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What Toyota and I Have in Common February 24, 2010

Posted by Jill Renee in : Just Jill , add a comment

The top story in the news the last few days has revolved around the Toyota car company and its failure to address a very dangerous and scary problem with the accelerators in many of its vehicles. I have watched like hundreds of thousands of others but I do not have to wonder what it would feel like being behind the wheel in a runaway car.

Twenty one years ago, I was driving from Virginia to upstate New York in my new Mercury marquis four door sedan.  I had two children in the back seat in their car seats and my grandmother in the passenger seat next to me.  One was three, one was 18 months old and the other was 75. It was a beautiful sunny day and the drive had been going great. Both children were happy and all was calm. I usually took the scenic route because we made lots of stops along the way at the little shops and restaurants. This made the trip much more bearable for the kids. Lots of treasures to be found along highway 15!

One of the drawbacks of taking the scenic route is that you occasionally get behind some very slow moving vehicles like farm equipment. If you are patient passing zones are dotted along the way and you can easily get by these slow movers. This was the exact scenario that I encountered. Once I accelerated and passed the tractor I eased back into the right lane, I took my foot off the gas but the car continued to pick up speed. I looked at the speedometer and it was at 90 mph. I hit the brakes and it was creeping up to 100 mph. Now you must understand I did not even know my mercury could hit 100 mph!  My grandmother gave me a look and knew something was wrong. BIG TIME. We exchanged words back and forth in a frantic manner.  Eventually I put the car in neutral, hit emergency and regular brakes and we slowed down.

This ordeal was pure terror. My thoughts were for my small children and my poor grandmother who would surely die with me in a fiery ball of metal. I think of all the people who experienced this same thing in their Toyota’s and wonder about the ones who might not have been so lucky and perhaps the accident has been chalked off to driver error. I too was told by the mechanics at Ford that either the floor mat or a stuck accelerator was to blame for my terrifying trip. I could never quite accept this. I traded in that mercury a few months later. I never felt safe in it again.

Keep Your Engagement Ring in Tip Top Shape February 19, 2010

Posted by Jill Renee in : Jewelry Care, Just Jill , comments closed

You have a gorgeous sparkly diamond engagement ring on your finger and the metal shines like new fallen snow, here are some hints on keeping your engagement ring in tip top shape for a long time to come.

Once you come down from the high of being newly engaged regular life will resume. This means cooking, cleaning and work related activities.  All of these things will dull the appearance of your engagement ring and diamond. The good news is that this can easily be kept in check with a few simple steps.

Make-up, lotions, perfumes and hairspray will all build up on your engagement ring, cutting down on its sparkle. We recommend cleaning your engagement ring in an ammonia solution made up of 1/3 cup ammonia to 2/3 cup of hot tap water. To remove caked on dirt such as cooking sauces or play dough soak your engagement ring for ten minutes and then gently scrub with a soft toothbrush. Do not use an old toothbrush because toothpaste remnants are too abrasive for your engagement ring!

It is also a great idea to have the prongs that hold the diamonds in your engagement ring checked by a jewelry professional one time per year to make sure all is well and that none of the prongs have loosened up. If you follow these simple suggestions your engagement ring will continue to look great year after happy year!

Let It Snow, but Not in Virginia! February 17, 2010

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As I am writing today there are mounds of snow plopped all over my hometown and the state of Virginia. We normally have one snowfall per year. Maybe a dusting of the white stuff just enough to give the kids a day off of school. This year we have had four large snowfalls of 4 or more inches. OK, that may not sound like much to you folks in Buffalo or Fargo, but it’s incredible to those of us living below the Mason Dixon line.

We do not have the snow plows, the shovels, and the road chemicals necessary to control the road conditions nor the snow mobiles, warm boots, parkas and sleds to make it enjoyable! We have struggled though and “oohed and aahed” at the beautiful snow covered trees and embraced the extra time inside to get all those chores done, but now we are looking for the buds to bloom and the forecast is calling for more snow!

All this is taking place while we are watching the Olympic downhill skiing competitions in Vancouver getting postponed day after day due to you guessed it…a lack of snow! This has many of us scratching our heads and thinking Global warming or worse but the weather experts simply say this is a cyclical and normal weather pattern. So I guess the old saying is true, you can’t control the weather. You just have to roll with it. So, here in Richmond I am off to buy a new shovel and some kitty litter and up at the Olympics in Vancouver they are trucking snow over to the ski slopes so the games can proceed. Go Figure.

photo credit: kurtcweishaar

Is He the One?? February 17, 2010

Posted by Jill Renee in : Just Jill, Romantic Tips , comments closed

Statue of David

So you have been dating for the required nine months or longer  and you are thinking that a proposal of marriage is the logical next step but are you really sure that is what you want? (ed. note: A collection of video proposals)

Sometimes we take that important next step because we have reached a certain age, we have dated a certain amount of time, or we want to start a family and the biological clock is ticking away! We want it and we enter into our commitment for some valid reasons, but maybe we need to step back and make sure we are not rushing things. Patience now can save years of heartache and pain later.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

If the answers to any of these questions are no, you should think about your relationship and whether you are in the right place. It is true like the song says that “breaking up is hard to do” but it will allow you to explore other opportunities and pay off in the long run.

Hollywood Engagements and Our Fascination with Them February 11, 2010

Posted by Jill Renee in : Engagement Rings, Just Jill , add a comment

Big celebrity news on the web:

  1. Kristen Bell is engaged to Dax Shepard and shows off her stunning three carat platinum ring at the Grammy awards.
  2. Russell Brandt and Katy Perry out furniture shopping while she flashes her new engagement ring!
  3. Miley Cyrus is definitely NOT engaged this was confirmed by Miley herself to Ryan Seacrest on the red carpet at the Grammys. Her ring was a cheap bobble she picked up for herself in London.

While I find all of this engagement news interesting what is really important is that these stars are setting some trends about jewelry style. We all watch what jewelry the stars are wearing because the designs are usually unique and stunning and something that we can adjust to work for the not-so-famous of us.

Trends and styles emerge that are worth adapting. The main issue is often getting the price point down while still maintaining the integrity of the basic design.  Once this is accomplished an affordable alternative to a very expensive jewelry item can usually be purchased. After all imitation is the best form of flattery!

Tips for the Perfect First Date February 5, 2010

Posted by Jill Renee in : Just Jill, Romantic Tips , add a comment

There are few things more nerve racking than going out on that first date. What will you wear? What will you talk about? Where will you go and what will you do?

Once you get past all the wondering it’s time to relax and take things one step at a time. Do something that you enjoy to do. Wear what you are comfortable wearing. Now is not the time for a complete makeover and some four inch heels. You will most definitely be uneasy if you change your entire style for the date. Make sure your clothes are comfortable and that you are not constantly pulling on your waistband or worrying about tripping over your pants!

Now is also not the time to try out ice skating or even bowling if you have never done these things before or if your date has not.

Now is also not the time to try out ice skating or even bowling if you have never done these things before or if your date has not. Go someplace easy and keep the date to a few hours at most. Leave the exotic restaurant for the second or third date and choose someplace that offers a wide variety of options including some vegetarian choices.

The most important thing is to be yourself and to be honest about who you are. This does not mean rambling on about all of you personal business. Keep some things private until the relationship has time to grow.  Most importantly let your date know whether you have had a good time or if the connection was missing. That way you both are on the same page when the date is over.

The Valentine in America – A History February 1, 2010

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While Valentine’s Day had been celebrated in some form since the third century, A.D., it did not catch on with any momentum in the United States until the 1840s.  A holiday with a variety of possible beginnings, Valentine’s Day evolved into a holiday used to celebrate love and affection.  People would give trinkets and cards, and in the 1840s a woman named Ester Howland started the first wave of mass-produced valentine greetings in the U.S.

Esther Howland Valentine, circa 1850: "Weddings now are all the go, Will you marry me or no"

Born in 1828, Howland graduated from college in 1847 and shortly after received a beautiful and intricate Valentine’s greeting from a business contact of her father’s.  This man was English – the tradition of exchanging cards and gifts to celebrate Valentine’s Day was a mainstream practice in England and the rest of Great Britain by the mid-eighteenth century – and his card to Howland gave her a grand idea.

Esther Howland ordered fancy paper, lace, and flowery decorations from England and started making valentines.  She spread the word about the practice, and started taking orders for custom and stock-style valentines.  The response was tremendous, and she was not able to produce the goods for all the orders she had.  She asked friends to help her assemble the cards, and put out her first ad in The Daily Spy, a Worcester paper, in 1850.

Again, the response was tremendous.  She set up an assembly line in her house to assemble this first year’s worth of valentines, and she eventually set up shop for a business that would bring in $100,000 every year.

Though Howland used a lot of traditional English designs in her cards, she did come up with a few things on her own.  The lace paper that she ordered from England was par for the course in Great Britain.  Howland wanted to add some punch to the look of the card, so she started putting bright red or pink paper behind the lace to show the intricacy of the lace paper (which was copied from handmade tatted lace).

Another style that became popular in the latter part of Howland’s career was the shadow-box style.  These cards had a built-up section with a 3-D design.  Shortly after these successful cards, Howland sold her business to George C. Whitney, who went on to manufacture the necessary materials for valentines in the United States, rather than continuing to order them from England.  Whitney stayed true to Howland’s designs, and modern-day historians are hard-pressed to distinguish between the two, naught for Whitney’s distinguishing trademark of a red “W.”

Prior to Howland’s business, people in the United States who wanted to send Valentine cards to their loved ones either had to order them from England or make them personally.  Certain people who showed a talent for this craft would then be commissioned to make cards for others, but it was Howland who first mass-produced the valentines for American customers.

Today over one billion valentine cards are purchased annually.  Along with cards, people buy gifts for their loved ones on Valentine’s Day.  These gifts range from small tokens of affection to large items, like diamond engagement rings or expensive quality jewelry.