Gratitude

My daughter and her family will be spending the upcoming holiday season in Italy. They are flying to Milan and then moving on to Florence, Rome and then Pompei.
It is a lovely opportunity and something they are very grateful for.
Hopefully they will take tons of photos. 
My daughter is so excited to see the house of Lucius Caecilius Iucundus.
We studied Latin for a few years in home school and his life and times were part of the lessons from our Cambridge Latin text books.
Well they found his home in Pompey and she will have the opportunity to see that now.  They found a guide to take them through Naples and Pompei.
Our little one already knows the history of the city and of Caecilius. She knows that an impluvium is and how Romans served 'fast food' in the streets.
We were astounded by what she got out of a documentary she watched and from discussion about Latin.
She is quick, something else to be grateful for.

Are we grateful for the blessings given to us?
Just a short time ago the Great Depression left many Americans in a very bad way.
The saying of the times was “Use it up.  Wear it out.  Make it do or do without!"

Our parents got used to saving everything!
I know my grandmother would wash and reuse all plastic bags, aluminum foil, etc. They knew what it was to do without and to work very hard.
You had to eat every bit of your food on the plate because tomorrow there might not be enough.

The Great Depression in America

So much to be thankful for.

Speaking English

I love language.
I enjoy hearing accents and learning how other people speak and pronounce words.
 Years ago the educational channel did a series on the history of English. And did you know that Shakespeare's English is still spoken in the USA and very much so in some places like Tangier Island?
Yes, they say Hoy Toyd for high tide!
We also still use words long ago dropped in Britain like "platter". Platter is still very much in use in American speech.

 How do you say these words? Here is my list and my way of saying them:

 blackguard: I say Blagard
 waistcoat: I say weskit
 boatswain: I say bozun
 gunwales I say gunnels
 forecastle: I say folksul
 clapboard: I say clabord
 victual: vittles
 forehead: I say four-head
 Worchestershire: woostashur

 And here is the video of English as spoken in Shakespeare's day and by many in the 1600's early colonial America.


 
PS: I have added emoticons to comments. Just click on 'show emoticons' to see the codes then post comment as usual if you wish to use them.

Spring Snow

Spring has sprung with a big white snow storm and  cold temperatures! Everything is pristine white and covered in snow today.
It is still falling and coating the trees with a thick blanket.
Not unusual. There have been Aprils that had snow and even a June or two.
Spring is unstable and weather changes quickly, doesn't it?

Henry Jackson van Dyke was an American author, educator, and clergyman.

I have been MIA because of  a nasty cold and some eye problems.
But I am also back working as a graphic artist as I got a commission from a company in New  York City to do some goodies for them. So a lot keeping me from blogging.
I am not giving up blogging though. It is much too enjoyable and I love the interaction with blog friends.
I will be around to comment on Sunday.
Have a wonderful spring weekend my friends.
Is your spring warm or snowy like ours? 

The Hound of the Baskervilles

"
 Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon
those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before. It was a fine, thick piece of wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as a `Penang lawyer.' Just under the head was a broad silver band nearly an inch across. `To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the C.C.H.,' was engraved upon it, with the date `1884.' It was just such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to carry - dignified, solid, and reassuring.
"Well, Watson, what do you make of it?"
Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no sign of my occupation.
"How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in the back of your head."
"I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in front of me," said he. "But, tell me, Watson, what do you make of our visitor's stick? Since we have been so unfortunate as to miss him and have no notion of his errand, this accidental souvenir becomes of importance. Let me hear you reconstruct the man by an examination of it."
"I think," said I, following as far as I could the methods of my companion, "that Dr. Mortimer is a successful, elderly medical man, well-esteemed since those who know him give him this mark of their appreciation."
"Good!" said Holmes. "Excellent!"
"I think also that the probability is in favour of his being a country practitioner who does a great deal of his visiting on foot."
"Why so?"
"Because this stick, though originally a very handsome one has been so knocked about that I can hardly imagine a town practitioner carrying it. The thick-iron ferrule is worn down, so it is evident that he has done a great amount of walking with it."
"Perfectly sound!" said Holmes.
"And then again, there is the 'friends of the C.C.H.' I should guess that to be the Something Hunt, the local hunt to whose members he has possibly given some surgical assistance, and which has made him a small presentation in return."
"Really, Watson, you excel yourself," said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette. "I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your debt."
He had never said as much before, and I must admit that his words gave me keen pleasure, for I had often been piqued by his indifference to my admiration and to the attempts which I had made to give publicity to his methods. I was proud, too, to think that I had so far mastered his system as to apply it in a way which earned his approval. He now took the stick from my hands and examined it for a few minutes with his naked eyes. Then with an expression of interest he laid down his cigarette, and carrying the cane to the window, he looked over it again with a convex lens.
"Interesting, though elementary," said he as he returned to his favourite corner of the settee. "There are certainly one or two indications upon the stick. It gives us the basis for several deductions."

I enjoy Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and perhaps you might as well, and the opening paragraph from this novel might get your interest!
I am going to try to read old classic novels once again.

What are you reading?

Sherlock Holmes Museum, London