The following is going to sound like a whole gob of excuses but hear me out because I think you'll come to the conclusion (one I already know) that I am
So, my short ring history: I got married 13 years ago (I was a baby!)... we had like $11 to our name, and my engagement ring was small, unfancy, and I picked it out myself (so there's none of that "he chose this for me" sentiment attached to it). After being happily married for about 3 years, I realized I really didn't like my engagement ring at all anymore, so I stopped wearing it. For the next 9.75 years I wore my $40 gold wedding band on my left ring finger. I was totally totally happy with that simple arrangement. But something weird happened about 3 months ago. My effing fingers lost weight! For reals! My thighs? Nope. My arm flab area? Nope. My lovely muffin top? Nope.
Fingers.
And suddenly my little $40 band was slip sliding all over town and I had to stop wearing it. So for 3 months I've been wearing a $10 plastic ring I bought on Ebay years ago as a wedding ring. It's cute, but come ON, it's also adjustable.
So today I took Otto to JC Penney to search out some holiday gifts for the extended fam & friends. We're a little tight on liquid currency these days (I know, and I bought a ring, ugh, I know, I know, shut up) and the good folks at JCP were recently kind enough to extend our credit limit so I'm thinkin: we'll charge it up for holiday gifts and pay it off over the next few months, win/win, everyone's happy! The escalator down to the housewares dept is right by jewelry so I decide to see what a $40 (in 1997) gold band is going for these days... And then I see all these signs that all the jewelry is basically 70% off if you use your JCP card. And then I see this ring that looks antique, and is all filigreed. I kind of hate jewelry and I immediately loved this ring. I had to try it on.
Let me remind you how pretty this ring is -->
And here's the part where I committed a major marriage faux-pas. This ring is normally $1100. No typos on that number. I know some of you have $10,000 wedding rings. Not me. Remember, mine was $40. But today, during this doorbuster sale thing that was happening right that minute, the ring was $420. I looked left, I looked right, and then I just up and bought it! Just like that, BAM! DONE! Heart racing, I continued on my quest for a digital picture frame (that this stupid JCP didn't have, not a single one, annoying!).
When we got home my hubs opened the front door to welcome us back and I greeted him with, "I have to tell you something." The look on his face. He didn't have a clue because this ring-buying maniac that I turned into today, that's not me. Not once in our 13 year marriage has that been me. So I told him and he was calm but unhappy. And I was disappointed :( I wanted him to get on the ring bandwagon immediately so I wouldn't feel irresponsible or in any way unsure of my actions. I wanted him to buy into the Ring Fan Club! I mean, it's supposed to represent our commitment to each other, he should approve. But for obvious reasons, he didn't. We're trying to scrape enough money together right now to pay for his grad school applications, the bills, groceries, holidays, and some rockin family pictures (which I'll blog about really soon). I'd acted impetuously and he was not for it.
So what does this mean? What do you think? I'm keeping the ring. No question there. After 13 years I finally have a pretty wedding ring, squeee! It'll be paid off soon enough and our monthly payments to JPC (which are already budgeted) won't go up, we'll just be paying them for a few more months. But should it matter that Rob didn't choose this ring for me? Or that, right now, he doesn't even like it? I don't know. Really. Thoughts?
Ps. Feel free to tell me how pretty it is.
Pps. Holiday shopping with an almost 2 year old is a complete cardio and muscle workout as well as an exercise in mommy mental torture. How many more times do I have to do this before Christmas? I promise I won't buy myself jewelry every time we go, but it did kind of balance the torture:
-Lindsey
