One of a Kind – Daniel Spirer Custom Jewelry

Back when I was single, I remember perusing the Boston Globe Magazine and eyeing the beautiful custom jewelry.  Someday, I thought, someday.  When my now husband was contemplating getting engaged, I immediately mentioned Spirer –Somes Jewelers (now Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers).  Doug knows that I am too much of a planner to accept a surprise proposal with a surprise ring.  Same with my pregnancies, there will be no surprise announcement of the baby’s sex at the time of birth!

As with my kid’s names, I had specific requirements for my ring.  No prongs to get caught on things!  I wanted a smooth bezel mount.  Then I saw this ring.

 

Actually it was a ring with three diamonds similar to the one shown on the top of this photo.

Image from Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers gallery.

There was no need for Doug to go broke, so we opted for beautiful medium blue sapphires to flank the diamond.  That also made this ring completely unique.  No one else has a ring exactly like it.  The only thing was, each stone had 6 prongs for a total of 18 prongs!  So much for my no prong rule.  Since then, I have realized that a prong mount allows for light to come through the bottom of the stone, allowing it to sparkle from within.  I do get my ring caught on things every so often, but it is well worth the beauty of the ring.  I still regularly get compliments on it nearly 12 years later.

And true to form when it comes to rules, when we named Adam, I had to throw out my rule of “no biblical names”.  We picked the most biblical one of all!  And without Daniel’s mis-writing of Doug’s name, we wouldn’t have had the name Dova at all.

After a few years, Doug and I went back to Spirer-Somes and picked out this ring for Mother’s Day.  It is very similar to my wedding ring, except it is a sapphire flanked by two diamonds in bezel mounts.

I finally had my bezel mount ring.  They make a very nice complementary pair.  If you’re ever in the market for beautiful unique jewelry check out Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers in Cambridge, MA or at his website.  He’s quite a character and has a blog as well.

Note:  This post was definitely not sponsored as Doug spent the really big bucks for these beautiful rings.  Photos were taken with my Canon Rebel XTi with a 50mm lens and 25mm extension tube.

Little Girl, Big MIT

When Adam was 6 years old, I sent him for a day of kid's activities at MIT for my 20th reunion.  I didn't attend myself because Dova was only 3 years old and I didn't want to get full days of babysitting.  It turns out that MIT reunions are quite family friendly and have many family friendly activities even for young ones.  I remember thinking that Adam was such a big kid at 6 years old and it was time to start brainwashing him into thinking that MIT was the best and only place to attend college. He loved it of course and has followed hook, line, and sinker into thinking that he should be going to MIT.  This year, I had the opportunity to meet up with a friend having his 25th reunion, so I brought Dova along.  She looked so little against the big architecture of the ‘tute.

 

Dova outside of Lobby 7 under a massive column.

 

Under the windows to the entrance of Lobby 7.

  

Against a vast wall.

In the infinite corridor (3rd floor).

Even though she is the same age as when I first brought Adam to MIT, I still think of her as a baby.  Apparently she is no longer running around at my knees, but she is getting quite tall!  Here we are on the third floor of Lobby 7 against the top of one of the columns.

   

And according to plan, she has also been brainwashed into thinking that she too should be going to MIT.  Excellent!

Live to Chat, Chat to Live

Adam with his mop top.

The first time I chatted with someone on a computer was over Unix talk in the mid 1980's.  It was really cool, but invariably with someone within close proximity (think huge terminal lab at MIT), so it was more of a novelty than anything.  It wasn't until the late 1990's when a co-op student showed me AOL Instant Messenger at work.  He used it to chat with his friends from school.  Soon, most of my friends and I were on it as well (I was the pioneer pushing it onto many skeptics).  A technological communications door that I always had imagined had just been opened.  Not as disruptive as a phone call and not as slow as email.

Instant messaging was used so prevalently at my last job, it was perfect for tele-commuting because people didn't know whether they were chatting with someone in the next cube or at home.  When I started at my current job, IM simply wasn't allowed.  I did it on the sly with my old friends but slowly, all the ports for AIM and MSN Messenger were closed down.  The only thing left is Skype now.  There is corporate IM for work, which is helpful, but not used to the degree that I had in my previous job.

When Adam was born, I couldn't wait until he was old enough to use the computer so I could chat him from work.  Maybe by age 6, I thought.  But as he got older, I became more and more wary of subjecting him to the good and evils of the internet.  I have yet to give him an email address to spare him the pain of spam. He does not need to know about penis enhancements and Nigeria!  Besides, he needs to learn how to talk properly with his friends on the phone first.  But on the computer, he has fallen into the world of online video games which he plays with his friends, real and virtual.

Yesterday, for the first time at age 9 1/2, I installed Skype on his computer and we finally had our long awaited chat.  I enjoyed it immensely. (Screenshot edited slightly for clarity and privacy.)



I was impressed by his nearly perfect spelling and punctuation.  I broke him in with my casual IM way.  Since I always refer to him with the (emo) emoticon to Doug, I had to share it with Adam.

Me:  this is you

Adam (later):  you are

He is still the sweetest boy ever, even on chat. Does my heart good.

WW - Wind in her hair

While we were parked one day, Dova decided to pose on the back deck of my car.







What a lounge lizard!

Part of the reason I wanted a convertible was to feel the freedom of the wind in my hair.  I love throwing my arms up in the air while I'm driving.  But sitting on the back deck reminds me off two movies with awesome convertible scenes.

First Terms of Endearment with Jack Nicholson.  I didn't care for the movie, but there is one scene I love where Jack is driving on the beach, sitting on the roof of a 1978 Corvette, steering with his feet.


Image from Alert the Media.


"Wind in the hair.  Lead in the pencil.  Feet controlling the universe.  Free love at the helm."

The movie clip is awesome if you haven't seen it.

And then there is Thelma and Louise.  The movie would not be the same without the Thunderbird convertible.


Image from StarPulse.


Image from here.

I will not be trying either of these stunts with my car! 

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A Study in Flip-Flops

Last month, I let Adam try on my heels. Look at those sexy legs!



I dare say that his legs look better than mine. Here I am in those shoes, snapped by Dova.



But I digress. This post is about flip-flops (a.k.a. thong sandals) after all.  When I was a kid, I didn't wear flip-flops.  My parents somehow convinced me that they were bad and besides, whenever I tried them on, that piece between the toes was never comfortable.  I was perfectly happy wearing regular sandals, with and without a back strap. When the original Dr. Scholl's (I'm dating myself) and Birkenstocks were in, I was in heaven (of course I only wore the cheap knock-offs).  When I met Doug, he liked wearing flip-flops so I decided to give them another try.  Here he is in a cheap pair that we later found out were manufactured by the same company who made the nasty Walmart flip-flops.



For extra cuteness, here is Dova when she was three years old, wearing Dad's flip-flops.



I started with cheap $1 flip-flops which irritated the space between my toes to no end.  I mostly wore them to the pool or the gym shower.  If I had to walk more than a few hundred feet, I would be cursing them.  My kids however, took to flip-flops like they were born with them on and couldn't understand what my problem was.  Last year, I finally found a pair with cloth instead of rubber between the toes and they made a world of difference.  I could finally wear flip-flops!  Good thing too, because you are hard pressed finding regular sandals at a store like Target.  They have an entire wall filled with flip-flops and hardly a handful of sandals.  I finally felt like part of my family of flip-floppers.  Here I am with Dova in my new flip-flops:



Dova has extra wide feet, so finding shoes and sandals to fit her is quite the chore.  Flip-flops don't care how wide your feet are, although there are some straps that are too tight for her to get her feet into.  Since her feet were so wide, I wanted to see if I could fit my feet into her kid size 13 flip-flops.



OMG, I could actually fit my feet into her flip-flops! Heels hang off the back a bit though .

Now back to Adam and my shoes.  Those heels actually fit him pretty well.  How is that possible?  He's only nine years old!   He wears a size 6 and upon investigation, that's the same as a women's size 7. That's pretty darn close to my shoe size of 8!  So I decided to try on his flip flops.



Wouldn't you know it, they fit just fine.  He has HUGE feet.

Now that I've gotten used to wearing flip-flops, I can even wear the one with the rubber straps now.  But most happily, I have opened a new world of fashionable footwear for myself.  I just picked up this pair of scarf flip-flops from Target.



Don't they match my work carpeting well?  But really, they are so cool, funky, hippy, dressy, so me!  Hooray!

WW - Perfect Balance

Dova has officially given up all sports except for gymnastics.  (Hooray or boo hoo, my soccer coaching career is over!).  I think her best apparatus is balance beam.  Ever since she was a tot, she has had amazing balance, whether it be on a beam, on skates or on skis.  Here's her routine:











We're so proud of you, Dova!

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Entertaining the Old and Young

At a family gathering last month, I was fortunate to capture my kids at their most charming.  Dova has always been quite precocious when talking to adults; she speaks clearly and eloquently beyond her six years.  I often forget that she is different from other kids because I see her every day.  When I go away on a trip however, she amazes me the first few minutes after I come back.  Talking to her is like talking to a pint-sized adult, often outspoken and amusing.  She sizes up situations and puts together complicated relationships lightning fast.  Nothing gets past her, nothing is ever forgotten, and she is never afraid to speak her mind.  Here she is patiently and happily conversing with her 88-year-old great uncle.





Adam is much more shy around people, and preferred to play with his baby cousin who turned one year old.



The one year old birthday girl had the special lotus flower fireworks candle on  her cake.  This is the first time I was able to fully capture the shooting sparks on camera.



I had my hand at entertaining both my uncle and baby cousin with my piano playing as well.  That is until my uncle said, "I think you should stop now, your children are jumping on the furniture."  This is modus operandi at our house, but apparently they don't realize that it is not acceptable behavior in other people's homes!  So much for charming kids.

Mother and Daughter Pumas

After going to the BMW Performance Driving School, the one thing that I absolutely wanted was a cute pair of driving shoes. So shortly after returning, I found these Puma shoes that fit the bill.



They are seriously cute.





I purchased these in April in the beginning of Dova's soccer season. She needed a new pair long sport pants, and we found this cute Puma suit on sale at Macy's.



Which also goes well with Doug's new M track jacket. Aren't we all just so sporty?



I hadn't seen the Puma brand since I've been high school. Looks they are making quite a comeback!

Silly Bandz Fever!

Several months ago, Dova and I were in a store where she stopped dead in front of a display of Silly Bandz.  I had no idea what they were and immediately said no. 

Silly Bandz Fun Shapes

Shortly after that, she started coming back from school with a variety of Silly Bandz on her wrists. She had won them from the prize jar from school for good behavior.  Every day she came back with a different set of Silly Bandz that she had traded with her friends.



Here is a sample from that day. They've all changed since!



I didn't catch the fact that she wore them for her soccer portrait.



In the latest school newsletter, we got this note about Silly Bandz:

Silly Bandz are colorful silicone/rubber band bracelets that come in different categories of shapes (animals, geometric shapes, alphabet, princess…) and have become very popular with some children. In school, while some are satisfied with wearing one or two on their wrists and enjoying this latest fad, others have become over-zealous with this new fashion. This includes pressuring others to trade; efforts to buy/sell; using them as rubber bands
to shoot at each other; wearing excessive amounts that interfere with writing/school work; taking them off to count or play with; finding/losing them;…and other examples that distract our children. Teachers are dealing with these problems according to their different grade levels; however it is clear that there have been problems in some classrooms. Please speak to your child if you feel that this might be a problem. Thank you for your cooperation.

I had no idea what an obsession this has become with the Kindergarten set! Lately she has been begging us to buy more Silly Bandz. Yesterday, I went to our local Rite Aid and asked whether they carried them. They did, but they were out and was receiving a shipment today. When we went again today at 7pm, they were sold out again. Dova was crushed. So much so that she holed herself into her room crying. Such begins the first of many fads in her life.  Lets hope that they are all this cheap!

Better Than a Picnic Memorial Day

The hosts of Boston's Hebrew National Better-Than-A-Picnic Picnic, Christine of Boston Mamas, Audrey of Mom Generations, Christy of Quirky Fusion, and Jodi of Mom's Favorite Stuff put on a fantastic outing at beautiful Artesani Park in Boston on Memorial Day.

Dova was pretty skeptical at first and spent time being shy and grumpy.



She barely broke a smile watching me ride the mechanical bull.  No one else in my family dared to have so much fun. Adam was a great photographer though.



Dova finally warmed up at the card making station for military service members sent to the Boston VA and Operation Gratitude.  Thank you service members!







Adam learned to play volleyball with another family.  He speaks the universal sports language so he had a blast.



Doug won the latest Peter Frampton CD, Thank You Mr Churchill, from 105.7 WROR.



And I got another Asian Invasion photo with Sandy (Momisodes) and Christine (Boston Mamas).



Last but not least, the lovely Christy (Quirky Fusion) took this photograph of our family before the kids ran off again.  Thanks Christy!



Thanks to the wonderful hosts, Boston Mamas, Mom Generations, Quirky Fusion, Mom's Favorite Stuff, Hebrew National and WROR for making it a great day!


Hosted by Cecilyand Krista