Wedding Wednesday: The One Where I Lost My Engagement Ring

This is not your typical Wedding Wednesday post. This is not about picking flowers or colors or venues. This is a story that no other bride should have to tell.

It's about the time I lost my engagement ring.

Bryan and I were just back from our amazing trip to California where he proposed two days before my birthday. That coming weekend, we planned to celebrate our engagement and my birthday by enjoying a typical fall Saturday: watching football at a bar.

We started the day in the early afternoon - for timeline sake, it was about 11am. I spent the day surrounded by our closest friends in Chicago, without a care in the world. It was my birthday! I was engaged!

We wandered from the Southport area (for those familiar with Chicago) over to Wrigleyville. The last bar we ended up at was the Houndstooth. For those unfamiliar with the city, I'd say it's about a mile walk from one neighborhood to the other. It was about 7pm, I would say.

A new friend joined us, and immediately, came up to wish me congratulations, asking me to let her see my ring. As I held out my left hand for the 100th time that day, I glanced down to sneak another peek at my new bling.

I saw four. empty. prongs.

Yep, you read that right. FOUR. EMPTY. PRONGS. The diamond—my beautiful, flawless, sparkling diamond—that had been in my possession for less than one week — one week! — was gone.

My mouth dropped open and I immediately burst into tears. I ran to my new fiance and silently showed him my left hand.

"Rachel, where is the diamond?" Bryan asked me, calmly.

(Sobbing. Hyperventilating. Sobbing. Shaking my head.)

I had no idea where it was. Did it fall out at the first bar we went to? Did it fall out on the walk between bars? Who knew!?

"Rachel," he repeated, a little more loudly this time. "We need to find the diamond."

I dropped to my hands and knees, frantically searching, but for what? A needle in a haystack. A literal diamond in the freaking rough. Yet, something caught my eye from across the bar.

There, smiling at me from underneath a bar stool, shone my diamond.

I was sober in an instant and immediately yelled at the top of my lungs, "EVERYBODY STOP MOVING!" Of course, only those in my direct vicinity heard me, but it had the desired effect. I made it to the barstool and snatched the diamond before it could get away again.

I walked it over to Bryan, who put the diamond in his pocket, and immediately left the bar. Me? I proceeded to cry my eyes out for the next couple of hours, while the group bought me shots in an effort to A) shut me up and b) make me stop crying. They did not achieve either.

The story is funny to tell now. I still hate to think about what would have happened if I hadn't found it. I exchanged words with the jeweler where Bryan purchased my ring and we have not had any problems since, thank goodness. As soon as my pretty princess was back on my finger, we got that shit insured.

So I guess that's the moral of the story: GET YOUR RING INSURED. Immediately, if not sooner. We—read, Bryan—would have been SOL had we not found that rock. Truly, it's sort of a miracle that we did find it.

But as someone who believes that things are meant to be, finding this special diamond was further proof that Bryan and I were just that: meant to be.

The night we got engaged in California, pre-losing the diamond.

Do you have any wedding or engagement horror stories?

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Shock, Drop and Roll

I'm refraining from posting my regular weekend update today, mostly because it was pretty tame. Friday was one of the more miserable days of my life as I couldn't stop sneezing/coughing/blowing my nose. Saturday's highlights included a trip to the minute clinic, followed by Ashley's going away party. I'm sure you can imagine how that went for me based on last week's blog post. Sunday was the Chicago Marathon but I remained captive to my bed, getting up long enough to cook some chili and pumpkin bread.

(Hold on. I'm watching the Real Housewives of New York reunion and I can't even focus.) Holy moly. These yahoos are all hot messes.

Speaking of hot messes, it's the time you've all been waiting for: The Tough Mudder Recap.

One thing is for sure: Tough Mudder is One Tough Mother.

It was everything I knew it would be: grueling, scary and rewarding. It was also everything I didn't expect it to be: physically possible for me to complete and ... fun.

 My husband and I after finishing.

Yes, I said fun. You heard it here, folks: Tough Mudder, "the most challenging event on the planet," was fun. (Nearly) all 11 miles, 20 obstacles and 3 hours 15 minutes of it. Everyone on our team finished and everyone completed and/or tried to complete every obstacle. Even me, who decided before I even started the race that I wasn't completing any challenges that involved heights or that threatened my safety.

I didn't remember that I decided those things before scaling 12-15 ft walls, climbing 20-ft spider webs, hiking up hills at a 45-degree angle, jumping off a 15-ft platform, swimming through ice water or running through a field of live wires waiting to shock me.

This is me, jumping from said 15-foot platform into a cold abyss. What 29-year-old plugs her nose? This girl.

I'd say for me, the race definitely much more of a mental challenge than a physical one. Don't get me wrong: I definitely relied on my male teammates to help me get over walls, I wasn't even close to crossing TWO monkey bars, and I most certainly wouldn't have completed "Everest" without three dudes pulling—no, hoisting—me over the edge.

That's not me, just the obstacle. The pipe was greased, and we were muddy, wet and exhausted. Not easy.

But a lot of it was simply mustering the courage to try something that intimidated me or telling myself to pick up my legs and keep moving. As my teammates and I were running along mile 9 or something stupid, when we were all exhausted and it felt like we were running with body weights—oh yes, that would be the mud caked in EVERYWHERE, combined with the water in my shoes—I let them in on a secret.

"Has anyone seen Finding Nemo?" I asked. "Yes," they all panted. "You know how Dorie says, "just keep swimming, just swimming..." I go on. "Yes," they respond, waiting for my point. "Just keep running, just keep running..." I laughed. And so we did.

This is us at the start of the race. Happy.

I'm taking a page from my teammate and fellow blogger, Beth (pictured above) and going to do a little Q&A:

What was the worst obstacle for you?
Electroshock therapy. Beth said it best that day: You know those cartoons when someone gets electrocuted and you can see their skeleton? That's exactly what it felt like. 10,000 volts of electricity is no joke. That shit hurts. You can literally feel it in your bones.

I ran through at full force, only to have a wire shock me so violently near the beginning, it brought me to my knees. TO MY KNEES, people. And then, I couldn't get up because every time I did, I just got shocked and dropped. Again and again and again. Shock, drop and roll, baby. I fell so hard I cut open my friggin' knee. Enjoy these "official" photos. (Excuse the quality on some, I "borrowed" them from the event site without buying them.)

A close second was the Arctic Enema, where you have to jump into an ice bath, submerge yourself long enough to swim under a wooden plank and then swim to the other side.

That's my "Holy &(*&(^&^ this water is cold!" face.

And your favorite obstacle?
Tough to say. I really liked the ones that involved mud, actually. There was one called the Mud Mile, that required wading through waist-deep mud and then having to climb up a muddy hill...up, down, up down. I liked that one. I also liked any that required climbing/being high up, such as Berlin Walls, Spiders Web and Cliffhanger. I didn't have enough time to be scared of the height, so I just did them, and I felt proud of myself for not crying like a baby.

If you could change one thing about the event, what would it be?
Not much, actually. The course was pretty awesome, as it took you through woods, ravines, rock quarrys, etc. I felt kind of like a bad ass leaping over logs and streams during our runs. But, I think I would make the obstacles closer together. It made the miles go by faster when you didn't have to run a mile to get to another one. On the flip side, we did experience some bottlenecks that made it difficult to keep moving, which you just had to do. Just keep swimming...

Would you do it again?
Tough to say. I was swayed once, I could probably be swayed again. I don't know if it would be easier or harder knowing what I know now. Like Beth said, it'd be hard to convince myself to go through Electroshock again.

Would you train for it differently if you did it again?
Definitely less running, and more cross training and strength. If you can run 4 miles without stopping, you're fine because you never run more than I'd say 1-2 miles at a time. I'd also drop some pounds. I say that not being all "I'm so fat," but more thinking about how many times I had to step on someone, or someone had to pull me up. On Everest, I had no upper body strength to speak of, and I was just dead weight for those guys. (Sorry about that.) In any case, if I did do it again, my goals would be to do some of the physical challenges a little better. Like completing Funky Monkey or Hangin' Tough.

Worst bruise?
I banged up my knee pretty bad when I fell during Electroshock Therapy (see my knee on the right). I'm not quite sure where I got the shiner on my left leg, but the picture below is from more than a week later. I think I was also the most sore of my team. It hurt to smile, breathe and move in general.

Glad you did it?     
Absolutely. As much bitching and moaning as I did before it, I am so happy that I did it. It was the most rewarding experience to date with a great group of people, and I'm proud of myself. I sincerely thank all of them for keeping me going and getting me over the hurdles, both literally and figuratively.

Here we are, minus one, after our finish: GirlsWhoGetAround.Com

One final note: One of my teammates had a Go Pro camera - you know, one of those cameras you can wear on your head? So he has the whole thing on film and once we get an edited version, I'll share it with you. Until then, here are is the official Tough Mudder Seattle video.



What do you think? Would you ever do a Tough Mudder?

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If You Really Knew Me...

Happy Tuesday!

I for one, am EXTREMELY happy it's Tuesday because we leave for vacation tomorrow.  Headed up to one of my favorite places on Earth: Lake Okoboji. I'm so ready for five days of R&R with my husband and family, complete with lakes and sunshine. (And debauchery on the boat, of course.) To quote my husband, we are going to "drink the shit out of some weed and waters."

Got today's blog idea from my co-worker, Mary, over at A Little Bit of Class, A Little Bit of Sass. Mary has been a great resource as I try to ramp up my blog. She introduced me to a gal who is helping me revamp this site and get it all optimized with my social media pages, etc. Look for some big changes coming soon!

Without further adieu, let's get personal.

If you really knew me...

...you'd know that growing up, I dabbled in everything. I played the cello and clarinet, was in choir, dance and gymnastics. I played volleyball, softball and basketball. I was a killer pitcher, if I do say so myself, and I quit basketball senior year of high school to do cheer leading.

...you'd know I published my first book when I was in 2nd grade. It was called "How the Fox Got It's Tail." You'd also know that I published my second book when I was 25. I was the co-author on a book called "Career Building: Your Total Handbook for Finding a Job and Making it Work."

...you'd know that I'm terrified of heights. As in, I went repelling once and cried the whole time. As in, my knees get weak just looking over the edge of a tall building, no matter how high the railing. My second fear is death, both my own and my loved ones.

...you'd know that I'm a fat person trapped inside a not-as-fat-as-I-should-be-but-still-sort-of-chubby body. I'm always hungry (ask my husband). While I generally eat healthy, if I could live on pizza, tacos, candy and buffalo wings for the rest of my life with no repercussions, I would.

...you'd know that although writing is my greatest passion, it's also my greatest insecurity. What do you do if you're bad at the one thing you love the most?

...you'd know that, much to my husband's chagrin, as soon as I'm done having babies, I'm getting my boobs done. Reduced and lifted, thank you very much.

...you'd know that I can't watch other people spit their toothpaste in the sink when they're done brushing. It's disgusting.

...you'd know that I've had a series of strange health issues, one of which almost killed me. One included seizures, blood infections and encephalitis, which lead to a coma. The other included a blood clot, which was caused by an extra rib I had under my clavicle, which was surgically removed.

...you'd know that once, when I was in elementary school, I left an obscene message for my dentist. I was being harassed by a kid at school, and I hadn't told anyone, so I picked a number from the "Emergency List" on the fridge, and repeated everything this boy had ever told me. My mother was horrified. More horrified than when she got a different from phone call from the same dentist, letting her know that I had gotten my tongue stuck to the bumper of their car. I was trying to lick snow off. I'm awesome.

...you'd know that I went to the University of Kansas and it was, to date, one of the top 10 best decisions I've ever made. I barely knew a soul, but made some of my best girl friends in the sorority I joined, Kappa Alpha Theta. My memories from college make my heart happy to think about.

...speaking of friends, you'd know that I have the best in the world. No seriously — my friends are better than your friends. My core group of girls are friends from elementary, junior high, high school and college. All of us are from Iowa City, and have grown up together in one way or another. We've seen each other through the hardest moments, as well as the happiest. I am so grateful for each of them every day.

...you'd know that I have approximately 0 hidden talents. Damnit.

...you'd know that my husband and I met in high school. We were in the same class and got to know each other when he got suspended from school after stealing me a bottle of vodka and showing up to the dance intoxicated. I gave him his homework for the week. He told me I was the one approximately 2 hours after our first date. He writes me loves letters. I love him.

...you'd know that I lived in Spain for 5 months in college. This experience is also on my "top 10 best choices" hit list. I saw things, visited places and met people I never would have otherwise. I learned so much about myself in that time and learned some hard lessons, but all of them have shaped me for the better.

...you'd know that in addition to fantastic friends, I have an amazing family. I have two sisters, who are my best friends. Though my parents are divorced, I'm fortunate that they get along better than they did when they were married. My dad's new marriage has brought me a step-mom and two step-brothers. (One of whom is also my brother-in-law. Still saving that for another blog.) I have two adorable nieces, Sloan & Aly, whom I love like my own. You know those people who hate their in-laws? I'm not one of them. My mother, father and sister-in law are all amazing and I feel so lucky to have them in my life.

That's enough for now, but there are more gems like this to come! See you after vacation :)

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