Day 153: Gift Cards

Today the hub and I spent not one but TWO gift cards we had received. One we received, and no I am not kidding, almost 2 years ago from some friends! The other I won at my company Christmas party back in December. Both gift cards took us to an area of our city that we don't often get to (thus the almost 2 year wait on redeeming the one) and it was fun. It was fun to enter into a store we hadn't been before and imagine what our sweet friends were thinking for us when they got us this gift card. (The Olive Tap in Manitou, so fun! I got a Sorrento Lemon Olive Oil and a Jalapeno Olive Oil - delish!) It was fun to go to a restaurant we usually wouldn't and have a different kind of dining experience than we normally do. (The Mona Lisa Fondue Restaurant in Manitou, delicious food!) We were driving home and I felt grateful that we had a fun, out of the norm for us, date and I felt spoiled by it all.

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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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