Take a lap! Around the pool that is, Swim a Lap Day is a day to get your snorkel and goggles on and patronize your local swimming pool. Swimming is a great way of getting exercise, especially for those who have health problems that make traditional exercise difficult due to weakness or difficulty moving. Swimming has been an activity humans have indulged in at least as far back as 7,000 years ago, a time from which depictions of this activity can be seen in stone age paintings.
People have been engaging in swimming for all these years for many reasons, with recreation being by far the most common among them. Swimming is, in fact, ranked among the most popular forms of physical activity, even among otherwise sedentary individuals. The buoyant nature of water makes it much easier on those with physical limitations to get out and have a good time, and the act of coursing through the water is often described as feeling a bit like flying!
Swimming has also been shown to be excellent for your health Those engaged in swimming tend to engage in the activity for longer than other forms of exercise, and the act of swimming often engages the entire body while moving through the water This also results in the body drawing on large supplies of oxygen during almost all stages of the activity. Other benefits seen from this activity include a reduction in stress related illnesses by reduction of the same, and it can even improve posture!
Swimming is also commonly participated in as a competitive sport and artistic display. Whether it’s simple speed swimming or synchronised water based dance performances, swimming has found it’s way into many sport venues, including the Olympic Games. Due to it’s unique engagement of muscle groups, swimming segments are also commonly included in multi-segmented sport competitions, including triathlons and Iron Man competitions.
One of the most ancient uses for swimming is it’s involvement in many types of employment. In Japan there are abalone and pearl divers who spend many hours each day engaging in swimming to impressive depths to gather these riches. Underwater welding is another incredibly profitable, and incredibly dangerous field that involves swimming a great deal. Whether it’s for research or construction, swimming continues to be an important part of modern industry.
Military applications of swimming go back quite a long way, especially in those engagements requiring infiltration. Especially at night, it’s difficult to see someone who is swimming underwater, and many cities and forts had vulnerabilities at the areas where waste was washed out of the location. Everyone loves pirates, and a common practice to taking a ship was to slip through the water from a distance, so as not to reveal the presence of their vessel. They’d then stealthily slip up the side of the target, and take the ship by surprise!
There are many health benefits to swimming, and it’s an activity especially encouraged for those suffering from degenerative diseases, and ones that impede mobility such as arthritis. It’s low impact nature allows those whose movement would otherwise be restricted to engage in a full body workout without causing further damage. Even those who are of advanced age can find an ability to remain active in this sport!
Due to it’s full body nature, this sport is also excellent for building cardiovascular and respiratory health, increasing how much oxygen the body is able to take advantage, as well as how much blood the heart is able to move with each stroke.
Claude Monet was a famous French painter whose work gave a name to the art movement Impressionism, which was concerned with capturing light and natural forms.
Monet French Water Garden Painting By Monet (1840-1926)
Word of the Day
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| Definition: | (noun) Something that issues from a source. | ||
| Synonyms: | emission | ||
| Usage: | The sulphuretted hydrogen emanations, which Captain Burton mentions, could be distinctly smelt. | ||
Idiom of the Day
in the next breath— (especially when speaking) In or at the very next moment or opportunity; in a very short space of time. |
History
The Moscow Victory Parade of 1945 (1945)
A month and a half after Nazi Germany surrendered to the USSR, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin ordered a celebratory parade through Moscow's Red Square. Thousands of troops from different regiments and fronts participated, accompanied by tanks and other military equipment. At one point, war veterans memorably threw down hundreds of Nazi banners at the foot of Lenin's mausoleum.
Saint John of the Cross (1542)
Saint John of the Cross was a Spanish mystic, poet, and monastic reformer. A Carmelite monk, he was ordained a priest in 1567. The following year, he joined St. Teresa of Ávila in her effort to restore the Carmelites to their original austerity, cofounding the Discalced Carmelite order. He opened the first Discalced Carmelite monastery in 1569 and was imprisoned in 1577 for causing friction within the order. He escaped and later won high office in the order.
Juhannus
Juhannus is a celebration in Finland of the Summer Solstice and of the feast of St. John. People celebrate at the lake shores where they build bonfires and dance all night. Since this is near the longest day of the year, special late performances are held at open-air theaters in many towns. There are also dances at hotels. Many customs are remnants of pagan times. Birch tree branches are brought into the homes to insure future happiness. Even buses and office buildings are adorned with birch branches. As Finland's Flag Day, Juhannus is also a national holiday.
What You Can Learn from Einstein's Quirky Habits
| Celebrated inventor and physicist Nikola Tesla swore by toe exercises – every night, he'd repeatedly 'squish' his toes, 100 times for each foot, according to the author Marc J Seifer. |
What you can learn from Einstein’s quirky habits
1497 - Italian explorer John Cabot, sailing in the service of England, landed in North America on what is now Newfoundland.
1664 - New Jersey, named after the Isle of Jersey, was founded.
1844 - Charles Goodyear was granted U.S. patent #3,633 for vulcanized rubber.
1869 - Mary Ellen "Mammy" Pleasant officially became the Voodoo Queen in San Francisco, CA.
1896 - Booker T. Washington became the first African American to receive an honorary MA degree from Howard University.
1922 - The American Professional Football Association took the name of The National Football League.
1947 - Kenneth Arnold reported seeing flying saucers over Mt. Rainier, Washington.
1986 - The Empire State Building was designated a National Historic Landmark.
1998 - Walt Disney World Resort admitted its 600-millionth guest.
2002 - A painting from Monet's Waterlilies series sold for $20.2 million.
READERS INFO
Interesting Facts
- Captain America may have jumped on a fake grenade to save his fellow soldiers in training, but in real life Lance Corporal William Kyle Carpenter actually did this… only the grenade was real. On November 21, 2010 while in Afghanistan, a grenade was thrown into his sandbagged position. Rather than run, he used his own body to shield the other soldier with him from the blast. Miraculously, though severely injured, Carpenter lived and was awarded the Medal of Honor in June of 2014.
- As of November 2013, the Washington Post Database of U.S. Service-Member Casualties reports that the number of American soldiers dying in war is 1,343,812. On the other hand, the number of American citizens who died in automobile accidents between 1899 and 2012 is 3,572,812, once again showing that the most dangerous thing the vast majority of people do, despite rarely thinking anything of it, is get in a car.
- During King Edward’s reign (1307-1327), he had laws passed against the playing of various football sports. Anyone caught playing any form of football would be imprisoned, “For as much as there is a great noise in the city caused by hustling over large balls, from which many evils may arise…” He wasn’t the only British monarch that hated football sports. Queen Elizabeth I “had football players jailed for a week, with follow-up church penance.” King Henry IV and Henry VIII also passed laws against football sports.
- Jamie Lee Curtis’ primary claim to fame is her acting career, but she also invented a new type of diaper in 1987. Curtis proudly stated about her patented invention (Patent No. 4,753,647), “It’s a disposable infant garment which takes the form of a diaper including, on its outer side, a sealed, but openable, moisture-proof pocket which contains one or more clean-up wipers.”
- The King of Rock n’ Roll, Elvis Presley, was naturally blond, but dyed his hair black.
Pictures of the day
St. John the Baptist is an oil painting on walnut wood by Leonardo da Vinci. It depicts the Biblical John the Baptist in isolation, using chiaroscuro so the figure appears to emerge from the shadowy background. Probably completed from 1513 to 1516, this High Renaissance work is believed to be the artist's final painting. It is now exhibited at the Louvre in Paris, France.
knit
thanks, Dawn
knit
knit
knit, toe up
knit
thanks, Emily
crochet
thanks, Sharon
crochet
crochet
thanks, Nicky
crochet
RECIPE
thanks, Shelley
CROCKPOT RECIPE
SWEETS
thanks, Ann
ADULT COLORING
CRAFTS
thanks, Sandra
CHILDREN'S CORNER ... cat toy
Pipe cleaner springs
catster
Cats love spring toys. I’ve purchased them for my three, and now that we’ve made the pipe cleaner spring toys, I’m never doing that again! This is a super-easy project that’s perfect for kids of most any age.
You’ll need:
- Pencil.
- Pipe cleaners.
Instructions:
- Fold down the sharper edges of each end of the pipe cleaner.
- Hold one end of the pipe cleaner against the pencil and wrap it around the pencil, forming a spring.
- Remove from pencil.
PUZZLE
Brugmansia Pink Beauty Jigsaw Puzzle
WORD SEARCH
| acres arrival behind break circus clock consultation contain crack | debut died doles dress drive ensure | follows front hammer helmet idols injure | mime pear people place prize remove return | sanity sere short smart street think trophy wasps |
SUDOKU
solution:
QUOTE
CLEVER
A Handy Hot Dog Style Guide Visualizing the Different Ways People Eat Frankfurters Around the World
EYE OPENER
thanks, Heide and Patty
8 Simple Ways to Improve Your Garden Soil for Free
thefreerangelife
Chopped Leaves (or Leaf Mold)
Don’t let all those fallen leaves go to waste! Leaves are full of minerals and once they are added to the garden they feed earthworms and other microbes. They can also lighten heavy clay soils and help to retain moisture in lighter sandy soils. They are a wonderful source of carbon and will increase nutrients in the soil very readily.
It’s best if you chop the leaves before adding them to the garden. The easiest way is to just mow over them a few time with a mower and then rake them up. Place them on top of you garden beds to decompose through the winter and early spring, then you can either till them in or use them as a base of a no-till garden.
If you have access to a lot of leaves you can try making leaf mold by taking your chopped leaves and bagging them up for a year- or at least through one season. Alternately you can just rake your leaves into a big pile and wait- but that doesn’t work too well are here where winter winds just blow the leaves clear across the valley!
Leaf mold can greatly improve your soil quality and it rivals peat moss in its ability to retain moisture.
Wood Chips
If you have been gardening long, you are sure to have heard about the Back to Eden Gardening method which uses wood chips as a top mulch for the garden. The benefits of a garden mulched like this are the reduction of soil erosion, less weeds to compete for nutrients, and better water retention. Most other soil amendments can simply be placed on top or gently raked into the wood chips.
Wood chips will also increase the nutrients in the soil as they break down and compost on top of it.
Wood chips can usually be found for free through tree services or your local green recycling facility. Check with your local power company too, as they do a lot of chipping when the clear down trees and line and during general upkeep.
Wood Ash
If you’ve got a fireplace or a wood-burning stove then you have a great soil amendment right in your ash box! Wood Ash contains a good amount of potassium and calcium as well as a lot of micronutrients from the trees from which the wood came. Wood Ash will help improve the pH of your soil, making it more alkaline- which means keep it away from acid-loving plants such as blueberries.
Wood Ash can be used as a replacement for the lime usually called for on soils with low pH. It is best to spread the ash in fall, and throughout winter, but stopping a good few weeks before spring planting.
Your Kitchen Scraps
Your kitchen is a gold mine for improving your soil quality! Your morning coffee grounds. Your daily banana peel. All those egg shells! All of these things will add something different to you soil in terms of nutrients. How you deal with this compost is up to you- add it to your compost pile daily and apply it to your garden when it has decomposed. Dig it into your soil immediately. Add certain scraps to the holes at planting time. Or even just throw it on top the garden and let it decompose naturally into the soil.
Coffee Grounds
Coffee grounds, when mixed into the soil or compost, will improve your soil structure, tilth, and even help to repel certain pests. The grounds are high in nitrogen, which is great for those heavy feeders in your garden. Mixing them together with your leaf mold will make the perfect mulch for your garden.
Coffee ground have long been said to be highly acidic- making them perfect for those acid loving plants. I have read recent conflicting research both dispelling this and proving it. So, I say, go ahead and mix the grounds in around your acid loving plants- it can’t hurt either way! Just don’t dump them on. Unless you want a pile of mold hanging out around your garden.
No matter how much coffee you drink you probably won’t get enough grounds to improve your garden soil too much, luckily, if you check with your local Starbucks or other coffee houses they are probably just looking for a way to unload all those grounds!
Urine
Yes, urine. Human urine is sterile and is actually one of the best soil amendments and fertilizers around. Urine is super high in nitrogen and contains phosphorus and potassium (You know, NPK fertilizers?) It also contains a lot of other trace nutrients, all of which are very readily available for your plants.
Now, urine can be too concentrated, so you probably don’t want to just go around peeing directly on your plants all the time. But diluting it with water or rigging a composting toilet of sorts with some saw dust in a bucket is a good way to go.
The benefits are that urine is 100% free and natural. You can save water with less flushing going on. And you might help deter pests (mammals, not insects) in your garden from the scent.
Manure
No not human manure, but manure from any farm animals you might have- or those in the community might have. Manure from all sorts of animals can be added to your garden beds and fill it with nutrients to help improve your garden soil and feed your plants. Pay attention to which manures can be added fresh versus which manures are hot and need to compost and break down before you can plant in them.
Chickens. Goats. Cows. Alpacas. Sheep. Rabbit. Horses. All are great sources of manure. If you don’t have any of these animals yourself, check in your community. Most large farms are looking for a way to unload the stuff after barn cleanings. All it takes is a shovel and some manual labor to go get it.
Spent Hay or Straw
Hay or straw is an easy way to add a large amount of green matter to your soil. It’s best used as a top dressing and allow it to decompose on the soil adding organic matter and nutrients as it does. Fresh bales can be expensive, but often you can find farms giving away bales that have gone bad- have gotten wet, moldy, or spoiled in some other way. You can also visit places that sell fresh bales and offer to sweep out the truck and take all the busted bales and loose material. You can also get wasted hay, that animals have picked through and is now on the ground getting stomped on.
If you are worried about weed seeds, just allow your hay to sit for a few months- allowing any seeds to sprout and the material to decompose a bit. Or just layer it all on in the fall as you put the garden to bed for the winter and let it rot until spring planting time comes along.
Do be careful about where you get your hay or straw from- some farmers spray their fields with a certain chemical that can harm your plants.
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