amberica | OK, NOW you can all start saying Mazel Tov!

It's OFFICIAL! It's PUBLIC! And I got to tell my PARENTS! That's right, the RING is on my FINGER! (And yes, it's the same as the one I drooled about in this post. (Although I was a little too bedazzled by it at that time, and it really is a lot closer to the one in the picture than I realized! lol #^_^# But it is the SAME one I drooled over in the store last Tuesday.

Funny story about this ring. One week ago today, Tuesday, Jon and I went to a few small jewelry stores to look at rings. Nothing, really nothing, really struck me as being anything special to me. He felt the same way. They were just all a lot of big old solitaires that stuck way up in the air with little tiny prongs just BEGGING for a clumsy girl like me to snag them on something, or get my hand caught in some small space, or what-have-you.

I was starting to think this was going to be a very difficult search, since I really didn't see anything that appealed to me, and I didn't know what to look for anyway, because it seemed like it was just a sea of stuff that was not right for me. We started looking around in what was to be the last store for that day, as usual, I told the salesperson we were looking at engagement rings, and he pointed me in the right direction. Again, nothing really caught my eye as being anything special. Jon asked where he could find the platinum, a favorite metal for both of us. He called me over and pointed out THIS ONE and we were both VERY impressed. It was low-profile, it had a smaller stone (which I prefer) and a bezel setting. Very sturdy. Very modern looking. VERY PRETTY! We were both pretty wowed by it. Up until then, we really didn't know what we were looking for, but as soon as we found this one, we knew that was pretty much IT! Looked at it through the scope, got the whole talk from the sales guy about its qualities, yadda yadda yadda. I couldn't have cared less what he had to say! I liked it, and Jon liked it, and that's all that mattered to us. I remember when we were sitting in the back room looking at it more closely with our salesman, they brought in a very similar one in white gold for us to look at. It had a larger stone, so it sat up higher, and was just generally, well, bigger. I didn't like it as much. Jon and I just kept looking at the little platinum one. He said at one point, "I really think this is the one!" ...But we are not people of hasty decisions. Told the salespeople we didn't WANT to make a snap decision. They gave us a catalog and a picture of that model ring, and we wrote down all the info on it. Went home.

I expected to get it on the weekend, but didn't! I was a little surprised, but I also knew that it might be a good idea for us to go to a few more stores and look around, maybe see if we could find something in that style that we liked better. So that was ok. (I had a great weekend, BTW - we went on a riverboat ride and a BBQ and both got sunburned! Then I made spaghetti on Sunday night and burned 2 of my fingers! But Jon did finish installing the DVD player into his car, so we drove up to an empty parking lot to test the sound out. WOW! But anyway...)

Last night, Monday, I called Jon after I left work to ask if he wanted to go down to the thrift store and look around with me. He said no, he was pretty busy with some projects. I decided to go to the library instead. I'll go to the thrift store another day. It's always more fun with Jon! Then I went home, thought about getting some laundry together to take to his house, but the decided I didn't have enough time. (I guess at this point, he was starting to wonder if I was even coming over!) Well, I did end up going over there, just to hang out for a while. Jon was at his messy little work table that he has set up in the living room. I sat on the couch and we chatted for a while. He had stopped at a couple jewelers near his work at noon, so I was curious to hear if he'd seen anything good. Didn't sound like it. I asked if he wanted to go to a few more stores with me again this week. But then he said that he'd gone back to the store where my ring lived at 4:00 when he got off work. Boy was I steamed! (Just for pretend though.) Why didn't he wait so I could go too and drool on the ring some more?! He knew that I had asked if we could go look at it again every day for almost a week!

He told me that the store was rotating stock. This means that every Monday, they pack up everything that didn't sell and ship it off to another store, but they don't know which store it goes to. And then they get a shipment of things in from another store somewhere else. He was TELLING me this on Monday. This did not sound good. The platinum one was not out on display anymore. I figured that meant we'd HAVE to keep looking. Then he said he looked at the white gold one again. Ick. No. Then he continued to say that he then told them to unpack the platinum one (apparently it had not shipped out yet!), and while he was saying that, he lifted up a skateboard wheel that had been sitting on his work table, to show the PLATINUM ring that had been hidden inside it the whole time! It didn't really register in my brain. He had to kind of say, "LOOK" and direct my attention to it again. I think it was on the third take when I finally figured out what was going on. Then my eyes popped out of my head and he had to catch them before they hit the ground. And I just kind of sat there with my mouth agape babbling unintelligible questions. "Wha..? But you...? So they...? I... I... I... Uhhh......?" Like that. It was pretty goofy. First thing I actually said when I realized what was going on was "I'm gonna throw up." But I didn't. Whew!

Jon told me that he had only gone in that afternoon to get a good look at it again, but when he found out it was going to be sent away, and that he had gotten there at the last minute, he felt like it was the final sign that this really was "the one". If he had decided to wait until today, it would not have been there anymore.

So now I'm actually wearing it! There's only one problem - the ring is a size 7, so they had to add a little temporary fitting thing to make it fit my finger (a size 6), and I have to take it in to get it resized. I think Jon said that if I took it in today, they'd have it done by Friday. But I don't WANT to take it off! LOL

So far, it looks prettiest in my bathroom, where the lights are very bright and white, and in the elevators here at work, where they are really REALLY bright spotlights that are otherwise a little creepy looking. It looks OK in my office, but under fluorescent lights, you don't get the pretty sparkly rainbow colors that you get with a really clean bright white light. Oh gawd listen to me. I better get over it! What's most special about this ring is that Jon is the one who found it first, and that we both love it, and that it is from him to me. ^_^ Awwww, so sappy!