Right after Christmas, M and I went to Quebec City for a few days. It is one of our favorite places and we daydream about buying a little apartment there someday, when we have expendable income (ha!).

We ate and drank and walked and went to museums and slept and walked and shopped. Early on in our trip we stopped in to Gallery Dugal. It was filled with lovely hand made jewelry and pottery and the amazing carved rocking chairs.

I was stunned by the glow and craft of the chairs, but they were so far out of our price range and so beautiful they didn’t feel like they’d fit in our home. They were chairs to build a room around. So magpie that I am I headed for the jewelry. And there it was. A pearl ring unlike any other I’d ever seen. A small pearl set on an irregular silver band, designed and made by hand. So I bought it. Because for the first time I could buy a piece I fell in love with. And because pearl is my birthstone. And because I’d never seen anything like it. And because having a ring by a local artist was just too good to pass by.

Today, after being sized by the woman that designed and made the ring, it appeared in my mailbox. Right when I needed reminding of the trip we took, the city we love, and a little shiny bright spot to go with it.