I have a gardening magazine subscription and am get a facial once in a while that includes a really nice scalp and shoulder massage. I find it really helps me have fewer headaches.

The birds here became eerily silent, and a hawk landed about 50-75 ft from us and sat until totality was over.

Thanks! Good to know!

Dd said she got a "how to make your money work for you and build wealth" email one time from a rich, bank CEO which said everyone should stop buying 5 dollar coffee. She couldn't remember the last time she bought a coffee. Of course if one does it even once per week, $20 a month for 12 months is not exactly the bundle of money that will allow her to buy stocks and get rich. She was yelling at the screen, "Hey you entitled putz! Pay your damn emoyees enough money that they have some hope of being able to retire as a middle class citizen one day instead of facing the choice between affording their prescriptions or paying their electric bill!!" The entitled monied folk really need to get their heads out of their butts.

100%. My parents had the good dishes, the everyday dishes, the extra special once a year dishes. There were the tablecloths for each occasion and when money was flush they ate out with friends a lot while all the kids stayed home with the older teens and had pizzas which were ordered. We didn't that. I had one set of plain white dishes for everything and no tablecloths unless I thrift store found them or sewed them myself. But our kids went to Space Camp and had good quality music instruments. Our adult kids are frugal in so many area of life so that they fan save for experiences. Dd and hubby save to take their kids on field trips, special vacations. Our sons save so they can visit National Parks, pay cash for good used cars so they don't have car payments, and are currently saving to go to Denmark together to visit the area where their great great grandma and grandpa were from. My silent generation grandparents saved to travel frugally and for landscaping plants since gardens were a big deal to them. My other grandparents were very poor, but it was important to them to take their children on an annual adventure so no matter how tight money was, she would save pennies here and there and sell apples from their trees each fall so that in the summer, they could take their kids camping and fishing. A large tarp cast over rope tied between two trees, stake down on sides, a tarp to lay on with bedrolls, cooking simple meals over a fire, and usually eating a lot of fish. My mom and her aunt said these were the best times of their entire childhood. People have different priorities, and choose to enjoy and spend on different things. Diversity, the spice of life. That said, I am fairly certain my kids view home ownership as a non option. They also figure every dime they pay into SS is a goner to the generation before them so they are all packing it away for, as my middle son puts it, "The apocalyptic dystopia world burning future that awaits us in global warming and at a time when our bodies will be failing us. Maybe we will still be able to burn dollars for fuel in the winter." So ya. They aren't feeling much hope of any pleasant future so would like to make some good memories now.

Excellent cheeses High end cooking bourbon and wine Decent cuts of beef on the occasion that Mark wants a steak on the grill I cook a lot of gourmet type meals. But even with good ingredients we still pay far less per serving for those meals than we would if we ate them at a restaurant.

Apologizing to those you feel it is just a crappy thing to do to travel for it, and no big deal. Don't read further please. Our grandsons thought it was amazing. Mark used the spotting scope with a sun filter to project the eclipse on white paper so they could watch it without having to stare up for so long with their glasses. The animals here became very quiet, and a hawk landed maybe 50 ft away and just sat during totality. We got some nice pictures using ISO filter film for the lenses of our cell phones. We had a very remote location. We are at a ranch house in the mountains of NW Arkansas. We rolled in with all of our meals planned, every single thing we would need packed. We went into a quaint town the first day to seek our locally made items or farm market because we like to support local businesses when we do something like this. I scored some really nice lemon goat milk soap and bought several bars and some honey from a local lady, fresh milk, and some hand knit dish rags to take home. I love those things, but seem to be incapable of learning to knit. Play the Rach 2 Concerto? Sure, no worries. Make hands coordinate knitting needles? Totally beyond my brain ability. 🤣 We leave at 5:30 am tomorrow. Dd and family will leave around 9am. They only have to drive back Alabama and will be taking side roads in order to avoid Memphis. We will be using side roads nearly the whole way until we make it to I80 and pick I 94E into Michigan. Hopefully no traffic jams by avoiding the interstates.

This. Our adults kids keep a few bottles of nice beer, a bottle of wine, and selzer waters on hand because they never go to restaurants or pubs anymore. A splurge is a crappy Litrle Caesars Pizza because they are too tired to cook.

In the past 3 days we have gotten about 10 hours per day here at eclipse camp.

No one can go wrong with a runny egg on anything! I had a piece of leftover steak wamred up this morning and deposited an over easy egg on top of it. Divine.

It is a yummy paradise! I make all of my grits/polenta, and rice savory. So goat cheese or extra sharp cheddar is common and for polenta, garlic, basil, and onion. I am a big fan of savory. Sometimes instead of basil I use Rosemary just for a little different flavor profile. But goat cheese is just so darn melty that sometimes it is just the go to cheese.

I make it with butter and goat cheese which melts really well and has a nice tang.

Usborne Farmyard Tales

I don't know if you can find any new ones since they have been discontinued, but all our toddlers loved the Usborne farm series with the little ducks, a duckling hiding on each page. It was centered around farm life and a train that went through the village. Super cute stories and artwork. I wish I could remember the name. I will see if I can find out if they are available.

We are near Pangburn, AR outside of Heber Springs. The view is lovely. We have had really nice night sky viewing since we arrived but there is a prediction for partly cloudy tomorrow. Fingers crossed. We have the proper sun filters for our telescope lens which would allow us to watch the eclipse by scope IF the clouds clear. I am worried about the Tuesday trip home. We are leaving at 5:30 am and hoping for two things. 1. Some of the people started heading home after the eclipse tomorrow thus slightly less congestion. 2. That the sides roads I have found if the interstates are traffic jams will allow us to keep moving along. Mark needs to be at work Wednesday, thankfully remote so if we don't make it home, we can find hi speed and maybe a place quiet enough for him to work. But mostly, we really need to make it home. Our poor old dog is who is being well taken care of by my mom is getting rather depressed about how long we have been gone.

Eggs used to upset my daughter's stomach. Any kind of eggs. We finally figured out it was the white which is not unusual due to the albumin. She started separating the yolks and using only that to make scrambled eggs or to bake and was fine. Duck eggs can get you quite the rise with any recipe that calls for baking powder. Adjust accordingly. I have no idea why I have encountered it but wondered if it was higher fat or protein count affecting the result.

My oldest grandchildren, 8, was born premature and had feeding problems all the way until he was a year old. He is very picky, and doesn't handle things being presented differently. But he eats finger veggies and fruits, cheeses, rice, quinoa, whole wheat bread, salmon, and nuts so we are able to make charcuterie boards everyday and he happily grazes off them. His next youngest brother is a very good eater. The 1 year old so far is trying an liking numerous things. I feel for N. Sometimes he really wants to eat what others are eating and tries, but texture will often get him. Sometimes he gets upset because he feels weird. But we keep encouraging him and feeding him the healthy foods he will eat.

Why do I have this sneaking feeling that this thread is going to be a tragic number of pages😭🤯

Let me just say that as we see more and more people posting online their disappointment at not being able to find lodging last minute, I am so glad we booked ours 3 years ago. We had to message the Vrbo owners to see if they would agree to a booking that far out, and greased the skids by inviting them over on eclipse day for barbecue and viewing. They seem like great people! We have the guest house on their working farm. It is only 9:34am CST, and I am already tired of the packing. I am helping Dd get caught up on laundry, baking muffins to take, baking bread, making pasta salad for the picnic tomorrow, and turning the now washed muffin tins into charcuterie for the kids for tomorrow.Thankfully those little guys will eat off nuts, fruit, cucumber bites, carrots, and cheese all day every day so picnic will be easy. Then I have to run for a grocery order so we can take every single thing with us. The owners of the farm told us to fill up the cars right before we get there because their county and a couple neighboring ones are expecting to be out of gas by Monday, and the grocery stores have warned they cannot handle the influx of folks. When I get back from the grocery run, I have to make biscuits and put together the homemade pancake mix. Why did I think Papa Mark and Marmee Astronomy Camp was a good idea????? 😱

Agreed. The next one is going to bring this country to its knees.

I think how you are doing it is fine. I consider the use of the common areas to be just as important as the bedrooms, so since everyone uses them, I would have charged $120 per bedroom knowing that the singles are paying as much as the couples, but more time is spent on the common areas than in bedrooms usually so everyone needs to pitch in an equal amount to cover the whole house.

Gorgeous. I love ruscus!

Some mitigations work for short term loss of power/heat but not long term. I remember an ice storm in the 70's in which homeowners of well insulated homes still had to thaw pipes with blow torches. Unfortunately, many folks need help with improvements that would mitigate severe change. We havea lot of folks living in very run down homes and apartments in this state, some face dire peril every single winter. Apart from some feeble tax credits for energy upgrades like energy star windows or insulation or the massive investment in solar, there have not been any attempts to assist with upfront costs all of which could have also reduced emissions through reduction in heating and cooling consumption. As always the worst of what has happened and is to come will fall hardest on the folks with the least financial ability to mitigate anything or provide even the smallest comfort to their family. Our next place, despite the expense, is getting geothermal and enough solar setup plus car battery bank to run it. That is a privilege. Most folks cannot afford this expense.

Maybe. The sea level rise is going to be so high that the elevated areas are nor going to withstand it. If you look at 2050 maps as well as 2100 maps, most of Florida is uninhabitable. That is true of many places. Literally a dead zone for humans. It isn't that the Great Lakes Region is a haven from change. Not at all. It is going to have major problems. The difference is survivability. It is somewhere humans can survive. That cannot be said of southern California, the deep south, Texas, the American southwest, the dry plains states. The prognosis is actually that dim. Nowhere will be imimmune. But there are places where are species can make it. I wouldn't clal it thriving, just averting extinction really. We will by the turn of the century lose a billion people, minimum to this and that is a conservative estimate from what I am reading. Pandemics plus apocalyptic weather events could cause that to be much higher. The world gdp estimate is 30-500 trillion dollars of disaster (basically more than the entire world economy produces currently) so there won't be money for technology and advancements to mitigate the circumstances. It all depends on if we hit the 3 degree threshold or not. At this rate? We will exceed 3.

These are cups and saucer sets that are eco friendly. They are a bit fru fru, as in tea party, but cute if the colors were okay. Also from tablecloth factory. -vintage-mixed-floral-disposable-cup-and-saucer-set-paper-tea-party-supplies-kit?_pos=3&_sid=4fcfea6bf&_ss=r&variant=43253145403577