Hooray! I'm glad you liked it. The necklace is amber, though it doesn't have any bug parts. I tried, but was foiled time and time again. I hope the backpack purse is big enough to hold all of your stuff.

Were the chocolate pumpkin caramels and fuzzy Santa monkey in there? I couldn't resist the monkey. We can all use more monkey, especially one in a Santa suit.

edited because could does not equal couldn't

I sent mine out on the 29th, so hopefully it will arrive at the recipient's early this week.

It did indeed! I got a nicely themed little package: a big lovely Santa hat, but in more of a rich Ghost-Of-Christmas-Present russet than the stop-sign red most Santa hats come in, a little brass candlestick of just the sort that Jack most likely nimbly jumped over and also the sort that any number of Dickens characters carried as they tottered out in their nightclothes to investigate that mysterious moaning outside the door, a yummy scented candle that had me briefly searching the package for candy (and by whose light I am now typing this), and a gorgeous 1925 reprint of a 1914 edition of A Christmas Carol with watercolor illustrations by Honor Appleton (the linked image isn't actually in the book, but it's the most Christmas Carol-like bit of her art I could find online).

I love it all! I have so much Dickens, but somehow I never actually owned an illustrated copy of A Christmas Carol before, and this one is lovely! Go team Slacker Matt! Thank you!

Hm. I sent my package out on the 18th of December, but haven't heard if it's arrived.

worries

Yes, I got them too, Maria. It's a Christmas monkey, plus caramel, one of my favorite flavors. I just forgot to type them. I blame cleaning.

I have spent a lot of time looking for a really good bug in amber in jewelry. They exist, but their owners insist on being paid a lot of money for them. I have some pieces with bugs, but a gnat in amber really doesn't make much of a statement.

Vortex, he was way melodramatic about the tired, wobbling around and such. Plus, it was his suggestion to call. I expressed enough concern to suggest he not drive home. I've never done the random call me when you get there thing because I didn't want to come off as the worrying type. And seriously, if he hadn't been all droopy eyed, and it hadn't been raining, and he hadn't left his phone here, it wouldn't even have occured to me to worry at all.

ah. sorry. tried to find a way to make him less of an asshat, alas.

Bless you.

He isn't really an asshat. He's just either a clueless person or there really is something not quite right. I'm forcefully reminded of an Oprah quote that I pass on all the time, and apparently ought to have been listening to myself. "If someone tells you who they are in the beginning...believe them." He's said, in a multitude of ways, that there is something 'wrong' with his brain. I don't think that is actually the case...but his believing it is roughly equivalent.

What I know is that a significant break is going to be my gift to myself right here in the beginning of the new year. Wish me luck.

Oh, I love amber.

I don't know why I feel this belongs here, but my new company (as of next week, yikes!) was just named in Forbes magazine's 2007 100 Best Companies to Work For. So 2007 is looking even more up.

Whee! So glad you're enjoying it, Jacqueline. When I saw the Appleton A Christmas Carol it nudged me in the ribs and whispered that it would be just the thing for you.

Yay for Brenda's new company! may you be happy there!

Ginger, I gave up on finding a nice bug in amber, but Bruce St. John Maher makes (or used to make) really good glass versions. I have one - large rectangular slab of amber-colored glass with a black glass "bug" in it - that has most people who see it convinced it's real. It's heavier than amber, but quite attractive.

Go Brenda's company! What a nice feeling it must be to work at a good company. Looking up indeed.