Violet (Feline Friday), Friendly Fill-Ins, Nature Friday and Pet Photo Fails, an A to Z Post

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To enjoy more blogs participating in the A to Z Challenge, click here.     http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com

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Feline Friday was originally started by Steve, The Burnt Food Dude (may he rest in peace), and i'm going to believe it's because he liked cats.

He handed hosting duties off to Sandee at Comedy Plus, and now she's entrusting it to me.

Feline Friday is simple to join.  All you have to do is: Post a picture, drawing, cartoon or video of a cat (they may be silly or cute).  Then add your link!

One thing for sure is this is a fun and easy meme to do.  So come and join us in Feline Friday.

What better way to start the weekend than with a feline!

I asked Violet to pose for "V" day on the A to Z and, while she posed nicely while she was lying down, once she got up all bets were off and most of the photos are in the fails below.

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Friendly Fill-Ins are easy to do. There are four statements: the first two statements are provided by Ellen of 15AndMeowing, and the final two are offered by Lorianne The Menagerie Mom of Four-Legged Furballs. They try to make sure the statements will be fun to both answer and share. The linky will be posted at or about 12:00 AM on Friday. Please head over to one of their sites, link up, and share your thoughts!      

Here are this week's statements with my responses underlined:

1. _________ hurts my feelings

2. Things on my not to do list include _________ and _________.

3. _________ is an inanimate object that cheers me up.

4. I wish I could hire someone to _________.

1. Knowing someone is being intentionally mean, no matter who the person is being mean to,    hurts my feelings

2. Things on my not to do list include   worry about things i can't control    and    worry about things that aren't any of my business.

3. My desk plate with the funny sayings    is an inanimate object that cheers me up.

4. I wish I could hire someone to    clean my house!  I spend so much time cleaning other people's homes, i'd love to have someone do mine.

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Nature Friday is hosted by LLB in Our Backyard.  Simply post a picture of the natural world, and link up!   

Daughter-in-Law's garden and her biggest tomato so far:

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Pet Photo Fails is hosted by Melissa's Mochas, Mysteries & Meows.     

Violet proved elusive to photograph, but she's sweet and wants attention.

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It's Arbor Day in the US!  Most parts of the country are now ready for planting, and we need all the good trees we can get.

Thanks to Barb Kowalik and The Cat Blogosphere for the event badge.         

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Today is:

Adonia -- Greece (women's festival mourning the death of Adonis; date approximate)

ANZAC Day -- Australia; Christmas Island; Cocos (Keeling) Islands; Cook Islands; New Zealand; Niue; Norfolk Island; Tonga

Army Day -- North Korea

DNA Day -- structure of DNA first published this day in 1953; human genome project ended today in 2003; related observance

     National DNA Day -- a day for teachers, students, and everyone to learn more about genetics and genomics 

Duck Appreciation Society Day -- The Duck Appreciation Society (some sites say May 10; either way, go feed the ducks if you like them, but not stale white bread, it's no better for them than it is for us)

East Meets West Day -- Allies from the East and West finally met up this day in 1945 about 75 miles from Berlin

Festival of Robigalia -- Ancient Roman Calendar (to protect against corn blight; festival of Robiga and Rogibus, the brother and sister fertility gods)

Flag Day -- Faroe Islands; Swaziland

Gathering of Nations -- Albuquerque, NM, US (the biggest PowWow in North America, with natives from every tribe welcome to participate, it includes singing, feasting, art exhibits, a horse parade, and much more, with non-Natives who want to learn more about Native culture welcome to attend; through tomorrow)

Global Youth Service Day -- annual campaign to mobilize children and youth to make a difference (through Sunday)    

Hairball Awareness Day -- sponsored by Furminator (which product actually does work, by the way) and Hills Pet Nutrition

Hairstylist Appreciation Day -- if you have a good one, let him/her know (some sites put this on the 30th)

Hug A Plumber Day -- because when you are knee deep in it, you really need them around

Liberation Day -- Italy; Portugal

National Crayola Day -- no one claims starting this holiday, observe it with your children/grandchildren/nieces/nephews/kids down the street, and remember how fun it is to color pictures

National Zucchini Bread Day -- they hold this at a time when you are not yet sick of all that zucchini you grew in the garden

Parental Alienation Awareness Day -- raising awareness of Parental Alienation or Hostile Aggressive Parenting   

Red Hat Society Day -- first Red Hat Tea Party held this day in 1998

Sinai Liberation Day -- Egypt

St. Mark the Evangelist's Day (Patron of attorneys/barristers/lawyers/notaries, captives, glaziers, imprisoned people/prisoners, lions, stained glass workers, struma patients; Egypt; Boretto, Italy; Creazzo, Italy; Infanta, Philippines; Ionian Islands; Pordenone, Italy; Sonnino, Italy; Venice, Italy; against impenitence, insect bites, scrofulous diseases, struma)

Tag des Baumes -- Germany (Tree Day/Arbor Day)

World Malaria Day / Malaria Awareness Day -- WHO and the International Community

World Penguin Day -- because the Adelie Penguins begin migrating on or around this day  

20-Something Service Day -- can't find who started this one, but it's a good idea, whomever it was, whether you are 20 or older to do some community service or volunteer work regularly

Anniversaries Today:

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is established, ND, US, 1947

The United Negro College Fund is founded, 1944

Birthdays Today:

Jacob Underwood, 1980

Emily Bergl, 1975

Jason Lee, 1970

Renee Zellweger, 1969

Hank Azaria, 1964

Jeffrey DeMunn, 1947

Talia Shire, 1946

Stu Cook, 1945

Bjorn Ulvaeus, 1945

Al Pacino, 1940

"Meadowlark" Lemon, 1932

Paul Mazursky, 1930

Albert King, 1923

Ella Fitzgerald, 1918

Edward R. Murrow, 1908

William Joseph Brennan, Jr., 1906

John Henry "Pop" Lloyd, 1884

Guglielmo Marconi, 1874

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Little Murders"(Play), 1967

"Romulus the Great"(Play), 1949

"Another Language"(Play), 1932

"Turandot"(Opera), 1926

Robinson Crusoe(Publication date), 1719

Today in History:

Lysander's Spartan Armies defeated the Athenians and the Peloponnesian War ends, BC404

German geographer and mapmaker Martin Waldseemuller publishes his Cosmographiae Introductio map in which he gives the American continents their name, 1507

Highwayman Nicholas Pelletier becomes the first person executed by guillotine, 1792

Charles Fremantle arrives in the HMS Challenger off the coast of modern-day Western Australia prior to declaring the Swan River Colony for the United Kingdom, 1829

The last survivors of the Donner Party arrive back in civilization, 1847

The Governor General of Canada, Lord Elgin, signs the Rebellion Losses Bill, outraging Montreal's English population and triggering the Montreal Riots, 1849

British and French engineers break ground for the Suez Canal, 1859

New York State becomes the first US state to require automobiles to be licensed, 1901

First DC Comic with Batman is published, 1939

Fifty nations gather in San Francisco, California to begin the United Nations Conference on International Organizations, 1945

Francis Crick and James D. Watson publish Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid describing the double helix structure of DNA, 1953

The St. Lawrence Seaway, linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, officially opens to shipping, 1959

Robert Noyce is granted a patent for an integrated circuit, 1961

Israel completes its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula per the Camp David Accords, 1982

American schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov after he read her letter in which she expressed fears about nuclear war, 1983

Pioneer 10 travels beyond Pluto's orbit, 1983

The Hubble Telescope is deployed, 1990

The Human Genome Project comes to an end 2.5 years before first anticipated, 2003

The final piece of the Obelisk of Axum is returned to Ethiopia  after being stolen by the invading Italian army in 1937, 2005

Bulgaria and Romania sign accession treaties to join the European Union, 2005

The U.S. government 'condemns' international media outlets, including 'The New York Times' for publishing confidential files, 2011

 The United Kingdom reopens its embassy in Somalia after 22 years, 2013

A fossil unearthed in China has been identified as a new pterosaur species; named Kryptodrakon progenitor, the fossil is the first of its kind to show traits of pterodactyls, giant flying reptiles, 2014

Microsoft becomes the third US firm to be listed with a market worth of 1 trillion, after Apple and Amazon, 2019

Charlotte Bronte's "A Book of Ryhmes", written when she was 13, sells at auction in New York for $1.25 million to Friends of the National Libraries for the Brontë Parsonage Museum, 2022

A Japanese M1 spacecraft crashes on the moon in its attempt to become the first privately-owned spacecraft to land there, 2023

The Chinese Academy of Sciences publishes the highest-ever resolution map of the moon, the "Geologic Atlas of the Lunar Globe", 2024