Before I Get to the Food Posts&hellip;

Got a surprise yesterday.

A nice one.

Now, earlier I’d picked up a few things for the family for little Valentine’s Day gifts. Some M&Ms for the kids, a little pink stuffed hippo for Julia, a Beyblade for Alex. And a bag of Willie Wonka Heart-shaped Gobstoppers for Bill. He loves that stuff. And I figured I’d make a nice dinner, so I picked up stuff for that as well.

Did all this because I had the day and night off, but knew I’d be working the rest of the weekend and Monday night. So I just figured we’d have a nice little Valentine’s evening. Nothing major, just some yummy food.

As you may know, I spent most of the day making Baklava, a Clementine-Almond Tart for French Fridays with Dorie (yeah, it’s Saturday now, I know, I’m getting to it), and bread. So let’s see, by the time I got home after picking the kids up at school, the Baklava was out of the oven and cooling, the bread was rising, and I just needed to assemble the tart and bake that, followed by the bread.

So the kids are home, a friend of theirs is over and they’re all playing Wii downstairs, and Bill gets home.

First, he summons Alex and Julia, and he hands them each a pink, heart-shaped lollipop (watermelon flavor). They are happy and they scurry away with their sugar.

Then he said “I’ve got something for you, too!” And he made me close my eyes.

I’m not very trusting, so when I heard a slight fabric rustling noise (or that’s what I thought it was), I peeked.

Yes, I’m terrible.

And then he was holding out a small, red box.

I was stunned.

I’m not much of a jewelry person, first of all, so a piece of jewelry in a little box was totally unexpected.

With some gentle urging, I managed to open the box, and inside was a ring with a round red stone.

My birth stone is a ruby.

I just stared at Bill.

“Do you recognize the ring?” he asked.

Of course, I hadn’t even looked at the ring itself – I was still mentally processing the stone.

So I looked.

And – it was my engagement ring.

I don’t know if you remember, but about a year and a half ago the diamond in my engagement ring fell out (one of the prongs was pulled somehow, apparently), and I spent a day going insane trying to find it.

Well, apparently around Christmas time, my husband had a little conversation with my cousin, who is a jewelry designer (he made our wedding rings) about putting a new stone in my empty engagement ring. They agreed on a ruby, so basically all Bill had to do was find the engagement ring and get it to Steve.

He managed to do this within a week (which is a minor miracle, since it was in my jewelry box and the whole thing had been knocked upside down by one of the cats and so everything inside was one big chaotic mess) and got it to my cousin while we were at their house for brunch.

My cousin was to call Bill when it was ready, and he would ostensibly be calling about going skiing, just in case I answered or he had to leave a message.

Anyway, yesterday, on the way home, Bill picked up the ring.

And I have it on my hand now, and it’s funny, I’d gotten so used to just the plain band there. Now I’ve got something red and sparkling and raised up and held in place by a new set of prongs.

He’s a good man, this guy I married.

I never saw this coming.

I think I’m more amazed right now by the thoughtfulness and the sneakiness that went into this gift than I am by the actual ring.

And because of all that thinking and sneaking, the ring means more to me now than it did before.

I’m so very lucky.