a treasure hunt on a rainy day

Ahhh Saturday! Everybody's favourite day of the week...  As soon as your eyes open in the morning, you are filled up with the joy of endless possibility that comes from the complete freedom of not having to work.  You are free to do as much - or as little - as you please!

At our place, spring Saturdays usually mean the outdoors: hikes, picnics, visiting new places and having new adventures with the pups.  Then again, waking up this morning painted a different picture: it was cold, gloomy and miserable so our day trip had to be postponed and we needed a new plan. (Can I just add here how useless weather apps in Texas actually are?  I mean we've been promised a thunderstorm all week and instead it's been sunny/ then this weekend was meant to be 'partially cloudy' and it's freezing and raining instead! Grrr! Whatever Texas weather apps,whatever!)
After warming up with some coffee, Will and I decided to head over to Nature's Treasures - Austin's largest gem store - in search of some new crystals.  Recently, we've become quite taken with tourmaline: a gemstone with the incredible ability to literally repel negative energy!  W & I have some all around the apartment, in our cars, bags and even pockets most of the time.

Even if you don't believe in the metaphysical properties or energy transfers of crystals, you've got to admit, it's a beautiful stone!  With it's smooth, shiny jet black surface and vertical grains that form wands of either polygonal or triangular shapes - they're unlike any other crystal W or I have seen.

With a new tourmaline each and a spectacular crystal cluster for the coffee table, we headed home to watch movies with the pups and binge on antipasti for the rest of this rainy day.  Here's hoping tomorrow brings that highly anticipated thunderstorm at last!  (Then again, the weather app says 70% chance, so probably not!)