I'm Published! (Kind of...)

If you've never heard of The Pioneer Woman, do yourself a favor and visit her site. Me? I love her. Yup, I'm in love with a woman. And one I've never even met to boot. I cannot tell you how much time I've spent on her site. She's my idol. She lives on their ranch with her devilishly handsome husband and 4 children. She is a self taught photographer, blogger, cook, and still manages to home school her children . (I could probably go without the homeschooling part...) She recently completed a cookbook tour and I'm very bummed that I missed meeting her in Seattle. (However, I did record and watch her appearances on the Today Show, The View and Good Morning America. I'm not a stalker though. Nope. Not me.) Seriously, you could get lost on her site for hours. And that's before you stumble across her love story, Black Heels to Tractor Wheels. You'll thank me later.

Anyway, on to the meat-and-potatoes of why I'm chatting about PW. Occasionally on the photography section of her website, she will give assignments. These assignments generally have a theme. People join her group on Flickr and can submit one photo per day. This week her assignment was 'Happiness'. I decided that I would submit a photo. Me and.... about 75,000 other people as I last checked. (I think it may have been about 50,000 yesterday, but you get the idea.) There are excellent photo submissions. GREAT stuff. She reviews these photos and each day of that week she picks about 10 to show on her site. Then at the end of the week picks the finalists and winners.

On to the best part - She picked one of my photos for the first round!!! Remember this one?

I could not believe my own eyes. The Pioneer Woman picked ME!? Yes, I'll admit it, there may have been a brief moment of hyperventilation at my desk. It was only 5:40am for petesake! I can't handle that kind of excitement before I've even woken up!

So there you have it. My first publication. And it is by a woman I admire. Can't get much cooler than that on a Wednesday morning!