Spellbound

Hope that all of you lovely Hooksters had a peaceful and relaxing holiday weekend. It was a scorcher here where I vacillated between (sweating) enjoying the great and toasty outdoors and the cool, climate controlled indoors. Spent time with the family. There's nothing like an afternoon of fun and games with those you love best to remind you that, in spite of the fact you manipulate words on a daily basis, you pretty much stink at spelling. Our game of choice: Bananagrams. If you aren't familiar with it, it's kind of like Scrabble (which I also stink at) but with your own little board and a time constraint. The catch-phrase of this particular form of recreation in our house is usually one of two well-worn questions. 1) Is this a word? 2) How do you spell _____? (fill in the blank)
While I won't speak for the abilities of the others, I will venture to say I'm not sure when it was that I forgot how to string letters together to form more complicated words than: he, she, cat, dog, love, star, etc. I mean, it makes no sense. When I write I spend hours on end carefully selecting and savoring the most verbose of terms, the most unique coinage, often effortlessly. However, apparently I am struck inept at accomplishing this when faced with 15 or 20 tiny lettered squares.
While the weight of this contradiction seems to escape the other players, deep down I'm baffled. Is it possible I'm not the crafty wordsmith I believe myself to be? Perhaps I'm simply a little spellbound. Yeah, that's probably it.
Whichever the case, I may have to consider adding a new game to our family-time repertoire. Maybe Hangman is more my speed. Or Pictionary. Then again, drawing isn't my strong suit.
Hop Scotch anyone?