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A diverse and constantly updating source of astrology-themed content, Astrodispatch is edited by Elsa P, astrologer and author of ElsaElsa - The Astrology Blog.
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Donna Cunningham » Update: I’ve had a lot on my hands!
August 29th, 2011 @ 9:06 pm by Donna Cunningham
(c)8-11 by Donna Cunningham, MSW
Many of you have been writing to ask about my hand problem and why the long absence, so I thought I’d just write a short blog post to bring you up to date. I had two terrible falls in June where I landed on my hands and injured them, though nothing was broken. Then I sprained both wrists trying to compensate for not being able to use my hands. So it’s been a really rough summer, with lots of pain, and I haven’t been able to be on the computer very long at a stretch.
Skywriter’s readers, hearing about this at an early stage, sent in about 50 recommendations for curing arthritis. I actually considered for a time turning this into an arthritis cure review blog, but then I realized that would entail as much writing as this astrology blog, and astrology is much more fun to write about.
Well I finally found out from my doctor what the trouble is. My doctor explained the x-ray, saying that the bones in my hands are thinning out, and that the falls really just brought a long-term, slowly progressing condition to a head. For a writer, of course, this is the worst possible news. My doctor and I are looking into medications and other possibilities.
The first solution was to learn how to use voice recognition software, so that I could dictate my articles rather than use the keyboard. I purchased NaturallySpeaking 11.5 and have spent the last month trying to get it to cooperate. I am told that it will learn anyone’s vocabulary and vocal patterns.
Right! I’ve spent hours trying to teach it astrology. I can dictate simple English text like the paragraphs above with a fair degree of accuracy, but I have laboriously spelled out every astrological term and it’s not having any of it. It has the terms in its dictionary, but that’s not the same as matching pronunciation with words.
The worst was trying to dictate my advice column for Dell horoscope, some 3000 words jammed with jargon. It took about three times as long as usual. Each paragraph takes about10 minutes to dictate.
Finally, I just lose any semblance of patience, and commence to curse. Oddly enough, it doesn’t have any problem at all with rendering that perfectly. I’d even go to so far as to say it’s a bit of a potty mouth. I suspect it was previously owned by a parrot that was previously owned by a sailor.
But I am determined to soldier on and get this software to work. At least Mercury in Virgo is a good time to do those sorts of corrections and detail.
Anyway my dear readers, I do miss you a lot, and I miss all the fun we have on this blog. I still have all the excellent suggestions about articles that come from the contest, and I have a notebook full of article ideas besides.
