The Great American Eclipse of 2017...

...was covered by a cloud during totality. It was so depressing. School was out, I took the day off, we all went down to the riverfront in Nashville, brought snacks and our glasses, played in the water fountains... but 2sec before the sun was blacked out, a giant cloud covered it up and did so until well past totality. 

I mean, I was beside myself. Ask your mom. A full and total solar eclipse happens where we live?? This is truly a once in a lifetime happening. The eclipse ran across the entire USA, bringing the whole country together for sometime good and not political... and we didn't get to see it. 

We did see the partial eclipse phases though. I remember looking up and seeing the sun be slowly swallowed by the moon... it gave me an oddly eery feeling. And as totality drew near, the sunlight turned to a weird dim gray light I've never seen before. Then the sky went dark as night, but the surrounding horizon maintained its brightness, only it turned orange like an almost gone sunset, in all directions. The temperature dropped at least 10deg. You could hear people "oooooo"ing and "aaaaahhh"ing  all around us, across the river even. And then 2min later, like nothing even happened, the sun came back out. People were mostly quiet after that. You could tell everyone around was just as astonished at missing it because of a cloud as I was, so at least we weren't alone. 

Over the next 24hrs I heard and read nothing but anecdotes about how amazing it was and it was like nothing they'd ever seen before. Images started being shared. I grimaced a lot that next day. I'd missed the biggest cosmic event to been seen in TN in the last 500yrs. Im still bummed but calming down a bit. After all, I must be somewhat more special because I didn't see it like the majority of people, right? haha... ugh

But in the end, we had a nice day, my nagging anxiety about finding the perfect viewing spot was now replaced with unchangeable regret (hahaha), i don't think anyone damaged their eyes during viewing, and we made it home safe and sound. You guys were good sports despite not getting naps. 

hoping this new app works; i miss blogging

had a fun night out with the kids. went to tim and jenny's for jacobs 18th birthday. grilled out and had a fire. kids ran around having a good time. isobel had a cold drink in her hands that made them cold and she would walk around and put her cold hands on someone and laugh when they jumped. she did it about 150 times. pretty funny. angus just keeps growing and developing, picking up new words to say and understanding even more. his little blond curls  and laugh.

life is so drawn out its hard to imagine being an old man watching my kid's kids run around wondering where the time went.... but that's how all old men are. no one can grasp the passage of time. we're all just doing our best to get through each moment.

in case this doesn't get said enough, my kids are really wonderful and watching them run around and play and laugh and find pure joy in the most random thing, wonder in next, it's so refreshing and rewarding.


(this wasn't tonight but i needed to test uploading a picture)

(testing a new blogger app because the official one just disappeared(?) blogging isn't quite the rage that it used to be, but i think there always something rewarding about journaling regardless of the overall purpose. there's someone so fun (and usually embarrassing) about reading back through a log of thoughts and feelings and observances.)