Stone Lore on Turquoise

Turquoise is the birthstone of December and ranks on the Mohs scale between 5 and 6. In other words, it's a fairly soft stone and needs to be treated with care. Keep it wrapped up and away from other jewelry that might scratch it.

Turquoise was, by most accounts, the first gemstone to be mined, as early as 3000 B.C. It's been used by ancient Egyptians and the Chinese who have always been a major source of the stone. For at least 2000 years, Iran (formerly Persia) has been an important source of Turquoise.

The lovely deep pastel color of the stone has made it a favored stone of many ancient cultures such as the Aztecs, the rulers of Ancient Egypt, the people of Mesopotamia, and the pre-Columbian people of South America and Mexico. For both modern and Ancient peoples Turquoise has been regarded as a holy stone and/or a stone of great luck.

In the U.S. the American Indians have always revered this stone. It is sacred to them and has been carved into animals and birds and placed into tombs to protect the dead and to bring the good spirits. Medicine men would use it for healing and warriors would use it to insure their arrows flew true.

Interesting fact, around the beginning of the 17th century, it was a stone worn almost exclusively by men. In fact to be considered to be properly dressed, a man had to wear a turquoise ring. Women very rarely wore it.

These days however, it is treasured and worn by both sexes, although in the United States it is a stone that is more popularly worn by men in the south west region.

Folklore of this gorgeous and ancient gem include the power to attract money, to bring luck, love, healing and courage.

Stone Lore on Amethyst

Amethyst Lore. February's birthstone. Has a hardness of 7 on the Mohs scale and is the most valuable of all the quartz' and has traditionally been used by royalty.

The word Amethyst comes from the Greek word "amethystos" meaning "not intoxicated. It is also known as the Bacchus Stone. Mythology has it that Diana, Goddess of the Hunt, turned a nymph that Bacchus loved into amethyst. She must have been pissed for something but I don't know what yet. Apparently Amethyst has been used for sculptures and have been made into cups. Again, probably as protection against drunkenness. Mystical uses for Amethysts are: healing, courage, overcoming addiction, protection against psychic attack and is a stone of friendship.

Okay, according to what I could find, it's the same old song and dance. Apparently Diana was jealous. Why she would want to become involved with the King of Partiers is beyond me. Besides, if I remember my mythology right, she wasn't all that interested in men anyway. In fact, I believe there has been several suggestions that she might have been a lesbian. Or not. I'll research that later.

Website is slowly coming together

After nearly a year of doing nothing with the website, Leanne and I are finally getting ourselves together and are working to get it workable. Yesterday we put in a new page, uploaded pictures and fixed links and old pages. We have a long ways to go but at least we are making an effort.

The shame of it is, that due to some of the optimization we did last year, we've been getting a ton of traffic. Amazing considering we've done no advertising and have really had no way to sell any of our jewelry. Also leaves us feeling really REALLY dumb for not having done anything earlier.

So this week it's web work, lots and lots of web work. I'm hoping that Leanne finds that she loves the work and figures out how to make web expressions SING. It frustrates ME because there are things I'd love to do but can't figure out how to do it. ARGH. Guess it's time to go back to the manual.

Do follow along with what's happening there ( http://wwww.coloruspurple.com ) and if you have suggestions to make, we would welcome them.


K

Introspective Claptrap

Something has changed. I went to PA for two weeks and left my family behind. This was a vacation to meet two "almost" strangers who quickly became very good friends and during the visit, something changed in me, for me, and since coming home, I've been worrying at it like a dog with a bone.

While I was gone, those two weeks without the responsibilities, joys, duties of being a wife and mother (except for the phone calls) I was completely free to be me. I could be happy, sad, depressed, joyful, sarcastic, introspective, extroverted, funny, grumpy, whatever I wanted. I had the freedom to read, to play, to bead, to do anything I wanted or just to be.

After 17 years of being a wife and a mother just being me was bewildering to say the least. And still is.

Laurie, one of my new dear friends, made the comment "Midlife crisis" during my moment of just letting go of everything and being totally wild, happy and manic. If that was a crisis, bring it on, let's have more of it.

However, coming home again, assuming the "role" of being mother and wife and conforming to the rules of both have left a certain disquietude within me. Who WAS that person, was that REALLY me and if so, who am I now? Do I even like who I have become? What do I do with what I found?

I love my children and being their mother, I wouldn't trade it for anything. However, I think I have found that there is much more to me than that. The question is, what do I do with it? Do I quietly put it away and save it for when the last one leaves home (at least 10 years until college), am I able to even DO that?

There is an old saying, " A little Knowledge is a Dangerous thing". Take the word "knowledge" out and substitute "freedom" and that's where I am. Having tasted it, I'm greedy for more. And yet... I am still a wife and mother. I still have responsibilities, duties, a role to perform. It will be interesting to say the least to see if some of what I have discovered bubbles out in weird and wonderful ways or if I quietly fall into line and do /be what I have always done/been.

Being unemployed

This is such a weird place to be at this point in my life. I'm 54 years old and have been unemployed for a little over two years. My unemployment will be exhaused in six weeks and we are teetering on the edge of losing everything. I've got to check this week to see how much I will lose on the two 401Ks I have if I cash them out. I have to deal with the reality that if I don't cash them out we will have no place to live.



I'm battling depression and living up to Jeannes Dixon's description of me: "you start a lot of things that you don't finish." (As Activities Vice President I hired her to speak at a community college years ago. She held my ring finger and made that statement.) Can't tell you how many times that has haunted me.



This has been such a roller coaster ride but I'm tired of going down. Every time we think we have come up with an alternative to our living situation, something goes awry and we have to try something else. I've got religious folk offering their prayers and other offering ideas that have already been tried on and tossed. I have my husband trying to reassure me that it's not my fault that we're in this mess; but we would'nt BE in this mess if I was working. Heavy sigh....



I don't know when or how this ride will end, but I know it will eventually. Just afraid of the additional cost. All this for standing up for something I believed in at work. Will I ever be able to understand why I was the only one who stood up? At the same time I wish I was one of the former co-workers who held on until they found another job or quit without a job to go to. Even though I am proud I held onto my integrity and know I am a better person for it, I foolishly thought that good karma was going to kick in and end this drought.

A few more pictures

Don't forget, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

our set up.

going to try and post some pictures of what we had at the BEGINNING of the show, the only show we did. Should actually have taken some pictures at the end because with nothing to do, we did a LOT of creating those two days.