My sister is getting married this weekend. @_@


So I'll be busy from now until Sunday-Monday, traveling to Raleigh and getting things set up.

As for my gems, cleaning them properly isn't the sort of thing you can do with soap and water. Turns out it's more of a process of soaking, rinsing, then soaking again, ad infinitum over a 24-hr period. It's kind of like how you want to paint a wall in multiple coats if you want the color to stand out, and you have to wait between each coating. I've already soaked them in the Iron-Out solution, but it didn't quite remove ALL the staining and clay so I'm considering running out and getting some oxalic acid to do the trick, in which case I'd have to wait until Monday 'cause that'd require a whole 'nother round of this stuff, and it takes a whole day pretty much!


Specifically, you're supposed to soak the stones in a mix of Iron-Out and distilled water, stirring every so often (as it can discolor them if the solution is too strong) and after about half an hour of that transfer the rocks to a warm bath of pure distilled water to sit. Every half an hour or so, you swap it out so it stays clean, for about roughly a day. At the moment, they're sitting in the rinse-water, about halfway through that process, and afterwards if they develop a "powdery white coating" on them when they dry, THEN I have to soak them in a baking soda solution as that's a harmless byproduct of the Iron-Out yet I need to remove that too! x)

Being a rockhound is complicated if you're the kind who actually wants to dig out the stones yourself...