Upside Down Cats

Today at my daycare there were three preschoolers: Four-and-a-half and almost four-year-old girls and an almost four-year-old boy. At one point the girls ganged up on the boy and excluded him from their dramatic play, demanding, "Leave us alone!" As far as I could tell, he hadn't done anything to cause him to be ostracized, other than be a boy at that particular point in time... You know, wrong time, wrong gender...

When he pressed to continue to play with the girls, the 4 1/2-year-old stomped off, arms crossed angrily across her midsection, exclaiming, "I quick!"

Of course she meant, "I quit!" but it was a very amusing turn for a volatile situation...at least for me!

Five minutes later, of course, they were all playing happily together again...

Go figure... Those flighty females!

Today's installment of Too Cute! is brought to you by a four-year-old girl in my daycare - and Disney.

We were watching the previews before the movie Pocahontas and she said, "Look, Gina, it's The Punchback" (of Notre Dame)!

I suppose the word punch is a lot more common in a four-year-old's world than hunch...and I'm glad for that!

Today I'm revisiting an old friend...my Favorite Words series. The inspiration to write about today's word came from my Sweetie, Scott's recent post titled, Build Your Own Best Of - Steely Dan. His post is part of his series where he compiles a list of his personal choices for a Best Of collection of a musician's or a band's recordings.

I always have a running list of favorite words and this one has been on the list since its inception...

Continue reading "One Of My Favorite Words ... »

I seem to have a never-ending supply of cute quotes from my little daycare children!

In today's installment of Too Cute! we find a three-year-old girl playing with a doll and combing her hair. Apparently, the doll's hair was tangled - in knots - if you will.

With a determined look on her face and comb in hand, I heard her declare, "She's got nuts in her hair!"

My favorite word I'd like to write about today is Shalom.

In a very broad sense, it means "peace" in Hebrew.

Like a lot of my favorite words, though, it conveys so much more in itself than can be expressed with any one English word.

In addition to expressing the concept of peace, it can be used as a greeting, ("I greet you in peace"), a well-wish, ("peace to you") or a salutation, ("go in peace").

Peace is a deceptively complex concept. Once upon a time a little boy - 5 or 6 years old - in my daycare asked what "peace" meant...

I think he'd heard the word in a Christmas song..."Peace on Earth..."

Continue reading "One Of My Favorite Words ... »

In another installment of Too Cute, we find a 4 1/2-year-old girl using - or rather, misusing - a common expression to great comic result...(Well, at least it made me chuckle!)

I believe she had heard the expression, "Ready as I'll ever be."

When she repeated it, it came out, "Ready as a lever bee."

I tried to correct her (in between my fits of laughter) but she would not be convinced that she was wrong...silly me, what do I know about familiar phrases anyway?!

So what's a lever bee?

“Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought.” - E. Y. (Yip) Harburg, lyricist of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’

Recently I was reading Malvina Reynolds' daughter, Nancy Schimmel's blog, Writing Malvina and I discovered this quote. It struck me as the perfect answer to a question Scott and I often ponder and discuss, "Are song lyrics poetry? Can they stand alone and convey the same meaning as they do when accompanied by their music?"

Our consensus was (usually) that although lyrics often can stand up to analysis in much the same way as a poem, there is some indefinable difference between the two.

I think this quote colorfully illustrates why, as far as a song is concerned, in order to convey the entire experience, the words and music are inseparable.

"Shit happens. It’s the way we clean it up that matters."

I heard this on the television show Saving Grace recently...I thought it was an excellent mindset to adopt!

I need reminders like this in my life to help me accept that although I can't control everything that happens to me, I can control how I deal with it. So when misfortune comes along, instead of feeling powerless or angry or frustrated over circumstances, it's up to me to use the experience as an opportunity for personal growth. The important thing is to find what can be gained or learned when given what life hands me.

That is what this quote means to me.

Somebody Get Me A Mop!

"She was a woman who, between courses, could be graceful with her elbows on the table." - Henry James

When I read this quote it painted such a delightful portrait in my imagination of this woman, and the degree of admiration the man who wrote it felt for her. From this one sentence I feel like I know her. I really admire an author's ability to tell the reader so much with so few words. It makes me wish to be the subject of someone's descriptive sentence...I hope it would be complementary...

Perhaps that is one of the reasons I don't appreciate Ernest Hemmingway's style of writing...far to wordy and not that much is said.

I have one of my favorite words for you:

Serendipity

I think the word serendipity expresses a beautiful idea. It means finding an unexpected good thing while looking for something else. It's an appealing thought that there are pleasant surprises in life and that things aren't preordained. It's a valuable concept for me to remember...that there could be a beautiful surprise just around the corner...

And a quote about Serendipity:

"Serendipity: Look for something, find something else, and realize what you've found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for." - Lawrence Brooks

Do I get bonus points for combining two regular features into one fabulous post? It was rather serendipitous that I should be looking for a Gina's Quote Du Jour and surprisingly found one that contained One Of My Favorite Words to boot...don't you think?