Curiouser (Awww Monday), Inspiring Quote of the Week and 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!

Ms. Curious and Mr. Curiouser are adopted now, but they spent all their time at the shelter being curious about everyone who stopped to spend a moment.

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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 Random Acts of Kindness.                         

He sat and made a phone call,

he did it every year,

he wanted it to bring much fun

and cause them lots of cheer.

He'd call the local "MallMart" Store

when December rolled around,

to spread a little happiness

and chase away some frowns.

Way back when he was younger

and times were always tough,

they oft had almost nothing

and holidays were sometimes rough.

His wife was glad they did it,

her family was country poor,

had what they grew and what Papa earned

but very little more.

When he had been much younger,

he and his brother-in-law,

dressed like Santa and a helper

made home visits and saw

First hand what it was like

for some down-and-out family;

they'd deliver toys and food

and leave behind much glee.

Now he is much older,

with money and the will,

but without the strength to go himself

he finds ways to help still.

So each year he makes a phone call

with lay-away he has a chat,

he tells them he's a secret Santa,

and then he tells them that

He wants them to pick five families

with toys on lay-away,

he pays the rest of the money

and makes everybody's day!

He has them include a gift card

so they can buy groceries, too,

he wants no one to go hungry,

he remembers those times, it's true.

Back when i was younger,

Grandma and Grandpa would 

bring us kids to help them shop

for children of another neighborhood.

Now he makes that phone call,

such giving brings them joy,

their giving goes beyond holidays

and giving away some toys.

I grew up with a living example

of what kindness should be,

they are still a shining light

and deeply inspiring to me.

While these kindnesses were plotted

and planned with much great care,

if we look around we'll see it,

needs crop up everywhere.

The need to move over in traffic

and let another move in,

grab extra food while shopping,

drop it in the Food Bank bin.

There are more random acts

we can do than we could count,

it's about the kindness,

not so much the cost amount.

This weary world sure needs

the effort we can make,

do a kind act today and see

what a difference it will make!

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Today is:

Break-Up Day -- if you are over him/her, don't go through tomorrow pledging love falsely, get out today

Clean Out Your Computer Day -- always the second Monday of February

Dream of Your Sweetheart Day -- a reminder that if you aren't ready for Valentine's Day tomorrow, you'd better get cracking

Employee Legal Awareness Day -- Australia

Get a Different Name Day -- for those who hate their name; sponsored by Wellcat Holidays

Ides of February -- Ancient Roman Calendar; also

     Parentalia begins -- through the 21st (honoring divi parentes -- the deified ancestors)

     Lupercalia begins -- through the 15th (to rid the city of evil spirits)

     Orgiastic festival of Juno Februa begins -- through tomorrow

I Value Your Friendship Day -- because you don't want to neglect your friends while we are remembering love this week

Just Say No to Powerpoint® Week begins -- please, use something else, like communicating with your audience! begun by Nancy Stern

Love a Mensch Week begins -- because mensches are decent and responsible men and women, and we should appreciate how they enhance our lives; begun by Robin Gorman Newman 

Madly in Love With Me Day -- because you have to love "me" before you can love "we"

National Tortellini Day

Oatmeal Monday -- Scotland (traditionally, at universities in Scotland, the day the students were allowed to go home and get more "meal", or oatmeal, and other supplies, as they had to provide their own food and fuel for the fires while in school)

Royal Hobart Regatta Day -- Tasmania, Australia

St. Catherine dei Ricci's Day (Patron of the ill)

Ta-asobi -- Akatsuka Suwa Shrine, Itabashi-ku, Japan (ceremony to pray for a good harvest)

Trndez or Tearnandarach -- Armenian Christian Church (fire celebration, begins in the evening and goes through tomorrow; originally a pagan sun worship celebration, it is now a Candlemas celebration by the OS Calendar)

Birthdays Today:

Mena Suvari, 1979

Robbie Williams, 1974

Kelly Hu, 1968

David Naughton, 1951

Peter Gabriel, 1950

Stockard Channing, 1944

Jerry Springer, 1944

Carol Lynley, 1942

Peter Tork, 1942

Bo Svenson, 1941

George Segal, 1934

Kim Novak, 1933

Chuck Yeager, 1923

Eileen Farrell, 1920

Tennessee Ernie Ford, 1919

Eddie Robinson, 1919

Grant Wood, 1892

Alvin York, 1887

Elizabeth "Bess" Virginia Wallace Truman, 1885

Randolph Henry Spencer Churchill, 1849

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, 1754

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, 1682

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Merlin"(Musical), 1983

"Prince Valiant"(Comic strip), 1937

Today in History:

Baghdad falls to the Mongols, and the Abbasid Caliphate is destroyed, 1258

Jews are expelled from Burgsordf, Switzerland, 1349

The Disfida di Barletta (Challenge of Barletta); Frenchman Charles de la Motte accused Italians of cowardice, and thirteen Italians proceeded to rout 13 Frenchmen in a chivalrous horseback tourney, 1503

St. Augustine, Florida, is founded, becoming the oldest continuously occupied European established city, and the oldest port, in the continental United States, 1566

Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for trial before the Inquisition for professing belief that the Earth revolves around the sun, 1633

Treaty of Lisbon:  Spain recognizes Portugal, 1668

The Massacre of Glencoe: 78 members of the clan Macdonald are murdered for not promptly pledging allegiance to the new king, William of Orange (William III), 1692

Cholera appears in London, 1832

Work begins on the covering of the Zenne, burying Brussels's primary river and creating the modern central boulevards, 1867

The feminist newspaper La Citoyenne is first published in Paris by the activist Hubertine Auclert, 1881

Painter Thomas Eakins resigns from Philadelphia Academy of Art after controversial over use of male nudes in a coed art class, 1886

Auguste and Louis Lumière patent the Cinematographe, a combination movie camera and projector, 1894

English suffragettes storm British Parliament and 60 women are arrested, 1907

The Negro National League is formed, 1920

A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, 1935

France tests its first atomic bomb, 1960

Black Sabbath, arguably the very first heavy metal album, is released, 1970

A series of sewer explosions destroys more than two miles of streets in Louisville, Kentucky, 1981

An agreement is reached on a two-stage plan to reunite Germany, 1990

The last original "Peanuts" comic strip appears in newspapers one day after Charles M. Schulz dies, 2000

The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announces the discovery of the universe's largest known diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093. Astronomers named this star "Lucy" after The Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", 2004

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd makes a historic apology to the Indigenous Australians and the Stolen Generations, 2008

At 23:31:30 UTC the Unix system time (time_t) number reaches 1234567890 seconds, 2009

For the first time in more than 100 years the Umatilla, an American Indian tribe, were able to hunt and harvest a bison just outside Yellowstone National Park, restoring a centuries-old tradition guaranteed by a treaty signed in 1855, 2011

NASA confirms Mars Opportunity rover's mission, originally set to be 90 days, has ended after 15 years due to a sandstorm damaging communications, 2019

A study published in the journal Science of Arrokoth 2014 MU69 in the Kuiper Belt shows scientists are rethinking how planets are formed, not by violent collisions but by a more gentle clumping, 2020

Archaeologists announce the discovery of oldest known beer factory in Abydos, Egypt, from early Dynastic period 3150 B.C.- 2613 B.C, 2021