The rewards of cleaning

You all know I’m not much of a house keeper. I hold with the theory that it’s just going to get dirty again. So I usually avoid such things but Saturday for some reason I was in the mood. Nick wasn’t home and I have found that if I ever do any cleaning it is much more likely to occur when I’m home alone.

I started in the kitchen. Once it was all done I started on our bathroom. After cleaning the counter – it sure get piled up with ‘stuff’ that doesn’t belong there – I decided to clean out the drawer on my side. What a junk drawer!! It seems it catches everything.



I figured I would take everything our and then just return what I really needed. When I saw the small box tucked in the back I once again felt that flash of loss and at the same time annoyance at my children.

You see when I got pregnant with Mollie I took my diamond engagement ring off since my hands were swelling. I tucked it in an old box in the back of the bathroom drawer. The only other precious item in the box was the first tooth LJ lost. True treasures you understand!

After Mollie was born my weight really went up so I never tried to put the ring back on. In fact I don’t remember looking in the box again until Mollie was about 6 and lost her first tooth. I took it to put it in the box. I saw the ring but I didn’t even want to try it on at that weight.

Jump ahead a few years. I’d come out to Nick and started losing weight and one day I thought I would just see if there was any chance the ring would fit. Out came the box, out came the ring – it wasn’t my engagement ring. I wasn’t anything like my engagement ring. My ring was gone! I panicked! I knew it had to be one of the children. They had gotten it out to play with and lost it. To cover it up they had slipped in a fake ring hoping I wouldn’t notice. Obviously it had happened when they were very young… but I had to know what had happened. Both kids firmly denied ever taking the ring. I still thought one of they had to be the culprit – if it had just somehow gotten lost there wouldn’t have been a fake replacement ring in the box. So yes I still thought one of them had done it but probably so long ago they honestly didn’t remember doing it.

I had a vague hope of finding it this summer when we moved all the furniture from the kids rooms but no luck. Until today. When nearly everything was out of the drawer, when only a few bobby pins, some stray tissue and a few hotel bottle of shampoo remained I spotted it, my ring lying there in the bottom of the drawer.

I yelled for Mollie, who got to see the ring – that she had been accused of taking – for the first time. Her first reaction was to text LJ to tell him of the find and that it hadn’t been either of them after all.

I’m thrilled to have my ring back! I will still need to have it enlarged to wear it. I was a size 4 when we got engaged – 105 pounds. I still want to know how my ring got out of the box and the fake ring got in there. But I guess it doesn’t really matter now.

There was one more fine I was happy about although it wasn’t quite on the level of finding the ring. I found a tube of Ben Gay. I showed it to Nick and reminded him of something I had told him long ago though he has never taken me up on the idea.

I waved the tube at him and said “This would make a great after care lotion!”

He made a face and said “I just don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Okay then,” I agreed. “If you ever need after care I won’t use it on you, but I think it would be great for me!” I’ve told him again. I’ll let you know if he was listening.

Well that was my Saturday, I found my diamond ring and I have a greater potential for a burning bottom. Yep, that’s my kinda day!