Lost Diamond

Its late on Sunday evening, at the close of my son's wedding weekend. I'm emerging, exhausted from the deep end of three days of constant, but joyful activity.

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(My apologies for the blurred photo; I hope you will read the accompanying story, if you have time.)

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The weekend's final wedding event----the gift opening----was held at the bride's parents' home this afternoon; on our way home, I thought, "How do I choose what to blog about first?" The answer came as soon as I walked into the house and reached up to remove my earrings........one was missing! Oh-h, I just hate to lose things. A search of the car turned up nothing. My daughter said, "Mom, you still had two earrings on when you were taking that picture of the blue beta fish in the bowl, right before we headed to the car." From that tidbit of information, I could deduce that the earring fell out somewhere between the house and the car, probably in the backyard, so I drove back to the bride's parents' home to do a search for the colorful, glittery "1928" clip earring, half of a pair which I been tickled to find at Kohl's a few weeks ago. Rarely, do I have much luck finding stylish and interesting earrings of the clip persuasion. (I'm too chicken to get my ears pierced.)

I retraced my steps in the backyard after the moment of photographing the beta fish..........I had next snapped this photo of Tippy giving my daughter his famous "High Five"! I was quite certain the earring must have fallen off right in this vicinity. The bride's father-----famous for being a gadget-guy in our small town-----appeared with a metal detector and started scanning the area. Soon I stepped on something hard, like a stone.......hooray......the earring! And, it was lying in just about the same spot where Tippy's front paw is at on the ground in the photo.
The lost earring circumstance prompted the bride's mother to tell me a most amazing true story: Many years ago, shortly after she and her husband had celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary, she was taking dictation one day at the lawyer's office where she worked when she suddenly noticed that the diamond was missing from her wedding ring!! She and the lawyer immediately searched the floor in his office, with no success. After that, with sinking heart, she realized she could have lost it anywhere, even in her mother-in-law's garden where she had tilled with the garden tractor the day before.

Now get this.......one morning, FIVE YEARS LATER........(and remember the missing gem was a small diamond), her mother-in-law was washing dishes at the kitchen sink, gazing out the window when she suddenly saw a bright flash out in the dirt in the garden. She went to investigate and found the tiny diamond!! After FIVE YEARS and several seasons' worth of the soil being turned over and over during plowing and tilling! Incredible! The diamond was returned securely to its home in the wedding ring setting, and it looked no worse for wear yesterday when I gawked at it in awe!

Anyhow, I thought it was an incredible story and just had to blog about it! Standing there with me yesterday, listening to the bride's mother tell the tale was an old family friend from Colorado, and afterwards, she voiced her hope that the bride's mother would write the story down so it wouldn't be forgotten, to which the bride's mother just shook her head. At that moment, I made a mental note to relay the tale on the blog, even if the bride's mother doesn't ever choose to preserve the story on paper!

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Whether you'll be able to tell it or not, I don't know, but this post contains photos taken with a new camera, which I splurged on for my 50th birthday a couple months ago. A Nikon D40. My knowledge of SLR cameras is nil, but I had a blast snapping a milkcan-full of festive wedding photos on the Automatic setting this weekend!

Wedding colors: Blue, orange, and silver. These milkcans, functioning as flower holders, were spruced up with silver paint for the reception. They're embossed with Holstein cows in honor of the dairy farm where the groom grew up!

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Somewhere in the back of my tired mind, a weary little voice is reminding me to read last week's posts on this blog to find out what subjects the cows chose to write about. I had put Freckles the Cow in charge of the blog while I was busy preparing for the wedding.......I hope that was a prudent decision.......Freckles seems rather low-key and ego-less most of the time, but one never knows what hidden personality quirks might be prodded into the open by blogging.

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