Youth Poetry Contest 2015

I'm now into my sixth Youth Poetry Contest organized five years ago to give school children in my area the opportunity to try their hand at writing poetry. Each year there has been a theme to write about. This year's is "I Wonder..." Amazing the wonderful ideas that get expressed by young students from grade 1st through 12th grade from those few words. The idea started in my mind and got developed by an opportunity that developed at Tuacahn Saturday's market in Ivins, Utah. Then with support from our local Washington County School District who helped promote and publicize with their teachers as well as private and home schools in the county, we were off and running. Prizes were donated by local merchants and prize money from grants from Utah state and National Endowment for the Arts.

The first year was slow going with only 100 students participating until last year's contest had 400+ students. Organizing all the entries by email-cut and paste into a word program plus a few paper entries was time consuming and very frustrating. This year's contest sponsored now by the St George Book Festival was aided by James Duckett who designed a program for submission and also thanks to Lenore and Shane for help with judging! Photos of winners coming later this week as they read their winning entries at an awards program on Sat-Oct 24th. Trying to help others find their voices through poetry is what it's all about for me.

Time for Another Challenge....

Needing to update my old mac mini 2007 (in computer language that's almost obsolete). Though it does work for some programs, it got to the point where it wouldn't run my new QUICKEN program and download my financial bank info.

So I took the plunge, since I escaped buying a new iPhone to buy a new Mac mini 2015. Then came the challenge of transferring all my programs without glasses but new lenses in my eyes and store bought reading glasses now needed to see the computer. Can we say BIG LAUGH OUT LOUD?

Almost calls for another poem that that might put me in TEARS..oh no! My eyes are healing nicely but I won't know till a week from now if I'll need to wear NEW glasses to correct both my near and far sight. Things far away are almost 20/20 but to see my face or read or book is impossible I heard that you can fixed one eye for near vision and the other eye for far vision. BUT IT'S TOO  LATE NOW!

On to new and bigger CHALLENGES. I bought a tail-less/wireless MOUSE and its so easy to use I can't believe it. Then I cleaned off and organized my physical desk and am still attempting to organize my computer desktops now linked together through i-cloud: my new mac mini, my air laptop, my i-pad and my external hard drive.

Time for another BIG LAUGH-trying not to call my guru computer son who is boating this weekend with family. I found a local retired professor of computers who is helping me get my mail working again which is very necessary as tonight is the DEADLINE for entries to the YOUTH POETRY CONTEST that I started 6 years ago to encourage school children in 1st to 12th grades to become creative. Stay tuned for more developments...

Getting a new computer cpu means cleaning and organizing your desk!

That's my little cpu with an external dvd drive, I'm learning lots trying to
make it all work together. These photos taken with my i-pad then uploaded
to i-Cloud then downloaded to my mini...lol. I need to get an I-life!!!

Relief Society Fall Party

Poster advertises our get acquainted party for our church's women

Fall decorations were bright and colorful

Our enrichment committee did a great job of decorating/planning

Lots of goodies to enjoy and hot cider

Welcoming all our women to our activity

Special song "Getting to Know YOU!"

Meeting Sally a new member of our branch.

Fun activity of questions to answer in a group

Getting to know you was the focus of our meeting and we did!

New friendships were made and old ones renewed/strengthened