Appreciation and Handwriting

I received the most fantastic print in the mail today. My friend Jess, the Bioephemera blogger, is a wonderful artist and she sent me a print of her latest octopus watercolor. It is gorgeous. Thank you Jess!

I'm planning a light green mat and maybe a reddish wood frame -- Reuel's Art & Frame, here I come. I will hang it in a place of honor when it's framed. The question is where? Shall I be greedy and hang it in my office where I spend so much of my waking time (leaning strongly towards this option) or put it up in one of the public areas of my home where the Engineer and any company can enjoy it too? Decisions, decisions...

So I sat down and wrote Jess a thank you note. Geeze o' pete, it's hard to believe what typing on a computer keyboard all the time has done to my handwriting.

It's not that my handwriting's ever been copperplate like my Mother's and sister's, it's always looked more like my Dad's -- which is good with me. Dad's handwriting is bold and crisp with well formed letters. The lines of writing are of uniform size and spacing, running on an even horizontal across the page. Sigh, about all I have left of that is the fairly straight horizontal line. Otherwise it's all over the place; uneven spacing and slant, letters of different sizes, typos.

Typos!

How can a person make typos when writing by hand?

Raw talent, I guess.

I've even lost most of the big pen callus/pad/lump on my middle finger, though I still have a good, concave dip to stabilize the pen at the first joint.

Hmmm... A virtual return to grade school penmanship class is called for. Practice, practice, practice. Build my callus back up, regain uniformity and grace.

While I'm at it, I should get a book on world geography too. A refresher course there would not go amiss.

P.S. The cats are well on the road to recovery, though the vet still has no idea what they caught.