Category: Casual Conversations
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Jewelry Jaunt to California
Saturday January 8, 2022, that’s when I started getting back to me. I was taking my daughter to gymnastics, a routine that usually involves lots of fussing and rushing to get there on time. My husband and two of my kids had been sick the entire week and I was feeling a bit overwhelmed. My…
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A Jewelry Auction with Career Aspirations.
This was a fun week for jewelry auctions and the highlight for me was a series of diamonds offered for sale during Christie’s Magnificent Jewels New York Auction. Lots 62-68 were all cut from the same 552.74 carat rough; the largest gem quality diamond ever found in North America. The stone was unearthed in 2018…
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Wishful Weekend- The Catskills
Friday it was fall in Houston, then Saturday it was back up to 90 degrees! Luckily I had already planned a Wishful Weekend getaway to the Catskills where the daytime high will be in the mid-60’s and at night the temperature should drop about 20 degrees. I have always thought that cold weather clothes were…
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Conflicted about Diamonds
I love diamonds. If I’m honest, they’re my favorite gemstone. For me, nothing sparkles quite like a diamond. As a gemologist, of course I appreciate many gemstone varieties and I am fascinated by the complex chemistries of many gem species. But the simple way that one atom, Carbon, combines in a simple cubic structure to…
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Wishful Weekends- Maine
Summer is unofficially over as we are now past Labor Day but I wanted to share one last wishful weekend in the northeast. As I’ve said before, I’m not a huge fan of winter, but it’s funny that many of us have this great buildup of anticipation for summer, but then once it gets here…
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Wishful Weekends- Burlington, VT
Travel is something that I have always enjoyed. Well, I enjoy being other places, the flying/driving/navigating isn’t necessarily my favorite. I had a job assignment once that was 80% travel and that was fun and fit my type A personality. It was travel, but we went to the same location for 4-5 weeks in a…
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Auction Favorites- Christie’s July 2020
Tomorrow, Christie’s is holding it’s the first of its biannual Magnificent Jewels auction’s in New York and I am so excited! Magnificent Jewels is my favorite jewelry auction because the offerings are always over the top. People ask me why I enjoy looking at auction results and I think it boils down to three things:…
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Building a Jewelry Collection
A dear friend of mine is looking to buy his first piece of fine jewelry and called me up to talk about starting his collection. The first part of the journey, and I think many of us have been there, was to come down out of the clouds circling his daydreams of a large canary…
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Valuing the cost of jewelry
I’m a shopper, and I love to get a good deal. I’m one of those people that if you complement my shoes, I will proudly tell you I got them for next to nothing in a special “extra 25% off clearance for email subscribers only” discount code sale. When I was single, this invariably led…
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Who should pay for the engagement ring?
Let’s have a conversation about engagement rings. Traditionally, one party purchases a diamond ring to propose to the love of their life and puts up a significant chunk of money to do so. The amounts vary from person to person, but DeBeers told us in the 80’s that two months’ salary would really prove your…