I know this blog of mine is a business blog, however, from time to time I like to reflect on the fact that I am very blessed and very grateful for what the Lord has given me. I like to reflect on what makes my life whole and happy……….. and some of it I will share with you here.

My garden.  Even though I live in an apartment, in a surburban area, my landlady has granted me freedom to take the side of the building I live on and make it into a garden that suits me! She frequently contributes, either help, flowers, or sincere admiration, as does her husband. Here are a very few pics (more to come in future posts!) of some of the flowers of my garden and what I did with a weedy, barren patch of land.

I have two large pots from when I lived upstairs from where I do now, I used to have those pots on the porch. Now, because I moved to a very nice but smaller apartment directly below that in the basement (or the bunker, as I like to call it!) I have the entire side of the building to myself as far as making a garden. So, those large pots now house my “kitchen herb collection”. This particular shot above shows my Silver Edge Thyme with flowers from the Lavender plants peeking through. The thyme and the lavender live very happily together in this pot.

These are my Hardy Pink Lilies that I planted last summer in the ground. They were beautiful for their first year. They came up this year with energy and pizazz! They even made babies. These are large, beautiful pink lilies with a very light smattering of spots in like a fuchsia maroon sort of color near the centers. Very little fragrance, at least to my nose, very light. However, even though they may be light on the fragrance they were more than generous with a profusion of multiple blooms! And baby plants that sprung up near each mother’s base.

This is one of my Stella D’oro Lilies that I planted last year as well. In the back of it you can see my Bleeding Heart plant to the right. I planted two of those, one white and one pink. This spring it became obvious one made it and one didn’t. The white bleeding heart plant made it and came up huge. I missed on taking pictures of those flowers but will make sure I catch that next time it flowers, usually in spring but if we have a cool autumn I may get some more flowers. The Stella D’oro lilies are so bright and cheerful and almost remind me of big overgrown daffodils in a way!

This particular lily is sandwiched between the creeping juniper on her left, the bleeding heart on her right, more lilies and roses in her back along with some hosta, and in the front, which you can’t see right now, in the spring are a row of false garlic with their white star shaped flowers and in front of that, some tulips and hyacinths.

Last picture for today! This is Lizzie, my rescued iguana, who has a whole story of her own to tell. Here she is hanging out watching me watch her through the camera lens in her kitty bed which I bought her last Christmas. My friends tell me I should write a children’s book featuring Lizzie. Don’t know about that, although she really DOES have quite a life story to tell and she’s still quite young! Here in this picture she is still recuperating from her life saving surgery.

More on that another time!

Note her tail, goes all the way down the side of the bed and touches the carpet. Yep, Liz is a big girl ~ 4 feet long in total from snout to end of tail. She’s part of a family of 4 birds and 3 fish. She gives me kisses, is quite docile and tame, and has a very sunny personality. All in all she’s a very nice young lady!

These are some of the things that make my life whole, happy and complete. Many of these things often give me inspiration from nature that goes into many of my artisan designed creations!

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Jewelry Collectibles & Wedding Jewels by Maureen McCullough, conveniently located in Hackensack, Bergen County New Jersey, is owned and operated by Maureen McCullough. In business since 2002 as a artisan designer of everyday jewelry and practical jewelry such as earrings, bracelets, necklaces, eyeglass chains, lanyards, zipper pulls and more. She also specializes in wedding / prom / and formal occasion jewelry ~ ankle bracelets, bracelets, earrings and fantastic necklaces. In addition she also is a designer of textile fashions for ladies and babies such as shawls, wraps, fashion hats, and for babies ~ booties, hats, and blankets.

Happy to be a woman owned small business ~ she also a website designer and personal / virtual assistant ~ Jewelry Collectibles Design ~ as well as a wedding and event planner ~ Wedding Event Planning.

Subscribe to our newsletter and receive a monthly coupon code for generous discounts, and more! We also sell wholesale to stores, shops, boutiques, galleries and bridal salons.

Every so often I like to just jump off the beaten path of always blogging about business and talk a little bit about those beings who make my life worthwhile. I guess it’s my way of thanking them for being part of my life.

Now, my mom is gone and I could talk about her alot! But God decided she needed to go on permanent vacation, and so bless her heart she’s with him now. So, I will instead sing the praises of some of my little buddies with paws and fins.

Today’s post will be about the Princess Elizabeth. She is a lovely iguana I adopted. Or rather, I and my birds adopted……….

There are those who actually know her, and those who know her from having heard about her. Or they feel like they know her! Well, get prepared to know her a little more!

Iguanas can become “with egg” when they reach a particular maturity and if their conditions are prime. They don’t need a significant other to become “with egg” and they have zero maternal instinct.

Princess Elizabeth is a rescue, rescued by my cockatiel Snugglebuggy, and taken in by yours truly. By the way, my old boy Snugglebuggy just turned 17 years old ~ the next pet post I do will be about this lovely wonderful best friend of mine.

So, Liz has been with us about 2 years. In actuality both the vet and I agree she’s around almost 4 years old, judging by her size, etc.

Back to the eggs. Lizzie didn’t have a clue about eggs, didn’t have a clue about the nestbox I made her, didn’t have a clue as to why she was digging like a banshee in the sand except that her hormones might have given her a heads up about the digging. It’s also normal for them to stop eating as their body cavity fills up with eggs.

The first vet I took her to did not impress me with the handling of this delicate matter, so, as my dear iguana started to turn into a skeleton with a big belly, we went to another vet. You can’t just take a reptile to any vet, they have to be a herp vet. So believe me when I say I was VERY ~ or rather we were VERY lucky to find another vet, I’m not kidding.

This lady took the requested xrays and sure enough Lizzie was FULL of eggs. The doctor said in a week she should have them or something would have to be done.

Well, something got done. Lizzie was scheduled for surgery on 4/28/08 ~ and yes indeed, 24 eggs came out, plus she had her ovaries removed, never again to go through the egg ordeal.

I drove up to Franklin Lakes that night in a nasty rainstorm, to pick her up. Groggy little girl she was.

Here is Liz after I put her in her rehab cage that she would stay in for the next 3 days ~ despite painkillers she slept standing up all night ~ do you wonder why? Nice stitches.

Here is Princess the next day just exhausted and giving me the “look”.

Liz would tolerate that nice comfy cushiony rehab cage for 3 days only. Then she HAD to go back into her habitat. The next few weeks were a little weird, I saw her personality (normally very mellow and sweet) change several times, I can only guess as her hormones righted themselves, as the pain and discomfort went away, and as she slowly came back to us.

We went through frenzied little tantrums where she ripped all the claws out of her right hand fingers, teeth baring, and all kinds of nasty stuff. She ripped the entire nail out of each of her right hand fingers, and now is basically handicapped ~ no claws, very hard to climb even in her habitat ~ fingers don’t grip bars like claws do. Now each finger has healed with a nice little stub where the nail was. Not likely those nails will grow back either.

So, I’ve made it easy for her to play when she is out. That’s usually after her daily bath and soak~ I dry her off well, cuddle her for a good while (yes, I have a cuddly iguana) and then she plays in her cat bed on my bed. Then she’ll hop off, and climb up onto my mom’s recliner which is next to her habitat. I’ve fixed it so she can simply walk from the top of the recliner into her habitat on her lower perch.

Note her right hand, no claws, and her left hand, plenty of claws.

Here she is at a different angle, looking at herself in the mirrored doors behind her while I snap the pics.

Thankfully she is back to eating with her usual gusto, and has started to fill out and is nowhere as bony as she was. Oh yeah. That’s only about half of her tail.

Welcome back, Princess Elizabeth! The best iguana in the world!!

As promised in my last post, here is some information about saying the Divine Mercy chaplet on your rosary bracelet or rosary necklace from Jewelry Collectibles (or your rosary beads that you already own!)

We sell a prayer pamphlet here just for the Divine Mercy chaplet.

This prayer pamphlet comes with a tiny epoxy detail Divine Mercy medal attached, as you can see.

We also sell a beautiful Divine Mercy medal that you can put on a gold chain or have us attach to your rosary bracelet or rosary necklace. We can even attach it to one of our gold shawl pins if you like.

The Divine Mercy chaplet is meant to be said using your rosary bracelet or rosary necklace (from Jewelry Collectibles, of course!)  or your existing rosary beads to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet ~ prayer pamphlet contains a prayer called Jesus Help Me ~ to say whenever you feel life’s stress overwhelming you; The Lord’s Prayer; and The Chaplet of Divine Mercy which you can say using ordinary rosary beads (has instructions on what to say on which beads) plus attached to the prayer pamphlet is a miniature epoxy and silver Divine Mercy Medal. Made in Italy. Measures 2 1/4″ wide by 3 1/4″ long. Laminated.

My personal experience with this is several years long and through many crisis’ in my life. I faithfully say this morning and evening. Morning when I get up and am having my coffee before I begin writing my daily articles and at night before I go to sleep. I truly believe this prayer chaplet has helped me, that the Lord has heard me and has responded. In truth nothing could shake me from this conviction and I willingly take the time to use the entire rosary to say this chaplet five times.