The Vendors-Jewelry

Even though I am determined to have a simple wedding, I do want there to be a little bit of drama here and there. I’m talking drama that makes you memorable for a good reason, not the reality show drama so many of us have become accustomed to. Jewelry and accessories are a good way to get that little bit of drama. A friend referred me to an amazing jewelry designer, Jill Zaleski. I met Jill yesterday and I was blown away by her and by seeing her pieces in person. I had been keeping an eye on her through Facebook since I heard about her. She recently posted pictures of her newest collection and I fell in love with several pieces. I was happy to walk away from her with this one to add to my own jewelry collection.



It’s a lariat style necklace and the details are simple but dramatic. She packaged the piece up while we were talking and her packaging matches her personality and style perfectly. I was happy to get home and unwrap this little gift to myself. I can not wait to see what she comes up with for the wedding. I’m sure she will provide pieces that become treasured for years to come.



I will definitely be treasuring this lariat. Isn’t it pretty.

Book #1--Inheritance

I finished my first book of the year (FINALLY). I listened to the audible version of this book since I have not had much time to actually sit down and read. Christopher Paolini is a brilliant young man and he does not know how to write a short book. The unabridged audible version is 31 hours and 22 min and I enjoyed every minute of it.


I won’t go into the plot of the book since this is the fourth book in a series, not to mention this is really too much of a book to really discuss in such a fashion. The plot twists and details are immense and engaging. I got so wrapped up in the characters and actions scenes that I started having dreams about dragons and spell casters.

The only thing that disappointed me with the book was the ending. It was entirely too reminiscent of the ending of Lord of the Rings. (Slight Spoiler!) The Hero decides he can no longer live amongst the regular folk and must sail off into the sunset with a chosen few companions. All I could think about was poor Frodo who never found love and had to leave his best friend with growing family behind for other adventures beyond the sea. And here we are seeing Eragon, having missed the mark on love, leaving his best-friend-cousin, Rowan and his growing family behind and sailing off to a life of raising dragons beyond the reach of the sea. I was not happy about that, but the story wrapped up well but leaves enough holes that other stories could spin off from this.

I highly recommend the entire Inheritance series to anyone that enjoys fantasy every now and again. They are exceptional books and I can not wait for the other movies to be made. Book 1, Eragon, has been made into a pretty good movie (the die-hard fans may disagree based on the some of the comments I have seen on the blogs). I am assuming the movies were halted due to the popularity of Harry Potter and Stephanie Meyer’s vampires. Now that we are moving on from these two book/movie series, I’m hoping the Inheritance movies can shine.

We’ll see.

Next up on the reading list…

I am still reading The Dating Dilemmas of Delilah Dunnfield by Victoria Thurman and Will Work From Home by Tory Johnson and Robyn Freedman Spizman. (Links in the side bar to the right). I’m reading both of these on my e-ink Kindle.

Lisa Loeb's Guessing Game

I have had a special girl crush on Lisa Loeb for years! She is such a bubbly, fun person and she has a truth and honesty about her that just draws you in. My admiration for her really grew when the Number 1 Single reality show was airing. It was refreshing to watch her go through the dating game. And I hesitate calling it a game when pairing it with her because love and family was (and still is) a key motivator and core belief in her life. Well, she is no longer the #1 single and she has a little girl. And if I’m not mistaken, she “twittered” that she is expecting baby #2.

But the Lisa Loeb glasses have been really popular through the years and she finally released a line of glasses that fit her signature style. I have been wanting new glasses for a while now and I really wanted to try out her frames to see how they would work for me. Pearle Vision is the closest and easiest place I could find the glasses. I went in and tried on every pair they had in stock and was happy when they offered to order me other styles and colors that they did not have in stock. It took two rounds of ordering, but I settled on the Guessing Game frames in the fudge sparkle color.


I love these glasses. Because my prescription hasn’t changed in years, I now have several pair of glasses that all work for me and I usually swap between them as the mood strikes me. I will have to do a separate post about my eyewear addiction, but these win out over the others at the moment because I have more front viewing space. The bigger frames keep the frame from breaking my line of vision like some of the others that I have. As with all of the thick plastic frames, your peripheral vision is partially blocked, but I have learned to live around that. When you need enhanced peripheral vision, you really should be wearing contacts.

I highly recommend the Lisa Loeb frames for any of you that love to wear glasses. I do recommend you go in to a store to try these on rather than ordering them online. The colors don’t show up on the website like they do in person. She has some great colors, but she also has some colors that would only work for a small subset of us. She has a green color that I couldn’t imagine working on anyone but someone bought them from Pearle Vision and I was so sad I was not around to see them try them on.