What comes after the eating, the praying, and the loving?

....another book by Elizabeth Gilbert entitled COMMITTED! My dear friend Mary is a B-I-G fan of Gilbert's' first book and printed an eight page article from O Magazine for me to read about the upcoming book due out this spring. I'm going to quote a rather long but deep passage from Felipe (her husband) who has made lots of money in the jewelry business. It's long, read it anyways!
" when I used to go down to Brazil to buy gemstones, i would often buy something they called a parcel. A parcel is the random collection of gems that the minor put together. A typical parcel would contain maybe 20 or 30 aquamarines at once. Supposedly, you get a better deal that way--buying them all in a bunch--but you have to be careful, because of course this guy is trying to unload his bad gemstones on you by packaging them together with a few really good ones. I used to get in trouble because I'd get too excited about the one or two perfect aquamarines in the parcel, and i would pay as much attention to the junk they just threw in there. After I got burned enough times, i finally got wise and learned this-you have to ignore the perfect gemstones. Don't even look at them twice because they're blinding. Just put them away and have a careful look at the really bad stones. Look at them for a long time, then ask yourself honestly, can I work with these? Can I make something out of this? Otherwise, you've just spent a whole lot of money on one or two gorgeous aquamarines buried inside a big heap of worthless crap. It's the same with relationships, I think. People always fall in love with the most perfect aspects of each other's personalities. Who wouldn't? Anybody can love the most wonderful parts of another person. But that's not the clever trick. the really clever trick is this- can you accept the flaws? Can you look at your partner's faults honestly and say, I can work around that? Because the good stuff is always going to be there, and it's always going to be pretty and sparkly, but the crap underneath can ruin you. ---Felipe

" There is hardly a more gracious gift that we can offer somebody than to ACCEPT THEM FULLY, to love them almost despite themselves.--Elizabeth


The movie comes out this spring staring Julia Roberts. Anyone else wanna join us opening night?