Academy Awards 2011 ... The Jewels!

Ahh the Oscars – a ray of glittering jewels on an otherwise overcast day! Not such a rare beast today, there were a number of jewels that stood out. Come with me on a tour:

Anne Hathaway looked stunning on the red carpet in a red “archival” Valentino dress and a lovely big diamond necklace and matching earrings from Tiffany. Her numerous dress changes (8!) during her stint as host of the Awards (apparently she acted on the advice of Shirley Maclaine who told her to change outfits frequently) throughout the night also showcased a diamond collar of diamonds and pale amethyst from Tiffany & Co., with a grey and black Vivienne Westwood gown and a large pair of tanzanite sapphire drop earrings with a bright blue sheath by Georgio Armani.







Amy Adams wore Cartier – a diamond necklace with a large hanging emerald pendant on her sparkling blue-purple dress by L'Wren Scott. Amy loves necklaces :)



Nicole Kidman wore her trademark white sheath this time by Dior, with a diamond collar (although I'm not a fan of the oxidised (black) look around the stones). Interestingly, it follows the same idea I had with my 'back necklace' that I posted about back in 2008.





Annette Bening wore large emerald earrings with her pewter dress.



Reese Witherspoon wore emerald earrings and matching ring with her black and white gown and Barbie hair (!).



Susan Downey (wife of Robert), wore large imperial topaz earrings, matching cuff and ring that she said were designed by Angelina Jolie. When interviewed with her husband she was very excited about the jewels and her spouse exclaimed that the best part of the evening for her was wearing the earrings!



Natalie Portman who has recently sported necklaces, this time went for long tassel earrings that matched the tone of her plum Rodarte gown. My guess is that they were either plum ruby or rhodolite garnet in the tassel and diamonds above. I loved them!



Gwyneth Paltrow sported an interesting pair of earrings with coloured stones that appears to include such gems as peridot, amethyst, citrine and garnet. She wore a matching brooch on her hip too!



Helen Mirren went traditional and wore a long diamond necklace from Cartier with her dark grey gown by Vivienne Westwood.



Susanne Bier who won for the best Foreign Language Film wore a lovely diamond collar and bracelet and one of the few blue dresses of the evening.



Celine Dion wore a diamond and emerald necklace on the red carpet and appeared on stage later with a diamond collar and cuff.





All in all a great show of jewels don’t you think?

Alternatives to Clickbank

In a lot of areas of technology, there is a dominant player.  We know about how Microsoft pretty much dominates every aspect of PC technology.  There are smaller companies that dominate application areas to like Adobe for PDF file or Photoshop for photo editing.  And when it comes to the internet and online marketplaces, the dominant power there is no doubt Clickbank.    But it's good to know what alternatives are out there for comparison purposes.  And possibly the biggest real threat to the dominance of Clickbank is a site called PayDotCom. 

Each of these fine alternatives has things to offer and some drawbacks too.  But it is worth knowing what to look for so you can make an intelligent decision.  There is just no question that Clickbank dominates the field for good reasons.    Clickbank is far and away the largest affiliate marketplace in the world.  So by putting your product on Clickbank, you could potentially see it picked up for over 150,000 affiliates if they notice you.  That is quite a sales army to cash in on.

An added benefit of utilizing Clickbank that makes it stand out versus PayDotCom is you can get this army of affiliates to sell your products far and wide and you don’t have to pay them a dime.  That is handled by the commission system which means you only see any money go to the ones that are successful and its part of the financial structure of the site.  That’s a brilliant way to organize their service and it has paid off for Clickbank and for the rest of us beautifully.

A few of the policy decisions Clickbank has made are not so brilliant and put them in the negative side of the evaluation.  The policy that is beneficial to Clickbank customers but causes a lot of problems is their iron clan refund policy.  This is an outstanding customer relationship approach because it sends the message that Clickbank stand behind the products sold on the service.  But in a world such as Clickbank's where the entire transaction and all products are digital, it pretty much leaves an open door to thieves and shoplifters who download products and then file for refund without explanation.

PayDotCom is an alterative to Clickbank that has not been able to capture as much of the market.  The commissions issue may be one reason their growth is slower.    Because Clickbank pays the affiliates and keeps that burden off of the merchants who come to the marketplace, the transactions are clean and more merchants feel freedom to participate in Clickbank.  And then because Clickbank has become the premier marketplace for digital products, more affiliates want to be involved which only continues to add to the momentum of the site to dominate this market.

From the other side of the transaction, when a merchant wants to put a product into a marketplace and then go through the support steps of linking to it from a web site and adding keyword optimized articles to drive traffic to the products, that merchant wants to know the largest affiliate base is out there to take it from there and really get that product into broad distribution and sales.  There simply is no better way to do that than to go with Clickbank. 

In a way, Clickbank succeeds by its success.  And even though PayDotCom is a viable alternative, it's difficult to capture enough market to interest merchants and affiliates to switch.   And until Clickbank makes some major mistake, which they probably wont do, that situation is probably not going to change.
 

Regaining a sense of calm, the BAFTA jewels and back to the bench

Good news - I'm slowly getting back into a routine here - some things have fallen off the everyday list though (like exercise oops!) but on the whole, there feels like there is more balance and every so often I even gain a sense of calm.

It is blissfully quiet today. Hubby left early in the plane, the kids left for school, the farm cats are napping, the working dog is quietly watching all, the cattle are in the distance happily eating. Apart from hearing the light breeze move in the trees and some distant bird chatter, all is quiet. Ahhhhh......

I caught up with the recent Awards ceremonies this week - the BAFTAs and the Grammys. The Grammys didn't do it for me - once again, all cuffs and dangly earrings. I guess these just aren't my 'scene'?

I did have high hopes for the BAFTAs, but perhaps the rainy weather got them all down as there weren't as many glamorous jewels as I had hoped for. They did have a couple of highlights - namely Jessica Alba who looked amazing in a flowing electric blue gown and wore a stunning collar of blue/green, perhaps made of azurite-malachite. Miranda Richardson wore a lovely pair of blue-green (possibly aquamarine/emerald) earrings and Thandie Newton a timeless emerald necklace. The rest was all a little ho-hum!







On the creating front I had a lovely day earlier this week with my muse perched on my shoulder whispering all sorts of great ideas. New jewels include exotic wood bracelets set off with a single big gemstone ; concoctions in amazonite (teal/aqua blue)or apatite (neon blue) and smoky quartz (brown); and a couple of pieces in deep amethyst (purple) and pink tourmaline. Then I did a couple of pearl earrings with some little sapphires to set them off. I finally went to bed close to midnight, still full of energy and wanting to create but knowing I really needed SOME sleep! I hope to get back to the bench today to do some more :D

The Connect2Mums network has recently launched a new AusMumprenuer magazine. They did a feature on Rural Mums and interviewed me as part of it. So I'm there (photo and all) on pp 28-29. They also selected some of my jewels in the fashion pages too. How exciting!

Right, best crack the whip and get back to the bench! Today's photo by the way is one of the new pieces - earrings with unusual diamond shapes of smoky quartz with a chequer facet under a mass of blue apatite gems.

Normality and Routine vs. Reality

I WAS hoping for a bit of normality to return to my life after the kids returned to school, however it seems that 'normality' is far from happy to return - it's off being itself somewhere else and I'm just running around from one thing to the other and not getting anything done.

The children, on the other hand, seem to have settled back into the routine of school ... the routine of not wanting to get up in the mornings and the routine of rushing off to the school bus with seconds to spare. Not to mention the routine of not wanting to do their homework.

I've been told by the girls in no uncertain terms that they'd much prefer to stay home and read. (Good for bookstores and libraries but not so good for their school reports I'm sure).

Perhaps we all need a little more R&R (six weeks obviously wasn't enough...) and my R&R is more likely to come when the children are at school and peace reigns over the house. But then a phone call from MIL, or SIL or a request from the accountant or a job to do for hubby because he can't do it - he has to go and plough ... and next thing you know the day is gone and the kids are walking back up the hill after being dropped at the front gate by the school bus. *sigh*

I HAVE made an effort with son though - his performance (at school) dropped off quite a bit towards the end of last year. Our idea that he should be made responsible for his own work (getting homework done in time, projects finished in a half reasonable state etc) kind of failed. In a world of sink or swim, he definitely sank. So now, each day after school I sit down with him at the dining table and get him to show me what he did that day, asking him to explain it to me. If he can't, I endeavour to lead him through, kind a bit like revision on a daily basis. I look at his diary, make sure his homework/project due dates have been notated and make sure he packs the correct books for the next day. I think he's entered that teen fog where they see and hear nothing that doesn't interest them, so I feel I have to do this. Otherwise he may just fall off the planet and not realise.

The girls have been fine with their homework and seem to understand everything so far, so I guess I should be grateful for small mercies.

On the creative front, I did manage an afternoon at my bench recently and made some lovely heart jewellery to celebrate the imminent occasion of Valentine's Day (the photo above is one - its a gorgeous lemon citrine pendant and chain - a whopping 1 inch across, it's big and sparkly and very desirable!

Are you expecting anything for Valentine's Day? My hubby isn't big remembering Valentines (although I do recall a bunch of long stemmed roses that arrived at my work from him one year). But he will go and pick me a red, red rose from the garden on the spur of the moment - just like he did this morning:



And that's worth more than anything, don't you think?

Cooking Cajun Food

Cooking in the heart of Cajun country is an art form. There really is very little science to this particular form of cooking that includes a lot more than mere lagniappe from the pantry or the spice cabinet. Cajun cooking is something that has often been imitated around the country and around the world but can very rarely be accurately duplicated.

One of the fascinating things about Cajun cooking is the fact that there are very few exact recipes. Most, if not all authentic Cajun cooking is done to taste rather than measurements. Even more amazing is that from day to day one person can make the same dish over and over and it is quite likely to taste a little bit different each and every time it is made. The major reason for this is that in addition to being an art form in and of itself, Cajun food is often made even more delicious or mysterious simply by the mood of the one doing the cooking.

I'm sure that many of you have watched as Emeril Lagasse makes some special concoction and exclaims "Bam!" there is a good bit of that when it comes to Cajun cooking. Something that goes far beyond the ingredients in the recipe and somewhere into the heart and the soul of the cook in question. There is a reason that many southern cooked dishes are referred to as soul food and you should not for one second forget that New Orleans is in the heart of the Deep South.

The most difficult thing, perhaps when it comes to preparing good Cajun dishes outside of the New Orleans region is finding the right ingredients. It is nearly impossible to find the fresh seasonings and spices that are essential to most Cajun cuisine outside the heart of the old south. Not only that, but fresh crawfish and andouille sausage are a little difficult to come by during the heart of a Michigan winter.

If you are determined to learn to make Cajun food of your own, you must first find the ingredients. Specialty food shops or those that will special order might be your best bet. There are some grocers that will carry a limited stock of Cajun seasonings on their international food aisles. Keep in mind that these sources are extremely limited. Once you have the ingredients, it's time to let a little jazz blare from your speakers in order to set the mood. Most of the best Cajun dishes require a substantial amount of time for simmering and this should be considered. Cajun food is not to be rushed-much like the citizens of the Big Easy. The food will be ready in time and as the one cooking the food you must learn to accept that about Cajun food. It has a way of letting you know when it is ready that is almost mythical until you've experienced it for yourself.

Cooking Cajun food will try your patience, try your talents, and in some cases zap your energy, as it tends to be an emotional process for many. On the other end however, Cajun food is some of the richest and most delicious food on the planet. Mastering the ability to cook this wonderful food will make you a slave to its flavor for many years to come.