Northern Lights

There always has to be a first post…right?  I had written a post last week after I had sat up with one of my best life long friends solving life's problems over a bottle of wine. It was about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Snap Chat and various other forms of technology that never existed when I was a kid.  My son will never know what it is like to have to ask a girl out via a landline and have the fear that her Mom or Dad my actually be the one answering the phone.  New love, make ups and break ups are all accomplished over a text.  I always say it is almost a full time job keeping your kid from making a total potentially life altering post or at least something that make them look like the idiot that their mother knows they are not.  There is always the next new thing to distract them from life.  I wish I had a dollar for every YouTube video that has been played on a computer, laptop, iPad or iPhone that we own in this house.  I would be "movin' on up" as George Jefferson would say to a deluxe house that at least had a garbage disposal.  Needless to say I did not post it.  The next morning, my 3am manifesto made no sense.

Which leads me to my first post.  The Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights as I grew up calling them.  I grew up seeing the Northern Lights dance across the sky.  I thought everyone had them.  My brother and I always thought it was the sunshine reflecting off the ice of the North Pole.  Later in life I learned that is was actually the collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun that enter the earths atmosphere.  The lights are seen above the northern hemisphere.  Fun Fact:They are also seen above the southern hemisphere too but than they are called 'Aurora australis' www.northernlightscentre.ca.  I kind of like my childhood vision of the magical light dancing off all that snow and ice in the far north better. Darn you scientist and your explanation for everything!


Well, here I am getting to my point.  Last week, a friend, who lives north of the 49th parallel where I grew up, posted this video on Facebook.   It brought back memories of watching these lights dance across the sky as a child and teenager.  I know that Northern lights can occur anytime of the year but my memory is of always watching them on still subzero nights outside playing in the snow or from the backseat of my parents car as we drove home late in the evening from visiting our cousins.  I have come to realize that not everyone has had the joy of watching this yellow and green soft lights spreading across the northern sky.  So here is a video for I want to share with you so you can enjoy the awe and magic I witnessed as a kid.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UFtEygpGkc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UFtEygpGkchttps:

If you want more information on this here are some links I found while learning more about the Aurora borealis.

http://www.northernlightscentre.ca
http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/atmospheric/question471.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/25/aurora-borealis-northern-lights-michigan-upper-peninsula_n_4110982.html

What does this have to do with scrapbooking and card making, absolutely nothing.  But hey now that first post thing is done.

Remember not to sweat the small stuff…and it all small stuff.
LB