Famous Diamonds

By Elaine Cantrell (Guest Blogger)

Ladies, I know some of you may not like to wear jewelry, but I do. Here are a couple of famous diamonds that I think are lovely.

Cullinan Diamond

This is the largest gem diamond ever discovered. It weighed about 3,106 carats in rough form when it was found in 1905 at the Premier mine in Transvaal, South Africa. It was named for Sir Thomas Cullinan, who discovered the mine. The Transvaal government bought it and presented it to Britain’s King Edward VII. It was cut into 9 large stones and about 100 smaller ones, all flawless. They are now part of the British crown jewels. The picture is a copy of some of the diamonds cut from the Cullinan. 
 

This Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons image is from the user Chris 73 and is freely available at //commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cullinan_Diamond_and_some_of_its_cuts_-_copy.jpg under the creative commons cc-by-sa 3.0 license.

The Orloff

This 300 carat bluish-green diamond was found in India. It now belongs to the Russian Diamond Treasury. People say that it was once used as the eye in a statue of Vishnu in a temple in Sriangam. It was stolen by a French deserter in the 1700’s. He sold it to an English sea captain who took it to Europe. Eventually, it ended up in Amsterdam where Grigori Orloff, one of Catherine the Great’s former lovers, bought it and presented it to Catherine. She took the diamond but not Grigori.

By Elkan Wijnberg [Attribution], via Wikimedia Commons

The Hope Diamond

The Hope Diamond is very famous because people thought it had a curse on it. Personally, I think this probably isn’t true, although some of its previous owners did suffer some really bad luck. King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette of France were both beheaded while the diamond was in their possession, but then again, lots of people got beheaded during the French Revolution. Evalyn McClain, another former owner, wore the diamond as a good luck charm. She wouldn’t even take it off when she had surgery. She did have some family tragedies later on in her life, but I sincerely doubt it had anything to do with a cursed diamond.

If you’re interested in seeing the Hope Diamond, it’s easy to do. The Smithsonian Institute owns it today, and anyone who goes to Washington, DC, is welcome to tour the Smithsonian and look at the diamond. In fact, the museum has a nice collection of gems, including a diamond necklace Napoleon gave to his second wife Marie Louise and a gorgeous red diamond called the DeYoung diamond. Nobody knows exactly why diamonds are red, and they are extremely rare. There are other minerals at the museum as well if diamonds aren’t your thing. 

 

By Matthew Hurst from Washington, DC, USA (Hope Diamond) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Darya-ye Noor

 
Lots of people are interested in pink diamonds now so I thought I’d include the Darya-ye-Noor, the largest pink diamond in the world. The name means Sea of Light in Persian. The jewel’s pale pink color is among the rarest found in diamonds. It is now a part of the Iranian crown jewels. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Darya-e_Noor_Diamond_of_Iran.png

Okay, now that I’ve stopped drooling, I talked about diamonds because my Blue 52 heroine Kathryn Sinclair loves jewelry. In this excerpt, my hero Hank is showing his mother’s engagement and wedding rings to Kathryn who enjoys looking but is clueless as to why he’s doing it. Can you guess? First a blurb, then that excerpt.

Blurb

"First Lady Kills President Lovinggood"

December 29, 2018

Thirty years later Hank Lovinggood embarks on a quest to prove his mother's innocence and punish the killers who took his family from him. Together Hank and lovely physicist Kathryn Sinclair confront an implacable, twisted, merciless enemy who'll do whatever it takes to hide the truth forever.

Excerpt

Kathryn pushed her hair back and studied the rings. Elizabeth’s engagement ring, an emerald cut diamond, looked about ten carats worth of dazzle. Every available surface on the band was studded with small diamonds, as was her wedding band.

“Hank, I’ve seen pictures of jewelry like this, but I’ve never known anybody who actually owned gems of this caliber. I don’t think pretty is exactly the word I’d use to describe this jewelry. Maybe awesome or dramatic might be better.”

Hank studied her face. “Do you like them, or do you prefer a different style?”

Kathryn laughed and ran her finger across the glittering surface. “Oh, I like them fine.”

“I do too. Grandma told me my mother loved jewelry. Dad gave her some really nice pieces, including these rings.” He snickered. “Grandma likes jewelry too. She used to razz Grandpa because he never bought her as many things as Dad bought for Mother.”

Kathryn handed the box back to Hank. “What else did your dad give her?”

“Oh, all sorts of things.” He put the box back into the drawer. “When he was elected to the presidency, he bought her a ruby ring and a bracelet and some earrings to commemorate the occasion, and when I was born he gave her some emeralds. I was born in May, and the birthstone for May is the emerald.”

“Didn’t he give her a tiara?” Kathryn teased. “It sounds to me as if she was his princess.”

“Well…”

Kathryn grabbed his arm. “He did! When did he give her a tiara?”

“She wanted a tiara to wear with her veil when they got married, so he bought one for her.”

“What did it look like?”

“Think pearls. Big, perfect pearls.”

Kathryn threw an arm around Hank. “What happened to her jewelry? Surely, your grandfather didn’t sell it.”

“No, it’s in a vault at the bank, which is where I should put her rings, but with everything that’s happened I haven’t done it yet.”

Hank prayed daily for their mission to succeed, but at the moment, he prayed for something else entirely. He had hoped seeing diamonds and wedding rings would give Kathryn a hint of what he wanted to ask her, but so far, he didn’t think she had picked up on it. He kissed her forehead and gave her a little squeeze. “Will you marry me?”

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Author Bio

Elaine Cantrell was born and raised in South Carolina. She holds a master’s degree in personnel services from Clemson University. She is a member of Alpha Delta Kappa, an international honorary society for women educators and is also a member of Romance Writers of America. Her first novel, A New Leaf, was the 2003 winner of the Timeless Love Contest. When she isn’t writing or teaching, she enjoys reading, traveling, and collecting vintage Christmas ornaments

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A Traditional Easter

By Elaine Cantrell (Guest Blogger)

First of all I’d like to thank Lisabet for having me today. I always enjoy going to new blogs and meeting new people. As some of you may not know me, I decided to tell you a couple of things about myself.

1.To begin, I’m a southerner born and bred. I love the South except in the middle of the summer when the mosquitoes and heat are enough to kill you. In July we escape for a week to the North Carolina mountains. We always go to Sugar Mountain which is in Banner Elk, NC. It’s usually twenty degrees cooler there, and you can actually go outside and enjoy yourself.

2.I started writing in 2002 because of my son. He wrote a book which was absolutely fabulous so I thought I’d give it a try myself.

3.Nobody liked my book. My friends said the heroine was a sweet girl so naturally she was boring, and my husband didn’t want me to have the hero lose his leg. Bowing to public pressure, I wrote another book called A New Leaf. At the last minute I entered it in a writing contest sponsored by Oak Tree Press. The book won, and I got my first contract.

4.Since that first contract I’ve had four more books published, and I have two coming out this year. Kara’s Change of Heart is scheduled to be released in June from Lachesis Publishing, and Return Engagement will be released in July by Whiskey Creek Press.

5.I’m a hopeless romantic, probably because I’m still married to my college sweetheart. If you’re curious about how we met, I blogged about that on Valentine’s Day. Go to http://www.elainepcantrell.blogspot.com.

6.I’m also a social studies teacher. In one of my classes we’re studying the countries of Europe which gave me an idea about my blog topic. Since Easter is tomorrow, I thought we’d take a look at some of the traditional ways the Europeans celebrated Easter. Some of these old customs are undoubtedly still around, but not all of them are kept today.

In Sweden, Eastern week begins on Palm Sunday as it does here, but they do have some old superstitions associated with Easter that we don’t have. The Swedes used to believe in witches who were supposed to be especially active during Easter Week. On Maundy Thursday they were thought to fly off on broomsticks to consort with the devil, returning on Saturday.

Also on Maundy Thursday girls and boys dressed up as hags and paid visits to their neighbors. They left a small, decorated card--an Easter letter--in hopes of getting a treat in return. This was especially widespread in western Sweden, but there you were supposed to slip the letter into a person’s mailbox without being seen. In the western provinces they also celebrated Easter with bonfires. Sometimes villages competed to see who could build the biggest fire. They had fireworks too.

Eggs were the most common Easter food, and they were usually eaten on Saturday evening. The Swedes decorated eggs as we do.

On the Wednesday before Easter known as Dymmelsonsdagen people tried to put some kind of silly something on another person’s back, something that would make people laugh. Hopefully, the unsuspecting person would wear it around all day.

On Good Friday boys gathered together, and armed with birch switches they paid calls on the young ladies of the neighborhood. They whipped the girls with the switches until the girls gave them something to drink. And I don’t mean water. On Easter evening the tables were turned, and the girls were the ones doing the switching.

While I was researching this topic I found a web site that I enjoyed. It had lots of pictures and gives you an idea about how the Swedes do things today. The blog’s at http://www.acc.umu.se/~wschedin/easter.html.

Moving to the Netherlands, the day before Lent begins is Carnival day which is referred to as Vastenavond or Fast Eve. In southern Holland the celebration begins on Sunday and lasts for three days. Preparations for the carnival begin the previous year on the eleventh day of the eleventh month when a council of eleven meets to organize the plans. Traditionally the number eleven is the number for fools, and during Carnival people are allowed to be as foolish as they wish. Carnivals feature colorful celebrations with dances, parades and masquerade balls. In each town a person is elected prince of the Carnival and he is handed the keys to the city.

On Palm Zondag or Palm Sunday children scoured the neighboring farms to collect eggs for the Easter sports. They carried a decorated stick known as a Palmpaas or Easter "palm". This stick was attached to a hoop which was covered with boxwood and adorned with colored paper flags, egg shells, sugar rings, oranges, raisins, figs and baked dough figures or swans or cocks. Children also colored eggs which the Easter Bunny hides for them to find. They enjoy a game where two people knock their eggs together to see whose egg will break first.

On Easter Sunday, families gathered for the traditional Easter meal. The table was decorated with colored eggs, spring flowers and Paasbrood, which is sweet bread with raisins and currants.

In Ireland, people danced in the streets on Easter Sunday. The dancers competed for the prize of a cake. They also held herring funerals on Eastern Sunday. Many people gave up meat for Lent, so by the time Easter rolled around everyone was tired of eating herring.

My family has an Easter tradition that we enjoy very much. After church we all pack up and go on a picnic at the lake. Sometimes it’s a bit cool, but we go anyway. It’s especially fun for the kids who can run around and scream and hide eggs until they’re worn out. We’ve taken bets to see which child will fall into the lake first, but so far everyone has stayed dry.

I’d like to invite you to visit my web site at http://www.elainecantrell.com and my blog at http://www.elainepcantrell.com. I have excerpts of my books on my blog, and you can access my monthly newsletter from the web site. If anyone is interested in subscribing to the newsletter just click the yahoo button on the main page. It’s near the bottom. Subscribing automatically adds your name to my monthly contest.

I’d like to close with an excerpt from The Welcome Inn which is a romantic suspense novel. In this excerpt, Buck and Julianna, the hero and heroine, are on the run from some bad guys. The Welcome Inn is available at http://www.wingsepress.com/Bookstore/The%20Welcome%20Inn.htm

Julianna slid gingerly under the covers and Buck reached for the lamp. He plunged the room into darkness, and both he and Julianna lay tensely in the bed. Both were careful not to touch the other.

Eventually, Julianna turned on her side and spread out, assuming her favorite sleeping position. Buck’s legs were in the way so she gave an impatient kick to scoot him over.

“Stop kicking me,” Buck protested. “You’ve got most of the space anyway.”

“I do not.”

“Yeah, you do. I’m barely hanging on over here.”

Julianna sat up and reached across Buck to measure the space. “You have all kinds of room left.”

“I don’t,” Buck argued. “If I turned over I’d fall off the bed.”

“Honestly!”

A short silence fell on the room. “I can’t sleep on this side of the bed,” Buck complained. “You’ll have to change with me.”

“I like this side. I’m not going to move.”

Buck turned over heavily, causing the bed to rock and shake.

“Be still,” Julianna smartly commanded. “How can I sleep if you keep bouncing me around?”

A minute or so passed, and Buck turned over again, bumping Julianna with his knees. Nerves on edge, Julianna kicked him again. This time he kicked her back.

War broke out with a flurry of shoving, kicking, and struggling that ended with Buck on the side of the bed that he favored with Julianna molded to his side. She shoved against the bed with her feet in an effort to root him off the edge, but Buck held fast.

Thanks again for having me, Lisabet. Happy Easter everyone.