I’m not much of a shopper, especially when it comes to a gift for my mom. It’s hard for me to figure out what to get her and she’ll never ask for anything. Well, Mother’s Day is this Sunday and so far I don’t have a gift yet and I need to get a last minute present or I can’t go to my parents house and eat pizza and drink beer this Sunday in celebration of this mother of a holiday. Yeah we eat pizza and drink beer on Mother’s Day, you got a problem with that? I didn’t think so!
What I do to make shopping less boring is “speedshopping.” I go somewhere and see just how quickly I can pick out and purchase the gift. I’ve decided to go get my mom’s gift at Kevin Kelly Jewelers, they’re just around the corner from where I live and I went to high school with Kevin and his sister Jody was in my class. Let’s go over and see just how fast I can get my mom a present.
Here we go down Willow Knolls Drive...
We hang a left on University and there it is, I hope you all appreciate these "on the road" photos because I just about smashed my car into the one ahead of me while taking this shot. One of these days I'm sure we'll have an on the road wreckage post, so stay tuned for that!
But today we made it safely to our Mother's Day gift destination, Kevin Kelly Jewelers.
Let's go in and scope out the action inside of here.
And there's just one more set of doors to go through and then we're inside the inner sanctum of jewelry goodness.
It's really nice inside of here, let's take a quick little tour before we start our speedshopping experience.
There's lots of nice things I'm seeing in the glassed in display cases.
Look at all these rings, it's giving me a Mackinaw flashback. Are you out there Crow Carroll?
There's quite a selection of cool jewelry in here.
I like these lit up watches in this display case.
Check out the custom made jewelry in the Kevin Kelly boxes, very fancy!
Obligatory Kevin Kelly Jewelry Store mirror shot!
There's a table at the front of the store where you can sit and talk about your jewelry purchases here. They not only have items for sale in the cases, but you can get custom made pieces created by Kevin and Steven, the other in house jeweler, as well as having your jewelry repaired here. If they sold beer, this would be a perfect place, but what are you going to do?
And here he is, the owner of this fine establishment, Kevin Kelly. Kevin's been in the jewelry business since 1980 and he's been in this location for the last twelve years. It's a family affair here as Kevin's wife Maureen works here and his son Dan is the CFO. As I mentioned earlier, I went to school at Bergan with Kevin and his sister Jody was in my class. For a brief time in the early '80's I periodically would stick my finger up Jody's nose at different bars around town when I would see her, but that's nothing we need to get into now. I just wanted to mention it for the record.
Here's the back room where the jewelry is custom made and repaired, on site.
Kevin's back, toiling away at his bench. See what I did there, "Kevin's back?" Okay, let's just move on.
Here's Melissa who has a desk behind Kevin and runs the front of the store with Kevin's wife, Maureen.
It took me roughly about 46 minutes to assemble the whole Kevin Kelly Jewelry crew that was on duty this day and here they are, from left: Melissa, Dan, Maureen, Kevin, Amanda and Steve. Okay, let's start this speedshopping experience and see just how quickly I can get my mom a gift at Kevin Kelly Jewelry.
11.47 AM: Maureen shows me these pearls. I told her my mom has pearls and we move on down to another display case.
11:48 AM: Maureen tells me that these sideway crosses are very popular item these days. You have to wear the cross sideways somehow and it confused me and almost gave me an anxiety attack, so we moved on to another display case.
11:50 AM: Well this necklace looks perfect. It's simple and beautiful all at the same time, just like my mom. I'll take it!
11:52 AM: Check it out, you get free jewelry cleaner when you make a purchase here! I love this place, if they only had beer it would be perfect!
11:54 AM: Just seven minutes and I'm bagged up by the lovely Amanda and good to go! Thanks to Kevin, Maureen and the whole crew at Kevin Kelly Jewelers for a fun and quick speedshopping experience. I'll have a picture of my mom opening up this present on Monday, so stay tuned for that! See you all tomorrow.
Further reading: Foursquare, Yext and facecrack.
Bonus Photo From Huck’s At 10:27 PM Last Night
I was getting some beer at Huck’s gas station last night and Chip and Jennifer came up to me and told me they read this blog every day and really enjoy it. Well, that made my night, so I had to take their photo, everyone, please meet Chip and Jennifer! If you see me out and about, please say hi and I’ll take your photo, I always travel with the trusty MBIP camera. Great to meet you, Chip and Jennifer, thanks for reading the blog! Happy trails!
