Bling!

When Kael was a month old, I took my wedding ring off of my necklace where I'd been saving it through my "fat pregnancy" phase and slipped it back on to my finger. A month later, I looked at it and saw that one of the diamonds had fallen out. GAH. It is a pressure mounted ring, so you lose one diamond and the integrity of the remaining stones is compromised. Those of you that knew me then know that while I loved that ring, I had noted and frowned upon a row of three brownish stones in a row. My ring had been special ordered because of my small size, and had arrived for pickup just days before we left to get married, so there was no time to dicker over quality. It was one of the brown ones that had fallen out. So, I took it off and put it in my jewelry box, where it remained for the next two years. We had purchased an insurance policy for the ring when we bought it from Fred Meyer, but we'd just purchased the 5 year policy, and that time had come and gone, so fixing it wasn't something we could budget out. A few months ago I took my ring out of storage and brought it in to our local Fred Meyer jeweler to get a quote on fixing it. I figured that would make a great birthday/mothers day/anniversary / Christmas gift, so maybe this fall we could get it repaired so I could wear it again. My ring was sent off to several different repair shops.. and no one could fix it. Each diamond is cut to fit the one next to it, so when one fails they all fail, which means they all need to be resurfaced/cut to fit in the new ring. The manufacturer of this ring was one of the many to call it quits because of our current recession, so everyone else was just working off of their work. We finally got our quote, $600, and were resigned to shuffling the ring back into the jewelry box indefinitely.
I'm not sure how it happened, and I'm not sure why, but it took a long time for the ring to be mailed back to our local Fred Meyer jewelers store. When I went to pick it up I happened to be there on a day when the store manager was working the desk. She asked that I wait to get it, she may have an alternative option ( for repair?). Three weeks later we got a call. I had a ring waiting for me. A perfect, beautiful NEW whole ring waiting for me. No charge.
I have no idea how this happened and I'm still sitting here, bling on my finger, worrying about a phone call for repossession. Apparently during shipping another of my stones had come lose?( it had to be another of the browns) And in the course of researching my ring and it's maker, the ladies at my local jeweler store had located one other ring, identical to mine, in storage at a Fred Meyer Jewelry store on the east coast. The ring was sent over, shipped to a repair shop that was willing to re-size a tension set ring to my tiny 4.25, and a phone call was made to me telling me to come get my brand new shiny ring. Free. No charge. Also? No brown anywhere!

This photo just isn't accurate. Doesn't capture the sparkle and magic of the ring that I love, at all.

A much better view of my new/old bling, with additional sparkle to show how special it really is.

I love this ring. LOVE. When Matt had originally picked it out for me I was skeptical. It looked too big, and I have tiny tiny fingers. But when I first put it on, I fell. It is just perfect for me. Shiny and sparkly, but FLAT and simple, nothing poking up to get caught on things, nothing hanging off to snag. It's just the right ring for me, and for the first time in almost three years I'm finally wearing it again. My naked plain fingers are happy!