engagement photos—never before released!

I've been holding out on you, fam. Already a week's gone by and I haven't emailed you any of the pop-the-question pictures that I took. Forgive me?

I like these three:




I have more. Don't worry; you'll have them soon, too.

writerly news

In January, Christopher and I submitted essays to this year's David O. McKay contest. Today was the last day the winners would be notified. When I found nothing but junk in the mail box this morning, I figured we had expected too much, and therefore, the universe paid us back with last place (when I won in '06, I had forgotten that I even submitted the essay at all).

But then I got a phone call. Looks like the universe just wanted us to wait for a second.

• Christopher won an Honorable Mention in the undergraduate division. You guys heard Christopher's essay at the family Christmas party and it's pretty much amazing.

• I won first place for the graduation division.

The awards ceremony will be held on Thursday, April 16th, at 1pm. I know it's a fairly inconvenient time. But if you have time that day, come for some free food.

it's a major award

I hate bragging about myself. But, I figure we created this blog to keep each other in the loop. So here's my part of the loop—shameless self-promotion.

I've received some happy letters in the last week. One saying that I'm good at teaching, and important people in my department want to give me an award for it. And another saying that I won 2nd place in a poetry contest. And I don't really even write poetry.

Now, if I could get someone to say they want to give me money-slash-prizes for what I actually think I'm good at—writing fiction—THAT would be a major award.