Write It Out

I don’t like abbreviating most things.   I don’t like taking written shortcuts to say the same thing.  I think it’s because reading things fully written out flows easier as they’re read.   Here’s an example:

I would tell you that on Tuesday, my sitter came to get our car at eleven-forty-five to pick up the children.   She said they’d be at the pool until four o’clock.   I told her I put twenty pretzels and two cheese sticks in their lunch boxes and to tell my son that four-and-a-half-year-old children are expected to eat their sandwiches without taking them apart.   If she needed me, I’d be over on Traven Court at a neighbor’s house.

I find the above easier to read than:

I would tell you that on Tues., my sitter came to get our car at 11:45 to pick up the children.   She said they’d be at the pool until 4:00.   I told her I put 20 pretzels and 2 cheese sticks in their lunch boxes and to tell my son that 4.5 year old children are expected to eat their sandwiches without taking them apart.   If she needed me, I’d be over on Traven Ct. at a neighbor’s house.

The former is what you’d more likely find in a more formal or official writing, but I just like it better.  

The Big Boy Update:  After four hours at the pool today my sitter messaged me saying they might be a bit late getting home.   She said my son informed her, “he never wants to leave and that it would be nice if someone could bring his bed to the pool so he could live here.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was talking to someone the other day.   Somehow the topic of coffee must have come up because I heard my daughter reply, “I don’t like coffee, but my mother likes star coffee.”

Fitness Update:  My sitter picked up the children and took them to the pool for lunch and an afternoon of fun.   I could have walked over to the clubhouse to get the car to go to the store and lunch, but hey, why not walk instead?  It was about five miles total walking distance, although the cars and trucks zipping by on a road with no shoulder wasn’t the most ideal safety-wise.   But it was exercise.