Terrific Tuesday and a couple of cards

Morning Everyone! It is a terrific Tuesday, but then, every day can be terrific if we only allow ourselves to have terrific days. Some days you wake up and just want to go back to sleep. Others, you awake just rarin’ to get going on the day. Several things can account for this, but much of it hinges on ATTITUDE.

We can decide what kind of day we will have-terriffic, or terrible, or somewhere in between.

Yesterday I was going to have a terrific day seeing, and perhaps photographing, the Once-In-A-Lifetime TOTAL solar eclipse. I watched 3 weather reports on 3 different channels covering both home and the area about 3 hours away where I planned to go for the event. All said the same thing…possible showers, both places, possible clouds, both places. However, the reports for home seemed like my chance of viewing wouldn’t be as good as going south. In addition to the storms probably (key word, probably) moving east of the area where I would be by viewing time, I would be in the area of 100% totality, not 98% totality. You could say I got a little greedy here. Sometimes the old adage of a bird in hand being worth two in a bush is so very true. I think I would have gotten a glimpse, maybe, perhaps, if I had stayed home. But then……

So, off I went, cameras, solar viewing glasses and binoculars, the whole bit. It was sprinkling when I left home, so the thinking was, “I made the right choice.”

However, the closer I got to where I was going, the darker and darker it got. No problem, it was still 3 hours from eclipse time. Major lightning strikes, and then the traffic! No problem, I was going to go west, and I knew most of them were going on further south. Perhaps I should have followed them.

Long story short, it rained the whole time I was there and I got a couple of not-so-good shots of the sun peeking out of the clouds with about 1/4 of it in shadow. So much for a terrific day.

However badly I felt about missing out on the event, it was still a terrific day. I found roads in Missouri I didn’t know existed, and probably shouldn’t exist! I am known for taking side roads, back roads and other kinds of possibly dangerous roads, but yesterday’s adventure took the cake in possibly dangerous.

I wound up taking a right turn, just because I could, and because I was headed north and east and this road went north. Fine. For awhile. Then it became a very rough, twisted, hilly (I am talking mountainous hilly here folks. You didn’t know there are mountains in northern Missouri???) and uninhabited road to seemingly nowhere. No place to turn around either. Oh, and did I mention NARROW? At the bottom of some of those HILLS the road sign said unsafe during high water. About this time my phone alarm said, “Flash Flood warning for your area!” Great! I am about to drown, because I can’t turn around so I won’t drown. Oh, there isn’t water over the road, here at least. Later???

All is well though, because that road came to an abrupt end at a T-intersection….with a muddy looking gravel road going either right or left. Now what? Well, I, being me, thought I might as well continue north and east, so I took a right turn. I won’t go so far as to say it was a mistake, but I probably should have, in good sense, turned around. No cell service, no inhabitants, rough, narrow, not-very-well-graveled or maintained road. Woman alone. Bear in mind, I was not lost. I knew approximately where I was and where I was headed. It was just an unfamiliar road. And the low spots had water standing. Not rushing over, just standing. Puddles. Not deep puddles. Well, not very deep. My Explorer handled them just fine.

That adventure took me 40 minutes and 20 miles in some very scenic, forested areas I did not know existed so close to home. But I could have made my destination in 20 minutes and 15 miles had I taken a left instead of a right back at the first intersection. Chalk it up to adventure. Or curiosity, or stupidity. Whatever. I do not regret one moment of the day. I saw 23 Great and Snowy Egrets, 17 Great Blue Herons, and about 500 white pelicans that are so beautiful in flight against a blue-gray sky. There were numerous other birds I could not identifiy in the rain and darkness. Oh, and some Blue-winged Teal, Goldfinches and Eastern Kingbirds. I also met some people from Wisconsin who drove down for the Great Eclipse (which I did not see, but they didn’t either and they drove further than I did).

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. And, I am planning now to go to Illinois in 2024 for the next TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE and get that darned image of the thing!

I do have two card fronts to share today, if you have read this far. The inside isn’t finished as both are ‘thinking of you’ cards, which could be for sympathy, recovery from surgery or accident, or just simply thinking of someone you haven’t seen in awhile.

Both use my all-time favorite Stampin’ Up! set Vintage Leaves, and the coordinating dies from Leaflets framelits.

The first one uses a crumb cake base, plain Early Espresso mat and an angled wood plank embossed crumb cake mat. The Oak leaves are stamped in Early Espresso on Pumpkin Pie, Crushed Curry and Elegant Eggplant cardstock, die cut and tied with a strand pulled from the burlap ribbon and knotted around the stems. The sentiment, stamped in Early Espresso on Crumb Cake is attached with Stampin’ Dimensionals and brads to the Early Espresso mat, then the whole adhered to the card base.

The other card deviates from anything I have ever done using only Whisper White and Crumb Cake card stock and Early Espresso ink. I again used the Vintage Leaves set, pulling out the maple leaf this time. One is stamped with the maple stamp and the other is stamped with the tree from Lovely As A Tree. They are die cut, sponged with Crumb Cake, tied with a piece of Linen Thread and glued to a Whisper White mat that had been dry embossed with the now retired Seaside TIEF.

A piece of stitched brown ribbon across the bottom and taped on the back of the white mat, grounds the sentiment banner, also in Whisper White. It is stamped in Early Espresso and sponged with crumb cake to relieve the stark whiteness. I then used brads to fasten it to the mat and adhered the whole to the card base with Tear & Tape.

I hope you enjoyed my day and these cards.

No card cuts or product listings today. If you want more information, please leave a comment. Please leave a comment if you don’t want more information! I would like to know your thoughts on my blogging.

And, by the way, shhhh! Don’t tell my kids what I did. They may take away my drivers’ license.