Do you wear your good jewelry? Do you wear much jewelry at all? A while ago, I was in a crowded restaurant with a stylish friend, the wife of a fashion designer. She asked me to look around and see how many women were wearing more than a wedding ring or a modest chain necklace. There were exactly two: me and her.  I found it a little bit discouraging, to say the least.

And yet, when I’ve asked women who don’t wear jewelry why they don’t, they tell me (usually) that they really like it. But they have no clue how to accessorize with it. Or that their lives don’t really permit them to dress up as much as they would like. I understand that. When I had my son, I stopped wearing jewelry for a while. I felt it was for going out. And I soon realized that “out” was a nice place but with an infant, I didn’t get to visit it much anymore. And ultimately decided that being at home with a small child didn’t mean giving up jewelry and accessories. It just meant making them fit my life instead of removing them completely. Slowly, that did come to mean masses of bracelets, huge pins and lots of rhinestones. (Hey, winter here is long. I figure you may as well brighten it up if you can.)

And it made me wonder why we save our good things for such infrequent occasions. Why we don’t see each day as potentially special and wear our good things with abandon. So … try it. Just for one day. Take out that “good stuff” you think is too good to waste on an ordinary day. And make the ordinary extraordinary.