*No audio today, because I pretty much rewrote the post from the transcript.*

Are you part crow, like me? Not the Native American kind – the “attracted to shiny objects”, avian kind. I love the shiny – shiny nail polish, shiny jewelry, shiny yarn…bring on the bling! Oddly enough, I’m not much for gemstones in jewelry, but I do love fun and funky patterns, colors and themes. And while I love most yarn, the stuff with those shiny little strands woven in for a subtle sparkly look just wants me to bring it home.

As you can imagine, I don’t actually open all the newsletters I get very often. That would be a serious fight with temptation far more often than I want to deal with it, so I normally just delete them unread, except for right after payday when I might have a few extra bucks to spend, or when I’ve actually budgeted for a sparkly expense and want to see if there’s a coupon in one that isn’t expired (that doesn’t happen often – don’t get me started on the “you just spent $50 with us, here’s a discount good for the next 12 hours because you couldn’t possibly have already ordered everything you need or spent all your money yet” codes – I want to kill someone when I get those).

But, companies tend to unsubscribe you if you don’t open their newsletters at least occasionally, so I’ve been trying to do a better job of at least opening them quickly and then deleting them (occasionally I do get a coupon code that’s good for more than a day or so!). Sometimes I have more willpower than others, and last week, while I was able to resist the sparkly yarn (barely), I didn’t have it in me to say “no” to the sparkly Halloween earrings on offer (and I did use the discount code in the email, thankyouverymuch). Three industrial bars and two rook bars later, I can’t bring myself to regret the decision, even though I probably shouldn’t have spent the money on them (and yes, it was far less money spent than if I’d bought the yarn).

This past weekend, I actually budgeted for sparklies – because Halloween is coming! I needed some other new earrings to go with my new bars for the holiday (I mean, if you’re gonna wear the bling, why not have it all themed?!), and we also needed some stuff for our “grim reapers on vacation” costumes this year. I don’t think long skeleton gloves/buffs really count as “sparkly”, but the Hawaiian style shirts I ordered are pretty darn bright…

I’ve been practically salivating over the new nail polish colors coming out…holos and glitters, especially. *sigh* Alas, I’ve been good about deleting all those emails and their damned quick-expiring discount codes, because…Halloween. And bills. Stupid bills.

It’s no wonder that the “special” pocket monsters in Pokemon are “shiny”, and the special event things in Wizards Unite are “brilliant”. I think we’re naturally drawn to things that sparkle and shine and bend the light a little differently. Otherwise precious metals and sparkly gemstones wouldn’t be so popular either. I wonder why that is? Why we’re seemingly “hard-coded” to be attracted to sparkly stuff? Something for more research, perhaps.

Are there people who can’t perceive “shiny” or “sparkly”? Anyone know?

What’s your favorite “shiny” thing?

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