Saturday, September 4, 2010

Winning and Losing

We're supposed to be leaving right now to go camping. But Paul is still getting the camper ready and I'm waiting for water to boil. I want to get these dishes done up before we go but I have no hot water. I have no hot water because Paul took out the hot water heater. He took out the water heater so we could get our basement floor poured yesterday. And now I am waiting for the water to boil for the second time. That's right. I waited forever for the first pot to boil and it finally did. I poured it over my dirty dishes - and it all swirled down the drain. I thought I had the drain stopped, but I guess it got moved. Grr...Maybe we'll make our campsite by sundown.

Well, some cheerful news: I'm getting published again! I was really pleasantly surprised. I wrote a piece about a mother who's "perfect" life is blindsided by the birth of a baby with Downs Syndrome. I thought it was pretty good. But as the week wore on I only got one comment on it. I read everybody else's work in my category and it seemed like most of them had multiple comments. So, I figured that I was alone in my appreciation of my story. Then, the day before judging I got one more comment - and it was critical! So I figured I had tapped out with "Loving Luke Good-bye" and it was all downhill from here now.

But when I checked Thursday morning I discovered that I placed FIRST in the Advanced division (again!)! And then when I checked Editor's Picks I got 5th, which means I'm getting published again. And, since this was my 3rd Editor's Pick win, I now advance to the Master Level. That's the top level. So now I'm there for life. And you'll probably hear me moaning soon about how I am so out of my league and I'll never place against these fabulous writers in this level and so on. Just ignore me when I do that. Again, if you want to read this story, let me know and I'll send you the link.

Oh, speaking of winning...we found out this week that Paul's great-aunt Betty won $100,000 in the Iowa Lottery. Too bad we don't know her better! Actually, that's awful, since gambling is a sin, but at the same time - wow. I've never known a lottery winner before.

And speaking of NOT winning...my weight is becoming an issue, with me anyway. When I weighed in at the ear, nose, and throat place a couple of weeks ago my weight registered 151. I could not believe it! I have never crossed into the 150s unless I had a human being growing inside me. Yesterday it was so cool that I pulled out my favorite jeans from last winter and they were SO tight to snap! And then I had the dreaded muffin top thing going on. I have GOT to get this worked off. I remember two summers ago I was so thin that I hated it - nothing fit and it hurt to sit because I had no padding on my butt. How did I go from that to this in just 24 months? I'm not going to weigh this much so I have got to take care of it - amping up the exercise (ok, starting to exercise!) and limiting the sweets more. I'm almost 40 and I've heard that once you get into that decade it can become almost impossible to lose the weight.

Well, my water is boiling, so I'll see if I can get some dishes cleaned up before I have to boil more. The things we take for granted!

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