A Mishmash

First: an update. For those who read and voted on my essay in the "Why I Write Contest" on Editor Unleashed, thank you! Nope, I didn’t win. But I did make it into the top 50 submissions that will be included in a Why I Write anthology on Smashword.com. I read quite a few well written, thoughtful essays among the top 50, so I’m honored to be among that group. If you haven’t read it and are interested, you will find my essay “Scotch Anyone?” here.

However, if reading it is old news to you, here’s something I report with gritted teeth: our girl has now finished all her required driving hours and is legal to take a license test. One phone call will make the appointment. I keep telling her that it’s up to her to remind me to contact the registry, and she regularly forgets to ask. If you are familiar with the essay, you likely understand my own thoughts on the matter. What though, do you suppose is going on down deep with her?

Second, I am eons late in reporting that I received this award



from Sarah at If You Give a Girl A Pen. I’m supposed to bestow this prize on twelve other deserving blogs, but rather than enter what seems like a March Madness of blog award giveaways (though I delayed so long, this dates back to February), I’m simply going to say thank you to Sarah and to all the terrific writers at If you Give a Girl a Pen.

Finally, I can’t finish today without remarking how wonderful it feels to wake up on a sunny Monday, following a spring-like weekend that arrived on the tail of nine days of clouds, snow and rain. Over the week, the ice on the pond down the street that has played host to fisherman, skaters and a coyote or two since before the holidays, dissolved into a widening black-water gap in the middle of the frozen desert. Churning waves gnawed ice from the edges of the circle each day. When the sun came out for good late Friday, the surface glinted and agitated like a front-load washer, tossed around in a quick chop stirred up by the wind remaining from the storm that chewed at us over the week.

In truth, we are not even close to consistent spells of good weather here. But as I sat at the brush-fire my husband kindled in the clearing out in the woods yesterday, there was a moment when I couldn’t tell if my face burned from the flames or the sun. While a soft breeze funnelled on top of the huge pines, an ambitious bug landed on my sweater. It's early yet, but this reprieve, before the grey and damp of March returns, takes a burden off. We no longer have to slog through the bitter sludge of cold and wind that cloaks us in the word “interminable.” We’ve had a break. We’ll get another. Yup, hope springs eternal.

I’m thankful that hope for spring arises eternal too.