It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

Good news yesterday - I got word that the self-portrait I sent in to the Quilting Arts Magazine Creative Self-Portrait Challenge was one of 75 (out of 500 entries) that they want to tour with them for a year. This doesn't mean it will necessarily appear in the magazine, but is still very, very cool. Yay me! And Yay to the other 74 people who got the same letter! Which, yeah...about that letter. I did something really stoooopid yesterday and I might as well share it with a couple-hundred friends, right? I mean, God forbid I shouldn't tell y'all about it when I pull a bonehead move. [grin] So here's the story. Yesterday afternoon I was checking my email. Not my "regular" email account - the one where I get the vast majority of my mail and I check it compulsively about a gazillion times a day; and not my third-string "I only use it for websites I know will spam my butt off" email address; but my second-string "also sort of a spam-catcher, but sometimes a useful web-based option" email addy. All clear? Good! Evidently that second-string email addy is the one I gave to the folks at Quilting Arts when I sent in my entry. Why, you might wonder, did I give them that address instead of my primary address? Good question! I wonder the same darn thing! All I can say is I'm sure I had a good reason at the time. I always have a good reason at the time I do things. It's only later that I sometimes can't quite remember what that reason was. Heh. So I checked the Inbox...nothing there that looked like it couldn't wait. Then I go to my bulk mail folder -the one where deleted items are deleted forever, not just sent to the "trash" folder - to empty it out and since there's never anything interesting in there (lalala...) I tell my 'puter to do a mass dump and then...THEN...about the time it's working on fulfilling my expressed desire, I notice that one of the emails that is about to disappear forever looks like it's from a real person instead of from "Hiney T. Colorbanger" or his cousins, and the subject line says something about "your creative self-portrait challenge" instead of telling me I've just won a "free" plasma TV or how I can buy penis enhancers. (And won't I get some interesting hits on ye olde blogge from google searches on THAT sentence in the coming months! Uh...pun not intended. Snort!) I tried to stop the mail dump, really I did, but it was too late. At first though, I was just mildly irritated, thinking some nice person had seen the self-portrait on my website and had emailed a comment and I was disappointed that said Nice Person would be getting no response from me and would think I was rude. (And to anyone with a remotely southern upbringing, "rude" is pretty much on a level with "scum of the earth".) But then I saw a note from Gerrie on the QuiltArt list saying that she had just been notified that her self-portrait was going on the road with the QA staff. Yay Gerrie!!! And suddenly a little lightbulb flickered above my head, and two plus two were added and started to look suspiciously like four (NOT always a given with me and math!) and I emailed Gerrie both to congratulate her and to tell her my sad tale. I told her the subject line and last name of the sender of the email I'd inadvertently dumped and she answered within minutes to tell me that yes, I had in fact deleted my own acceptance letter, unread. Oops. Luckily it's all straightened out now and I've sent in the requested permission thingy and the shoe-day-dreaming DebRPortrait will spend the next year seeing more of the US than I probably have. And I know she'll be in good company because Gerrie and Caity also have their self-portraits included in the show. Yay Gerrie and Caity! And Gerrie, thanks again for saving me from my own carelessness. Whew! Anyone else want to share that their self-portrait is going on the road? Anyone want to share an "I did something stupid" story to make me feel less like an idiot? Anyone want to add their shoes to the RSR Frappr map? (C'mon! I know more of you are out there reading!) Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?