I know, I know it's been awhile since I wrote anything. I'm happy to report that it was mostly because I have been so incredibly busy here. April and May were both tremendous months for me, and while I always love the income, I had been working seven day weeks since the beginning of February. It has finally quieted down a bit and even though I always love more business (more business=more money eventually) the slowdown is allowing me to attempt to catch up on all of the work I've been running behind on (and that I need to finish before I close for vacation in July) and I've actually been able to reduce down to only six day weeks (and you guys all thought working for yourself is easy).
A few of you may also know that I came down with Bell's Palsy 3 weeks ago today (a compression of the nerve that controls one side of your facial muscles) but I'm happy to report that I have about 90% of my face back already (this is on the extremely short end of normal recovery periods which usually don't even start until about 3 weeks out and often runs much, much longer). I attribute it to my good attitude and tequila!
In the meanwhile I've had a number of successful engagement rings go out there. A young man who recently bought an alexandrite engagement ring from me (an absolutely stunning stone---and I'm not always a big fan of them) proposed in his underwear and she said yes (he emailed this to me---I'm not kidding). Perhaps this is a little reminiscent of a certain Congressman's recent infidelities, but my thought is that the ring was so stunningly beautiful that the young woman didn't even notice he was on his knees in his underwear. He claimed that it was because of the heat, but I think there might have been other reasons. I just heard from another client that an emerald engagement ring I made up for him (and yes I repeatedly warned him about the fragile nature of emeralds in rings but it was what he wanted) was successful as well although no underwear was mentioned in his email. Again, I must attribute it to the wonderful ring, but I have to give the proposers some kudos for being smart enough to use me for their jeweler.
A few posts ago I also talked about a young gentleman who had a problem with an engagement ring he bought elsewhere. A diamond had fallen out almost immediately and then they had charged him for the replacement. You can see that posting here. Well he came back in again because, guess what, the diamond had fallen out again (although they didn't lose it this time). So beyond what I had already suggested to him about attempting to recoup some of his money, I suggested that perhaps this ring design just wasn't going to work. So he, and his lovely bride to be, picked out a new ring of mine in platinum which they picked up recently. She was so thrilled with it that first they brought me a box of chocolate macadamia nuts and then a gift card for Starbucks (both wise choices as I consume a lot of both chocolate and coffee) which really wasn't necessary as I had been paid for my work, but I was delighted to see it made her so happy.
Anyway I have posted a picture of a new pendant I made up recently. It was taken by me with my phone as the young gentleman who was doing most of my photos is no longer with me. I apologize for the quality. But the piece is 18k yellow gold with a blue sheen moonstone, part of a batch of these stones that I got recently. They are very attractive moonstones and I have sold a number already. I also have come into some orange sapphires just this week that are all natural color, unheated stones in the 1-2 ct. range from the Umba Valley region. They came out of an old collection that my sapphire supplier came upon recently. It's worth a trip in to see what I got (I have a nice pair of rounds in this too).
I hope to get one more posting up before my vacation. See you soon!
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