Friday, January 31, 2014

Tucson 2014 - Day Three - I Am Out of Money

It's amazing how fast you can spend money...Seriously amazing. Let's just say that I spent 3/4 of my budget for the whole trip today! I got some amazingly beautiful things but I still have seven days here!!!

Thankfully, anything else I buy over the next week is just extra frosting on the cake. We will go to mostly fossil and rock shows instead of the gems and beads and silver.

I had us booked for a new show every day but that itinerary is already out the window. I'm hoping we can head over to the Pueblo show. We spent all day at JOGS today.

I'm pretty sure that Marshal has a super sensitivity to light. He can hardly stand to go outside and if there's ANY direct sunlight he shuts his eyes. Being in Washington it doesn't manifest itself a whole lot. :) But here in Tucson he's having a hard time being outside. His nanny had to go buy him a pair of sunglasses!

My cool dude.

Mom found some pretty Amethyst crystals.

Explaining to Marshal where the crystals came from.

The outside...

And the inside...tada!!!

Picking out his very own Ammonite

Russian nesting dolls




Rutillated Quartz

Lots of rainbow ammonites

Amber pendants - some I'll list in my Etsy shop but some I can't wait to design with!

More Amber pendants.


Porcelain Jasper doubles for making a butterfly! :)

Pink Lacey Agate (they called it an official name and I can't remember it right now)

Crazy Lace Agate
 It's exhausting walking all day. Or the more likely story is I'm super out of shape.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Tucson Trip - Day Two - Holy Fossils Batman

As exhausted as I was last night, tonight I can barely keep my eyes open. And it's only 7!

Mom and I slept in more than we had planned so didn't get out of the house until almost 9. The first show we went to started at 9 but when we got there it wasn't busy at all. There were still people setting up. I've never understood that. You know when the show starts, right? How are you not set up? I did meet one vendor who didn't even get his stuff from UPS, even though it was supposed to be there two days ago. So in that case, I understand.


We didn't take more than a couple of hours to go through this show. It had amazing fossils.

Super gorgeous Ammonite - Huge ... and Expensive!

Roar!


These scare me!

We got some beautiful fossil pendants that I'll be listing on my Etsy supply shop eventually.





I've never seen such a fancy porta potty! It totally cracked me up and I had to take a photo.

World's fanciest porta-potty.

Pretty carved quartz (?) or some sort of stone.
After the first show, we decided we had time to go to JOGS, which is a huge show. So huge we barely made it 1/4 of the way through in 4 hours!

One of my favorite stones - Labradorite!
This is just a hallway area...you can see how it goes on and on and on.
 

Beautiful Ammonite with amazing flashes of color

Amazing and beautiful real ivory made from OLD recycled pieces like piano keys, billiard balls, etc.

Peitersite Cabochons - These will eventually be on my supply shop site.
We ended the day with some homemade Lemon merengue pie...yummy!!!


I haven't been this tired in a long time. Tomorrow starts another busy day so I am going to go to bed early tonight.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Tucson 2014 - Day One - We Have Arrived

We left for the airport, driven by our personal cheufeur, my little brother, around 9 am. For a 12:30 flight. We live less than one hour from the airport. My mom really likes to be early.

Marshal could hardly contain his excitement as we got closer and closer. He was a little nervous going through the security section and ran through the xray machine thingy. Yes, ran. I was thankful for understanding TSA guards. lol He might not be able to get away with that when he's older.

Finally at the Airport...the excitement is hard to handle.
 
My sweet baby boy insisted on helping me by rolling my bag all over the airport. And it isn't light weight.

Escalators are SO fun!

You didn't tell me we got to ride a TRAIN!!!

We got to our assigned gate and found out we were reassigned to a new gate. Oh well. Trek over to the new gate. And look at all these people in matching uniforms. What nerds.

Oh wait, they're famous or something. I don't watch soccer. I don't like soccer. Even when my little boy is playing I'm not a big fan. These were apparently the "real" Sounders...our local Seattle team.

Gotta tell you...they get a lot worse treatment than the Seahawks. No plane of their own. No adoring fans trying to take photos. It was kind of funny. They were on our flight too! They sat in coach, all spread out in the back with us. Like the little people.

And they are YOUNG...some of them look like they're still in high school for pity's sake. My mom couldn't believe they were the real players. She thought maybe it was the B team. hahahaha

And many were very short...which doesn't surprise me because I always think of soccer players as small.
Apparently these are soccer players.

Hey there's planes out there.


It's really hard to wait for something as exciting as your first airplane ride. Marshal did great. We read a couple of books while we waited - and of course our flight was delayed so he had to muster up even more patience.

On the plane!
Leaving the Earth!

I wondered how Marshal would handle the take off. He did fairly well but we had to cuddle and cover his ears. It was so loud and he does not typically like very loud noises. Once we were up in the air he was not super impressed with the view and kept his shade down nearly the whole time.

Sadly, we had a small child sitting across the aisle from us who screamed for half the flight. SCREAMED. Not cried. Screamed bloody murder. Poor kid. I actually managed to tune it out fairly well but she did hit some high pitched screams that caused a jolt. I could tell the other passengers were getting frustrated and a little annoyed. But I felt bad for the mom and dad. There wasn't anything they could do. She was tired and flying isn't easy for kids. She looked like she was less than 2. She finally fell asleep and slept for the middle portion of the flight...but kept on where she left off after she woke up. I know the parents felt bad so as we were waiting to exit I told them it didn't bother me (which was true). I told the mom that I have a 7 month old at home so I'm used to screaming.

After we were all off the plane she found me again and thanked me for saying that to her. People don't give parents enough slack while traveling. I NEVER wanted to travel with Marshal until now.


I'm so cool.


We landed safely in Tucson and waited...and waited...and waited to get off the plane. Our seats were literally in the last row. So even more waiting for Marshal. His patience meter was wearing thin but he did amazingly well for a 4 year old.

As we went toward baggage we heard "MARSHAL LAWRENCE CASTO" being hollered. And there was nanny waiting for her boy. He was really excited. I was worried he'd do his shy bit but apparently being "raised" his first four years by her precludes all shyness.

He ran all over the airport and the car rental place, talking non stop.

Did you know there are cactus in Tucson. EVERYWHERE? I do. Because my four year old said every 10 seconds - Look mom, Cactus...there...look...mooommmmmm....cactus! He's very excited about the cactus.

It took awhile to get to the airport to nanny's house and Marshal got a nice little nap in. Tomorrow my mom and I hit the town for our first rock show. We may do two if we have time and aren't too exhausted.

I used to be able to bend that way. Poor tired traveler.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

I Think I'm Really a Guy

Okay, not literally. But my characteristics and behavior sure do line up to being a guy.

Granted, the "guy" behaviors are stereotypes but since guys and gals are different and stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason.

When someone shares their problems or concerns, my first instinct is to try to find a way to fix it. I want to be helpful and useful. And yet as a girl, I HATE it when my husband does that!!! Sometimes I just want someone to listen.

I'm hopelessly unromantic. My husband is a lucky man. I am thrilled when he vacuums. That's romance! I don't need any special dates, flowers, cards. Nope. I'm happy with a quick meal at McDonalds and a movie.

My husband occasionally tells me I'm fat. Isn't that horrible?!?! But quite frankly, it doesn't upset me ... once in awhile if it's that time of the month I get annoyed and tell him to hush. But generally I roll my eyes and poke him in the belly. Ha!

I have my girly moments. There are movies and books that make me cry. I have a lot more mommy patience than my husband does.

I find it interesting that we have such set ideas of how girls and women are "supposed" to be. Even in elementary school I felt different than my girlfriends. I was completely boy crazy like they were but I definitely didn't feel as connected emotionally to them as they seemed to be to each other.  Maybe I was more emotional prior to my dad dying (I was 8). But I don't remember a ton before that.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

I Told My Son the Truth - I Hope it Didn't Scar Him for Life

For some reason tonight as I put my Marshal to bed we got on the topic of losing teeth. One of our church friends lost a tooth and we started talking about the tooth fairy. I'm pretty sure I brought it up. Oops.

So as I proceed to answer his Tooth Fairy questions I start feeling really bad. I was already feeling bad about telling the "stories" about Santa Claus for Christmas.

He asked me what kind of shoes the tooth fairy wore. Girl or boy? Does he use magic fairy sprinkle to disappear? Will I see him if I wake up? Where do all the teeth go?

Oy.

Finally I said, "Honey, can I tell you a secret? The tooth fairy is pretend."

He looked at me like I'd told him he could eat ice cream for dinner. Eyes wide open and a gleeful grin on his face.

Well at least he wasn't crying.

He took it really well, which shouldn't surprise me. I proceeded to tell him that mommy and daddy are the ones who bring money to put under the pillow. And that my mommy did it for me when I lost my teeth.

And I have now proceeded to ruin his childhood. I don't know why I felt so guilty about letting him go on thinking the tooth fairy was real. I hate lying to him. But now I feel bad about taking away something as innocent as the tooth fairy. . . I did tell him not to tell other kids because they might still think he's real (I don't know why but the tooth fairy is a guy in my head).

Next up... the Easter Bunny.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Identifying Stones Is Not Easy - Part Two

It feels like an overwhelming task - identifying all of the stones that my grandparents collected over the years. And I don't have a ton of resources other than online. They do have a couple of books in their collection so I reference those, but this process is super slow.

Thankfully the internet now exists and there are lots of rock lovers who can help. There's a fabulous group on Facebook that is gracious and patient with me while I post lots of pictures and ask "What are these?" :)

The downside of this though is that sometimes there are lots of opinions on what something is.

This stone...




...is really lovely. It appeared to me to be some sort of Jasper and was in with the Biggs Jasper.

The opinions shared on the Rockhound facebook group ranged from...

Cripple Creek Jasper
Chicken Scratch Jasper
Arroyo Jasper

Succor Creek Picture Jasper
In my eyes, the Succor Creek Picture Jasper is the closest and looks like most of what I have of this stone. So that's what I'm going with...Succor Creek. It's hard to dismiss the Arroyo Jasper. But I have to pick one!

So many more to identify!

Eventually some of the stone rough will be available in my Etsy Supply shop but it's really going to take me awhile to get everything organized.