Thank you St. Anthony!

The other night as I sat down to dinner, my ring was bothering me.  It's my beautiful 20th anniversary ring - an oval diamond surrounded by a halo of diamonds and diamonds on the band.  I truly love it but I don't wear it every day.

Innocently, I took it off and set it on the corner of my placement.  Then, I fell asleep on the couch and promptly forgot about it.  Next morning when I was getting ready for work, I remembered my ring and went into the living room to retrieve it.  Horrors!  It was not where I left it - how could this possibly be?  Now I'm in a panic searching frantically for my ring.  Did I accidentally throw it in the trash?  Did the dogs eat it?  Did Joe find it and hide it to teach me a lesson?

First thing - call Joe and fess up just in case he hid it and will end this terror.  Nope, he did not hide it but he did remember seeing it on my placement, even commenting to himself that it was odd I placed it there.  Why didn't he say something at the time?  Men!

Then, I dumped the trash out on the floor and piece by piece put it back into the garbage can.  No luck.  I looked in the garbage disposal, I looked in the stove, I tore my house apart - I looked everywhere!  When Joe got home from work, he helped me look.  We did find a few unexpected things - a dime, a dead lizard and tons of popcorn under my couch!

So, now I have to start praying.  I did some research and knew there was a saint of lost things - maybe he could help?  Apparently, here's what you say when you want to find something: 

Novena to Saint Anthony to Find a Lost Article

St. Anthony, perfect imitator of Jesus, who received from God the special power of restoring lost things, grant that I may find [name the item] which has been lost. At least restore to me peace and tranquility of mind, the loss of which has afflicted me even more than my material loss. To this favor, I ask another of you: that I may always remain in possession of the true good that is God. Let me rather lose all things than lose God, my supreme good. Let me never suffer the loss of my greatest treasure, eternal life with God. Amen.

 Well, that was not exactly my prayer and I also included God and a few other angels in Heaven, soliciting everyone's help and not completely relying on St. Anthony and his good works.  It is estimated that perhaps this prayer is offered up millions of times a day and I wasn't sure where I might be in line (since I'm not Catholic).

After riding yesterday, I decided to tackle the most disgusting of possible places - if one of my dogs ate it, hopefully it would be, well, you know where.  So, I scooped and I scooped and I scooped.  I used the tailgate of Joe's utility trailer as a sieve and I sprayed and I sprayed and I sprayed.  No luck and yuk!

So, I decided to go back inside and do one room at a time until I found the darn thing!  But first, I'll go through the trash one more time!  What could it hurt?  So, I got another trash bag and piece by piece I went through the trash again - still nothing.  What possessed me to go through it a third time, I cannot tell you, but it was the charm!  On the third time through, there was my beautiful ring stuck to a nasty old envelope.  Hallelujah!!!! Thank you St. Anthony, God and all my angels - they all came through for me in a big way.  I'm so grateful to have my ring back and even more grateful I didn't throw it out in the trash!