Alice's Adventures Underground

Signs of Snow

Posted on 4/16/2010 09:53:00 AM - by NG

Whenever we have a snowy Winter, the following Spring is unique in that there are potholes and street damage everywhere. Back during the Blizzard of '96, the joke going around was that Mayor Barry had a brand new snow removal plan for the District. It was called Spring. And then that Spring one of the local radio stations staged a "help Mayor Barry fill the potholes" program -- much like a museum donor program where you could purchase a brick with your name on it to help build the facility. But in this case, they would take a brick, write your name on it with black magic marker and then go downtown and throw it in a pothole.

A snowplow picked up this gas main cover in our neighborhood a street over back during our Year of Living Snowfully. The asphalt around it was damaged so if now someone runs over it accidentally, the cover pops up and then sticks up three inches in the middle of the road. Sometimes there's a caution sign over it that stays for a day or two and then disappears, but it never seems to actually get fixed. The neighborhood has gotten used to it and we all just swerve widely around it as we drive through that intersection and go on with our lives. But every time I swerve around it, I have to yell, "ARE YOU TOO GOOD FOR YOUR HOME?"

1 cents added |

Sciency

Posted on 4/15/2010 06:12:00 PM - by NG

This is a fun little experiment I saw somewhere on the web and used it to entertain The Dormouse the other day. We wasted a lot of food coloring and a LOT of milk doing this over and over with different variables each time. What will happen if we put extra food coloring in? What do you think will happen if we put warmer milk in? What if we put the drops of food coloring in a line instead of a circle? What if you stir it with a toothpick? I probably should have been more worried about the mess and wasting of food, after all, I hear there are starving kids in China, but I was more interested in what would happen next than The Dormouse was.

For those who wish to replicate the experiment, you need three things: milk, dish washing liquid, and food coloring. Whole milk and Dawn dish washing liquid (or something that claims to break up grease) work better (and yes, we tested that too). The rest, you can see for yourself.

There's another twenty minutes of video that I'll spare you from watching, but I was just interested in how long those colors would keep moving and changing. I finally got bored and tossed it out about minute twenty-six. The world will never know.

3 cents added |

Orchids

Posted on 4/15/2010 07:03:00 AM - by NG In: DC

Some photos of the Orchids: A Cultural Odyssey exhibit at the National Botanical Gardens on Capitol Hill. I've never been a big orchid fan but I think that was because I never knew before how many varieties and how disparate they can be one from another. I've only in recent years, come to appreciate their delicate beauty and the fact that they can take widely different forms. Also: I never saw them displayed along side a Chinese dragon before. That makes all the difference, don't you think?

3 cents added |

What Kinda Cactus Izzat?

Posted on 4/14/2010 07:13:00 AM - by NG In: DC

I thought I knew just about every variety of cactus that existed after living in the desert for twenty some odd years, but I don't remember this one that's at the Botanical Gardens. Googleing cacti heart shaped leaves spiney has been surprisingly unhelpful.

Anyone want to take a stab at it? (No pun intended.)

3 cents added |

Spacey

Posted on 4/13/2010 10:21:00 AM - by NG In: DC

This sculpture, "Ad Astra," stands in front of main door to the Air and Space museum and I snapped this only-minorly-PhotoShopped picture before everything went to hell on Easter Sunday. I never really noticed it before and I've been to the Air and Space Museum a lot... and when I say a lot, I mean, a whole lot. At one point, I knew a dude who was getting a degree in Aeronautical Engineering who gave me a tour of the place and opened up such details to me as "Hey, here's something I learned in my Space Vehicle Atmosphere Reentry class, you wanna know why the burn mark on Apollo 11 reentry capsule is in a different place than on the Apollo 9 reentry capsule?"

Yes, please.

He gave me such a good education that I could probably have been a docent at the museum with very little effort and I began giving tours of the place myself to any out of town guests that happened through town from my former life.

It pays to know people.

"Ad Astra" means "to the stars" in Latin. But I think if I tried really hard, I could make myself believe it meant, "Dude, look up here and check out that crazy-assed blue sky."

0 cents added |

Chagrined

Posted on 4/12/2010 05:53:00 AM - by NG In: NYC

So hey... remember when I trashed the Brooklyn Public Library in a public forum? Well, the Director of the Central Library of the Brooklyn Public Library does. Yeah. Turns out when you publish on the Internet, PEOPLE CAN READ IT. Whodathunkit?

Allow me small moment of justification because I feel like I need to stop a moment here and explain myself. I'm a big fan of Sesame Street, mainly because it debuted when I was just under two years old (I'm hoping that no one actually does that math on that one and I can still get away with convincing you all that I'm twenty-nine), just about the exact time I started to be old enough to watch television. This was in the dark ages before there was cable and there was very little children's television programming so I pretty much grew up with Sesame Street. I remember when Snuffleupagus was a kind-of-scary reclusive monster that disappeared whenever an adult walked in so everyone (except for Big Bird and us wise children-viewers, of course) thought he was Big Bird's imaginary friend. I remember when Mr. Hooper was alive, before Gordon changed faces twice, when Frank Oz and Jim Henson still did 90% of the voices, and when Bob was just a young dude who couldn't get a date (OK, maybe I made that last part up).

I also remember when there was no Elmo, before darkness covered the lands of Middle Earth. I know Elmo is a bit hit with the kiddoes, but I can say without hesitation that he is my least favorite Muppet. I think he represents Sesame Street's misguided attempt to cater to the Barney crowd. His voice annoys me to no end and I've really hated how in recent years, a good twenty-five percent of the show is dedicated to "Elmo's World," which he always ends by singing the word of the day to the tune of Jingle Bells, ♫ "Nose, nose, nose, nose, nose, nose, nose, nose, nose, nose, nose." ♪ ::shudder::

But as big a Sesame Street historian and fan as I am, it's nothing compared to Monica. I mean, I actually stopped watching it sometime into early adulthood; I'm reasonably sure she never did. So I wanted to go to New York to see the Sesame Street 40th Anniversary exhibit, but nowhere near as much as she did. And she tried to make me go with her three or four times, but I kept putting her off for one reason or another until we both realized that if we didn't go up Presidents' Day weekend, we'd miss it entirely -- and it'd be my fault. If you've been following along, you'll know by the time that we got there, we learned that the whole library was closed Presidents' Day weekend.

We did check the website, but here's the thing: we never knew to look at the MAIN PAGE of the Brooklyn Public Library, which clearly stated that the library would be closed Presidents' Day weekend. We only looked at the Sesame Street exhibit page and since it had the hours of the exhibit clearly posted (weekends included), we assumed that was good enough. As it turns out, the exhibit pages may have the exhibit hours posted, but they don't necessarily reflect the hours of the library and the special closings of the library itself. So it wasn't our fault we missed the fact that the whole library would be closed. But it wasn't really the Brooklyn Public Library's fault either.

So after we realized we weren't gettin' in through the front door... and when all attempts to sneak in the side door past the security guard failed... (wait, wasn't there something I was supposed to have learned that about publishing stuff in the Interweb and other people reading it? hmmm... escapes me now), we sat around looking despondent and staring up at those big, beautiful doors.

At one point, a hipster mom with a kid in an expensive stroller came up and tried to open the doors. "They're closed," we offered.

"But they're supposed to be open on Sunday," said Hipster Mom who looked more put together than I've ever been in my whole life.

"I know, but it's Presidents' Day."

"Oh, well that's a shame."

"No kidding," we commiserated, "We came up here all the way from Washington, D.C."

She looked perplexed, "You came from D.C... to... go to the library?!?!?"

Clearly, she had no idea of the significance of this moment.

We got over it quickly and had a great weekend anyway, because, as it turns out, Monica and I can't have a bad time in New York City. Then I came home and wrote a big, sarcastic thank you to the Brooklyn Public Library, got it all out of my system, and forgot about it completely. The next day I logged into my email and saw a most unusual comment on that post: from Richard Reyes-Gavilan, THE DIRECTOR OF THE BROOKLYN PUBLIC LIBRARY!

Ummm.... Whoops?

Also: Crap!

It was a nice comment, apologizing for our troubles and pointing out what we'd finally figured out: that the closing was noted on the main page of the website but he was sorry nonetheless and was offering to send some Sesame Street stickers and other items for our troubles. I would have written it off as fake except for the fact that he included a phone number and dammit if that phone number wasn't actually real! (I've since deleted the phone number from the comment so the entire Interweb wouldn't have it and make all sorts of crank phone calls - I like to have that privilege all to myself.)

I called a couple of times with intents to apologize, but I could never find a time that Mr. Reyes-Gavilan and I were near a phone at the same time. In the end, I finally just left a message with my information, stammered and stumbled all over myself trying to explain that I wasn't really angry but that the post was really written tongue-in-cheek and I was sorry if it came off any other way and how I love libraries and books are great and if I actually lived in Brooklyn, I'd totally go there all the time and support the library and why don't I just stop talking right about now because I probably sound kind of like an idiot and hey my kids actually would love it if they had something to send but he shouldn't feel like he has to do that because it was probably our fault but it really did say the hours on the exhibit page but not the closings and we didn't know we should have looked at the main page and OH FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY IN THIS WORLD, MAKE ME STOP TALKING.*

::click::

After that humiliation, I figured I should just cut my losses and assume he'd written me off as a crazy person with a mental illness who was just having a conversation with the voices in my head and it happened to occur over his voice mail.

I forgot about it until last week when I came home from work to a package on my doorstep from The Brooklyn Public Library.

::cue sound of needle scratching on vinyl record:: **

Inside the box was, as promised, Sesame Street swag: stickers, bookmarks, empty library card holders (still trying to figure that one out, but the girls love them so whatevs) and an Elmo doll and DVD. There was a handwritten note apologizing (!!) for the lateness of the gift but explaining that his assistant had broken his leg (this just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?) and a lovely letter from Mr. Reyes-Gavilan, saying that he'd guessed that my post was meant to be humorous but he still felt it would be nice to send what was enclosed in the box and he hoped that my kids enjoyed them. He wanted me to know he'd talked to the IT department to look into the possibility that closures might appear on every page of the website so that this wouldn't happen to anyone else and he ended by thanking me... THANKING ME... for blogging about them.

OK - now I feel really bad.***

In a day and age when the concept of customer service doesn't even mean looking up from your personal phone call while you ring up someone's purchases at a cash register, I was completely floored by this whole experience. Even after he knew that I wasn't upset, and was probably wrong to boot, he still took the time to comment, listen to my voice mail message (again, Mr. Reyes-Gavilan, sorry you had to hear that), and send me something. I think he probably had better things to do with his time and I'm certain his assistant did.

So, to the Brooklyn Public Library: You guys are awesome. You are so much better than any library in D.C.**** To Mr. Reyes-Gavilan's assistant: I'm really sorry about your leg. I hope you're feeling better now and if not, I hope you at least got some good drugs. To Mr. Reyes-Gavilan: Thanks. It was awfully nice of you. My two-year-old sleeps with the Elmo doll each night and requests the video constantly... and I'm gonna go ahead and forgive you for that.

*I don't actually remember anything I said; I just know it was long and rambling. Sorry Mr. Reyes-Gavilan, but the fact that I actually picked up the phone and tried to speak to another human being is really a feat in and of itself.

**Does anyone reading even know what that sounds like anymore?

***I don't really have a footnote for this; it just seems like these things should come in threes.

****Does this mean I'm gonna hear from the Library of Congress next?*****

*****I should probably change that ***footnote now, shouldn't I?

6 cents added |

Cotton Candy

Posted on 4/11/2010 07:28:00 AM - by NG

We may not have gotten down to see the D.C. Cherry Blossoms last week, but the Eastern Red Bud tree in our front yard is a reasonable facsimile.

0 cents added |

In a Post 9/11 World

Posted on 4/10/2010 07:28:00 AM - by NG In: DC

Allow me to introduce you to Public Enemy Number One 'round these here parts:

The blooming birch tree

In the past three days, I have watched no less than two dozen news reports about how our "unusually heavy snow" this Winter and "unusually warm Spring" have "combined in a perfect storm" to make this the

"WORST ALLERGY SEASON EVER
EVER
ever
ever
ever
ever..."

And folks, I don't even watch the news on television. These have all been special reports broken in to prime time and mid-day programming. Not to make light of the suffering of all those of you who actually have serious allergies; I sympathize with you. But I think the media might, just might, be making a little bit too big a deal about this. Either that or they should take all those missiles in the Air and Space Museum and aim them at this tree outside its front door.

3 cents added |

Blooming

Posted on 4/09/2010 07:02:00 AM - by NG

Where I grew up, tulips were just something you heard about and maybe saw plastic reproductions of them in the craft store. You knew that they came from Holland but you weren't really sure of anything else because you'd never seen one in real life. Though I'm sure they were available for a price, I don't really even remember seeing them in florist shops much. There were lots of other lovely flowers - desert flowers are beautiful in their delicate fragility - but as for tulips, they just weren't around. So I love early Spring when I get to watch the tulips bloom here. We've added quite a few bulbs to our flower beds in the past couple of years and our front yard is starting to look like a tiny little botanical gardens. Which is good because it's a lot shorter trip home from that one. I especially enjoy watching how they open and close every morning and evening. It's like nature's version of an alarm clock.

Yesterday morning, The Caterpillar was outside enjoying the cool morning air after The Dormouse got on the bus and I sat outside with her since it's been ridiculously hot for April and I wanted to spend at least some time outside. I set up my camera on a tripod, aimed it at some of our tulips and took a photo every five minutes until they opened up fully. Let's just call it "poor man's time lapsed photography."

Edited to add: I just figured out that if you size your browser window just right and then use the page up and page down keys, you can make it look like a stop motion film. In a related story: Imabiggeek.

3 cents added |

Aborting Easter

Posted on 4/08/2010 01:00:00 PM - by NG In: DC

Easter turned out to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day this year. I had the best of intentions and got up early to make Easter baskets and hide eggs for an egg hunt since none of the four ~~fake~~ totally-real-people-who-have-social-security-numbers-and-everything-I-swear accounts I created to get tickets to the White House Easter Egg Roll was a winner in the lottery that I'm becoming more and more confident is fixed to only invite Senators' wives and contributors to Presidential Campaigns. So we didn't get to plan on rolling eggs on the White House lawn and maybe sneaking off to pull a carrot out of the White House Garden and meeting the President and the official National Easter Bunny. Instead they got this ~~crap~~ er... loot.

Looking back, I realize my critical error in judgment was in deciding it would be a good morning to get up early before the general conference my church holds the first Sunday of April, and go downtown to walk around the Tidal Basin and see the Cherry Blossoms before the rest of D.C. got out of bed.

"Why are the Cherry Trees so special, Daddy?"

"Well, honey, because a long time ago, The Japanese government gave the United States all these Cherry Trees as a gift. Every year in the Spring Cherry Trees bloom with all these pretty pink blossoms. So they planted them all around the water here so in the Spring the Tidal Basin would be really beautiful. And now every year, Japan sends its entire population over to D.C. in the month of April to take pictures of those trees."

But ultimately, I didn't have any expectations of idyllic moments or non-crowded streets so I didn't think I was setting myself up for failure. I just thought it would be fun to walk around as a family and it was a nice morning to be outside. If the cherry blossom thing wasn't working out, we'd do something else, right? When we didn't get out of the house until after 8:00 and then when we got there and realized the traffic was already awful at 8:30 am, we easily aborted that plan and headed over to pretty-much-deserted Capitol Hill to walk through the Botanical Gardens instead. See? I was being FLEXIBLE.

The girls were even fine in the car the whole way there. But a combination of six-year-old insolence and two-year-old impatience once we got out of the car led to fifty-seven fits, a grandiose case of sibling rivalry, several dozen threats of time-outs and groundings and eventually just giving up before 11:00 and going home to put them each in their rooms and so I could go to my own room to curl up in the fetal position and cry myself to sleep. Egg hunting eventually was done but while The Caterpillar took a nap to sleep off her mad, The Dormouse hunted eggs by herself in the front yard. Then I later had her hide half of the ones she found so The Caterpillar could find her own by herself later. Then we ate peanut butter on bread, which might not have had any jelly because I need to go to the grocery store. Not exactly the family Easter Sunday Norman Rockwell painted.

Intellectually, I know that these are just stages that will pass. That all too soon, I'll be longing for those days when they were little and incorrigible and the worst thing I have to deal with was the fact that one threw a fit because she couldn't get out of the stroller and run into oncoming traffic. I know that I'm the one in control and I shouldn't let it bother me. But MAN those two can really push my buttons sometimes. Years may fly by with one season following another, but sometimes the days... ARE ENDLESS. I wish there was a mood altering drug I could take to give me patience until we get through this because I don't want them to remember these moments when Momma could have done better. Moments there have been way too many of lately.

And before you say it, yes, I know that they are moments only. And before all the fighting and fit-throwing, we actually had a few good moments playing under a Saucer Magnolia that was dropping it's petals all over the sidewalk in front of the Air and Space Museum.

But here's the real problem: I don't get to choose what moments they remember.

So the truth is, if I give them more of angry-yelly-annoyed-Mom moments, then they're probably going to remember an angry-yelly-annoyed-Mom. Even if I only take pictures and write blog posts about moments when I wasn't being angry-yelly-annoyed-Mom.

So the truth is I need to do better. Have more patience. Consider my reactions before I fly off the handle for something that won't matter in a week. Maybe... every once in a while... lose a battle for a change and have that be okay.

*sigh*

That seems haaard.

Maybe I could just blame President Obama. If I'd gotten those Easter Egg Roll tickets, we never would have bothered in the first place.

5 cents added |

What's in Name

Posted on 4/07/2010 07:05:00 AM - by NG

"What kind of tree is that, Momma?"

"That's an Eastern Red Bud tree."

"Why do they call it that?"

"Well, probably because this is the East and well... maybe you can figure out the rest."

0 cents added |

Backfire

Posted on 4/05/2010 09:36:00 AM - by NG

Caterpillar: "I'm happy sister."

Dormouse: "Good."

Caterpillar: "I'm happy sister."

Dormouse: "OK."

Caterpillar: "I'm happy sister."

Dormouse: "OK!"

*pause*

Dormouse: "I'm happy sister. I'm happy sister. I'm happy sister. I'm happy sister. I'm happy sister. I'm happy sister. I'm happy sister. I'm happy sister. I'm happy sister. I'm happy sister. I'm happy sister. I'm happy sister. I'm happy sister. I'm happy sister. Isn't that annoying, when you do that to someone?"

Caterpillar: "No."

*pause*

Caterpillar: "I'm happy sister."

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Bringing New Insight to That Tortoise & Hare Story

Posted on 4/04/2010 08:56:00 AM - by NG In: I ♥ the Internet

My very favorite Easter post I ever did was this one... and I didn't even take that photograph. Here's another photograph I didn't take, but it's probably funny to a whole different group of people.

Happy Easter!

via

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Unpaid Internship

Posted on 4/03/2010 06:55:00 AM - by NG

One of the reasons I had kids was so that they could help out around the house. You know, pick up my shoes and put them away. Run and get me a Diet Coke from the fridge every now and then. Throw their bodies across a picnic table at the park while I park the car. That kind of thing. My evil plan has actually started to pan out as The Dormouse has finally gotten old enough to help with tasks like garden work and even a bathroom renovation project we've got going in the basement. She's finally old enough to be to able to identify and retrieve a hammer for Daddy and to stay back and just watch when there's something potentially dangerous going on like a miter saw... or knife throwing.

It hasn't really worked out in my favor though because my critical error in judgment was in not taking into account how much more extra work they create in the first place. It kind of cancels out any possible benefit that I thought I might get out of the experience. That doesn't mean, however that I can't loan them out to help with other people's projects.

The Dormouse went over to Monica's yesterday to stay the night. Before I left, I told The Dormouse to help Monica out with any projects she needed done around the house. I guess she took that to heart, as I received these photos periodically throughout the day.

Monica was also kind enough to provide me with frequent hilarious emails and texts keeping me up to date on the comings and goings and adding to the list of Hilarious Things Your Kid Has Said Today.

Here are just a few. I'm of course leaving out some of the more obvious snotty and/or braggy comments that make me look like I haven't taught my daughter any humility at all. I'm sure there are many more that Monica didn't send me in the first place. But look at it this way, I'm pretty sure The Dormouse will come home and repeat everything she's heard in the past twenty four hours and I could get some good dirt on their household.

Does your kid ever stop talking long enough to eat? Survey says no.
Monica: "What size clothes does The Caterpillar wear?" Dormouse "My sister is a size 8-little." (Um... she's TWO. She wears size 8 SHOES.)
“We have that exact same dishwasher. Except it doesn’t beep. And it’s black. And it looks different.”
"My bike is 3” tall."
"I'm gonna be a famous pianoist when I grow up"
After swimming when she was cold - "I thought this would be fun but I never imagined it would end like this."
Also amused she says DRAT every 3 seconds (Uh... that's CRUD... I have no idea where she got that but considering the alternative words she could be teaching your kid, Monica, I think "crud" is preferential.)
It takes an awful lot of effort to convince your kid that sleeping in a box may not be her best idea yet.
In case you are curious, we settled on igloo tent.
"Can I call you mom?" "Uh, I guess, though that's kinda weird."

I should probably find it disturbing that after only twenty-four hours, she's asking to call another woman "Mom" but I'm pretty sure I know the reason why.

I don't let her do her chores like this:

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Burning Embers

Posted on 4/01/2010 07:04:00 AM - by NG

Hey, remember when my house was burglarized and all my jewelry was stolen? Yeah that sucked. It's funny what you hang onto, I had some nice jewelry and some lovely pieces that meant a lot to me. I've come to terms with losing almost all of it despite a few moments when I'll go, "Hey remember that time on our honeymoon when we got a pearl out of an oyster and had it made into a necklace and I managed to not break it for twelve years and now it's just gone?" Or when I think about my great grandmother's cameo necklace that was passed down to three generations and I'm the one that lost it. Or when I see a particularly nifty charm and think, "wow that would be neat on my childhood charm bracelet that had a charm from every place I'd ever gone... if I still had it." It's not that I miss the jewelry I had so much, but I really miss the connection to the past it gave me. And I sure as hell miss the opportunity to pass it down to my own girls.

Despite that, the truth is that I'm not much of a jewelry person. I tend to wear the same things day after day: a necklace, some hoop earrings that don't bother my ears and a couple of rings. And I know someone out there is going to yell about me about this, but I wear them to bed and in the shower too. If I put something on, I seldom take it off until I'm pretty much ready to throw it away and buy something else.

Anyway, I'm trying to get over it. I started by buying myself a wedding ring facsimile a few months ago. Though this ring is not nearly as nice or as expensive as my original wedding ring, it actually works better for me - for one thing I can wear it (on my to do list: finally lose that toddler weight). For another, it doesn't get caught on things and people like the other one. The downside is I can no longer ball up my fist and use my ring for self defense. I've since added one or two other pieces back to my collection, but mostly I haven't done anything about replacing the pieces that were lost or filling my now empty jewelry box.

So when Sara wrote to me a few weeks back and asked me if I'd be interested in reviewing her website, ordering a free piece of jewelry and writing a post about the experience, I thought, what the hell? If there's one thing I'm good at, it's having an opinion on stuff. And since her request was for my honest thoughts, "good, bad or ugly," I didn't feel conflicted or pressured at being asked to write something that could double as ad copy. I took a look at her website and thought that I liked the layout, it was well organized and easy to navigate, so I responded to her request that I'd be happy to give it a shot.

I liked the LuShae Jewelry website a lot. I spent a lot of time combing through all the different pieces and the pages load quickly, show different views of each item and even have a view that show it next to a ruler, which I LOVE. No matter how often I order online, I continue to lack the ability to internalize the dimensions typed in there in common Arabic numerals and translate that to some real world sense of what that means once I'll have it in my hands. So that ruler view was a big help.

T

ruthfully, the hardest time I had was in deciding what to get. There aren't a gajillion choices and near as I could tell almost everything is cubic zirconia (which may bother some people, but not so much me) but I liked what is there. There's a nice mix of traditional looking options with some more unique and modern stuff live where my tastes run that met my sensibilities more. Immediately, I thought that I should do the smart thing and get a new eternity band since the one I'd bought back in May had lasted about as long as you'd expect a $20 ring to last. I really liked this one. It showcased the stones well and wasn't too wide to wear with another ring. But the more I thought about it, choosing this one seemed way to boring and frugal and practical for such a windfall.

I'm not so fond of the earrings I'm currently wearing and would love a new pair, so I spent a lot of time trying to fall in love with the earring choices nothing really spoke to me. I liked a lot of them, especially the dangle-y ones, but I have kids and they tend to enjoy grabbing at my earrings so I need something that I can a) sleep in and b) not provide an easy handle for pulling through my earlobes. I'm hoping they come up with some other designs in the future.

There were a whole lot of cool necklaces that I wanted. I kept just thinking, "Well I'll choose between these three, no these four, no these FIVE!" Choice is hard for someone who rarely gets any. In the end, I chose something beautiful, and something I would never buy for myself if using my own money: this champagne colored, tension set CZ pendant. This was interesting, different and I'm a big fan of tension-set anything.

The ordering process was easy, the pendant arrived quickly and it was packaged in a lovely, sturdy black box. I'm enjoying it quite a bit and I've received about a thousand, "I like your neck-a-lace, Momma"s from The Caterpillar, who so taken by it, if I wake up in the middle of the night with someone's hands around my neck, my first thought will not be "BURGLAR! MURDER!" but rather, "Oh. So The Caterpillar is finally stealing my necklace."

So if you're looking for some high quality jewelry, but don't have the funds to pay for diamonds, check out www.jewelryartdesigns.com.

4 cents added |

Alice's Adventures Underground

Signs of Snow

Sciency

Orchids

What Kinda Cactus Izzat?

Spacey

Chagrined

Cotton Candy

In a Post 9/11 World

Blooming

Aborting Easter

What's in Name

Backfire

Bringing New Insight to That Tortoise & Hare Story

Unpaid Internship

Burning Embers

Me in 3 Seconds

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