I was at my sister’s house today and noticed a lovely shade of nail polish on her counter. I did my typical girlie oohing and ahhing and complimenting her choice, but she merely shrugged,

“I don’t even bother painting my nails anymore unless it’s a special occasion, no point in it.” “Well, if you get a really strong topcoat-” I began, but then, seeing her shake her head, I shut up.

A jeweler is not known for pretty nails, even less so for pretty hands. Emily basically gave up her right to nice hands when she first sat down at the jeweler’s bench so many years ago. The bite of ...

The year is 1,200 BC. A man sweats in front of a furnace, a huge pair of bellows resting in his scarred hands. Beside him is a scorched earthen bowl packed hard with sand. He has spent hours shaping a plug of beeswax into an intricate crescent moon shape for a wealthy woman. Afterwards he tamped clean sand around the wax, delicately at first, then harder and harder as the shape became covered.

He places the bowl into the fire, resting it against an earthen wedge so that it is tilted sideways. The heat burns his face and brings tears to his eyes, but he is used to it now. The fire wanes and the man works the bellows again, forcing oxygen into the blaze with swift and powerful strokes. The small plug of beeswax, visib ...

A couple stands across the case before me. Simple, hardworking, salt of the earth people. The woman has just had her ring painstakingly repaired by us- worn prongs rebuilt, a missing side diamond replaced, the surface refinished. She gazes it at it in wonder,

“I’ve never seen it so bright!” She exclaims, “It must have been extra dirty. It’s as beautiful as the day we were first married!”

“So are you.” Her husband says softly behind her, barely audible.

-Cue heart melt here-

The woman blushes a bit, glances at his own matching band, and grimaces.

“Oh, honey look at yours. It’s so dirty compared to mine no ...

Child Labor laws notwithstanding, my dad made us all work in the shop from a very early age. Sometimes it was good fun- learning to melt the wax and playing with tiny Austrian Crystals were things any child would enjoy. Other times it was not so fun, but we survived.

My right ring finger, however, almost didn’t.

The year was 1991. I was thirteen, in my first semester of full homeschooling, and my dad had found a great advantage to his daughters not being away at school for 7 hours a day: he could have us help out in the store nearly full time.

I would come to work with him in the morning, my hair up in a banana comb most days. We would park in back of the little strip mall on Speedway Boulevard in ...