Eclipse 2017

I am old enough to remember the partial eclipse that we had in NE back in 1979.  I was in the Middle Room (which means 3-5th grade), at Zion Lutheran School, Worms, NE.  I am not sure I really knew that the eclipse was coming before that day at school.  I do know that we all went out the back door of the school and watched the eclipse through a hole in a piece of paper as the shadow was made onto a second piece of paper.  I thought it was awesome at the time.  Now that I am thinking back to this, this might have been about the time I was thinking it would be a good idea to be an astronaut.  

So now as we were waiting for this total eclipse to happen in 2017, I of course was very excited to see it.  I was lucky enough that my town was going to be hosting a wonderful event for that day.

 My kids and I packed up our things and headed over to the park.  As we walked over it was a mostly clear beautiful day.  I was really hoping that it would continue, as the forecast had predicted mostly cloudy by eclipse time.  This is as thick as the clouds were at that time.  Not a problem for viewing the eclipse.

We had some special guests for the day.  There were several dancers from the Omaha tribe from Macy, NE.  I really enjoyed this part of the morning.  It reminded me of the Pow wow that I had gone to when I was in college.  They did several different dances for us.

Just as they were finishing up we saw the helicopter circle around that was bringing in Astronaut Clayton Anderson.  He is the first and so far only astronaut that was from Nebraska.  

He spoke to us about his dream to become an astronaut.  He applied 15 times before being given the chance to be an astronaut.  He had almost given up on his dream to become an astronaut.  


 He gave us a bit of advice, four things to remember and do.

1. Have a Dream.
2. Persevere.
3. You don't have to be a genius.
4. Be proud of who you are and where you came from.

I really enjoyed listening to him speak.  There is a part of me that really needed to hear this advice.  When there is something that we really want to do, we need to keep on working towards that goal.


This is actually the second time we have seen Clayton Anderson.  The first time was quite a few years ago at Morrill Hall on Astronomy Day.  But even though I had seen him before, it was important for me to see him again.

We continued to keep our eye on the sky as he was speaking.  By now the moon had mostly covered the sun.  But look what else had covered the sun.  We were getting a bit worried that we would be able to see the eclipse at all.  We could only sometimes see the sun through our eclipse glasses due to the clouds.

Clayton Anderson taught us a couple of Russian words.  He had us practice them before even telling us what they meant.  But I had made my guess and told Ella what the words meant before he told us the meaning.  "Net oblakov!"

"No clouds!"

As the moon moved in front of the sun, the lighting was very strange.  Dim and eerie.  It was just off a little bit.

Then the clouds cleared and we could see the sun once more.  It started to get darker and darker.  You could just feel the temperature dropping.  I did not bring a thermometer with me, but they were predicting at least a 10 degree drop in the temp.  I will check the data and see if we really experienced this.  Even if it wasn't 10 degrees it did feel chilly.


Then...

ECLIPSE!

Wow, to say it was amazing means nothing to those who did not experience it.  We were all standing around and looking at this ring of light in the sky that was the only sign of our sun, our source of heat and light.  There were still many clouds in the sky, but we could clearly see the sun.  We were also able to see one of the four planets that should have been visible, the rest were hidden by the clouds.

We are part of an amazing creation.

Nebraska Writer's Guild

So I joined the Nebraska Writer's Guild today.  It has been something that I have been thinking about doing for quite some time.  This past winter at our local wonderful bookstore, there was and event, "Nebraska Authors Book Signing."  So of course I wanted to go to it.  I love the bookstore on any normal day, but when it was going to be filled with authors, well, I wasn't going to miss it.

So we headed over and of course talked to all of the authors there.  One of them suggested joining the NWG to me.  We talked for a long while about writing,  NaNoWriMo, and projects that each of us was working on.  After this I looked into the Nebraska Writer's Guild.  But still wasn't ready to join the ranks of NE writers.

Then at Constellation this spring, the NWG had a table in the dealer room.  I even made a point of going over to them and talking to them.  I took one of their flyers and as I walked away, I planned on joining the group and maybe even going to one of their conferences.  But I didn't go right up to my room and do that.

So finally as I was sorting through a pile of papers I had gathered in my bedroom, I found the flyer that I had picked up at Constellation.  So I grabbed my computer and went to their website.  I decided to look into where the Spring conference would be held and what they might be doing.  There of course was not much information as it is still August.

Now this might seem strange that I didn't look into the Fall conference, but I had just added all of the girls' school activities to my calendar and I was feeling a little bit busy this fall.  Though when there was not much information on the Spring conference, I decided to look at the listing for the Fall one, just to get a feel for what to expect.

This is where things get really crazy.  The fall conference is at the Leadership Center in Aurora.  It is 6 miles from my home.  I wouldn't really have to travel.  And on top of this I know the person who runs the Center, I had her son in Kindergarten last year.

This all seemed to be a sign that I was supposed to get busy.  I needed to become a member and get signed up for this conference.  So I look more into the information about the conference and who was going to be there.

Then at school the next day, I found out that our school teacher's conference is the same weekend.  But if I really push it the school conference is Thursday/Friday, and the NWG conference is Friday/Saturday, I might be able to get them both in.  It will be a crazy couple of days.  But I think I will give it a try.

I have not yet signed up for the conference, but I am sure that I will be doing that in the next few days.  I did however finally become a member of the NWG.

Baby steps, on the path.