My 2 favorite Christmas gifts.

About one year ago (January 2009, when I wrote this) I was working on cleaning up the Christmas decorations and boxing up the snowman candlesticks, candy canes, and strings of lights. I was 8 months pregnant and focused on Baby Boy and my family visiting soon to greet him. I noticed that one of the prongs on my diamond ring was loose. My thought was "Hey, that's loose. I usually can't feel it like that. Huh. I wish I could fit all the Christmas lights in one box." A few days later I noticed that the glitter of my ring just wasn't as brilliant as usual -  because it was an empty hole! I ran (waddled) out to the garage and showed Noah. I really wasn't too sad about it but I was pretty disappointed. I loved my unique purple diamond in the filigree ring, but I wasn't too sad. I didn't want to get stuck on it because my family and Peleh were on their way. I didn't want everybody making a big deal about it either. I told my mom but not even my sister.

I did tell my boss who suggested that I sift through the vacuum bag. I had just vacuumed though and had taken the bag out and put it on the curb. It was gone. I did crawl on the floor of the guest room where I noticed the missing diamond, with a flashlight. After the close inspection to the carpet I realized that I should actually have vacuumed in there too.  No diamond. Oh well. It was just a ring. Just a thing. Not that important.

Waaahhh! I really was disappointed though! Especially because I had felt that the setting was loose! Why hadn't I done anything about it??!

Soon after that Noah and I were at the mall and, just because we were there, we stopped in one of the jewelry stores to see what they thought about replacing my purple diamond. They didn't really know anything about purple diamonds but thought there was one within the company somewhere. Noah did some more research, checked the appraisal that came with the ring when he bought it, asked around... Well, not too many people know much about purple diamonds because they are rare. A rare diamond is expensive too, as it turns out. A diamond increases in value as it increases in clarity and decreases in color. However, when the color goes in the opposite direction too far it increases in value as its color deepens. My diamond was a deep merlot. I didn't like to think about it. It made me just so sick at not having done anything - or even thought anything - about the loose prong.

With little money after college, Noah thought it would be a nice ring for me. He could afford it on an online estate auction and it was something different and in color that he knew I would like. He looked further into replacing the 1/4 carat for Christmas this year and discovered that the $500 ring he bought for me couldn't be filled for less than $1200, but more easily for $3000 or $4000.

"Holy ****, Noah!!"

I saw something glitter on the rug. Unbelievable! It was a pretty big piece of glitter. I stuck my finger on it to pick it up but it was hard and had some weight. I had just changed Peleh's diaper on the floor in the living room and saw this round piece of glitter. It must have come from something in the Christmas boxes, but I didn't remember anything with glitter that large. Because it wasn't glitter! It must have fallen out of the boxes which I had gotten out again for another Christmas.

I FOUND MY DIAMOND!

So I didn't get a new diamond for Christmas. I got my old diamond and new camera.