Protecting your rings as an outdoor woman
By Jennifer Pudenz
I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. Marriage can be hard enough at times, so to lose such a precious symbol of it… and so expensive it’s not easily replaceable… can be an extreme hit to the gut. I’m talking about losing the main diamond out of your wedding ring, which happened to me this summer, or losing your ring itself.
As an avid outdoor woman, I put my ring through A LOT from hunting, fishing, gardening, chores and everything in between – I wore it through the dirt, sweat and blood of it all. And I was so proud of that. I felt like it reflected me – like the diamond is still a diamond through the mud as I can be a woman in the outdoors. And looking back on photos and videos, it was in all of my adventures. I loved that, and I can’t help but cry just writing about losing it.
That fear of something happening was always there. It is just one of those things I was careful about and hoped it would never happen. I thought this was something that didn’t happen a lot. However, after it was too late, similar stories came out of the woodworks from my family. I guess it’s one of those common bad things we just don’t talk about a lot. I hadn’t myself.
I looked for a way to take anything positive out of this. So that is why I finally did choose to write about it, hoping it might save someone else from going through it.
That Fateful Day
It was one of those freak accidents where usually I wouldn’t be there, doing that, but so many odd ball things had to play out a certain way for this to happen. Then my hand got hit hard, and I usually always check my ring after something like that, but I had my hands full so I couldn’t. Once I could, I had forgotten and gone on with my day. Then I came into the house to wash my hands, and I felt a snag on the hand towel. I looked down and the large diamond from my engagement ring was gone. Yelling out and dropping to the floor, I immediately felt I would never see it again.
Forgiving Yourself
“This won’t be your last tragedy in life,” my grandpa said to me.
I sighed. While I knew this was true, it still wasn’t what I wanted to hear at the moment. But this is how I reflected upon this happening to me… while it hurts, there’s so much worse that could happen. In today’s messed up world, while it feels major and is a major symbol, it’s not a real tragedy as it’s still a ‘thing.’ Certainly don’t fight with your spouse about it and don’t blame yourself. Bad things happen and it’s all how you react and bounce back.
If it Happens to You
First of all, stop and write down everything you’ve done until the last time you know you had your ring on or intact. Even though you might not realize it, we look down and see that ring lots of times in a day. So that’s great you might have a small window of time you’re working with. Mine was a pretty small amount of time, but unfortunately, I had been outside and moved around quite a bit already.
If you’re dealing with a whole ring instead of just a loose diamond, then you have a considerable edge at finding it. Retrace your marks and get a metal detector if needed.
Extremely Light
Researching about how to find diamonds, I came to find they are pretty tricky. Apparently, diamonds bounce like crazy. So much that even diamond handlers have major problems with them. So expect your loose diamond to bounce way farther than you could ever imagine and be hiding somewhere you’d never think possible.
Diamonds are also very light. While we checked the drain trap in the sink, I do wonder if it flushed passed the trap. However, there are many stories of diamonds being a magnet for grease and they can stick to the sides of drains. So if you were at a sink, make sure to check all around the sink, the trap and also the pipe leading to it.
Reflections
We love diamonds because of their ability to reflect. So use that to your advantage. Whether looking inside or outside, try every kind of different light you can find and try every kind of angle you can come up with. I lost my diamond during the daylight, so we looked in the sunlight, but we also used flashlights at night trying to catch a sparkle.
Another thing I hadn’t known about diamonds is some actually have a bright blue glow under black lights. Not all of them – it’s completely random, but if you look on your diamond report, it will usually say if it has some of this or not under a fluorescence category. While we still tried blue lights, my papers showed my diamond only had a faint fluorescence. However, if you’re buying a diamond, now you might want to choose one with that characteristic!
Cut Grass
If you lost your diamond or ring outside and have tried everything with no luck, next start marking sections off and cutting the grass back, preferably by hand, one section at a time. While I was able to limit myself to a pretty small area outside, in comparison to finding something small like this, it was still too much space. Still, I tried my best – feeling like I was losing my mind though as I spent a couple days out in the yard on my knees cutting grass with a pair of scissors. My hands were full of blisters, but it’s one of those desperate attempts.
Vacuum Collection
If you’re searching in your house and still have no luck, start vacuuming. Vacuums can pick up diamonds and then search through the dust collected. For a month or so after the incident, we put all vacuum collections in a bucket in our basement so that we could later sort through it in case it turned up.
It Can Show Up
While I immediately felt I would never see my diamond again, and so far it’s still not turned up, there are many success stories. A lot of people do have their diamond turn up a few days later. And I actually ran across a couple stories of 50 years later. Yep. A lady was gardening and lost her diamond. Her and her family searched everywhere in the flowerbed next to the house. Fifty years later, when the now elderly couple was selling the house, the daughter found it in the dirt.
Another one was a local story that popped up on the news actually soon after my incident. A woman lost her wedding ring in her house. Fifty years later now as an elderly woman moving out, a young couple bought the house and remodeled the kitchen finding it hidden behind the sink from when the woman took off her ring to do dishes. The young couple returned it to her. So know, it’s still possible, even years later.
Protect Them
I had some people tell me, “Oh, well, your home insurance should cover that.” Actually, we found that to be a pretty false feeling of safety. When I first had the ring, we looked into getting it added to our home insurance; however, they wanted us to take it to a couple places for appraisal (which I thought was weird since we had just bought it and had papers for the diamond and rings) and we had to pay extra monthly.
As long as I didn’t lose the ring and I took it into the jewelry store I bought it at every six months for a checkup, then my diamonds, any repair and cleaning were covered. So we chose to just go through the jewelry store. I kept up with this for the first six or so years, but life gets busy and I went passed my six months. So after something happens past the every six-month checkup, you must cover the cost to replace diamonds.
Once my diamond was lost, people still thought my home insurance would help. It didn’t. And even if we had it insured, there were some things about it only replacing the whole ring and not just a diamond, only replacing if stolen and not lost, and only covering $1,500 with a $500 deductible, so it would only help you out in the end for $1,000 on a ring that’s worth quite a bit more. And there’s a point when if you pay extra to insure it every month for years and years, then you may pass the actual value of the ring in the first place.
I also found the every six-month checkup for the ring to be not very handy. In this age of so much technology, I still had to keep all my check up paperwork on little cards that I had to have with me every time and not lose or I’d lose any coverage. There were many times I was around the store, but didn’t have my paperwork so I couldn’t check my ring in. Why is this not digital for customers?!?! Probably because the company knows they’d have to cover more cost from better-kept paperwork then!
You also have to watch your jewelry store doesn’t end up moving or closing, which ours just did – making the coverage even harder to withhold.
So I really still have not figured out what the best option is to protect your ring in this kind of way. Make sure you look into the fine print of all your insurance and jewelry store options. And if you’re like me and go through the jewelry store plan, take your ring off and wear an alternative if you go past the protected amount of time until you can get it up to date again.
I felt SO STUPID after this happened. It was such an obvious thing after the fact – how could you have something so expensive be put through everything you do and not have it protected! However, life is so busy and everyday things like this easily get pushed to the side. It’s easy to see things like this once it’s too late.
Like a stick in my side after the fact, I had actually been meaning to get my ring checked. Looking back it’s almost like I felt something was going to happen because I had forgot it for so long and all of a sudden for a month before kept thinking I had to get my ring checked. I had a Post-It Note stuck to our door to do that the next time we were in the city, it just didn’t work out for us. Trust your gut when you feel things like that. And again, if you’re overdue – take it off until you can get it protected. The following are some alternatives you could have handy. I wish I would have had one so I wouldn’t have felt bad to take off my ring at the time.
Alternatives
There is just no way we’re going to spend that kind of money to replace my diamond anytime soon. However, know if this happens to you, there are some alternatives. There are look-alike, or faux diamonds, that most people don’t have the eye to tell the difference from real diamonds. They can run less than $100 (white topaz, white zircon, cubic zirconia) to a few hundred dollars (white sapphire) to a couple thousand dollars (moissanite), depending on the size and cut. Of course they still don’t measure up to real diamonds, but this is the alternative I’m looking into for now so at times I can still wear my rings.
Talking with others, I actually found out that diamond rings that are worth TONS of money, actually often also have a fake look alike for the women to wear those on a regular basis while the real expense is kept safe. I didn’t know that!! Looking into this, there are a lot of cheap rings that can look like real wedding rings. We honeymooned in a third world country and as much as I didn’t want to take off my rings, I didn’t feel safe enough to travel with them. But then I felt like we weren’t seen as honeymooners in our resort. While I wouldn’t pay for an exact replica, I really wished I would have bought something similar for traveling back then and anytime my ring was sent in to get worked on.
Active Rings
In recent years, active rings to replace your wedding rings during activities have become more and more popular. After losing my diamond, I researched different brands of these rings and chose to go with Groove Life. For other brands, I read reviews of their rings stretching out, breaking, being sweaty, too bulky, etc. However, Groove Life claims the world’s first breathable silicone ring, allowing air in and moisture out, while providing comfort and style with a low profile.
Groove Ring reviews impressed me so much with people saying how they switched from other brands to Groove Life and absolutely love them without the sweating, stretching out, bulky or breaking problems, plus great customer service. They even have a ‘No BS Warranty’ where if anything ever does happen to your ring from any kind of damage to losing it – no matter the circumstance – they will replace it!!! Plus Groove Life is from Alaska and geared toward outdoorsmen and women with hunting and fishing.
I wish I had found Groove Ring YEARS ago! I absolutely love them. I picked out several different colors and settled on the moss green throughout this fall hunting season in the thin design tailored for women. It is so lightweight and comfortable – it’s just so easily become a part of me! My metal rings used to clank on the treestand, snag on gloves and get extra cold during low temps while hunting – my Groove Ring really has ended up being way better for me while hunting and in the outdoors! I honestly never expected this diamond-less thing to be not only painless for my pride, but that I’d actually end up preferring it!
You can check out their rings at groovelife.co and also watch a video and do a handy print off to help you choose your size. If you’re in between sizes, you definitely want to size down. I had seemed a 7-1/2 so I chose a size 7, but ended up sizing down even more to a size 6 (you have a full month to exchange sizes if needed). At first this would have seemed too tight for me as size 7 did fit perfect as well, but I preferred the tighter ring so it also doesn’t slide when in water. It’s tight where it doesn’t budge, but not too tight. I’ve now wore it for three months and it has not stretched on me at all and still looks the exact same as when I first got it.
Again, I wish I had Groove Life years ago – if so, I really think I would have my diamond ring intact still as I wouldn’t have had a problem to take off my wedding ring for the outdoors or until I was able to get my ring into the store for its six-month checkup.
Take it From Me
Seeing my diamond ring in the outdoors once brought me so much joy, now I’ll be honest, I cringe when I see other women doing the same. While that’s perfectly fine if you still want to have it outdoors with you all the time – please make sure you have it thoroughly protected and inspected often then. Otherwise, look at alternatives for at least some of your time outdoors.
With more and more women getting involved in the outdoors, I think this kind of thing will continue to happen more and more. An everyday thing like this is easy to push off and say you’ll take care of ‘tomorrow.’ While diamonds and rings are tough, everything has a breaking point. Mine lasted every day for about 8-1/2 years when the impact bent the prongs. So please take it from me, do what you can to protect your ring and enjoy your adventures without worrying.
Jennifer Pudenz of Iowa is owner and editor of ADVENTURESS magazine.
