1% Baby

Our house-hunting continues.. and in the meantime, Rick’s condo (”our condo”) is on the market.

For all of you who haven’t been by to see how it looks now that he and I and the cats are all crammed in there, here you go.
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http://terioconnor.vflyer.com/17/index.html

Dear Baby,

Mommy and Daddy are finally officially engaged!

Daddy picked up Mommy’s ring today.. and when she got home from a nasty day of traffic, he got down on one knee in the hallway and asked her that inevitable question. She said yes, of course!

It’s very simple and perfect and makes mommy’s hand and face shine. Daddy is calling her “Miss Sparkle” now that she wears it and looks at it all the time.

Fun. I’ll let you get back to your in-the-womb-kung-fu practice.

Love,

Mommy

Yesterday we went downtown with Rick’s sister and nephew and mother to look at wedding rings. Unfortunately they did not have tungsten rings available - so sad! (hehe!) But they did have the exact rings we wanted.. His was in 14k white gold with the cool brushed concave inside (like the picture from his earlier posting).. Mine is also in 14k white gold. The band is scattered with diamonds.. sort of like this one at Tiffany. Mine is white gold though, not platinum.. but it has twice as much diamond weight as the Tiffany version, so that makes it even better.

Even more exciting is that my wedding band came with a matching engagement ring setting. Of course it makes sense to buy the matching setting for next year when I finally get the big rock ring, right? Well, that is what we started with.. and then we decided to “just try” some diamonds in the setting… you know.. to see how they might look.. (Yes, all the ladies reading this know where this is going to go - our diamond guy is no fool!) First we tried a 2 carat round diamond.. but that was a little too big and while the round stone went nicely against all the round stone encrusted in the matching band, it was just ‘okay’ and not ‘wow!’ I had always figured on a nice princess set stone for my ring.. but I know princess cuts are only popular in the US.. and I worried it would look weird to have a square stone against the round encrusted band diamonds. Well, my worries were all for naught! The princess cut looked really cool - very modern and contemporary - just like me! So we tried a few different size stones and a variety of color and clarity and etc… What ended up being most important to me was the color.. so we found a nice 1 1/4 carat E color stone that looks really snazzy! Since the jeweler gave us a great deal (thanks much to Rick’s mother) it was all a done deal - and I am getting my engagement ring before the wedding - perhaps even before we go to Cancun in 10 days! So exciting! And so pretty! Once I get it, I’ll paste up a picture. I’m pretty excited though.. and I can’t wait to see it all set and perfect and my silly little finger!

Here are some of the baby names I thought of. I started by looking at BabyNames.com and the list of Bass Guitarist on WikiPedia. I through a few others that I liked as well. Maybe when Lennnon grows up, he can look at this list and say “Dad had some cool names.”

A - B - C - D - E - G - J - K - L - S - W

Alastair
Armstrong
Anakin
Anwar
Artemus
Asher

Balthazar
Balzary
Bennett
Bono
Brewster


Charles - Chuck - Chaz
Clayton
Coleco
Colin or Collin
Copeland
Cregan

Dash
Deal
Dryden

East(wood)




Jack(son)
John Paul



Lester

Salinger
Seymour


Victor

Wilder
Winwood
Wonder
Wooten

Even though the wedding we’re having in Vegas in a month is supposed to be a fun technicality and not “the real wedding” I went ahead and got a handful of invitations and favors for our immediate family and the few friends actually attending the goofy event.

Today I got the proof for the chips we’re getting made.. There’s so cute and perfect I thought I’d share them!

Have you ever heard of Tungsten? I hadn’t - until Saturday night.. Now it’s all I ever heard about. Rick and I went wedding ring shopping on Saturday afternoon and we found this great pair of platinum rings that almost seem to go together (they don’t because they aren’t from the same brand but the polishes and styles are quite compatible - just like us!). His is a cool concave platinum band.. mine is a platinum band with a few tiny diamonds sprinkled around. The catch? They’re platinum.. so they’re expensive.. Especially his.

This inspired Rick to go home and see if he could find the same ring cheaper online. I understand his concern - a platinum wedding band can be expensive and we may have other things to spend our money on - but at the same time, it’s supposed to be the one piece of jewelry that you wear every day forever and ever. It doesn’t phase me too much if it costs a little bit more than you expected - as long as it’s what you want.

Well during his online price-shopping, Rick found out about Tungsten. He watched videos explaining how indestructible it is. Some guy actually takes a sledgehammer to wedding bands made of all kinds of precious metals and, of course, the only one that survives is the tungsten. On top of that, it costs 1/24th of what the platinum version costs. So now this is what Rick wants: a tungsten wedding band.

I guess I don’t really care.. so long as it makes him happy. But it would be nice for my future husband to have a proper fancy band.. To me it would symbolize the value of our relationship and it the value of his choice. He sees it like this though: the indestructibility of the tungsten is representative of the indestructibility of our love for each each. I guess when he puts it that way, I should swoon.

So we’ll see what happens. Maybe he gets the tungsten ring for our Vegas wedding next month.. and then for our fancy all-out affair next year, we beef him up to the platinum version. Either way: wowsa! We’re getting married in like a month!

The geek in me keeps wanting to say Tungsten-Carbonite as if Han Solo was frozen in the ring.  Now that we have abetter understanding of what Tungsten is, I’m obliged to share my findings on Carbide.

As for the rings, I love that a Tunsten-Carbide ring is virtually indestructible.  As an added bonus, it is the more cost effective choice.  While in theory you only buy one wedding ring in your lifetime, I have heard numerous stories of people misplacing their wedding bands.  I would damn near kill myself if I lost a ring that cost close $2,000.  Furthermore, knowing that the ring very durable would give me the confidence to wear the ring under every circumstance.  With softer metals I would be concerned about marring or damaging the ring. I would feel compelled to take a white gold or platinum ring off when fixing things around the house or when changing a flat tire.  The Tungsten-Carbide sucker would never come off!

So what do these two rings look like?  It isn’t hard to tell which is which, but there is a $2,000+ price difference between the two.  That’s $2,000 we could use for something more interesting, say a new home, a new car, a Tahitian honeymoon, or anything else my baby desires.

Which ring do you like? I like the darker more matte ring.

Last night Rick and I went to see Iron Man with his friend Gerald. En route to the theatre we explained our registry debate dilemma - and came up with a brilliant solution! Instead of fighting over whether to register for the super fancy germ-free humidistat humidifer or the super-cute penguin humidifer, we’re just going to register for both of them! Then whichever one we get is the victor in our registry battle! What a fun way to let our friends and families contribute some decision making power over the accoutrements acquired for our baby! I’ll be updating the registry soon with two of everything that we can’t agree on. Fun!

We are off house-hunting today… and wedding ring shopping. Wish us luck!

Yesterday Rick and I started thinking about our baby registry. He bought a book called Baby Bargains and I skimmed the whole thing yesterday trying to identify anything scary that we have to think about that we haven’t thought of yet. I’m being the girl so all I want to do is think of the fun decorative stuff: what type of furniture and theme to use in the baby’s room. Rick is more into understanding the technical specifics of all the complicated baby equipment we need to buy. There’s a lot to consider too! There’s like a dozen types of strollers, cribs, car seats and even breast pumps! (Ewww!)

So we sat around talking about all these things for a few hours.. and the only thing we’re agreed upon so far is that we need a baby video monitor, despite the book telling us otherwise. Here’s the one we agreed on (and currently the only thing on our Amazon registry).

The book says we need a humidifier but we can’t agree on which one to register for. He likes the super fancy ultraviolet anti-germ kinds with the humidistat included. I like the cute and fun penguin shaped humidifier. This became a big debate for us.. which is why there is no humidifier on our registry. I think we agreed to just use one of the generic ones we each already own.

Next we have to debate cribs and themes. Last night Rick suggested an underwater theme.. and I like that. (I am pretty amenable here.. sea-themes or star-themes or space-themes or any of that cool stuff works for me). I am going to go see what sorta wacky sea creatures we can scare our baby with. I’ll get back to you!