“Nimue’s Eternal” Necklace

PRICE= $282

The Nimue’s Eternal necklace has a neck opening of 18″. It was designed to hang on the mid-chest, with the longest hanging bead of the triangle hitting about an inch above the start of the cleavage. If you wanted to customize the length more, you could wear it shorter, but not longer or it wouldn’t hang right. To give you an idea of the size of the triangle, it’s about 2-3/4″ wide and approximately the same long. The original piece weighs in at 2 ounces on my postal scale here in the office, just so you have an idea of weight. However, it doesn’t feel heavy… it just feels substantial and slinky. It’s crafted in sterling silver and looks best polished bright. The beads are lovely faceted ovals in rainbow moonstone, which is a natural gemstone. They are an iridescent milky-whitish and glint turquoise, dark blue, teal blue, and even some pinks as they catch the light.

If you need it longer or shorter, send me an email to cynthia at cynthiaclinton dot com. There’s no charge to make it shorter, but making it longer would require extra materials and time. If you need it longer, I can either craft it longer or I can make a matching extension. If you think your weight might vary, I recommend the extension because then you can remove the extender or get a longer one, based on your needs. Email me for info and price if you need it longer or want an extender.

Be bold. Be happy.

The Inspiration Behind This Piece

This one is probably, hands-down, my favorite necklace I’ve ever made. It’s oh-so-slinky to touch and interact with and fills the chest area very nicely. For instance, let’s say you were going to an event and the neckline of your gown was much lower than you were used to; you’d feel exposed. Put on a necklace like Nimue’s Eternal and you have something beautiful that visually fills the space, leaving you feeling much less exposed. Plus, you have the reassurance that the eyes are going to the necklace rather than the chest that’s exposed.

But Nimue’s Eternal is more than just a space filler. It’s a glittering chest piece that can be successfully worn with any style of outfit, save say… sweat pants. That would have to be one hell of a track suit! It can be worn with a cool jeans outfit, with evening wear, and with business wear. It looks great with the really nice tube tops (not the kind we wore in the 70’s lol), with button-down styles, with scoop necks, with v-necks, and even with crew necks.

The name of the necklace is Nimue’s Eternal, which is a possessive Nimue rather than a contratction for “Nimue is”. That said, you may be wondering who Nimue is. Nimue is one of several names for the Lady Of The Lake. Here are some folkloric references to the Lady Of The Lake: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_of_the_Lake and http://www.angelfire.com/me2/camelot/Merlin.html. I love all the romantic Arthurian legends and I design much of my maille jewelry in the spirit of adorning these beautiful leading ladies of yore.

When I was a little girl, my parents got me this small set of paperback books with old, old fairy tales in them such as The Frog Prince and Princess Belle-Etoile, which were illustrated by Walter Crane. Those images of the women in their garb and elegance have stayed with me my whole life. And in my web design career, I can honestly blame my love of typography on Walter Crane as well.

I also have a love for the paintings by John William Waterhouse, especially his Lady Of Shallot - but that’s a whole ‘nother necklace ;).

Some days I feel like one of these beautiful ladies (or I want to feel like one of them) and I love having something to put on that evokes that feeling for me. It’s in this spirit that I share this necklace with you :D.

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Price: $110
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The Brio Collection Y-Necklace

Handmade bead-chain with swirling s-clasp, the Brio Collection Y-Necklace can be worn with clasp in front or in back for two different looks. Worn in front, it’s a Y-necklace. Put the clasp in back and it’s a choker/collarette with a sexy dangle down the back (which is beautiful on gals with short hair).

Available in Sterling Silver with Hematite. This handmade item is made to order and ships in 2 weeks. Neck opening is approximately 15-3/4 inches. Measure your neck (or a similar length necklace) before you buy! The clasp is meant to lay against your middle chest, between collarbone and cleavage, so please keep that in mind when measuring. If you’re local to 95020, you can make an appointment with me, if you want, and I’ll measure you myself.

Custom sizing available, at price of $7 per inch you want added to the length. To order additional inches, request it in the box on the order form and I will send you a PayPal payment request for the difference in price. If there’s no box at the cart to leave a note, shoot an email to me (cynthia at cynthiaclinton dot com) and we’ll do it that way.

Gemstone Disclosure:
HEMATITE= (N) Natural/May be synthetic.

*Hematite can be man-made so accurately that there isn’t really a difference between the two anymore, so when I order Hematite beads, I really don’t know what I’m getting. I try to buy what is specified as natural but it still shows the “may be synthetic” disclaimer. They are chemically the same.

To order the Brio Collection Y-Necklace,
click the Buy Now button below:

Inspiration For Making This Necklace

This necklace is part of a collection. When I design a collection, I try to have some complex pieces as well as simpler pieces. I love Y-Necklaces because most of them - including this one- clasp in the front, which makes them easy to get on and off. Plus, I designed this with a large clasp that’s easy to work with even with long and/or artificial nails. I’ve always hated fiddling clasps that split or break my nails.

Another big plus about Y-Necklaces is that they look great with any kind of neckline. Some necklace styles only look their best with certain necklines. However, a Y-necklace looks fabulous and sexy showing between the long, narrow “v” of a button down shirt, very pretty against the skin with any open necked blouse, like a scoop, v-neck, etc. It looks equally good against a blouse such as when worn with crew neck, boat neck, princess neck. It’s a necklace style you can grab over and over, especially when you have other Hematite accessories such as bracelets or earrings.

I chose Hematite for the stone because Hematite seems classier than plain black sometimes (I think because it isn’t so somber) and this is a stone that goes with everything. It has such a beautiful glimmer that looks great for an evening out, with business wear, with jeans, even with a bikini. You name it and Hematite is pretty enough for the occasion.

If you have any questions or any problem at all ordering, simply email me and I’ll fix you right up (cynthia at cynthiaclinton.com).

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The Back Story

When I heard that getting hearing aids was imminent, I started checking into whether my BlackBerry was hearing aid compatible. I dug around everywhere online and couldn’t find anything to indicate that it was. In fact, hearing aid compatibility wasn’t mentioned at all on the BlackBerry site, at least not for the BlackBerry Pearl, which I owned.

I adored my BlackBerry Pearl and couldn’t even imagine living without it. Until I realized I was getting hearing aids, that is. If my BlackBerry wasn’t hearing aid compatible then I could wind up with only having texting capability, which wasn’t okay with me since there are still many, many people out there who do not text. Some don’t have cell phones and some with cell phones don’t have a cell phone or cell phone plan that supports texting. Some just refuse to pay extra for it. Being a technology-loving hearing-impaired person, I pay extra for it. However… I don’t want to be limited to texting because, frankly, I also pay for cell PHONE service and want to get my money’s worth. Additionally, it cuts me off from part of my audience.

That being said, I’m a hardcore RIM and BlackBerry fan who had to step away from BlackBerry due to life circumstances and attempt to find another phone that could give me the same functionality as the BB - or at least the features I used the most since I didn’t use the BB to its utmost potential. I didn’t want to give up the features I was used to using like email, IM, texting, speakerphone, bluetooth connectivity, the ability to post to twitter and other social media, the ability to take and send pictures, and web surfing.

So I shopped around for a phone that was hearing aid compatible all the while remembering my friend Lindsay’s beautiful LG Lotus. I didn’t know that much about the lotus other than it was the most beautiful cell phone I’d seen anywhere. My only wish was that it was also available in these additional colors: deep, deep red, lime-ish green, and copper (so that it looked like copper foil) all with the same raised flower design. I also wished they’d had a black version with the raised flower design.

• Not just IM capability, but IM by several carriers and I don’t have to pick one… I can use them all and flip back and forth between them.
• Full QWERTY keyboard for texting.
• A music player on the front, which admittedly, I don’t use.
• Speakerphone.
• Bluetooth capable.
• Applications for the home screen like weather, horoscopes or a stock ticker.
• Web surfing w/favorites for quick access.
• Email, not from just certain pop emails or whatever, but also from 3rd party emails like Gmail and I don’t need a separate app for each type. Like the IM, I can just flip back and forth from type to type by clicking the tabs
• Real, fully-functional GPS which I thought my BB was supposed to have but didn’t really. I didn’t have to pay anything extra - I just had to sign up right through my phone. Took less than 5 minutes and it works AWESOME!
• I can check and post to my MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• I can add tons of shortcuts.
• I can access my account info right from my phone.
• Direct access to Google.
• By default, the phone doesn’t beep or make horrible noises when I get a text message or anything. A portion of the message will flash on the screen and a very discreet light will flash on and off very quickly. This is so unobtrusive that it doesn’t even wake me up at night. The BB would wake me with its flashing. The LG Lotus is very classy & discreet.
• It’s got Maps.
• It’s got Music, TV, Games.
• It’s got a 2mp camera.
• It’s got a camcorder and for lengths I can choose Video Mail or Long Video.
• It’s got a great alarm clock that is even better than the one I had with my BB. I can set up to 3 daily (or not daily) alarms, there is another alarm called Walk The Dog that I could actually use as a 4th alarm and it even has a Quick Alarm which is nap or walk timer that you can set for 1 minute later, 10 mins later, 30 mins later, or an hour later without have to dink with selecting a time or even knowing what time it is now - I just select how many minutes later I want it to go off.
• I can add multiple phone numbers and email for each contact and distinguish between them. If I want to text my friend, John, but his home number comes up first, I’ll tell me that number cannot receive texts and ask if I want to continue, so then I can say no and simply hit the left or right arrow to scroll through the numbers I have for him to get the right one.
• It came with a mini-SD card and an SD card adapter so I can just pop the mini out of the phone and into the adapter and plug it into my computer to download my pictures - just like a regular camera. All without having to plug in my phone. Groovy! And… you can add more memory. It supports up to a 12gb SD card.
• It’s got voice-activated dialing, though I admit I haven’t tried it yet. It’s on my list of things to do, though! Could be very useful in an emergency and much safer while driving since you can’t really be caught holding a phone anymore.
• It supports up to 3G speeds where available.
• And… the cord is the neatest I’ve seen so far. The charging cord comes apart in 2 pieces. The USB cord, plugs right into a regular male plug you’d plug into the wall - this is for charging. If you want to use your phone as modem or otherwise connect phone to computer, you snap off the electrical plug and plug it into your computer.

To be honest there is one noticeable downside to the LG Lotus. The full QWERTY keyboard is very tight. The buttons are raised “pillows” so that you don’t have to have your finger on the whole button or you can use your thumbnails like I do, but it’s a pain. Even after having the phone 3 or 4 months now, I’m still not as fast at typing on it as I was on the BB. The BB Pearl has 2 letters on each key and it has sure-type software which mostly accurately guesses what you are typing. You don’t need that with the Lotus since each letter has it’s own key (you press the function key to type numbers and punctuation), so you’d think it would be faster, right? But sadly… no. The small keyboard is kind of hobbling and that reduces thumb-typing speed. I imagine it would be hellish if I had fake nails, but I can’t confirm since I haven’t had the luxury of fake nails in awhile.

Would the cramped keyboard keep me from purchasing an LG Lotus again? No way. Do regret my purchase because of it? No way! It’s just inconvenient is all and text messaging is not as quick and enjoyable as it once was. Now, I kind of groan when I have to text and I avoid responding to email via the phone, tho I will read it.

So there you have it. There are many, many pluses to using the LG Lotus and just one tiny drawback. Virtually every cell phone or smart phone out there has at least one drawback, so don’t let it stop you from owning this classy, pretty phone. The LG Lotus is just like a woman… pretty AND smart!

I do recommend getting one of those clear covers for it, though. The case doesn’t really scratch easily but the outside screen as well as the inside screen both show fingerprints like crazy.

NEWSFLASH! The LG Lotus now comes in a red, but they change the raised pattern. The red is a “tattooed paisley”. That raised design doesn’t grab me as much as the raised design on the purple does, but it’s bound to appeal to a lot of other people. Beautiful! Want one yet? You know you do!

Oh, and if the guys don’t like the raised designs or the colors, they can still play too. The LG Lotus is available in a slick, shiny black!

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I’m a personal development counselor…

Firstly, I’m not a psychotherapist or psychologist. Moreover, I don’t even believe in the value of psychotherapy and psychology as it is typically used today. Unfortunately, neither will go away just because I don’t believe in their value [snarky grin]. To be clear, I think the science of the mind is worthwhile study - we are fascinating machines - but I find zero benefit in people seeing a therapist for years, going over and over their issues, traumas and past pains ad nauseum. I find worse than zero benefit - as in negative zero benefit - from the prescription drugs these people are passing off as “care”.

So I’ll say it again, I’m not a psychotherapist or a psychologist. I am a personal development counselor. Not a religious counselor either, but a guide that is here to aid you in becoming your very best, happiest, most joyful self.

I Will Never Tell You What To Do…

You can come to me and say, “Cynthia, I don’t know what to do,” and we will talk about your problem together and I will help you discover what you really want to do, what you really want to happen, how you really want it to resolve and I will help you see how that could be possible and what your next steps could be. But I will never tell you what to do. I will help you find the answer yourself, but I have neither the right nor the responsibility to decide for you what you should do. In fact, NO ONE but you has the right or the responsibility to tell you what you should do.

I know that life is confusing sometimes. I know that often we wish we could have help in navigating life’s difficult decisions. I agree that you should have help with whatever decisions are troubling you. If you’re lost, you should definitely seek the counsel of someone because inaction is as dangerous as a bad decision. In fact, inaction is almost always a horrible decision. If you need help, I’m good choice and you’ll feel better after we talk. You’ll have a sense of purpose instead of feeling lost. It is one of the higher honors of my life to be able to assist you in your times of need in this way.

Getting help doesn’t mean you’re weak or stupid…

Everybody needs help sometimes. Getting help doesn’t mean you’re weak or stupid or incapable in any way. It means you’re committed to tackling your problems. It means you’re showing up for yourself and the people who matter to you. It means you’re actively seeking positive change. There is no downside to getting help when you need it.

A small “however” on life-threatening matters….

If you are in a life-threatening situation such as domestic violence,
it is my duty as a caring citizen of Planet Earth to tell you to get
yourself to safety and offer whatever services I can to aid you in that
endeavor. Yes, in that instance, I will most assuredly advise you to
“make your plan”. True my to statements above, however, I will not
define your plan for you. I will help you discover it for yourself, but
I will not tell you what to do.

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I recently installed a piece of software that came with my digital camera because the manual made it sound like I absolutely needed it in order to download my pictures from my Kodak Easy Share. I didn’t plan on installing it at all, but like I said… the manual really made it sound like I needed it.However, I installed the software and jumped through all the hoops of fire and then found what appeared to be the only way to transfer my pictures from the device. How? By uploading them to the Kodak Gallery which required me to open a free account. This is where bitchy Cynthia says, “I don’t want to open a fucking account and I don’t care if it’s free.” (Or alternatively… “I don’t want to dance in your fascist puppet show!”) Despite having a name with “Easy” in it (the camera, not me), there was no obvious way to transfer the pictures and it was only after digging around I saw where it kept asking for the account name and password (which I had skirted setting up like five times during install), so it could upload to the gallery.

No, no, no, NO! When we bought this camera, we didn’t do it to buy into their crap. All this gallery crap might be okay for some grandma that can barely use email, but it’s totally unacceptable to me. Luckily, Tim has a card reader that he uses with his camera and I love that darned thing, so I went and got it and had my pictures on my hard drive in less than 2 minutes start to finish. And I had 77 pictures on there. Easy Share, my ass. Okay, maybe if you do it their way… but we’ve already established I’m not doing that.

Feeling cranky about the whole software waste of time, I decided to kick my man, Kodak, to the curb. I clicked on start and found him the programs list. I was shocked to discover that there was no uninstall option. Already our relationship is doomed. Undaunted, I went to Add/Remove Programs and told it to remove the waste of time I affectionately know as Kodak. Now here is where I was again surprised and even more annoyed… all it did was open the install wizard and there was still no uninstall choice. Then it threw an error. I’m not just being mean when I say that doesn’t happen to every guy. I can tickle the uninstall out of just about anyone. But not Kodak, apparently. Ppphhhtt!

I opened up my TweakAll and tried to get rid of him from there, but it opened the same install screen as the Add/Remove did. So I went to my C-drive, and navigated to my program files, then to Kodak and hit delete. Heh, it threw an error and said it couldn’t delete because it couldn’t access this one file. Demanding little cuss, this Kodak.

So I went to Start/Run and I typed those relationship killing words… MSCONFIG and pressed enter. :… I love the smell of napalm in the morning! …: Under the STARTUP tab, I removed the checkmark from in front of any item appearing to be even remotely related to Kodak Easy Share (and a couple of other pesky things too). Then I clicked apply and then close that sweet, little lover out. I was tempted by the siren RE-BOOT and allowed myself to surrender to her, aware I’d crossed over to the other side.

While I was smoking my virtual cigarette, I got a little warning that told me some changes were made. Yes, darling, I know. That’s okay. Change can be a girl’s best friend. Don’t show me this warning again, okay? :… patting my computer on the ass …:

Then I went back to Add/Remove to throw all of Kodak’s stuff out onto the lawn and he still wouldn’t go. So I trudged back to C:/Program Files and right clicked on Kodak. With a savoring flourish, I selected Delete. Blink! Gone! Nothing, but a white hole stood where Kodak had been. Damn, I need another virtual cigarette. That was good. I might reinstall so I can do it again.

Very good, indeed. :… exhales …: Sometimes it just feels right to fuck when you’re mad.

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