Of Mysteries and Birthdays

(Artwork: Christopher Dunn)

- Wanna hear something spooky?

We're about to have our barn renovated, so over the weekend my father started shoveling out all of the tree bark that we scattered all over the ground in the barn. (From our beautiful tree that was chopped down a while back).

A little before 11 am my mother was walking out to the barn. All of the big mowers were out of the barn, and my mother saw my father crouched down next to one of the mowers. She called out his name and asked what was wrong with the mower this time. He didn't reply, but kept working/inspecting the mower.

Then, to her left my mother SEES MY FATHER WORKING IN THE BARN! She looked back toward the mower, only to find no one there.

Upon seeing Dad in the barn, she quickly realized that the man she saw at the mower just seconds earlier couldn't have been my father. The man she saw was wearing a black and reddish-orange plaid shirt and had on a different hat than my Dad was wearing. (She thinks it was a baseball cap). His hair was gray and he was heavy-set.

Our best guess is that this ghost/spirit is the man that used to own all the land out here. (We've heard his voice a few times before. Also a woman's. Most especially when we first moved in, we would hear a man and woman conversing just outside the guestroom window, and several months ago I was watering the backyard when I heard a man say, "Hello"). But overall this kind of thing is NOT the norm around here, so it was surprising.

I wonder how he'll react to us renovating the barn?

Of course, our neighbor knew him and he said that he was a cranky old man. Lucky us.

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- Can you believe that some stores are already playing CHRISTMAS music?

I heard them playing it a few days ago while at Walmart.

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- The evening before the ghost story happened, my parents sat out on the back porch. They were just sitting there on the couch, looking at the stars when out to the east my father sees a bright flash of light. He couldn't stop talking about it because it was so unusual.

Fast forward 20 minutes later and my mother saw the same thing, only this time it was in the south.

What they both saw was HIGH in the sky, well over the horizon. It was incredibly bright and had a silver/blue/white color tone. It had defined edges and was H-U-G-E. My mother says it was like a mirror, only it was silver and wasn't reflective. It was really large. Mom swears it was 100 times larger than how we see a star, but also remember... this thing was very high up in the sky.

We have no idea what it was. My mother stargazes every night that the weather permits, and she's used to what satellites/the space station/etc look like. She's never seen anything like this before.

We're all sure there's a logical explanation, but we just don't know what that explanation is. I would love to find out!

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- Mom's birthday was on the 19th, and today is my brother's birthday.

The above pic is what I made for him, only in a much smaller size. (The pic looks better in full-size, and oh darn... I just realized I forgot to put a birthday balloon in the pic). He loves "The Nightmare Before Christmas," or at least he used to.

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- So it's been rather warm for a while now, but I just heard that over the weekend it'll be nice. On Friday and Saturday the highs will be 66 and 62, and the lows 41 and 39!

This morning, while I was taking pictures, it was 45 degrees!



I know it won't last... that's just how it is down here.. but it's lovely while it is happening. I certainly don't take those precious few hours for granted!

Although I am still waiting for cool weather to last an entire day. I wonder if it'll ever happen.

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- A week or two ago I finally watched the trailer for "The Last Jedi," and it is soooooo gooooood!!!!!! It looks amazing on our big screen tv.



I 100% believe the end of the trailer is just a trick; two different scenes only spliced together for the trailer.

I also saw a few 'first reaction' videos of people watching the trailer for the first time. Usually I think that kind of thing is really stupid, but with something like Star Wars.... I get it. I love how some of these people were absolutely GIDDY and you can tell it wasn't fake.

Here are just a handful of my favorites:

Punchline Digital / Ionic Comic / Father Roderick / The Cyber Nerds

I love how surprised the guys in the last video are. You can tell they started out feeling skeptical and nervous.

A lot of people were upset when they saw Carrie Fisher. It does feel a little strange that she's no longer with us. I really hope they made her character a HERO in this movie.

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- This is a little frustrating. I have so many Fall and Halloween headers that I've made, and have found so many cute illustrations, but I never post them because I can't think of anything to blog about and my photos lately have looked like the dog's breakfast.

The same thing will happen come Christmastime, too.





- I don't know what the deal is with my camera. The pix-elation is sometimes messed up. It's like the settings just go haywire or something.

So many of my photos these days turn out so blah! I also have trouble with the focus, although that's always been an issue with this camera.

















See what I mean? Blurry.













And blurry again.
















One morning, over the weekend, we received a lot of rain. It was NICE while it lasted because it was so dark and I didn't have to water the flowers that day in the heat.

It did turn in to a sunny day, but at least the morning was just how I like it.