Happy Tuesday! WE HAVE A WINNER!!! :D MARGO!!! I double checked and you are the Big VALENTINE Bingo W~I~N~N~E~R :D Can you please send me your addy and I will be getting out your Supa Dupa Prize this weekend. Shirley, I was out the other day doing the same thing. Putting back my flower tags took longer than I thought with the ground still a little frozen. So I put them under rocks for safe keeping. I planted a tiny, I mean teeny tiny, little yellow foxglove baby that I got from a friend of mine. I was so astonished to see that it has at least tripled in size. It is planted in the back of the house, by the foundation, where there is very little snow and no wind. Is it possible that it could have grown over the winter? I was just shocked to see it. Ruby, that sounds like a terrific HEART. Chocolate and Butterflies! What more could you ask for??? Corrine, your right! I love to laugh... and best of all IT'S FREE :D Ellie, I hope your feeling better. There hasn't been that much of a winter to do "sowing". I do jiffies under lights, but have been wondering with such a mild winter are the ws'ing jugs outside bursting with bloom or are they not growing at all because they don't have the snow for insulation? I also would like to remind everyone about the rate and review forum. We don't do it nearly enough on the round robin, and for some of the newbies, it really helps to establish them. Thanks! SENDING ORDER :0): poisondartfrog sends to cryptid**SENT**REC'D** tl.graham sends to shoestring**SENT**REC'D** canyonwind sends to flowergirl34**SENT**REC'D** hazelnutbunny sends to farmergirl2009**SENT**REC'D** sjc48 sends to hazelnutbunny**SENT**REC'D** smitties sends to sjc48**SENT**REC'D** shoestring sends to canyonwind**SENT**REC'D** corrine1 sends to rosemctier**SENT**REC'D** rosemctier sends to poisondartfrog cryptid sends to smitties**SENT**REC'D** farmergirl2009 sends to tl.graham**SENT**RED'D** flowergirl34 sends to robin1962-2008**SENT**REC'D** robin1962-2008 sends to corrine1**SENT** Just waiting for a couple more and we can wrap this up :) I just want to thank everyone for such a fantastic swap. You guys have made hostessing this month super fun. And I can't thank you enough. Have a great day! vina

Hi All, I hope everyone is doing good. I finally took my brother and his fiancee out to eat! His birthday was only March 6th, lol. It was fun. Theresa, Lol about the rain! It figures, but I'm sure everyone had a wonderful time. Congrats on the win! Shirley, Autograph, Lol! Dawson is lucky to have you living right next to him : ) Melissa, "cross between Barney Fife & Jeff Foxworthy. Clumsier than a blindfolded 3 legged mule" LOL!! That is just too funny. Gary can be an idiot, but he's a big boy so he usually breaks everything around him as opposed to him breaking, lol. Annie, Cross stitch! I knew you did something exceptionally well with cloth. Anita, Wow you are nuts with running a co-op with all those plants and having a wedding. Mellen, I'm suppose to have Monday off, but the weather report looks ugly as of right now, cold and rain. If it stays bad, I'll be working on Monday and having off on Wednesday to send. I'll keep you updated. Remy

I remember reading that...but it's still just as funny.... I am completely surprised that I didn't find a post from me on there...My DH has done a few things during our 42 years that I tell on him every now and then. patti

Hi Lavender, I love your characters and the promise of this story. You've got a nice start with writing it. If you were writing in my category (young adult) you'd have a REALLY good start. Every genre has its own set of expectations. When writing for teens and young adults you'll almost always find short, snappy sentences. You'll also find a lot of new sentences that start with transition words like so, and , or but. That's what you've done at the beginning of your story. However, this isn't a novel for teens; it's a Victorian romance. Romance readers, and (I think) historical romance readers in particular, seem to like a more formal, wordier style. The words you choose and the way you structure your sentences can help establish tone and set the the story in the proper era. I played around with the first few paragraphs to give you an idea of what I'm talking about, but I'm no victorian romance writer so -- if I were you, I'd consider researching a few popular novels in the genre to get a better idea of what readers might expect: She would be coming to his classroom that afternoon. Henry Lastname set to putting things right, shelving a book here, straightening a pile of papers there as he tried to think about something, anything else. His opportunity to teach had come at the grace of a wealthy neighbor. Despite being born deaf, she’d thought him a bright child and had paid for his education. The chance to find books, to learn to communicate with others like himself, to establish a career as a teacher, it was all more than his family could have dreamed for him from their small tenant farm. Henry inspected his classroom with pride. He’d done well for himself, had gained the respect of the headmaster and the entire community. He knew he should be satisfied, but memories of the farm often crept in as he graded papers and settled petty disputes between the students in his charge. The lovely way the sun rose over the hills in the morning, the brilliant colors as it sank in the evening, and his horses -- how he longed to have his own horse again. Some days it was all he could think of … when he wasn’t thinking about the girl. The way she braided her lovely blonde hair around that pretty head of hers seemed to fill his own skull with all manner of indelicate thoughts. The yearning to run his fingers through those braids was chief among them. He reminded himself, yet again, how inappropriate this would be. Not only was Clara Lastname a student, she was also the daughter of an influential mayor of a nearby city. He was so involved in pushing away his thoughts that he jumped when he felt a soft touch on his shoulder. I hope you can get the idea from my pretty pitiful effort, lol. I don't read a lot of this genre, but I do read a lot of aspiring writers' works. You have a big head start on a lot of them. You have a nice way with dialogue and, even in this first chapter, you've already established the most important thing in romance writing -- chemistry. These two are full of it! Figuring out the voice of your story is all that's holding you back. I hope you'll accept my advice in the spirit it was intended. If I didn't think you had the ability to take this story to another level I wouldn't have bothered chiming in. Lavender Lass, you've got a good story to tell and the talent to tell it. P.S. A word about marketing if you don't mind. Just like there are genre expectations in the writing of the book, readers have expectations about the way a Victorian romance novel should look. Pretty women in beautiful dresses (and a bare chested man if you can find one) seem to be the norm. You might want to take a look at canva.com In just a few minutes I was able to put together this: To Share A Dream With You