Wild Rose Tourmaline Bracelet

The newest addition to the Garden Collection, Wild Rose is subtly sophisticated. Two strands of small translucent tourmaline rondelles range from deep rose to delicate pink, yellow, and through shades of light and deep green shading to black. It is finished with a delicate square sterling silver clasp. It is 7.5 inches long. You can check it out at my Etsy store or at my website.

I've been working really hard to promote my jewelry recently, but I'm unsure whether it will pay off. I've joined EtsyLux, a group of Etsy sellers (Street Team) focused on promoting the finer works on Etsy. It's not just about pricing (although that is a large part of it). Part of it is a mentality - although there are sellers who sell gorgeous stuff for pennies, we're trying to promote the idea of Etsy as a place to get quality artisan pieces, not just handcrafted steals. Some of it as about the quality of the work, but sometimes artists (who make beautiful things - not just beginning crafters!) drastically undercharge for their time, expertise, and materials, either consciously in order to be competitive or simply because they don't value their work as they should. EtsyLux is NOT about overpricing - in fact many of us are STILL undercharging. But we're trying to recognize the value of craftsmanship, and promote that value to others as well. We value our own work enough to be confident in charging a price that's fair to us and to buyers.

I've also joined EJA, Eclectic Jewelry Artisans (another Street Team on Etsy). This group is more focused on jewelry (as should be obvious by the name).

www.shyviolet.net

Dog Park Frustration

My hubby and I take our dog to the dog park (an area on campus where you're allowed to have dogs off-leash - the only such location in the area) every now and then. We have a sheltie mix, who needs LOTS of exercise or he gets kind of nutty - runs laps in our apartment, that sort of thing. We want him to run and play, to get out his energy. He's a good dog - well behaved, always gentle, loves people, slightly scared of dogs but never snappy. He just runs to us and hides when other dogs sniff him too much.

Since he's scared of dogs, we try to mostly stay away from the big crowds of dogs and people at the park - we're there for him to run, not to be intimidated. This time, the weather was gorgeous, so we even brought a picnic. We sat well away from everyone, on our own.

BUT STILL, we were bothered! First, a dog that had jumped in the lake ran way the heck across the park just to sniff our dog, who of course ran around trying to get away. The big wet dog ran all over our picnic blanket, nearly body-slammed me while I was trying to protect my sandwich (sitting down, no shoes on), and then shook off 18 inches from my food! And of course the clueless owner was 150 feet away, calling the dog to no avail, etc. And did she apologize? No! Of course not!

Then later the same dog, an unneutered male, harassed and barked at another dog while it was trying to get out of the lake. The clueless girl took several minutes to even realize and decide that her dog was a problem, and then of course it was "Oh, why are you barking? I don't know what the problem is!" rather than doing anything for another minute or two before she pulled him away. Meanwhile the other dog was getting seriously tired because it couldn't get out (the edge is a concrete retaining wall, not just dirt).

Then we walked our dog through the other dogs to let him meet some of the smaller, less intimidating ones. He was doing ok with that until the SAME dog came over and chased him around a little. He wasn't really threatening, but our dog was scared. I know that was something to be expected, and I don't fault the owner for that really. But then, when our dog was cowering under my husband's feet, the dog lifted its leg and URINATED on my husband's leg! Of course we jumped away and pushed the dog away, but do you imagine the owner even knew?

NO, she was eating chinese takeout up with some guy. Now, I'm all about having a picnic in the glorious weather - we did that ourselves. But when you've had AT LEAST 2 instances of your dog being a problem in the last 30 minutes (and those were just the ones that we saw!), you ought to have the decency to at least pay attention to him!

I wanted to go up and chew her out for it (which is pretty unusual, I hate confrontation, but I was pretty ticked), or at least TELL her. But my sweet hubby said I shouldn't, because it wouldn't make any difference anyway. Irresponsible dog owners have problem dogs because they're irresponsible - someone alerting them to the fact that their dog is a problem makes no difference because they already know, they just don't care.

Now I wish I'd said something.

And it's not like she had a difficult to handle breed or anything, either. It was a yellow lab - any doofus who makes an effort can have a reasonably-behaved lab. And it would be one thing if she had a difficult dog but was there constantly TRYING to keep him in line - I would have assumed maybe he was a rescue dog, with a history of little discipline, that she was working with, or at the very least that she CARED enough to make an effort. But no, she was just oblivious and didn't care when it was obvious he was causing problems.

I'm glad she didn't have a more difficult to handle breed, like a pit bull or rottweiler - not because they're inherently bad dogs, but they're more dangerous in the hands of a clueless and uninvolved owner than a lab might be.

Phooey on irresponsible people.