Q: How many critics does it take to change a light bulb? A: Critics can’t change a light bulb. But they’ll watch you do it and tell you a hundred ways you could have done it …
I know that I promised in Major Excitement to post about the Nicholas Brothers and this is it! I can’t remember the first time I saw the Nicholas Brothers in a movie but I’ve sought them out ever …
Today is known as International Goof Off Day. It is a day to relax, enjoy and goof off. Do something fun and leave the work until tomorrow. Even though I have 5 (yes, five!) part-time …
Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where the birdies is. Some say the birds is on the wing, but that’s absurd, the wing is on the bird. That’s how I …
I was reading this great article at https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/best-scenic-train-rides-us?wpsrc=thrillist and saw that the header image was a train we were on in 2007, the White Pass & Yukon Route out of Skagway, Alaska. The Thrillist folks said “As …
This video just came up on my Facebook feed this morning but I hadn’t seen it before. Even though Washington is misspelled, this is still a fantastic performance for Sean Connery in 1999.
Sean Connery was honored at the Kennedy Center for lifetime achievements. The music consists of the Washington Pipe Band, Alasdair Fraser, Davidson School of Scottish Dance, Mairi Campbell and Dave Francis.
Groundhog Day is observed on February 2nd, each year in the United States and Canada.
For a nice welcomed break during the winter, on this day the groundhog awakens from his nap and goes outside to see if he can see his shadow. It is believed by many that if the groundhog sees his shadow that there will then be six more weeks of winter. If this is so, he then heads back into his den and goes back to sleep. If he is not able to see his shadow, the groundhog remains outside and, supposedly, spring is just around the corner.
Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania has been chosen as the site for the annual Groundhog day event. Thousands of people come to the town of Punxsutawney on Groundhog Day for this day of celebration.
Although already a well known day, Groundhog Day received widespread attention as a result of the 1993 film Groundhog Day, which was set in Punxsutawney, PA.
Another anniversary rolls around, the 46th, to be exact.
I always like to check out this picture of our wedding expenses. We have it framed and sitting on our mantle.
Tom paid $50.26 (blood tests and wedding ring!) and my costs (I made my own dress) were $29.25.
We were lucky. My dad was the minister at the Barre (MA) Congregational Church so he didn’t charge us to perform the service. The women of the church provided the reception in the parsonage. My mom chipped in the flowers.
Well worth the cost!
Barre Congregational Church
Our honeymoon was in upstate New York so Tom could look for a job. My only memories of that trip were the snow coming in under the door of our motel and Tom not getting a job.
After that, we drove back to Boston where we rented the bottom floor of my mother-in-law’s house. In Dorchester, many of the homes were triple deckers and families could have one, two or three floors.
This isn’t where we lived, but a very similar look to her house.
We got all moved in and painted everything (we decided to paint my sewing room a cheery yellow. The walls just sucked in the yellow paint and we had to use many, many coats). So, Tom got a job in Washington, DC.
So, we packed up and found a small apartment in Alexandria, VA.
That apartment was so small…when my parents came to visit, they slept on cots in the living room with their feet under my newly-acquired piano.
Then we moved to Holmes Run Parkway (also in Alexandria), Silver Spring, MD, Wilmington, DE, and finally settled in Fairfax, VA.
Today is a great day for this since we have a snow day.
The second Monday of January each year recognizes National Clean Off Your Desk Day.
This day is an opportunity to begin your new year with a clean and organized workspace. Whether your desk is in a private or shared office, cubicle, home or a make-shift desk on the counter, having your workspace uncluttered, organized, refreshed and clean will help you work more efficiently and give you a sense of serenity.
When we were in Scotland a couple years ago, we walked to Edinburgh Castle and back from hotel a couple times.
I had never heard of Greyfriar’s Bobby until our bus tour the second day although we had walked by the statue 3 times already!
On our 4th pass-by, we saw several people taking pictures of the statue. I guess they knew.
Bobby was a Skye Terrier who became known in 19th-century Edinburgh for supposedly spending 14 years guarding the grave of his owner until he died himself on 14 January 1872.
The story continues to be well known in Scotland, through several books and films, and a prominent commemorative statue and nearby graves act as a tourist attraction.
Each year on the 14th of January there is an event in Greyfriars Church Yard honoring the loyalty of Greyfriars Bobby. The inscription on his memorial reads ” Let his loyalty and devotion be a lesson to us all”. He had faithfully guarded the grave of his master John Gray for 14 years after he passed away. The minister of Greyfriars and the Lord Provost of Edinburgh were the key speakers.
According to a 1973 Sesame Street calendar, Rubber Duckie’s Birthday is January 13 so around the country it’s National Rubber Ducky Day! A friend of Ernie and Big Bird, Duckie made his debut in a February 1970 episode.
The rubber ducky (also spelled duckie) has come a long way from his first concept as a chew toy for children. While the origin of the first rubber ducky is uncertain, many rubber molded toys from dolls to those in various animal shapes came about when rubber manufacturing developed in the late 1800s.
During World Wars I and II, rubber was a valuable commodity which was rationed, and by the 1940s with the advent of plastic, the rubber ducky began being produced in vinyl and plastic.
The earliest patent for a rubber duck toy was patented in 1928 by Landon Smart Lawrence. His design was for a bath toy which was weighted and when tipped would return to its upright position. The sketch included with the patent was that of a duck.
Russian Sculptor Peter Ganine sculpted many animal figures. One, a duck, he later designed and patented it into a floating toy which closely resembles the rubber ducky we have become familiar with today.
Sales of the iconic yellow rubber ducky we’ve come to know today soared in Britain in 2001. Why? A British Tabloid, The Sun, reported Queen Elizabeth II had a rubber duck in her bathroom that wore an inflatable crown.
The rubber ducky became a Toy Hall of Fame inductee in 2013. Founded in 1998, the Hall of Fame has only inducted 52 other toys.
The now world famous giant rubber duck, by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, has sailed into the Port of Los Angeles. The six-storey-tall bath toy has made its west coast debut to take part in their Tall Ships Festival parade. The duck has also appeared in Australia, Belgium, Japan, New Zealand and Brazil. Earlier this year, versions of the massive inflatable duck were in Asia, including Beijing’s harbour and Taiwan, where the duck actually exploded and fell apart while on display. Report by Sarah Kerr.
Did you know that the City of Fairfax Regional Library has a Rubber Ducky collection?
Go on a scavenger hunt to discover more than 200 ducks hiding throughout the building and are on display. The Rubber Ducky is the library’s mascot.
Today, January 13, holds a couple anniversaries for me. I remember the day of the Air Florida Flight 90 Crash in 1982 so well.
We were living in the Metro DC area and our young son had just turned 2 in December. Tom, my DH, worked in DC and I was never sure the route that he drove home from work. Sometimes, he left his car at the Vienna Metro lot and took the subway. It all depended on traffic, what he had to do that day, how late he was running.
Light snow started falling in the early morning. By noon, moderate-to-heavy snow had spread over the entire area, and by early afternoon the snowfall rate was very heavy. There was enough snow to close Washington National Airport (now Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport)
I think I had the TV off and on in the early afternoon because I was worried about the snow. Tom worked for the government then. Many federal offices in downtown Washington had closed early because of the quickly developing blizzard conditions – but I didn’t know if Tom’s was one of them. Although we were both from New England, had lived in Milwaukee and knew very well how to drive in the snow, I was concerned about other drivers.
According to the TV news, an extremely cold Arctic outbreak had spread across the eastern half of the United States, dropping temperatures to -25°F in Chicago and near 0°F in Atlanta. There was a major freeze in the central Florida citrus groves. At National Airport, the temperature dropped to 2°F.
There was a one-hour period during the early afternoon when the snow dropped visibility at National Airport to a sixteenth of a mile. Approximately 2-to-3 inches of snow fell during that hour. Then, the snow ended abruptly in the mid-afternoon.
During this day, I was also heavy with memories. On this date in 1976, I had had a miscarriage. We were living in Silver Spring, MD, then. I remember waking up in the night in pain, bleeding. We called my gynecologist in Alexandria, VA (we hadn’t lived in MD long) and he said to get to Alexandria (VA) Hospital at once.
We packed up our dog – she wasn’t trusted to stay at home alone. But her antics are for another day.
We raced around the Beltway at top speed to get to the hospital. I was admitted and I don’t remember a thing until the morning when I heard that I’d had a “missed abortion”. The doctor (or someone at the hospital) had performed a D&C (dilation and curettage) and the baby was gone. Even though I was pretty drugged up for the next several days, the mental pain was more than I ever could imagine.
I always wondered if this miscarriage was related to an accident we were in at Christmas. We were in Boston to visit Tom’s family and there was snow, of course. A young woman hit our car from behind. None of my doctors would confirm, or deny, that this was a contributing factor in the miscarriage but I always wondered.
I was remembering these events on January 13, 1982, tending to my young son, worrying about my husband when the news got worse. There was no internet then, no cell phone, only radio and TV reports.
The Air Florida’s scheduled departure time was delayed about 1 hour and 45 minutes because of the temporary closing of Washington National Airport. Moderate snowfall continued and the air temperature was 24 °F.
The plane had trouble leaving the gate when the ground services tow motor could not get traction on the ice. For approximately 30 to 90 seconds, the crew attempted to back away from the gate using the reverse thrust of the engines, which proved futile. Boeing operations bulletins had warned against using reverse thrust in those kinds of conditions.
Eventually, a tug ground unit properly equipped with snow chains was used to push the aircraft back from the gate. After leaving the gate, the aircraft waited in a taxi line with many other aircraft for 49 minutes before reaching the takeoff runway. The pilot apparently decided not to return to the gate for reapplication of deicing, fearing that the flight’s departure would be even further delayed. More snow and ice accumulated on the wings during that period, and the crew were aware of that fact when they decided to make the takeoff. Heavy snow was falling during their takeoff roll at 3:59 p.m.
…
At 4:01 p.m. EST, it crashed into the 14th Street Bridge across the Potomac River, 0.75 nautical miles (1,390 m) from the end of the runway. The plane hit six cars and a truck on the bridge, and tore away 97 feet (30 m) of the bridge’s rail and 41 feet (12 m) of the bridge’s wall. The aircraft then plunged into the freezing Potomac River. It fell between two of the three spans of the bridge, between the I-395 northbound span (the Rochambeau Bridge) and the HOV north- and southbound spans, about 200 feet (61 m) offshore. All but the tail section quickly became submerged.
Meanwhile, at 4:29, the subway system (Metro) suffered its first fatal crash at the Federal Triangle station near Tom’s office. In my mind, Tom could have taken the subway…
The news on TV was just getting worse and worse when…our power went out.
When Tom finally did get home, safe and sound, it was cold, dark, cranky baby, hysterical mom, frantic dog…but our little family made it through that day.
We were lucky – many others didn’t 🙁
From the description of another video:
Air Florida Flight 90 was a scheduled U.S. domestic passenger flight from Washington National Airport to Fort Lauderdale – Hollywood International Airport with an intermediate stopover at Tampa International Airport. On January 13, 1982, the Boeing 737-200 registered as N62AF, crashed into the 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac River. The aircraft had originally been purchased by United Airlines in 1969 and flown with the registration number of N9050U. It was sold to Air Florida in 1980.
The aircraft struck the 14th Street Bridge, which carries Interstate 395 between Washington, D.C. and Arlington County. It crushed seven occupied vehicles on the bridge and destroyed 97 feet (30 m) of guard rail[3] before it plunged through the ice into the Potomac River. The crash occurred less than two miles (3 km) from the White House and within view of both the Jefferson Memorial and The Pentagon. The aircraft was carrying 74 passengers and five crewmembers. Four passengers and one flight attendant survived the crash. Four motorists from the bridge were killed. The survivors were rescued from the icy river by civilians and professionals. President Ronald Reagan commended these acts during his State of the Union speech a few days later.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the cause of the accident was pilot error. The pilots failed to switch on the engines’ internal ice protection systems, used reverse thrust in a snowstorm prior to takeoff, and failed to abort the takeoff even after detecting a power problem while taxiing and visually identifying ice and snow buildup on the wings.
Major real-life air disasters are depicted in this TV series. Each episode features a detailed dramatized reconstruction of the incident based on cockpit voice recorders and air traffic control transcripts, as well as eyewitnesses recounts and interviews with aviation experts. Sometimes, interviews with investigators who dealt with the disaster or even actual footage are featured. In Canada, where the series originated, the show is called ‘Mayday’. In the US it is ‘Air Emergency’. Everywhere else it is called ‘Air Crash Investigation’.
Shortbread is a classic Scottish dessert traditionally made with:
1 part white sugar (I use powdered)
2 parts butter
3 parts flour (I usually use rice flour)
And a bit of salt
Shortbread is so named because of its crumbly texture which is caused by its high-fat content, provided by the butter. “Shortening” is its related word that refers to any fat that may be added to produce a “short” (crumbly) texture.
Prepared often during the 12th century, shortbread is credited to Mary, Queen of Scots in the 16th century. As it was expensive to make, the sweet cookie was reserved as a luxury for special occasions.
Note on the video – I “rejected” most because they have all kinds of weird ingredients like cranberries, nuts, maple syrup. Yuck!
After sitting and resting for a while, we headed back down the castle hill, the Royal Mile and down the street towards our hotel.
On the way back, a hoodie outside a store caught my eye. While we were looking at it, a guy asked if he could help find my size. He had just been walking up the street but he was the shop owner. We went in and found something even better, with a matching one for Tom. I ended up also buying a cap and some other stuff. While I was looking around, I realized this was the same store where we’d bought the junk food for dinner the night before. I had been so tired/hungry that night I hadn’t even noticed that they sold hoodies, tshirts and stuff.
The shopkeeper spent a lot of time with us, looking in the back for the matching sweatshirts in the correct sizes. When he was done, he threw in a package of Walker’s shortbread for free! I wish I could remember the name of this shop so I could give it a good review on Trip Advisor. We save all our receipts, so hopefully I can find that name.
We continued on our way and a guy with sequined gold dress came running out of a doorway. I sure hope he was part of the Fringe Festival!
We got back to the Edinburgh City Hotel to get our car and I found I’d become mayor. 🙂
So, that really made my day. LOL
The drive back was pretty uneventful. We had some of the shortbread and I have to say it wasn’t nearly as good as mine.
When we got back to our place, I found out why.
We saw those tent people by the side of the road again. Gypsies? I couldn’t get a picture again. I’ll have one more time to try this on Saturday. They’ve been there at least 5 days. Surely, the police have seen them.
Back to our place!
It turns out that Walker’s uses whole wheat flour and I use rice. They use sugar, I use confectioner’s sugar. Other than that, the ingredients are the same. The flour, butter, confectioner’s sugar and a bit of salt.
Walker’s is definitely not bad, just different.
My shortbread mold
Shortbread used to be my standard Christmas gift for local people but they mostly can’t eat shortbread anymore due to the butter, the sugar and the salt. <sigh>
When I was a kid, my dad’s congregation had a lot of Scottish members. One of the worst insults that could said was “She makes her shortbread with margarine“. What an epithet!
Cushing's Disease is a rare condition caused by excessive production of cortisol, a hormone essential for various bodily functions. It is a specific form of Cushing's Syndrome, where the overproduction of cortisol is due to a tumor in the pituitary gland. The condition affects 10 to 15 people per million each year, predominantly women between […]
So, these are only seven of the many, many symptoms of Cushing’s. I had those above – and I often felt like I looked like one of those little bearded dwarves.
Endogenous Cushing’s Syndrome (CS) is associated with an increased cardiovascular (CV) and metabolic risk profile, yet the specific impact of hypercortisolism on myocardial function remains inadequately understood.
Adrenal Insufficiency United’s Lunch & Learn Events are one day mini-conferences located in different cities in the USA. We find great local speakers to lead sessions and give presentations about issues affecting those with adrenal insufficiency. These one day events will be packed full of opportunities giving attendees more chances to ask questions, share their […]
Adrenal insufficiency is a condition where the adrenal glands don't produce enough of certain hormones, primarily cortisol and sometimes aldosterone. This disorder can be categorized into primary (Addison's disease) and secondary forms.
Cushing’s syndrome is a rare disorder that occurs when the body is exposed to too much cortisol. Cortisol is produced by the body and is also used in corticosteroid drugs. Cushing's syndrome can occur either because cortisol is being overproduced by the body or from the use of drugs that contain cortisol (like prednisone)…
April is always Cushing’s Awareness Challenge month because Dr. Harvey Cushing was born on April 8th, 1869. How fitting that this challenge should begin on April Fool’s Day. So much of Cushing’s Syndrome/Disease makes us Cushies seem like we’re the April Fool. Maybe, just maybe, it’s the doctors who are the April Fools…
While American actress Amy Schumer is spreading the word about Cushing’s in general, I think that in some ways she is hurting things for everyone else. CBS News reports that “she says she now feels ‘reborn’ after her diagnosis, and while some forms of Cushing can be fatal, she has a type that ‘will just […]
Cushing’s disease (CD) is characterized by hypercortisolism due to excessive adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) secretion from a pituitary adenoma. Though more common in adults, pediatric cases constitute approximately 5% of those seen in adults. Early diagnosis and treatment are critical due to the severe impacts on growth and development in children. Endoscopic transsphenoidal surgery (ETSS) is […]
Discover a supportive space for new beginnings! Join us every Wednesday at 6:00 PM, in the serene ambiance of Pender UMC's Library. At 5:00 PM there will be a time of casual chat, known as the "meeting before the meeting". Engage in meaningful conversations and find camaraderie at our AA meetings, guided by the experienced […]
Brian Stevenson, Pender UMC Director of Handbells and Ensembles, presents a series of hymn-based devotions on Wednesdays during Lent. “Go to Dark Gethsemane” is a Lenten hymn that spotlights scenes from the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ’s life.
For potty-trained three year olds through ninth graders. Embark on an exciting journey with Road Trip VBS, based on Joshua 1:9 – "The LORD your God is with you wherever you go." Discover God's presence everywhere as we explore new places, make new friends, and experience God's goodness together. Join us in a fun-filled adventure […]
Enhance your mental fitness with “Train Your Brain” activities! Sudoku, crosswords, Color Me Happy, and word searches. Each activity is aimed at stimulating cognitive function and supporting memory improvement.
I originally got this book for my mom in October 2011, then I ended up reading it – twice. Then, I read nearly everything that Erik Larson wrote… I may need to read it again before April 2. LOL
Purchase your 4 chicks and specify your pick up day April 4-19, 2025. They sell out quickly! Add-on a care kit if don’t have one. Decide where you would like to keep the chicks, laundry room, bathroom, mud room, and set up a box to be their home. (Tips below) April 4-19: The Farm Market […]