Ruth Kaye Owen

I’m trying to decide on a new look for my blog, but in the meantime, it’ll be an ugly hodgepodge of random ideas. Hopefully it will be pretty again soon.

For the last six weeks, my engagement ring has been in our tent. It was in our tent because that’s where it was when Jon Boy took it down and packed it up after a family reunion in early September.

 See, I take it off to sleep because two of the prongs got bent during the night while I was engaged; I wasn’t taking it off at night then. I didn’t lose the diamond, but I don’t want to risk it again. So. I took it off and put it in a little pocket thingy in the tent. I hadn’t put it back on the morning we packed up. Which brings me to . . .

Yellow attribute #1: Tendency toward scatterbrainedness, losing stuff

Once I realized where my ring was, I knew I would have to get back into the tent to fish it out. But since we live in an apartment complex, I couldn’t just set the tent back up in my back yard. I thought about it and came up with several ideas:

• Set up the tent in the grassy area behind our back porch, where few people go or see and where there’s enough room (presumably) for our tent
• Try to set up the tent inside
• Try to fish out the ring without actually setting up the tent
• Take the tent to Orem, where Jon Boy’s parents live, and set it up in their back yard
• Take the tent to Green River, where I met my parents in late September, and set it up in the yard outside my uncle’s* cabin

Yellow trait #2: Tendency to come up with a whole slew of ideas, independent of judgment between good ideas and bad ideas

It is October 23 today. And I just now got my ring out of the tent. I didn’t bring the tent to Orem or Green River. I didn’t set it up on the grassy area in our apartment complex, which may have been the best idea on the list. I wanted my ring back, but not badly enough to go to all that effort.

Yellow trait #3: Tendency to think of things to do but never do them

But this morning, Lego woke up at about 7:05. Normal. I changed his diaper and put him in day clothes. Normal. I fed him until about 7:40. Normal. What wasn’t normal is that, instead of eating breakfast, I suddenly decided I wanted my engagement ring badly enough to fish it out of the tent. So I spread out our tent in our living room. Lego watched and kicked the tent. My (lack of) plan was to try to get to that pocket thingy without having to actually set up the tent.

Yellow trait #4: Random impulsiveness, lacking adequate planning

Luckily, our living room turned out to be big enough for our tent, but just barely. I unzipped the door and made my way to the pocket where I was sure my ring would be waiting for me. What I found in the pocket: a Skittles wrapper.

At this point I went green. I imagined all the things that may have happened to the ring. I imagined what Jon Boy would say when he found out I had lost something so valuable. I wondered if the warranty on the diamond would cover losing the whole ring. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t. I wondered how long it would be before we could afford to get another one, or if I’d even trust myself with another expensive sparkly again. All this in a matter of seconds.

Then I came to. I would set up the tent and comb every inch of floor space before I gave up on the ring. Maybe it had fallen out after the doors and windows were zipped up, while the tent was being folded up. That made some sense. Maybe.

So, before 8:00 a.m. this morning, I set up a tent. In my living room. Lego watched and kicked the tent.

(See Yellow trait #4.)

I started looking for the ring with both my eyes and my hands.

I went inside the tent and began at one corner, slowly moving toward the other corner in a straight line. I turned around for a moment, and there, in the middle of the tent, shining brightly, accompanied by the Hallelujah chorus, was my diamond ring. I slipped it on my finger.

But at that point it occurred to me that I’m not all that good at folding tents up tightly enough to get back into their little boxes so I should probably wait until Jon Boy woke up to take the tent back down. Or that was my excuse, anyway. So the tent is still standing, filling our living room, while I blog about the experience.

And that, my friends, is all the proof I need that my yellow side is alive and well.

*He’s not really my uncle; he’s my mom’s cousin, but we call him Uncle Don

1) I’m freelancing now! It’s for an authorly couple. They write tons of stuff, from YA lit and plays (their labor of love) to TV shows, commercial novels, and soap operas (what they do to make money). I’m only doing a few hours a week, but I’m making a bit of money. And the last novel I edited, I enjoyed so much that it almost didn’t feel like work. In fact, they took a few days to get the last portion to me, and instead of thinking, “Dang, now I’ll have to do the rest on a deadline,” I thought, “But . . . what happens to the main character?!” I think that’s a sign I like my job.

 2) Lego is getting big, and he just got his bottom two teeth in the past week. He’s sleeping a bit better, though this last week he’s been sleeping more poorly again. I think it’s because he’s been teething. I hope he’ll go back to sleeping well once his teeth are all the way through and not hurting him anymore. He’ll be six months old tomorrow.

3) Two weekends ago we went to Green River, UT, to visit my family (mostly so they could see Lego). Lego had a grand old time, and he showed off for everyone. He’s really happiest when he can show off to many people at once. He also loved it when his cousin came over so her parents could go to the temple. He would laugh and laugh to see her running around.

4) We got a check for the full amount of the damages to our car (see “My Faith in Humanity”) after we sent them pictures of where our car was parked. Hooray!

5) And it looks like our couch will be reupholstered too, which makes me happy. It had started fraying and getting threadbare only six months after we bought it, which made me sad. But everything seems to be working out. The only thing is, we’ll have to pick a different fabric because the company that made the couch originally is being stupid, so it’s the store we bought it from who will be honoring the warranty. At least someone’s going to be responsible.

6) Jon Boy quit his horrible job. I feel okay about it. Really okay, actually. I just hope he finds something great soon. As in, great like my job. (Did I mention I love my freelancing job?)

7) I’ve been called as the ward organist. This scares me but also excites me because it means I get a key to the church and a reason to practice. Wish me luck on Sunday; it’ll be my first time playing.

8) I can knit hats! I’ve made two so far.