Ben and Social Media

 Ben is not on any social media. Well, he doesn't have any accounts. Well, he doesn't have any personal accounts.

BUT

I did see this picture of him posted on one of the Timberline Instagram pages.

Michael and Ben collaborated and played Pachelbel's Canon in D at the school talent show today. I liked the post (I am pretty sure I didn't use site-specific terminology there, my bad!).

Then, because Instagram is constantly trying to show me new things, this showed up in my app:

This page was created by two of Michael/Ben's friends. Which is either hilarious or invasive or disturbing or Gen Z typical. 

I did the only thing I could and asked to follow the page because, after all, I am a fan of Ben,

Jason's Tree

 If you had told me 20 years ago that Jason would get a tattoo I would have laughed in your face. But here we are in 2023 and, after a lot of thought and research (because that is how he rolls) and a very painful four hours, he has a tattoo!

It looks great, but now we have to convince Michael he has to wait until he's 50 to get some ink!

Gorgeous Curls

Look at these CURLS! RINGLETS! Corkscrew, spiral, twirly, coils, waves! Aside from how amazing these curls are, they also feel very on brand for Isaac's crazy and chaotic personality. As though his personality is growing out of his head for all to see. However, he only tolerates them for so long before he begs Jason to give him a haircut. I admit that shorter hair is easier for swim lessons and his hats probably fit better, but I am still sad every time.

I felt fairly certain that no one at school was going to recognize him and I kept telling him he looked vaguely familiar to me, but he still is really cute. 

October on FB

Meditation on a Sunday morning: This is my circus, these are my monkeys, and a lack of planning on their part (often) constitutes an emergency on mine 

🤪🤪🤪🤪 

We have a shared use trail near our house for walkers, runner, rollerbladers, bicyclists, and....chickens?

Some of the trees in our neighborhood are having a season identity crisis

A great night!

Epic

I have discovered two cures for insomnia

1. Webinars on using secondary data in research

2. Books published by MIT Press

And if those don't work for you then at least you've learned something 😄

Shenanigans with Aunt Rachel 

I think the NYT made a mistake - neither S-A-T-A-N nor D-E-V-I-L fits in this spot 🤷‍♀️

Costumes

Halloween is still four days away, but this evening all three boys (I assume that Josh isn't participating this year) had the opportunity to dress up. 

A last minute trip to Goodwill brought this gem into our lives. Ben was getting ready to go to the football game and, well, I am not sure. I assume not watch the football game. Probably hang out with friends.

This most excellent Joker suit was also sitting on a hanger at Goodwill waiting for the right person to come claim (and pay for) it. Michael had plans for a haunted house with a friend.

And our resident Link has been lobbying for and working on his costume for a while. His mother may have caved and bought a costume (which is against the core of her being) on Amazon. This evening was his chance to wear the costume at school at the Fall Festival. 

Who knows what wacky adventures they will go on in the next few days!

Choir Concert for Two

 Michael has magic abilities. Yes, you read that right - I said "magic" not "music". I mean, he does have stunning music abilities, but he also has magic abilities. He does things I didn't think possible. While it was impressive that he got Ben to join cross-country, running is one of Ben's current skill sets after years of soccer. But when he got Ben to sign up for CHOIR, there was no precedent. 

Tonight was the first choir concert of the year. 

Unlike Michael, Ben does not sing around the house so all I could base my expectations on was his reports of comments made by the choir director. Turns out he has a really nice voice and was even tapped to perform in a trio. 

Also, he totally rocked the choir robe.

Michael rocked his too.

And yet, I couldn't get them to put these stunning articles of clothing back on after the concert so I could take pictures.

Looks like we're off to a wonderfully musical year!

Solar Eclipse?

 I have long maintained that no world class astronomers likely grew up in the Pacific Northwest. I love it here, but the night sky is not something we see very often: cloudy for most of the year and the sun goes down really late for the rest.

Our last solar eclipse in the area was in August 2017 with 93% coverage. This morning was the next eclipse with significant coverage: ~81%. I stockpiled eclipse glasses and then stalked the weather page. For a while it appeared that the weather was going to cooperate. Then those darn clouds started creeping into the forecast. The boys have an "you've seen one, you've seen them all" attitude about eclipses but Jason and I drove up to the Capitol building this morning to get a good view to the east.

Behold! Maximum eclipse coverage. Those clouds really diffuse that sunlight such that it's really really hard to see....never mind. You can't even tell. Sigh.

We might have to go traveling to find the next solar eclipse. My vote is Iceland in August 2026.