Day 73: 3 gifts from my window

Today I'm having a hard time with gratefulness, that is with pinning something down that I feel truly grateful for. So I am using Ann Voscamp's November Joy Dares as my guide. I like her guide because it prompts me to get outside of my small mind and small world and expand. It's like taking a deep breath of good air and letting my lungs fill to capacity instead of taking the normal, small breaths. Gratitude fills me to capacity so I have to exhale it toward others.
Today's prompt is three gifts seen from my window. So here you go.
1) Clear blue skies
2) Leaves that have fallen and are dancing along the ground
3) Watching my redheaded wonders walk into their schools

Comments

Butter someone up

There are two probable origins for this idiom and I think both are equally plausible. The first one is that when you spread butter on bread you are buttering it up like one would do when trying to flatter someone. The second is in ancient India there was a practice of throwing balls of butter at statues to ask for favor, i.e. buttering them up. ( source ) When we use the phrase today we generally mean that extreme flattery is used to gain information or favor. It's not always necessarily a compliment.

Call it a Day

The literal use of this phrase hails from 1838 when the phrase originally was "call it half a day" to mean leaving work early. (source) The modern use of the phrase is to indicate ending something due to false sense of accomplishment.

More bang for your buck

This phrase was used a lot in 1953 but an earlier citation puts it at 1940 in a Metals and Plastics Publications advertisement. Read about it here . The phrase means you get more for your money.

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