lost... and found?

so.... i lost my wedding ring last night. BIG DRAMA!

i was out on the back porch playing with riley and it was fairly chilly which makes my fingers shrink. (disclaimer: my ring has always been a little too big. tension settings cannot be resized.) anyway, we were playing this game where riley runs around with a toy in her mouth and i chase her and try to grab her tail or swat her butt. well (for those of you who have seen our back yard) i was standing on the very far left-hand corner of the patio. riley ran around the front of me and i swept my left hand across the front of my body to the right trying to swat her as she ran by. when i swung my arm, my ring just went flying off all the way over the the neighbor's fence on the right side of our house. i saw it all in slow motion like a cartoon. i just stood there for about 2 seconds before i ran in and told justin to come quick!!

well i explained what happened and that the ring may or may not have gone through the wire fence into the neighbor's yard because i couldn't tell. well i immediately put on a long sleeve t-shirt, gloves and rain boots for fear of poison ivy and started on my hand and knees looking. i bet i looked hilarious. i'm in a bright green long sleeved john deere t-shirt, my gardening gloves, a khaki skirt, brown leggings and my navy rain boots. our neighbor isn't home, so i ask our other neighbor across the street if she can call him to ask if we can search his backyard. well, he has no cell phone, so we left a note on his door. her husband came to help us look because apparently he finds things easily. (a favorite pair of sunglasses in the ocean, for example.)

while brian and i are looking, justin is on the phone with my parents trying to find out where to rent a metal detector. (they had to rent one this summer when dad lost his ring in the backyard. he was flailing because of some little bug or something when it flew off.) well he finds a place that rents them out that's really close to our house-thank God!! brian and i are still combing the area in both backyards when justin gets back. brain decides he's been all the help he can be and goes home. justin and i got to work with the metal detector. he swept the detector back and forth and i looked when it beeped. this would have been a good system if the stupid thing wasn't beeping ALL THE TIME! plus by now, it's totally dark and we're looking with flashlights.

i went inside to make a phone call (we were supposed to go to dinner at a friend's and i was supposed to make mash potatoes (which i hadn't even started). we were supposed to be there at 7 and it was about 6:45. i called her to tell her that we would be late, if there at all. i decided then that i would look until 7 and then i was done, we would have to resume the search tomorrow. justin came inside and i had a total breakdown. completely bawling like a baby. so, we decided that justin would continue to look in the neighbor's yard and i would go handful by handful through the leaves we had raked up to make sure it wasn't in that pile. justin went outside and i was putting on my coat and gloves. he came right back in with his fist closed. "did you find it!?" he just opened his hand and there it was!! he found it right by the fence next to the big tree in our neighbor's yard. it had flown almost 25 feet. talk about relief!! i made the potatoes and we made it to our dinner party a little late. everyone else was late too-so it was no big deal. GIANT SIGH OF RELIEF!! WHEW!!! needless to say i will be getting a spacer put on tonight!

p.s. also last post was my 100th post! woo hoo!