When this all started a year or so ago, I thought I was just getting intermittent fevers and chills and flu. Put it all together with a monthly cycle, month after month after month though, and it's pre-menopause. Which is fine. The night sweats aren't really bothering me that much any more - though, it is winter and if I don't keep covered I wind up getting chills; with night sweats. But the whole idea of getting to menopause early is great. Seriously, I've been looking forward to it for years now. And, since I don't have and don't want children, that whole getting old and barren depression aspect of it isn't an issue for me either.
I'm actually looking forward to post menopause now. This pre-menopause headache and random nausea, dry eyes and nose thing... Well, I guess I'm one of the lucky ones - only a small percent of women get ALL the symptoms and it looks like I'm pretty darned close. I don't have the mood swings and, well, and that's about it. I've got all the rest. So this part is like being sick all the time. That sucks. Oh, and all of a sudden, my younger than 40 year appearance is not so younger than. My skin is really getting the rough end of this. But, eh, character.
Maybe that's why I'm so obsessed with using old jewelry parts these days. Well, that and the fact that the quality and design is often so much better than modern costume jewelry parts. Which is probably why a lot of people are finding them and using them AND/OR making copies of the originals. And it's a great way to recycle.
Reuse doesn't really apply to most of the vintage I use since it never was used in the first place. There are a few people who have hoards of vintage beads and parts that were (or still are) part of original stashes of unused stock that've been hiding away in a warehouse for a few decades. There's actually a lot of it out there too. It makes more sense to use good condition parts from these supplies before contributing to the production of future unused stock. Though, it is necessary to get new supplies for some things, I still prefer to use as much old as I can. Old, like me... older!
Speaking of old... I just finished three Lucky Charms necklaces using mostly 60+ year old parts. There's a few (thank you all the vintage supply people on Etsy) copper and brass I got that are FRom the 60's, and 70's, but most of it (including the MOP pendants with the REAL four leaf clovers) date back to the 40's. Have a look:
Brass
Copper
Silver, Steel, and Rhodium Plated Brass (mostly)
Look for them in my Etsy shop next week. I'm off to enjoy some more night sweats - wheeeeeeeeee!
