Yesterday the choice of holidays was National Bootlegger Day, National Hot Buttered Rum Day and Ditch Your New Year’s Resolutions Day. I went with the latter and skipped writing my daily blog post. I did, however, spend the time redesigning the blog. What do you think of it?

Anyway, today – Jan. 18 – offers two great holidays. National Winnie the Pooh Day and National Thesaurus Day.

First of all, Winnie the Pooh is awesome so definitely want to celebrate author A.A. Milne’s birthday. My mother-in-law bought us the box set of the Pooh Library  (which includes “Winnie-The-Pooh,” “The House at Pooh Corner,” “When We Were Very Young” and “Now We Are Six”) and I’ve read through it twice so far with my kids. Such clever writing and beautiful stories.

Here are some memorable quotes :

Piglet: ‘How do you spell love?’
Pooh: ‘You don’t spell it, you feel it.’

‘I’m not lost for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost.’

‘The things that make me different are the things that make me.’

“Well,’ said Pooh, ‘what I like best,’ and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn’t know what it was called.’

“What day is it?”
“It’s today,” squeaked Piglet.
“My favorite day,” said Pooh.

“Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, when we were underneath it?”
“Supposing it didn’t,” said Pooh after careful thought.
Piglet was comforted by this.

“…. Poetry and hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is to go where they can find you.”

It was so fun to read it out loud to the kids – the books really captured their attention and the characters are so phenomenal and really capture some key points of people’s personalities. Hasn’t everyone known an Eeyore in their life? Or the “wise” Owl who uses really large words in an attempt to sound intelligent but then nobody can understand what he’s trying to say. Or the bossy Rabbit or bouncy Tigger or timid Piglet who is such a good friend or motherly Kanga and little Roo?

If you haven’t read it yet, I would definitely recommend it.

The stories are amusing, captivating, charming, compelling, delightful, engaging, engrossing, enjoyable, fascinating, fun, funny, humorous, impressive, inspiring, interesting and pleasant.

These are all synonyms for “entertaining” and I was able to say the same thing in many ways thank you to the wonderful thesaurus.

A thesaurus is one of my favorite books and I use it daily (well, now the online version, thesaurus.com), especially if I’m writing and want to find just the right word. When I’m writing songs, I often turn to both the thesaurus and a rhyming dictionary (these days usually rhymebrain.com). There doesn’t seem to be a National Rhyme Dictionary Day (although Sept. 1 is National No Rhyme (No Reason) Day), so let’s take a moment to honor rhyme dictionaries today along with the thesaurus.

OK.

Happy birthday, A.A. Milne!

Our Medley Moment

I had plans tonight and the kids had after-school activities so we didn’t formally celebrate NWTP day, but before I left, I gathered all the Winnie the Pooh characters we have  (no small feat, they were scattered in different places in the house) and sat them all on the couch so they’d be there when everyone else got home.

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