Aqua Necklaces

I've got a real hard-on for this color family - turquoise, aqua, green, blue-green. These are some of my necklaces.
The second one from the right is a favorite. I bought it for myself on impulse, right before Christmas. I was going to a holiday dinner with my boss and some of my co-workers - we were going to the famed Zuni Cafe in San Francisco. I was super-excited. I planned to wear a black flowy skirt, very 40's-styled heels (Charles David), a black dressy camisole with little black seeds pearls on it, and this gorgeous sort of green-blue velvet jacket. The outfit was pretty, but so simple - it needed something funky and unusual, like a fantastic necklace.

Usually I don't buy myself ANYTHING between Halloween and Christmas. I've got an enormous extended family (with lots of adorable small cousins who all need cute presents!) and a PUNY income, which means I really have to aggressively save for Christmas gifts. Plus, my mom's birthday is December 27th, I'm her only child, and she's got expensive taste.

Filled with that mixture of pleasure and guilt which comes with overspending on something you really, really love but cannot really afford, I took the new necklace to work to agonize over whether I should keep it or return it. I polled various femmes at my workplace, who had lots of interesting ways to weigh the value of the necklace - "Will you wear it a lot?"
"Are those real pearls?" (One even scraped a pearl against her teeth to ascertain its real-pearlness!) "Is there something you want more that you've been saving for?"

I kept the necklace, I happily wore it to that holiday dinner, we ate the most delicious roast chicken with tiny little french fries and Ceasar salad (and about twenty different desserts), and I've worn it many times since, so I'm happy I got it. The pendant part is handpainted wood and the dark green bead things are dyed freshwater pearls. I curse myself for not being able to remember the name of the designer.