I’m sure you heard with everyone else in the country that there was an eclipse August 21 that started around 1pm and was over by 3pm, give or take a handful of minutes. Approximately at 2:40pm, if you had the proper eye protection, you could’ve seen the moon crossing in front of the sun and cover 90 percent of it (if in the Roanoke area). The last time an eclipse crossed the whole nation was back in the late 70’s so this was certainly a sight to see!
People from all over the country celebrated in their own ways. Some people watched from their back yard right before the full coverage, others took a few minutes from their busy days at work to look up, while other people traveled great distances to see the sun fully and completely eclipsed by the moon and partied like it was 1999. Here at AOB, we decided to make our own fun and have a little homemade lunch and viewing experience from Dawn’s patio.
Between the three of us, we aren’t going to be on Iron Chef any time soon, but we can rival Semi Homemade with Sandra Lee any day of the week! It was a team effort, but we managed to beat the pants off Olive Garden with Kim’s Scarpetta Spaghetti, my spinach and vegetable salad, and Dawn’s homemade garlic bread. If we ever decide to change careers, maybe we can become chefs! The three of us threw the meal together for ourselves and wolfed it down just in time to lounge on the patio with our eclipse glasses to watch nature at its finest.
Now, there’s no debating that it was roasting outside and all three of us considered the high possibility of frying, but ultimately decided it was totally worth it. Together we sat outside with our cold beverages, sunglasses glued to our faces and our eyes on the sky for over an hour. Mind you, we also brought some fans out to give us a breeze!
Looking back, it seemed to happen very quickly, and I guess in reality it really did happen fast. While watching, though, time seemed to have slowed down as we witnessed the moon creeping in front of the sun little bit by little bit until all we saw was the thin upside down crescent peaking over the top. Now that by itself was spectacular, but so was watching the day be a little less bright, hearing the bugs start their orchestra of buzzing and chirping as if time fast forward and it was nighttime, and feeling the temperature drop about seven degrees.
The entire experience was other worldly and we can’t wait for the next one, whenever that may be!
Sometimes all we need in life is a simple day off to enjoy the things going on around us. All too often we go about our days just to get from one thing to the next until we reach the next day and repeat the vicious cycle. We don’t get many chances to simply slow down and relax, leave things as they are for a few hours, and let our bodies and minds rest. That’s exactly what we did on Monday, though, and I think it did us a lot of good for our overall health and wellbeing; not to mention it was some good office bonding time. Taking stock of an event happening out in the cosmos really reminds us all that there are bigger and greater things going on in the world than what’s happening in our lives every minute of every day. These things matter of course, but so does taking a step back to remind us of why we put ourselves through the grind every day.
So, I leave our beloved clients and readers with this final nugget from good ole Albert Einsten “Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.” Seems straight forward now, doesn’t it? After all, we have but only so much time, why not make the most of it?
