I am still very happy about some news I received yesterday that I cannot reveal until another time. It's great stuff though!!
Today I'm going to be domestic Courtney! I'll be going for a jog since the weather isn't too bad just yet. I bought a Women's Health magazine last night and I'm motivated again to get moving. The weather is usually a big factor for me not exercising, but it really is a silly excuse. After that I'll shower before going to the laundromat then I'll be grocery shopping! Hopefully the weather will not get too bad tonight until Phil gets home from work around 4:30 or 5.
Our 2 year wedding anniversary is coming up very soon and I finally decided what I want to give Phil. You see, when we were engaged, Zales came out with a new line of scratch resistant, sturdy rings. Knowing Phil works in labs with chemicals and all kinds of metal equipment, I figured this would be the best option for his ring! Plus, he didn't want any gems in his ring. He thought it was too girlie ;) So we bought him a tungsten ring with lazer engraved pattern on it that was similar to his promise ring I had given him years before.
Promise Ring from James Avery
Wedding Ring
Zales online version
About a year ago, Phil noticed something was weird with his ring. It looked like the pattern was rubbing off! We tried cleaning it, we took it to Zales and they cleaned it. Nothing was helping. The more we researched it, the more we realized this has happened to other people. Since I don't have a very good background with Chemistry, (I just don't get it really), I can't explain exactly why this happened, but I can do my best to tell you have I understand it. You see, you can't have tungsten as a metal by itself. It is too brittle and can break like a piece of pottery without warning. When tungsten rings first became popular, jewlery stores used cobalt as another metal that would stablize the tungsten and make it less brittle, (Phil calls it a binding agent). Well, we are finding out that the cobalt can react to the natural oils on peoples hands and it causes the cobalt to permanetly stain the ring. Jewelry stores are actually using nickle as the binding agent now because it doesn't do this. Well, now we're left with Phil's ring that just looks sad. I mean, its not even really a vanity thing. It's more of, I want his ring to reflect the loving and beautiful words we said to each other when we promised our lives and our love to one another for the rest of our lives. Besides, my rings are beautiful and he deserves the same, without the diamonds ;)
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It's blurry, but this is how it looks now
His 2 year anniversary gift will be a new ring that he can wear with pride. I decided I did not want to deal with tungsten again so we're looking at a simple white gold band. Plus, now I can get it engraved! I've been looking up bible verses to engrave on it and I think Phil has picked his favorite. Song of Solomon 8:6-7 is a beautiful verse about unbreakable love. I actually sang a song a long time ago based on this verse. I was an alto then and it has a gorgeous alto line. I found this video on youtube of it too! Fair warning: at the end of the song, when you're still taking in the beauty of the song, some one in the audience coughs and breaks the mood :-/ Its still worth listening to though.
I'm not trying to give Zales a bad reputation. In fact, they've been helpful about other things to this point in our jewelry relationship. We haven't talked to them about exchanging the ring or anything, but I'm sure they'll be helpful. Plus, I paid an extra $60 for a lifetime protection plan. This should apply to that plan, but we'll see. I'm just saying this is what happened to Phil's tungsten ring and that we're disappointed in the ring since we've only had it for 2 years.
I hope y'all have a great day today!
Peace to you,
"Keep Your Hands To Yourself" by The Calling
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