I am thinking.....that the real discussion I am having with myself is whether I should take myself seriously about beads. And I know I am just having fun—whether I can afford it or not.

It is all right to buy fun stuff when it is cheap. But when it is seriously expensive it may be something I will feel forced to recover money from someday.

We are investing a lot of time, at the very least, in this hobby. Time is money. Thus, it gets to be expensive no matter how we do it.

Joyce, when we were at lunch on the Picard Museum field trip, a new collector told me she wanted to invest in beads and wanted to know how to do it:

"We buy beads. We make mistakes. And the mistakes become the tuition we pay for our education. Beads are not a good investment. They are an expensive hobby."

So enjoy yourself everyday,