I'm alive!

If I hadn't of been, this morning would have been enough to raise the dead. Last night I finally got some much needed sleep. I'm still a bit under the weather but on the mend. This morning my sinuses got cleared right down to my toes. I awoke to the smell of skunk - very strong. It smells through the whole house. Then I heard some strange noises coming from the basement and a moment I had always dread met me head on - going after an animal in the basement and how do I get it out. I went down to the cellar to find that the plumber had left the basement door to the outside wide open when he was here two weeks ago! I searched the basement from one end to the other but did not find a skunk so I'm hoping that my clunking down the cellar steps chased it out. I closed the door cursing because I now knew why my heat has been running strong (read non-stop) the last few days as its gotten colder. Now I'm hoping the smell will dissipate quickly.

So I just had to look up the spelling of dissipate - my spelling has gotten worse as I grow older - my dictionary, a giant American Heritage Dictionary, is in constant use. It's one of those that used to be in schools. The binding was torn and I got it at a sale years ago for a quarter. That meant I could take my little paperback one and keep it next to my chair where I do crossword and word puzzles. I'm surprised at the people who do not have a dictionary and instead call me to ask how to spell a word or worse yet, misspell it. I know that you can also look things up on google or use spell check, but I enjoy pulling out that giant volume and flipping through and finding the spelling, just as I enjoy reading books in book form. It's something that's lost on many people today.