wordy wednesday.

My goal today was to start packing, but then I couldn't get any free moving boxes. I waited too late in the day. My wedding bands also came in, so instead I ventured out to have my ring fixed and then spent some time in the shopping area by Jared.

Still a gap, but it looks SO much better in my opinion. I did notice that there is a slightly larger gap in the lower left corner than the other corners, which is weird because the center diamonds on the bands are lined up perfectly with the points on the engagement ring stone. I think that band for some reason is shaped slightly different...but I honestly do not care! Looking at the ring in person, you can barely see it. And I am very happy with how my ring looks now, and my happiness is all that matters because I'll be wearing it :)

The side diamonds match up a lot better, too :) Still not perfect, but the other one went waaay past the side diamonds of the engagement ring. It looked really funny. This still is not a perfect match, but it looks a lot better.

I honestly think the other enhancer took away from my ring. These bands enhance it. This is the closest I can get to the ring without having to do a custom (and with gold being $1500/ounce now, forget it!). I am very happy with it :)

My room is completely torn up from trying to sort things out for packing. You can tell I'm making A LOT of progress hahaha. I'm normally NOT this messy!

not a happy panda.

my enhancer for my engagement ring came in and today I got the finished product. they're all soughtered together.

I hate it.

In theory, it looked good, but there is just way too much space between the enhancer and the engagement ring. They told me this was the closest they could get to my engagement ring.

My ring has a unique curve to it and surprisingly, Jared does not carry a matching band for it. For awhile we thought our only option was to do a custom, but for one band it would be over $1,000 and for two bands it would be over $3,000. We decided not to because of the price...and you can get an enhancer for a little over $1,000 (usually) and *most* bands are between $499-$599. The problem was just trying to find one that fits well with my ring.

I talked with a guy and we were trying some contour bands and we found one that fits almost perfectly with the ring. They said this will be the closest I can get without having to do a custom and it honestly looks really good :) There is a little price difference, and I called E to make sure it was okay and he said not to stress out about it or anything, price isn't an issue so do not worry about it. "Have fun and pick out what you like. I picked out the engagement ring and you're supposed to pick out the band(s) that you like." I love him =)

THIS LOOKS SO MUCH BETTER.

I love the enhancer, just not with my ring. It doesn't look good at all. Because I have teeny tiny fingers (size 4) we have to special order the bands, but they should come on or before May 6th. For now, I am stuck with my ring as is until the the contour bands come in, and then they will size everything down, unsoughter what I have now and either soughter one band to the ring and keep one band loose, soughter all of them together or keep all of them loose.

The guy told me to try to enjoy my ring now lol but it will get fixed and everything will be okay. I just might have to wait up to 30 days for it >_<

meet me in st. louis...

Friday was oleoresin capsicum day. Saturday was stay-up-all-night and drink in St. Louis day (or night?). Saturday itself was pretty low-key and then we all decided to leave at 5pm. It takes a little over 2 hours to get there from Fort Leonard Wood but we made and we decided to check into our hotel before heading off. We stayed at The Hyatt right by the Arch. Here's the Arch from our window :)

We went to Ranoush for dinner, which is an Arabic restaurant. I've had Arabic food before and when I had it (which was like in 8th grade lol) I didn't care for it too much. A couple of weeks ago I went to Aladdin's and I was blown away by their food. I had their Arayiss "pita-pitza" which was a toasted pita with hummus, seasoned lean ground beef, parsley and pine nuts. It was SO SO GOOD. Since then I have been craving Arabic food, so going to Ranoush was nice :)

The food was excellent. They ran out of a lot of things though, including lamb, and lamb & rice is apparently a very popular dish in the Middle East. We ordered quite a few appetizers:

- libbeh - Arabic yogurt with olive oil and spices...kind of reminded me of sour cream. I do not like sour cream, so I didn't like this one very much.

- hummus - best damn hummus I have ever had!

- falafel - it's made from ground chickpeas and some other things, then deep-fried. Vegetarian. It was delicious.

- kibbeh - seasoned lean ground beef in a little shell that's deep fried, like the falafel. Also very delicious.

Of course everything was served with warm pita bread :)

For our entrees, I ordered the beef shawarma. I didn't really understand the difference between that and the beef kafta which sounded the same, but the beef shawarma was amazingly good. It was lean seasoned beef that almost had a chargrilled taste to it with sauteed onions. It wasn't salty or greasy at all and the beef itself was flavorful but light. It was served on more pita and with a huge vegetable salad on the side. I didn't finish it and I felt bad, especially after Zaid told me that I didn't eat anything lol but I stuffed my face. It was just like a never-ending plate of food! E had the chicken shawarma, basically the same thing. It was also very tasty!

Afterwards we went to the Nara Cafe & Hookah Bar for drinks and hookah, obviously :) Last time I smoked hookah (before going to Missouri) was probably 2-3 years ago at this place by campus. I probably won't smoke it again unless E & I go back to Zaid's house when I go back to Missouri in April for E's MPBOLC graduation :)

Mingo (his nickname) and Zaid

After staying there for awhile, we barhopped. Lots of cool little bars, but my favorite was the Jive & Wail. Underneath it said "dueling pianos" so we decided to check it out.

It was 2 dudes and 2 pianos on stage who take requests and will practically play ANYTHING. When we walked in, we saw this:

This was at like 0130 and there was this old guy dancing on stage. He was so cute! They were playing "I've Got Friends in Low Places" :)

I was OBVIOUSLY drinking :)

They played some other stuff including "F*ck You" by Cee Lo Green but at 0200 they kicked us all out because by then it was 0300 and that's when the bar closed...

it actually sucked going that night because EVERYTHING closed an hour early. Zaid kept telling me how there is "24 hours of drinking in Las Vegas and that we need to go" haha. I don't really drink all that much, just once in awhile, and when I do it's not very much. I get drunk the quickest but also sober up the quickest. A few sips of wine will get my face turning red like in the picture above...it's quite sad, really!

I can understand Zaid for wanting to go out and drink and party. In Saudi Arabia, people drink, but it isn't socially acceptable...you drink in the home, but you don't go out and party like you do here. He graduates at the same time E does but then has another two weeks in Missouri for a course that he will have to take, and afterwards he goes back to Saudi Arabia.

We took a shuttle back to our hotel at like 0530...there were some other people who were very drunk riding with us, along with another man who just so happened to be black. I'm proud to be an American, but sometimes my fellow Americans are so damn ignorant. They said a few racial slurs to the black man. Then one of the guys (who had a scarf) wrapped it around his head and said to Zaid "look, I look like someone from your country" and Zaid just gave him this look...then one of the girls with that guy mentioned how Zaid kept giving him looks and asked "are you going to kill us because he said that? Just so you know he isn't with us!" :/

We finally got back to our hotel room, had a good time ;) then passed out and woke up 4 hours later. We went back to the area where Ranoush was because the other night I saw some plush Chain Chomps (Mario, anyone?) in the window, but when we were finished with dinner they were already closed. There just so happened to be a Chipotle next door, so we ate there :)

We then went to FroYo, which I've always wanted to try. They didn't have the taro flavor which I really wanted, but what we got was delicious.

Low fat red velvet yogurt on the bottom (that tasted just like red velvet cake!) and low fat cake batter yogurt on top with fresh strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and slivered almonds. We devoured it. E loved it, and so did I.

We went into a few stores then headed back to Fort Leonard Wood. For the rest of the evening we just relaxed, played COD4 nazi zombies and watched The Living Dead. Him & I are perfect for each other :)

And now I'm back in Ohio :( I almost contemplated staying another day, because Missouri randomly got hit with a lot of snow/freezing rain this morning. It wasn't bad by FLW, but about 45min out it was REALLY bad. I saw a lot of accidents, including a flipped-over semi. I decided to just keep going, because according to the weather forecast, Illinois and Indiana and Ohio would be fine. The beginning of Illinois was bad but the rest of the drive was fine.

Oh, and today must have been "cut off Melissa" day. The worst was when I was in St. Louis...the highway split off into two exits and this woman went into the wrong exit then quickly crossed over and cut right in front of me. The weather was bad, there was a lot of pick-up off the road from her car and for a moment I couldn't see anything. The exit ramp was also a turn so I was very scared that I would either hit her, hit the barrier or have the car behind me rear end me. Thankfully none of the above happened, but it still scared the shit out of me. Stupid drivers :(

Oh, and I still do NOT have my wedding band. We placed the order before the New Year and still nothing. I called Jared today and apparently the band did come in, but it didn't pass their inspection standards. So that's good that they're picky and they want to make sure you get a quality ring. The bad news, is that their vendor is over in Japan, and with everything that is going on over there, the band probably will not come in until May, probably after the wedding. They said they have another vendor that they use that will create a replica of the ring in the size that I need in about 3-4 weeks at no extra charge.

And speaking of Japan, I still can't believe everything that is happening over there. Still keeping them in my prayers ♥

ring link-up!

Mrs. Yellow Ribbon is doing a "Show Me Your..." link-up and this week...it's RINGS! I love looking at everyone's rings :) Here are mine:

the center diamond is a princess cut but rotated on its side. they call that style a baseball diamond.

I'm wedding band-less because I have teeny-tiny size 4 fingers, and the original band that E bought was a size 8. Jared told us they can't size the ring down that far, so I had to order the band in a smaller size. They told me it was supposed to come in the beginning of February. I'm still waiting -_- But, here is my band (click to enlarge):

The two rings will have to be cut and flipped around then re-sautered together so that the curve goes inward and matches better with my ring...my ring has such a weird curve to it that it's hard to find a band that looks good with it without having to do a custom, which for one band would have been $1700 (which is outrageous) and for two, over $3000 (even more outrageous).

Did you look at rings together?

Actually, no. I did send E pictures of styles that I liked. We shopped for wedding bands together, though.

Do you like your ring? Did you from the beginning? ...Be honest!

I loved my ring from the beginning and still do! It was a different style than the ones that I showed him, and his choice blew me away. I also love what he did with the center diamond because I have never seen a ring like that before. He told me he saw it and didn't like it, then told them to rotate the diamond on the side. I absolutely love it! And I get a lot of compliments on it, too :)

How often do you wear your rings?

I don't wear them to work (I am thinking about buying a either a plain band one or one with a few diamonds) because I'm so scared that something will happen to it! I also don't wear it when I shower. Otherwise, it stays on!

Do you clean your rings?

I have jewelry cleaner, but I usually just have Jared's clean it when I'm in the area. I also get it checked every 6 months and I also check it myself by holding it up to my ear and lightly "tapping" the band. A friend taught me that if you hear a little jingle or clanking sound, that means something is loose. One day I did it, heard something and sure enough it was loose!

What went through your mind the very first time you saw your ring?

It's so pretty and sparkly!!! And also too big lol (the size, I mean! I actually got it resized twice since I got it lol)