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Stella's Place 
Good mornin’ kids! We are nearly a quarter of the way through the first month of this new year. Coffee’s ready, so get your cup filled up and carpe something today!
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Mornin’ Tex!
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Good morning to you, Texan!
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Need this. Inside the house it was 62* when I woke up, outside 32*. Both are warming now, and the cup in my hand is thawing my fingers…
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Brr! You’re colder than we are czarina.
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Morning T!
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Mornin’ ladies! I stayed up past my bedtime last night so I’m not getting a real early start to the rest of my day. 😀
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I am so shocked! The gubmint has “revised” their job numbers for last year…………downward by 439,000. That’s a bunch. This last report we got a couple days ago will be revised downward in another couple weeks. We all know this, but I just hope that someone in the “media” actually starts reporting this caca.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/initial-us-employment-reports-overstated-by-439-000-jobs-in-2023/ar-AA1mzcM4?ocid=msedgntp&pc=W099&cvid=2596fd98eb4f4b838834064bdc76b50a&ei=27
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Can you imagine all the stuff they are not going to truthfully publish this next year? Everything is going to be made up.
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Has been for 3 years, now – at least.
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Stellars, have a blessed winter Sunday….
Jamnik Church of Saints Primus and Felician, Jelovica Plateau, Slovenia…
St. Basil’s Orthodox Cathedral, Red Square, Moscow, Russia…
Gergeti Trinity Church, Stepantsminda, Georgia…
Hallgrímskirkja Lutheran Church, Reykjavík, Iceland…
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I was just wondering when the two red stars were place on the spires. Seems a Soviet touch.
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Hi, Czarina! You’ve brought up a very interesting subject. It’s actually the angle of the photo which makes the building with the red star seem a part of St. Basil’s. Here’s a better angle photo which includes the Spasskaya Tower which is part of the Kremlin …
“After the rise of the Soviet Union, in 1936 Joseph Stalin replaced the two-headed eagle on top of the Spasskaya Tower with a red star because he wanted to remove all evidence of the former Tsarist period. The star rotates in 360°. The height of the tower with the star is 71 meters.” (Wikipedia)
9 facts you didn’t know about the Kremlin stars
https://www.rbth.com/arts/2015/08/28/9_facts_you_didnt_know_about_the_kremlin_stars_48823.html
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Have they replaced the Soviet Star with something else? I vote to restore the eagle.
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Mornin’ y’all!
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Good afternoon, Miz Wee! Am I mistaken or is this lying faker not getting very much publicity in recent days?
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Terminal attention hoe, is she not?? Evenin’ Lucille!
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A Blessed Sunday to all.
Romans 5:3–4, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope …”
Woke this morning to the northern wind blowing down out of Canada and a dusting of snow on the ground. It appears that winter has finally arrived on the prairie.
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Stay warm! Good morning to you, and Happy Sunday.
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The models show Canada will be in misery end of this week. Showing our area in Oregon dropping to -20F, but they’re still guessing at this point.
Have ablessed week, ‘maus!! 🙂
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National Bobblehead Day – you can get one made in your image!
National Tempura Day- yeah, anything fried is good.
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I bobble enough on my own. Don’t think I need a doll!
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Favorite bobblehead:
Don’t know if President Trump likes tempura, but if I ever meet him, I’ll ask. As for me, I love it.
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Our Favorite Sunday Columnist has some thoughts this week on Higher Ed and DIE. She’s not impressed with either one, and her Spidey senses are telling her that the pendulum is starting to swing back to some semblance of reality.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/01/higher_education_dei_and_cargo_cultism.html
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You mean there could be hope for our grandkids? 🙂
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An article about a use for our old coffee grounds. I take this with a bit of a grain of salt as the opening of the article talks about the evils of “organic waste” and its effect on glo-bull warming and climate change, but they have also found that if heated up to a much higher temperature than our coffee pot will do, the grounds can be added to strengthen concrete. The science is never settled, kids!
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-discover-an-amazing-practical-use-for-leftover-coffee-grounds
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I just do as many have done, put them in the garden.
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And this is why we can’t have nice things. When one has more concern for good tomatoes and not the planet, we slide down that slippery slope to oblivion. 😉
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Tex,
Not to worry, last time I checked, tomatoes were planted in the earth, which is part of the planet.
Little earthworms must eat, too!
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We do, too.
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Morning – oops no – afternoon All!
So it started snowing late yesterday afternoon. We have at least a foot of snow. I don’t know how wet & heavy or light & dry. Ugh! I just opened the door and it’s pretty wet. Before it gets dark I’m going to have to trudge out to the propane tank and generator to clear them for air circulation. Sigh. I’m still sore from lugging literally hundreds of pounds of dirt and stone dust last weekend trying to fix my driveway.
So here are some pretty fun garnet items to take our minds off the weather and our chores:
1st, A Tiffany & Co. Demantoid Garnet & Diamond Fish Brooch Date of Manufacture: 20th Century
and a set of “Flyaway Ladybug” Garnet Gold Cuff links Period: 1950-1959
Have a great day!
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Love the fish!
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Fun cuff links! The fish sorta grows on you, doesn’t it? Amazing…green garnets!!
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I don’t understand how they can tell a stone is a garnet or a peridot or whatever if not by the color. Oh I know one is harder than another and can scratch the softer one, but do they go around scratching all the stones up just to ID them?
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Each type of stone is unique in its internal structure and that can be determined via microscope. A good gemologist doesn’t often get fooled, but it’s not always easy to determine just by color what a gemstone is. One of the British crowns had what was thought to be a huge ruby and it turned out to be a spinel.
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Lucille is correct. A gem type is determined by its chemical and internal structure. Color wouldn’t be a good indicator. For instance, there are several typically green stones – emerald and peridot are just two good examples.
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Lab grown gems are now the big problem to distinguish from natural mined. It is my understanding they are chemically the same crystal grown from a gem ‘seed’. Explained to ma as if you took a wild rose and grew it in a hothouse.
From gemsociety dot org: Gem identification involves conducting tests of a gem’s optical and physical properties to narrow a list of possibilities down to one. It also involves observation tempered by knowledge and experience. The most helpful information are the properties known as refractive index and specific gravity. If one is known, the list of gems that could have that property is immediately reduced to a dozen or two. If both are known, the list may well be under ten possible gems. The next set of properties I’m likely to identify depends on what possibilities still exist. The choices include spectroscopic analysis, birefringence, optic sign, pleochroism, and reaction to ultraviolet light. By taking enough measurements, one can start with a list of hundreds of possible minerals and, hopefully, systematically eliminate possibilities down to one.
Here from discover.gia.edu is an example of the type of computerized tester used fro diamonds: The growing availability of laboratory-grown diamonds makes it more difficult for jewelers to accurately separate natural diamonds from man-made stones. Until now. The GIA iD100® gem testing device combines advanced spectroscopic technology and more than 60 years of GIA diamond and gemstone identification research to deliver a sophisticated and easy-to-operate desktop instrument to screen your stones. Small, yet powerful, the GIA iD100 gives you a simple and clear determination. The GIA iD100 uses fluorescence spectroscopy. There is even a Pink Diamond Software Upgrade.
Natural pink and blue, as well as green and yellow diamonds can cost millions of dollars, as well as some rubies, emeralds, jadeite jade, and other extremely rare gems. Natural blue diamonds can go for millions per carat. I recently saw a 1 carat natural pale blue diamond on sale for $600,000.
Even though I like to look and learn about jewelry, I don’t have any expensive jewelry, and would not want any. I don’t like wearing jewelry. I have to force myself to wear a medic alert bracelet – maybe that’s why I like looking at it.
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Good day, G&C! Though I’m not really into fish or bugs in jewelry form, this fish is adorable. The type of green garnet shown is quite sought after.
Interesting article: DEMANTOID GARNET
https://www.edwardflemingjewellery.com/demantoid-garnet
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What an interesting article. I’ll have to look at that site – thank you 😉
I took so long to reply to Czarina, (way past lunchtime – I’ve been outside in the snow) others have answered in a much more concise manner 🙂 I do tend to get carried away sometimes. I find it fascinating.
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No worry. It was just an idle thought but I know Stella’s would have good info.
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Afternoon All. We had gotten some snow each day in the last few days. Last night we got some more. I understand the weather guessers are saying we will have a LOT more this week and especially next weekend. I guess winter is actually here now. It is 24* and feels really really cold. I guess it is the wind because it hasn’t seemed that cold even though it has been down in the 20’s for a couple of weeks, off and on. The heater is running like crazy.
Hope you all are staying warm.
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Good afternoon, aus! It’s trying to snow today with a teensy bit of flakes coming down. It is COOOOOLD though. I just had a Walmart delivery and bringing all the items inside reminded me that I have to bundle up even for a minute outdoors.
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Yes, yesterday the air temp here did not seem too cold, but the wind was very cold and damp.
It was 19* when I was out earlier. We got about 14-16 inches of snow. In a couple of days it will be 52* and raining. Oh well that’s OK. I remember when we were first looking for houses up here there was so much snow that built up we could not read the street signs to keep track of where we were, and it was hard to even see topography around the houses. It was like open top white tunnels you’d be driving through. A year before that we had almost no snow here.
Ok, a late ‘lunch’ is on the stove so I have to get going. I may just go to bed after I eat. I’ve had a lot of physical work to do lately. My friend sleeps from 9pm to 5am when her husband gets up to go to work. I’d be ok doing that. I wish I could actually. It’s better than insomnia until 230am and not waking up until late.
Take care all 😉
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Not sure if this would be helpful, but I went through a very stressful patch last year and had insomnia almost every night. I’d go to sleep right away but wake up at about midnight to 2:am. Discovered that with the use of deep controlled breathing AND getting a special ‘neutral’ song in my head, sleep would come quickly. My song was ‘La mer’ (instrumental version). Another almost instant sleep practice was thinking The Lord’s Prayer…usually only once!
There are also self-hypnosis MP3 downloads you can buy on the internet; we have found them safe and effective.
Hope you can overcome it, G&C, as insomnia is not very healthy! 🙂
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Thank you Weather. I’m sorry to hear of your stress last year, but it sounds like you have bounded back.
I had to look up the song. Even though I played the instrumental now I have Bobby Darin stuck singing the words in my head hahaha 😉 which is OK. You’re right, it has a nice smooth tune. I will look into the deep controlled breathing. I have not heard of that. I do not have MP3. I am concerned about a hypnosis tape. Do you remember the name of the one you purchased? I do say at least the Lord’s prayer when I go to bed. It does help. I am surprised with all the physical work I now have to do I’m not sleeping better, but Dear Hubby’s birthday was in December and it’s my 1st holiday season in 41 years without him.
Thanks again for your advice Weather.
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Funny about Bobby Darin; he gets stuck in my head too sometimes, but not when I’m focusing on the instrumental. You can choose your own neutral melody, though.
We were unsure about self-hypnosis at first, but I guarantee it is very safe and helpful. Barrie St John is very good…you have to play it a few times before becoming comfortable enough for it to work. It’s amazing…you just ‘go to sleep’ and wake up at the end! We bought a cheap MP3 player just for that; or maybe a family member could loan you one. Here’s the link:
https://www.selfhypnosis.com/the-hypnotherapists/barrie-st-john/
Actually, I sing The Lord’s Prayer in my mind; this is the rendition I use:
Hope this helps, G&C; life can be challenging but then suddenly turns bright. I wish you bright times! 🙂
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I’m so sorry about your sad anniversary in December…a person is part of the fabric of your life after 41 years.
Yes, Bobby Darin gets stuck in my head sometimes :), but not when I’m ‘hearing’ the instrumental. You can choose your own ‘neutral’ song, though.
We were cautious about self-hypnosis, too; but I guarantee it is not harmful at all. You have to listen a few times before your mind will cooperate, but it’s amazing – you just ‘go to sleep’ and wake up when it’s finished. We bought a cheap MP3 player, but maybe a family member has one you can use. Barrie St John is really good, though, as is Donna Lee:
https://www.selfhypnosis.com/the-hypnotherapists/barrie-st-john/
Also, I actually sing this rendition of The Lord’s Prayer in my mind:
Anyway, hope some of this helps you; life can be so challenging until the bright times come!
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“The song of His glory has been going on long before we were here. We’re just joining in.” – Phil Wickham
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