Rocks.

If you’d asked my 9-year-old self what my idea of the perfect Saturday afternoon was, it would have been this: driving with my mom to Chesterfield Mall and spending all of my time (and allowance) at Natural Wonders, a now-defunct science store peddling everything from astronaut ice cream to telescopes. My tastes were too sophisticated for astronaut ice cream (I was a Dippin’ Dots kinda gal, anyhow); the telescopes genuinely piqued my interest but were out of my price range. So, what could have possibly captured my attention? Every normal fourth grade girl’s favorite toy, of course: ROCKS.

“tidal pool,” knitalatte, $12.

Natural Wonders called them “semi-precious gemstones.” While there was nothing semi about said stones’ preciousness in my fourth-grade mind, I’ll tell you right now that most of it was polished driveway gravel being sold for about thirty times its actual value. But whatever. Rocks are portable and relatively inexpensive. And, let’s face it, they’re not exactly the hot item on the playground, so you never have to worry about sharing. Rock collecting was the perfect hobby for someone like me — a withdrawn kid with minimal liquid assets and a tendency to hoard.

My “collection,” if you could even call it that, is housed in a red-and-green dollar store Caboodle in my parents’ basement. One day, it will make its way to New York; in the mean time, my inner amateur geologist is forced to take other forms. For your consideration…

I wish I had been born in this shirt; as I only found out about it approximately two months ago, I’m going to have to content myself with being buried in it. That’s how amazing it is.

“MINERALS Tshirt Science Geology Tee Rocks WOMENS shirt,” nonfictiontees, $20.

The geode has a special place in my heart as the state rock of my forefathers’ native Iowa. I still remember a nodule slice that my older brother acquired that I was particularly fascinated with. I eventually stole it from him. Something in my pre-adolescent mind told me that he probably wouldn’t miss it. That something was right.

“Gold Plated Geode Slice Necklace,” solisjewelry, $50.

I like the idea of a soft fiber (wool) being manipulated in such a way as to appear that which it is not (namely, hard and rock-like). Behold!

“Felted beach pebbles – set of six in shades of gray,” delica, $16.

I worked at a summer camp outside of Branson, Mo., one year in college. The entire camp was blanketed in your standard Missouri clay-brown gardening gravel, and a funny little game we had was finding “friendship rocks” — that is, rocks among the gravel with a hole through the middle, good for stringing on to a piece of embroidery floss and giving to a worthy camper or fellow counselor. These appeared to be pre-drilled, but I couldn’t help but smile when I came across them.

BUTTER PECAN awesome set of genuine drilled beach and fossil stones, Allybeans, $13.

Tags: allybeans, collecting, delica, geology, knitalatte, life, nonfictiontees, rocks, science, solisjewelry, stones