Pushing aside the meaningless to get to meaningful

Clutter is the meaningless getting in the way of the meaningful. http://www.imperfecthomemaking.com/2011/10/organizedhome-day-8-defining-clutter.html

I have quite a few framed pictures of people I love around my house. I happen to have a rather large collection on this counter top that separates our kitchen from our "dining room". I love those pictures. I think that they are a representation of what's important to me and my family and that's simply we have people whom we love and whom love us. (At the end of the day - and life - that's what is going to matter the most but that's a different blog!) But that counter top is like the bane of our family. It has become the clutter catch-all. It's kind of the first surface that is easy to lay stuff down on when you walk through the door. So it gets cluttered pretty quickly. Some weeks we keep it fairly cleared and then other weeks...well I'd prefer to just leave it to your imagination.
Here's my point and it goes perfectly with today's quote. When that counter top gets too cluttered I don't see the pictures that I love any longer. The clutter gets in the way of those faces that I love and I know love me. Those faces are very meaningful in my life but the clutter distracts me from them...more often than I'd like.
Sure it's a simple example of how true today's quote is but maybe it got you thinking. What clutter is in your life (seen or unseen) that is getting in the way of meaningful living?

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.

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.

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