This one came all the way back in November 2017. I was just too depressed to login in and post about it.

Rejection Letter #65 – Texas Review Press

Dear author:

After careful consideration of your recent submission to THE TEXAS REVIEW, we regret that we cannot offer an acceptance at this time.

Thanks for submitting to us.

The Editors

Found another place to get rejected by, figured I’d try. Tried. Rejected.

Phil finally got the pen needed to draw my cover. Just as soon as he does that, which should be sometime after he finishes building Ash’s playground, I’ll be one step closer to at least providing the words of my story to the world. Who knows if the world will read them, but they’ll be there.

Rejection Letter #64 – The Georgia Review

Dear Gabrielle Olexa,

We are sorry to report that your manuscript has not been selected for publication. We thank you for letting us consider your writing, however, and we wish you the best in placing it elsewhere.

The editors of The Georgia Review

I wish I wr0te more or had more places to send my works because I really want to eat 100 cupcakes of rejection.

Another card from Texas, this one from Austin.

It took 6 days and traveled 1,043 miles.

Having lived in New Mexico, I’ve seen many of those animals, but not sure I’ve ever seen a wild armadillo, alive or dead(on the side of the road) or even at a zoo. Strange looking creatures, but in a cute, I want to cuddle with you way. 🙂

This postcard took 6 days and traveled 4,154 miles from Paris, France.

The sender thought it was a hummingbird, but it’s not. I have no idea what kind of species it is. If you happen to know, leave a comment! Thanks!

The black of the postcard was too reflective, so you can see the fan in my living room and my phone as I took the picture. I really need to use a scanner for these postcards, but I’m lazy and that takes more effort. Hehe.

It’s almost hummingbird season again. I recently accidently destroyed every single one of my feeders(7 of them) because I’m an idiot. I put them in the bottom of my dishwasher and melted them into unrecognizable shapes. I’m fully aware that putting plastic in a hot dishwasher is a no-no, so I can’t tell you why I did it anyway. I’m an idiot like I said. I tried putting them in the top, but they were too tall and wouldn’t fit. Next time I won’t leave them out in the elements for an entire season, like an idiot, and that way they won’t need a dishwasher to clean them. You should have seen them. Somehow I didn’t puke rinsing them before placing them in the dishwasher.

This postcard came from Tomball, Texas, just north of Houston. It took just 4 days and traveled 898 miles.

Here in Matthews, we only get ruby-throated hummingbirds, so far as I am aware. I’m always so insanely jealous of the videos that have 20, 30 or 40 hummingbirds at one time at a feeder. I don’t get it. In my whole life, I’ve never seen more than 10 at one time. Here, even though I have 8 feeders outside, no more than 5 have ever been here at once. Grr. It’s just not fair. I should just be happy that I have hummingbirds at all because there are places that don’t have them at all.

Normal flight for a hummingbird is 25-30 mph, but they can dive at speeds up to 60 mph! That’s just crazy! I love watching them do that. I’m always terrified they are going to smack into the ground. But somehow they manage to brake before flying up and doing it all over again.  Impressive little birds they are.

This card comes all the way from Pinsk, Belarus. It took 8 days and traveled 4,975 miles.

For those not in the know, like me, Belarus has two national languages: Russian and Belarussian.

Also, for you food lovers looking for something to try, the national Belarussian dish is draniki. I had to look it up of course. It’s a meat stuffed potato and it looks freaking delicious! I’ll be booking my flight tomorrow just so I can eat it. Oh, how I was I could do such a thing. Since I can’t obviously do that, it seems fairly easy to make and the internet has provided me with a recipe. I know what I’m having tonight. Yum.

One day, though, that person on the postcard is going to be me again. One. Day.

This beautiful postcard took 8 days to arrive and traveled 3,845 miles from Wrexham, North Wales.

I’m fairly certain that is lavender. I would pay a pretty penny to stand in the middle of a field like that. Can you imagine what it would smell like? Pure bliss.

The sender of this postcard taught me good morning in Welsh. It’s “Bore Da”.

I have not mentioned in my profile that purple is my favorite color, so maybe some sweet spirit whispered in his ear and told him this postcard would do just fine.

I tried planting lavender last year, but it never came up. The other flowers I planted did, but before they could bloom a damn rabbit came and ate every last stalk. When the rabbit was finished, you couldn’t even tell there had ever been a plant there. I was furious in ways that I can’t fully articulate, but if I ever find that cottontail, I’m gonna put him/her in my belly! Roasted rabbit sounds mighty delicious!

This is the first I had ever heard of Cream Brother, the famous cat from Kowloon, Hong Kong. The store where he lived and managed(haha) has since closed and he now lives at home with his owner.

It took 12 days to get to me and traveled 8,352 miles.

I just want to state for the record that I think this place(Tessin, Switzerland) is beautiful.

This card actually was sent from Berlin, Germany. It took 6 days to arrive and traveled 4,499 miles.

This is the only card I’ve received from Italy. So far I’ve sent 8 there.

It took 9 days to get here and traveled 4,641 miles.

The architect behind the above buildings is Andrea Palladio. He moved to Vicenza when he was very young.