A Delightful Tale

 My mother called me yesterday with a delightful tale to share.

She and my father live across the street from the city park in a small town in central Wisconsin that has many "goings on" all through out the year such as band concerts, family reunions, the Tator Trot 10k run/walk, ice skating, weddings, and of course, the annual Easter Egg Hunt.

Today is Easter and yesterday was the infamous egg hunt.

I'll set the stage for you... it's been a long, cold winter with a LOT of snow.  Every time the weatherman comes on TV he's reporting 2, 5, 9 inches of snowfall.  Some of it has melted, but not much.  On Friday when I talked to her she said the park department had been across the street that day with the equipment they use to groom the snowmobile trails.  She said it was funny watching them as they made paths through the snow throughout the park so the children could run on the trails to find their eggs at their annual egg hunt.

When she called yesterday she was laughing as she told me what happened.  The children all gathered for the big event and unfortunately it started to rain.  So they were all running along the trails through the snow, hunting for eggs and holding umbrellas to keep dry.  Then the rain turned to snow.  Big fluffy, wet flakes, coming down heavy and thick.  It made me laugh to picture the kids with umbrellas in one hand, Easter baskets in the other, as they ran around the park in a snow storm looking for colored eggs.

The part I loved best was hearing the delight in my mother's voice as she shared the story.

Only One Space? For Realz?

Did you know you only need to put ONE space following a period at the end of a sentence? Times have changed my friends from the typewriter days! Here I am reading away and thinking, "They only put one space.... they need another space at the end of their sentence.... goodness aren't they teaching kids anything these days?" A short time later I happened upon something (I don't even recall now what it was) that led me to believe something may be amiss.  So I went to two trusted resources,  my daughter and Grammar Girl, where they both had the same story.    

Here's a snippet of what Grammar Girl had to say:  (click here to read her entire post)  

Two Spaces After a Period? The Old Way

Here's the deal: Most typewriter fonts are what are called monospaced fonts. That means every character takes up the same amount of space. An "i" takes up as much space as an "m," for example. When using a monospaced font, where everything is the same width, it makes sense to type two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence to create a visual break. For that reason, people who learned to type on a typewriter were taught to put two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence. 

One Space After a Period? The New Way

But when you're typing on a computer, most fonts are proportional fonts, which means that characters are different widths. An "i" is more narrow than an "m," for example, and putting extra space between sentences doesn't do anything to improve readability.

Although how many spaces you use is ultimately a style choice, using one space is by far the most widely accepted and logical style. The Chicago Manual of Style (1), the AP Stylebook (2), and the Modern Language Association (3) all recommend using one space after a period at the end of a sentence. Furthermore, page designers have written in begging me to encourage people to use one space because if you send them a document with two spaces after the periods, they have to go in and take all the extra spaces out.

I know it's a hard habit to break if you were trained to use two spaces, but if you can, give one space a try.

I love that this world is always changing.  How refreshing!  The next thing you know we won't have cords on our telephones.  Oh wait...

Blind Excitement!

As I continue my attempt to walk the walk of eating healthy and moving more, I sometimes  track calories consumed and calories burned on "My Plate" which is part of the Livestrong.com website.  A couple days ago I logged in to start tracking (again!) and I had to chuckle when I updated my weight. It gave me this big, bold declaration that I'm sure is meant to be inspiring for those who are losing weight. I find it humorous that the program is just as pleased and excited when I went the other direction!

Blind Excitement = Excitement without really knowing what we are excited about.