"Discipline Your Thoughts!"

"Apply discipline to your thoughts
when they
become anxious
over the outcome of a goal.
Impatience breeds anxiety,
fear, discouragement and failure.
Patience creates confidence, decisiveness,
and a rational outlook,
which eventually leads to success."

I reached the deadline of September 15th for my Altered Couture creation. I decided to submit the project by email with attachments of the photos and an overview of my project.


















On September 14 there was a local women's networking event called "Uncommon Women" - by coincidence it was "Show Your Wares" night and I had already volunteered to help out a bit. Kim, who was hosting the event, told me that I should wear the dress! Well, I decided that I was not the modeling girl (refer to last blog entry) and besides I wanted to make sure not to get the slightest spot, stain (excuse the coarseness) or sweat mark on my dress before the magazine contacted me (of course!) to send it off to them!

Well, I ended up taking the dress on the dress form. I received lots of compliments and a few ladies mentioned that it was much more beautiful "in person" than it had appeared in the photos.

The photo above shows me explaining the project and you will notice the Altered Couture magazine in my hand...
So if you haven't seen the magazine - you should go check it out:
www.alteredcouture.com

Back to the story...
So there it was.
My first clue.
My first moment of disillusionment.
I had chosen wrongly!

That evening I got home and checked my emails.

An email from a lady living in Mazatlan who also submits items to the Altered Couture magazine. She had just wandered across my blog and had a few insights. Perhaps some of you have read her comments.

In part she wrote:
"It's not to late and instead of emailing or snail mailing the pics and waiting for them to get back to you, pack up the dress all the other descriptions explanations along with a picture of the piece you altered and send the whole shebang to Beth. Trust me on this. They make their decisions to publish or not when they see the item in real life. So if you send in the pics. all they will say is sure go ahead and submit it and we'll take a look. SO get that beauty tagged,identified, wrapped up and in the mail!!! Also meeting the deadline doesn't always mean it will come out in the issue you think. Sometimes they wait and use it in a different issue sometimes they decide to publish it in a different publication. They try to place your submissions in the best publication and issue that will show off your creation. If they choose to wait they won't exactly tell you that. You just won't hear from them until they do place it."

BUT! It was too late. The deadline was the very next day! No time to get it in the mail to them in 24 hours.

Do you know how I was feeling?

That big, fat, ugly "OOPS" feeling.

Today is September 24th.

And I haven't heard anything.

Some of my friends have emailed me wondering if my dress was accepted.

The thing is I don't know.

How long does the selection committee take to decide?

Was mine just set aside because it was emailed?

Were those cheesy photos of me just waaay too creepy?

The worries.
The fears.
The second guessing.

Do I email them?
Is that too pushy?
Do I just wait?

"The waiting is the hardest part"
~ Tom Petty?


So, you all know what I know.
And believe me. . . if anything changes - I will let you know!

In the meantime,
I am going to enter the "Lemon Squeezy Home Purse Week Contest."
It is a purse design contest.
I have my new hand-painted beach seashore messenger bags.
So, why not?
Oh, the only way to enter is by submitting photos.

So, if I get selected as one of the top 10, I will let you know.
If my bag does not get chosen -
We will never speak of this again!
Right?

And, if indeed my messenger bag got into the top 10...
Then you would naturally feel compelled to go onto the contest site and review all of the purses and (honestly) pick your favorite.

(Which of course, may or may not be mine!)
Just saying....

Until next time....

OK So check out the contest:
Click here for the contest page.