Fall 2010 :
Www.vitalwonders.com has a new look online!
New beads, new looks, a new attitude and a new year coming!
Sunday, September 5, 2010
July 4, 2010 / Happy 4th!
Celebrating the USA on the 4th of July under the fireworks. Remember America - today celebrates the ability for us to use our individual voice - so use it!
March 28, 2010 / We Love Spring!
We Love Spring!
Vital Wonders Magnetic has Many New Designs for their Magnetic Jewelry.
Vital Wonders Magnetic is getting revamped with new products and new looks. I have been making great new memory wire magnetic chokers and VW's newest category of memory wire magnetic bangles on memory wire which is a great way to go. I find the pieces to be very wearable and they look great! The memory wire permanently holds its shape and the high power magnetic beads holds them together needing no clasp.
I have found some evil eye beads and am incorporating them into my lines to offer magnetism with evil eye protection. Anything that helps! Evil eye beads have been used for thousands of years for protection from others envy. Good timing for that.
Happy Spring Everyone!
Remember: grow your own vegetables with heritage seed, stop eating junk food, buy organic, don't waste water and support a good cause.
March 1, 2010 / Any Guesses about 2010?
Any Guesses about 2010?
The winter of 2010 is almost over! I can't wait for Spring. I have already been buying seed for our veggie garden. I am very excited to try satisfying our veggie and fruit needs mostly through gardening. Even contemplating getting some goats and sheep for milk for cheese and weed control on the farm!
Still working on R & D. Finally getting out fused glass jewelry with cat motifs. Now that my kittens are getting big I am understanding cats more ... there is no understanding! They are from a different planet! They are so different than dogs. The opposite really. But I love them and am glad to add cats to my icon themes fused in glass.
I have been also adding new designs to my magnetic jewelry line at Vital Wonders. Some great new magnetic chokers and necklaces along with new styles of magnetic bracelets.
Any guesses about 2010? It is up in the air! The holiday season that just passed was a bust for me. But business has picked up a bit since turning 2010. I know I would love to buy something personally. But the credit card companies are in full tilt on cheating more money out of us. They are getting more and more creative! No one will spend money if they feel it is real bad ahead. Whenever things let up a bit, people start spending again.
In 2009 the thing I spent the most money on was fines. The second thing I spent my money on was being ripped off by other people or businesses financial failings. It is like a mad joke. There is no way to recover. You can't win a fixed game. It is almost impossible to get by. You can't help others or even care when you are sinking yourself. Where has humanity gone? Good luck to everyone in 2010.
My thoughts: stop buying Chinese, start a garden, buy organic, drink lots of clean water, eat fruit, stay away from fast food; find the love in cooking that has kept people involved and challenged since we discovered fire. You are what you eat. You also are mostly what you drink. Buy green. Buy American.
December 12, 2009 / Who Shot the American Dream?
Who Shot the American Dream?
I don't think that much of this recovery has hit anybody's pocketbook yet. I believe this down marketplace might rebound this Holiday Season somewhat for the big retailers where people can get the most for their money. It would be out of necessity to shop that way to be able to even have a Holiday for the family.
The discount stores should do well. I was in a busy Ross Store yesterday and noticed many people shopping that were in a higher financial bracket than usual. I love Ross Stores. I spend hours in the back with the housewares collections. If it is hand carved and beaded and I don't know WHAT it is; I have to buy it. Ross Stores has what Pier One has but cheap, but better than Hobby Lobby's great collection of imported stuff.
I would like to buy American goods but I can't find any.
And I like to buy imports from under deveolped countries with workmanship. I just like the choice. Prices are high and the quality of Chinese imports isn't just very low, they are poisoning us daily. There is no amount of saving cash worth bringing in leaded, melamined, drug laced goods from China. Hasn't anyone thought about their rabbit fur trims, so stylish and cheap. Looks just like my angora kittie to me. We send our chicken to China to be cut-up? To a country with contagious bird disease? How do we know what we are getting back? What is chicken nowadays? I think we send them our chickens but are getting back some sick kind of replacement flesh. There is something very wrong here.
I do not feel that the small merchant in general will be doing well this Holiday season. People will spend to hide from the fact that everyone isn't only worried about their futures but many are losing hope for any kind of future to be proud of. Driven to swallowing our pride and shopping discount and generic. Not much room for the small independent merchant and artist/crafters. Meanwhile after receiving all that bailout monies the banks/credit card companies took our credit from us, after hooking us with their constant begging us to borrow, now basically calling in loans and constantly changing their agreements. Don't you love 'we are changing our policy...' That is why shopping is down, the credit card companies want their money now, before any real crackdowns are initiated to curb them. Beefing up their personal accounts - I want to be king of the world! What is the rush all of a sudden? Am I the only one feeling the heavy breath of the credit card shylocks?
Example: I had to cancel a wholesale order because citibank lowered my credit to my balance. (That reverberates to your credit rating, because now you owe all your balance and that don't sit well with credit ratings.) I had to write the wholesale company explaining my inability to place the order. They kindly wrote back stating they understand; amex just did it to them. Do you see the snowballing implications?
Plus forcing people to repay loans quickly and hitting everyone with their fines at the bottom of the economic swing forces people to sell themselves short of everything it took a lifetime to accumulate; sell during a down market, lose their special holdings: metals and coins, jewelry, collector cars, personal belongings, memories. What a fantastic plan to destroy hope and recovery for all but the corporate leeches. Attack of the Giant Leeches - a great B movie but a bad economic prediction. Hath they no shame?
Pychologically it is an underdeveloped immature willful child that sees only themselves, wants it all, making the rules to benefit themselves while developing a punishment conglomerate to strictly punish and financially burden unfortunates with heavy fines - necessitating the whole lawyer scam.
They say people are taking advantage of the corporations with their frivolous lawsuits. Sick lazy bad people who were stupid enough to let themselves become victims? Aren't those the victims responsible for spoiling the whole country? But who is placing the lawsuit ads for the generalized call to anonymous victims? Who is causing the 'frivolous lawsuits' to happen? Who plagues us with tv ads to sue? Well, who makes all the money from lawsuits? Not the average joes. Bottom feeding greedy assed ambulance chasing lawyers! That is who! Why are victims demonized? Who turned that around? You must beware of a society that demonizes the weak; eats and spits out the young and elderly; separating and preying upon the poor, the homeless, the uneducated as something less than human - all the meantime praising the Lord in very showy ways; for the love of money, luck of birth, hording, judging elitists - just like Jesus taught. (must be a different Jesus than I learned about)
Who shot the American Dream? Where's the buying power to keep the ball rolling with lowered credit limits, no work, salaries dropping, health costs wiping you out whether you pay for insurance or pay out-of-pocket for every problem. Who shot the dream - the people trying to live it or the ones trying to take it all away?
Finally, we need imports as much as we need foreign workers.
Novenber 29, 2009 / Archives from transparentasglass
Christmas; to Be or Not to Be
That is the question. It is anyone's guess. I think most everyone has cut back on their shopping for over a year now and maybe we are all used to spending less now. And appreciating what we have more now. Will the dam break this Holiday? Will people be sick of holding back, tired of making excuses to everyone for being tight, making this Holiday an exception or are people doing better financially than before? In one month we will see. I got a small flurry of orders lately only to find out my merchants services had shut down my payment gateway with no word to me. Protecting me from Nigerian card runners. For over a month. I fired Power Pay for their lack of any reasoning and business ethics what-so-ever. You would think that Authorize.Net would care about the companies representing them. Authorize.Net shut my gateway down for 20 minutes. They didn't forget to turn me back on! They sent me e-mails. Power Pay and Christopher Swift -by NO MEANS swift - the disappearing agent, are even crappy at being crooks. Enough said. I am now without merchant services the month before the Holidays. They are all crooks in the credit card processing merchant services and agents field. This was my 4th company? One crook after another. First American Hurst took total advantage of me for years from day one gauging the price of my out-dated machinery, billed every other month SOMETIMES; keeping it very hard to keep track of, never had me down as the right kind of merchant business and kept billing me after I TRIED to fire him over and over again. He took money for 6 months after I tried to cut business with him. If he had no answer for his mistakes he just hung up. Then the con artist Jennifer Mendoza representing TransFirst in Denver. She was such a rip off they let me go with out too much hassle. She reprogrammed my credit card machine and it never worked correctly after that. They billed me at higher rates because of the machine foul up. She never hooked me up with the correct gateway for the machines and never produced promised online gateway and put my expensive machine down for good. She pulled a big amount of money out of my business account months later but the banker at WaMu had to put it back because he set me up with her and she just plum disappeared. But today I do not want to dwell on the unregulated merchant service resellers. May the government crack down on that industry soon.I am very excited to be planning some great new fashion ideas. They are so hot I can't talk about them until they are actually released. But I am predicting garnishing will be in. Why buy a new outfit when you can add decorative accoutrements making any old outfit hip and new. Much more coming soon!
Have a wonderful shopping season but remember, it is the thought and gesture that counts - more than ever. Spend wisely.
Do check out for magnetic jewelry and great assorted gifts for the Holidays - luxury bathing soaps, sea sponges, unique soap/sponge combo bar, loofahs, body brushes and tons more; hip Over-the-Knee socks, knee highs and crews; cool unique jewelry, dichroic glass gifts and more.
October 29, 2009 / Archives from Transparentasglass blogger
Gift Ideas Offered through new Vital Wonders Online Boutique.
Have People that are hard to buy gifts for? Someone who has most everything?
Someone you already bought everything you can think of for?
Someone who is stressful to buy for?
Check out new Vital Wonders Online Boutique.
Vital Wonders has branched out for the Holiday season with great gift offerings including fabulous Dichroic Glass Gifts from www.iluvjewelry.com. At www.vitalwonders.com under the category GIFTS there is a great new shopping area. Vital Wonders is offering a fabulous line of luxury bathing products, hip sexy over-the-knee socks, dichroic glass belt buckles, dichroic bottle stoppers, flamework beaded key chains and zipper pulls and imaginative dichroic fused glass jewelry - perfect for gifts.
Highlights:
Florida's deluxe sea sponges; 90% of the world's sea sponges come from off the Florida keys in the Gulf of Mexico. The sheep's wool and yellow sea sponges harvested here are the most sought after sponges in the world. We have the premium Rock Island sheep's wool sponges, the best sheep's wool sponges anywhere, soft, silky durable-can last over 10 years; high quality yellow sea sponges, for a more vigorous exfoliation, can last over 5 years; small soft silk sponges for cosmetic uses; and cut-ups of sheep's wool and yellow sponges for personal use and great for hobbies and painting projects.
Soapylicious - Vital Wonders own line of natural soaps, the highest quality ingredients with incredibly seductive scents; Alchemy Soap line from Simply Soap, soap bars using ancient formulas for soaps with incredible qualities; and the must-have unique Sponge-in-a- Soap, natural goat's milk soap bar with a sea sponge inside in fabulously refreshing scents. Total Luxury. Also highlighting Men's high quality German Boar Bristle Shaving Brushes, Nail brushes, facial brushes, wooden soap dishes and loofahs.
Rockn'Socks, a hip green company using regenerated cloth, has a great line of crew, knee and the over-the-knee socks in stripes and patterns. We are offering these great socks at Vital Wonders Online Boutique.
Dichroic glass gifts are also for sale from Molten Ice Dichroic and Blast Glass Jewelry; featuring dichroic glass wine bottle stoppers, keychains, zipper pulls, belt buckles and jewelry. Great gift for someone who has everything.
Vital Wonders Online Boutique is also offering handmade HIP purses, sweet purse bags which hang on the hips leaving your hands free.
Italian Sterling Silver chains, wire chokers, leather cords, silk ties, ribbons and more are here for your selection for whatever needs you have.
Lastly Vital Wonders has a Online Bazaar featuring great buys on imported beaded bracelets, necklaces, medicine bags and more for sale at low low prices - great for stocking gifts. Many gifts under $10.00.
Please come check out Vital Wonders NEW Online Boutique for all your shopping and Holiday needs.
Please have safe and wonderful Holidays.
October 17, 2009 / Archives from transparentasglass blog
[It was increasingly difficult to add any more blogs to Speakup4 by fall 2009 and wordpress wasn't happening. So these are blogs about Vital Wonders from my glass blog transparentasglass blog that belong with Vital Wonders.]
The crop is off and time to close everything down for the winter; the long last watering to fill the soil profile, draining all tanks and irrigation lines, getting all the netting off and stored away. Then it is time for the farm to rest.
What a great time for thinking of new ideas, rethinking old ideas and developing breakthrough methods. I plan on studying the fashion crazes and vow to keep up! I plan on getting my sterling/fine silver pieces online and showing off my great hoop earrings and chandelier earrings. I have some great surprises coming in rings and barrettes and things. I am working on jeweled bibs that will be both stunning showstoppers, one-of-a-kind must haves.
My web sites are moving up in the search engines and I am hoping for a good holiday season. The SEO work has been challenging especially walking the tightrope of optimizing without ever crossing the line of no return. It is frightening!
Vital Wonders Magnetic Jewelry has a great new navigational design that is consumer friendly. I added a new top section grid of pictured categories on my Storefront/Home page and a new page Product List of pictured listed products. My dichroic glass jewelry site www.iluvjewelry.com has many new pieces I have been making during August and September 2009. I have been experimenting with melting in the wire bails in the dichroic glass pieces and will be trying fine silver wire and sterling silver bezels. I have a Cats & Kittens Line coming in 22K gold decals melted into my glass pieces which will be celebrating the summer '09 of finding our 4 feral kittens my son and I raised.
The summer of 2009 was different; I started my boutique and enjoyed developing it until the leading organization folded and took our whole mall down; finding and raising the very young kittens; starting up chickens again and even trying cornish hens; learning html and building my sites; harvesting late season wine grapes and eating my son John's homemade pizzas.
November 29, 2009 / Magnetism & the Holidays
It is a great Holiday idea to give a gift of better health, less pain, faster healing and a better attitude! Lots of great gift ideas from Vital Wonder Boutique online – www.vitalwonders.com. Come check out all the unique gift ideas like luxury bath products: sea sponges, deluxe soaps, German Boar Bristle shaving brushes, body brushes; striped hip over-the-knee socks, dichroic glass wine bottle stoppers, keychains and more. Vital Wonders Magnetics has wonderful magnetic jewelry, specializing in women’s fashions. Offering magnetic cuffs and bangles for a cool new look and full of power.
October 29 2009 / Vital Wonders Boutique Joins Online Store
Vital Wonders Boutique has come to Vital Wonders online
Vital Wonders has branched out for the Holiday season with great gift offerings. At www.vitalwonders.com under the category GIFTS there is a great new shopping area. Vital Wonders is offering a fabulous line of luxury bathing products, hip sexy over-the-knee socks, dichroic glass belt buckles, dichroic bottle stoppers, flamework beaded key chains and zipper pulls and imaginative dichroic fused glass jewelry – perfect for gifts.
Highlighting Florida’s deluxe sea sponges; 90% of the world’s sea sponges come from off the Florida keys in the Gulf of Mexico. The sheep’s wool and yellow sea sponges harvested here are the most sought after sponges in the world. We have the premium Rock Island sheep’s wool sponges, the best sheep’s wool sponges anywhere, soft, silky durable-can last over 10 years; high quality yellow sea sponges, for a more vigorous exfoliation, can last over 5 years; small soft silk sponges for cosmetic uses; and cut-ups of sheep’s wool and yellow sponges for personal use and great for hobbies and painting projects.
Only here, Vital Wonders own line of natural soaps, Soapylicious; highest quality ingredients with incredible scents; Alchemy Soap line from Simply Soap, soaps using ancient formulas for soaps with incredible qualities; and the unique must-have Sponge-in-a- Soap, goat’s milk soap bar with a sea sponge inside in fabulously seducing scents. Total Luxury. Also highlighting Men’s high quality German Boar Bristle Shaving Brushes, Nail brushes, facial brushes, wooden soap dishes and loofahs.
Rockn’Socks, a hip green company using regenerated cloth, has a great line of crew, knee and the over-the-knee socks in stripes and patterns. We are offering these great socks at Vital Wonders Online Boutique.
Dichroic glass gifts are also for sale from Molten Ice Dichroic and Blast Glass Jewelry; featuring dichroic glass wine bottle stoppers, keychains, zipper pulls, belt buckles and jewelry. Great gift for someone who has everything.
Vital Wonders Online Boutique is also offering handmade HIP purses, sweet purse bags which hang on the hips leaving your hands free.
Italian Sterling Silver chains, wire chokers, leather cords, silk ties, ribbons and more are here for your selection for whatever needs you have.
Lastly Vital Wonders has a Online Bazaar featuring great buys on imported beaded bracelets, necklaces, medicine bags and more for sale at low low prices – great for stocking gifts. Many gifts under $10.00.
Please come check out Vital Wonders NEW Online Boutique for all your shopping and Holiday needs.
September 11, 2009 / ChChChanges
Vital Wonders.com is Settling In
I have been tweaking the heck out of www.vitalwonders.com all month, after separating the dichroic glass and art glass jewelry to its own new site www.iluvjewelry.com housing Molten Ice Dichroic, Blast Glass Jewelry, Remember This – Retro, and Silver Shrine Gold Mine.
It has been an interesting division, much like a cell dividing into two distinct entities. Their incubation period is over now and it is time for the eggs to break. I am feeling oddly at peace. Of course the tweaking will continue as I learn new html and keep upgrading myself, but for now these babes are ready to fly.
Vital Wonders Healthware now has the chance to expand and bring out some new products unique to Vital Wonders. These magnetic products are still under wraps. I will also be adding some non-magnetic luxury items like Soapylicious Soaps, Vital Wonders’ line of natural, buttery, herbal soaps and bath items like sea sponges, loofahs, personal brushes and more.
I have many great plans coming, much R & D to work on during the long cold winter. And frankly, I think I will be celebrating the coming of the end of 2009; I am riding on faith for 2010. Sounds too sci-fi, doesn’t it?
August 25th 2009 / Bewitched, befuddled and betrayed
VW Boutique has Closed but Grows Online
Vital Wonders Boutique has closed its doors at White Hall Village as of July 31, 2009. Due to gross mismanagement, all the stores had to vacate the mall basically without notice. It was a sad ongoing ordeal for nearly 10 stores representing over 25 people with everything on the line.
My great news is my website www.vitalwonders.com has now split into two separate stores; Vital Wonders carries therapeutic magnetic jewelry and www.iluvjewelry.com carries my designer jewelry lines: Molten Ice Dichroic, Blast Glass Jewelry, Silver Shrine Gold Mine and Remember This – Retro.
I have anticipated this for years and put together my new website with all that I have learned about html. So it is basic but inclusive. Please drop by and pay us a visit, I would love to have you see my ongoing work. I have new pieces added every week with many innovations coming.
Vital Wonders Magnetics remains at www.vitalwonders.com offering fashion forward therapeutic magnetic jewelry which are both powerful and beautiful – made to order in the USA. Vital Wonders has been offering fine designer magnetic jewelry for over 5 years now and will continue to offer new styles in the latest fashions. Magnetize Me – the Vital Wonders Way!
My non-magnetic jewelry has split from Vital Wonders Healthware to www.iluvjewelry.com. This way each site is specialized and specific to genre.
Molten Ice Dichroic is my jewelry line of DICHROIC JEWELRY. I am offering stunning opalescent pendants, earrings and fully beaded necklaces with a focal point of a unique dichroic pendant. All my dichroic pieces are unique one-of-a-kind made in the USA by me. I only fuse up to 20 pieces at a time to ensure complete control over the integrity of the intricate design and complex patterning.
Blast Glass Jewelry are fused glass pieces made from various art glass often using Wasser precut shapes such as circles, stars,squares and hearts. These pieces are colorful, bright and youthful. There is a fabulous selection of earrings and colorful necklaces to choose from.
Silver Shrine Gold Mine is my line of artisan hand wrought sterling silver and gold pieces. This line is still in early development with many sterling hoops and dangling disc chandelier earrings coming, PMC silver and gold rings and pendants, hammered sterling barrettes, sterling bangles and cuffs, with many surprises to come. There is a small selection to choose from of swarovski crystal drop earrings, sterling hoops and corkscrew drop earrings for sale now.
My newest line, Remember This – Retro is here! This section will grow tremendously but is starting off with great memory wire bangles with flamework beads, cloisonne beaded cuffs, elastic bangles of cloisonne, wood, glass, and metallic beads. Great memory wire necklace chokers to match too. Many styles to come.
WWW.ILUVJEWELRY.COM is Kim DiJulio’s new website of her innovative designer jewelry, proudly made in the USA.
May 26, 2009 / Archives from Speakup4's Blog
Vial Wonders Boutique is now Open!
Inside White Hall Village, 6th & White Ave Grand Junction, CO, #305 is now home to Vital Wonders Boutique including all my jewelry lines, Vital Wonders Magnetic Jewelry, Molten Ice Dichroic, Blast Glass Jewelry and Silver Shrine Gold Mine.
April 1st, 2009 was the opening date and Vital Wonders Boutique has been developing since. Along with my jewelry lines, my two books and various other Kim DiJulio offerings; I am selling deluxe bathing soaps and sea sponges, loofahs, brushes and other luxury bathing products, Simply Soap’s Alchemy Soaps, VW Soapylicious delights, Mens’ shaving brushes and more. I am selling Rockn’ Socks hip style crew, knee and over-the-knee socks made from regenerated cotton; MyChelle Dermaceuticals’s creams, serums, sprays, masks and peels. Coming soon are baby slings from HugaMonkey. For your wayward sons and daughters I have Official Psychopathic Records memorabilia.
I am adding new merchandise weekly. It is exciting to open and fill a store with all the things I love. It is an even bigger challenge due to the failing economy. But the vibes are great and positive at White Hall Village and it is easy to spend a few hours checking out all the stores and offerings. There is great spaces for rent in the chapel and [ex] church areas.
Changes are coming to www.Vital Wonders.com also. The long awaited split between my two stores, Vital Wonders Healthware and Molten Ice Dichroic / Blast Glass Jewelry online store is coming soon. My glass and sterling silver forged lines will be found under my new online store’s name, www.iluvjewelry.com! I am looking forward to the new online store’s distinctions being able to finally advertise and promote each store separately.
Come visit my online store www.vitalwonders.com and soon to be online, www.iluvjewelry.com. If in Grand Junction, Colorado come visit me personally and let me show you my fine offerings. Peace.
Kim DiJulio / Designer
December 31, 2008 - Archives from Speakup4
To Go on Record About Magnetic Therapy’s Effect on my Life
I would like to add my voice to the many about my experiences with magnetic therapy. I would like to add a testimonial concerning my own observations about my use of magnetic jewelry in my own life. It is why I dedicated myself to the development of stylish wearable magnetic jewelry for the continued use of magnetism to help with ailments and boosting overall health.
After farming for over two decades, I found I had developed carpal tunnel problems in both my wrists. Add that to the inherited and crippling thumb arthritis and disfigured painful fingers too, it was very troublesome. It bothered my sleep and hurt when I awoke. I slept with my hands sharply bent and curled under unless I consciously opened and spread them and then lied on top of them to keep them flat. I also suffered from back injuries in my lower, mid back and neck sections. Throw in relentless restless leg syndrome all evening. I knew it was best to keep moving. But who wants to even get up and greet the day when it starts out feeling pretty bleak?
I came across my first magnetic bracelet in an import store over five years ago. I thought it was novel and liked it’s iridescent shimmering colors. I wore it on and off, but remembered the saleswoman telling me something about it having effects upon the body. I basically started wearing them everyday because I like them, I wore a couple of them for their varying colors.
It wasn’t until I took them off that I first noticed anything. It was just before a storm came in and I was relaxing around the house. I noticed, by the hour, how big my fingers were swelling and how they hurt and became more and more unbendable. I then realized that this hadn’t happened in months. The realization hit that while I was wearing my magnetic bracelets I hadn’t had this happen. I put them back on and have been wearing them since. Unfortunately I went back to the store and she had sold out and never got in any again. I looked everywhere and couldn’t find any. I then started studying the Chinese companies that were producing the magnetic beads and found there were many styles and finishes and that I could actually make jewelry to match anything I wore. A year or so later, magnetic wrap bracelets/necklaces came in and flooded the market. It seemed the same few styles came in and I did not feel they stayed on very well. Anyway it was one look. Even if it was versatile and could be worn as a bracelet or necklace, it still seemed weak and troublesome. By then I had started buying beads and tested different cords and decided to go into business to spread the news that we have a choice to try something within our own power that won’t poison our bodies or cost much.
I periodically take them off to test them, but always feel much better and my pain is reduced greatly when wearing them. My other main problems had been sluggish circulation and feeling depressed and tired. While wearing my magnets I always feel better, having more energy, more balanced emotional feelings, less restless legs and better circulation. I have continually tested and retested it in my own life and have found that magnetic jewelry has helped me incredibly. I wouldn’t go without.
Kim DiJulio
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