to help distribute light from the photo lights. But it caught me, and Johnny Depp in the background. Johnny’s fun to look at though. Almost as fun as crystals. hehehe

That’s me, though, behind the camera. Hmmms. Can’t see my smile. Ah well, you can tell it’s there.  You can see my shipping stuff and whatnot too. How fun! hehehe

How perfect that as the Endeavor takes off into the sky to finally build the Japanese part of the orbiting space station, the last piece belonging to a country that’s in the project, the fires of takeoff look like a dove flying into the night.

I fell in love with this Brazil Cathedral crystal yesterday. I had gone to a rock and gem show nearby yesterday. I saw this guy and said, “No, not practical.” I walked away. That lasted about 47 seconds and I was back grabbing him up. He just had to come with me. So he did. All 3.25 pounds of him. All the Cathedral energy and all the Self-Healing energy he also carries. And and and…. Awesome energy in a crystal being. Ahhhhhh

I’m going to sigh when he goes on to his true home, but I know he’s just visiting with me. I’ll enjoy him while he visits, that’s for sure!

OK, I got distracted. Yes, I got a few other cool things, and they’ll be getting online as soon as I can manage it. But this guy just totally distracts me. I may just hang out with him all weekend.

I continue to get custom jewelry requests and now will occasionally take custom jewelry requests now. BUT…

Plan on at least 4 weeks for any custom jewelry. Why? Because I can’t totally stop everything else to do it. I’d actually love to be able to. Would anyone like to take over the business end of things or hire me so I can?  Let me know!

The moolah bit is because my schedule is already tight, so I have to stop some other business thing in order to do custom jewelry, and custom jewelry is always more time-consuming than other similar p ieces. So the absolute minimum for custom jewelry in any case whatsoever is $100.  I often have to locate and purchase the materials. I have to communicate with you about the plans for it.   Then I have to make it. And all of that has to happen at the expense of doing other business things and jewelry things that keep my business (and thus me) afloat.

So, that’s the scoop on custom jewelry.

I’ve never actually seen a total Lunar Eclipse in person. It’s always after I’m asleep or, as was the case in February, too cloudy. So I was tickled to see this video of it, so I thought I’d share it.