THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

Right around this time last year, one of the most exciting things ever happened to me. I opened my newly arrived issue of Art Journaling magazine and found a 5-page article about my Sudan/Barcelona travel journal right there in it. It wasn't exactly a surprise, however. I had mailed the journal to them for consideration months in advance, then had a very long wait before they told me it had been accepted. That was followed by weeks of answering their questions, and writing an article to go with the images and getting that approved. Then there was the shock of finding out that, unlike the first time, when I just had one image printed on a half page at the very back of the magazine,  I was actually going to get paid for this article! By the time the issue with my article came out, well, it was almost anticlimactic.

Months later, the fall issue showed up in my mailbox. I was doing my usual quick flip-through, sitting on the sofa next to my hubby, when I startled and gasped. "Was that what I think it was?" Yep, there it was, big as life -- a blown up segment of one of my journal pages, in the "Written Word" section, no less. Now that was a shock!

This image is not one of mine - just wanted you to see the description above it.

Well, guess what happened again this week, when the new winter issue came out? Yep, you guessed it. And, again, it was about the lettering.

Why am I so flabbergasted? Well, because my lettering is the thing I've always been most self-conscious about -- especially now that everyone is so big into lettering and calligraphy. The only bad grades I ever got in elementary school were in handwriting. I just can't keep anything in a straight line, and when I took that lettering class at art camp this year? Well, I enjoyed making the pen, but using it? Not so much. I've come to the conclusion that I'm just not a a slow-and-precise kinda gal. I'm more of a quick-and-messy one. And ya know what? I'm learning to be okay with that!

As my daddy was fond of saying, "Just shows tuh go ya!" We are our own worst critics, are we not?