Getting personal; or, i can haz sparkles

Sometimes I'm not sure what I should or shouldn't be posting up here. Ostensibly, this is a knitting/crafting blog, but since I have infrequent FOs, I turn to other things. Right now things are happening in my life, and I've decided to talk about them. Warning: no crafty goodness ahead, only personal life stuff.

Here it goes.

I finally have a job interview after months of applications. Yes! I'll try not to mess up.

Also, Prince William stole my thunder. Which is fine, you know, since I never wanted thunder in the first place.

On bonfire night (November 5th), our 4th anniversary, the boyfriend and I got engaged. I'm slowly getting used to referring to him as my fiancé, instead of boyfriend, but I still slip up. I didn't expect to get engaged this year, nor did I expect to wear an engagement ring, since I've never been a ring-wearer. It was important to my fiancé that I get an engagement ring, and he really wanted to buy one for me, so I agreed; I asked, but he didn't want one for himself.

Shopping for an engagement ring was possibly the most awkward shopping experience of my life. That's saying something, since I am not a very good shopper at the best of times. So much shiny/sparkly/expensive madness. For someone who says "ooooh shiny" relatively frequently, I'm not actually that attracted to the bling, so I spent quite a while trying to get my head around what I was seeing and why it depressed me when I should have been excited.

It took me a while to be able to express it, but nothing I saw at first was at all "me." I've always felt diamonds are a bit overrated. No offence to those that love them, but they aren't my style at all. Diamonds are such a big part of the wedding industry culture, and that's unfortunate. I tried on solitaire after solitaire at the urging of salespeople and my fiancé, who I think was a little dismayed at my attitude at first. I just couldn't see myself wearing them. He was getting stressed out that the process was taking a long time - he thought it would be a matter of in and out super quickly. I was getting stressed that my style isn't represented in the typical jewelry store offerings.



I like colour. I thought my ideal ring, if I had one at all, would have a coloured stone and no diamonds. Such things don't exist at High Street shops, so we compromised. I know there are many independent jewelry designers who produce non-traditional engagement rings, and after our first day of looking I sought some out, but in then end it was easier, more affordable, less stressful, and more satisfying to both of us to go with a compromise. Since I wasn't even sure about having an engagement ring to begin with, it didn't make sense to me to break the bank for one, and go through a long, drawn-out, stressful process to get it.

So, my ring has a coloured stone: tanzanite, a lovely periwinkle blue/purple oval that sparkles but is small and subtle. It also has two teeny diamonds that I think are unnecessary, but I don't mind them so much. I think it's pretty. I'm happy and excited about it. I've only had it a few days, and I like it even more the more I wear it. Still, part of me wishes that the industry I unwittingly encountered would recognize that rings can still be special even if they don't have diamonds.