Do you remember when you were a kid and while working on your homework you'd stop in the middle of an essay and ask your mom how to spell something? 

What did she always say....?

Look it up.

So there you were...begrudgingly you'd lay down your pencil, trudge down the hallway to your brother's room which housed not only the dictionary but the complete match set of encyclopedias and look up your word.  The entire time you are muttering under your breath in disgust, asking how you are supposed to find a word that you can not spell.

Yesterday I found my self right back there again. 

As a Generation X-er I was taught that spelling is actually quite simple.  You sound the word out the very best you can and before you declare your writing project complete, you click on the spell check icon....done.

Now it may surprise you to know this, but some forums on line do not have spell check...and what about when hand writing something?  WHAT?  Hand writing you say?  Yes, while a lost art, it does still exist in some remote parts of your life.

So yesterday as I wrote something on the Military Brats On Line web site, I found myself needing to spell check a word.  Cathartic.  Without the spell check option, I drove my little mouse to the top of my note planning to copy and paste it into an email to check it quickly.  At that moment I noticed Mr. Webster's dictionary right next to the mouse.  I grabbed it.  I became exceedingly disheartened when I could not find my word.  I felt once again as if I were starring into the large "Volume I" of our matching ivory and tan (actually they were more of a Burnt Umbra color) dictionary mumbling under my breath about finding a word that I can not spell, and how the entire concept is just ridiculous. 

Catharsis.  It was listed as Catharsis, cathartic being the adjective form of.  Finally I found it and was relieved to see I had spelled it correctly.  phew.

I closed the little red book and starred at it for moment.  Thank God for Progress.