2014 - What I learned...

This year, I have decided to make this blog a true web log - a way to keep track of something new I learn everyday. So far, I have been logging my lessons, findings and facts in my phone calendar, but I will begin posting these here, now. Today's entry will include the past week's. I hope I am able to add photos to make this much more exciting, but for now, it might just be a list:

Jan 1 - A drive to Malibu is always a good idea.

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Jan 2 - I will never again take modern plumbing for granted.
Jan 3 - I get sad when my mom leaves. Every time. Yeah, living so far from family is rough.

Jan 4 - Spanish moss, found in the trees in the deep south like FL - is apparently covered in hard-biting chiggers. Never touch this.




Jan 5 - According to Dom, dogs should not eat walnuts.

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Jan 6 - I have always wondered about the word "purple". How come in so many languages, the color is known as some form of "violet", yet in American English we use the term "purple". Well, in reading the book Folk Art by Tina Kafka, I learned that the process of harvesting purple from a species of shellfish is done along the Pacific coast of Mexico:
"the Purpura Patula is picked off wet rocks at low tide; the dyer squeezes and blows on the mollusk which, in distress, secretes a liquid onto the yarn held against it. Within the next three minutes, the substance turns from transparent, to dull yellow, vivid green and finally purple. The shellfish is then returned to the sea, only to be "milked" again a month later. (Jacqueline Herald, World Crafts. Asheville: Lark Books, 1992. p.130)"

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