A Loony, er Lunar-y, Night

When we saw the early evening moon outside our Yee-Haw party shed last night, I was sure to capture it. Then I got totally confident about catching the "deep partial" eclipse later ... with the BLOOD MOON.

Give me points for trying!

Full disclosure: This just my phone. Not my "good" camera. But I could see the "blood red" with the naked eye AND when I didn't zoom in too closely.

When it was close to peak viewing just before 11:12 p.m., it was just (to my phone camera's opinion) a dark side where it was getting eclipsed.

Then the clouds moved in and I don't remember anything after that! 

Thank goodness I do remember our Yee-Haw cast party! It was beyond positive. Everyone reported they'd received countless feedback – all 100% positive, that's for sure! How exciting and also fulfilling that we could give people some entertainment, kindness, humor (sort of), and a teeny bit of inspiration.

We came to the conclusion that – like the rare Blood Moon deeply partial eclipse – some things just can't be replicated!

Please share any decent shots of that darn eclipse last night! 

Your Long-Awaited Yee-Haw Review

Finally home long enough to go through photos, etc, for my version of a Yee-Haw recap! Why does it matter? Well take a look at this graphic and see what our summer of work – and a 2 1/2-hour show – accomplished.

Our fundraiser benefitted St. Philip's Church in Rudolph, the Portage County Power of 5 organization, and the Parkinson's Foundation. Thanks for your support! SALUTE!!

A couple months ago, I think we probably started with twice as many jokes and way more verses to the songs. But it seemed it was going to be a 4-hour show... and we didn't want anyone to suffer through that. Gradually we cut jokes (even though they were all hilarious in a corny way) and reduced the number of verses in a lot of songs. It was quite a process!!

And we did not coordinate what we were all wearing to look like cast members of the old Hee-Haw show...

But Amazon has everything! Search for Hee-Haw outfits and they've got 'em! Probably made in Hong Kong, but it fit!

And look at our uncoordinated coordination! It's like we could all be cut from the same cloth – picnic table cloth, that is!

The night of the show we were amazed at the growing crowd! My biggest surprise was my twin Raylene and hubby driving 4+ hours to attend. We were kind of into Hee-Haw when we were young!

Her son, my nephew Tony, came over from Green Bay and knew but kept a very good secret!

There were a few co-workers who attended, too. I mean I've been hounding them for months about this!

My "co-writer" Tom and his wife – who Jim and I have known for 20+ years in various publishing roles.

Dalen, my current graphic designer, was there with his mom. Not to see me necessarily since his dad (who happened to be Carter's grade school band teacher – small world) was playing with the warm-up band! His mom insisted on a photo because all the moms think I am their child's "work mom." True in many cases, but not all. Ha.

Our "picnic table cloth" selfies were plentiful. Here I am with my friend Sara, who married into the OG Yee-Haw family.

And her beautiful daughter Lydia, who've I've adopted as my own forever!

Our pre-game warmup – a.k.a. pep talk and the Lord's Prayer. Let's do this! Yee-Haw!

We had so many friends there, too. My friend (and golf partner) Molly was there and close enough to the front I could motion to her to try and get a picture of Jim and me together since I wasn't always next to him on stage. This was the best we could do because that darn microphone stand was in the way!

In the end, it was like, WOW. What a crowd! And a standing ovation! Every one of us on the stage had a minimum of half a dozen people tell us we need to do it again. One lady from my church was there and the next morning she gushed on and on about how wonderful it was. Her daughter's like, "She won't stop talking about it!"

Too bad we didn't set up Yelp reviews!

Tomorrow night we're gathering again to celebrate the successful show. I wonder if we should have our swinging barn board on hand to kick us in the butt for a bad joke or very bad idea of what we're doing next. LOL.

Love our HA-HAs family. We're so grateful they "adopted" us Austins into the fold!

Land of the Lost :: Office Version

This was our second week of the every-other-week schedule of being in office. For the next 40 months. Nothing quite seemed natural yet since I parked on a different level of our parking ramp and had no idea how to get to my desk!

Sort of a maze to get to the only set of elevators in the building!

I was thinking in the morning that I needed something to identify my "street" to turn down... aka row of cubicles. So I brought in my two purple Carter beanie bears to sit on top of the tall cabinet. But they weren't tall enough. (For my height anyway.) So I ran to Hobby Lobby at lunch and was tempted with a lot of beautiful fall decorations and even Christmas stuff.

But you know Hobby Lobby has everything so I found the sign above in their Big Foot/Sasquatch section. Totally appropriate for our situation. So I found the ribbon row and the scissors row to be able to hang the sign at the end of our "intersection."

It helped me and a few others.

I also reached out to the employee I'm sharing a desk with. I realize he must be a tall person since I had to lower the desk, lower the arms of the chair so I didn't look like I needed a booster seat, and lower the height of the seat so my feet could touch the floor. I apologized that we'll both have to make adjustments when we come in for the next 3-4 years. 

And asked if I could keep some items in one of our shared locker drawers since I didn't want to haul stuff back and forth constantly. I mean important stuff like my birthday fairy supplies and well, signs to hang on the cubicle. 

I am so used to personalizing my space, I know this will be an adjustment. So I'm grateful he said take all the space I need.

Do you know what I didn't have trouble finding today? SentryWorld!

It was so fun after doing our United Way outing yesterday for our foursome to get back together for league (which is just 9 holes, by the way). We just kept the same running jokes and laughs going from yesterday. For those who don't know, that's the cure for a stressful day at work!

Got home in time to blog... and start to edit those senior photos from Sunday. Have a good, relaxing night y'all! If you're lost, ask someone to help you find the way! 

FORE! the Kids

I love working for a company who is so committed to philanthropy and charitable giving on all levels. And we employees are invested in it, too – especially our annual United Way campaign. (Which of course benefits far more than just kids.)

Since our golf outing is consistently a popular and successful fundraiser, we hold it in August (across two days due to the high interest) as sort of a pre-kickoff to the official kickoff in September. So today was not a bad day at the "office." 

Our organization's theme this year focuses on the magic of giving so naturally we had some Magic Kingdom vibes going. This is our golf league foursome and I think we've done this several years now. Going with the theme, our team name was It's a Small, Small SentryWorld!

I call this one "Channeling my Grandma Minnie's spirit!" She's been gone too long! 😟

They tied in some unique activities, too. On the first hole for every Disney trivia question we got right, we'd inch closer to the hole for our first shot. We rocked it so we bypassed Pluto, Goofy, and Minnie to start at Mickey – just 50 yards from the hole! Nice.

The weather was perfect and views were stunning, per usual. So much fun!

Our scorecard looked pretty, too. We finished 5-under par, which we're pretty sure is our best finish yet. No prizes for us. The leading team was magically 25-under!! That's why we focused on having fun in the sun!

It's going to be tough to return to the real office tomorrow. Thank goodness it's our golf league night right after work! 🏌🏌

Birthdays, BINGO, and Beloveds

Hit the road pretty early yesterday to help my oldest sister celebrate her 75th birthday!

First stop was the Sundown Saloon in little Lewis, WI, just north of Luck. Daubing for Dollars as a cancer fundraiser. For you non-BINGO people, we mark our spots with daubers now. Using field beans was so 1970s.

You know me and BINGO. Probably 20 minutes in and I already was yelling BINGO with hands raised in the air. Nice $100 cash prize. I won a second time later but so did 2 other people so I picked a local gift certificate I'll let one my sisters use!

Nice turn out. Our sister Rachel was also there so was our cousin's wife and family. Fun. From there it was onto an adventure at Adventures in Siren.

Had a late-week thought that Carter living in Duluth means he's less than 90 minutes away from family fun. So he joined us. Six of my R siblings were there along with 2 nieces and spouses plus 4 great-nephews and a great-niece! 

Can't celebrate a milestone without frosting. I mean CAKE!

Raylene was the only sister who couldn't make it since she and hubby had a booth for their seed business at the Burnett County Fair. So most of us ventured down the road to Grantsburg to say hello and check out the entries two of my sisters entered – Rayna photography and Renell drawing/painting.

Second Saturday in a row my twin and I are in a cornfield. Yee-Haw!

Drove Rachel home and stayed at her place in Luck last night. Long drive home today. So much road construction and detours.

Got home in time to get a few things done before going to a senior photo shoot at a farm in the Rudolph-Junction City area. I mean the kid was cute, but look at these kitties! I miss Sylvester!

Anyway, need sleep. Catch you tomorrow!

Here it is :: Fall sports season

 

Fall sports season 100% sneaked up on me. I mean Royals tennis started yesterday and cross country started this morning. Thank goodness hubby does stats for football so I knew game time was tonight!

This year is a a little different for Assumption football. We are going to 8-man teams. So that was really different to look at and photograph tonight.

In the end, they beat Rosholt 49-0 so I guess we're getting the hang of what we're doing.

I'm just hoping I can capture all these other fall sports!

Why IT starts with SH

So there's this weird thing in our house where I can answer all IT-related questions. Beats me why. Especially when I use a Mac for my photos and creative stuff and hubby and I both use PC laptops for work.

Usually it's no big deal....

Assumption football starts tomorrow and Jim needs to keep stats. Suddenly I cannot print his freaking sheet of defensive players to mark stats on. I have been trying for 90 minutes and have no reason why this isn't working!

I mean it's an Excel spreadsheet but I can't print it. I think I'll have to take a screen shot then print it out.

Oh gosh. Sorry! No one really cares about this crap. I'm just so frustrated!!

This is why all IT issues shout be spelled SHIT!