Pandora Birthday Beads

I just knew with my birthday coming up that I would be getting more additions to my Pandora bracelet.  So I decided I would start hinting around as to which beads I would like for my Pandora bracelet.  I told my fiancé that money would even be nice because than I could pick my own bead out or he could help me pick it out.  When my birthday came around I received a couple packages from friends who would not be able to spend my birthday with me.  My high school friends and I have made it a tradition to buy each other gifts on our birthdays no matter where we are living.  We also always call each other on our special days to wish each other Happy Birthday.  I was so excited and checked the mailbox everyday the week of my birthday.

When I went to the mailbox a day before my birthday I was excited to see a package from my friend who lives in Philadelphia.  I didn’t know that she even knew I had a Pandora bracelet, but when I opened the gift I giggled because inside was the cat bead.  I guess my fiancé told her about my bracelet and how I was hoping to fill it with beads.  The cat bead brought back memories of when we were both around ten years old.  She used to love to come visit my families’ farm when her parents would go away on vacations.  She used to sleep over and we would play outside all day until it got dark.  She loved playing with one of the many cats we had in the barn.  One time we were playing on the slip and slide on the grass and decided it would be fun if the cat would also go down the slide.  So first of all, we put dish soap on the slide to make it faster for us, and we were also trying not to waste so much water because my mom told us not to keep the hose running the entire time.  When we went down the slide we were full of dish soap, as was Buster the cat.  We were laughing so hard because at first Buster seemed to like the ride but then at the end where there was a pool of water he started clawing the slip and slide and put several holes in it because he couldn’t get up.  After helping him off the slide, we felt terrible and made sure never to try this again with him.  We also didn’t know if we would be able to use the slide again because of the holes he made.  We thought he might enjoy the cool water because it was a very hot day.  We also knew he could use a bath because living in the barn is not the cleanest place for a cat to live.  After this episode, we treated Buster with much more love and I remember even sneaking him into the house and having him sleep with us that evening because we felt bad for him.  It was a sad day when I had to tell my friend a few years later that this cat had died because the milk truck ran him over when he was backing up to the barn.  We both felt so bad and had my mom help us bury the cat in the field.  We even put a wooden cross in the ground where we buried him.  We had a small ceremony and then went to play with the other cats we had befriended. 

A friend of mine who lives in Milwaukee sent me the coffee cup bead.  It was a very fitting bead because when I lived in Milwaukee we had a book club and would get together monthly.  At these meetings we would always drink coffee and eat our favorite deserts.  We would switch off each month and go to different book club members’ houses.  One Wednesday evening when the club came to my house for the first time, I made some coffee.  Since I do not typically drink coffee I really didn’t know how to make it.  I didn’t want to ask for help, because I thought I would look silly.  They all had assumed that I had made coffee before.  So I served the coffee.  I didn’t notice until I was collecting the plates and cups after desert that my friends hardly touched the coffee.  I was emptying a lot of full coffee cups into my sink.  I guess they were afraid to tell me that anything was wrong with the drink and didn’t want me to feel bad.  So then I decided to ask if everything was OK with the coffee.  A few of them started to laugh and said the coffee was gritty and that there were coffee grounds in it.  I wasn’t sure why this happened, but when one of my friends looked in the coffee maker and said she could see that some of the grounds didn’t make it in the filter.  I had put the grounds in the filter so quickly that I didn’t realize you had to be careful about getting all the grounds in.  Where were the directions when I needed them!  This was my first coffee making experience and I can say that I never had grounds in the coffee again.  Some of them learned a lesson too.  They ended up bringing Starbucks coffee to the next meeting at my house and passed on the coffee I had made.  It took awhile to regain the trust of my coffee-drinking book club friends.  It is now an ongoing joke we have between us.

Another friend of mine called me on my birthday and asked if she could stop over on her way back from work to bring my birthday gift over.  Of course I said, yes, so I saw her that evening.  The gift she brought with her was the fish bead.  At first I wasn’t sure why she had picked this bead other than the fact it was cute.  She started to get a grin on her face because she knew I was confused.  I thought about Spanish class and how we used to think the word for fish, pez, was so funny.  We would buy candy pez and bring them to class joking how the name meant fish in Spanish.  Then she told me her story that went along with the bead.  A few years ago when we were camping in the Northwoods we went fishing for a little while.  We didn’t have any fishing poles and decided we would be like the people on Survivor, one of our favorite reality shows, and try to make our own.  We had sticks for the poles and string from the kites we brought camping with us.  I am not sure what we used for the hooks, but we thought we could catch something on these after we attached worms to the ends.  Of course we didn’t catch anything but seaweed and sticks.  We thought it was a fun way to spend the nice hot day even though we weren’t very lucky.  The poles didn’t last long and it started to rain.  I guess I didn’t think of this time because we had no fish to show for our troubles and I really didn’t associate this occasion with fish.  This fish bead will always remind me now of our fishing trip that year and of the ones after this when we actually brought fishing poles, caught fish and even fried them up for a meal.

My mom surprised me with the girl bead several days after my birthday.  She had already gotten me a gift for my birthday so I didn’t expect anything else.  I had never seen this bead before and thought it was very cute.  She said it reminded her of how I used to wear my hair in piggy tails and would always have that smile on my face.  I always loved putting my long hair in braids and different hairstyles.  I guess you could say I was known for wearing my hair like this.  An old basketball coach of mine still has my 4th grade picture in his wallet and I look exactly like this bead on it.  He said he keeps it in his wallet because it makes him smile and he remembers the day I gave it to him and how giddy I was.  My dad said the bead reminded him of the day we went to Six Flags and he tried to get me in for a cheaper price by saying I was three years old.  I didn’t know what he was doing and I popped up four fingers trying to tell the clerk I was actually four.  He tried to push me away and my mom tried to distract me.  I think they were still able to get me in for the lower price but I am sure the clerk probably knew I wasn’t three.  We joke about this day still and how I was always older than I looked.  My dad said he thought the piggy tails made me look younger.

My sister gave me the wedding cake bead.  She said when she saw it she knew she had to buy it for me.  She knows how much time I am putting in planning for my upcoming wedding and knew this bead was perfect for me.  She even helped pick out the real  wedding cake for my upcoming wedding.  My husband-to-be isn’t showing much interest in the small plans of our wedding so I recruited my sisters.  One of my sisters had the same woman do her cake so I knew she would be a good resource of knowledge when picking out my cake.  I decided to get different sizes and shapes for each layer.  The cake decorator said she had never done one like this before but she thought it would look beautiful and different which is the style I was looking for.  She is also going to decorate each layer a little different such as polka dots, stripes and flowers.  The cake bead reminds me of what I would like the cake to look like….memorable.    

With the money my fiancé gave me I was able to purchase two beads.  I bought the butterfly bead and the rooster/chicken bead.  I bought the butterfly bead because I love the outdoors and have always loved watching butterflies.  I used to collect caterpillars in jars and feed them milkweed or whatever I found them on at the time.  Then I would watch them become beautiful butterflies.  I took one to school once and remember how my friends thought that was the neatest thing.  We would watch the changes each day and chart the progress.  I felt so special, sort of like I was a teacher, because I was able to share my knowledge and love for the outdoors with my classmates.

I bought the rooster bead because I used to collect roosters.  My kitchen used to be filled with them.  I had the canisters, dishes, stuffed roosters, stovetop covers, towels and much more.  I even had a magazine rack decorated in roosters.  I am not sure how my rooster collecting started.  I guess most people have to collect something and for some reason I decided on roosters.  At least I mainly kept them in the kitchen so the entire house would not be full of them.  I think the reason I stopped collecting them and decided to sell them at a garage sale was because my fiancé would make fun of all of them.  He thought I had way too many and as he put it, “they just collect dust.”  I knew that once we moved into together I would have to get rid of them so decided the right time was that summer when I had a garage sale.  At least now I have this bead to remind my of my old rooster collection and there is nothing he can do about it.

-Judy H.