Favorites

Have you noticed that when you go to the grocery store you only purchase your favorite brand and not the cheapest on some items? Let's take ice cream, now my favorite is Ben & Jerry's but occasionally I will purchase Haagen Daz but only the vanilla. With B&J, I purchase the Cherry Garcia, Cookie Dough, Chunky Monkey and Strawberry Cheesecake....okay not all at once unless they are the little single serving cups. Which by the way is a great way to limit your intake of ice cream if you like to over indulge. I will not buy the cheap stuff. If I'm going to have ice cream, I might as well splurge. Now this Imagine Whirled Peace flavor, I haven't tried it yet, and haven't even seen it in my stores here, but I might just give it a try.

Another thing I like to buy the name brand of it cereal. I won't buy the cereal in a bag even though it may taste just as good.. not sure why, but I really don't think anyone can make Cheerios other than Cheerios.

Next time you are grocery shopping take note of what you have in your shopping cart. Do you buy off brands or are they all name brand items. In this day and age of saving money, think about buying the store brand for some items and reserve the name brands for your favorite things like ice cream and cereal.

Senseless Entertainment

Have you ever noticed that the majority of movies shown on TV are really bad? We were sitting here spinning the channels on the TV waiting for Dancing with the Stars to come on and landed on some really odd movie with adults acting like college kids in some Animal House type remake. LOL what a bad movie. I'll be glad when the Dancing comes on...I'm still undecided as to who should be voted off tonight, but there are only a few good dancers that are standouts this season.

The most entertaining thing in our household is the dogs. They get to playing and wrestling with each other and it gets quite comical. You wouldn't think a Shitzu would play with a Spaniel, but they seem to have great fun.

Hopefully you have had an entertaining night. Cheers, Dana

Thoughts

Sometimes I have lots of thoughts and at times none. I feel like I have been in a fog the past week or so and can't seem to get out of it. My craft room is still a disorganized mess, web sites need to be worked on and updated....I really would like a new banner, but that may have to wait, and I have special jewelry orders piling up that I can't seem to get to since my craft room is a mess. Add to that my fascination with Face Book. Yes, I have succumbed to the lure of FB. What an odd yet wonderful thing the internet has given us. The ability to keep in touch with people that we haven't seen since high school, family members that live far away or even overseas and neighbors that live across the street. I'm still debating with myself on if I want that many people knowing what I am doing every day and yet here I am blogging and telling people my thoughts, dreams and confusions.

I read a blog today of a woman who blogs everyday. Nice thought to be able to do that and to have that many random thoughts that your friends would be interested in....I'm still figuring that one out, but I subscribed to her blog anyway as it was oddly comforting in it's ramblings. I have made a decision that weekday at noon I will update my blogs or at least two blogs, this one included. That along with my bowl of soup for lunch should clear my mind for the work that needs to be done in the afternoon. Sounds like a good plan. Thanks for reading.

Something New for 2009

As if I didn't have anything new to do. LOL I started a new web site with 1000 Markets late in December and have been adding new items and blog posts there. For all of my friends that follow me here, I thought I would leave a little tid bit of something new I created for a friend of mine. She watched our dogs (as you have seen in pictures in this blog) while we were on vacation in Tucson.

It is a multi strand fine silver link necklace with black onyx, agate, pearl and smokey quartz. The inspiration is a bracelet that I found in Tucson for her along with a smokey quartz pendant. We will be giving this to her this week but wanted to get a picture of it first. It turned out fantastic and will be very versatile. I would like to know what you think.

Visit my shop and look around. There are lots of shops and markets to check out, so if you are looking for something special in the handmade category, this is the new and upcoming place to buy.

danasjewelrydesign.1000markets.com

Web Site Lost..... :-(

For all of you looking for my web site and are just receiving an error message, we lost our server from the host this week. We are looking for a new host and will get it back up and running but because all the data was stored and backed up on that server, we will be starting from scratch. More work for me, but you will get to see a new and improved web site.

Until then, please feel free to contact me at djames50@gmail.com for any jewelry or gem tree requests or you can visit my Etsy site for a list of items for sale. As I am adding items daily to this site until my web site is back up and running, please check it often. I'll keep you updated on how it is going.

I do have a gem and mineral show in Castle Rock, WA this weekend (9/20-9/21), so if you are reading this and live in the area, please drop by and see me. We will be at the Fairgrounds.

Thanks, Dana

At Summer's End

As the Summer is ending, and all the things I wanted to get completed weren't, I realize that I'm probably not the only one in this predicament. We have adopted a very cute dog, had our grandson and his mom out for a week vacation, set up jewelry and gem tree demonstrations at two shows and made it to the beach almost twice a month for a weekend. I really wanted to finish writing my book, garden a little more, remember birthday's better, walk the dogs each night, create new jewelry designs, update my web site and generally be more relaxed. Everything just got away from me this year, although I do plan on finishing the book this Labor Day weekend....it's still Summer, so maybe I can still do some of these things. Alright who am I kidding, we really didn't have a Summer here in the Pacific NW.

Now is the time to plan for Fall and Winter. So, I put on my list: update web site, create new jewelry designs, walk the dogs each night, remember birthday's better and relax more. Yes, I know those sound like my plans for the Summer, but since I really didn't complete them I have to add them back in plus add more. What that more is, I don't know yet, but I'm sure that it will be more than I can accomplish.

Here is a new picture of both dogs playing. I'm not sure where they get all their energy, but I wish I had some of it.