Total Solar Eclipse 2024

 

On April 8, 2024 we witnessed the total solar eclipse. Since that time I have watched video accounts of other people's total solar eclipse experiences. 

Each time I watch one of these videos I am brought back, in my mind, to that place of awe and wonder induced by standing in the Moon's shadow. 

The awe and wonder of gazing into the black hole where the sun should be and seeing the ethereal glowing halo of the Sun's corona. 

The awe and wonder of feeling so small in God's giant universe.

The awe and wonder that I felt standing in the eerie darkness, yet beautiful light.

And I feel loved, so loved, by God as he displays his greatness in the heavens.

And I think, "The Almighty God cares for tiny, tiny me. He pays attention to me. He takes care of me. He wants fellowship with me. He loves me!" 

And the tears roll down my cheeks. It was so beautiful! The eclipse was so beautiful. The fact the God wants to show us this stunning display and has orchestrated it for our viewing is also a thing of beauty. 

We had a wonderful eclipse day. We were at a very large park complex in West Frankfort, IL. There were nice playgrounds, mature shade trees, a fishing pond, several baseball diamonds, and some big open fields and a marshy wild life area bordered by woods.

We set up our grill, picnic table, and chairs in a secluded section in the back of the park. We put our tent up, too, just to have a place to relax for some of the children.

The weather was perfect: sunny and 76°F. We played on the playground equipment before the eclipse started. We rushed back over to our camp to witness first contact. It as so exciting. The eclipse was happening! We watched the shadows change. Mr. In the Midwest grilled our pork steaks. We lay on our picnic blanket and observed the Sun shrinking away through our solar filter glasses. 

 Slowly, slowly the Moon over took the Sun. The Sun looked like a golden cookie that someone had taken a bite out of. Then the Sun looked like a packman. Then the Sun looked like a crescent, then a banana, and then a tiny sliver. When the Sun was down to only about 5% showing the anticipation really became intense. The light was dim and bright at the same time. The air was cooler. The evening birds started to make their calls. A planet appeared.

And then everything went dark. Off came our glasses! We had 4 minutes and 7-8 glorious seconds to witness the beautiful corona and look around at the 360° sunset at the horizon. There were shouts and whistles and laughter. The diamond ring was my favorite part. My two year old didn't care for the Sun going out. He said, "Go home." He meant that he wanted to go home. I held him, pointing to the shimmering ring in the sky and said, "Isn't it pretty?" 

And just like that, it was over. The first hair of Sun slipped out and we had to put our solar filter glasses back on.

We ate our lunch and had a happy time watching the Moon edge it's way off of the Sun. It seemed to go a lot faster getting off of the Sun than it had gone covering the Sun.

I am left with overwhelming gratitude. God is so good to me!

Psalms 97:6 

The heavens declare his righteousness, 

and all the people see his glory.

You can read about my 2017 total solar eclipse experience HERE. I wrote a lengthy journal style post for that eclipse.

Spring Woods!

We went for a walk in the woods at a nature preserve yesterday. This nature preserve is special because of the expansive carpet of blue bells on the forest floor in early spring. This was my first time visiting this preserve. The blue bells were like nothing I had ever seen before. They were everywhere!

There were a few other flowers blooming, too.

Spring Beauty 

Flox

Woodland Violet

Creeping Buttercup

I, also, saw a bunch of Prairie Trillium (the ones with burgundy petals and mottled leaves), and one early White Trout Lilly. Mayapples had popped up already. It was a little early yet for Toothwart, Hepatica, Wild Geranium, Yellow Trout Lilly, and Great White Trillium.

I saw some Red Admiral butterflies, a tiny copper butterfly, and a few sulfur butterflies. We heard some very loud tree frogs. The oak trees were all bare still. The buckeye trees were leafing out. There was a flowering tree that I will have to look up. It has five petaled white flowers in clusters. It was growing in the under canopy. It had reddish brown bark and the trunks and branches were delicate in character and finely featured.

We had a wonderful day in a beautiful place with delightful weather! I hope you are having a wonderful day, too. :)

Violet...…...Jelly?

Last Saturday, my children and I started picking all the violets that we could find. There are so many this time of year. Initially I thought we should add the violets to a salad for color. We just kept picking more and more violets. Pretty soon we had far too many violets for a salad.

I told my children that violets could be made into jelly and one time in my youth a friend of mine had given me a violet jelly recipe. I had followed the recipe and made violet jelly once. The really neat thing I had remembered about making violet jelly was how the violets made a purple tea that turned pink when the lemon juice was added. In fact, I still had the recipe.

That story pretty much sealed the deal for what to do with all our violets. My children wanted to see what violet jelly was like. We just had to make some.

Well, the jelly was a big failure. I tried to make it without pectin. I cooked it too long. It cooled into a solid mass of hard candy. I re-melted the mass, added water, jarred it again. Now it is the consistency and color of honey. All the beautiful violet color cooked out. It really does taste like honey, too. 

So, I guess what we actually made is bee-less honey.

Not bad. We will enjoy it on toast. And we had fun during the process. It's a win!

Now what I want to try is making pink lemonade out of violet tea. Wouldn't that be cool!

Jonquil by Henry Beer |Poem

 

Look what Mr. in the Mid-west brought me
last week! :)

The Jonquil

The Jonquil is a charming flower

Which blooms in April's sun and shower;

It blooms quite early in the spring

When blossoms burst, and songbirds sing.

Few flowers share with it in fame;

It has such sweet and varied names;

In former days, as well as ours,

The folks called them Easter flowers.

But Jonquil is the polished name,

By men of higher rank and fame.

The common people call it still

The lovely, cheerful Daffodil.

Then, when recedes the winter's cold,

We see them break the frosty mold

And raise their heads to welcome spring,

While birds their springtime carols sing.

Their blossoms, trumpetlike, proclaim

The glory due that worthy Name,

Who at the time the Jonquils bloom

Arose triumphant from the tomb.

The Jonquil blossoms fill the air

With fragrance sweet, yet mild and rare;

Where'er they bloom, it is a thrill

To see the golden Daffodils.

They take their place in Nature's plan

When in the spring they bloom again.

By Henry Beer

My Garden of Verse

Page 53

"New" Glider For Our Living Room!

 

A few weeks ago we drove through our old neighborhood. We were just sight seeing; looking around to see what was new. Sitting on the curb was a glider chair and foot stool. I signaled for Mr. In the Mid-west to stop. I jumped out to check the glider over. It was in perfect working condition, in fact, it was in better condition than the one we currently had in the living room. The cushions were laying in wet leaves and, what appeared to be, fuzzy white mold had started growing on the fabric. We loaded the whole lot into the back of the van. I waved a friendly, "Thank you!" wave towards the house. I suspected that we were being watched through the curtains and, sure enough, a hand slipped past the side of the curtain and waved back at me. :)

The cushions needed considerable cleaning but they did come clean in the end. I didn't have to recover or replace any of the upholstery or cushions.

I am very grateful for my "new" glider! What a blessing!

I am very grateful for all the good stuff we found on the curb at that neighborhood. I found two different vacuum cleaners, a stroller, a nice rotary cutting mat, and other things that you can read about in the blog post that I wrote a couple years ago- Finds This Week. 

1 Timothy 6:6 

 But godliness with contentment is great gain.

If You Tarry Till You're Better.......

The phrase, "If you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all," is found in the song, I Will Arise And Go To Jesus. This song is a favorite of mine from my childhood. The tune has a mournful, tantalizing quality, and the rhythm is hypnotic. This phrase, "If you tarry till you're better, you will very come at all," really hits home with me. I remember singing this as a child and thinking, "that's me. I am waiting to get better at doing what is right before I go to Jesus for redemption. I can't bring him all this mess that is me. I have to at least try. Or show him that I am making at effort. Show him that I am ready to be a Christian and live like a Christian." 

Now, the phrase hits home with me because I know people, people who I love and care about, who won't come to Jesus because they are waiting to be/do better. When I hear the last words of the verse, the thought just makes me cry, "If you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all."

Oh my friend, please don't tarry! "All the fitness he requireth, is to feel your need of him." If you know that you need a savior, run to Jesus. He will embrace you in his arms. Salvation is easy. So easy. Jesus did all the work. Rely on him and him alone. You can't wait until you are better. You will never be better. You will never be worthy. You will never be good enough to pay your way or even, at the very least, show him that you are trying. He just wants you to trust him. He paid it all. Believe that he is who he says he is. Believe that He is the Messiah. The Savior. Your Savior. Believe that his death, burial, and resurrection was/is for you. That's it. Please don't tarry.

Revelation 22:17 

And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. 

And let him that heareth say, Come. 

And let him that is athirst come. 

And whosoever will, let him 

take the water of life freely.

Matthew 11:28 

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, 

and I will give you rest. 

Romans 10:9 

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, 

and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, 

thou shalt be saved.

Romans 6:23 

For the wages of sin is death; 

but the gift of God is eternal life 

through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

1 Corinthians 15:3+4

For I delivered unto you 

first of all that which I also received, 

how that Christ died for our sins 

according to the scriptures;

And that he was buried, 

and that he rose again the third day 

according to the scriptures:

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,

Weak and wounded, sick and sore

Jesus ready stands to save you,

Full of pity, love and pow'r.

I will arise and go to Jesus,

He will embrace me in His arms

In the arms of my dear Savior,

Oh, there are ten thousand charms.

Come, ye weary, heavy-laden,

Lost and ruined by the fall

If you tarry till you're better,

You will never come at all.

I will arise and go to Jesus,

He will embrace me in His arms

In the arms of my dear Savior,

Oh, there are ten thousand charms.

Let not conscience make you linger,

Nor of fitness fondly dream

All the fitness He requireth

Is to feel your need of Him.

I will arise and go to Jesus,

He will embrace me in His arms

In the arms of my dear Savior,

Oh, there are ten thousand charms.

Baby Gifts, Hems, Hems, Hems, & Mending

The most fun projects of the month were certainly the baby gifts. I made this dress for my expected niece.

I finished the sloth lovies and I made some whales.
 

I used velvet for their bellies. I am really excited to see how the babies like the velvet. I am thinking the texture will be intriguing to them.

It has been a long time since I had made a big whale. (Blog post about big whales) It was fun to work with an old familiar pattern. I stuff these with beads in addition to polyfil. The weight of the beads make this whale more interesting.

On to the hemming projects. These were not the fun projects of the month.

We had these brand new khaki pants for our boys. The only problem was that they had cuffs. What's the problem with cuffs? We are old fuddy duddies that can't wear anything resembling modern fashion fads. So my options were to donate the pants or hem them. And since my boys needed church pants I hemmed them.

The pants were a size larger than my boys needed. Taking off a couple inches means they can wear the pants now instead of next year.

A lady from church had two skirts for me to hem. I have finished one. I plan to finish the second one this week.

I have done hand mending projects this month. 

Starting with this coat.

This pile is next in the queue.

Two dresses with rips.

And a hole in my husband's jeans.

I am looking forward to a fun project next month. Stay tuned to hear about it towards the end of March!

Winter Sowing

 

Last Saturday I started my winter sowing seeds.

The weather patterns in our area have been confusing. The first week in February robins showed up! I have never seen them in Illinois this early in the season. We had days in the 60°'s. We went bare foot and flew our kite.

The warmth was a treat, but being February, it is still winter, and.............

Five inches of snow! I was so surprised in the morning to find this snow. Just the prior afternoon the children were running around in the sunshine at a playground. 

I decided it was time to start my Winter Sowing seeds. I have been saving plastic milk jugs for this purpose.

I cut the milk jugs. I poked drainage holes in the bottom. Then filled them with a few inches of potting soil. I watered the soil just until it was slightly damp.

I pulled my seed box down. It is so exciting to pick out seeds and make plans for the coming garden!

I numbered each jug and wrote down on a list what type of seeds I had planted in each jug.

#1 & #2 - Roma Tomato

#3 & #4 - Rutger Tomato

#5 - Sunflower

#6 - Snapdragon

#7 - Bell Pepper

#8 - Jalapeno

#9 - Basil

#10 - Hibiscus

#11- Parsley

#12 - Cosmo

#13 - Black Eyed Susan 

Then I taped the seam closed and placed the jugs outside. The seeds will germinate when the soil temperature is warm enough to trigger that process. The jugs serve as miniature greenhouses. They warm the soil to the appropriate temperature a little ahead of the real ground temperature. That way I will have seedlings to plant in the garden with minimal effort on my part.

I started seed with this method last year (See Here) and I was very pleased with the results. I recommend it for anyone.