The After Christmas Posting Blues

Ahhhhh the lazy post Christmas days, so nice to just slow down put you feet up with a cup of tea maybe read a bit. :) So then what does one post about??? Like a lot of my Northlander blogging friends I don't have beautiful (although only in pictures) white Christmas pictures to share. Believe me if I did LW and the firkids would be mutinying!! And I'd be right behind them. I'm not stupid enough to post our sand, surf, palm tree pictures yet. I mean for you snow babies the honeymoon isn't quite over yet. You still LOVE the beautiful, pristine, sparkly, fluffy stuff, and can't imagine living in a non four season location. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh you just wait....... a couple of weeks from now when the evil stuff has turned to dirty, crusty, icy, frigid muck, the stuff that tries Man's and Woman's patients, my tropical beach pictures will be looking pretty darn good! :)

So back to the posting dilemma. What pictures to post? Since there has been no divine vision on that front perhaps a few pictures of some of the the beads I managed to score from our one and only little bead store. Yep the one that closed then reopened to sell off inventory so they can close for good...SOOOOB....   

I found a couple of nice size pieces of imperfect citron. The square one is a nice yellow with the other piece is a very slight lemon yellow. I also found some irregular imperfect cut bright green peridots

I found these baby blue glass pearls, that once Martha sees them they for sure will need to be used in a necklace with her name on it!! :)

Now if these big bright red glass beads don't scream fun I don't know what does!!

How about some nice imperfect mossy colored jade???

These are some of my favorites. They are dark red brown garnets which of course are two of my favorite colors. But the reason I love them, well actually the reason I'm quite enamored with all these stones is because it's very evident they are far from perfect. Fissures, imperfections, inclusions, little chips they have all those wonderful character marks. And to me that makes them far more interesting. I think perfection is rather boring don't you???

This last stone is a piece of  Mexican Amber The amber in Mexico and Northern Guatemala is not the amber of the Balkans For one thing it's younger by a few million years and the trapped plant and animal life is different. The resin is different also as it comes from a different extinct tree, in fact there are currently trees in the state of Chiapas that have the same chromosome makeup as the extinct ones. The Chiapas Amber miners ancestors where from both the  Mayan and Aztec civilizations. There is and has been great exploitation of these miners. Therefore I will only buy amber from one young man who  brings rather small imperfect pieces that his family brings out of their family mines, but the amber buyers refuse to even look at. You know the "Charlie Brown Christmas Tree" pieces. Those amazingly  imperfect pieces full of  beautiful character marks. :)  Sorry no identifiable bugs maybe a few black ant dots. I leave the buggy pieces for him to sell to the tourist.

I think it's time for me with my character marks and barnacles to put on a pair of comfy jammies and fix a cup of tea. As for you my Bloglandian friends I wish you a very audacious today or tomorrow depending on where in the world you are  p;)