Minerals

     As requested, here is a closer look at most of the raw minerals in my collection. I do have a few others, they did not want to photograph well. I got quite a lot of these at a local gem and mineral show recently. I few pieces came from wholesalers, and a couple came from local shops. There isn’t much else to say about them, but I am happy to answer questions, if I can. 

Needle malachite

Calcite

Fluorite with calcite

Barite

Azurite

Ruby (man-made. Don’t judge me, lol)

Calcite

Calcite

Smoky quartz

Calcite

Epidote 

Quartz

Fluorite

Celestite  

Pink dolomite 

Quartz with hematite 

Argonite

Sphalerite 

Druzy citrine

Prenite 

Argonite 

Top: pyrite, bottom: bismuth

Malachite in chrysocolla 

Citrine

amethyst

Sugar fluorite

Cobalt calcite 

Grape agate 

Fluorite 

Rainbow amethyst 

 

Crystals

    As I have mentioned, I have a large crystal collection. I have loved rocks since I was little, and have collected since I was very young. Though I mostly had small pieces and rarely got new ones. Several years ago, probably 15 actually, I started collecting more, and larger pieces. I really like towers and spheres, but I also love rocks that are natural and almost round, or egg shaped. I love rocks that look like they would be fun to wrap, since I also do wire wrapping. This was my first crystal display. I added to it slowly, and I had a few pieces just here and there in the house, but this was mostly what I had. 

     These days, I have a lot more crystals. I have this pink calcite gentleman werewolf. He wasn't my first gentleman werewolf but when I saw him I had to add him to my collection. 

       I have some cool skulls, both human and dragon, though these hang out with some of my plants. I have a lot of plants. Though not as many plants as crystals. I should take photos of this cool (human) skull. It has a druzy pocket in the top which is pretty cool, and a big part of the reason I bought this piece. 

      I have other carvings as well, including money toads, roses, and several other things. I did a lot of crystal buying in the past 6 months. It got a little crazy after I found the wholesalers. 

      I managed to add a variety of horses to my crystal collection. Some are from wholesalers, some are from etsy, and some are from local shops. And no, not every one of these is a horse, some are unicorns and some have wings, but they are all horse shaped stone carvings. 

      I have a small collection of carvings in rainbow fluorite, which was my absolutely favorite stone for years. I still love it, but I have other stones I am also equally drawn to now. I have dogs, wolves, bears, and so many other animals. 

       Lots of cats, and some owls, even a ram in yooperlite, which is UV reactive. I should get a picture of all the UV reactive stones and do another post on those. 

      I went to a local gem and mineral show and found a dealer that had nearly wholesale prices. I added so many minerals to my collection that day! A few came from other places, a few are not sparkly, but most of these minerals are blingy. I do love bling. I also ran into someone I do west coast swing with at that gem and mineral show. That was an interesting surprise!

     I have a variety of towers and teardrops. Palm stones, free forms, and more carvings. 

    For a while, anything that caught my eye was likely to get purchased and added to the collection. 

     I got a rainbow fluorite horse, a variety of eggs, druzy pieces, little skulls, bigger sculls, and slices. My collection has no focus, other than they are all rocks. 

      I almost forgot about the moons, I have those too. I think there are only 2 in these photos because I forgot to take a picture of the other ones. But I have several. 

    Remember how I said I like spheres? Well I definitely do. I tried to count them, but I think I forgot to count the ones in the living room. And maybe some of the smaller ones. But I did count 98 of them. Not every one is a different material, I think I have 2 or 3 sodalite spheres, because I am very drawn to that recently. I also have several different types of fluorite spheres, at least 2 are rainbow fluorite, though I think feather fluorite is also technically rainbow fluorite. And I have 2 carnelian spheres and at least 3 fire quartz spheres. I definitely have favorite materials. 

     I enjoy looking at my collection. I enjoy occasionally moving things around. Usually when I add something new. 

     I like to make sure that each piece can be seen fairly easily. All my displays are designed for me, so anyone taller or shorter won't have the same experience. I have some shelves that are a bit hard to view the things on (I have one that is basically on the floor) and most of the things on that shelf are near the front. It's not a good viewing shelf, but it seems like a waste of space not to use it at all, so I do. 

     My fire quartz collection also has a large crescent moon, but I forgot to add it to the shelf before I took this photo. Maybe some time I will do a post on just my fire quartz pieces. Or all the skulls, or something. 

      I won't be adding anything new to my collection for a while. With all of the expensive home repairs spending any money that isn't absolutely necessary feels really wrong. I may even go through the collection and pull out some more pieces to try to sell, though I do already have a box of pieces that are for sale. But like anything, reselling crystals is tough. 

     So I will continue to enjoy the crystals I have and maybe after a while I won't feel guilty if I add a piece or two to my collection. But really, I have a lot as it is. Maybe if I start to feel like I need something new I will just move everything around. Then it will feel like things are new, and I will get to see them up close. Like my sorting box. But that is a topic for another post. Does anyone have anything they wants a close look at?

And the Hits Just Keep on Coming

     I met the owner of my mobile home park the other day. He gave me a thorough lesson on plumbing, which was actually super interesting. He also seemed shocked and appalled by how much I was charged for the repair of my very old pipe, which he is sure is the original pipe from the 60's. And he would know. All that the plumber did was rehang the original pipe that fell off my house. And it was a very expensive job. The first I learned of this fancy new pipe was from my landlord. I wasn't even offered it as an option from Mr. Rooter. And when I called the company to find out why, the guy in the office was super condescending. I also never actually got an answer. 

        In general, living in a mobile home is pretty cost effective. But when you need repairs you sometimes end up paying a lot more than if you live in a traditional stick built house. Not everyone wants to work on a mobile home, or even knows how. So you often end up paying a premium price for potentially sub-standard work. It's frustrating. And recently I have had a variety of necessary repairs pop up unexpectedly. Not only did I have to pay quite a lot to have the lake of sewage cleaned up from under my place, but I paid a lot for the main pipe to the sewer to be rehung. And then I found it it was actually the sewer that was the issue, which likely caused the pipe to fall, and caused me to have a lake of sewage under my house. And the lake, though small, was back. I was super upset about that as you could probably imagine. 

        And that is actually how I finally met the guy that owns the park. The day after the maintenance guy came with an industrial snake and cleared a hairball of tree roots out of the sewer, the park owner came to do the cleanup himself. Wow. The water had sunk into the ground so the cleanup wasn't as tricky as the first round. They put a LOT of lime down, so no bacteria should survive that. And now the sewer is cleared out, so hopefully I won't have any more plumbing issues. 

     The next issue I have is that there is a lot of damage to the underbelly of my trailer. Some of it may have been caused by the water issue, but some of it might just have been from tome. The skirting on most of one side is off and the framing that holds it up is rotted or broken. Did I mention how hard it is to find anyone to work on a mobile home? Well I got a tip from the maintenance guy about a man that was working on one of my neighbor's places. The maintenance guy got me the contact info and I gave him a call. 

    So I met Bud and I got a quote for the work I need done. While I am sure it is entirely fair, it is still scarily expensive. Especially after all of the other expensive repairs I have had to do lately. I am going to try to sell things, though I have already sold bunches of things at a variety of different times, so I don't even really have that much left to sell. No matter what, it still won't be enough to cover the expenses. It is a pretty rough spot I am in at the moment. But, similar to when the studio flooded, I am choosing to look on the bright side of this. I found someone who works on mobile homes, and he does beautiful work. He is willing to work on the underbelly, he knows what he is doing, and I really need to get it done. Once the work is done I will have a much more energy efficient home so it will save me money. And I will have access doors into the skirting so I can continuously look underneath to ease my paranoia. Because I will now be paranoid about water forever. 

     People often say that bad things come in 3's. I had the studio flood, the drain pipe to the sewer fall and cause the sewage flood, and now the expensive repairs to the underbelly. I should be past the the bad now. I hope so. I really need for things to get easier. 
 

The Reconstruction of Field of Dolls Studio. Part 3

      My studio has been a mess, or not usable, since  early February. In April, the demolition and reconstruction started. It was a long process, but was worth the wait. Yesterday, I talked about putting up shelves, getting my desk put back together, and getting the studio ready to put all my stuff back in. And now, after nearly 4 months, my studio is all back together and ready to use again. 

   There will be some more tweaks happening this week. I am waiting on another small shelf and some more acrylic risers. Those should be here today. I am sure I will move some things around a bit until I like where everything is. I will also have to get used to working in the newly designed space. Things are not necessarily where they used to be. 

     I should have a little bit more room for horses, though I don’t know that any new horses will catch my eye. When the studio was wrecked, I sold a bunch of horses. I was ready to let go of a bunch more. I still love them, but I am going to try to be extremely discerning about anything new I get in the future. As you can possibly tell from my studio photos, I also have a large collection of crystals and minerals. Maybe I will do a post of just my rock collection. It’s pretty extensive at this point. I need to try to be more discerning about that collection too now. 

     I still need to take the minis and micros out of the boxes they have been in for months. The shelf they used to be displayed on got ruined when the waterfall came in, so the acrylic risers I am waiting for will be for tiny horses. I might be able to get the old shelf repaired, but I don’t know for sure. 

     So after a long wait, and a lot of work, my studio is pretty much back together. That should be the end of things, and great news. But I discovered yesterday that the pipe under my house, that was just repaired, is leaking. The lake, that I just paid a lot of money to have cleaned, is back. It’s not as large yet, but it is still there. I am extremely frustrated. There may actually be an issue with the sewer, which is absolutely not my responsibility, but Travis and I will be the ones that suffer while I try to get this all taken care of. Again. But as of right now, I have no idea when everything that needs to be fixed will actually be fixed. And I am frustrated again.