Blue Windows

There was a time when I knew every poem on every piece of Jeanine Payer’s jew­elry. That was of course when her col­lec­tion was quite a bit smaller. Blue Windows would not be the same with­out her jew­elry. For the past 10 years I have been inspired by the poetry, cre­at­ing dis­plays and watch­ing in awe of her vision. I am so excited that she will be com­ing to the store on May 7th dur­ing Mother’s Day week­end. Of course I am scram­bling to make the store look the best it can be for this spe­cial event. My brain tends to go on over­load with ideas and plan­ning. I am cre­at­ing a col­lage from the past 10 years and it is bring­ing back a ton of mem­o­ries. Like when I was man­ag­ing the store and couldn’t afford to buy her jew­elry. I des­per­ately wanted one and even­tu­ally bought the “stella” ring. “Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story” was the per­fect poem for just grad­u­at­ing with a music degree. Over the years I have col­lected many of her pieces but always made a promise to myself that each piece I pur­chase would have a mean­ing to it. A mem­ory built in. When I first bought Blue Windows I pur­chased the “Faye” to always remind me “I want to be for­ever the me that greets change with open arms and heart”. I was about to embark on quite a change in my life and I knew I had to greet this change with con­fi­dence. When the store cel­e­brated it’s 10 Year Anniversary I pur­chased the “Dale” neck­lace with “Nothing is impos­si­ble to a will­ing heart” on the front and “Blue Windows 10 year anniver­sary” on the back. I do have many other pieces that sig­nify moments, tri­umphs in my life or just a day when a poem spoke to me at that time in my life. Honestly that is why I am so drawn to Jeanine’s jew­elry. Each piece speaks dif­fer­ently to every­one. Sometimes I will have read a cer­tain poem over and over and then a cus­tomer will come in and give me a whole new per­spec­tive on what it means to them. I look for­ward to this event and to many more years of Jeanine Payer in my store!

“Dale”

“Wolfgang”

I am now into the fourth month of my char­i­ties and am begin­ning to real­ize that I may not be the best at keep­ing up with the jour­nal aspect. April is about to become May and I haven’t even writ­ten about my April char­ity. This month I chose Precious Lamb, a preschool that pro­vides “free christ-centered edu­ca­tion and care” for chil­dren in Long Beach. Parents can also receive the help they need to get back on their feet through par­ent edu­ca­tion classes spon­sored by Precious Lamb at local shel­ters in the com­mu­nity. Please visit their web­site at www.preciouslamb.org for more infor­ma­tion. I can’t wait to visit the school and see first hand what the vol­un­teers pro­vide for these chil­dren. Buy any­thing from our kids sec­tion and 10% of the sale will go to this amaz­ing organization.

Heather