Tally Ho

While some people are still counting votes, I am tallying up my rejections for the year. I have not sent out very many submissions this year, compared to some other recent years, but an acceptance today was a spur to do the count. So, in 2016 I sent out 27 packets, got 9 acceptances (of 12 actual poems, including 2 reprints in anthologies) and 14 rejections. It never quite adds up, due to carryover from past years. I have 11 pending submissions in the 2016 file, and some carryover all the way back to 2014, but I am counting those (in my mind) as rejections even though I never actually heard back from three publications. (I won't be sending to those 3 again.) It is much easier to tally things up when I send out fewer submissions, but much harder to get 100 rejections!

Meanwhile, I have begun sending out this year's Christmas cards and letters, a gradual process, and keeping track of that, too. I love to get actual mail, and I hope some other people do, too, and I am using a combination of leftover Peanuts Christmas stamps from last year and the beautiful Fund the Fight Find a Cure breast cancer research stamps I buy regularly in honor of my cousin Margie. When I run out of those, I have flower stamps and Wonder Woman stamps. I just have to remember to leave them out for the mail carrier or drop them in the mailbox in town. My brain remains both scattered and full these days, ticking things off and being ticked off since November 8. Sigh....

Not to be a tally ho, but I've also started tallying up my annual expenses, etc., preparing for tax time. It's been a big year for donations, thanks to the election, as that was one small thing I could do in response, over and over again, donate to worthy and beleaguered causes. Double sigh...

Plus, I am peeling stickers off an Advent calendar just for fun. (No chocolate is harmed in this harmless, chocolateless, alas, activity.)