Words

 And another month bites the dust.  It's been warm here which made it hard to remember what month it was anyway.  But it's turned cloudy and instead of the 80s we've been having, it's going back to a high in the 60s tomorrow.  I hope the weather change brings some rain.  We really need it.

Words are kind of my business.  Well, with some yarn thrown in.  I always looked at crossword puzzles as something I couldn't do.  I never even tried them since it seemed beyond me.  But then I had a People Magazine on a plane and got to the crossword puzzle at the back of the magazine and started to play around with it.  Wonder of wonders, I actually did the whole thing.  It started something that has continued on.  I admit to sticking to mostly easy ones, but now I do the crossword in the AAA magazine and the AARP magazine.  I subscribed to People just to get the crosswords.

Doing them has made me more aware of words and looking t them differently.  It was as if I was seeing them in a new way.  Take longing.  the basic word is long, but that has nothing to do with the word when the  ing is added.  I started thinking how hard it must be for people learning English to understand all the weird things about our language.  Like read.  Same spelling if it's the present or the past meaning.  

Doing the crosswords has made me more aware of meanings and subtle differences between words. 

I recently expanded to an actual book of crossword puzzles.  It feels like exercise for my brain when I'm waiting somewhere.

Someday I may work my way up to the New York Times one that appear in the print newspaper I get from my Chicago neighborhood.  It's always good to keep stretching your mental horizons.