Saturday, January 23, 2010

National Handwriting Day - Oh My !!!

Wow, who knew? Not me, that's for sure. But thanks to the PAPER SOURCE calendar pages that I inserted into my beautiful Kelly Rae Roberts 2010 ORGANIZER, I now know ...

Today is, apparently, NATIONAL HANDWRITING DAY. I just had to look that up, being a lover of words, and a lover of things handwritten. And having recently enjoyed perusing a vintage AUTOGRAPH BOOK that my friend Ann Deakers now owns ... it's full of charm.

So I GOOGLED it and here's what I found:

National Handwriting Day is "celebrated" on John Hancock's birthday, "to encourage more legible handwriting". Problem is, there are some (quite reliable) sources that place John Hancock's birthday on January 12 (1737), and not on the 23rd, but let's not quibble.

Here's a quick reminder of just how lovely & legible the old John Hancock signature really was:

The signature of John Hancock on the Declaration of Independence is the most flamboyant and easily recognizable of all. It is, then, no surprise that the story of his part in the revolution is equally engaging. Few figures were more well known or more popular than John Hancock. (courtesy of www.ushistory.org )

Pentel of America is celebrating National Handwriting Day 2010 with a CONTEST ... Describe how you declare your independence, what independence means to you, in 500 or less handwritten characters and submit to Pentel of America. Five (5) people will be chosen by Pentel and given their own Independence Day. See Pentel's website for contest rules and information:

http://pentel.com/handwriting_day_rules.php !

And here's a link to the FOUNTAIN PEN NETWORK (again, I never knew such a thing existed; did you?!):

http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=5152&pid=252256&start=&st=#entry252256

The FOUNTAIN PEN NETWORK site has links to cool handwriting stuff.

If you want to have a little fun with this whole handwriting business, you can visit an online HANDWRITING ANALYSIS site, such as:

http://www.handwritingwizard.com ... they offer a free "personality analysis". Hmmm.

or

http://www.handbehindtheword.com/SelfEval.shtml

And last but not least, these fun ideas for how YOU and your CHILDREN can celebrate National Handwriting Day, courtesy of www.ehow.com ...

Bake a Cake for JOHN HANCOCK and share it. Have everyone SIGN THEIR NAME with frosting on top first !!!

Check out a book from the LIBRARY on handwriting and have fun analyzing your friend's signatures, as well as your own.

Learn a little bit about John Hancock and the Declaration of Independence.

Have everyone you know and love sign a page for your scrapbook. If you have an old-fashioned AUTOGRAPH BOOK, all the better !!!

Handwrite a letter to someone you love who lives far away (or even just around the corner) and sign it with a big beautiful signature !!!

Enjoy National Handwriting Day, everyone, and remember:

"Never believe that any document you sign

your name to is unimportant."

-- Davielle

HAPPY NEW YEAR ... and a note about my Sabbatical

Friends ...

yes, I have been LONG absent from my blogs ... this one, and also my Princess Magpie blog. I consider it as "taking a sabbatical", but I do apologize for not posting my intention to do just that.

Most of you know that I struggled with near-daily MIGRAINE in 2009 ... roughly 70% of my time was spent battling one, medicating one, sleeping one off, or wandering about in a bit of a daze from the effects of one. It was, needless to say, a ROUGH year.

With the continuous help of a good neurologist group, and my rheumatologist as well, we seem to be making progress ... I'm down to about 50% of the time with Migraine, which is a huge improvement. But we're not going to stop until it's well in hand, as they say. (although I'm still not sure, after 51 years, just who "they" really are ... LOL)

All that said -- I thank you for your love, your support, your prayers, your encouragement, and for those of you who have said that you actually MISS my blog posts ... my gratitude, my appreciation, and my love to you all.

I'm back -- at least, that is my intention.

Happy New Year, and I hope you'll visit my blogs regularly as I become engaged once more with a means of communication that I think is amazing -- the world of blogging.

Your --

Davielle