Eclipse of the Fall

Did any of you see the solar eclipse this past weekend?  It happened in Texas just around 5/5:30 on Friday afternoon.  I was on my way home and Jordan had already finished work.  Since he beat me home, he ran into a neighbor who was ready to watch the eclipse (unlike us unprepared people).  This neighbors is a school teacher so she was prepared with special glasses and had timed the eclipse just right.  I hope all of you made it in time to see such an event!  It was very difficult to see unless you had some serious eye protection.

Top Left: These are the fancy glasses that our neighbor let Jordan use.  They look a lot like 3D glasses but the affect is more like a welder's mask.  You can see that the sun is setting so it was important to get a glimpse while we could.

Top Right: Jordan took a picture of the eclipse while holding the glasses up to the camera lens.  This picture isn't the greatest quality, but it's authentic.  Cool huh?

Bottom Right and Left: These are some much higher quality pictures of the same solar event Friday night.  I just think this is fascinating!  It's crazy how the sun looks in the bottom left picture with all those spots, swirls, and gashes.  Can the sun have a "sun spot"?

We had kind of a lazy weekend and kicked off Friday night with dinner at Logan's.  It was good food, but I felt like they overcooked our steaks, both of them.  I just don't understand why a restaurant would give themselves such a tough hurdle by serving steak on a skillet.  It's hard enough to cook a steak and measure the time it takes to get it to the table without adding that skillet variable.  Even so, it was a nice date night with Jordan.

Left and Top: Just some pics from Logan's

Bottom Left: It was barely, barely chilly when we got back to our car after dinner, but I was so excited to use the seat warmers in our new car!  I had to take a crummy dark picture; that's how pumped I was.  This is the first vehicle I've ever had that has had seat warmers and I can tell I'm going to love them this winter!  To be honest, it's been unseasonably warm this month in Texas.  Not to worry, I'm sure it will change by tomorrow.

I don't have much else exciting to report except some small projects we were working on.  As I mentioned in my last post, Jordan has insulated our garage and he had an extra piece of 3/4 inch foam board.  He was kind enough to cut a piece to fit the new buffet in our kitchen (thanks Mom!).  It's not a huge deal to have the foam, but I'm excited that we can protect the top surface from hot dishes during fancy dinners (I'm imagining my 20 year old self laughing about the things that make me "excited" these days..lol).  I might be able to cover this foam piece with a table cloth so that it's pretty and still functional if I need to get in the cabinets or drawers.

The bottom right picture is a tester to see how fabric looks over it.  Very nice.  Plus, it's such a light piece of foam, I can store it in the closet when we don't need it.  Jordan is a sweet boy to cut this for me.

Next up is a small project I started on a whim.  Mom gave me this little wooden tray the last time we were at the lake and I decided to paint it to match our bedroom.  I had plenty of paint left over from my nightstand project so I decided to use those similar colors and paint this cute piece.  The exact color I used is made by Valspar and is called "Liquid Jade".

Top: The tools and the raw tray.  Yes, I painted over the pictures of the vegetables.  It's okay folks, they are just veggies...

Middle Left: Sanded the whole thing.  The sanding helped to 1) take the edge off the original art, 2) smooth out the rough corners, and 3)make a good surface for paint to stick to.

Middle Right and Bottom Left: The tray painting in progress - it took about two coats.

Bottom Right: The finished tray!  Once it cures, I'll probably use it to keep a few books/papers/lists in our bedroom.

It was such a pretty day so we let Abby come outside with us while we were tinkering.  She seemed restless but was happy to sit in the back of the car where she had a better vantage point to see the action.

This is a pic of Abby looking on as I finished up the tray.  

I also had to include a few pictures of my mum plant.  Tis the season for the mums to bloom!  Mums are such a strange but easy plant.  I swear they change colors just a smidgen every time they bloom.  I could swear my yellow mums are now blooming a shade of orange.

Ah, I love relaxing weekends at home.  I guess you could say I'm a homebody sometimes.  The week is almost always very busy and we often pack a lot of activities into our weekends so it's nice to have nothing planned sometimes.  This is a picture Jordan snapped of Abby and I sleeping at the end of the day.  I promise this picture wasn't posed; Abby will truly sleep like this with us.  It's amazing how tolerable she is!  Her and I were both exhausted from relaxing so much, you know!?

Happy almost Halloween!