There are all kinds of insurance available these days, even my dog has insurance! One type of insurance that I would stongly encourage any engaged/married couple to invest in is protection for their rings.

Lu definitely made a great choice for my engagement ring. The design is unique and beautiful. (It looks like a flower.) I've gotten lots of compliments during these past five months, and I've grown quite attached to it.

Unfortunately,  while the ring is dainty and delicate, I am not.

In a few hours, my ring will look just like new again!

In the last week, between visiting DC, rearranging my condo, and just living life, I broke a few of the prongs in the setting and two smaller diamonds surrounding the center stone fell out. It's not extremely noticeable, but it's a big deal to me.

I was concerned about how much money and time it would take to get it fixed. Luckily, Lu was smart enough to get the ring covered by a great insurance plan that provides two years of coverage for normal wear and tear, as well as lifetime protection for my diamonds. With this plan, I was able to take my ring directly to a jeweler about 30 minutes away from home, and he's rebuilding the setting and putting in new diamonds as I type!

It's actually a good thing that the diamonds fell out because there is one clause for most protection plans: you have to get your ring checked every so often for it to stay insured. For some plans (like mine), I have to get my ring inspected every six months. However, others require you to come in every four months to make sure that the setting is secure. It can be a pain, but the jeweler also cleans the ring while you're waiting to make it sparkle like new.

With planning the wedding and living life, "get ring checked" slipped further and further down my to do list.  The jeweler made it clear to me that while many stores are a bit lenient with their policy, slacking on inspections does technically void the insurance protection. Get one salesperson having a bad day, and....

From now on, I'm going to set a reminder in my calendar to get this done!

In the last four months, more guys have hit on me than at any other time in my life. And it's not just the typical mid-twenties to mid-thirties, attractive, young black professionals that constituted my pre-Lu dating life.

Nope, I've been approached by everyone from a 16-year-old football player to a 65-year-old  retired banker. At Starbucks, at the grocery store, or just hanging out on campus -- all races, ages, and professions have suddenly taken an interest.

Here's a scenario from yesterday:


I'm walking Maggie down the street when a taxi pulls up beside me. The 30-something, slightly overweight but semi-attractive driver smiles at me and says, "Hi! What a cute dog you've got!"


I cautiously lower my guard a bit but still lightly brush my pocket to check for my pepper spray. (I really don't like when cars slow down when I'm walking on the street -- not to mention most serial killers are white, male 30-somethings in the Midwest. Besides, he has a good cover as a taxi driver. Paranoid much? Yes, I know.)

"Thanks!"

"You're welcome. It's such a gorgeous day to take a walk. The sun's shining, a breeze is blowing."


"Yeah, it really is a perfect day."


"Yep, couldn't ask for more. Well, actually I could, but given the ring on your left hand I know I'd be turned down. Have a great day!"

Then he drives off.

Huh? Did that really just happen?!

More and more, men have come up to me with these pseudo-pick up lines or just commented on how beautiful I am out of nowhere. Then they just end the conversation and get on with their day.

Before I was engaged, guys would approach me when I was out with friends, or they'd strike up a conversation in the coffee shop. It'd always end with them asking for my phone number or sliding me one their business cards.

[Side note: I really hate the whole "Here's my card" thing. I realize it's supposed to be smooth and convey "I'm kind of a big deal" (emphasis added);. but it comes off like a business transaction or, even worse, a proposition. I especially despise when there's an impressive-sounding, but semi-ambiguous title on the card. Example: Sound engineer. Puh-leeze!! That means you probably make beats in your apartment, if not your parents' basement, in your spare time.... Trust me, guys, you're only going to attract the gold-diggers. If you're genuinely interested in a woman, exchange numbers and follow up with her.]

Back to my point: this is a whole new song and dance. The reason? My engagement ring.


My conclusion is that men realize I'm off-limits. Therefore, they can compliment me or even be a little flirtatious with no consequences. If I turn them down, it's not a blow to their self-esteem. I'm obviously taken.

Most men will even mention my non-single status during our brief exchange in the form of "your fiancé/husband is a lucky guy," "no disrespect because I see that you're spoken for...", and (my favorite) "I won't go any further -- unless your ring isn't real, or you're divorced, or maybe widowed?"

To be totally honest, I like the ring check. It's definitely an unexpected bonus of being engaged. At "worst," it feels good to be complimented out of the blue. At best, I get a funny story.

I'm not wearing my ring right now.... 


No worries. It's just spending a week at the jeweler's getting resized. 

I know that I have tiny hands, but even I was a bit skeptical when the jeweler told me that I wore a size 5 ring. Heeding the warnings of his mother and me, Lu decided to get a 5 1/4 just to be safe. Of course, since jewelers size rings every day and Lu's mother and I have only gotten engaged once, my engagement ring was loose -- not falling off loose, but constantly-sliding-to-the-side loose. 

I didn't think this would be a problem, however I've realized that I need to be ring-ready at all times. Whenever someone congratulates me, the next question is, "Can I see your ring?" (Actually, it's more of a squeal/shriek "Let me see the ring!!" exclamation.) 

Trust me, having to straighten it on my finger first doesn't give the same effect as just flashing my hand.

I knew that I would probably have to get it resized eventually, but I love my ring and have grown quite attached to it. The last thing I wanted to do was to send it away in the hands of some stranger, even a professional stranger who spends the day surrounded by millions of dollars worth of jewelry. 

Instead, I decided that a ring guard would fix the problem. If you're not familiar with them, a ring guard is essentially a metal strip that's wrapped around the inside of the ring to make the band smaller and to keep it from slipping. If you look at the picture below, you'll see that it's secured to the base of the band, so it's generally not visible from the top or the sides.

While the ring guard was effective at keeping the ring in place and didn't distract from the bling factor, there were a few downsides:

1) The metal can scratch the gold on the ring. If you spend several hundred to several thousand dollars on a ring, you don't want a $5 piece of aluminum scraping it.

2) It can get uncomfortable. Like most people, my fingers swell in the morning and when it's hot outside. While a regular ring will feel tight, the ring guard feels like it's actually digging into your skin when your hand's swollen.

3) It scraped the skin off of my finger when I tried to remove the ring.... Yes, go ahead and gasp. My finger is wounded from the guard.

Therefore, I've traded my beautiful ring for a bandaid for the week. I could have experimented with other solutions, but none of them would have been as permanent or comfortable as getting the ring resized.  

It's only been a day, but I must admit that I already feel a little illegitimate and kinda naked without my engagement ring. It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the week progresses. 

Although the proposal details are up to Lu, I wanted to make sure that I had some input on the ring. I know that some women want the ring to be a surprise, but if I'm going to wear a piece of jewelry every, single day, I want to make sure I absolutely love it.

A ring looks different in a catalog or online than it does in the store, and a ring in a display case looks different than when it's on your hand. Since I hadn't tried on engagement rings before, I wasn't even sure which direction to point Lu in, so we went ring-shopping together. Sure enough, finding the right ring wasn't a simple task.

Lu and I went to five different stores on three different trips before I saw "my" ring.  When I slipped that ring on my finger, I sighed, squealed, and did the thing where I held my hand out and admired it from afar.  From that point on, I didn't want to look at any more rings, and I gushed about that ring on our trip home.  I made sure to leave Lu with no question in mind as to what ring I wanted.

The only "problem" is that the ring that I want is smaller and less expensive than the ring that Lu originally wanted to give me. On our first ring-shopping trip, Lu was immediately drawn to the one-carat-plus solitaires with the several thousand dollar price tags. They were beautiful, but they were big...  way too big for my child-size hands.

To give you an idea of how small my hands are, my ring size is around a 5 1/4. The average woman wears a size 7, which would be loose on my thumb. Most 10-year-olds have hands bigger than mine. Needless to say, when I put on those huge rocks, I looked like I had been playing in my mother's jewelry box.

This was disappointing to Lu because, for better or worse, the proposal and the ring are a direct reflection on the man. The first two questions that people generally ask when they hear about an engagement are:

I'm pretty confident that the ring that I picked out is small enough to look flattering on my hand but has the size and sparkle to feed Lu's pride.... I just hope that he feels the same way.