Cottage by the Sea

After a lovely bit of a heat wave--40's and 50's°F--we had a dusting of snow yesterday, melted now, but lower temperatures at night again and high 30s in the daytime.
Some of the song birds are back, though and it's a great thing to hear them singing all day long. I miss that in winter. Though in winter we have the Cardinals, Blue Jays and Chickadees stay around.
I was thinking about handwriting and art today.

Palmer Method

Did you have penmanship in elementary school? We did.
Feet flat on the floor! Hands just so... dip the nib on the black wooden pen into the ink well embedded on your desk and make the interlocking OOOOOOO's.
Then other designs and finally the alphabet over and over.
First each letter alone with it's capital and then the alphabet connected as in cursive handwriting.
We all tried so hard to make those spiraling O's perfect circles.
It was called the Palmer Method and it was taught in American schools for generations. My mother received a national award for her beautiful Palmer method handwriting when she was a child. As an adult she was often asked by people to address wedding invitations and to write names on certificates of graduation, etc.
I had the worst handwriting in the whole school until I was in the 5th grade and I decided I wanted to be a good student. So, I stopped goofing off...ok I mostly stopped.. but not completely.
Okay,   well, I didn't stop really  and I learned in 6th grade to write 5,000 word compositions for talking too much in class. That was an education in itself, boy.
But there were teachers with beautiful handwriting whom I admired and I copied from their examples. My handwriting became nicer and nicer until finally in my freshman year in high school I began to notice the penmanship of our very elegant French teacher.
She was it! And I copied it until I learned it with its little "and's" written between words on a slant.
I think computers have ruined handwriting for most children and what I see today is kids who mostly seen to print everything.
It is kind of sad because good penmanship gives a sense of pride and accomplishment and a love of beauty,

"Spencerian"

like in this Spencerian method handwriting, which is so lovely.
It is really art work isn't it?

Did you have penmanship in school? How is your handwriting?