New to me!

Daughter Kim gifted me with the yummiest lotions and soap for Christmas scented with lavender and sweet tonka.  Tonka!! Never heard of it before. 

Wikipedia tells us it comes from the beans of a  tree grown mainly in Venezuala and Nigeria.

 "Tonka beans are used as a vanilla substitute, as a perfume and in tobacco before being banned in some countries.  They are used in some French cuisine (particularly in desserts and stews)"

This product is advertised as a sleep aid.  The last two nights I've slept like a baby after a hot shower using the soap and lotion.  Besides, I smell damn good!

word of the day . . . sussurus

I'm currently reading a book aptly named "Boundary Waters" which takes place in Northern Minnesota in a region of wilderness straddling the Canadian and United States border.  It's a modern day story about the tracking of a woman through that vast network of waterways by a group of men led by an Ojibwe boy.

Living my first 17 years just a bit south and west of Duluth, I enjoyed hearing the names again of familiar towns and lakes.  

But, I digress!  The word "sussurus" stopped me from going on midway through the book, and I just had to look up its meaning.   Sussurus (of the stream) is whispering, murmuring or rustling.  Don't you love it when the sound of the word is the same as its meaning.

"Boundary Waters", along with other books by William Kent Krueger, take place in this part of our beautiful country.  This is my first book by this author, but I will be reading more of his novels.

Four Pin Friday

Word of the day . . . Fractal

noun

1. 1.

   a curve or geometric figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. Fractals are useful in modeling structures (such as eroded coastlines or snowflakes) in which similar patterns recur at progressively smaller scales, and in describing partly random or chaotic phenomena such as crystal growth, fluid turbulence, and galaxy formation.

"The whole universe is based on rhythms.  Everything happens in circles, in spirals."

John Hartford 

fractal mineral

sacred geometry in nature . . . amphibian

satellite eye on earth

the golden ratio in sunflower heads

Four Pin Friday

Generally I find myself out of the loop concerning fashion, so it wasn't surprising a few days ago to hear a word that I hadn't heard in maybe 40 or 50 years. Consequently, this blog combines my Pinterest "Four Pin Friday" and "Word of the Day"!

. . . PEPLUM . . .

Apparently women are still styling with this fashion statement as I found numerous examples today on the Pinterest site.

Since clothes shopping is low on my list of favorite things to do, I could probably dig deep enough in my closet to find a peplum in there from the 80s.  I may even find some big old jackets with shoulder pads, mini skirts or granny dresses!!  If I wait long enough I'll never have to go shopping for clothes . . . all those fashions will again be foisted on the well~dressed woman.

Four Pin Friday

Nebulae:  A visible, thinly spread cloud of interstellar gas and dust. 

 Some nebulae are the remnants of a supernova explosion, others are gravity-induced condensations of the gases in the interstellar medium which in certain cases may become a site for the formation of new stars. 

 The term was formerly used of any hazy, seemingly cloudlike object, including what are now recognized as other galaxies beyond the Milky Way; it is restricted now to actual clouds of gas and dust within our own galaxy. 

 Nebulae are generally classified as bright or dark. Among the bright nebulae are cold clouds that reflect light from nearby stars (reflection nebulae) and hot, ionized clouds that glow with their own light (emission nebulae). 

 Dark nebulae are cold clouds that absorb the passing light from background stars and are called absorption nebulae.

Thank you Pinterest.  Your photos have led me to another "word of the day" and further knowledge into the world of and meaning of nebula (nebulae).  What beauty there is in our solar system!!

Four Pin Friday

This post not only includes four fabulous Pinterest finds but a "Word of the Day" as well.

My SIL introduced me to a new (to me) word on Facebook yesterday . . . "Fibonacci".  Where have I been all my life?  I've been using these geometric spirals in my quilts, artwork and musings forever and had never known the word for them.  Pinterest has a ton of examples and I was so excited to dip into them all!

So without further ado . . . four fabulous Fibonacci finds:

 in the home

 in artwork

in nature

  in architecture

How to Draw a Fibonacci Spiral

Word of the day . . . circumhorizontal arc

I woke up this morning with a picture in my mind of a once in a lifetime image from a few years ago.  I knew it had a name and so I consulted t.o.b. hoping he would remember.  His mind went blank but he knew he had it in his well organized filing system somewhere . . .

and sure enough after a bit of digging, there it was!

A circumhorizontal arc is an optical phenomenon - an ice halo formed by plate-shaped ice crystals in high level cirrus clouds.

I found this photo on Wikipedia describing it as "near Coeur d'Alene, ID".  It may be the same one we saw while at a Farmers Market in Liberty Lake, WA (a few miles from Cd'A) a few summers ago.

How often a circumhorizontal arc is seen, depends on the location and the latitude of the observer.

Alentejo, Portugal

The arc has a considerable angular extent and thus, rarely is complete as opposed to the halo that is sometimes seen around the sun. When only fragments of a cirrus cloud are in the appropriate sky and sun position, they may appear to shine with spectral colours.

Ravenna, Michigan

A circumhorizontal arc may be difficult to distinguish from an infralateral arc when the sun is high in the sky. The former is always parallel to the horizon, whereas the latter curves upward at its ends.

Word of the Day . . . Mariposa*

The latest challenge posed on the ATC_World Yahoo group is to make three butterfly ATCs.  Since butterflies are some of my favorite critters, I jumped at the chance and finished these three in two days!

Used some beautiful papers that Dawn gifted me, some jewels, a postage stamp, ribbons and pressed weeds, etc. to make these 2.5" x 3.5" artworks that will be traded in the swap.  

ATCs are only to be gifted or exchanged ... never sold.  It's the law!

*My Spanish/Portugese is very limited so didn't know that mariposa was another word for BUTTERFLY

Word of the day ... Upcycle

There are unicycles, motorcycles, bicycles, tricycles and recycles.  Now there is upcycle ... not a term I was familiar with until a new swap challenge on ATC_World. 

Wikipedia states that its been in the English lexicon since 1994 but, as usual, I'm out of the loop and behind the times.  Here is the Wiki definition:

 Upcycling is the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or for better environmental value.

So with trim, colored pencils, bedazzling, playing cards, fabrics and postage stamps, here is the result of my upcycled 3/3 ATCs

I don't know about the environmental value, but it sure was fun and challenging!

Word of the Day . . . tilth

A word that was foreign to us was found on the back of a wine bottle as I read about its properties.  My sister~in~law gifted us three bottles of California wine and "tilth of the soil" was used to describe this bottle of "WORK HORSE RED".

 Wikipedia explains it thus:

Tilth can refer to two things:^[1]
Tillage and a measure of the health of soil.
Good tilth is a term referring to soil that has the proper structure and nutrients to grow healthy crops. Soil in good tilth is loamy, nutrient-rich soil that can also be said to be friable because optimal soil has a mixture of sand, clay and organic matter that prevents severe compaction. Farmers will sometimes make sure that their crop rotation is that of which will allow good seed bedding along with a strong root system for proper nutrient disbursement throughout various soil depths.

You farmgirls out there probably already had a leg up on this lesson, but I would bet not many people were familiar with the word???

These three bottles of dry reds were in payment for a business logo my hubby designed for SIL Ann.  Altho he asked not to be compensated for his artwork, we will truly enjoy this nectar of the Gods!!