Happy 10th Birthday . . .

. . . to my artist friend, Grandson Cade Keenan! Cade is a Cub Scout, thespian, artist, baseball player -- an upcoming "Renaissance Man!" Happy Birthday, big guy!

Happy 12th Birthday . . .

. . . to the beautiful Brittany! Sorry the photo isn't newer -- lost alot in our recent hard drive crash! Jim, Peanut and I hope you have a wonderful birthday and an even better year ahead!

After six weeks of hard labor . . .

. . . I have apparently given birth to a very large lazy. I have not exercised, have lived on Halloween candy and cherry coke, too much TV watching and WAY too much playing Mafia Wars on the worst time-suck ever invented, Facebook.

My creativity has been limited to a little knitting. I have not spent more than a few seconds in my studio; it is going to take a real block of time and effort to get it straightened out first, but I'm so busy feeding and diapering the new lazy.

Jim is as well as can be expected since we now each have a lazy of our own.

I'd like to thank Heather and Susan for all their efforts to save me from myself over the past couple of months. And much gratitude to Joy for saving me an additional three hours of driving after having wrestled the land yacht 17 hours + from Tampa to Illinois. And she brought me gifts! Now THAT'S a sister.Hopefully I am on my way to recovering and will birth some energy and creativity soon.

Who . . .

. . . shares her birthday today with Gwyneth Paltrow and Mira Sorvino but is prettier? With Janeane Garolfalo but is funnier? With Bridgette Bardot but is hotter? Smarter? More creative? The best niece a person could have?

Yes, it's HEATHER!

Adventure - Day 2

Heather and I have just finished day two of our "adventure," driving our RV up from Tampa, FL to Illinois. We took a little side trip while looking for a place to hole up for the night and ended up 2800 feet up the Appalachians. We opted not to stay up there since it seemed a little too "deliverance" for two women and a tiny dog. And since we were lucky enough to find a place to turn around we don't have to live out our lives up there. On the way down we took a few photos for your entertainment and we hope you appreciate that there is no evidence of vomit from those who are height-sensitive.

HE went to Jared.

And so did I. Today. Love to make jewelry, yes. Love to wear it? Not so much. In fact I often wear the same pair of earrings for weeks on end. Whatever I wear out usually comes off the instant I'm in the door, right after the shoes.

Today, however, I needed to make a little visit to Jared. Or rather, I have a ring that needed to make a visit for a six month inspection and cleaning. And a pendant that needed cleaning. And an omega that needed fixing. Got to wonder about all this fixing and cleaning for jewelry I don't wear, eh?

Anyway, my BFFFF and I went to Jared today to take care of business. It's the only retail store I know of where Peanut is not only welcome but fussed over as well. Yeah, and there's Petco and Petsmart. But back to Jared . . . I've always thought they had the best and most beautiful of the unusual, fabulous items not to be found in a mall store. And today was no exception.

While waiting for my items to be cleaned I found a group of items to be drooled over and maybe to die for. They are part of the LeVian collection stocked by Jared and probably my most favorite pieces. Today I discovered the "chocolate diamond."

Maybe the rest of you are familiar with these but, hey, I don't get out much. Not a shopper. But when it comes to high quality "chocolate," I'm THERE. Here are a couple of the treats I found irresistible: The watch "bezel" is two entire rows of chocolate diamonds. $2,495. Worth every penny. And this necklace:

a wonderful chocolate South Seas pearl entrapped in a squiggle of chocolate diamonds. Oddly strung on 15 cents worth of cord, but what the heck, still worth its $899 price tag in my book. Honey? Are you reading this?

This was the quote of the day today on our Excite.com homepage. It pretty well sums up the lessons I've been learning of late:

Life's about friendships, the way you love your partner, the way you care for your children. That is what life is about. Not anything about earning a hundred zillion dollars because you toured America more than anyone else. I want life to be about creativity.

-- Joe Strummer, former lead singer for the Clash rock band.