Big win for Lady Grangers
Up by two runs in the bottom of the third inning,tiffany money clips on sale, the LaGrange Lady Grangers were looking to add to their lead over the visiting Central-Carrollton Trojans.
Freshman Shelby O'Neal took to the plate with a runner on and two outs and did just that, lacing an inside-the-park home run down the left-field line that helped the Lady Grangers blank the Lady Trojans 6-0.
It was O'Neal's second home run of the season.
"I realized that my team needed me at that moment so I did my job and we scored some more runs," O'Neal said.
The Lady Grangers (7-3 overall) improved to 3-1 in region 6-AAA play with the win.
Emily Anderson recorded the win, striking out eleven batters and allowing only three hits while walking one.
"We looked really good defensively," head coach Jan Jones said. "We played errorless. They hit the ball well, and put the ball in play and we were just in the right place at the right time.
The Lady Grangers put up their first runs of the game in the bottom of the third.
After two quick outs, freshman Karsin Spinks took to the plate and delivered a single, followed up by another single from Terryuana Godwin.
Jordan Ann MaGouirk then delivered another well-hit single, bringing home both players.
The Lady Grangers added two more insurance runs in the bottom of the sixth inning when Emilee Manning popped a two-run double to deep center field.
The biggest thing for the Lady Grangers,tiffany bracelets clearance, according to Jones, was the ability of her players to produce when called upon.
"We had a player in left field slightly get injured, she's OK now,tiffany sets, but we kind of switched out lineups around and we didn't miss a beat," Jones said. "Mary Margaret (Rogers),tiffany cuff Links for sale, who we put in made the very next play at first and we just kept going.
"That's what we are trying to instill in the girls. We move them around so much in practice to set them up for any situation like that that they may face in a game. So we proved that. It worked well for us."
LaGrange,Charm pendant, which has won five straight games, will try to stay hot when it visits defending state-champion Columbus on Thursday.
Credit: LaGrange Daily News, Ga.
Beautiful weather provides welcome respite from he
Last week's oppressive heat and humidity was replaced with cooler and drier conditions Sunday and that beautifully comfortable weather should continue for several more days, according to the National Weather Service.
The high temperature is not expected to break 80 until Wednesday -- and then not by much -- giving Madison "near normal temperatures" this week, according to the Weather Service.
Monday should be sunny with a comfortable high near 79 degrees and a low of 56.
Tuesday calls for more of the same with a high near 78 and low of 59.
Wednesday and Thursday could see a high of 82 degrees -- a far cry from last week's heat advisories when temperatures topped 90 and the heat index topped 100. Lows on Wednesday and Thursday are forecast at 62 and 65.
Rain does appear in the forecast until Friday,tiffany on sale, when there's a 30 percent change of showers and thunderstorms. Friday should see a high near 80 and low around 60.
The chance of rain continues into Saturday with a 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms during the day and a partly cloudy evening with a low of 61.
Sunday is expected to be mostly sunny with a high near 81.
The high Sunday was 78,discount tiffany key rings, 2 degrees below normal and 17 degrees below the record of 95 set in 1955 and 1988.
The low Sunday was 67, 8 degrees above normal and 30 degrees above the record of 37 set in 1979.
The Madison area didn't see any rain over the weekend after Friday's storms dropped 1.47 inches. That brings this month's rain total to 3.04 inches,tiffany cuff Links on sale, 0.91 inches above normal.
For the year,tiffany key rings for sale, Madison has experienced 29.45 inches,tiffany bracelets sale, 7.93 inches above normal.
Hit by recession, Long Island jewelers promote services, and get creative
Jewelry is the sort of purchase that promises a certain poignancy, the gift that often holds its value and can hold an emotional meaning for generations to come. Yet, in this economy, it's a luxury many consumers have decided to forgo.
"Even with clothing, you still have to put something on, but for tiffany jewelry?" asked Deborah Cohn, an associate professor of marketing at Touro College Graduate School of Business. "It's not food. It's not clothing. It's not shelter. You can just do without it."
As the recession continues to pummel the big national and regional players in retail jewelry sales, many of Long Island's independent jewelers say their revenues also have taken a hit. To stay alive, Long Island jewelry shops say they've adopted an array of strategies, from emphasizing their restyling and resetting services and buying old jewelry to flying to their best clients' winter homes to stage jewelry shows.
"It's not like we're going to reinvent the wheel, but we are trying to do as much buying of old gold, diamonds and jewelry, whether estate or vintage, that we can resell in its present form and give people a better value because the costs to create it are less expensive," said Len Margolis, owner of Le Joaillier Fine Jewelry in Garden City and Locust Valley. "And we are stressing the repair business, because I think more than ever people are wanting to maintain the value of the jewelry they do have."
Not a pretty picture
On many fronts, the picture hasn't been pretty in the jewelry retail sector. In 2008, bankruptcies among retail jewelers and repairers jumped 21 percent from the previous year, according to the Jewelers Board of Trade, a Rhode Island-based credit reporting agency specializing in the jewelry industry.
Specialty jewelers, retailers devoted specifically to fine jewelry, account for 48 percent of the $64.7 billion U.S. jewelry market. The other half of jewelry sales are generated by multiline merchants such as Wal-Mart, Kohl's, Sears and others.
The holiday season -- when many jewelers record a significant portion of their annual revenues -- was disappointing but not entirely unexpected, with sales for that period dropping 30 percent to 50 percent among the several local jewelers interviewed.
The big players like Zale Corp. and Finlay Enterprises Inc. reported large sales drops -- 19.6 percent and 23.7 percent, respectively -- for November and December. And others, like Whitehall Jewelers Inc. and Christian Bernard, filed for bankruptcy and decided to liquidate their companies.
But many local jewelry shops say they have been able to hold their own so far.
Toni Lea Corwin and Timothy Corwin, a husband-and-wife team, are the fourth-generation owners of Corwin's Main Street Jewelers in Southampton. The shop has been in operation since 1879, and it's not unusual for their clients to approach them on the street or in another Southampton store with questions about jewelry, they say.
The Corwins, whose 2008 holiday sales were down about 30 percent, own the building where their shop is located, so they are able to keep their overhead costs down. And like other smaller jewelry retailers, they provide repair and restoration services, which help draw in foot traffic.
"Once you have the foot traffic established, while they are getting their ring sized or repaired, they see something they like, and then I get the sale," Toni Lea Corwin said.
Many jewelers said they adopted a more proactive style, using advertising, direct calls to longtime customers and their Web sites to make sales. At the same time, they have turned to highlighting some of their less expensive options, a necessary strategy in this economy, Cohn said.
Jewelers have to find a way to offer the gift "that says 'I love you' without breaking the bank," she added.
Spending less
Geoffrey Nance, 51, of Huntington is one of those jewelry customers who is spending less but is continuing to buy.
"When it's a special event, jewelry usually has a lot more meaning than buying a sweater or perfume," said Nance, who was in Maddy's Fine Jewelers in Syosset looking at bracelets as a seventh wedding anniversary present. ". . . And you'll have a much better chance of getting her something she will like."
Negotiating an 8 percent discount in his rent for six months helped lower expenses for Emanuel Sofiev, owner of Maddy's, but he also has geared his marketing toward the price-sensitive customer.
For the Christmas holidays and Valentine's Day gift, he sent out mailers to customers, promoting options such as resetting and restyling older jewelry to get a fresh look, or trading in their old gold and diamonds to offset the cost of a new piece of jewelry. He said he is able to keep expenses down because much of the labor is done in-house, and his family has a diamond wholesale business.
"They were able to get a fresh look with something modern without spending thousands," Sofiev said of his campaign.
Freedman Jewelers in Huntington has a factory and a service department that does jewelry and watch repairs for other jewelers, said owner Eric Freedman. Freedman also is a partner in a ruby and sapphire trading business and is involved in a Colombian emerald mining operation, he said, so he was able to make a good profit from selling the stones.
Even so, Freedman traveled out of the state to hold jewelry parties at his friends' winter homes in North Carolina and Palm Beach and Boca Raton, Fla., to keep his 2008 holiday sales consistent with the prior year's revenue.
"They had their girlfriends over like a Tupperware party, except this was the real deal," Freedman said. "We offered some good prices to buy there, and they did."
Wedding bells on Valentine’s Day: Senior citizens to tie knot today
After almost 42 years of marriage followed by 14 years of widowhood, Jan Mathieu of Aberdeen never thought she would marry again -- or would even want to.
"I was satisfied with my life," said Mathieu, for whom "age is just a number and mine's unlisted."
"I didn't want to have to compromise, negotiate and arbitrate again," said the bride who today on tiffany and co Valentine's Day will exchange wedding vows with Les Grosz, 86, of Aberdeen.
"We should know what we are doing at our age," Grosz said.
And at this stage of their lives, age really doesn't matter, Mathieu said.
Grosz was married for 59 years before his wife died six years ago.
Mathieu and Grosz live in condominiums whose decks face each other.
While both decorated their respective decks for Christmas 2007, Mathieu shouted across to Grosz, "Good job, Les."
It baffled him that she knew his name, he said. Later she told him they had met previously at a coffee gathering of several people.
After the compliment, "He called me seven times to go out," Mathieu said. "I just didn't want to get involved. I told him he would find me boring."
But one day she decided to visit him at his home.
"We never stopped talking for two hours," she recalled.
"We hit it off right off the bat," Grosz said. "We think alike. Our values are the same."
The groom and the bride both say that their ability to talk openly and honestly is what each finds most attractive in the other.
"We rarely disagree," Grosz said. "When we do, we solve disagreements right away. That's a quality that is important."
Mathieu said, "I really treasure the communication we have. I'm attracted to his kindness and concern for others and his even temperament. I tend to get fired up, and he can calm me down without him even knowing it. He has patience that never ends. I told my doctor, 'Les can do for me in five minutes what it takes one of your necklaces pills four hours to do.'"
He proposed last September. Mathieu said she prayed for guidance before saying "Yes" a few days later.
The wedding
The ceremony today at First United Methodist Church will be traditional and followed by a reception at the church with 70 or so guests expected. The couple originally planned on about 25, but the event "kind of mushroomed," Mathieu said.
She will walk down the aisle alone.
"I think I can find my way. I am very emancipated. I don't need help."
Her matron of honor will be the same cousin who was her maid of honor in 1953.
Mathieu will wear a new dress.
"I wasn't going to, but my daughter said, 'Mom, you have to buy a new dress.'"
It's not a traditional, long wedding gown and will not be put in storage after today. Mathieu said she plans to wear the black, jacket dress again and again.
She recalled that her parents paid $60 for the traditional wedding dress she wore when she first exchanged vows in 1953. The dress she will wear today also cost $60.
"It was marked down three times," Mathieu said.
Grosz did not buy a new outfit for today.
"I've got plenty of suits," he said.
As for the cost of today's celebration, Mathieu said she doesn't know how it compares to the cost of getting married in 1953.
"I didn't pay for that wedding, so I don't know what it cost. I was just a giddy teenager who thought we bangles could live on love. But they still sent us bills."
The first time around she and her new husband started out with nothing, she said. This time around, Grosz and Mathieu face the daunting task of combining two sets of household possessions.
The goal has been for each to get rid of half their stuff, Mathieu said.
Two fully furnished condos with two fully stocked kitchens make the job "almost overwhelming," Mathieu said.
"You'd be surprised how much you accumulate that really isn't worth a fret," Grosz said.
After they became engaged, he gave Mathieu a list of questions, the second of which was, "Where will we live?" Answer: in Mathieu's condo, because it's larger.
But his No. 1 question -- "Which church will we attend?" -- touched Mathieu's heart, she said. Answer: the rings church where they marry today, which is the church Grosz attends.
"I was impressed by that question," Mathieu said.
Grosz has three sons, one of whom is deceased; three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Mathieu has two daughters, one son and nine grandchildren.
What do the kids and grandkids think of Mathieu and Grosz getting hitched?
"We haven't heard any complaints," Mathieu said. "One of my daughters said, 'Oh Mom, you don't know for how long I've been praying for God to send you a mate.'"