There was a time when I wrote everything by hand. As a university student in the early 1970s, while most of my peers were cranking out essays on manual or electric typewriters, every paper that I submitted was handwritten. It wasn’t because I didn’t know how to type. My mother had insisted that typing was a skill that every girl should have, so I had taken typing classes in high school. I just preferred to write by hand. My early freelance articles were handwritten, but I typed a final copy for submission because that was required by most publications. Then came computers and the ease of word processing. I made the transition to writing on a keyboard and never looked back.
There are, however, some areas where I have intentionally hung onto vestiges of the past.
In a world where it seems that we’re constantly glued to screens, I still prefer a physical, paper calendar that gives me a visual overview of upcoming appointments and events. One hangs on our kitchen wall and I carry a smaller version in my purse.
I also use a simple paper planner where I write my daily to-do list. Putting pen to paper and actually writing down my intentions and placing them where I will see them multiple times throughout the day keeps me focused on accomplishing them and there’s something deeply satisfying about crossing off each item as it’s completed. Unlike digital alerts that disappear once they’re completed, a handwritten paper planner also provides a record of tasks completed and gives me a greater sense of accomplishment. Ultimately though, the best calendar or planner is the one that a person will use consistently and for me, that’s paper.
Then there’s books. When we travel, I absolutely love the convenience of the e-reader that my daughter gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago, but at home I still prefer to immerse myself in the pages of an actual, physical book.
What about you? Have you completely joined the digital world or are you like me, still a little bit old-school?
Lately, especially on weeks like this one when writer’s block seems to have set in and I have a hard time thinking of a topic for Friday’s post, I’ve been pondering why it is that I choose to write about fashion. After all, I was the awkward teen with zero fashion sense who, even when I stretched my babysitting and allowance dollars to buy what the “in” girls were wearing, felt self-consciously out of place and wanted to fade into the background. Fashion just wasn’t my thing and I certainly had no idea back then that there was such a thing as 
Here I am more than half way through a Friday and I haven’t written a Fashion Friday post yet. To tell you the truth, I didn’t think there’d be one today. I usually try to write these posts earlier in the week and have them ready to publish on Friday morning, but this week was a hectic one. I was only home for two and a half days between pre Christmas visits with two of our offspring and their families. I didn’t have time to do any research or even a photo shoot.
I’m quite surprised at how easy it’s been to keep Fashion Friday going for over five years without running out of new topics to write about, but lately the well of ideas seems to be running dry. I think it’s more than writer’s block though. I’m sure it’s partly due to the fact that I’m bored with the clothes in my closet and I’ve hardly bought any new ones in the past 14 months, but I think it also has a lot to do with the state of the world we’re living in. Writing about fashion seems pretty frivolous when you’re living in the province with the highest rate of active Covid cases in Canada and the United States and the situation is getting worse every day.
Following Augustine 