Contest Day. Maria and I are soulmates and yet we are very different in many ways. She is a quiet, private person. I have been a quasi-public person for years.  I have a big mouth. She does not. I charge ahead, and she almost never does. It’s a good thing, because if we were both like the other, it could be trouble.

A blog was a big step for her and she has to share her life with a maniac who is always running around with one or more cameras taking photos. She is one of those slow but steady people who creep up on you, not with a lot of noise or fanfare but with thought and care. She is an artist, through and through, and where she wants to be is in her Studio Barn, making art, not navigating the media marketplace. Yet she is quite good at it, as her somewhat shockingly successfuly Potholder giveaway contest can testify to.

Maria noticed that our friend Mary Muncil was having a lot of fun giving away things on her great blog. So Maria reluctantly concocted her own contest – three potholders to be offered up to people who don’t usually win contests from a person who doesn’t even like contests and has never one won. My role was to annoy her but nagging her to do it. She does not generally care to be told what to do.

So now, there are more than 300 entries, and Maria has gotten very quiet about it. And very thoughtful. I love the way Maria does things, in her own good way, in her own good time. The winners will be chosen today at noon and I will help choose them. And Maria is pondering some ways to make everyone a winner. But more on that from her. All you have to do is post a comment on her website. One of the things that is wonderful about Maria and our life together is that we are both continuously challenging ourselves to do things we have not done before, to be open to new experience, to change our stories. Perhaps that is the greatest contest of all. Good luck today. Six more hours left to enter.