This post is actually about poetry—Happy Poetry Month!

I am notoriously bad at managing my notifications. It drives Andrew a little bit crazy. 

Right now, according to my computer, I have a manageable 31 unread text messages...but on my phone that number is 187. My phone tells me I have 18,801 unread emails on my personal account...but my computer tells me it's only 7388. I'm not sure what is up with those discrepancies, so who even knows how many unread messages I truly have?

My school email address has 2529 unread messages.

Somehow Andrew's usually able to keep on top of his notifications, but for whatever reason...I just can't. 

We had dentist appointments this week and—I kid you not—we escaped without a single cavity between all six kids and me (Andrew will be going next week). But I did not escape without racking up 43 text messages and 38 email messages all from the dentist's office. 

"Just a reminder..."

"To confirm your appointment..."

"Your appointment has been confirmed..."

"Click to fill out the required paperwork prior to your appointment..."

"Your paperwork is complete..."

"Your appointment is coming up today at..."

"Thank you for scheduling your next appointment with..."

"Did you enjoy your visit? Take some time to leave feedback at..."

Times. Seven. People.

Fortunately, Andrew can take care of his own correspondence with the dentist, so it's not times eight people. We won't mention how he and three kids actually had appointments for March 29, but we ended up being busy that day, so I phoned the office to change all their appointments to today, but then Andrew reminded me that he had a conference today and wouldn't be able to make it (but had forgotten to put that on the calendar), so when I took three of the kids in last week, I postponed his appointment again, but when I got home and told him when I'd rescheduled it for he said, "Oh, no! I have a thesis defense that morning...which I forgot to put on the calendar...so I can't make that appointment..."

At that point I told him he was on his own. 

So when the dentist office called him to confirm the appointments for the three kids that he usually takes to the dentist, he went ahead and confirmed with them and also rescheduled his own appointment. 

All that is to say...why do I need 81 notifications (and, apparently, some phone calls!) from the dentist in the space of one week? 

I don't! 

I'm just flooded with superfluous stuff. 

At the mailbox, I usually collect the mail and then shuffle over to the recycling bin to drop in the 95% that is absolutely pointless junk. It doesn't even make it inside the house. 

With my electronic notifications I...simply don't open the junk and hope it goes away on its own. 

But apparently it doesn't.

So every once in a while I go nuclear and select all my unread messages (that are...old) and just delete them all. I try to unsubscribe from useless things, but somehow my email just keeps filling up with nothing. I'm drowning over here! 

I like to send out cards and things because...sometimes it's nice to get something in your mailbox that is for you...something that says someone was thinking about you and how wonderful you are. Christmastime is great because we get so many cards (even though we send electronic cards out and...I haven't even been great about doing that lately)! But usually it's just...junk. 

We don't even get bills in the mail anymore. So it's really just junk.

But it keeps the post office running, I guess. 

Email is similar. It used to be such a pure form of communication...before spam was invented. Everything in the inbox was for you. Now it's all bogged up with all sorts of impersonal "promotions" (a fancy way of saying "ads") and...anyway...

All that is to say that today was a good mail day on all fronts (aside from the many, many text messages from the dentist (it's not my fault they're obsessed with me))!

When I got the mail this afternoon, I found a contract with the proofs for two of my sonnets that will be featured in the next issue of The Poetry Porch. And that was excitement enough. To be fair, I knew they were coming (since the editor had told me she was mailing the documents off) but it was still exciting to get them!

And then this evening, after I finished putting Phoebe to bed (so, you know, right around 10:00 or so), I checked my email and...found out that I won the 2024 Segullah poetry contest! I almost cried with joy reading that email. I'm just so happy—honoured, really—that the poems I submitted have found such a beautiful home.

I mean, technically not all the poems I submitted won anything, but one of them did (it's a trio of poems, actually), and I'm so excited for it/them to make its/their way into the world!

Andrew reminded me (via text message) that, and I quote, "You are good at what you do. AND IT'S NOT JUST ME WHO THINKS SO!"

What he didn't say was, "So stop psyching yourself out and finish the draft of that paper you're working on so you can stop complaining about it." He's too nice to say something like that, but...that's probably what he meant...in the most supportive way possible, of course.

Instead...(sorry, hon, you'll have to listen to me whine about not being able to finish that draft for a little while longer)...I watched Mean Girls with my big kids (because that movie is 20 years old and I've never seen it and because it's spring break) and then wrote this blog post.

So that's progress, right?

Excuse me while I (responsibly) delete 74 notifications from my dentist (I'm keeping the appointment notices for a little while longer).