Back in the game

I've mailed off poems to five separate competitions this month - all reputable and fairly judged, from what I can tell - with the added benefit in almost all cases of a subscription in exchange for the reading fee, and significant prizes for first and other places.

We shall see!

It feels so good, at any rate, to put those SASE's in the envelope and send them off. As Suzanne and I discussed recently, the anticipation of responses is like the hope one might feel in the time between the buying of the lottery ticket and the revelation of the winning numbers.

And even though I know my chances for winning the contests are not fantastic - yet! wait until next year, when I'm that much improved! - they probably are better than those of winning the lottery.

Mis Mawrth Happus Iawn i Chi! And about the ficus...

Or "Happy March to You!" for my non-Welsh speaking readers.

I missed officially celebrating Saint David's Day this year because I wasn't at work to bring in scones & show off my Red Dragon flag, and I didn't post a blog entry Saturday either. But Mother Nature in our corner of the world celebrated for me, with good weather and daffodils trumpeting the advent of spring everywhere.

A year ago, I see, I had just sent off poems for inclusion in an anthology. Saturday, I mailed poems to be considered for a contest - the first of many such mailings. (Really, Julia.)

D and I did a ton of work around the house over the weekend. His big project was getting rid of the now-defunct 50 gallon saltwater tank that had been "temporarily" moved to the livingroom when we started the garage remodel. Inspired by his hard work, I was up until 12:30am this morning trying to find a new configuration for couches, chairs & the 26-year old ficus in the room - something that was feng-shui and would keep us from feeling like the place is just a jungle with a TV in the corner. But the tree is more bush than tree, and until we do some kind of topiary chiropractics with it, it insists on dominating the room.

In looking for a nice generic image of a ficus to add to the post, I found this quirky link www.theficus.com.


That link in turn lead me (2 links later) to this article & quote by Donald Trump:

There's no plant as beautiful as the ficus, and no plant that does the trick like the ficus.

(Hmmm. Maybe Mr. Trump would like to provide us with a small stipend as a reward for having lovingly coexisted with our plant for so long? A girl can only hope...)