UPDATES- Mystery Stones & Craft Fair

Oh my, it's been a busy time. Before I retired, I got a lot more done after working 10 hour days. Now I feel overworked & at day's end, I'm not quite sure what I accomplished!

BUT

since the last post, I have accomplished 2 things I can remember! Hoping to identify the mystery stones in the Oct. 13 post, I found a huge annual rock show barely 1 mile from my house! With necklace & an extra broken stone in hand, I faced the rock hounds behind their booths & wondered where to start. Fortunately for me most of them were eager to identify my olive green stones. Unfortunately all of their ideas were as varied as the previous best guesses. Clearly this was not the exact science I had hoped! Certainly not without a laboratory. Finally I found the grad student assigned the task of identifying mystery stones. She was equipped with a thick book on rocks & their specs, a fancy microscope, and a refractometer. But she was baffled until I mentioned the suggestion I received that it might be idocrase (aka vesuvianite). She looked it up in the fat book & with both of her instruments determined that the stones matched the specs in all regards. So hopefully the mystery is solved. IDOCRASE/VESUVIANITE!

My other accomplishment was applying for my first juried craft show & being accepted! So I'll be at the Renton, WA Hassle Free Holiday Fair in the Renton Community Center, Nov. 16 & 17. I hope all my local friends will "shop homemade" from the 100 vendors on site. It should be fun! So Monique & I will be busy :)