It's a "_MAJOR_ AWARD" !!!

The Award given to those whose

 "Positivity and Creativity Inspire Others".

The Art of Encouragement may be one of the most underrated aspects of writing...or perhaps of anything in life.  How amazing it is to know that someone is thinking of you, believing in you, seeing that spark within you when you feel uncertain in your steps, and the right words simply won't come. The Art of Encouragement is always more a matter of timing, enthusiasm and sincerety than of perfect wording. It is a gift, and when given freely it always returns to you to brighten your heart. 

======================================
The Rules of the Sunshine Award are as follows:

1. Place the Award on your Blog or Within Your Post.
2. Pass the Award on to Twelve (12) Sunny Bloggers -- those whose "Positivity and Creativity Inspire Others!"
3. Link the Nominees in Your Post.
4. Tell the Nominees They've Recieved the award by commenting on their blogs.
5. Share the Love and the Link of the Person from whom you've received the award

Optional Additional Rules (In Honor of St. Patrick's Day)

• Share one lucky fact about yourself.
• List 3 things you do when you need to brighten up your day.

These are the Twelve Sunshine Bloggers
that I nominate for the SUNSHINE AWARD.
Some of them may not immediately seem the most obvious choice, but I always come away with something positive and wonderful from each of these sites.

• Blogden Nash for keeping alive the joy that is Ogden Nash
• Birdykins: fly. crash. repeat   for beautiful lyrical words ( I wish I could write so well)
• An Explorer's View of Life    for endurance
• Basic Joy  for bright pictures and pretty words
• Chase Images for that which is beautiful
• Chicken Counting for making the most of tiny moments
• Chris Guillebeau Page hosting  The Art of Nonconformity Blog  for a fascinating take on everything
• Collecting Raindrops for so many lovely things
• Dad Gone Mad for wit
• Diamonds and Toads
• Doobleh-vay for lovely pictures and much brightness
• Weird Harrogate -- for showing us around Imagination's Home Town

"...and I'd like to thank the Academy... and Rita
for locking the doors to the theater when I went out to the lobby to get popcorn... "
*And I'm played off stage by the "Wrap It Up" music....Kanye doesn't even have a chance to swipe the mike.*

All jokes aside...

Thank you, Rita at Writer's Quest , for brightening my heart by nominating me for this award. Thank you to the YCW crew for letting me lock horns with you, for challenging me with your wit, your experiences and your wonderful, wonderful words. Thanks, also, to my ornery husband...for being supportive of my writing and getting me back into gear. To all of you, who have seen wonders in me that I have not yet seen myself, I am in your debt for believing in me. Thank you as well to all of the bloggers I have nominated, for allowing me to see bits of your lives, your minds, and your hearts.  I find all of you to be inspirations.

Lucky Fact:  I know how the story ends.

3 Things to Brighten My Day:

• I turn up the music and sing (very, very badly).
• I go for a drive when I can.
• I hug my husband and watch my son dance (and he dances sooo much better than I can sing).

UNTITLED

UNTITLED

Copyright: 2009
Word count:
Written in response to a YCW challenge…”That night the snow started falling…”

That night the snow started falling steady and hard…and as I hunched against the thick grey blocks of the school’s wall, I felt the cold tear chunks out of my stomach like a shark gulping down bites of seal. I was sixteen, in a light jacket, a short sleeved shirt, jeans, socks, shoes, and no gloves or hat. I had the corner of a Kleenex in my pocket, nestled between a gum wrapper and a leaking pen. I had dressed for the heat, the repressing wall of heat in the auditorium and the glaring stage lights...not this cold. Certainly not for this cold. Sixteen, and God’s personal fool. My dad had dropped me off at the end of the side walk, but had to get the rest of the family to their destination in the next ten minutes. The taillights had blinked, turned, and faded out long before I yanked at the doors to the school, and I only discovered that the doors were locked because I nearly dislocated my wrist and elbow mid-yank.

I cussed and growled and snapped at the wind, and it responded by slashing me with knives of cold. Long machetes digging deep into my gut…the kind of cold where your teeth chatter hard enough to chip, where your torso hits the shriek that is that horrible, horrible cold and your innards pull back up in your body so hard you’d think they’d get whiplash. I circled the building, pulling at frozen handles with fingers I was having trouble feeling. Every single one of them were locked…I stared up at the bricks…they seemed rather smug.

I was in a bad part of town, with the only safe haven I knew in the worst part of the bad part of town. I had no money, no warmth, and no ride home until eleven o’clock that night. I was trapped in a cage of icing air.

Hunching in a sheltered corner of the schools main patio, I stomped and huffed and MADE my teeth stop chattering. By force of will alone, I made my body cease shaking. It didn’t work for long.

As the night dipped down to twenty degrees, I kept myself warmed with the heated joy of plotting my revenge, clenched into a ball and cursing the person responsible for this fiasco between grinding, chattering teeth. I swore to myself that when I got home, or better yet, when I could feel my fingers again, I would choke the living crap out of someone…but the question remained. Who really was responsible for this fiasco? The one who had canceled rehearsal? The one that had garbled the message on the intercom? Or….

I had a sneaking suspicion that once my fingers wrapped around the responsible throat, I’d be the one choking.