I never quite know how to begin a post when it’s been three months since I’ve written here. I like to avoid the bad-blogger apology if possible, so I’ll just start.

Yesterday provided the first whiff of Springtime in Indiana–70 degrees and sunny. I walked the few blocks to the post office and spied a clump of spring flowers along the way. It made me happy and I Instagrammed it.

What did I do at the post office, you ask?

I’ll tell you. Thanks for asking. I mailed a submission (yup! they still take submissions by snail mail!) to Good Housekeeping. No big deal–500 words for their Blessings page. And it will arrive tomorrow with hundreds of other manila envelopes. I hired an Angel that my envelope and its contents would somehow catch the attention of someone. Anyone.

But then it was a big deal. Good Housekeeping has always been a big deal to me. Back in the late 1950’s, early 1960’s, the monthly arrival of my mom’s magazine was an event. I loved to curl up next to her on the couch as she flipped through the pages. There was always a coloring page near the back. For me.

When I set up my own house, my mom bought me a subscription for my birthday. She renewed it every year until she died. It was something special we shared.

Yesterday was International Women’s Day. While I was walking, I was thinking about the women in my life–mostly my mom and her mom, my Grandma Princess. Both of whom I think of as Good Housekeeping women. Homemakers who faithfully read the magazine as a resource every, single month. It was one of their few global connections. Please don’t think I’m suggesting that GH has a narrow audience. It’s just that my experience was with the magazine and women who were homemakers. Just two. Two monumentally important females in my life.

Once, back in 1980-something, a professor at IUPUI where I studied English, was addressing our class on the prospects of ever achieving publication with anything we ever wrote: “And if you’re really bad enough, you might get published in Good Housekeeping.” It’s one of those moments in time that remain. I was offended for my friend magazine and yet embarrassed that I loved something deemed so uncool by the literary world. Where did that leave me?

I thought about him on my walk. What an Ass Head! Thankfully, I’ve learned much since then about audience and voice and being true to myself. I just hope my angels guide my envelope into the right hands and I’m somehow bad enough to see my words printed in Good Housekeeping someday.