Better Than Tar

Just one flower.  Sometimes, that's all it takes to make me smile. One little bud. See it in the middle of this fun bouquet of stuff? It's a gardenia, home grown, from a sweet little third-grade girl who herself has bloomed like a flower right before my eyes this year. I'm gonna be SO sad to say good-bye to this bunch of students! 


So this girl finds me yesterday to bring me this flower, all the way down the hall to my office where construction on our new entrance has been going on for months. Above me, a roofing crew has also been banging and pounding to outfit us with a new roof. Most every day for a long time.  It's been quite an ordeal. When she found me, she handed me the bud and gave me the biggest hug ever. I asked her how she knew I loved gardenias and she said she'd heard me mention them on the announcements the day before. Gotta LOVE a good listener! I said, "Thank you; it's going to make my office smell SO good," to which she rapidly replied, "Better than tar!"  How right she is. 


That takes me back to the chapter about our senses in John Medina's book Brain Rules.  If you haven't read it yet, you really must treat yourself because this information makes SO much scents!  Click here for a compelling clip from that brain book on the workings of sensory integration. I especially like the part about how powerful our sense of smell is and the Starbucks data that backs up that claim.  Yes, my dear, the gardenia smells WAY better than tar!