Solar Eclipse

99.789% obscuration was close enough for us to decide to stay home and view the eclipse from our own front yard. Well, at least three of us did... the Farmboy went to work; funny how one can't reschedule a celestial event to coincide with a weekend.

My Mother-in-Law aka Grandma Twist, lives just down the road came to enjoy the festivities with us. With how close she lives to us, we don't see her nearly as often as we would like, so it was fun to have her here with us.

It's pretty amazing how much a .211% sliver of our sun can still illuminate. It was like early dusk instead of the twilight that many saw. We didn't hear crickets or see pets lie down for a nap. We didn't see some of the most famed effects of a total eclipse, but the experience was still amazing, dumbfounding, awesome, epic, and highly memorable.

We viewed the Moon's slow passage across the sun with special custom-made boxes and with store-bought glasses. Both were equally cool.

I didn't buy any special camera filters, so all of my pictures are homespun, taken through my eclipse glasses or taken of the side-effects, rather than the actual eclipse. I think they capture the look of the morning pretty well, but I highly recommend that if you are ever within travelling distance of a solar eclipse, you really should go; it was a priceless experience. Bucket list material.

My very favorite was seeing mini eclipses embedded in the pinholes of dappled shade.

But if I take one moment from the entire event with me to my grave, it will be the ripples across the ground in the last moments before our fullest coverage happened. I tried to capture it in video, but it was so subtle, it really doesn't show. It was like the heat rising from a hot tin roof in full Summer, but across the ground in waves. I've read that this effect is from the topography of the moon, as it races across the sun, casting moving shadows of the peaks and valleys and craters of its surface.

Some Days

Most days anymore, I find myself looking at my computer, thinking about this blog, and coming up with nothing to say. The ideas used to flow out of me like water, posting every day was a breeze. While in most ways, I'm improved greatly in my health over what I felt a few moths ago, it seems the inspiration and free-flow of ideas are stopped right up.

Bloggers block, I guess.

So I sit here, this morning, with photos of my lovely spring flowers to show you, and nothing really to say. I've heard that the best way to overcome writers' block is to just start writing and see what comes out. Perhaps the same applies in my situation.

So, I sit down, and I just start to type whatever comes to my brain.

How are you all? What are your days full of? I hope lots of joy and peace and inspiration... I find my days full of laundry and vitamins and thinking about food.

Its pretty hard to not think about food when you have to change so many components of what you usually eat. We're at the end of week 6 with no dairy, eggs or gluten for the First Grader. We've settled into a bit of a rhythm, but there are many moments of missing foods that are now impossible to concoct. Two more weeks and we can start experimenting with bringing those foods back. We're all praying that he'll be able to tolerate small quantities of the now forbidden foods.

As for me, while I'm much, much better, there are still plenty of days when I'm just not myself. Still trying to get the whole progesterone deficiency taken care of. Perhaps that's where the lack of inspiration lies. I feel tired a lot, and boy-howdy, when my monthly cycle starts, good grief! The emotional swings are a bit hard to take for someone who's always been the picture of even-keel.

All these Spring flowers are helping to brighten up my horizon, along with the newly crossed-off-my-bucket-list dream I've achieved.

Want to know what it is?

I'm now officially a bass-guitar player.

Yep! After nearly 20 years of on-again, off-again, fiddling with an acoustic guitar, and faint voice in my brain wishing to learn bass, I've finally been given the opportunity. A borrowed bass and amp have been in my studio for months, but it wasn't until I was given a song list and deadline that I finally stepped up and gave it a real try. Easter Sunday was my debut at church, playing with the worship team. I usually just sing, but this time it was vocals and bass at the same time, and it was so very fun!

If I could sum this post up with one wish for you, it would be that you would also find the gumption to cross something off of your bucket list. Let go of whatever is getting in your way, and just do it! And when you do, be sure to let me in on the story.

And that's all I've got for you today.