Alien Tea Shoppe

So, in an earlier blog post I talked about my father being a jeweler; and more specifically that he implemented the system of bartering to obtain things we needed like dental visits.  But his bartering also extended to my sister and I having a trousseau, or dowry.  A trousseau is something every bride brought to the marriage in numerous countries.  The wealthier you were, the wealtheir your trousseau.  It contained your wedding dress, as well as things for setting up your new home; blankets, crystal stemware, china, sterling silver pieces, jewelry.  It might also contain various types of livestock, money, servants, art works. While technically it was in order for the bride to have her own things, trousseau's were ultimately incorporated into the man's wealth and more times than not, never belonging to the bride to begin with. It is an odd thing to think about.  Today a trousseau is generally not something a bride has, nor ...

The last post, Fashonista Nation, leads me to this post.  I was going to add some random jewelry to my current fashion set, but then thought that this could be an entirely new post! So, as you might have guessed, this post is all about jewelry.  I have quite a bit of jewelry, though not nearly as much as my sister or mother, but I do not wear a lot of it.  What I wear the most of are rings, and the rings that I'm constantly cylcing are what will be featured in this post. But, let's start at the beginning shall we.  Because without the beginning, I would not have most of the jewelry in my possession.  And it all starts with my father. My father started college in the field of computers in 1967.  This is when A computer filled a room.  Somebody convinced him that computers weren't going anywhere and that he should bail out now before he completed his degree.  So, my dad quit school and became an apprentice jeweler at a local jewelry store. F...