And the letter arrives....

"This is to confirm that you have been accepted for the 33rd annual Appalachian Writers Workshop that will be held August 1 - August 6, 2010."

I stared at the orange lettering on the envelope from the mailbox all the way to the kitchen, and anyone with two toddlers knows that getting the two of them, plus me, plus the overloaded diaper bag and purse, and not the push scooter, or the outdoor rocking chair, or an armful of rocks in the door is quite a task in and of itself.  I had to pee the entire one hour commute home from work, not to mention I wore a quite uncomfortable dress all day of the longest day of my teaching career.  I stood in my kitchen while the almost 2 year old pulled a bag of hot dog buns off the table and began dispersing them in little pieces to himself, his 3 year old sister, and the cats, and stared at the envelope while the 3 year old proceeded to take off her clothes.  Ahhh, the life of a mother.

My heart jumped into my throat as soon as I got to word nine.  It took five or six attempts for me to read the rest of the first sentence.  It then took at least three tries to read the rest of the letter because I kept coming back to that first sentence to see if it was real, to make sure I didn't read it incorrectly.

So the good news of the day is that 1) I do exist, and not in some parallel universe or the dream of some perverse stranger 2) I am going to TWO writer's workshops this summer and BOTH of them will be helping me work on my novel and 3) There are only four days of school left and three of them are early release for the kids.

I know it seems like an obvious statement to some, but to those of us who are neurotic it is a big deal to say: I just might very well live through this day.