writing Christmas letters and other frustrations of a non-speller

yes, its my annual incursion with writing a Christmas letter that goes out to folks near and far to keep them updated on what is happening in our lives since I don't talk to them every day/week/month.....

This year's "remembering" has been easier because I have been blogging (and keeping copies) all year .... my way to keep a journal --- I'd never do it any other way

this also brings me to why my Webster's Dictionary is falling apart --- even with it, I CAN NOT SPELL!

To those of you that can hear a word and simply plunk it into whatever you are working on I can officially say I HATE YOU!! Ok, maybe hate is too strong a word, but it does express my frustration.

Much of the time I end up either spending HOURS with the dictionary (yes that's spelled right but only because I LOOKED!) or just using a lot of synonyms (you know, those words you use when you can't spell the other one!) But most of the time that means that what I put on paper (or in cyber blog land) may not really be what I exactly meant to say (but I'm too afraid of being perceived as stupid to just let fly and ignore the spelling and hope folks will "get" what I'm saying)

And don't tell me that I can always "look it up"!! The problem here is that the dictionary is organized by how things are spelled, which is not necessarily how I hear it. I worked myself into a near tizzy the other day because I was writing something that included the rather innocuous word "auxiliary".

Sure, I can type it now, but I ended up having to ask my DH to look it up for me. (And along the way he's saying to me "its about the derivation of the words" -- yeah, this from a guy that at one time could carry on a complete conversation in LATIN!!!)

Here's why: that word to me sounds like it should be spelled "augzilary" -- now do you see my point?

What is this magic that lets people hear all those words and be able to tell what the letters really are? Is there some sort of special kind of dyslexia at work here? And so, I am a frustrated writer.....wanting to say what I want to say and afraid to say it because I can't spell it.....ARRRGGHHHH!!

Ok, now that I have that out of my system, I'm going back to work -- perhaps tomorrow a rant about why I can't do math in my head (or not!)