Big Country Balloon Fest

This year's balloon fest has come and gone, and it is almost a certainty that we are jinxed when it comes to watching Balloon Glows.  If it isn't one thing, then it's the next.

This year, it got rained out on the night that we went.   It didn't rain where we lived, but it did right where the balloons were.

*SIGH*

And no, big noisy fire blasts are not quite the same thing.

*DOUBLE SIGH*

However, the little boy got to go on bouncy castles, and so he had a blast.  We bought one of those "unlimited turns" bracelets for him, and so he got to go again and again till he was totally exhausted.  Also, it started drizzling/raining while we were out at the bouncy castles, turning them into slip-n-slides.  What child wouldn't go crazy with THAT?

Also, because of the rain/drizzle, there was a much smaller crowd than other years, and so the little boy didn't hardly have to wait in line on any of the bouncy slides/castles, which was fortunate.

He didn't even mind sitting on newspapers in his car seat on his way home :)

( read : "Mummy, I can hardly feel them!" )

Needless to say, it wasn't difficult to get him asleep that night. :)

Super Harvest Blood Moon

We stayed up with the little boy watching the SUPER.HARVEST.BLOOD.MOON.  Yes, it was quite epic and hence needed its own epic fontedness. :)

The hubs got out the chairs and binoculars, and we settled down to watch the eclipse, starting from when it was about halfway covered up.

I have to say, it got quite chilly outside, considering we are still having above normal temperatures, and apparently the little boy felt a little cool-ish too, so Daddy had to go in and get a jacket at some point.


We didn't have super equipment or anything, but it was still satisfying.

We waited the slightly-over-an-hour until the moon started lighting up on the other side again, coming out of the eclipse, before we brought the little boy in to go to bed.

See you in 2033 !

Happy First Day of Autumn!

I can't believe it has taken me over 4 decades

to come across a brown praying mantis.  I found this critter on our pumpkin plant.

Or maybe it's because I've always been pretty oblivious :)

There WAS a site that I got to that said praying mantises could change color for camouflage.  I'm gonna have to find more sources for that...

THIS next critter though, we can do without. The $%$^&*@ squash bugs have been decimating our poor pumpkin plant and survived the Sevin Dust I sprinkled on there!

West Texas Fair and Rodeo 2015

We managed to get to the Fair earlier this week, much to the little boy's delight.  He remembered being in last year's tractor pull, and spent a few days brushing up on his cycling skills :)

He did way better than last year, 

and was quite proud to receive a ribbon for participating!

We moved into the exhibition buildings next to escape the heat and wind, and looked at the different entries for photography and art.  Some pieces of art were more recognizable than others for the little boy.

We looked all around the farm harvest/produce area, but couldn't find an exhibition of Texas-Sized Watermelons/fruit like last year.  To be honest, I think we were all a little disappointed.

One thing that was new this year, were the numerous "photo op" cut out deals that were placed along the main walk way.  The little boy ( and I ) stopped for a few shots on our way to the next building.  

We were entirely NOT surprised to see that Mamo had once again won several prizes.  One of her antique dolls even won the Chairman's Award! 

By now, we were feeling quite hungry but were a little unwilling to go out of the air conditioned room, back into the heat and wind to have the dinner that we had packed/brought along. So the hubs asked the lady in charge if we could use the little kitchenette corner in the building.

We were quite relieved when she said "yes".  At first I felt a little sheepish about eating in there, but yet too hungry to really bother with any stares we might have elicited.  One guy who walked in there with his family said to us, "Hey, that's what WE should have done!"

We were even entertained by the faint strains of the band playing in the next building.  ( We were glad they were in the next building and we were behind closed doors because the sound guys had the volume up really high!)

After dinner, we continued going through the exhibition booths, 

and got to pet a baby cow,

before heading onto the midway as it started getting toward dusk.

I love the color and sights and sounds ( and smells - what with all that roast turkey legs and funnel cakes etc ) of the carnival.  That combined with my favorite time of the day ( dusk ), was truly a beautiful sight.

My body ( inner ear? ) has started betraying me as far as fair rides go, and I can't do any of the outrageous rides that I used to love when I was younger,

but I was more than happy to accompany the little boy on a fairly tame roller coaster, a bear ride, a ride on the "Speedway", and down the Super Slide :)

Oh, and every ride was 1 ticket per person that night! w00t!

I'm glad the weather cooperated on the evening that we decided to go.  Till next year :)

Gettin' Jiggy With It

Lovin' the strains of tavernesque foot-tappin' music and epic Celtic Music as I try to edit some photos as fast as I can for the next blog post!

Pumpkin Update

One of them was ripe enough to get off the vine,

one of them is ripening up,

and then there's this little one..

Take Time to Smell the Roses

I get too caught up with worries and planning and forgetting to live in the moment.

It's a good thing I've been blessed with a little boy who gets me to stop and take photos of squirrels in the tree :)

It's not the Alice in Wonderland Syndrome,

but it didn't freak me out any less.

I've had monthly migraines - yes, the issues women have to deal with -( TMI ) for about a year or so now, but a few days ago, I experienced visual aura for the first time.

We were getting ready to watch a movie with the little boy, and I was doing some things on my computer while waiting for the movie to start.  Suddenly, there was a blind spot in my vision, with some "dazzling light" in the periphery of the blind spot.  At first, I thought I had inadvertently looked into some bright light or a bulb or something, but it didn't go away.  It was difficult to read anything on the screen and it was quite annoying.

As the movie started, the dazzling light started moving toward the left and getting larger and larger.  The blurriness faded a bit, but there was this shimmering crescent that gradually drifted to the upper left of my field of vision over the next 10 minutes or so before finally disappearing all together.

This video is a pretty good representation blurring out chunks of letters on the computer screen,

while this one is very close to the colors that I saw

except that what happened in the video actually takes about 15 minutes in real life - or at least in my case.

You can imagine all the things going through my mind - all the differential diagnoses.  We had learned about migraine and auras in medical school, but I always imagined it as seeing flashes of light.

When it happened again at church, during the speaker's sermon - followed by throbbing pain over my right eye, I quickly did a search for it to confirm what it was.  That at least put my mind at ease a little bit to know it wasn't anything more sinister.