Happy New Year...In April!

Perfect Moments:

Instead of giving you a detailed description of a perfect moment today, I’m going to demonstrate an abbreviated version of my nighttime listing ritual for you…written instead of conducted only in my head!  If you’d like to refer back to the post where I described this ritual and why I started it, here’s a link!  http://mpeska.blogspot.com/2013/03/collecting-perfect-moments.html?m=1

Perfect Moments Past:

1-Fingers of mist entwined in tree branches in back yard two nights ago
2- Discovery that butt ends of sliced white onion that I planted in my indoor scrap garden are sending up green tendrils 
3-Sucker hole opened up and sent rays of sunshine through the window and the seven prisms hanging there which filled the living and dining rooms with dancing rainbows
4-Waking in bed to listen to the rain drum rhythmically on the roof
5- Placed several drops of cottonwood essential oil in a pot of water on the stove and filled the house with marvelous smell of spring

Looking Forward to:

1-Dinner and visiting with husband and mom tomorrow

2-Eating those homegrown green onions
3-Seeing recently planted thyme, basil & cilantro seeds germinate and grow
4- Uploading Head Buckets & Hashtags to Amazon
5-Smelling the cottonwood outside

Perfect Right Now:

1-After several days of knee pain, today am entirely without pain or discomfort anywhere in my body
2-Sipping and sniffing warm mug of spicy ginger “tea” made from fresh ginger root
3-Gazing out the window at bunches of small birds hopping around the yard
4-Listening to cell phone softly playing Louis Armstrong’s What A Wonderful World
5-Warm snuggly feeling of wearing my favorite red sweater that used to belong to my husband

Funny Factiods:

·         In 1962 Tanganyika (now Tanzania) had a laughter "epidemic" which began among a small group of boarding school children. Laughter is contagious, but this laughter was far more contagious than your typical case of the giggles.  Roughly 3/5 of the students at the school caught the hilarity!  The ongoing laughter was so disruptive that the school had to, temporarily, close down and send students home...where their contagious chortles infected even more people.
Some people laughed for days. Some people laughed for weeks.  Those affected complained of all the side effects you would imagine and one you wouldn't; abdominal pain, respiratory problems, fainting, weeping and rash.
Ultimately, more than 1000 people were "infected" and 14 schools were shut down (the original school re-opened & had to shut down a 2nd time!). Then, somewhere between 6 months and 2 1/2 years later (apparently, nobody can agree on exactly when) the epidemic evaporated.
 Scientists and experts don't know what caused this outbreak of mirth but many hypothesize it was mass psychogenesis. Psychogenesis is a collection of physical symptoms brought about by mental or emotional stress.
Laughter reduces stress hormones (cortisol, epinephrine & dopac) in the body so it seems to me like a particularly effective response to stress.

·         Many cultures around the world have celebrated the vernal equinox (spring) as the new year.  In fact, the Roman calendar observed New Year’s Day in March until 153 BC when Julius Caesar reformed the Roman calendar, forming the Julian calendar.  When the Roman Empire fell, many folks returned to celebrating the turning of the year during the spring equinox and continued to do so until the Gregorian calendar was adopted.  Some historians suggest that people in rural areas were slow to get news of, and implement, the Gregorian calendar and were referred to as April Fool’s and that this may have been the origin of the modern April Fool’s Day. On the other hand, a variety of cultures and traditions have celebrated prank festivals for millennia, some of which coincide with the vernal equinox.  

 

Anyway, HAPPY NEW YEAR!