Let the Birthday Begin!

With my birthday only one week away, I am starting to get excited and curious. David always has a few surprises up his sleeve for my birthday, and though I can't always share all of them *wink wink*, I want to share this first one. We were browsing in a pawn/trophy shop here in town, killing time, and I stumbled across this lovely pendant. It is obviously meant to be a goddess of some sort, she is standing, nude, in a pool of water between two trees. The gentleman at the shop, an 80 year old man, told me that I didn't want that, I didn't want to wear a naked woman on my neck. Ha he obviously doesn't know me, huh? Well, anyway, he told us it is ivory, which it does appear to be. Though there are no markings of any kind on the back, except what seem to be scratch marks. It was on a silver chain, that I replaced. Some one went to some serious effort to carve such a beautiful image. The entire thing is only 1 1/2 by 2 inches. David asked the man "how much?" and I nearly fell over when he said $5. That's right! I couldn't believe it either. The only explanation I could figure was the fact that the sale of ivory, even old stuff,which this obviously is, is illegal. And the old gentleman probably figured no one else here in the Bible belt would ever buy it. In any case, I am delighted with my first birthday gift of this year. And I look forward to whatever the next week brings.