I love Fall. I love Halloween colors. I love this time of year. And so with that in mind, I decided to incorporate those things into making my visiting teaching handout for October. At first, I contemplated posting a handout I'd made with a cute Halloween graphic. As I got to thinking about it, I thought it might be a little distracting as to the message that needed to come forth, so I deleted much of what I had and basically started over. I really liked the leaves that I used in my September handout so I used them again for October. I still wanted to use Halloween/Fall colors of black, purple, gold, burnt oranges and greens, yet make it elegant. The October Visiting Teaching Message for the month is titled: Enfolding With Love Those Who Stray. In this message, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf stated that whatever problems your family is facing, whatever you must do to solve them, the beginning and the end of the solution is charity, the pure love of Christ. I based my handout on the words written by Linda K. Burton. It's a comforting thought to know that Heavenly Father loves all His children and that He wants us all to find our way back home.
My goodness, how the weather changes so much in such a short amount of time. Last weekend, September 16, 2017, we went from this......snow topped mountains but with beautiful, dry (although a bit chilly and windy) ground.
To this..........one day short of a week. Yesterday morning, September 22, 2017, we woke up to snow. In my best guesstimate, I'd say we received at least 3 inches. Did I say SNOW?!
Hmmmmmm, I must have been dreaming, or something, because when I got up this morning, September 23, 2017.........NADA. We have misty, snow covered mountains, but no trace of snow anywhere. Dreaming...right?
Wow, this is a long time coming, blog. It's been exactly one month from today that the eclipse took place and here I am now, just getting around to blogging about it. I'd say, let's get this show on the road.......before I totality forget what I need to write - ha!
First off, are pictures of my entry way desk and horseshoe tree decorations. I still enjoy decorating this desk each month and for every occasion.
Before the actual date of totality, which fell on the 21st of August, we had family and friends start arriving at our home on the 16th. So, so much fun. I really enjoy visiting with family and friends. One thing all the kids enjoyed was riding the cart behind the 4-wheeler. We also had darts, badminton, and a corn (sand) box for the kiddos.
Another fun thing going on was honking..............LOTS of HONKING....Before and after the eclipse. Before the eclipse, I was standing out back of the house and heard cars honking. Not just a few honks here and there, but a continuing honking of horns. I walked around to the front of our home to see what was going on and this is what I saw...........Ha..........so funny. Young and old alike were out sitting on the fence, pumping their arms up and down getting cars to honk their horns.
We even had a little hair-styling, going on. I don't know the real term for this, but my niece was getting her hair highlighted, anyways that's what I think they were doing. Whatever it was, it turned out beautiful.
A few days before the eclipse, we drove to town to the craft festival on main street. All summer long, there is a minion looking character that is placed around town in the front of businesses. In order for it to be removed from a place of business, the owner of that business has to pay money. And not to be left out, the big minion looking character even had on a pair of eclipse glasses. Cute.
On eclipse day, we had a big breakfast outside for everyone....a total of 27 people. We had pancakes, scrambled eggs, and sausage patties.
As time drew near for the eclipse, we all headed out to the field next to our home so there would be no objects, trees, or anything to block our view. Everyone was just sitting around laughing, visiting, picking produce from my husbands garden and just enjoying each others company.
Finally, the time was here..............the event we had all been waiting for in anticipation.......ECLIPSE TOTALITY!
You can go to the following VLOG to see what my son-in-laws cousin video taped and right below, is a video I took. The first video (vlog) is more on a professional level and shows a lot of what was happening all day, leading up to totality. Mine is a shorter video and shows only the happenings taking place during totality of the eclipse.
And then.........just like that, in approximately 2 minutes and 13 seconds it was all over.
Everyone took their places, standing around, talking, running through the garden..................
And others, like my little grandson, were just totally tuckered out from a full morning of eating and playing.............just waiting for the big moment.
It was something I will more than likely never again see in my lifetime but while it was happening, I can, without a doubt say that it definitely put everyone in a place of total AWENESS!
Seriously, we have no idea who did this. UPS arrived at our door yesterday with a box addressed to US, as in me and my husband. My husband asked what I had ordered and to my knowledge, I couldn't remember ordering anything that hadn't already arrived at our home. Hmmmmm, a true mystery, for sure. We opened the outer box, removed the paper packaging and look what we found inside!
The cutest wooden basket filled with Portlock Wild Smoked Salmon, Caviar, 2 beef sausages, 2 kinds of cheese bricks and 4 different boxes of crackers.
We've called other members of the family asking if they knew anything about this, but they all said they didn't know who it was. I'm guessing someone knows and isn't coming out with it. To those of you who know me, I'm the one at Christmas time who shakes, rattles, and rolls my gifts trying to figure out what's inside. This unexpected gesture of kindness is so appreciated but on the other hand, it will totally drive me nuts for a time.
Caviar.....I've never seen caviar, let alone taste it. Something to look forward to when I can bring myself to unwrap the basket.
I had a friend e-mail me and state that she has missed my blogs. Had it really been that long since I posted? Yes, it has............ I checked back and other than posting a visiting teaching handout blog, I hadn't posted anything since the second of August. Whew, where has my life been? I'll tell you, it has been crazy since about the 16th of August. I've basically had steady company until Labor Day and 9 of those days was watching a very active 3.5 year old grandson while my daughter and her husband were in Oregon looking for a home. Her husband got a job transfer and so Oregon it is. I can't begin to tell you how this is breaking my heart. Anyways, watching a 3.5 year old 24-7 for 9 days really told my age on me, but now he is gone back to his home, I really miss the little guy!
Here are some fun photos I took while he was here. And believe me, I took plenty of photos but so as not to do a photo overload, I'll just share a wee bit of them to you. I knew I had taken too many pictures when we were headed out the door to go for a 4-wheeler ride and he said, "no pictures, grandma". Too Funny!
