Royston Week

This week's jewelry lot featured some amazing Royston turquoise jewelry. They are all of the pieces in the center of the photo - the four-strand nugget necklace with heishi, the statement ring with coral accents, the earrings and cuff bracelet at the top of the necklace stand and the magnificent tufa cast cuff bracelet by Ernest Rangel. Royston turquoise is one of my favorites - it comes out of Nevada and is the oldest active mine in the state. Most common are the dreamy greens and browns as shown here but it can also range from very dark green to brighter blue. The same buyer purchased the earrings, necklace and ring. If that ring would have been a larger size, it would have been a keeper! The stone is great quality and I just love scallops. In addition to the Royston pieces, the sterling pearl earrings, green turquoise dangle earrings and the Teddy Goodluck ring towards the center also sold. The remaining pieces will go to the online store.

I have not been happy with the large group results inside my giant light box so I tried a setup in the garage with one of my Replica Surfaces and the curtain which covers our estate sale supplies as a backdrop. I thought the colors looked good with the Royston turquoise and jewelry props. I tried setting up a light on one side but all it did was cast shadows so this is the result with just all of the overhead garage lighting turned on. It definitely turned out better than inside the light box. I did learn something though, a couple of people thought the ring on the display in front of the necklace as actually a pendant attached to the necklace. I normally do not have such a long necklace for sale so the stand was a necessity to show it off. What counted though was that the person who bought everything could totally see what the pieces were!

Always looking to improve, I ordered yet another product I saw on a Facebook ad, which is a telescoping stand with a light which smartphones can be attached to. It also has a built-in removable Bluetooth shutter remote. I hope it is sturdy enough for my iPhone XS Max with a big clunky OtterBox. I am seriously thinking about upgrading to the iPhone 13, even though it is an unlucky number. The camera has always been good but it was improved way more and I believe I can trade my current phone in and it would take care of a lot of the cost. My latest batch of Replica Surfaces also arrived so I am looking forward to at least a few days of nice weather to be able to shoot jewelry outdoors before it gets cold and rainy.

Before I get a new iPhone though, we are in the midst of switching our office phone service from Xfinity to Verizon. If all goes well, we should be able to ship Melinda a cordless phone which she can use at home. When she is not home, she can toggle to the office phone on her cell phone. She has been having a lot of issues with her cell phone connection at home and her cell phone runs out of battery a lot which is embarrassing when she is speaking to a client or customer. She then has to wait until her phone charges up before she can call them back. The official switch-over date is next Tuesday and it should be a game-changer! Melinda made the drive back to Sun City West this week, she left Tuesday late evening and returned home by dinnertime Friday evening. It definitely helped to gain two hours on the way back.

This past week Mother had several doctor's appointments and for now things are looking more promising. On Monday the lung doctor ruled out chronic blood clots in the lungs and even thought her ground glass opacity issue looked better. He gave her a sample inhaler which puts powder in the lungs but she has been afraid to try it. The process is to exhale, inhale the powder and then immediately brush her teeth and use mouthwash. We are going to research side effects of this first. Medicare covers medical pedicures and dermatologist visits, we were able to take care of those Wednesday and on Friday we saw the neurologist, it went smoothly and the next visit will be a year from now. The neurologist said "call me if you need me but I hope I don't hear from you!" meaning hopefully all will be well.

Seattle Sutton is going smoothly, Mother is really enjoying just about all of the food. On Monday it will be two weeks. They do use legumes a good amount and she does not care for all of them so Vivi was the beneficiary of the chickpeas and lentils this week. Vivi is only getting a few with each meal though because she has a sensitive stomach and throws up fairly often. Mother has not been weighing herself but I can see that the swelling from eating too much salt has gone down dramatically and I believe she has lost some weight as well. On Wednesday her shirt looked looser around the middle. She would kill me for posting this photo but I think it is really cute, she is showing how loose her shirt is while on the phone. Her mood has also improved tremendously since the burden of making meals has been removed. She is back to her old tricks, organizing and rearranging the house - something she was not up to doing before.

I pick up the Seattle Sutton meals for Mother on Mondays and Thursdays and load them into the refrigerator in an organized manner, so it is first in, first out and breakfasts, lunches and dinners are grouped together. I have been checking out the meals these past two weeks and so far think I would really enjoy about 75% of them and be able to work with another 10%. I am going to give the program a try starting next week. It will be more challenging for me since I do not like cooked vegetables but I will at least taste everything and if I cannot do a meal Kuochun will take it, he can eat anything! He said "I want to go on the diet too!"

I have been doing the meal replacement shake Ka'chava with skim milk this summer and it is really delicious, nearly as good as a chocolate milkshake. Just a quick blend in the BlendJet 2 and it is thick and creamy. Ka'chava is highly nutritious - filled with vegetables, fruit, antioxidants and much more. I do not want to give it up totally so I will work it in, making sure the total calories for the day come out to be the way they are supposed to. I plan to at least have it twice a week when fish is on the menu. When Mother started Seattle Sutton I asked Kuochun to seriously not mention food to her and he has been perfect so far! We'll see how far we can both come in a year's time. Once our goal weight is reached we can go to a maintenance plan which is the same food but larger portions. It is a lot more than I normally spend on food but nothing will go to waste.

After going 100 miles an hour with estate sales ever since I came back from Scottsdale, all of a sudden we only have one sale next week. It is very odd because I consider this to be the best time of year to hold an estate sale. The weather is not too hot or too cold and we are officially into Fall which is the time for customers to start thinking about holiday entertaining and gift buying. However the potential clients we have spoken with lately either do not have enough for a sale or have a house closing at the end of the month so they are not quite ready to hold their sales yet.

I had a mad moment and thought it would be fun to take a weekend trip. My birthday is next Thursday, I have never been to Galena and the Galena Country Fair is my birthday weekend every year. However it is a no go because most all of the short-term rentals are booked. The few that are left are either not nice or thousands of dollars per night. We cannot go out to eat or have cake, we will have to think of something else to do. Maybe I will turn my phone off for a day! I saw a really cool short-term rental in Galena right above one of the shops in town so maybe next year.

Looking ahead, there will be less paperwork than usual to do next week because I worked ahead a bit so it would be great to get some jewelry online in anticipation of the holiday buying season. Until next time!