Dogs Have Their Day (Awww Monday), Inspiring Quote of the Week, and Peace! (Poetry Monday)

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Awww Monday is hosted by Sandee at Comedy Plus.

Join us every Monday for Awww...Mondays.  Post a picture that makes you say Awww... and that's it.

Make sure you get the code from Sandee's site, linked above, and leave a link to your post so we can visit you.  What better way to start the week than with a smile!

It's hard to take a good picture of a wiggly Bart.  Coda runs a lot so you have to catch her lying down or standing by the door to be let in.

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Sparks is the brainchild of Annie of McGuffy's Reader, who wanted us to post something positive and uplifting at the start of the week.  While she no longer blogs, i like to post an Inspiring Quote of the Week in her honor.     

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Poetry Monday was started by Diane at On The Alberta/Montana Border.  Jenny at Procrastinating Donkey is on a blog semi-break and her poetry is sorely missed, we hope she comes back soon.   Charlotte/Mother Owl participates, and now Karen at Baking in a Tornado is jumping in at least once a month, too.  Anyone else is welcome to join in the fun, just let Diane know!

This week the theme is Purple for Peace.                         

"It is easy to be heavy:

hard to be light,"

G.K.Chesterton said it,

he really got it right.

It's easy to get angry,

to let the temper go,

to act all mean and nasty,

though we wish it wasn't so.

To keep that peace and calm,

be the voice of reason,

help others see the light,

both in and out of season,

It takes a sense of knowing

conflict is a path

leading to more anger,

bitterness and wrath.

Seeking peace through unity,

rejecting evil, feeling right,

leads to the deep inner joy

that shines a lovely light.

Today put on your purple,

seek to walk the path of peace,

and never stop, and never stop,

'til war and striving cease.

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Today is:

Biographer's Day -- anniversary of the day Boswell met Johnson in 1763

Discovery Day -- Cayman Islands

Hires Root Beer Day -- pharmacist Charles Elmer Hires created it on this day in 1866

Love a Tree Day -- and read about the love of a tree, in Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree

Middlesex Day -- Middlesex, England (although it is only a postal county now, many celebrate the heritage of what was once the county that included London)

National Coquilles St. Jacques Day

Sea-Monkey® Day -- as declared by someone who likes these little brine shrimp as pets; for info on keeping Sea Monkeys, check here; for ideas about how to celebrate there is a site about how to worship sea monkeys   

Sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" in Rounds Day -- but not around me, please, or i might do something drastic

Sneeze Without Embarrassment Day -- because of pollen levels, as declared by Karen Richmond, of Eastport, MI, US

Spaghetti-Os Day -- they were first sold on this day in 1966

St. Brendan the Voyager's Day (Patron of boatmen/mariners/sailors/watermen, travelers, whales; Ardfert, Ireland; Clonfert, Ireland; Kerry, Ireland)

St. Honorius of Amiens' Day (Patron of bakers[especially bakers of communion wafers], cake makers, candlemakers, chandlers, confectioners, florists, flour merchants, oil refiners, pastry chefs; against drought)

St. John of Nepomuk's Day (Patron of bridges, bridge builders, confessors, discretion, good and right confession, running water, silence; Bohemia; Czech Republic; Slovakia; against calumnies, floods, indiscretions, and slander)

Sudan People's Liberation Army Day -- South Sudan

Teachers' Day -- Malaysia

U.S.Nickel Day -- the first U.S. five-cent nickel was minted on this day in 1866

Wear Purple for Peace Day -- the idea being that until we become a peaceful species, the aliens won't visit

Anniversaries Today:

Louis-Auguste, Dauphin of France, marries Marie Antoinette, 1770

Edgar Allen Poe marries his cousin Virginia Clemm, 1836 

Birthdays Today:

Megan Fox, 1986

Matt Ryan, 1985

Jim Sturgess, 1981

Tori Spelling, 1973

David Boreanaz, 1971

Gabriela Sabatini, 1970

Tracey Gold, 1969

Janet Jackson, 1966

Mare Winningham, 1959

Joan Benoit Samuelson, 1957

Olga Korbut, 1955

Debra Winger, 1955

Pierce Brosnan, 1953

Bob Edwards, 1947

Bill Smitrovich, 1947

Billy Martin, 1928

Liberace, 1919

Woody Herman, 1913

Louis "Studs" Terkel, 1912

Margaret Rey, 1906

Henry Fonda, 1905

Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, 1804

William Seward, 1801

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Top Gun(Film), 1986

"McCartney II"(album release), 1980

"Listen to What the Man Said"(Single release), 1975

"Annie Get Your Gun"(Musical), 1946

"Dalibor"(Opera), 1868

Today in History:

The Florentines drive out the Medici for a second time and Florence is re-established as a republic, 1527

Sir Thomas More resigns as Lord Chancellor of England, 1532

Samuel Johnson meets his future biographer, James Boswell, in London, 1763

Denmark abolishes slave trade, 1792

The first major wagon train heading for the Pacific Northwest sets out on the Oregon Trail, 1843

Charles Elmer Hires invents root beer, 1866

A naval Curtiss aircraft NC-4 commanded by Albert Cushing Read leaves Trepassey, Newfoundland, for Lisbon via the Azores on the first transatlantic flight, 1919

Pope Benedict XV canonizes Joan of Arc, 1920

Chaim Weizmann is elected the first President of Israel, 1948

The first regularly scheduled transatlantic flights begin between John F Kennedy International Airport (then Idlewild Airport) in New York City and Heathrow Airport in London, operated by El Al Israel Airlines, 1951

Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser, at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California, 1960

China's Cultural Revolution begins, 1966

The Soviet Venera 5 spacecraft lands on Venus, 1969

India annexes Sikkim  after the mountain state holds a referendum in which the popular vote is in favour of merging with India, 1975

Junko Tabei becomes the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, 1975

The Seville Statement on Violence is adopted by an international meeting of scientists, convened by the Spanish National Commission for UNESCO, in Seville, Spain, 1986

A report by United States' Surgeon General C. Everett Koop states that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine, 1988

Queen Elizabeth II becomes the first British monarch to address the US Houses of Congress, 1991

Kuwait permits women's suffrage in a 35-23 National Assembly vote, 2005

The oldest water ever found is discovered in a Canadian mine; the water dates back 2.6 billion years, 2013

Saray Khumalo becomes the first black African woman to climb Mt Everest, 2019