Posted on by LA · 48 Comments

And Sometimes…

My Husband and I play WORDLE, and my Husband introduced my Father in Law to the game. he usually texts my husband to tell him how many turns he needed.

So one Sunday morning, where the word was, I think, psych, my Husband gets a text from his Father:

FIL– Do all words need vowels?

HUSBAND– What do you think the vowels are?

FIL– A E I O U

HUSBAND– And sometimes Y

My FIL calls my Husband- incensed. He says that neither he nor his partner have ever heard of this nonsense about Y being a vowel. He thinks my Husband is making this up. He’s yelling that I should ask my parents what the vowels are.

So I call my parents, who not only say Y, they also add that W can also be a vowel.

My FIL challenges my Husband: Name a word that uses Y as a vowel?

My Husband responds: WHY.

My FIL starts to talk: Be… Goodbye Son. Have a good day.

Posted on by LA · 80 Comments

The Positive Truth

I will totally admit that when the blogger told me that I wasn’t positive, it hurt me a little.

There.

I said it.

However- I went pretty quickly from being hurt, to what Kim said the other day in a comment, which was roughly along the lines of: Who said that being positive was always a good thing?

But back to the original point- when people say things to you, they can hurt. Words can hurt. The trick is figuring out if they hurt because what was said was horrible, or if you think what the person said about you is true…

Do we really want to look our worst traits in the face?

We have a friend who talks a lot (and let me preface this by saying my Husband and I are champion talkers, and this guy makes us look like we are in the minor leagues) So one day the guy was saying how his son talks a lot. My husband and I laughed and we made some sort of apple/tree comparison, and our friend was stunned, I mean flabbergasted, that we thought he talked a lot, because he was 100% positive that he was quiet as a mouse… He was hurt by the realization that he was actually quite loquacious. And we didn’t mean to hurt him- we were just stating a fact…We thought there was no way this guy didn’t know he was a talker. We were wrong…

My positive/not positive thought process went as follows:

  1. Told I wasn’t positive
  2. Hurt and self doubt
  3. Thinking about what is positive
  4. Considering ways that I am positive
  5. Realizing how positivity can be a bad thing
  6. Accepting the fact that I am balanced
  7. Realizing that too much positivity is bad
  8. Taking the rainbow and unicorn sweater out of my Amazon cart

When/if someone has ever said something to you that hurt, how did you react? How did you handle the comment? What is your advice to someone who has been hurt by words?

Posted on by LA · 47 Comments

Choice v. Decision

When you reach a fork in the road, do you choose to turn left, or do you decide to turn left?

What is the difference between a choice and a decision?

I made Darjeeling tea this morning as opposed to making Assam. Did I choose Darjeeling or did I decide on Darjeeling?

On the surface, these two words appear to be interchangeable. I’m sure if we were writing a paper and noticed that we were overusing “choice” at some point we would change some of the words to “decision”. But are there subtle differences between the two words?

Do you put the same amount of thought into a choice as you would a decision?

I went out to eat with my daughter on Friday. She asked me if I wanted to split the onion soup and the corn ravioli. My options were:

  1. split the soup and ravioli
  2. get my own meal completely
  3. split the onion soup but not the ravioli
  4. split the ravioli but not the soup

My thought process:

  1. It’s over 80 degrees. I get that the onion soup is supposed to be amazing, but do I really want hot soup today?
  2. The burger is also supposed to be amazing, but it’s big and my daughter doesn’t eat meat, so do I want to carry around half a burger or throw away food? (sidenote- one of my biggest pet peeves is throwing away food)
  3. How easy is it to split a bowl of soup?
  4. Sweet corn ravioli is something I don’t often see on a menu and I know this place gets their stuff from the Farmer’s Market.

I know. All this from the simple question of do you want to do splitsys with dinner…

But really- this wasn’t a life altering trajectory. When faced with the four options, when it came down to it, I made a CHOICE to split the meal with my daughter. It might seem, on the surface, that I had four possibilities for an answer, and four possible reasons as to why I should or should not split the meal, but really, what I have for dinner on a random Friday is not really life altering. This was dinner with my daughter not Kool Aid with Jim Jones…

Therefore, I hereby decree that CHOICE is something we do when the situation is not life altering. A choice is simple- it ends after you choose. You go about your life as normal…

So if choice is non life altering, then decision would be…

Drumroll…

Decision is life altering…

I decide where to live.

I decide how to take care of my health.

Decisions would require greater thought and perhaps a much greater pro/con list than a choice. Decision might be harder to reverse- if you decide to buy a car, if you don’t want it anymore you could lose money, etc… I’m assuming no one really wants to lose money…

The obvious next question is: Am I being pedantic?

While your obvious answer choice is probably YES, maybe you should give a little more thought to it…

Is there a difference between the words?

I love language, and I love all the words that come with it. With the plethora of words at our disposal, shouldn’t we try to find the word that best fits what we are doing.

When you face the fork in the road, how do you know which tine to meander down? How much thought do you give to left or right, forward or reverse…does everything you do require great contemplation, or do certain issues matter more?

Do you choose? Do you decide?

Is there a difference between decision and choice? Or does it just not matter?

Posted on by LA · 50 Comments

R is for…

I’m thinking we need a primer for romance. So I’ve adapted my thoughts on what romance is:

R– Respect

O– Openness

M– Making an effort

A– Appeal

N– No Harping

C– Communication

E– Expressing feelings

So you see my ideas…

What word/word group would you use to describe romance? For my game, you must use the letters in romance.

What do you think are the keys to romance?

Begin:

Posted on by LA · 99 Comments

Crisp White

I hate the term “crisp white”.

Hate it.

As I’ve read a lot of books lately, I notice this phrase becoming more and more popular. It’s usually used to describe bed linens or shirts- It means starched or pressed to perfection. It means a true white: no shades of tan or grey or blue: just pale, bleached cotton.

When you are trying to describe something, it helps having a word or phrase that elicits all sorts of thoughts when you read them. Crisp white is one of those words: it can signal perfection, or a level of order. It can describe contrast. It’s a pretty nifty trick to be able to use a word like crisp to precede a very bland color, and be able to tell a story.

I should applaud phraseology like this: however I shun it.

I just don’t ever want to read the words “crisp white” ever again.

Do you think they could do trigger warnings for words?

Because these words give me anxiety…

Why do some words or phrases just drive us crazy?

Is it overuse? Or is it something else?

Do you have any words or phrases that make you go “ewwww”?

Which words or phrases would you like to get rid of?

Discuss