Bronze Medal Winner

I am relieved that it's over. Now I know that I won the Bronze Medal I can move forward with this award tucked neatly away........I won't receive my award until the end of July, which is fine with me. I was happy to know that I was one of the top three entries in the entire country for this competition, and, placing like I did is an awesome thing. I had never done anything like this before, and, am glad that I took the initiative to do so right from the get go.
Prior to my entry the lady told me not to get my hopes up, as most people are disappointed that they never win anything. Well, I kind of took that as a small hint to not hold out much hope, yet in the same breath, she told me how much everyone liked my art pieces, especially the one that eventually won the Bronze Medal. It doesn't get much better than that.
I think that she was as surprised as I was to find out that I didn't win first place. I didn't even give second or third place a thought......That's how confident I was that I'd win the Gold. Well, in my mind my piece is Gold, as, the original judges did not determine a final place for it there. For all I know they determined that my piece won first prize.
I still believe that it was the opportunity that I have been looking for. I've yearned to have a ribbon or medal placed next to my art in the various competitions that I enter. So, now I can say that I am a National Award Winning Fine Arts Photographer! What's cool is that they'll include my name in the great gala that will take place in California at the end of October. I hope that they'll keep up the tradition of printing the second and third place winners as we were a part of the competition.
My dreams of visiting California went up into a huge cloud of smoke yesterday, but, that's okay. I'm sure I'll be busy doing something that week!
At any rate I'll keep you posted on more about this later on.