The Saga of the Ring or How Liz is Losing Her Mind

You may remember that David bought me a new diamond band to wear with my wedding rings for our 10th anniversary in June. I had hinted about that band for several years and was so delighted that he bought it for me. I smiled every time I looked at it.

About a month ago, I lost it.

I had made cinnamon rolls that day and had taken off my rings in order to knead the dough. But when the cinnamon rolls were baked and iced, I went to put my rings back on and the new band was gone.

We searched everywhere--the counter, the garbage disposal, the trash. David picked through the entire bag of disgusting garbage in search of that ring. His friends even ate almost the whole entire batch of cinnamon rolls in one sitting in case the ring had accidentally found its way into the dough. (It hadn't.)

I started questioning if the band had even been there when I started making the cinnamon rolls. What if I had lost it elsewhere? The most likely location would have been a popular running trail near my house. I had taken the kids there that morning for a walk and after coming out of the bathroom, I shook my hands to get off the water. What if it had flown off my finger then and I just didn't notice because my hands were too wet?

But how did I go the whole day without realizing it was gone? Why I really that absent minded? I was beyond devastated.

I went back to the trail multiple times to search for it. I put up signs, called both the park rangers who care for the trail and the local sheriff to see if someone had turned it in. No ring.

Two weeks later, I received a phone call from a private, unlisted number. A man named Kevin told me that he had found my ring. I was elated, but something seemed off. He asked weird questions and was deliberately evasive. I tried to set up a time and place to meet him and he wouldn't give me very straight answers. He asked if there was a reward. I told him there was (albeit a very small one). He said "OK" and said he'd call me back when he was on his way to our rendezvous point. He never called back and I had no way to contact him.

We were pretty certain it was a scam to get the reward money but I was still devastated all over again. Maybe he truly did find the ring but he decided to pawn it instead because he could get more money that way. Maybe he was lying the whole time in which case he's a dirty, rotten person who actually did me a favor by never calling back.

I started to accept that I'd never see the ring again. David promised he'd save up the money again and buy me a new one for Christmas.

Two nights ago, I decided to make some cookies so I pulled out my binder of dessert recipes; all my recipes are printed out and stored in sheet protectors. I have binders full of recipes.

The recipe book was open on the counter to the page where I'd pulled out the cookie recipe I wanted to use. David was standing by it, drinking a glass of water, about to leave for his weekly card game. I was putting the cookies in a container for him to take with him when I heard him cry, "Honey!"

I turned and looked. "What?"

"Honey, look!" And he pointed at the recipe inside my binder.

I walked over and MY RING WAS IN THE RECIPE BOOK.

It had somehow slipped into the sheet protector on the backside of my recipe for cinnamon rolls. IT WAS THERE THE WHOLE TIME.

I am so happy to be reunited with my ring and to know that it wasn't truly lost or that I'm not losing my mind like I thought. Now I get to smile again every time I see it and am even more vigilant about making sure I take care of it. (I also added it to our insurance policy so it's now insured should I lose it again.)

And to the mysterious Kevin with the private phone number, I hope you get a hundred paper cuts and fall into a vat of lemon juice.

Seven Years

David and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary on Saturday, June 6th. Sometimes it's hard to believe that it's been that long and other times, it seems way too short. I feel like David and I have always been together. Strange to think there was a time when he wasn't in my life. 

David's parents have been offering for months to spend the night with Zara and Adelaide so we could have a whole day and night to ourselves. As much as I relished the thought of a whole night away from the girls, we just never did it because of David's work schedule or my anxiety over leaving the kids. But finally, I declared to David that I must have a night off and it should be over our anniversary weekend. So I forced him to take Friday off from work and finally commit to some plans. 

After bouncing a few ideas back and forth, we finally settled on nice dinner at a great restaurant and we snagged the last remaining reservation for what is considered Atlanta's best restaurant, Bacchanalia. David and I are both secretly foodies at heart and we love going out to good restaurants and eating well-prepared and plated food though we obviously don't get to do it too often. I was looking forward to Bacchanalia for weeks. 

But Thursday morning, I thought my dreams of culinary bliss were to be completely devastated by a particularly ill-timed case of food poisoning. I'm not sure what did me in, but I went to bed on Wednesday feeling rather queasy and was not surprised to awaken early on Thursday morning feeling even worse. I'm particularly fortunate to not be a frequent vomiter (I never throw up during my pregnancies) so I was both horrified and relieved to empty the contents of my stomach that morning. I felt pretty awful and slept through much of the day. I only ever managed to eat two popsicles and a piece of toast. Friday I had more luck eating but I was barely able to choke down the smallest amount of breakfast and lunch so I didn't have high hopes for relishing my entire 5 course meal that evening. 

In any event, David's mother arrived around 1pm and after finishing our last minute preparations, David and I took off to our first destination -- a nail salon to get pedicures. After our pedicures, we headed to our hotel to check in before getting ready for dinner. We had debated between staying at a hotel in downtown Atlanta where we'd be closer to the restaurant/nightlife, but ultimately decided to stay at the Hilton Garden Inn that was minutes away from the Atlanta temple. In addition to being much cheaper, we also wouldn't have to pay for parking. It seems a little silly to pay $30+ dollars to park downtown. 

With Friday traffic in full swing, it took us nearly an hour to get to the restaurant from our hotel, but we still arrived 10 minutes early for our 5:30 reservation (the only time slot they had left), but we were the first patrons to arrive and so we got the best seat in the house, a cozy corner table with an excellent view of the entire dining room and kitchen. The dinner service was impeccable and lasted 2 hours from start to finish. In addition to the 5-course tasting menu, they bring a lot of little sides and supplemental dishes. It was an incredible culinary experience and I'm grateful to say that my stomach behaved itself and I got to enjoy my entire meal. (I did have to take it slow and didn't get to eat everything.) 

This was our menu for the night and David insisted that I list what we had so we remember. I really wanted to take pictures of all our plates, but I thought that might be a little tacky so I resisted. 

Extra - Cheese puffs and Summer Squash Soup with Radish

First Course - David ordered the Chilled Maine Lobster and I ordered the Berkshire Pork Lonzino. I couldn't order most of the dishes from this course because most of them were raw, but I did love my thinly sliced pork with pickled vegetables. David liked his lobster. 

Extra - Bread 

Second Course - David got the Gulf Crab Fritter and I got the North Georgia Rainbow Trout. I think both of these were our favorite dishes of the night. I think David's crab fritter may have just nudged out my trout for the top slot, but both were really, really good. 

Third Course - I got the Wood Grilled Prime NY Strip and David got the Jamison Farm Lamb prepared three ways. These were both really good but not as stunning at the previous course. 

Fourth Course - For the cheese course, David got the Goat's Milk Feta with strawberry, cucumber and oats which was delicious. I ordered the Consider Bardwell Rupert which was a little disappointing. It was a very strong cheese and used a little heavy handedly and I couldn't finish my salad. This is the only course I wish I had ordered differently. 

Intermezzo - Strawberry buttermilk smoothie with chocolate shavings

Fifth Course - David ordered the Almond Tart while I got the only chocolate dessert on the menu, the Warm Valrhona Chocolate (which was very brownie-like) with gelato and toffee. Excellent dessert but very rich. 

But after that, they brought us a brown butter cupcake with cream cheese frosting (pictured above) as an anniversary extra. And THEN they brought out a selection of cookies. The cookies nearly did me in. For the first time in our marriage, David had to finish dessert because I couldn't do it. 

We left feeling very full and very satisfied. It was a very expensive but very delightful dining experience. There's nothing like good food and excellent service to make you feel content and happy. We loved our dinner. 

After dinner, we headed back to our hotel. We had planned on going swimming in the hotel pool, but I was too stuffed and still a little sick so we opted just to lay in bed and watch TV. The next morning, we had breakfast at our hotel before heading for the 10am session at the Atlanta temple. My next planned stop was lunch at The General Muir, a Jewish delicatessen near Emory University. We even drove all the way down there, but David and I were still so full from dinner and breakfast that we couldn't even bring ourselves to order anything and so opted for dessert. I'm still a little mad that I couldn't fit in a few latkes or some pastrami. 

We had a wonderful anniversary and I'm grateful to David's parents for watching the girls for us. I've never gotten to spend the night away from the kids and it was a such a treat to have all that alone time with David, just the two of us. I hope we get to do something like it again someday. 

By the Numbers

Today is our 5th anniversary. We had a nice family breakfast before David departed for work. He's flying to Maryland tonight for a job interview so we won't get to do anything incredibly special today, so it was nice that he went to work a little late so we could spend some time together. The big number 5 (so long, I know!) had me reflecting on the other numbers of our relationship. We've done some pretty cool things in our years together. So here's our marriage, by the numbers:

7 years together, 5 years married

Our Wedding, 6 June 2008, San Diego Temple

One honeymoon to the Big Island of Hawaii

2 Crazy Children

Adelaide Grace Malone, born 20 May 2013

Zara Hope Malone, born 31 August 2010

 3 Moves (Hawaii, Korea, and Utah) and probably a fourth one coming up!

Gyeongbokgung Palace, Seoul Korea

Pali Lookout, Hawaii

4 Countries Visited (Korea, Taiwan, China, and USA)

Great Wall of China, Beijing China

Sun Moon Lake, Taiwan

1 super awesome cross-country road trip

Sequoia National Park, California

Vicksburg Civil War Battlefield, Mississippi

Route 66, Oklahoma

4 degrees (AA in Korea, BS in Accounting, MBA in finance for David and a MA in American Studies for me!)

1 house (a condo in Hawaii)

5 cars (2 in Hawaii, 1 in Korea, and 2 in Utah)


It's been a wonderful 5 years. I'm looking forward to the next 5 and many more after that!

Breaking News Updates

I have another post in the works (I have a short attention span these days so I often take a looong time to write my more lengthy entries) but I had to stop and quickly mention three things unrelated to each other and the other, longer post:

1) My darling husband is very darling and sweet. On Thursday, the 2nd, I woke up to find that David had written me a very sweet note and left it for me on the bathroom mirror. And then, later that evening, I returned from my substitute teaching course to discover an empty home. David arrived shortly after with a dozen beautiful orange/peach roses and two bottles of Martinelli's and said "Happy four months!!!" And because the gesture was so sweet and the sentiment so adorable, I almost didn't have the heart to tell him that our four month anniversary is actually on Monday, the 6th. He mixed up our wedding date (June 6th) with the anniversary of our first date (May 2nd). Still, how sweet is a man who brings you flowers for putting up with you for 4 months? I say he's a keeper.

2) I got a job. Sort of. No, it's a job, but it's a part-time job. I'll be working for the Hawaii Department of Education with a new volunteers and partners program they've been piloting. I'll split my time between three schools (two elementary, one middle school) helping them keep track of their volunteers and posting volunteer opportunities through the DOE's website. It sounds like a pretty easy-going job with a set amount of hours each week (17) and it will allow me to still sub once or twice a week as well. Plus, it pays pretty well. At least, more than I've ever been paid for a job so that just working part-time, I'll be making almost as much as I made at some of my previous full-time jobs. So all in all, I think it'll be a good fit for me and I'm excited to be working with the public schools and getting more experience in an educational setting.

3) During the morning session of Conference today, President Monson announced that the Church is building a temple in Rome, Italy. Those of you who know me know that I spent a semester studying abroad in Rome four years ago and that I'm minorly obsessed with Italy. I attended a small branch on the outskirts of Rome during my months there and knew the people to be a very faithful bunch but who, like a lot of European wards/branches, needed a stronger anchor and connection to the church because their membership was so sparse. The closest temple is in Switzerland and not many members had many opportunities to attend. I hoped that someday Rome (or anywhere in Italy) would get a temple and I can't tell you how surprised and elated and grateful I am that the church will finally be building a temple there. I literally cheered out loud, screaming "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" and "Take that, Vatican!" when I heard the news. I know it'll be a few years before it's actually completed and that, more than likely, the temple will be located in the outskirts of the city, but I hope that someday I'll finally get to made a return trip to my beloved Italy and go to the Rome temple. I've been lucky to have lived close to many temples (well, at least for the next few months....the Laie temple is closing for major renovations after Christmas....it needs them too since it's the oldest temple outside of Utah but I'm sad to go so long without an operating temple close by though there is a temple on the Big Island) and I can't imagine how a temple in Italy might help the work in that area.

So lots of good news all around. Just had to share.