This was part of a quiz about what type of author you would be/ are. I loved this question. Which answer would you pick?

Choose a place to pen your masterpiece.

1. A busy train station where you can sip iced coffee while people-watching
2. A secret garden full of wonders you’ve never seen before
3. A cozy coffee shop interior while gentle rain falls outside on a cold gray day
4. Your bedroom—you feel most comfortable there.

Although the train station was high on my list and its my bedroom where I usually do end up writing - a coffee shop on a grey and rainy day was my most preferred place, by far. I love a rainy day and looking out the window while working on something creative with a delicious (still at least warm) coffee is pretty much perfect in my books.

Source: What Type of Author Would YOU Be? - Underlined

There is, still, something I like about writing by hand that I miss when I'm typing on a keyboard. There is a smoothness to the pen and paper and I like having good penmanship. There is no penmanship at all with a keyboard.

Today I found a note from Perfect Pen, a site selling pens and etc. They say 95% of people write their name first, when they get a new pen. I don't know if its true. How would you find out about that. Chances are someone selling pens and seeing people test them before buying, would know. So it could be true. What did you last write, by hand? I wrote a grocery list. But I also sent out handwritten Christmas cards this year.

I write down ideas for stories or non-fiction ideas for posts to my sites. Sometimes they never become posts. Lots of ideas are written and just don't develop further, or get mislaid somewhere, one way or another. But, I still like writing ideas more than typing them. My brain works differently while writing.  A bit slower and not as directly focused on the idea while I have the distraction of the pen, paper and penmanship. More than likely that changes how the ideas develop. Typing is so instant.

National Ballpoint Pen Day is June 10th. It's the day the patent for the ballpoint pen was filed.

Have you ever gotten into calligraphy, with fountain pens? I did a little of that. In high school I had a fountain pen. It was fun to write with but not as clean as a ballpoint pen. Of course, there have been pencils since the age of the dinosaurs (not literally). Pencils are just not the same, though artists still draw with an assortment of them.

Today, even though it isn't Ballpoint Pen Day, take a look at all the pens you have collected, scattered, around your home. Get some scrap paper out of the recycling and test all your pens. Not many have the option to be refillable and reused now. Or, people almost never seem to do that. Too many freebie pens given away to take the time to recycle them. Unless you have a favourite pen. I did have a favourite ballpoint pen but it was kind of exotic and I couldn't find ink to refill it. If you can find a use for the pens that no longer work, got dried out, or broken, that's great. Most likely the best you can do is get rid of them and have that much less clutter around.

Happy pen testing. Will you scribble something or ring true to the theory that the first thing you write with a new (sort of new) pen is your name?

I've been having a lot of trouble seeing clearly when trying to read websites. The style seems to be small, pale grey fonts which are very hard to read. No problem for a computer, or other machines. I wonder if these sites which are hard to read just expect machines and not human being to read the information? Are they just looking for web traffic for marketing. Content doesn't seem to be very kingly when you can't read it. Anyway, that's a bit off topic but the issue really frustrates me, personally.

I found a way to change settings in Firefox to make websites easier to read. It seems to be working, so far.

Go into your settings, click those three stacked lines in the right top bar of the web browser. Then Settings. From there you should be able to find the Languages section. See images below. Just click the "zoom text only" to turn that feature on. Then go into Advanced and set a minimum font size which your web browser should stick to when it opens web pages. The minimum font size may not work 100%. Some web developers choose to force font settings rather than letting readers choose what works for them. Again, likely valuing cosmetic looks instead of a readable site.

The zoom text only is great and has worked every time for me. Instead of enlarging the entire site, images and all, only the text is made bigger. So sites are not warping as much when I want to read them. Of course, this means zoom will not work for images now if you have been using it that way. But, I find it works well to open images in a new tab. Most of the time the image file is actually larger than the one used on the web page.

Zoom is a feature which allows you to increase or decrease either the size of a web page or the size of the text. This article explains how it works.

Source: Font size and zoom - increase the size of web pages | Firefox Help

I found this quote by Amy Tan:

“I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water.”

People ask if you are sad or tired. I could say yes to those but neither is quite right. I am worn down, like a stone in a river. I try to hold on, be stoic and strong but I'm eroding all the time.

I feel this way more often as I get older. None of us are getting any younger of course. But, I don't think we should have to feel worn down. Does it happen from others or do we do it to ourselves. I'm trying to figure that out for myself.

I found this quote on an old site by Laurie Pawlik. She writes about writing, relationships, travel and living in a camper van. I started reading that post, first.