I love words.<\/p>\n
They roll through my head all hours of day and night.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I’m searching for the right word to use in an e-mail. Sometimes, though, it’s just the answer for a crossword puzzle.<\/p>\n
I blame my daughter-in-law, Jen, for the crosswords. She stayed with us one summer and enlisted my help on the daily puzzle from the newspaper. By the time she left, I was hooked.<\/p>\n
Oh, joy.<\/p>\n
Some of the words used in puzzles are downright stupid. A clue such as, on the ocean, <\/em>calls for this answer: asea<\/em>.<\/p>\n Seriously? Who uses a word like that?<\/p>\n I like simple words that get a point across without causing someone to question their meaning. A Sunday sermon was once lost on me after the preacher used the word conundrum<\/em>. I knew I had learned that word at some point, but I couldn’t seem to find it in my internal files. I wondered about its meaning until I got home and pulled out the dictionary. Conundrum<\/em> means mystery<\/em>. So\u2026why not just use the word mystery<\/em>? Everyone knows what that means.<\/p>\n Most of the words circulate when I’m in bed trying to sleep.<\/p>\n Could explain the insomnia.<\/p>\n It’s great in a way, though, because I think of what I want to say and of the best way to say it. And before I forget those words, I type them into the memo pad on my cell phone without even turning on a light.<\/p>\n Capturing them feels like triumph.<\/p>\n I don’t feel that way about numbers, which is odd since I’m an accountant. A CPA, actually, so I’ve spent some serious hours working on my profession. I’m meticulous about making the balance sheet balance and the bank accounts reconcile.<\/p>\n But numbers do not satisfy me. They don’t evoke thoughts, feelings or actions, nor do they allow me to express those things. They’re like eating junk food: they fill my stomach, but they don’t nourish me and I’m left wanting more.<\/p>\n So, I think and I pray and I write.<\/p>\n And I am satisfied.<\/p>\n Word after word after word.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I love words. They roll through my head all hours of day and night. Sometimes I’m searching for the right word to use in an e-mail. Sometimes, though, it’s just the answer for a crossword puzzle. I blame my daughter-in-law, Jen, for the crosswords. She stayed with us one summer and enlisted my help on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions\/124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldkaren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}