Hello Diamond.com!

Isn't this ring beautiful? I hope it will be mine someday. Here is the story: The company I used to work for 5 years ago is being bought out by Home Depot. The company I worked for was a catalog company called Home Decorators Collection. I worked there for 10 years until deciding to become a stay at home mom. The Fed Ex guy dropped off an envelope the other day...and would you believe it was a check "in gratitude for my contributions" to the company?? It reminded me how nice it was to be connected to something where you actually get paid for working! They suggested that I buy something "meaningful and everlasting". I found out about 20 other people got the letters. Of course people who currently work there got healthy sums, I'm sure. But I was just really surprised to get anything since I haven't worked there in 5 years!! And I knew exactly what could be purchased with this money that would be meaningful and everlasting!

About 2 years ago now, I lost my wedding ring. It really stunk because we found out our new insurance does not cover loss of a wedding ring. It would only be covered if it was stolen. I'm not a huge jewelry person so the last thing I wanted to spend our savings on was a ring, so we decided to use Ted's expense checks and gradually built up some money for the new ring. We've been doing this for about 1 1/2 years (once I realized my ring was not going to "show up anywhere"). Anyway, this check will allow us to make this purchase. I'm looking forward to wearing more than a gold band, even though the gold band is really convenient and doesn't get in the way.

Excitedly stirred up, I decided to look on-line for a ring (just shop, not buy). I came upon a "design your own ring" website called "diamond.com" and I designed my ring. I would like one center diamond representing our union and then 2 diamonds on each side to represent the 4 kids. Here is the link to my ring: http://www.diamond.com/DYS3.asp?gen5=ODIA0900IMG2FRND&ring_id=10036&DYS=true . I love the internet.