Year 2, Day 233: Laundry, Phone Calls, and a Solar Eclipse!

It was a pretty exciting day! Abishai came in our room as always wanting to snuggle while Jared got dressed for work.  He also took Benaiah to school.  Since we had done a great job last night of unpacking, there was only a bag of games to unpack and then laundry to do.  I washed and dried probably 4 regular size loads, which equals 2 loads for my huge washer.  I made the mistake of putting it out at 7:30 am (yes, 7:30!) and the line was still in the shade, so the first half of the load took a while longer to dry than normal.  But once the sun hit, the laundry dried in no time.  I think I was pulling the last bit off right before the peak of the solar eclipse at 2:25 pm.  And we got it all put away, too. Score!

The Solar Eclipse!  Jared was super excited about it.  Leah drove down to Kentucky with a friend who had helped her get up to Michigan to see her Dad before he passed, to see the 100% totality. We had about 91 % totality in Indianapolis.  In 7 years, there will be another one that will pass directly over Indianapolis!  The signifcance of this eclipse was that it reached from Oregon to South Carolina, so coast to coast of the United States.  Eclipses happen often, like a couple per year, but only some usually get to see them.  I saw one when I was 10 or 11 while we were at my piano teacher's house.  I remember it going dark while one of my sisters were having their lesson or something.  Anyway, I had downloaded some apps that told me exactly when the eclipse would start, reach its peak, and end.  And one of the apps had links to a NASA sponsored website that explained the pinhole method as well as the teleschope/binoculars method.  Basically, you are trying to see the reflection of the event because you cannot look at the event with the naked eye unless it's at 100% totality.  And no, you can't look through a camera lens or a phone camera's lens, even if you have it on selfie mode while your back is turned to the sun and just look at the screen.  You will ruin your eyes and the camera lenses.  So, I tried putting our telescope together in a way with our standup wipeboard but it didn't work.  Jared had tried the pinhole method at work, and it did work, so when he stopped in so we could share the event together with the middle kids (Abishai was napping), he showed me how to do it.  The pictures can tell more of that story.

Meanwhile, since one of Benaiah's teachers worked or works for a NASA related company, the teacher made sure that they had real NASA approved eclipse glasses.  The school took a break from their normal classes and let the kids go outside and view the eclipse for about 20 minutes using the glasses or the pinhole method.  Benaiah even had to right a two page report on it! I love SCS for this kind of reasons.  They recognize opportunities and take them, just like homeschoolers do.  Speaking of the glasses, there were a lot of fake ones floating around.  Basically, if you put them on and can still see things, they are fake.  One local teacher who had ordered 100's of pairs of glasses, found out they were fake, drove down to the company whose logo was on the glasses, and verified that they were indeed fake.  Someone had put the company's logo and "NASA approved" on them.  It wasn't the company's fault, but they gave the teacher the same amount of glasses so his students for free so the students could take in this event.  I think that was incredibly gracious of them.

Anyway, Justin and Keturah were not that impressed, especially since I made them watch live footage throughout the whole event.  They weren't allowed to have their regular TV time until afterwords.  I didn't make them do any activities, but we have studied and/or talked about the solar system numerous times, so I think they do understand the concepts.  I did mention that there will be another one in 7 years and that we can predict it because it's all about mathematics.  I also told them how sometimes the moon looks larger during an eclipse because the path of the moon is not a perfect circle.  I mentioned Galileo and how he used math to figure some of this out.  We'll go over it again in a couple of years.  I just wasn't ready to throw "school" at them although I'm sure the worksheets looked great.

Then, I was supposed to call Medicaid today, but my brother called and we talked for 45 minutes about what is going on in his life.  Then I called one of my sisters to update her and ended up on the phone for another 45 minutes.  I'll just say that life can be really complicated and messy.  But I am grateful I am able to drop what I'm doing and just listen to my siblings talk about what's going on.  I'm glad they reach out to me and when they ask for advice, I can give it.  I can only do that, because great, Godly advice has been poured into me, whether I ask for it or not, lol.  I've observed how Gary counsels others in many different situations and try to copy some of the things he does.  I am estranged from one my sisters, but my other sister keeps tabs on her, so at least I know that one sister is doing ok.  It's hard to be so far apart from all of them.  My brother only lives 40 minutes away, but it seems like it's half a country away.  The business phone calls will always wait.

Dinner. Homework for Benaiah.  Playtime for Jared and Abishai, especially since Abishai cried heavily after seeing Daddy drive away in his truck this morning.  Keturah and Justin puttered around, did their chores, read their books, put away laundry.  Tomorrow will be more of the same, with a little run to the pharmacy and grocery store sprinkled in.  Then gymnastics and Bible Bowl on Wednesday, haircuts (finally! I love the boys' longer hair, but I don't want them to be called girls either) on Thursday, and possibly an apple picking field trip on Friday.  I think I'm going to count today as a school day, and tomorrow as well because the kids will start up their Bible class with Grandpa again.  Everly and Nora already started school, unofficially, because their Classical Conversations community started last week while we were on vacation.  I think I'll slowly add a subject every other day or two to get us ramped up to full tilt after Labor Day.  I still have a couple of kinks to work out of the schedule.

Timbit oatmeal! Justin crumbled up two Timbits into his oatmeal plus raisins and cinnamon.  This boy loves his oatmeal!

This boy definitely missed his train and car and truck collection.  I think he got out every bucket of trains/cars/trucks today.  He put these three trucks together and managed to get them from the sunroom, up the step, over the doorway, and into the kitchen.

My pinhole telescope plan that didn't quite work out.  But I tried!

I thought I was seeing the sun, but I'm not sure it was.

This was a live feed from Oregon, where the totality happened 1 1/2 hrs before our peak happened.

Trying out Daddy's pinhole method.

Tada! The moon covered about 40% of the sun at this point.  No, you can't see the bumps on the moon or the beauty of the sky, but you can watch how the moon passes by the sun.

Someone was using their phone to livestream the eclipse in our area.  I hope he didn't ruin his phone, but I'm glad we were able to get some good live shots out of it.  You could see a reflection of the eclipse where the sun looked pink.

I tried messing around with my camera, taking it off auto as much as I knew how, so I could capture the darkness.  It did get darker, and felt like it was going to rain, but the clouds weren't rain clouds yet.  We knew it wasn't going to be super dark here, but we did notice a difference.

Jared looked over and saw that there were eclipse reflections on the tire swing!  Cool!

The laundry line looks a little darker than it should be at this time of day.

I messed with my camera settings to try to show how dark our naked eyes saw.  I think this picture is pretty accurate.

91% totality!

The moon is now starting to slide away from the sun.

Yes, I grabbed a shot of these pretty clouds in front of the eclipse.  We did have some clouds that made it difficult at times to get pictures of our pinhole reflections.  And it did eventually rain, too.

Yup, this was at 2:30 pm in the afternoon.  Looks more like 7 pm!

Again, on the way out.

Lots of eclipse reflections!

Colonel Mustard!  Abishai asks for mustard for his pizza because he has seen Daddy do it often enough.  And now Abishai has a mustard mustache, lol.

I think all these cars went with us on vacation, but he had to line them up perfectly anyway.  He had watched some monster truck videos earlier today, and so he pretended to be a monster truck and stepped on his cars.  We stopped him right away.  He also orally labeled them "Mommy's car, Daddy's truck, Ice Cream's car, Grandma's car, etc."

Normal settings on the camera for the pretty sunset tonight.

I think this lonely pepper grew a bit more while on vacation.  I'm glad I haven't picked it yet.  Although, I'm sure it's about time.  I got a lavender plant when we went to the lavender farm, and I have to check that frequently, so I'm checking all my plants on the deck frequently as well.

These pretty flowers are still in bloom.  Yeah!

These were the exact times this app gave me for the eclipse for our location.  Everybody across the nation had different times just like when the sun rises.  But this time, the eclipse started out west and went east, where as the sun goes east to west.  Fascinating!  I did want to be an astronaut at one point, so I do enjoy these things.  I'm glad Jared does, too, and we can all share in the experience.