February 26, 2017

Today we celebrate:

Carnival Day - This is a day to celebrate the fun of carnivals. There are lots of different kinds of carnivals...some travel from place to place, others are created by local schools or businesses on a yearly basis. You can have carnivals in the winter, spring, summer or fall depending on what kinds of activities you have available. I wouldn’t do a dunking booth in the wintertime in Colorado, for example. See if you can find one today.

National Personal Chef's Day – According to the American Personal & Private Chef Association, this is a day to thank your personal chef, or to find one if you don't have one already. However, the United States Personal Chef Association also created a day with this name on July 16th. So I guess you can celebrate either day. I think it would be absolutely heavenly to have someone come to my home and make dinner for me. Fortunately, whenever he can be done with work early enough, my husband is my personal chef.

For Pete's Sake Day – An old expression used as a mild oath, I'm often guilty of saying it myself in a fit of annoyance. There is a lot of disagreement, but it seems to date back to somewhere around 1900 and “Pete” may be a shortened reference to St. Peter as in “For St. Peter's Sake, turn down that phonograph before you go deaf!”.

Thermos Bottle Day - Created in the 1950’s, these marvelous devices that kept your coffee or soup warm for a long time were an amazing innovation. They still work well in all the modern forms you can find today, but I find myself a little nostalgic for the old fashioned thermos with the red twist off top that doubled as a coffee mug or soup bowl.

Levi Strauss Day – Born on this day in 1829 in Bavaria, Levi Strauss was the father of the jeans we all wear today. He came to this country in 1847 to work for his brother, then he branched out for himself in 1853 when he went west and began his own dry goods and clothing store. In the 1870's he began making heavy duty work pants which we now call jeans and his company is still in operation today. Jacob Davis was a tailor who had the idea of using copper rivets to reinforce the jeans in specific spots like pocket corners and at the top of the button fly. But he didn't have the money to patent his idea so he asked Levi to join with him on the idea. They received the patent in 1873. They did well, but it wasn't until 1955 that jeans really came into fashion. That was when the movie Rebel Without A Cause was released with James Dean wearing jeans. After that, everyone wanted to wear them. I’m not surprised. James Dean looked very good in jeans after all, and everyone wanted to look just like him.

World Pistachio Day – We celebrated this back on January 26th as a national day but today the whole world gets to join in. Pistachios are so good that I think they should be celebrated every day so go ahead and get some more. Especially since they are good for you. They contain fiber, copper, manganese and Vitamin B6, all of which are healthy so have a handful right now.

Tell A Fairy Tale Day – When my kids were little, I used to read them fairy tales all the time. Now that they are bigger, I expect they will protest a little bit and tell me that they are too old for that, but I'll read to them anyway even if I have to sit on them to get them to listen. If you don't want to go that far with your older kids, just read a few to yourself. Don't forget to do all the voices. Stories are always better if you do the voices right.