Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes and lives? Every month a group of six bloggers share their work-spaces, homes, towns, and more!

This month we’re sharing our favorite jewelry, jewelry collections, thoughts on jewelry ALL THE JEWELRY THINGS.

I am not really a big jewelry person. My interest in jewelry over my lifetime has ebbed and flowed…it is currently extremely low. It’s been months since I’ve put on even one piece of jewelry.

I like looking at it. I like thinking about having it. But right now the cost just doesn’t…seem worth it to me.

But I HAVE quite a bit of jewelry, ha ha. OF COURSE I DO. It’s mostly inherited or leftover from ebay-selling days.

See the beaded dragonfly pin?? That’s from our dear friend Iris, many years ago when we were in an ebay-selling group together, probably 15+ years ago. And the pin at the bottom, the two hearts with moonstones, that was from my sister – I think she gave it to me at my bridal shower over 30 years ago.

I wish I had pictures of all my mother’s jewelry. She had a big drawer of just costume jewelry that was SO FUN to look through. She was especially fond of those 1960s enameled flower pins like this…

A field of vintage enamel flower pins -- one of my best vintage scores ever! | Enamel flower, Flower brooch, Flower pins

She probably had just about that many, too. I wish I’d saved one or two for myself. I think they went to cousins who had young children, cuz boy are they fun to look through and play with.

One of my biggest jewelry losses was…after she passed away, I used to wear my mother’s wedding band all the time. It had five diamonds across the front, SORT OF like this…but in gold…

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UNTIL…one fateful evening at yoga class…when I took off my ring and watch for a hot yoga class and left them in my bag in an unlocked cubby. I buckled the watch through the ring so they were as one.

The next day I realized both were missing. I checked my bag, the car, I went back to the yoga studio and spoke with several people, checked the changing room and the parking lot. Gone.

I was more upset about the ring as that had an emotional connection…but I was also upset about my 1940s Hamilton tank watch that I had saved up for for ages and didn’t have that long before losing it with the ring. It looked like this (but mine was in better condition)…

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However, my loss is NOTHING compared to my mother’s missing jewelry fiasco. We used to go to Ocean City, Maryland every year and my mother was always worried about what was going on in the house while we were away…did she turn off the stove? Did she unplug the iron? Did she lock the back door? She always stopped the newspaper and mail deliveries while we were gone so they wouldn’t pile up and announce to the world that the house was vacant COME ON IN AND TAKE WHAT YOU WANT. She was concerned about burglars.

One year (and I only remember her doing this the one time) she planned to outsmart any would-be burglars and she wrapped her BEST jewelry up in a plastic bag, rolled it up in newspaper, and hid it in the kitchen trash can under a top layer of trash.

We had a lovely week in Ocean City, then came back and resumed our normal lives. Going to school, mowing the lawn, cooking dinner, taking out the trash…

Only the next day did she realize that the trash that had gone out held all her good jewelry…and it had already been picked up with the trash collection. She called the the city, the dump, she spoke with the garbage men at the following pick-up…but that diamond-encrusted ship had SAILED and that jewelry was never seen again.

That was a tough loss.

A very fun jewelry and accessory collection that I inherited from her was all the vintage rhinestones. She kept them (as I still do!) in this vintage lucite box purse that was popular in the 50s. I remember as a child being so thrilled when she would allow me to unwrap each of the pieces and admire them.

That is not jewelry. That is a cat. But he was such a part of that rhinestone jewelry shoot that day, I had to include him.

I have some other nice jewelry memories. When I was younger my mother and I used to take the train to spend summers with her family in Los Angeles. The first leg of the 3-day trip was overnight from NY to Chicago. One time we had a full-day layover in Chicago so we left the station and walked around the city a bit for some lunch and window-shopping…and my mother bought me my first strand of pearls. I still have them…

The second leg of the journey was 2 nights from Chicago to LA…and we went through Albuquerque, NM where the train stopped for about an hour and the whole station was filled with Indian women selling their wares on blankets on the ground: silver and turquoise jewelry, dolls, and other handmade arts and crafts. Each year she’d buy me one additional piece of silver or turquoise, so by the time I was in my early 20s I had a nice collection of this sort of jewelry. Over the years most of the pieces have left me – either getting lost, broken, or sold…but I still have my favorite chunky turquoise necklace.

My aunt recently gave me this ring that had been my mother’s. I need to have it sized down as I’m afraid to wear it and have it slip off my finger. I would enjoy wearing a ring of hers again.

One more jewelry collection that is really Katie’s, not mine, is her Christmas stocking full of vintage Christmas tree brooches. Since she was young, each year I buy one more, and add it to her stocking and she doesn’t get to see it til Christmas morning when we open our gifts.

I think I most enjoy jewelry with emotion attached, that came to me as gifts, or that I inherited from family members, or that have a story.

Make sure to check out my friends’ jewelry stories today, too:

Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Em at Dust and Doghair
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After
Sally at Within a World of My Own