Three Questions to Consider when Picking a Jeweler

There seems to be a jeweler on every corner nowadays, but how do you know which jeweler to buy from? Here are three questions when picking a Jeweler that everyone should ask.

1. Where do their diamonds come from? Conflict diamonds are still a problem today but you can do your part by checking with your jeweler and verifying the source of their gems.

2. Am I being overcharged? With today’s technology there is no reason to overpay for anything. You have endless knowledge and selection at your fingertips which is why you’re reading this article. Do your research, shop around and get a competitive price.

3. How do other shoppers rate this jeweler? Often times it’s not just the initial purchase that you have to worry about. It’s the warranty, the free cleanings and the ability to come back and be treated with exceptional customer service. Consider the ratings the jeweler has had by others and don’t buy from anyone that makes your experience anything less than enjoyable.

Go with the right jeweler for you, and make sure you’re considering all aspects of how they do business; with their supplier, with you, personally, and by their reputation with previous customers.

Remembering My Heroes

My Grandpa Bob, or "Uncle Bob" as he preferred we call him, served as a 1st Lieutenant in the 101st Airborne in World War II.  After dropping into Normandy, he was later injured by shrapnel fire in Holland ("Shot in the ass in the face of the enemy," he'd say) but finished out the war in the Battle of the Bulge before coming home.  He was decorated with two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star and is now buried in Arlington Cemetery next to his wife Alice LaVerne.  Before he died, he would proudly tell people with a twinkle in his eye, "I'll be buried right behind President Kennedy.......about a mile behind him."  Someday I'll take my husband and son to put flowers on their graves, but in the meantime we can visit Arlington Cemetery's virtual map.

During the war, my grandfather also served as the Athletic Officer for the 101st.  As a heavy-weight boxer himself, he fought Joe Louis in an exhibition match--which he lost.  He went on to fight Golden Glove tournaments and years later gave my older brother Patrick a few tips, one of which was to let the other guy throw all the punches until he tires himself out.  Note to self.

Patrick gave a moving eulogy at my grandfather's funeral and described his career as a family man, a community leader and a dedicated and beloved football coach who was known for turning mediocre teams into winning machines. He ended the tribute by saying, "Heaven's football team must be in a slump," which had the large crowd laughing through their tears. You can see photos of Coach Bob Burns in the South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame.  What a character that man was.

Inspired by my grandfather, Patrick went on to join the army as a JAG lawyer and became a paratrooper himself.  He has tapped into the network of I Company 502, a group of comrades, widows and family of men in the 101st Airborne.  A few years ago Patrick tracked down Private Marvin Cartwright who fought next to my grandfather. I tagged along the day Patrick went to meet and interview him about his time in the war.  My brother videotaped the conversation and we enjoyed the afternoon listening to his stories.  So few people think to ask questions and I'm glad Patrick thought to ask.  It clearly meant a lot to Marvin, who has since passed away, and to his family.

Today I also remember others in my family who have served:  My maternal Grandfather Charles Markley, Uncle Jerry Markley, Cousin Tom Burns and Uncle John Burns.  My husband's maternal grandfather actually served in England's military in World War I, but that is story for another day.

Thank you to all who have served and to all the everyday heroes.  Enjoy the holiday today!

The A to Z... or the C to C of Buying Engagement Rings

If you’re looking to buy an engagement ring, you’ve probably heard of the ‘four C’s. But, what are they really?

The four C’s denote the four qualities of a precious stone that define its quality: cut, color, clarity and carat-weight. Carats are the measurement units of diamond weight. While carat weight is a factor when choosing your stone, it’s not really the most important. The other three C’s can change a diamond’s value greatly.

The cut represents the skill of the artisan. Facets that are positioned, cut and polished in the optimal way will allow the diamond to shine (what is called its brilliance) and sparkle (scintillation). The perfect cut will not allow almost any light to escape out of the bottom and sides of the diamond.
Color and clarity are natural properties of the diamond. Color is graded from colorless to light yellow – colorless the rarest and therefore the most precious. Clarity refers to the presence of natural imperfections in the stone – the fewer of those, and the smaller, the better.

While all of these can be expressed with a number, it’s always best to have a look for yourself when you're shopping for that special Engagement Ring.

Any Excuse

There is even more to celebrate than I'd realized.  May 19 is my husband's birthday of course, but I just learned it is also the date the Spanish armada set sail and the date Oscar Wilde was released from prison.

After breakfast and presents, we took a walk in the arboretum and then attended a party thrown by our friends Joe and Kiyomi to celebrate Oscar's freedom.  Turns out they simply wanted to have a party, decided on a convenient date and then cast about for any excuse to celebrate.  I love this.

The invitation said, "Come join us for an afternoon/evening to celebrate May 19, Oscar Wilde's 1897 release from prison (or any other event that happened on May 19 that you wish to celebrate).  There will be lovely people, oysters, paella and perhaps some live music.  Bring the kids. We would love to see you."

And music there was!  The Nyamusiwa Marimba Ensemble set up in the back yard and played their hearts out. 

Taylor Shellfish Farms shucked oysters, a talented guy named Tom cooked paella over an open fire and Manny's flowed from the keg.  A hundred people shimmied, slurped,  bounced babies and congratulated each other for being counted by Joe and Kiyomi as "lovely people."

In addition to hosting fabulous parties, Joe paints. He showed us some recent pieces in his studio where this quote caught my eye:

Joe, I am taking notes from you my friend.

Paper Confessions & Lego Moleskines

When I was born, my parents sent out this cheeky announcement.

As a paper lover who adores to send and receive mail in the post, I have a confession.  I did not send out a birth announcement for my son as I’d meant to do.  I did not send out holiday cards featuring a sweet photo of him on his first Christmas.  And I did not send out new home address cards when we moved to Seattle.  I have been carrying a wee bit of guilt over this for a year now.  Really, I need to let it go.  Exhale.

But I did send out a few invitations for Xavier’s birthday party.  I found them at the lovely little Wallingford shop Paper Delights.

We had a perfect-sized gathering for the backyard party where all of us big people drank champagne and the pack of little boys ate cheerios and lemon curd-laced cupcakes.  I passed around a Lego Moleskine notebook (thank you, Auntie Rebecca!) for guests to write birthday wishes.  I’ll pull it out again next year at his 2^nd birthday, and again each year after so he can flip through it to remember all the friends who celebrated with him at each party.  If only I could remember who came to all my birthdays over the years and what we did.  You'd think these special days would stand out clearly in one's memory, but so many details go smudgy and fade out as years pass.

Thank you to all you special people who love Xavier and helped to make his first birthday such fun!  His birthday season is now drawing to a close and my husband's birthday season begins....

Traditions, Decisions, Engagement Rings and the Internet

Traditionally, selecting engagement rings has been the sole job of the one proposing. The lucky loved one only has the choice in whether to say yes or no. In this day in age, the proposal process has luckily been changing. More and more couples are selecting rings together. This gives couples a fantastic chance to work on their decision making skills. There will be plenty more decisions in the years to follow so why not start at the beginning! I would suggest, spending some time together and doing a bit of online research. There are many online jewelers with amazing prices that are sure to fit any budget, style, and metal specifications you might have.

The choice to spend your lives together is one that you make as partners, shouldn’t the ring on your finger be as well? Engagement Rings are as unique as the individuals who wear them. Making a choice together does not take the romance out it; instead it can help you build on the plunge that you will be taking together.

How You Shine

A Very Happy Mother's Day to all you fabulous Moms out there, today and every day!

Doesn't this Nikki McClure card just warm your heart?  I love her art which she cuts with an x-acto knife.  She makes calendars, illustrated books and cards and just recently had a retrospective at the Bellevue Art Museum.  She is a favorite out here in the Pacific Northwest.

Today I am basking in love from my husband and son.  I am enjoying being a mom so much and I have my own wonderful mother to thank for showing me how well it can be done.  I wrote to thank her for a few of my favorite memories.  Below is a selection:

• Thank you for that amazing mermaid halloween costume you made for me in first grade - still my favorite costume ever.
• Thank you for always letting me finish "just one more chapter" in my book before I set the table for dinner.
• Thank you for being a great example of why "It never hurts to ask."  This has opened so many doors for me over the years.
• Thank you for stretching out like a happy cat on sunny patches of grass.  You always knew how to grab and enjoy a golden moment!
• Thank you for being so cheerful and fun-loving.  I learned to not take life too seriously from a pro.

Take a couple of minutes and write down five happy memories with your mother.  Be as specific as possible.  Call her and read the list to her, send it over email or shout it to the world on Facebook.  I guarantee this will be the best present she receives on Mother's Day.

And here's a lovely poem celebrating a new mother....enjoy!

For My Wife

~ Steven Lautermilch

We are being born again,

getting second breath in skin and bone, vein

and artery, that once in grunion milt by sea and riverbed

died to take to air.

Through you I find new sight, see the egg

face to face, know the fish, grasp the tree and vine and

blossoming play the ape, to pay out more, still

more this cord our life-line, into time, into space.

With such grace you grow awkward, pantomime and trance

the moon and tides in their slow dance around the earth.

And then, delivered and light, how you shine,

how you shine.

Experiential Birthday Presents

Yesterday my son turned one.  For a present, his daddy and I gave him a Passport to the National Parks and his first official stamp.

We had been invited up to see friends at Cultus Lake just outside of Vancouver.  My husband said, "We could go Friday to visit friends in New West, then head to the party on Saturday. And then I might as well go into the Vancouver office for a few days and we can see cousins and friends in the city." Pause. "And then since we are up there, maybe we could go see my Dad for a few days and I could work from Victoria."  Pause.  "And (here he started excitedly poking me in the arm) we could loop home to Seattle by ferry to the Olympic Peninsula and go camping in the Hoh Rainforest!"  This is how my husband's brain works.  He is a master of logistics and a maximizer extraordinaire.  So that is how 11 days later, 700 miles, 3 ferries, 1 petting zoo, several dinner parties, 2 ten-mile hikes and 3 campfires later we ended up celebrating Xavier's birthday in a spectacular and unusually sunny rainforest.  

I love to give experiential gifts and this one will keep on giving for years to come as we explore all over the country together as a family.  Very likely my son will inherit my collector gene although I suppose there is a chance he’ll roll his eyes in future years as I insist on stamping his passport, but no matter.

Apparently these passports are popular in many arenas.  A few years ago, I visited my sister and her husband in Japan where they were teaching English.  My favorite souvenir from Kyoto was a sort of temple passport, this beautiful book with accordion-style pages.  

At each temple, many of them UNESCO World Heritage Sites, a calligrapher marks your visit by writing the date, temple name and some other beautiful notations in Japanese script I cannot read.  I gleefully ran around - I mean I serenely strolled through the temples collecting calligraphy inscriptions.  I must go back to Japan someday soon for the incomparable food, the friendly people, the relaxing onsens and more calligraphy inscriptions for my temple passport.  

Seattle Public Libraries put out a passport in 2008 to celebrate 10 years of renovations to the 27 neighborhood branches.  A friend in my book club visited each branch with her two young kids and had a ball filling up their passport.  

And then there are actual international passports.  Who doesn't feel a thrill when entering a new land and hearing that satisfying thunk! as the official stamp is issued?  What better memory aid then flipping through a passport to recall all your adventures?

Here is Xavier at 5 Mile Island in the Olympic National Park.  He assured me this birthday has been his best one yet.

Where and how have you spent a memorable birthday?  How might you make an upcoming birthday celebration for someone you love extra special?  Do you know of any other passports I can fill up with memories?

Loose Diamonds: An Investment worth Looking Into

It’s a tricky time to be a financial adviser. True, there has never been anything that was a rock solid guarantee when it comes to predicting how an investment is going to perform. Even the simple act of opening a basic passport savings account at a local bank is only as good as the health of the bank. But today it seems even far more complicated. Depending on what kind of financial indicators you are watching, our economy is either the best it has been in five years or is still sloughing its way deeper into the muck. With such conflicting impressions, deciding where to invest your money is no easy task. That is why I have a suggestion that you might say is outside the box. I am talking, of course, about loose diamonds.

There is nothing that performs with such alarming consistency like precious metals and jewels. You probably have picked up some indication of that by seeing the proliferation of stores that offer to buy your used gold or seen the commercials for internet sites that promise the same thing. There is a reason that you don’t see many (if any) stores offering the same concept for loose diamonds. The reason for that is simple, though, once you think about it. If you were to have a look through your jewelry collection, there is going to be a lot of gold and silver, and certainly some diamonds most likely, but those diamonds are not going to be loose ones. Rather, they are going to already be set in something.

That is going to change in time, however, because there is a slowly but steadily growing presence of jewelers offering unset diamonds for sale. This trend did not come about as an investment concern, at least not in the way that we are talking about it now. It started off because of the growing number of people who were returning to the artisan trade of being fine craftsmen, expressing their artistic ability by working with precious metals and fine jewelry. And the jewelers realized that could actually obtain the materials separately, have the jewelry designed in house, and spend less money than buying mass produced pieces. The market for loose diamonds as an investment was mostly an afterthought, but the value of Loose Diamonds is always rising, and unlike other investments, like stocks, bonds, C.D.’s, etc., that only serve one purpose, the diamonds you buy can either strictly be an investment, or you can eventually use them to create your own design of dazzling jewelry.