Rose Anderson's Blog, page 20

Weekend Happenings & Fun Day Sunday

If you’ve been here before then you know Sundays on my blog are all about wonder and smiles. In honor of mentally kicking back once in a while, Sundays are Fun Days! Each Sunday, visitors will find a fun, interesting, or unusual something here. I’m a nerd with a complex sense of humor and absurd wit. It could literally be anything.

People are driven to make music. I’m a drummer so I know that drive exists in me. In my Fun Day posts I’ve shared music made on ice sheets, drums, and wood. Today I have one that makes music on glass. The Glass Armonica was invented by Benjamin Franklin. Here’s a clip from the History Channel.

Here’s a classic piece played on the glass armonica.

Cool, huh?

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My Other Weekend Happenings

Weekend Writing Warriors

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/

My Sexy Saturday & Sexy Snippets

http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/

Sneak Peek Saturday

http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/

Sunday Snippet

**A promo op for you too!**

http://exquisitequills.blogspot.com/

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Sample my scorching love stories for free!

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Today our guest is Author Nicole Zoltack. http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~

Our January contest is on and we have prizes!

http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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One of those curve balls

I had planned to continue yesterday’s topic a bit but life threw me a curveball yesterday afternoon. Luckily I’m fine, but my head isn’t clear enough to write more than this little bit. I’ll get back to it in a day or so.

In the meantime…

I blog the4th of every month at Romance Books ‘4’ Us. My post is still up this week. It’s about an unusual hobby that led to reading tea leaves. Come see! http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2015/01/reading-leaves-with-rose-anderson.html

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Today is Author Melissa Keir’s blog day. http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/ Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~ Our January contest is on! Lots of prizes. http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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If you enjoy my daily musings, subscribe to get them sent to your inbox, or if your inbox is as packed as mine is, check out the Networked Blogs tab on the right and get all the blogs you follow in one daily notice. A new year full of curious and compelling posts awaits!

Sample my scorching love stories for free!

~❋~

Blow, blow, thou winter wind

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,

Thou art not so unkind

As man’s ingratitude.

~William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Good grief is it cold and the wind is howling. I’m sitting here writing in this drafty farmhouse and my hands are cold. My hands are never cold. According to the weather site today, we have an Alberta Clipper passing through. When I envision a clipper, one of those speedy streamlined sailboats from the mid-1800s comes to mind. I suspect that’s a clue — speed.  Well, not knowing for sure warranted a look-see. What exactly is an Alberta Clipper, why is it called that, and does speed play a role? This info hound poured another cup of coffee and went looking for answers.

I discovered the Alberta Clipper is a winter storm system that originates in the Canadian Province of Alberta. Hence the first part of the name. Clipper does indeed tie in to those ultra-quick sailing ships. This is one fast moving weather system.

The weather phenomena occurs when a low-pressure system develops on the lee side of the Canadian Rockies in Alberta, though sometimes the system starts in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, aka Saskatchewan Screamer and Manitoba Mauler (Sometimes they originate  in upper Montana). Fueled by warm Pacific Ocean air,  the low-pressure system gets caught up in the jet stream. Riding along those lofty air currents, it travels southeastward gaining speed across the Northern Plains, and on through the Great Lakes. It will eventually pass the Mid-Atlantic coast and from there head out across the Atlantic Ocean.  There can be snow with an Alberta Clipper but its typically quick snowfall bursts generate only 1-3 inches because of the speed and general lack of deep moisture involved. If conditions are just right, deeper snowfalls can happen.  Especially on the Atlantic coast. Alberta Clipper are known for gusty winds that blow in colder temperatures. Oh yeah.

I used to love stuff like this when I was a kid. I still do, come to think. I love how things get their names. I think I’ll linger on this topic a bit.

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Another thing came to mind today. Bubble baths.  Because January 8th is Bubble Bath Day. (I have no idea who decides what day is devoted to what, but sometimes they are fun to write about.)

For all the years I’ve known him, my husband has always been a fan of long bubble baths. His, not mine. lol

When we lived in Chicago in an 1890s wood frame house, we had a glorious bathtub — a big, high-backed, claw-footed, iron beauty just perfect for bubble baths. It was painted royal blue on the outside and that went perfectly with its white porcelain interior. I can’t imagine what it weighed when filled. Fortunately we never fell through the floor while bathing. In the winter, the tub had to be filled using only the hot water tap  because the cold iron took forever to warm.  A high-backed, cold-backed, tub is a real jolt to the body.

We don’t really use the tub anymore, haven’t in years. Baths waste too much water and there’s only so much clean drinking water in the world.  Hubby and I compromised on the shower head. It’s a water-saver gadget that’s a tad more giving than the last. He said the last one was like taking a shower in the fog. His humor is why I married him.

More~

Remember this guy? Hard to believe he’s 54-years-old. He used to give me a head-to-toe rash. lol

http://mrbubble.com/history/

This is interesting.

History of Bathing

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I blog the4th of every month at Romance Books ‘4’ Us. My post is still up this week. It’s about an unusual hobby that led to reading tea leaves. Come see! http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2015/01/reading-leaves-with-rose-anderson.html

If you enjoy my daily musings, subscribe to get them sent to your inbox, or if your inbox is as packed as mine is, check out the Networked Blogs tab on the right and get all the blogs you follow in one daily notice. A new year full of curious and compelling posts awaits!

~❋~

Sample my scorching love stories for free!

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Today our guest is Author Kat Martin. http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~ Our January contest is on! Lots of prizes. http://www.romancebooks4us.com

 

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Love Lights in the Morning

I was just out with the little dog and boy oh boy is it bitter cold. That spotlight moon that shown through my bedroom window all night long created a false dawn and got me up early. That moon is still in the shadow-blue sky as bold and bright as it was last night. I like when the full moon lingers in the west while the full sun is cresting the horizon.  There are legends that say the sun and moon are lovers who linger in the sky as long as they can just to see one another.  I remember one. I’ll paraphrase…

Long ago, when all things were simpler than today, the sun shown brightly.  The people loved the sun for he brought warmth and light and helped things grow.  But no one realize how lonely he was hanging in his sky.  Unaware, they reveled in his light and made music and danced. The sun watched the people, and while it made him happy to see their joy, he keenly felt his solitude. When it became too much to bear each day, the sun set.

At the same time on the other side of the earth, the moon rose among the clouds in the night sky. She too was sad, for at night no one danced or made music out in the darkness. One evening as the sun began to set he caught a glimpse of her radiance as she rose. He thought her most lovely. The moon saw him as well and thought him magnificent. So happy to have found love at last, he painted the sky for her as a gift. Even today, the sun colors the horizon when he rises and sets out of love for the moon. And the moon slips away from the night sky every month just so she can be with him. Sometimes they’re spotted together. People call this tryst an eclipse.

More~ J. R.R. Tolkien wrote this about the sun and the moon. http://tolkientaleslost.blogspot.com/2013/03/8-tale-of-sun-and-moon.html

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I blog the4th of every month at Romance Books ‘4’ Us. My post is still up this week. It’s about an unusual hobby that led to reading tea leaves. Come see! http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2015/01/reading-leaves-with-rose-anderson.html

If you enjoy my daily musings, subscribe to get them sent to your inbox, or if your inbox is as packed as mine is, check out the Networked Blogs tab on the right and get all the blogs you follow in one daily notice. A new year full of curious and compelling posts awaits!

❋

Sample my scorching love stories for free!

❋

Today our guest is Author Lois Winston. http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/ Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~ Our January contest is on! Lots of prizes. http://www.romancebooks4us.com

 

Snow-covered Slumber

I love to watch the fine mist of the night come on,

The windows and the stars illumined, one by one,

The rivers of dark smoke pour upward lazily,

And the moon rise and turn them silver. I shall see

The springs, the summers, and the autumns slowly pass;

And when old Winter puts his blank face to the glass,

I shall close all my shutters, pull the curtains tight,

And build me stately palaces by candlelight.”

~Charles Baudelaire

I’ve mentioned before how I’m a Midwestern gal who likes my four seasons. People think I’m crazy for liking winter and disdaining summer. I’m not crazy…that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. When summer is in its full blazing glory I’m completely miserable. There’s only so much a body can do to stay cool. So yes, I prefer winter.

To me cold weather means soups and stews and baking something delicious to warm the house. It means snuggling under blankets with my husband. I love his colder body temperature melting against my much hotter skin. I find it particularly humorous that after a few minutes of that he’ll struggle to get out from under the blankets, tossing over his shoulder something like good god, you’re like a furnace! I am, and he’s my heat sink. I suspect he’s waiting for me to spontaneously combust. lol He even gave me a Chillow for Christmas. 
:)

Last year was terrible — too cold even for me. That dirty mountain of snow in my driveway was higher than the roof of my car and so frozen solid that it sat hogging parking spaces until the warm spring air of mid-April finally melted it away. Well, winter has officially returned. Last night brought several inches of snow.

I can’t speak for everyone, but sleep during a snowfall is the deepest sleep I can have. My husband feels this too. Maybe it’s because we’ve lived in the quiet wild for so many years. There are winter mornings where we’ll both wake together and one or the other of us will comment about sleeping soundly and the realization always follows with, it must have snowed. Most times it did indeed snow. Like last night.

I have a theory on this deeper sleep with snowfall — Mammal hibernation. Hmm…hibernation might also explain how easy it is to gain weight in the winter. After all, bears gain up to 30 pounds a week before they sleep. An interesting fact about bears — adult females have their young while hibernating. By the time the family emerges in the spring, delicious things to eat are getting plentiful. Mom goes in chubby and comes out visibly thinner.

Anyway…

All mammals with a tendency to lay low in the winter months have their own specific style. For example: bears experience winter in sort of a twilight sleep while hedgehogs are totally zonked. This torpor allows animals to survive the extremes of winter because food becomes scarce and what is available has little energy value left to it. Hibernating species have built-in mechanisms to survive. Their bodies reduce metabolic rate and lower their body temperature, and all the while they live on fat reserves built up by the plenty found during the other seasons.

Life has its rhythms. Circadian rhythm is that 24-hour body clock — you sleep when your body tells you it’s time to sleep and become active when it says get moving. Circannual rhythms are something else. They include mating seasons and ruts, migration, and hibernation. These inner clocks aren’t fully understood by science but all animals feel their effect, even us. I felt it strong enough to sleep an extra two hours and now I’m blogging late.
:)

More~

Here’s an oldie that explains the hibernation process well.

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I blog the4th of every month at Romance Books ‘4’ Us. My post is still up this week. It’s about an unusual hobby that led to reading tea leaves. Come see! http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2015/01/reading-leaves-with-rose-anderson.html

If you enjoy my daily musings, subscribe to get them sent to your inbox, or if your inbox is as packed as mine is, check out the Networked Blogs tab on the right and get all the blogs you follow in one daily notice. A new year full of curious and compelling posts awaits!

❋

Sample my scorching love stories for free!

❋

Today is Author Tina Donahue’s blog day

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~

Our January contest is on! Lots of prizes.

http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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Come Kiss Me Sweet and Twenty

Our decorations are finally down and this morning the last of the holiday treats were packed up. My husband took them to work for  other people to eat. Chances are they won’t want them either! 

Speaking of endings, today marks Twelfth Night.  Twelfth Night is the last part of that twelve days of Christmas celebration presided over by the Lord of Misrule. Remember him? He popped up in my Saturnalia post mid-December. Yes, if we were being authentic, this Ancient Roman celebration would have continued on until today.  Personally, I’ve had enough merriment for a while. For me it’s time to settle into the deep stillness of winter and write. I’ll come out of my mind cave when the seed catalogs arrive… in March.
:)

You can’t talk Twelfth Night and not have William Shakespeare come to mind. I’ve mentioned before that I am a fan of the Bard. I was immersed in Shakespeare my freshman year in high school due to the fact the spelling of my last name dictated where I sat in English class for ten long months. I’ve always been a quick reader and so often had the luxury of extra time in class.  Right beside my desk was a miniature replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater and a glorious stack of Shakespeare plays that I could read while waiting for the bell to ring.

What I loved about the Bard was the way he seduced the mind with words. By that I mean most of what he wrote was lyrical.   The style he wrote in  is called blank verse. It uses a poetic measure of lines consisting of unrhymed iambic pentameter. In case you’ve forgotten your high school lessons, iambic pentameter reads like this line from Romeo and Juliet:

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

Generally, when you read Shakespeare as originally written, the inflection has a high/low beat to it. Try saying the line above with this rhythmic inflection.

da Dum da Dum da Dum da Dum da Dum

  :) You might say his prose had a pulse. 

His play Twelfth Night has some marvelously evocative sentences. Here are a few of my favorite lines ~

If music be the food of love, play on.
In delay there lies no plenty, then come kiss me sweet and twenty.
Still you keep o’ the windy side of the law.
He does smile his face into more lines than is in the new map with the augmentation of the Indies.
Out of the jaws of death.
But be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Fantastic stuff, no? That’s what I mean by seduce the mind.  :)

To get the full feel, put your feet up and immerse yourself in this lengthy version of Twelfth Night. It’s directed by Kenneth Branagh, himself an accomplished Shakespearean actor. Even if you only watch the first 10 minutes or so, you’ll pick up on the da Dum da Dum da Dum of the iambic pentameter right away.

More~

It’s time to make your King Cake. What about the Queen of the Bean? Here’s a terrific post from Author Julianne Douglas, Renaissance writer. http://writingren.blogspot.com/2010/01/queen-of-bean.html

An interesting 4-part historical series about the long celebration with a decent glimpse of the Twelfth Night festivities during the Tudor period.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

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I blog the4th of every month at Romance Books ‘4’ Us. My post is still up this week. It’s about an unusual hobby that led to reading tea leaves. Come see! http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2015/01/reading-leaves-with-rose-anderson.html

If you enjoy my daily musings, subscribe to get them sent to your inbox, or if your inbox is as packed as mine is, check out the Networked Blogs tab on the right and get all the blogs you follow in one daily notice. A new year full of curious and compelling posts awaits!

❋❋❋

Sample my scorching love stories for free!

❋❋❋

Today is Author Paris Brandon’s blog day

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~

Our January contest is on! Lots of prizes.

http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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My Blog Day on RB4U & Fun Day Sunday

It’s the 4th of the month and that means it’s my blog day at Romance Books ‘4’ Us. I’m talking about an unusual hobby that led to reading tea leaves. Fun stuff! Come see. http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2015/01/reading-leaves-with-rose-anderson.html

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If you’ve been here before then you know Sundays on my blog are all about wonder and smiles. In honor of mentally kicking back once in a while, Sundays are Fun Days! Each Sunday, visitors will find a fun, interesting, or unusual something here. I’m a nerd with a complex sense of humor and absurd wit. It could literally be anything.

Today I’m sharing two fun clips of a pancake artist…no really…a pancake artist. Follow his youtube channel to see his other breakfast creations — guaranteed to blow your mind. My kids would have loved these when they were younger. They’d even enjoy them now.

More~

Nathan Shields pancake artist extraordinaire

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My Other Weekend Happenings

Weekend Writing Warriors

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/

Sexy Snippets

http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/

Sunday Snippet

**A promo op for you too!**

http://exquisitequills.blogspot.com/

❋❋❋

Sample my scorching love stories for free!

❋❋❋

Great authors and industry reps all month long http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~

Our January contest is coming soon.

http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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Much Wiggle Room

I ended up with time on my mind after hanging up my new calendar the other day. It had me wondering just what it was about humans that we must measure and delineate every day of our lives?

As I mentioned earlier, we literally organize our lives in accordance with the sun and the moon.  Our concept of a year is based on the earth’s trip around the sun. Our concept of a month is one complete orbit of the moon around the earth. The thing about these orbits though  is they come with wiggle room. A month isn’t exactly 720 hours long. Sometimes a month has 744 hours. Were we to calculate moon to moon, a month is actually 29.53 days long.

We also go by the notion a year is 365 days long but it’s not. It’s actually about 365.25 days long. (that .25 is reason leap years are every four years)

That wiggle room is easier to see if you do the math by hours. Even though it works out this way on a calculator 24 x 365 = 8 760, a year is never exactly 8 760 hours long. It’s often 8765.81277 hours long. Over time that .81277 adds up and there’s an adjustment to be had.

A lot of time has passed between tally sticks and the calendar we employ today. Like I said yesterday, calendars have always been imperfect timekeepers. The ancient Roman calendar, for example, was a major mess. Rome had conquered most of their world and absorbed other calendars as well. The priests and politicians in the Roman Empire exploited this blended calendar for political gain by adding days and months to it to keep the politicians they favored in office. With all this going on, at one point, the Roman calendar was about 445 days long and it didn’t make a lick of sense lining up with the seasons. Eventually one man said enough is enough and set our feet on the path we follow today. That man was Julius Caesar.

It’s said that after Julius Caesar’s romance with Cleopatra, he brought a little Egyptian order to the messy Roman calendar. The Egyptians of that time were long following a solar calendar instead of the lunar  calendar because keeping track by the moon failed to tell them when the Nile would flood. Around 4236 B.C.E, someone noticed Sirius the dog star was visible before sunrise on a certain time of the year and it always preceded the flood by a few days. Based on this observation, the Egyptians devised a 365-day calendar.

Tweaked and tidied with Egyptian common sense, the Roman calendar became the Julian Calendar  and was in common use for centuries. But because that wiggle room hadn’t been factored in, Julian’s version had drifted a full 10 days off course by the late 1500s and no longer meshed with the seasons. Pope Gregory stepped in and reformed the calendar by adding an extra day to February once every four years.

More~

A History of the Months and the Meanings of their Names

The Seven-Day Week and the Meanings of the Names of the Days

Tomorrow ~ I’m blogging over at Romance Books ‘4’ Us and it’s a Fun Day Sunday too!

If you enjoy my daily musings, subscribe to get them sent to your inbox. A new year full of curious and compelling posts awaits!

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:) On this date in 1924 Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen’s sarcophagus, his mummy, and burial treasure were discovered. King Tut’s tomb had been discovered in 1922 near Luxor, Egypt. Check out this fascinating video by National Geographic  Examining Tut . And that’s a post for another day.



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Sample my scorching love stories for free!

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Today our guest is Author Vicki Batman

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~

Our January contest is coming soon.

http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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The Wheel of the World

Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?

~Jack London

No kidding!

Yesterday I had time on my mind. I imagine a lot of people did, linear creatures that we are. To many people, the turning of the year reveals a blank page — a chance to begin again. I don’t know why resolutions and new diets and vows of change have to happen when one year ends and another begins. That stuff can happen any day of the year.  I do know my personal vow to run should I see another cookie comes from the yummy treat-filled excesses of the holiday season.  I literally cannot look another gingerbread man (or ninja-bread man in my house) in his beady candy eye. My New Year’s resolution: No cookie shall pass these lips until April at least. I think a three-month cookie detox is doable.

So like I said, I had time on my mind after hanging up my new calendar. What is it about humans that we must measure and delineate every day of our lives?

In the beginning, long before doctor appointments, music lessons, and soccer meets filled our days, we kept track of the passing of time for our optimal survival. If you counted the full moons from the winter solstice on, you’d know spring was approximately 4 or 5 moons away. That meant plant foods and game would once again be plentiful. When agriculture took root (no pun intended) this knowledge was even more important. You wouldn’t want to plant your seeds if killing frost was still possible. And so the tally stick was conceived. Tally sticks from the Paleolithic age have been found. These bone or wooden sticks are marked with deliberate notches to track the passage of time. Some show lunar accounting. This is the forerunner of our modern calendar.

Calendar from the Latin calare — to proclaim. Roman priests observed the activity in the heavens and notified the king of the new moon cycle each month.

Our concept of a year is based on the earth’s trip around the sun. Our month is one complete orbit of the moon around the earth. We literally organize our modern lives in accordance with the sun and the moon. The calendar we use today focuses on the earth’s orbit. I’m not sure if these other timekeepers are still in use today but the Islamic calendar focused on the Moon’s orbit, and the Hebrew and Chinese calendars combined both sun and moon tracking.

Funny thing about calendars, they have always been imperfect timekeepers. People have tried to work the kinks out over the centuries. That’s the reason for leap years.

Tomorrow ~ Julius and Gregory

If you enjoy my daily musings, subscribe to get them sent to your inbox. A new year full of curious and compelling posts awaits!

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:) Just in case you wanted more to ponder today, today is National Cream Puff Day.  Cream puffs are my absolute favorite desserts. I had no idea how “mysterious” they were.  Here’s a bit of history.

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Sample my scorching love stories for free!

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Today is Author Polly McCrillis/Isabel Mere’s blog day

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~

Our January contest is coming soon.

http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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The Arrow of Time & Entropy

I’m getting a late start today. When New Year goals meet the reality of post-New Year’s Eve spent with friends, one must expect lags.

I have a new calendar hanging on my kitchen wall. The theme is Shake by photographer Carli Davidson. I love dogs and especially love imaginative and whimsical things. Combine the two and you’ve got a winner as far as I’m concerned. Check out her fun site. This particular calendar has captured motion shots of dogs shaking off water. The jowly dogs are particularly hilarious.

Anyway, I found myself thinking of calendars this morning. Calendars and time.

In 1927, English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician Sir Arthur Eddington, wrote a book entitled The Nature of the Physical World. In it he coins the memorable phrase the arrow of time. It’s the idea that time flows in one direction only, as it does for us.  An arrow to describe time makes sense when you consider we live linear lives as life on earth does. Think about it. We begin and we end and it all happens in one direction.

Eddington’s time’s arrow concept is built upon specific points and I’m sure were you to go looking, you’d discover the specifics of what he was getting at. But you’d also find time doesn’t actually operate in one direction. It all boils down to what we are able to see. In other words, time as we know it is what it is because it’s seen through our lens. It’s a far larger concept.

Theoretical cosmology is the place to go to explain this. One specialist in general relativity is CalTech physicist Sean M. Carroll. He has a knack for breaking time and space down in nice digestible points.  Enjoy.  :)

Here’s the long version. Fascinating stuff, time.

 Tomorrow ~ the Calendar

If you enjoy my daily musings, subscribe to get them sent to your inbox. A new year full of curious and compelling posts awaits!

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Sample my scorching love stories for free!

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Today is Author Nicole Morgan’s blog day

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~

Our January contest is coming soon.

http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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