30 Day Photo Challenge Day 7- My Most Treasured Item

My most treasured item would have to be my wedding ring or rings....There is so much love & silliness behind them. It is actually 3 separate rings, given at 3 different times.

The bottom one is one ring with grooves to make it look like 4 bands. My hubs wanted to buy me a really nice diamond wedding set and I refused as I worked around senior adults and babies and I know what a large setting can do to their skin.

We searched high and low in jewelry stores and our search always started out...hubs.'we are looking for wedding rings.' This would be followed by my quick retort..'I want a simple band only and if you try to show me diamond wedding sets I will walk.' We walked out of many jewelry stores. I didn't like any of the cookie cutter bands.

One day he is in JCPenneys paying off his account and I decide to go to the jewelry counter and there it was, the matching set I wanted. The problem was, they had to have them both sized and that would take a few weeks so when we got married, I wore some funky ring he gave me that broke me out in a rash because I am allergic to nickel.

He gave this to me at our favorite place, the Ruptured Duck pub in Poulsbo, Washington....when he did, he told me the the 4 bands meant, 'I'll love you forever.'

Ten years later at Christmas time, my son and I were walking around the mall buying Christmas gifts and I saw the middle band in a tiny jewelry store in the Westridge mall in Phoenix. I tried it on and told me son, I really like that ring. Forgot about it.

When we put our tree up and it was decorated, I would walk by each morning exhausted after work and see this one ornament I didn't recognize and think, I will look at it later or move it later. I didn't! On Christmas a few hours after opening gifts, my hubs told me I forgot one...you guessed it, the ornament I didn't recognize was a box with this ring in it!

No, Sapphires are NOT my birthstone. I am a Leo so it is August Peridot, but I love Sapphires and lately would really like to have a Ruby!

Fast forward 10 years later to our 20th Christmas and I will be darned if he didn't pull the same thing off again, only this time, he just hung the ring on the tree and I never saw it!

All three are soldered together and I was crushed in November 2006 when I got home from the hospital after my leg break and noticed I must have hit or grabbed something, because a chunk of my ring was missing. I was devastated beyond consolation.

I told my husband my ring was broke and it took him 3 days from another state to assure me our marriage wasn't and it could be fixed. It was and while I always look at rings at Costco or jewelry counters, I know that nothing would look the same on my hand after all these years or hold the same memories!