Hey my Sweet Lifers! There’s a running joke between me and my oldest and best friend about when to buy things. Not the items that everybody needs eventually like furniture, appliances and houses, but the personal stuff that makes life a little sweeter. You know… the pocket books, and jewelry, clothes and as of late; our conversations are daily leaning towards what trees and plants to buy! That we tell each other is because we are now able to be stewards of mother earth, although that may be true I seem to find myself rapidly getting older with every conversation. Amazing how these things happen!
Amy Jo has always had a problem with the sweeter stuff mainly because she is more frugal than me and also she has a faith that if she’s supposed to have it, well it will just still be waiting for her when she comes back for it. Over the years I have more than once given her my “I told you to go ahead and buy it” moment as she called lamenting the lavender at Lowe’s last year that she had “fallen in love with” and went back to find it all gone or that dress at Target that she actually tried on in the store and fit perfectly that she left and went back two days later to find it gone. These things, much to my sweet Brian’s lament do not happen to me… well not as much.
I tend to see it and buy it and if I get home with it and it “doesn’t work” I take it back, but I do not let something that catches my eye get left behind very often. This requires less stress for me than wondering if that “something” might be an eye catcher for someone else too while I have abandoned it to think on if it should be mine. Sometimes though rarely, I am like Amy Jo. I usually find myself in this situation when it comes to a piece of jewelry.
And that is exactly what I have been finding myself dealing with in a self induced stress over a leather cuff that for the past four years has resided in Waxhaw, North Carolina. Each year I have visited my favorite store when traveling in to visit family and for four years I have found the cuff laying patiently waiting to be brought to it’s home. I would even try it on each year and tell myself “you don’t need this” a rare thing for me to do indeed! Lol This time though I was a lot more sentimental than usual and with each life event I do usually purchase a piece of jewelry. It’s always been my thing to do so, that having been a tradition I was taught as a child. My mother’s princess ring when I turned 16, a gold watch upon graduation, my mother’s emeralds that she was wearing when she was killed; marking my marriage to sweet Brian. With each life milestone I have a “something” to remember it by and that same “something” to pass to the next generation. Something special, with meaning and of excellent quality.
So, having come home to bury our last parenting pillar, my beautiful mother in law; Barbara Ann who has been my mother for 33 years and long ago out mothered my own; it seemed fitting to go back and see if that little “something” was still there. It was. The artist has carved and molded a beautiful rendition of the dogwood blossom, the state flower. At it’s center is a cluster of rough hand cut amethyst which is my birthstone. North Carolina is where Brian and I were born and raised and suddenly I smiled and said to myself “it’s time to make you mine.” Something in me felt at peace and simultaneously a sense that I was complete and ready for our next chapters without a mother. Each time I look at it I will remember the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway, the smell of red -eye gravy over grits, the best days of my childhood and my sweet Barbara Ann!
Take Care of YOU and Stay “Sweet!”
