Meditation: My dog

So it turns out that on a Spiritual level I love my dog better than I love my son (note to readers, he never reads this blog thinking it is all about jewelry). What I mean is that I unconditionally accept my dog. Yes, she poops in my front yard everyday. Yes, when she gets sick I clean everything up and even buy her a new bed without uttering a bad word. Of course when my son was an infant I did these things for him as well. It was easy to love him because he was "mine." But while I love my dog in a way that gives her maximal freedom, it seems that now my son is grown up and left home I can't seem to love him unconditionally. I expect certain bare minimum behaviors which are that he answer the phone when I call or failing that return my email, and that he initiate a call to me at least once a month. But the more I want him to do these things the more he digs in his heels and refuses. My job as a mother now is to love him in a way that gives him maximum freedom which means to release him in love into the hands of God. Don't get me wrong; when he does visit he is very sweet to me, and we have had no falling out whatsoever. But it hurts my feelings that he doesn't keep in touch with me. But on the other hand I have to realize that if he wanted to call me he would. Every time you think that if so and so would just change his or her behavior just a little bit you'd be happy is to give into the ego mind (the devil in your head). Your peace of mind comes only from God. Nothing in the outside world can give your life more "meaning" or make you happier if it does not adhere to the Will of God. My old shrink once told me that if I wanted to be in my son's life in ten years, I needed to act the part starting now. So I call, send a tiny bit of money, forward articles to his email but that is all I can do, and I must do it without expectation of any response. This situation is a great grief to me that I must give up in the New Year. I must learn to love my son at least as well as I love my dog. But it seems easy to love her because she loves me back! This lack of family feeling I get from my son seems to be such a lack of respect. But this is happening to me to give me the opportunity to let go of the situation. Hence I'm writing this down on New Year's Eve to cement this lesson in my mind.

more new rings

More new rings! Some of you might recognize your old stuff.

As for my meditation: A surprising thing happened to me during this Holiday week. Two people got mad at me when I asked them for the same small favor. At first I felt hurt and yes, angry. At the time it felt to me like such a simple thing to ask for. But as I thought more about these incidents, I realized that the Holidays are stressful for everyone. Spiritually speaking only love is real and nothing unreal exists. So I have the opportunity to practice letting go of such incidents and training myself to realize that only love is real, my true peace comes from God alone, and the other stuff is just a bad illusion I am having.

The frog

Hi Everybody, as you know the frog is a symbol of transformation, and I'm planning to transform this blog for the New Year. Instead of just talking about jewelry, I plan to write some of my meditations down

for myself and anyone else who might be interested. I will still talk about jewelry because I love it, but the emphasis of this blog is changing. If you want to follow a jewelry blog I recommend Gem Gossip. That is my favorite jewelry blog.
So the Holidays are almost over which for me is a good thing. I was pretty happy until Christmas Day when I gave out some gifts that I had really hoped would make someone I particularly care about happy. Let's just say this person was not responding in the way I had hoped. This caused me deep pain for several days. I knew that from a spiritual  perspective this depression was my problem. Our inner peace comes from God alone. What other people do is not to be based on your expectations. But I have to admit that I had hoped this person would be happier than turned out to be the case. So I got to experience my own private little crucifixion for three or four days.
Then I really realized with the help of the Universe that I was indulging in the myth of the special relationship. I wanted this person to have a special, close relationship with me and that is a particularly controlling and insidious desire of our ego minds. I had to school myself that our true happiness comes from God alone. Everyone in the universe is a precious child of God and we need to treat every relationship as special. By trying to have a special relationship with this person, I was being grabby and needy. I need to say god bless this person and let it go at that. If a train doesn't stop at your station it's not your train. There are, however, many other trains!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

MORE RINGS

Here are some other rings I've made this weekend. I know I have a horse pin that might make a good ring, but I can't for the life of me remember where I put that thing! Oh well....

Off the work bench

 So these are some items off of my workbench. These are just glued up rings. No soldering or dremeling yet. But just wait till I really get started after the new year!

cute crabs

These are some cute crabs that I have put up to celebrate Christmas in Hawaii. They are such sparkly items which make them great for Christmas in a sunny oceanic climate. I guess you could wear these in some parts of Florida too.

Joan Rivers

I like this bracelet and matching earring set for Christmas. Red and gold are such rich Christmas colors. This set is by Joan Rivers based on her Faberge collection.

favorites

Just some favorites of mine from the past year. I like just having the photo file I've developed over the months I've been at this blog. Many things you don't have to own to appreciate!

Just odds and ends

Still one of my favorite broaches. This just makes me feel optimistic and happy.

 

I have this ring. It was recently on eBay for six times what I paid for it at the fancy Salvation Army in Chico. I wear it on my thumb when I wear my collection of '50's and '60's modernist rings.  

I want my next diamond ring to be the ballerina style like the one above. It will go so well with my other modernist ring collection!

I have this ring too, but it's so flashy! Still around the Holidays....

s

The alligator is still on my wish list. But I have to say that after finding my red Escada hearts this year, I can't complain. Having that necklace was one of my highest jewelry goals, and I can hardly believe I've attained it! 

Happy Birthday Steven!

Happy Birthday Steven. Gem Gossip is showing men wearing broaches. Here's a little Nut Cracker toy soldier for you! Love you Honey.

eye candy

I'm just in crazy love with turquoise this holiday season. This color goes so well with my Escada red hearts. Of course that necklace is so dominant that I can only wear rings with it. That's why I got that turquoise flower ring recently--to go with my red hearts. I am coming to the one year anniversary of this blog. And while I still have more jewelry to blog about, I hope to change the content of this site more toward my hobby of recycling old jewelry into contemporary function. So stay in touch for that in the New Year!

The look without the price

I just put together this necklace after collecting the pieces for several years. I saw a necklace like this is a magazine a few years ago. Of course it was made by an artist in real gold, but I thought to myself I could get the look for less than the $28,000 price tag in the mag. I started collecting gilded shells at thrift stores one at a time. The great thing about this project is that I can keep adding to it like any charm bracelet and begin to replace the lesser charms with better ones as I find them.

some new pleasures

Some items I'm excited about! The rabbit ring and the turquoise daisy are from Etsy. That site has so many great rings. The cat is from eBay. I can't remember where I've seen this cat before. Maybe Alyce Dodge drew him once, or I saw someone else with him on back in the '80's. All I know is that I recognized him and had to wear him during the days at home when I'm not wearing my Escada red hearts.

Two for sale

 

Here are two necklaces I upcycled by adding new pendants. They would make great Christmas gifts and will be on sale at Traci's Thrift Store next week. Well actually more near Christmas time as I have decided to order a green pearl drop for the green necklace!

dolphins

Dolphins are such a '70's thing. Maybe that's why I love them so much, being a teen in the '70's and all. Above are the dolphin pendant and earrings I own. Below is a cool dolphin ring that I don't own.

ribbon flower

This is a pin made with old velvet ribbon. And a pipe cleaner. Like a zipper flower the ribbon is folded over itself and sewed together at the back. I love the faded colors here. They go very well with a silk blouse that I have.

Wilma Flintstone

I call these my Wilma Flintstone necklaces. They are very fun for the holidays and look good in the evening light at a dinner party, for instance. The big pink rocks are just plastic, but at night they take on a brilliant gleam. The pinkish pearls are just a nice background piece to highlight the plastic rocks.

two flower pins

I'm starting a collection of these flower pins. They are so out of style that now is a good time to pick them up in the thrift stores. I love enamel work and the style these flowers have as if they were just a casually fallen stem. I can see where several of these would line up nicely on a button up shirt.

Christmas ball

This a Christmas ball that I love wearing over the Holidays. Unfortunately it will not see the light of day because of the Escada red hearts which are all I've been wearing these days. I love my red hearts because they remind me of when Steven was little, and we had our whole lives ahead of us.  

Christmas shopping

This is a Christmas gift for a little girl that never reads my blog. I love how detailed he is. This is a pretty large piece of chunky silver. The recipient loves cats so I'm giving her the king.

more office wear (Thanksgiving)

So if you work in an office these are nice fall necklaces, and who can resist a pumpkin brooch for Thanksgiving? I will be wearing my red Escada hearts this year so no theme dressing for me. Still I'd rather wear a pumpkin than a turkey which happen to make very loving pets. Although I wouldn't rule out the right turkey. I can imagine one done in gold with enamel work and inlaid stones....

glamour

This reminds me of something that might have been in the movie The Titanic. I wore it with a gold blouse that matched it exactly and one of my sisters was aghast! She thinks I'm so tacky. But I thought it looked fantastic. Of course I think she has weird taste too so go figure.

pearls

I love pearl chokers. Here are all my pearls that I use for Princess Di type chokers. I use necklace extenders to turn longer strands into tightly fitting double choker strands. Using extenders I can get a five strand choker. I like to wear some sort of drop necklace with these pearls just to be more glamorous. I used to wear these strands everyday for three years when I worked as a reporter.

pearl drops

I bought this from an artist in Reno for my birthday a couple of years ago. It looks really nice on. But with my big red Escada heart necklace I don't know when I will wear this again. I have so many nice necklaces but right now I'm all about the big red hearts.

summer necklace

I wore these necklaces all summer which is why I haven't blogged about them till now. I love silver, the whitest metal and these looked so bright and summery this year. I had been looking for a big kanji for years. Can anyone help me figure out what this one means?

Halloween

I'm so bummed that I forgot to blog about my Halloween jewelry on Halloween that I'm doing it now. When you work in an office holiday themed jewelry rocks. Happily I have not worked in an office for five years so I've kind of forgotten about my boss collection of holiday wear. These are just a few of my favorite Halloween wear. I love the black cat motif.