Loose diamond ... Lose diamond

Life has been so crazy since I started my job! This is the first time in a while that I've been able to sit down and put together a blog post. I'm working from 1-6:45, so I don't get home until around 7pm. By the time I get home, it's cook dinner, do dishes, and hang out with my hubby until bedtime, if there's not something else going on! And while it seems like I'd have a lot of time in the morning, it just disappears so fast! Between doing laundry, cleaning my house, constant decluttering, and going to the gym, life is flying by. However, I have to say, I LOVE my job. I also feel so lucky to have a job in this time when so many people are out of work. I feel so blessed!

Last week was a crazy week. It was our 7-month anniversary on Thursday, and of course Valentine's Day on Saturday. I decided that I would do my Valentine's surprise for Ben on Thursday since I wanted to do something while he was at work. I blew up a whole bunch of balloons (as many as I could fit in my tiny car), wrapped Ben's Valentine's present and drove over to his work. I was grateful that his car was parked a few spaces away from the front door, but it was well within the view of the front of the office. So, of course, while I was busy stuffing his car full of balloons, he came up to check the fax machine and caught me! I waved him off but it was too late! He'd seen the balloons. Oh well. I came home and did some cleaning, washed the dishes, took out the recyclables, sat down at my computer to check my email and noticed the diamond from my engagement ring was MISSING! I don't know if that's ever happened to anyone but I freaked out! The worst part was, I couldn't remember when I had last seen it! I went to the curb and picked through the recycling bin ... not there ... I took the traps out from under both sinks ... not there ... I looked through the trash ... not there ... I scoured the ground outside ... didn't find anything. By this point Ben had come home to try and console me (I was very upset). How do you find such a small thing?? We looked together inside and outside, then we drove back to his work and looked in the parking lot there. I was so sad. It had been one of my biggest fears to lose my diamond. Of course, I hadn't gotten around to getting insurance on it! I took the ring to the jeweler and told them what happened. They took the ring and said they would look at the setting and see if they could do something. I came home with every intention of continuing to look for my diamond, but I had a horrible headache from crying and the stress, so instead I feel asleep on my bed. When Ben came home from work we spend some more time outside with flashlights looking for sparkles in the grass. It's amazing how many things actually sparkle on the ground! But, we didn't find it. I was devastated, but by this point I has kind-of come to terms with the fact that it might have washed down the drain or otherwise might never be found, and I was ok with that. I simply felt grateful that I had lost a diamond instead of something that was irreplaceable, like my husband. We continued to pray and look for it over the course of the next few days, but didn't have anything to show for it. Yesterday I had some laundry to do, so I gathered it all together, shaking each article as I placed it in the laundry basket. Still no diamond. When I opened the lid of the washing machine, I felt impressed to run my fingers around under the agitator in the center of the drum. I had gotten nearly all the way around, when I felt and heard something small and hard slide out from under the agitator. I looked down in the drum and saw something white-looking nestled in one of the holes in the drum. I held my breath as reached in to pluck it out. Was that my diamond? Was it stuck in the hole? Would it come out? As my nimble fingers closed securely around the object, I exhaled, pulled the object out, and put it in my hand. Then I stared at my diamond in my palm and I was overcome with gratitude and relief. I had found it! With all the credit going to God, of course. I believe it was one of His tender mercies. Certainly I did not need that diamond, but it was meaningful to me for more reasons than one, and I'm grateful that God let me have it back. As for the ring, neither I nor the jeweler feel comfortable with putting the diamond back in that ring so we're going to see if the ringmaker will re-do the ring in a different metal or something of that nature. I'll have to keep ya'll posted. I'm just so grateful to have my diamond back, and of course, I'm shopping for renter's insurance.

Life, jobs, cars ...

I started my new job on Tuesday, hooray! It's kind-of a new job, kind-of old job, which is nice because I already mostly know what I'm doing. I'm working at Legacy Academy, the same company I worked for over the summer, but at a different location. I'm really enjoying it so far-- admittedly much more than I enjoyed substitute teaching. Plus, I'm working part-time, from 1:00-6:45 every day, so I can still have time in the morning to run errands and take care of my house. Since we've been working out every day, the laundry has begun multiplying exponentially and I feel like I just barely stay on top of it as it is!

In other news, Ben's car decided it didn't want to start on Wednesday morning. He jumped it with my car so he could get to work, but then in the afternoon it didn't want to start either. There was one guy left at work but after trying and failing to jump it, Ben called me to come pick him up! Now, a few years back while I was still living in Provo, I took a community education class in Auto Mechanics. I will forever be grateful for some of the basics that I learned in that class. Those skills have proved invaluable. (It helps that I have mechanical brain.) SO I knew that it would be helpful to diagnose the problem in case we couldn't get the car started. I left work a few minutes early, ran home to get my volt-meter (thanks, Dad!) and drove over to Ben's work. After attempting and failing to get a read from the battery on the voltmeter, I discovered that the battery terminals must have a cap on top or something. At any rate, they don't conduct electricity on the very top. I couldn't even get a good reading on the rings. I had to use the screws on the side to get any sort of voltage reading. When I finally got a reading it was around 11 volts. A good car battery should read around 12.5, or at least 12.0. So we got the jumper cables hooked up to the battery making sure to catch those screws on the side, and we got his car started in no time. Once the car was started, the voltage on the battery was over 14 volts, which was a pretty good indication that the alternator was working. So--we'll replace the battery and hopefully that'll do the trick! But we don't have the time or the light to do it together until Saturday so Ben's been driving one of his parents' cars while they are out of town. Hopefully it is just the battery. I can't think what else it would be. I guess it's my car's turn next. So far we've done the brakes and now the battery in Ben's car ... knock on wood ...