Last night we went to the Shopette to rent a movie, get a bottle of wine, and Cool Whip*. While checking out I put Mackenzie (in her carseat) on the checkout counter while I got my wallet out. Nathan, very concerned, asks me “Mommy, why do we have to pay for Mackenzie?”

*More on that in a minute

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Today I was all excited to get started on Thanksgiving preparations and have talked up all the Special Jobs I had for Nathan (grinding nuts, putting cranberries in the food grinder, putting chocolate kisses in the center of the cookies etc.) He has passed on every. single. one. Bummer. I guess its just as well since he had a fever for 2 days and now is specializing in the production of copious amounts of green snot.

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I know what all of you should be thankful for- whipping cream. Because the entire island of Okinawa has none. The commissaries has been out of whipping cream for at least 2 weeks. Then a few days ago I guess people figured half and half was better than nothing so that sold out as well. Now we are down to Cool Whip (from the shopette) and Im not sure what the Reddi-Whip situation is. It boggles the mind how we run out of holiday essentials every single year.

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Three Strikes 

I got engaged the day after my 21st birthday. Because we were young I know we were totally taken advantage of when we bought my ring set from the Shane Company. Despite the nauseating ads on the radio that try and tell you how great they are, the store is a total sham. They sell junk and are totally dishonest to boot. I should note that PC did a great job and picked out what it was I wanted. He worked hard to save up enough money (even though we were still in college) to buy me the ring I wanted. 

Strike 1

That summer we went to St. Maarten with his family. A day or two after we returned I was looking at my ring in the light and noticed that one side of the big diamond had just planed off. Like, it was just gone. The hardest, most indestructible stone on Earth had cracked and chipped. I was devastated. PC called the Shane company who assured us it was NOT THEIR PROBLEM. Foolishly, because we were only a few months into this engagement thing we didn’t know about the personal articles floater insurance policy needed to cover an incident such as this. PC went into the Shane Company and told him he wasn’t leaving until the refunded his money. This did not go well. After hours of going back and forth they took the junk diamond back begrudgingly because “it was noted that this was a ‘natural untreated diamond’ ” and for those of you who don’t know what ‘natural’ means it means the diamond has an inclusion and is very prone to chipping. Riiight, thats what we thought. PC didnt try and return the entire set then, which, hindsight/20/20/etc we should have. We bought a new diamond from a reputable jeweler and moved on.

Strike 2

When I went home two summers ago I had the prongs checked on my ring as well as getting it cleaned just as ‘annual maintenance.’ The jeweler noted that one of the prongs was badly bent- so bad that I should stop wearing it. I opted to send it to the jewler we bought the diamond from because I trusted them and I knew they would fix  it right. I also wanted them to fix the base of the setting because I thought there was glue (and it turns out it was just messily soldered with yellow gold) on it. Once I sent it to the jeweler they said the entire head needed to be replaced because it was soldered poorly and the prong was so badly bent. This was going to be like a $300 fix for a new platinum head. I told them they were the ones who did it initially. They were disappointed to find that they were the ones who did the poor work and that combined with the fact that we were in the military- the replacement head, labor and shipping were all free. At least their customer service is outstanding.

Strike 3

This weekend we drove up to the northern part of the island. This, by the way, brought back fond memories of the same journey with the Rocks, just with less nausea, less nakedness in the parking lot, 7th grade period disasters and intestinal distress…..which can only be appreciated by those on that particular journey. Anyway, thats getting off topic. As we were making our way home both the kiddos were crashed out in the back seat and I was looking at my ring in the light. And what to my wondering eyes should appear but Santa and eight tiny reindeer a CHIP in one of the side diamonds. And, without sounding sacrilegious, Im getting to the point that I think I should just start over. With the ring, not the husband (no, I’ve put way too much hard work into training him to start fresh). So, yeah….I really don’t know what to do. 

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As I was purchasing the remainder of our Thanksgiving food items I was thinking about how its funny, Thanksgiving and Christmas, at least in our house consist of pretty much the exact same thing. Is everyone like this? Do you have vastly different holiday meals? Lets talk about this more tomorrow mkay? 

Its almost 11pm here and I’d say Im getting a little loopy. Plus my friend will be looking for me soon. Time to turn in for the night 3 hours.

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Filed under: Life Under The Big Top (cue the music), McSassy, Nate the Great, This Is My Life