Addicted to Addictions

Someone stop me before I go broke(er)!!!

I've known about eBay, I mean seriously, who hasn't heard about eBay?, for a while now.  I have a friend that works there and she does a great job finding tech deals which I check daily, but what really, truly draws me in are the BEADS.  I found this necklace to the left and instantly fell in love with it.  I won't pay the price for it, not when I can make it myself.  (it probably won't be this nice, but it will be me).  So, I set off looking for a labradorite pendant that flashes the blues and greens like this one does.  Labradorite can range from a dirty gray crystal with flecks of color to something this sumptuous and ethereal.  What I truly love about this stone is that it looks like a drop of water with a world frozen inside.  The wire is oxidized sterling silver, which I learned you can put shiny sterling silver in a bag with a hard boiled egg and it will oxidize it for you, they caution you not to eat the egg afterwards.  The smaller beads are 4 or 6mm faceted garnet.  The other findings I can make up as I go along, which is exactly me.

Here's the rub.  Do you know how many beads, pendants, crystals, necklaces and other doo-dads that are on eBay for a remarkable price?  I could die a happy little addict if I hadn't tallied up my costs of what I've paid for so far....$107!!!!  I could have bought the necklace for that price!  Now, don't get me wrong, most of the money is coming out of my allowance, which I can spend anyway I see fit, but still that's a lot of money for four or five labradorite pendants that I purchased and then found what I thought was the perfect one on a Buy-It-Now vendor.....and then I found the ultimate bead for my necklace, and it isn't labradorite at all....It's amethyst.  I don't think it shows well here, but if it has everything I see in it, it should suit me just fine, and amethyst has an innate power of, get this, self-control.  Boy do I need that.  I plan on putting the other pendants to use too, who know, I might inspire someone's addiction in the future with eBay being the dealer of all addictions. After all, a good addiction is a shared addiction.

If I just bought labradorite it would be one thing, but I bought more amethyst, ruby, emerald, ruby in fluorite, druzy, sea settlement jasper, jasper, and peridot and so much more....the only thing bad for the addict is the waiting for it to ship from all over the freaking world!  What addict has that kind of patience, I ask you?  I have to keep my ruler handy too, because it looks HUGE on the screen and it arrives in a flat parcel and you realize it would best fit Barbie and her skinny little friends. Grrrr.

(For those of you wondering why I've been so quiet it's because I've been so internally dead from a tsunami of emotions I was barely keeping my head above water to do my jobs.  My mom is still alive and just turned 85, my parrot is doing fine, and I am getting my creativity on.  I'm even writing again.  I'm stockpiling all these elements for when my mom goes on vacation with my sister in June and I can take over the kitchen table so I can luxuriate in the creative juices.  I'm hoping this won't be the end of the imagination train.)

My Latest Addiction.....

For those of you in the 'know' you recognize the house to the right.  Downton Abbey.  I thought I had sworn off my Soap Opera Addiction after my mission because, seriously, how many times can one person marry or come back from the dead with a different face?  Seriously, how bereft of imagination do they really think their viewers are?

Maybe it's the clothes, maybe it's the jewelry, maybe it's the utterly British stiff-upper-lip that allows the nose to rest so completely high in the air when it comes to the rest of us, I don't know.  I just know I can't get enough of it.  And strangely enough, they had one character come back from the dead, with amnesia, but so severely burned they couldn't be sure it was him.  So completely All My Children.   The utter blackness of the souls in the kitchen (Thomas and Mrs. O'Brien), the kindness and love between Anna and Mr. Bates, the absolute rightness of Mr. Carson are all such well fleshed out characters that I don't really see it as a show, but more as a window back to the days of Downton Abbey. 

What got me hooked was the first episode I watched when Lady Sybil gives birth and dies.  I couldn't get the people straight at that time, so I knew I had to start from the beginning because by that time Lady Mary was married to Matthew, Lady Edith was married to some other guy (but not the one armed old codger she was going to marry in the beginning of Season 3), Thomas was making passes at a poor footman that isn't on the show yet, and SYBIL DIES.  How can you kill off one of the family.  Maybe a beloved staff member but a member of the family......that's what hooked me.  No one was safe. 

Having that peak ahead I knew Lady Crawly wasn't going to die of Spanish Flu, I knew Lady Sybil would be running off with the chauffeur, and that Lady Mary and Matthew would get married and be happily married.  My mistake was yesterday when I thought I'd find out when Season 4 would be coming out, because, trust me, 8 episodes a year aren't nearly enough of a season for my rabid curiosity as to what's going to happen next......

If like me you're still working through Season 3, beware....

-SPOILER ALERT-

MATTHEW DIES!  There is some small talk about making the widower and widow coming to terms with their losses in each others arms, but then what about the babies?  Yes, Sybil has a girl and apparently Mary has a boy, are they going to become brother and sister instead of cousins?  And will Lady Mary inherit the estate or does it all go to her baby boy?

-SPOILER OVER-

I've been working at finding ways to take my mind off my current troubles (hence the reason of my silence...too much yeast not enough bowl, if you know what I mean), that I might set up a crafting station in my small garage and I'm going to start trying to reproduce the jewelry that they wear.  I'm sure there are hoards of people doing that, so it's hardly original, but it should be fun.  They wear a lot of black crystal and jet stones, I could probably throw in some black pearls, onyx and hematite too.  My current addition is soap making and bath and body products from natural products.  I've made some salt scrub that smell like heaven, if heaven was made of English Roses.  But the jewelry should provide a good long focus instead of just adding things willy-nilly like I do with the other stuff. 

If you know when Season 4 is going to be released, please let me know.  I want to make sure I'm home or my DVR is set to record.  I've been told I need to watch Sherlock Holmes as well, so I guess I can fill the blank space with that until BBC releases it.