Filling a Space (Six Sentence Story), Good Fences, Sammy's Poetry Day, and Brian's Thankful Thursday

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First, understand i am not a musician.

While i know the rudiments of music theory and how scales work, mostly what i know is some chords sound good together and others do not, but i cannot tell you why.

Musicians have a certain something, all i have is a deep appreciation of the fact that others have that something.

Even so, i needed to find space in my life to not just listen to music but also to make music for myself, to simply play along with songs i enjoy just because i enjoy them.

Thus, my purple plastic ukulele, and spending a bit of time almost every evening strumming to myself, for myself, sometimes with a lesson book, sometimes with a Youtube tutorial.

You'll never see me on stage, but i'm happy and having fun.

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

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While Good Fences Around the World seems to have gone the way of the dodo bird, i still enjoy looking for and posting interesting fences, so i will!

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

Gotta get more study time in

'cause college finals are "killa",

but right now I'm so very tired,

I don't even need a "pilla"!

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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 for free ukulele tutorials and easy, inexpensive teach yourself to play books.

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Today is:

Alcatraz Day -- the first prisoners arrived this day in 1934

Day of Honor for Oddudua -- Santeria religion (cognate of the Roman Catholic St. Clare of Assisi; credited with the creation of humans)

Dog Days end -- yes, supposedly, in this heat

Feast of St. Attracta -- Irish Catholic Saint (founded a hospice and convents, and supposedly slayed a dragon; Patron of Achonry, Ireland; Men of Lugna)

Independence Day -- Chad(1960)

Ingersoll Day

National Hobo Convention -- Britt, IA (held each year since 1900, gathering for migrant workers who are proud to call themselves "hobos" and make a living through working where they choose and travelling where they want; through Sunday)

National Raspberry Bombe Day or Raspberry Tart Day -- whichever one you like best, or both, if that's the way you roll

Perseid Meteor Showers -- this year, peak visibility is tonight and especially tomorrow night; the Celts believed these meteors were due to games being played by Lugh, their sun god

Play in the Sand Day -- as per many internet sites; yeah, like at the beach, nothing like sand in your shorts, i get enough of that on vacation, thank you

Presidential Joke Day**

Son and Daughter Day -- the day to give your son(s) or daughter(s) the gift of time

St. Clare of Assisi's Day -- (Foundress of the Order of Poor Ladies [Poor Clares] Franciscan nuns; Patron of embroiderers, eyes, gilders/gold workers/goldsmiths, good weather, laundry workers, needle workers, telegraphs, telephones, and television writers; Assisi, Italy; Santa Clara Indian Pueblo; against eye disease)***; related observance

     Fiesta de Santa Clara -- Santa Clara Pueblo, NM, US (Native American celebration of St. Clare of Assisi, their Patron saint, with a corn dance and prayers for rain)

St. Philomela's Day (Patron of babies, children, desperate causes, forgotten causes, impossible causes, lost causes, orphans, poor people, priests, prisoners, sick people, students, test takers, toddlers, young people; against barrenness, bodily ills, infertility, mental illness, sickness, sterility)

Birthdays Today:

Will Friedle, 1976

Ashley Jensen, 1969

Viola Davis, 1965

Joe Jackson, 1955

Hulk Hogan, 1953

Stephen Wozniak, 1950

Marilyn vos Savant, 1946

Joanna Coles, 1944

Anna Massey, 1937

Arlene Dahl, 1928

Mike Douglas, 1925 (Note: he also died on this date in 2006)

Alex Haley, 1921

Carrie Minetta Jacobs-Bond, 1862

David Rice Atchison, 1807

Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, 1667 (Last of the Medicis)

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Nightmare on Elm Street 5: Dream Child(Film), 1989

"Die Harmonie der Welt /The Harmony of the World"(Opera), 1957

Today in History:

First day of the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar, used my the Maya and other pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations, BC3114

Traditional date of the defeat of Bel by Hayk, progenitor and founder of the Armenian nation, BC2492

Battle of Artemisium, naval battle of the Greco-Persian War, fought at the same time as the Battle of Thermopylae of the same war; Leonidas, King of Sparta, dies in the land battle, BC480*

Papandayan Java volcanic eruption kills 3,000, 1772

Charles Lawrence gives expulsion orders to remove the Acadians from Nova Scotia beginning the Great Upheaval, 1755

The world's first roller rink opens in Newport, RI, 1866

The first civilian prisoners arrive at Alcatraz, 1934

Actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil receive a patent for a frequency hopping, spread spectrum communication system that later became the basis for modern technologies in wireless telephones and Wi-Fi, 1942

A bomb explodes on Pan Am Flight 830, en route from Tokyo to Honolulu, killing one teenager and injuring 15 passengers, 1984

NATO takes over command of the peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, marking its first major operation outside Europe in its 54-year-history, 2003

A new species of a giant carnivorous plant, Nepethes attenboroughii, is discovered in the central Philippines highlands, 2009

Jamaican runner Usain Bolt wins his third gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics, 2012

Scientists officially declare a Greenland shark to be the world's oldest living vertebrate, at over 400 years old, 2015

Michael Phelps becomes the 3rd athlete and 1st swimmer to win 4 consecutive Olympic gold medals in one event after winning the men’s 200m individual medley in 1:54.66 at the Rio Olympics, 2016

Sicily records highest-ever temperature in Europe of 48.8 degrees Celsius (119.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in city of Siracusa, 2021

*some historians give different dates

**because presidents have a sense of humor, too, as shown this day in 1984 when Reagan thought the microphone was off and joked about Russia being outlawed

***why tv? because when she became too ill to attend mass at the end of her life, a miraculous image of the service would display on the wall of her room