Silent Night, Please (Six Sentence Story), Mardi Gras Good Fences, Sammy's Poetry Day, and Brian's Thankful Thursday

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"You're going to need an ocean/of this nice smelling lotion!" she crooned to the baby as she slathered him down with lotion and diaper cream and got him in his diaper and jammies.

It never ceased to amaze her how awful a child could smell when when it had leaked from every possible place and needed to be changed and wiped from top to toe, compared to how wonderful the scent of a fresh bathed and clean baby.

He'd giggled and babbled through the whole process, and now it was time for dad to give good-night hugs and tickles and kisses.  Then one last quiet nursing session in the darkened bedroom, the rocker swooshing softly as a little someone went off to dreamland.

Hoping the baby monitor would stay quiet tonight, she slipped into a bath of her own, an ocean of quiet refreshment, so she could do it all again the next day.

Linking up with Denise at Girlie On The Edge Blog, where she hosts Six Sentence Stories, and the cue is Ocean.      

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Gosia at Looking for Identity has taken over Good Fences, and it's now Good Fences Around The World.  Although Gosia has not posted in a while, i still love looking for good fences to share, and i hope she will come back soon.  Post a picture of a fence or gate, link back to her blog, and go visit other blogs to see what interesting fences there are out in this big world.     

Another fun Mardi Gras fence:

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It's Angel Sammy's Poetry Day!  This week's image and my poem:    

With these two ladies, you never know,

How the work day's going to go,

But every day at work's a laugh

When Lucy and Ethel are on the staff!

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Brian of Brian's Home hosts the Thankful Thursday Blog Hop.   It's time to share something for which i am thankful.  

Today i am thankful that all of the extra work this week is getting done, meetings are being attended, and nothing seems to be falling through the cracks.

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Today is:

Army Day -- Armenia

Clashing Clothes Day -- "officially" (although i'm not sure who declared it) on the 4th Thursday of January, but some people seem to celebrate it every day

Data Privacy Day -- International

Festival of the Lenaia to Dionysus -- Ancient Greek Calendar, end January through early February

Full Wolf Moon -- the wolves howl hungrily during this cold month, sometimes called the Old Moon or the Yule Moon; some of the following celebrations began yesterday evening

     Duruthu Full Moon Poya Day -- Sri Lanka

     Mahayana New Year -- Buddhist

     Pyatho Full Moon -- Myanmar (traditionally the time of equestrian festivals)

     Thorrablot/Thurseblot -- Ancient Norse Calendar (feast honoring Thor, guardian of Midgard, at the first full moon of the new year)

     Thaipusam/Thaipoosam Cavadee -- Tamil People; Malaysia; Mauritius (Tamil Hindu multi-day celebration of the birth of the god Murugan)

Get to Know Your Customers Day -- on the 4th Thursday of each quarter

Jackhammer Day -- US (the pneumatic jackhammer was patented this day in 1894 by Charles Brady King of Detroit, MI)

National Blueberry Pancake Day

National Kazoo Day -- because anyone can play one!

National Spieling Day -- internet generated, and whatever your area of expertise, spiel about it today

Rinkydinks Annual Snowball Fight -- Fairy Calendar

Runic Half-month Elhaz (elk) commences

St. Charlemagne's Day (Patron of the University of Paris)

St. Thomas Aquinas's Day (Patron of academics, apologists, book sellers, chastity, colleges, learning, pencil makers, philosophers, publishers, scholars, schools, students, theologians, universities; Aquino, Italy; Belcastro, Italy; Falerna, Italy; University of Vigo; all Catholic academies, schools, and universities; against lightning, storms)

Telephone Exchange Day -- US (the first telephone exchange was set up in New Haven, CT with 22 subscribers on this day in 1878)

Tu B'Shevat -- Judaism ("New Year of the Trees", began yesterday at sunset, through sunset today)

Anniversary Today:

Adoption of the Great Seal of the United States, 1782

Birthdays Today:

Elijah Wood, 1981

Nick Carter, 1980

Joey Fatone, Jr. 1977

Kathryn Morris, 1969

Sarah McLachlan, 1968

Harley Jane Kozak, 1957

Nicolas Sarkozy, 1955

Rick Warren, 1954

John Beck, 1943

Susan Howard, 1943

Alan Alda, 1936

Susan Sontag, 1933

Claes Oldenburg, 1929

Jackson Pollack, 1912

Robert Stroud, 1890 (The Birdman of Alcatraz)

Arthur Rubenstein, 1887

Auguste Piccard, 1884

Jean Felix Piccard, 1884

Colette, 1873

Jose' Marti, 1853

Henry Morton Stanley, 1841

Alexander Mackenzie, 1822

Peter the Great of Russia, 1775

St. Thomas Aquinas, 1225

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Fantasy Island"(TV), 1978

"Barnaby Jones"(TV), 1973

"Symphony No. 1/Jeremiah"(Bernstein), 1944

Today in History:

The Walk to Canossa: The excommunication of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor is lifted by Pope Gregory VIII, 1077

The first Crusaders begins siege of Hosn-el-Akrad Syria, 1099

Pope Alexander VI gives his son Cesare Borgia as hostage to Charles VIII of France, 1495

Edward VI, age nine, succeeds his father Henry VIII as king of England, 1547

By the Edict of Orleans, the persecution of French Huguenots is suspended, 1561

Articles of the Warsaw Confederation are signed, sanctioning freedom of religion in Poland, 1573

Sir Thomas Warner found the first British colony in the Caribbean, on St. Kitts, 1624

The Russian Academy of Sciences was founded in St. Petersburg by Peter the Great, and implemented in the Senate decree (it was called St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences until 1917), 1724

Horace Walpole, in a letter to Horace Mann, coins the word serendipity, 1754

London's Pall Mall is the first street lit by gaslight, 1807

Pride and Prejudice is first published in the United Kingdom, 1813

The first locomotive runs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean on the Panama Railway, 1855

In a snowstorm at Fort Keogh, Montana, the world's largest snowflakes are reported, being 15 inches (38 cm) wide and 8 inches (20 cm) thick, 1887

Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent became the first person to be convicted of speeding in an automobile. He is fined 1 shilling, plus costs, for speeding at 8 mph (13 km/h), thus exceeding the contemporary speed limit of 2 mph (3.2 km/h), 1896

The Carnegie Institution is founded in Washington, D.C. with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie, 1902

An act of the U.S. Congress creates the United States Coast Guard, 1915

The first Jewish  US Supreme Court justice, Louis Brandeis, appointed by Wilson, 1916

A symbolic Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is installed beneath the Arc de Triomphe in Paris to honor the unknown dead of World War I, 1921

The name Pakistan is coined by Choudhary Rehmat Ali Khan and is accepted by the Indian Muslims who then thereby adopted it further for the Pakistan Movement seeking independence, 1933

The Lego company patents the design of its Lego bricks, still compatible with bricks produced today, 1958

The current design of the Flag of Canada is chosen by an act of Parliament, 1965

Tropical Storm Domoina makes landfall in southern Mozambique, eventually causing 214 deaths and some of the most severe flooding so far recorded in the region, 1984

Supergroup USA for Africa (United Support of Artists for Africa) records the hit single We Are the World, to help raise funds for Ethiopian famine relief, 1985

Space Shuttle Challenger breaks apart after liftoff killing all seven astronauts on board, 1986

Hundreds of thousands of protesters filled up the Egyptian's streets in demonstrations referred to as "Friday of Anger" against the Mubarak regime, 2011

DNA analysis confirms that the 6th C Plague of Justinian was caused by a variant of Yersinia pestis, which is the same bacteria for the Black Death, 2014

Seven survivors from the missing Kiribati ferry carrying 100 people are rescued after week at sea, 2018

A draft framework for a peace agreement to end the 17-year conflict in Afghanistan is agreed upon by US and Afghan negotiators, 2019