Quirky {CELEBRATE This Week: 214}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

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Andy and the oldest three kids went to the Friday night high school football game. Sam and I stayed home because he's not feeling well. It might have more to do with his bearded dragon who died last night rather than actually being sick.

Sam said, "I could play video games, but I'd rather sit on the couch together while you write and I read. Do you mind, Mom?"

(I didn't mind.)

I've been reading Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal: not exactly a memoir since June. I haven't finished it. I don't want it to be over. I keep rereading some parts. I jump to new chapters every now and then. I haven't read it all. I didn't realize I was doing this, and now that I do, it seems too sad to finish the book. 

(I think Amy might have understood this better than I do.)

There are some bits called:

defining word.

I think I should write one of my own.

defining word

quirky

1. If you feel something, you feel it in

your heart and in your brain. You feel it

too big. This makes your eyes fill up and

your head hurt when your family goes to 

the football game, but you're still thinking

about your pet lizard who died the night 

before. You miss your lizard even if she

wasn't snuggly.

2. People often save things just for you 

that should be recycled because they know

you will appreciate the unique hinge of the 

box lid or the extra length of bubble wrap or

the odd size of a cardboard tube. You make 

things like giant robots and ATM machines. 

You add motors to ships and conveyor belts 

and airplanes. You create animals and race 

cars; machines and solutions. You might take

 over the dining room and tell everyone who 

comes in the front door, "Welcome to my 

inventor's studio. This is where the magic 

happens." Then you ask them to push a button

 on your Lego creation, which triggers a lever

 to set in motion a pulley that turns on a motor

 and cranks gears to create confetti. 

3. You can never have too much confetti (unless

 you're a dad...sometimes dads get tired of 

picking up little bits of confetti).

4. What if, instead of being enchanted by 

eccentricities and oddities, you conformed to be 

like everyone else. Maybe you would, say, only 

wear clothes that match. I imagine you wouldn't 

ever wear plaid and stripes together again. Your 

gym shoes would be white or grey, rather than fire 

engine red high tops that accentuate your knobby 

knees. Also, you would wear jeans, even if you think 

they are uncomfortable. And you would wear them 

with the button and zipper in front, even though the 

back pockets are more roomy and handy to have 

in front.

5. You sometimes get the sense that the important 

things to you aren't the things other people think are 

important. For example, it might be important to finish 

sorting all of the pieces from the Lego bin so you can 

make a candy machine for smarties instead of setting 

the dinner table. Even when dinner is on the plates and 

the plates on the table and your family is sitting at the 

table waiting for napkins and silverware and prayer, and 

you are looking for the remaining perfect piece to 

complete your candy machine, you still don't understand 

why they think forks are more important than the yellow 

Lego piece with the hole in the side.

6. You might smirk at the sky because a cloud shape 

reminds you of a silly fish you saw at the pet store last 

weekend. You chuckle at things the rest of the world is 

too busy to notice, and you never miss the oppor"pun"ity  

to be punny.

7. Theodor Seuss Geisel was proud of his quirk. Let's not 

forget his words -- "Today you are you, that is truer than 

true.There is no one alive who is you-er than you."

8. I like quirky. 

9. Always.

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I hope you have as much fun finding the celebrations as I did writing this "defining word." Share your celebrations below!