Where wear were... in a word, confusing

I can't spell. 

It's an omission most that know me would not be surprised by - I'm sure even you, my lovely bloggers, have noticed a discord in my grammar abilities.  I can't hide it, even with spell check the arrangement of letters alludes me. It doesn't help that in a rush to get the words on paper I skip letters and occasionally entire words before I even get to more finite specifications such as their spelling.

So it may then come as no further surprise to know that my means for getting it write (sorry, right) grammatically, phonetically and punctuationality (yes I know it's not a word) have been somewhat unconventional. 

My first attempt - as instructed by my mum was to read. So I read (u-huh an example of spelling frustration) I read, and re-read . I read in bed. I read while I slept (ok so that was for purpose of making a nice rhyme) but if I could have read while sleeping I would have. I read so much I developed a stigmatism in my eye and had to get glasses… as well as bad headaches at night. I DIDN'T however get good at spelling. Instead I was merely opened to a world of new and fascinating words I couldn't use in a sentence… 

One of my school stories actually read...

"Tilly waked throo the bush and found a g___________ (its the word for reely big) tree" 

(teachers comment… did you mean great?")… how could she have known I meant gargantuan. 

I was 9… hardly young enough to say I couldn't have known better. My next attempt was to cheat - I tried to get permission to write everything on the computer so I could use spell check. Mum said I was being lazy and should instead make use of our countless dictionaries. Great, more reading. However I quickly discovered the dictionary didn't do much good when you didn't even know the letter the word started with - I mean really "knife" … just stupid. 

Finally I came across a method of success - singing! Words being spelled out in songs - I have an annoyingly good memory for song lyrics so when I came across ones that resembled a rhyming spelling bee I couldn't believe my luck! 

I still remember the night I heard L-O-V-E a POPular song of the 90's. I ran down to mum bursting with excitement. 

"MUM MUM MUM MUUUUUM …. (catching breath) guess what!!" 

"… whaaaat?"

"I know how to spell LOVE!" 

"Oh really that's lovely darling" 

"Can I spell it for you?" (practically dancing with the thought of the impending spelling related kudos)

"Sure" 

"hang on… I just have to get the tune…(mum looking perplexed)…(under my breath) hmmmhmmmhmm a wuurl tastes good now (loud as I could go)  L-O-V-E - LOVE!!" 

pause

"that's… fantastic darling.. now you just have to learn it without having to sing the song" 

Other children may have found this discouraging, but soaring on the success of getting a word right I couldn't care less about the hours I'd have to spend getting the tune out of my head. 

Well the end of the story is I still can't spell - what HAS changed is my attitude - my bad spelling defines me in some odd way - those christmas cards corrected in red the failed spelling tests (I'm still the only person to get 0 in the spelling test you have to take year 7 science… it's out of 20) I'm oddly proud of this little flaw in my design. Because at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter that I can't spell, I'd much rather talk anyway :) 

Stay safe everyone 

Lesley 

Oh and as always let me know your thoughts - is there something you're oddly proud of?