Now I have a Jennifer Lommers Print

Matted and framed and hanging on the wall in my bedroom!   It's the one I am using as the opening artwork here on my blog.  Talk about synchronicity!  The friend who gave it to me had never visited my blog, so she didn't know that that was the one I had posted.  She saw that I had "liked" Jennifer Lommers' page on Facebook, had gone to the page and fallen in love with Jennifer's art, and had purchased from Jennifer's website.

Meanwhile, here in hot and humid Maryland...  I have been procrastinating terribly.  I do sporadic work on the three syllabi I need for mid-August.  Almost finished two, and much more work to do on the third.  I've taught all three courses before, but the schedules have changed and , for the third, much additional writing assignments need to be incorporated.

What I have done is some poetry submission/application:
*  I have revised the manuscript for Reconnaissance and sent it to BOA Publications during this open reading period. 
*  I've applied and will attend the Nightsun Writers' Conference in Frostburg MD which begins July 25... have sent poems ahead to be workshopped.
* I've sent a copy of  Vexed Questions to Garrison Keillor and his Writer's Almanac, hoping he'll read one on the air.
* I've applied for a summer residency for next summer to  Hedgebrook , "a rural retreat on Whidbey Island, Washington where women writers come from all over the world to write, rejuvenate and be in community..."
* I've mailed three of my books to American Life in Poetry, a project sponsored by the Poetry Foundation, which " provides newspapers and online publications with a free weekly column featuring contemporary American poems."  Hope they will use some of my poems.

Fingers crossed on all of those.

I've also done the obligatory summer doctor appointments - eyes, colon, blood, etc.  Everything seems to be holding steady.

Otherwise, I've been watching the Great Dane Service Dog Project online , where two of the mother dogs have had puppies within the last month.  The 24/7 webcam on these two litters is even more addicting for me than those Cornell Hawk cams!

 

eight puppies in this litter... called, collectively, the Pippins...

 six in this litter, collectively called the Merlins...

Pippins Ethel and Beauregard  on July 20

Merlin  Violet  July 20

 

                                                              Merlin  Tiki  July 20

                                                          Merlin Maroon  July 20