Today is the National Day of Reason. If you’re a humanist, atheist, freethinker and/or secularist, then this day offers you an alternative to the government-sponsored observance known as the National Day of Prayer.
Here are 7 ways you can celebrate the National Day of Reason.
You may remember this photo from last week’s Throwback Thursday post. The photo, as you can see, came from a frame that included a pair of my shoes when I was one year old that my mother had bronzed. And yes, it desperately needs to be cleaned and polished.
When I removed the photo above from the frame to scan it, I was surprised to find two other photos hidden behind it. The first was the photo below, taken of me with my dad when I was four years old. To the best of my knowledge this is the only photo I have of the two of us where I am this young.
I mentioned that I found two photos hidden; next week on Throwback Thursday I’ll post the other photo, which is one I had never seen until that day last week.
Flying out to Little Rock tomorrow afternoon to assist in the tornado recovery taking place in Arkansas.
The good folks of The Natural State have endured a massive amount of damage and, even worse, a substantial loss of life. If you’re of a mind to help, monetary donations to a reputable charity of your choice can go a long way in providing relief.
Last Saturday I went with Cindy and Mountain Creek Candles to the Greening Up The Mountains Festival in Sylva, NC. She had a fairly good day for her business and I got to visit City Lights Bookstore in Sylva for the first time. Here are some photos.
Some of the crowd that crowd that came out for Greening Up The Mountain.
Part of the display for Mountain Creek Candles.
Even Smokey Bear showed up for some photo opportunities. That’s an actual National Park Ranger inside that suit.
During our family gathering last week, my daughter took these photos of me with three of my grandchildren. I missed my other two grandchildren, who were not able to be with us.
My oldest grandson Mikey.
My oldest granddaughter Heather.
My middle granddaughter Abby.
Last Saturday, April 19th, was our Easter family gathering/egg hunt event at Cindy’s mom and dad’s home in Orlando. Here are some photos of the fun.
Easter egg hunting, from left to right; my grand-nephew Levi, my middle granddaughter Abby, my daughter Ann helping the kids and my oldest granddaughter Heather.
Abby found one of the big eggs with a dollar inside!
Heather is all smiles showing one of the eggs she found.
Family members present who celebrate birthdays in March, April and May.
We were excited to hang the latest portrait of all our grandchildren (Maxwell was added to the group!) over the stone fireplace at Wolf’s Haven today.
Yesterday we ran a few errands in the morning, taking Bella to the vet for her annual shots then walking up from the vet’s office to Main Street in Waynesville to see what might have changed (quite a few things, it turns out) since we left back at the beginning of last November. We stopped in to The Dog Bakery and picked up some snacks for Bella, then we tried out the new Karma Cafe where we enjoyed some tasty breakfast croissant sandwiches and a delicious warm blueberry muffin. We sat at a table out front on the sidewalk and watched people walking on Main Street and a few cars as they passed while Bella sat quietly at our feet hoping we would drop something her way.
Then it was back to Wolf’s Haven to take care of a project we’ve needed to tackle since last year; clearing out the secondary creek. We have a beautiful creek flowing through our property and it was one of the major factors in our decision to buy this particular piece of land. But there is also an area just above our property where the creek splits, allowing a smaller, slowing moving creek to form closer to our cabin before it meets back up with the main creek at a point just about even with our front deck. Like the main creek that we cleared 2 years ago, this secondary creek has had blockages caused by falling tree branches and entire trees and the view has been obscured by massive rhododendron plants. It was time to clear and clean it out so we could enjoy the view and see a faster flow of water.
Here’s what it looked like BEFORE we spent almost 3 hours working to clear it:
The arrows show where the secondary creek flows and the vegetation obscuring it from view.
And after. Unfortunately, though the view was improved, the flow of water was not increased enough to get the “white water” effect that you can see on the the main creek.
The vegetation is gone, but it is still difficult to see the creek actually flowing, unlike the main creek.
Here are a couple of before and after close-ups as well.
Here’s a photo of yours truly at the age of one.
