Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend. (As are pearls and gemstones and...)

A few years ago, when I began thinking about my Working Life List, I decided that I wanted to make a piece of jewelry; which I did almost immediately after I started my list. Lately, I'd been wondering why I stopped after only two pairs of earrings. Why not work on creating even more? Heaven knows I wear enough - and spend enough money - on all sorts of costume baubles and dangles. Why not, as those fond of the metaphors say, learn to fish?

In a carpe diem moment a few weeks ago, I signed up for a beaded jewelry workshop in my neighborhood. And what a nice Saturday this workshop turned out to be - sipping coffee and talking jewelry supplies, practicing over and over on earring pair after earring pair, working to get the techniques just right, chatting with other women who were eager to learn a new craft, staring at piles of colorful beads, deciding what color combinations and look I wanted to focus on with each piece...it was lovely. There was no talk of emails or computers or text messaging or technology or any of that world that can drive a person mad at times. Instead, it was just 12 women, row after row of beads, and a work station. How delightfully refreshing.

Voila:

And I'm hooked, there's no doubt in my mind. The minute our class ended, I wandered over to the bead store in Harvard Square, feeling like a little kid in a candy store. My pieces aren't perfect - and I've got a lot to learn. But, I've got a start. And that's exciting. Even if my jewelry box might *ahem* already be bursting at the seams.

Minor detail.