Cranking Out The Jewelry

After nearly a month, I am back to posting Sunday evening jewelry lots. This time, some very interesting pieces were featured, most of which have turquoise and coral. As usual though, turquoise only reigns supreme in the groups and only the branch coral set on the right and the Kirk Smith statement ring sold. Also, my posting was taken down from the most popular group and I reposted it the next day but the momentum was lost. Possibly it was due to my description of the bolo with the genuine badger claw. I took the mention of the claw out of the description (those interested in this type of jewelry know what it is) and the listing stuck but unfortunately no more sales. But that means the rest of the pieces will be added to the online store!

I did have success selling this squash blossom necklace for one of our clients separately the same day. The nice feature about this one was that it is not too large or too small. It is a great medium size that can be worn every day. I have several other squash blossoms that I need to get online, including a gorgeous one with Persian turquoise and another from the 1950s which is tempting to keep. I usually do not like squash blossom necklaces on me but the mid-century one is super pretty - all silver except for a simple turquoise center dangle. I was told that the four petals on each blossom tells its age, newer necklaces only have three petals.

Because we only had one moving sale scheduled this weekend and the client decided ahead of time she did not want to continue to Monday (and I am caught up with paperwork!) I had free time to tackle the mountain of silver jewelry which needs polishing and pricing. I spent the better part of four days polishing and cleaning several lots of jewelry I have purchased this year. Before pricing, it must thoroughly dry for at least 8 hours. I priced all of the necklaces and bracelets and made P-Touch labels and bagged up the earrings, pins and pendants to pass to Mother so she can make cards for them. Then they will be ready to sell! I made a dent but there is STILL. SO. MUCH. MORE! Most of it is with me and some is at Mother's house. I will try and process as much of it as I can before I leave. Right now it is too much to take with me.

I focused on budget friendly pieces the last couple of buys and that is what I worked on so there will be so many to see next week at our sales in Chicago - West Rogers Park and Schaumburg. My plan is to fill five cases for the two sales, focusing on antique to vintage in Chicago and vintage to newer in Schaumburg. I also prepared a bunch of solid sterling silver Christmas ornaments from the early 1970s by Wallace. They are very elegant and most feature a peace doves theme and will be offered for sale in Chicago. These 50 year old ornaments are such great quality. There were wonderful higher-end pieces mixed in too, I will be saving them for our upcoming Lake Forest and Park Ridge sales.

Next week, each sale will have both sterling and costume jewelry. The costume jewelry continues to sell well but I still have a good amount. However it is becoming manageable and the end is in sight! I have enjoyed selling costume jewelry these past 16 years but no longer have an ongoing source for it. Once in a while some of my other sources may come up with something but eventually the focus will be on the sterling jewelry. Starting to downsize and simplify life will be a good thing.

On Friday Kuochun had a follow up visit with his cardiologist and as always I went along with him. Kuochun was not asked to get a blood test but decided to get one on his own because it was requested prior to all of his other appointments. It is a good thing he did because the doctor did want to compare a current test to his previous ones. His cholesterol dropped 70 points!

For now, he is still on all of the medication but the doctor said he will not be on blood thinners forever. He wanted to see Kuochun in 6 months but we are planning to still be in Arizona. We did set up an appointment for early May but I was thinking that Kuochun could always get a blood test in Arizona in 6 months and have the results sent to the doctor. Maybe he would even be willing to do a virtual appointment. At any rate, the doctor said that coming back in 8 months will be fine. Hopefully at that time he will be able to stop taking some, if not all of the medications by then.

The travel pet carriers arrived on Friday, they were supposed to arrive Monday. I am super pleased with them - they look like new and I got the colors I wanted which were out of stock on the company's website and for half the price. This is Vivi's, she must have orange. Margot's is a darker grey with blue piping. I did a little testing with Margot - she is not food motivated but I used her very first toy to show her that it was OK to step inside the carrier to retrieve it. I really have to take baby steps with Margot, it is going to be a process to get her comfortable with the carrier.

I have not seen Vivi yet to test out her bag - Saturday was their annual block party so I could not drive to the house - but I feel good that she will progress way more quickly than Margot. Vivi was a great travel companion, I am thinking about testing her to get in the carrier from inside the van because she is so great about jumping into her dog car seat. Vivi is just thrilled to go anywhere while Margot is a total homebody.

Right now we are waiting to find out if the car will be arriving on time before making any plans. However I wish we could postpone flying one more time and just rent a minivan and drive. When Mother and I went to New York for Rachel's wedding, we ended up with a Chrysler Pacifica which was very luxurious. It was night and day from taking the Briesmobile to Arizona!

We are not quite fully transitioned to having everything in Scottsdale that we want and it would be a lot of work and extra expense to ship these items. I also need all of my online store items with me in order to continue to try and sell them. I have carried jewelry on airplanes before but my carryon always gets set aside for airport security to examine. It would be awesome to get there in less than four hours but the whole thing just seems very stressful while having two untrained dogs with us for the first time.

Overall I think the cost of driving would still be less than us all flying and paying the pet fees, not even including the extra time and cost to ship everything there. Plus there is a real possibility that airport personnel will not let us on the plane if either or both dogs act up. I would prefer to take the winter to train them to not bark at the wrong time, obey commands and feel comfortable with the carrier when I have more free time. I am waiting to see what flights will cost once we know when we are flying before I make my case for driving. I am definitely looking forward to having everything settled down!