With this ring...ugh.

Disclaimer: The pictures in this post are fuzzy. All of them. And they weren't even taken on the same camera or at the same time. This is proof that my photography skills have not improved, even though I have a better camera. Alas.

This is my engagement ring. (The whole wedding set, actually.)

I think I took this right after we got married. Anyway, I love my engagement ring. LOVE it. It's beautiful and Marcus picked it out all on his own and it's perfect. I bent the prongs around the diamond once and the diamond fell out into my laundry basket, but then we got it re-set in a four-prong setting instead of the weaker six-prong setting it originally had. It looks gorgeous sitting atop my wedding band and is super-sparkly.

That was my engagement ring right after we got married.

Here is my engagement ring now.

This actually happened two weeks ago, but until now, I just haven't wanted to talk about it. It makes me want to cry. Here's what happened.

About 4 months into my pregnancy, my finger got too fat to wear my engagement ring, so I put it away and just wore my wedding band. I should point out that my engagement ring is a size 5, my wedding band a 5 1/4. Why I didn't get my engagement ring re-sized to fit on top of my band, I don't know. I'm sure it was partially laziness and partially money, or lack thereof. Anyway, it was never a problem before I got pregnant. SO. Everyone knows I swelled up like a balloon at the end of my pregnancy and my fingers never quite got back to their usual shape and size, what with losing most of my baby weight, then gaining again, then losing again. But I HAVE lost some and my wedding ring has been sliding around a lot. Two weeks ago I noticed that my wedding band had spend most of the day facing backwards. (It has channel-set diamonds and I had been seeing the back of the ring.) I thought to myself "WOW! I must have lost enough weight to get my fingers back to normal! I wonder if my engagement ring will fit?!?!" So upstairs I went. I got my engagement ring out of the jewelry box and slipped it, almost effortlessly, onto my finger. I was so happy to see it there again. I ran downstairs to show Marcus. Then I tried to take it off. You can guess the rest.

Here's the part where we talk about all the different ways people and the internet tell you to get a stuck ring off of your finger.

SOAP. Should make it slippery, right? Not enough.

LOTION. Tried three different kinds. None of them worked. The ring would turn around, but wouldn't move up and off.

PREPARATION H. It's an anti-inflammatory, right?

COOKING OIL. See lotion.

BUTTER. See cooking oil.

KY JELLY. See Jen blush that her dad knows what that is.

WINDEX. Apparently it's a miracle worker. Every website I visited (and you'd be amazed at how many there are) said to spray your finger with Windex and the ring would twist off in less than a minute. Of course, I was out of Windex, so I tried the other options first. Eventually, after the other options FAILED, I went to the store for Windex. By this time, I'd been smearing stuff on my finger and pulling at the ring for almost two hours. My finger was turning very red and getting chafed. We gave it the ole college try, but Windex, too, failed me.

SO...off to the jewelry store I went where a nice lady cut my ring off my finger with a tiny saw. And then I cried.

Poor Marcus. I think we've officially reached the "this thing has cost more for repairs than it cost for me to buy it" point. I haven't dared to ask when we can get it fixed.

Let's be honest

In honor of it being only 9 days til Honest Abe's birthday (10 days til MY birthday) and given the fact that I am typing this in my office, where I keep checking the door to see if my boss is coming, much like a seven year old would check to see if her mom was going to catch her staying up past her bedtime, let's be honest with one another:

How much time do you spend on the internet at work for personal reasons? What do you look at?

I read my personal email, sometimes read YOUR blogs (See, it's all your fault. If your lives weren't so interesting, I wouldn't care and would be able to get some work done!), twitter, check facebook, read playbill.com (ok, that one's actually work-related), and often browse Amazon. When I worked at Cornell, I was addicted to a game called Snood. My co-worker and I both were, actually, and we would play at the same time, then IM each other from across the office to compare scores. (If my former supervisor is reading this--she also shared our office--a light just went off in her head. Actually, who am I kidding? I'm sure she knew.)

If you need to be anonymous in your comment, we will all certainly understand.

Now 'fess up.

JUST BE

That is my motto for 2009. Up until this exact moment in my life, I have, in one way or another, been waiting for "the next step." The next step has been something different with each passing year. For a while it was finishing my education. Then getting a job. Then getting the next job. Then getting promoted. Then getting married. Then having kids. Then watching Dean pass each milestone during his first year. Then buying a house. Then finding something to do with myself now that we've moved and are in our house. And it all happened. And I loved every second of it. And now, I want to sit back and enjoy it.

I really should have warned you about the bad grammar this post would contain BEFORE you committed to reading it, huh?

I'm not a maker of resolutions each new year, but I am a goal-setter. (really, the grammar is horrendous, isn't it?) I tend to set very high standards for myself, then decide that anything less is completely unacceptable. Funny how life sometimes throws a giant monkey wrench at you, huh? If 2008 taught me anything, it was that I have to be patient with myself and accept who I am and what my situation is at this very moment. And for the first time in over a year, I can tell you that today I am completely comfortable in my own skin, completely happy with where my life is right now and very, very excited about the coming months. This leads us to a revelation. (no, I'm not pregnant.) The past year has been, shall we say, rough. I know now that I have been dealing with some sort of post-partum depression and I feel like I'm ready to talk about it, like I need to talk about it. I would not open up about this on my blog normally, especially since I have a lot of readers who don't know me personally, but one of the only things that got me through a lot of days these past few months has been reading blogs. It's refreshing and reassuring to see that other people are going through the same struggles and facing the same challenges. Since moving, we have made a few friends, but none that we've really "clicked" with. I think that also has to do with the fact that we are parents now and our priorities are so different. Sure, we can socialize, but at 8:00, we want to be at home to put our kid to bed. But blogs are there 24 hours a day. Not to say they can replace human companionship, but when you're crying at 10am, your husband's at work and your baby's asleep, they sure can be comforting.

My one request is that my very close family members, who may or may not be aware of the things I talk about on here, do not use the comments section of this blog as an avenue for discussion. Call me on the phone or email me if you want to say something or ask me questions. If it's difficult for you to read these things on my blog, tell me and I'll tell you which entries to skip. It's something I need to share. My story may help someone else feel better and get through one tough day the way my "blog friends" helped me through so many last year. Also, telling about this situation makes me feel better. It's an important part of my life, even though it may be perceived as completely negative, but overcoming it has been wonderful.

As I head into new adventures, like a return to teaching, a new position with our state's theatre conference (!) and my second year of motherhood, I want to take my time and enjoy my life. After all, I've worked very hard to get here. My what-if's and when-that-happenses (again with the grammar!) are now my reality. It's time to just be.