I've been meaning to write about my new ring, but illness and UFOs took over my blogging.
For the record, I'm not really a jewelry person. I appreciate nice jewelry, but it's not something I think to buy for myself, and I don't wear much of it. I think it comes from all my years as a swimmer. It was a real hassle to wear jewelry because I had to take it off and store it somewhere in the locker room, if I remembered to take it off. I ruined a fair number of earrings and watches before I just gave up. At most, I wear a simple necklace, small earrings and my wedding bands - at most.
When B and I got engaged, we were poor. He had been working in Mexico on a family business project (long, boring story) and had been making Mexican wages. I had been downsized from two jobs in 9 months. So when we started talking about getting engaged, I told B that he wasn't allowed to go into debt to buy me a ring. As a result, my ring was very, very modest - really more of a speck. But I loved it because it was from him. We bought our wedding bands at Sam's - one of my mom's friends asked, "How many rings did they have to buy?"
At some point before our wedding, I saw a picture of this ring in the Tiffany catolog and told B that it was the one I wanted when we had the money to afford it. The Christmas before our third anniversary B surprised me with a similar ring from Russell Korman, a local jeweler. Two years ago he gave me a plain band to match it.
As we approached our 10th anniversary, I started making noise about getting a "big ol' rock" as an anniversary present. But given that we don't have maternity coverage as part of our health insurance plan and we had to pay for a c-section out of pocket (go ahead, ask me how much a c-sections costs) the ring didn't happen. But I was OK with that.
But then I was in a store in Shepherdstown, WV and saw my ring. It's by a designer called Christian Caine, and it's a cushion cut green amethyst surrounded by teeny tiny diamonds. I tried it on and fell in love instantly. I dithered over whether to buy it, with my mom, the evil cheerleader, saying "Buy it! Buy it." I finally called B and got his OK to buy the ring by promising him that I'd never ask him to buy me a "big ol' rock." I still love it and am so glad I got it. I would have regretted not buying the ring and probably would have ended up calling our friend in Shepherdstown and asking her to get it and mail it to me.
It's hard to tell from the picture, but the stone is the palest of greens, and when the light hits it just right, the ring just glows with color. When I came home with it, B said, "I thought you weren't a jewelry person. What happened?" My answer was, "I wasn't until I saw this ring."
5 comments:
That's a lovely story of how you got your beautiful ring.
I like you not letting him buy you a big honkin' ring for your engagement when you could not afford it. I would have done the same thing (it was not an issue for us - I got an antique ring from Mike's great grandmother, problem solved).
But when you finally got to a point where you could afford it, you got the ring you really, really liked.
Unfortunately, the ring doesn't really show as green on my laptop computer, but from your description I imagine it looks amazing when the light hits it.
- Heidi
What the heck sort of insurance plan is that? Why aren't these people regulated better?
It is so beautiful! Wow! And a great story, too (Well, except for that no coverage on having a baby thing. What's up with that?!)
Because B and I are both self-employed, we are also self-insured. As a result, our insurance plan doesn't cover pregnancy or delivery - this is pretty common for self-insured folks. We could have signed up for maternity coverage, but you have to be enrolled in that program for 24 months before the coverage kicks in, which given that we hadn't decided to have a third child until two months before I got pregnant, wasn't exactly feasible.
We were lucky, sort of. Because the c-section was technically an "emergency" insurance kicked in for about 60% of the cost. And because we do have insurance, the hospital charged us the "contracted" rate instead of the "full" rate. But we still coughed up about $9,000 all told. Such a difference from when we had the girls on employee-funded insurance. They each cost $500.
I meant employer-funded insurance. I was a state employee when I had the girls, and if nothing else, state employees here in Texas have great insurance.
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