Wordy Wednesday {Wine}

Connections...they make life meaningful.

When I taught, I asked my students how they connected to the book they were reading. Did the book remind them of another book they had read or a movie they had seen? Could they relate to any of the characters? Did something in the book bring back a memory?

Fast forward from the classroom to today's grocery shopping. I love to browse in the wine shop and look at the labels on the bottles. And yes, I will buy a bottle of wine because I like the label. And that happened today.

The Stump Jump...an Australian sauvignon blanc. I like sauvignon blanc and the name made me smile. It connected me back to the days when I would visit my grandparents who lived on a farm outside of Bloomington, Illinois. My grandpa taught me a tongue twister and it went like this:

A skunk sat on a stump.

The stump said the the skunk stunk 

and the skunk said the stump stunk.

Grandpa could say the tongue twister really fast without any mistakes. I remember trying to say it with a top front tooth missing...that was a "dithathter!"

Cheers to childhood memories ~

Back in the Day...

Recently I've been cleaning out drawers. I have quite a few that have been stuffed with "stuff" and the "stuff" needs to either be organized or be tossed. I came across this comic from quite a few years ago. It screamed my name then and brings a smile to my face today because that was me living through all that fun, wacky, exasperating craziness. Life with four kids who are under 6 years apart in age...loved it back in the day...love where their lives are taking them now...wouldn't have done it any other way!

And then there's this little tidbit of fortune cookie wisdom that goes hand-in-hand with the divided distraction of a busy mom...

– ♥ –

Wordy Wednesday {The Letter "W"}

Welcome to the wonderful world of the letter "W"...and always on Wednesday!

– ♥ –

Back in the day of raising little kids, my four loved to listen to music. One of their favorite CASSETTES (I told you this was back in the day!) was from the Sesame Street gang, "Sing the Alphabet." They played this over and over and over in their cassette player and whenever we went anywhere I had to pop it into the cassette player in the mini-van. 

So for "Wordy Wednesday" the very clever lyrics that Bert sings to the National Association of "W" Lovers...ah, memories! 

"The National Association of 'W' Lovers"

Music by Joe Raposo

Lyrics by Jerry Juhl

Copyright 1973 by Instructional Children's Music, Inc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukBp2XYFCRk

Bert: All right, all right, everybody. Settle down. Come on now. Welcome to the weekly meeting of the National Association of "W" Lovers. We are gathered here today to pay tribute to that great letter "W" and the wondrous sound it makes..."Wuh!"

Isn't that lovely? "Wuh!" Yeah, it makes the heart pound faster. All right.

Now if you turn to page four in the manual, we will sing the club's song. 

All right, everybody, turn to page four. That's it. All right. Now is everybody ready? Here we go.

(Music starts)

I'll begin. You can join in later. Here we go.

(Sung)

Oh, what is the letter we love?

What sound are we extra fond of?

It's not any trouble

You know it's a "W"

When you hear "Wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh!"

Without this fine letter

You couldn't say "wash"

Or "witch," "wax," or "wiggle"

My gosh! Huh!

There wouldn't be "wet," "warm," or "walrus"

Oh wow!

There wouldn't be "wood"

Would there now? Uh-uh!

Without this great "Wuh" sound

Well, "wink" would be "ink"

And "week" would be "eek"

Don't you see? Of course.

A fine word like "waffle"

Would turn out just "awful"

Oh, "W's" grand as can be.

All: So what is the letter we love?

The sound that we're extra fond of?

It's not any trouble

You know it's a "W"

When you hear "Wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh!"

(Music ends)

Bert: Oh wow! That was wonderful! 

Have a Cookie ~

I have four kids so over the course of many years, I have had many "mom cars." My first mom car came after the birth of my son and it was a little navy blue Ford station wagon. It served its purpose well...got to child #3 with that one. 1990 came and #4 was on his way. Time to jump on the mini-van bandwagon. Hello, Dodge Caravan. The Caravan logged lots of miles and then the kids became involved in sports which took us to out-of-town tournaments. Hello, carpools and the big ole urban war wagon, the Chevy Suburban. I LOVED that truck! Lots of miles, lots of memories in that one. Then all at once, it was time for child #1 to go to college. We decided to downsize to a Chevy Tahoe. That Tahoe has hauled each kid and his or her stuff to college, moved college furniture to storage facilities and then back to the new college residence, trekked on many Spring Breaks, and yanked a few stubborn stumps out of the ground . It's my "baby," fondly nicknamed War Horse.

Backtrack a few years. My 27th wedding anniversary, my 50th birthday, and Christmas all came within a span of 5 months. My so very thoughtful husband who loves nice cars surprised me with a fun hard-top Lexus convertible for Christmas. I am a lucky girl. It's a great car (even though way down deep I am a truck girl).

My only beef with Lexus is that service is EXPENSIVE. One of my windshield wipers broke and after calling around town to find a non-Lexus place to replace it and having no luck, I took it to the dealer. The waiting area was just lovely, the bathroom had beautiful artwork and good smelling hand soap from Bath and Bodyworks, fresh cookies on a table. It was a lovely place to wait an hour and read.

The very nice service consultant directed me to the desk to pay my bill. $78.00 to replace both wipers. 

Ouch. 

Thanks for the cookie.