Customer photo

Usually I never know what happens once jewelry leaves my hands. I loved getting this photo from a customer, who said her fiance bought her this ring as an engagement ring!

How did he know her size? Impressive!

The ring is stamped with one of my favorite phrases, "Ani l'dodi v'dodi li," meaning, "I am my beloved's and he is mine," Song of Solomon.

Why I Love Houston

Besides the amazing vastness of Houston, and getting to see all of the family, here are the places I have EATEN since I got here on Saturday:

Old Hickory Inn
Luby's Cafeteria
Goode Company Taqueria
India's
Sweet Tomato
La Madeliene

More to come. . .

Holiday orders

When places are starting to OPEN, you know you've been up too late.

Now I am at the mercy of the US postal service! Let's all cross our fingers. . .

Happy holidays and good night! Or should I say good morning?

Festival of Lights

This weekend was all Hanukah all the time.

We did candles

played dreidle

and opened lots of presents


Whew, 3 kids times 8 nights of Hanukah. That's a lot of wrapping!

Guess who

In the midst of holiday shopping for the family, I found these on etsy for myself - custom silhouette prints. Can you guess who's who?

I love them! They somehow capture each of their personalities. You can get your own made at Le Papier Studio.

The Gold Rush

Classic

Abstract

For the dogs

What ever your style, what could be a better investment during this wintry economic climate than pure, solid, 14k gold! Create your own in my etsy shop.

A clump of Ostrin

How cute are all the little Ostrins when they are clumped together?

Hmm, I wonder what they are looking at. . .

Mount Diablo

When we moved here, I had no idea that Tilden Regional Park is 10 minutes from our house, Sausalito and Marin County are 30 minutes away, and as I discovered today, Mount Diablo is a short 45 minute drive through the Berkeley Hills.


We had a snack break at "Rock City" about halfway down, where the kids loved climbing and exploring.


This is the beauty of living on the San Andreas Fault!

Happy Thanksgiving to Me!

And to you, too (but really to me). Instead of my making a dry turkey, canned cranberry sauce, and a jar of gravy, Edwin came home hours before I expected, and made the juiciest turkey, cranberry sauce from real cranberries, and gravy from actual turkey bits.

And this is what I saw when I woke up from my nap :)

How fun that Uncle Max and Cameron could join us. SO, in honor of Edwin's hard work, I made this while he was cleaning up :)

Customize your own for your special guy in my etsy shop.

Visionaries

We spent this weekend at a UC Berkeley Vision Science conference on Tomales Bay.

It was set at the Marconi conference center. I think my talk was a success, if you are interested in the autonomic innervation to the anterior segment and its relationship to accommodation and emmetropization.

And we squeezed in a trip to the Pointt Reyes Lighthouse, the windiest point on the Pacific coast.

But that wasn't too off topic, since this lighthouse uses a first order Fresnel lens, which intensifies the light by refracting and magnifying the source light through crystal prisms into concentrated beams.

And thank you Edwin for occupying the little people while I was doing science, and not letting them blow off the cliff.

Not your typical Under Her Charm

I can't believe I am messing around with new pieces, when I haven't even put together my talk for SUNDAY, but I think I made my new favorite necklace.

You can find it in my etsy shop for a limited time.

My day job

Not a bad view.

Take flight

Love on the rocks

Something about this necklace reminds me of my great great grandfather's grave in Israel. There, they put rocks on the graves for remembrance.

Crystal clear

Is this the fattest lens you've ever seen or what?

and how cool is that ciliary body! Don't mind the vitreous. . .

Hear, O Israel

Hear, O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is one.

Halloween ready

Everyone is so excited for Halloween weekend in my house. Since I'm going to have some little vampires running around, I decided to get in the spirit with this cute little fang necklace (the sum total of my halloween costume).

Thanks so much to anastassiadesigns for featuring them in her spooky halloween treasury!

I love those hair clips!

Still practicing

2000 hearts

Yesterday my etsy shop hit 2000 hearts!

I think I deserve some new boots for that.

Charming charms

PMC is way too much fun. I'm never going to get any work done!



And thanks to Edwin and Uncle Max for taking everyone to the zoo while I was in my class! It looks like they must have had a really good time!

PMC done right

So a couple months ago I attempted to make several PMC pieces. Much to my dismay, it was much trickier than I had anticipated, and decided I needed a little more help.

It all came together today. Thanks to a birthday gift from my mom, a day off to be with the kids from Edwin, and the help and guidance of an amazing artisan, Catherine Witherell, I made this pmc birdhouse in class today, complete with little birdies!


Don't expect to see any pmc pieces in my Etsy shop. I need a LOT more practice!

How was Lila's day?

Lila and Ben were fortunate enough (or I was fortunate enough!) to get into the UC Berkeley pre-school and day care, since it is right here on campus with me. I love that I always get a cute description of some of Lila's activities in her "report" each day. Yesterday's was especially cute, so here it is:

"Lila like to digging a hole in sand box then filled dried leaves in it and doing this activity for long time."

How cute is that! I wish I could have seen that activity. I just have to settle for pictures when I'm in lab.

Ben's Pumpkin Patch Party

Cake

Face painting

Pizza

Friends and grandparents

Happy 4th!

Supersize me!

I've been carrying my signature Family Cluster necklace for about 2 years.

Every now and then, I get a request for LARGER cluster necklaces, so I have replicated the family cluster in super size!

Sweet Sentiments

I am totally going larger and longer with my necklaces these days. I love the way this 2 disc necklace came out. The smaller 3/4" disc is the anniversary couple, and the 1" disc has the phrase, "Always on my mind, forever in my heart," all in my newest calligraphy font!

Front page of etsy

Well, not ME on the front page. I was being so crafty with the kids yesterday, and we attempted to make Halloween chocolates for Ben's upcoming pumpkin patch party. Everything went so well, until I tried to release them from the mold, when everything fell apart (literally).

How funny to open Etsy this morning to see the same chocolates on the front page, looking delicious and perfect!

Next time, I'll have to plan ahead and get them from Fancy That Cookies!