It’s Thursday again and it’s time to count your blessings. Before I begin, here’s wishing all of you a very happy Diwali. Diwali is the festival of lights and is celebrated by Hindus all over the world. It signifies the victory of good over evil which is represented by lighting up lamps to banish the darkness. I hope this Diwali illuminates your heart and your home.

This week, Barbara, the editor of Masticadores USA, nominated my poem, ‘Out of Order’ for the Pushcart prize. It took a while for the news to sink in and so, although, I received the information early in the morning on Tuesday (which coincidentally happened to also be the first day of Diwali), I shared the news with my friends and family only at noon. It’s a dream come true and I’m thrilled.
If you’d like to read the poem, you can read it here.

You can check out the other nominations here

I’m thankful for every sunrises I get to see. Here’s one on the 28th of October

The sun was an orange-red in colour. I’m afraid the camera on my phone didn’t do justice to it (see it in the picture of the rose). It did a fair better job when I took it through the sheer curtains.

My poem, ‘ Addicted to “Poison” ‘ that I had written in memory of my mom was published by Silver Birch Press. I had sent the poem in March and it got published now. You can read it here.

I’m also participating in Thursday Doors this week. I have an assortment of doors from my recent trip that I have not shared earlier.

Now here are the pictures my sister sent from her holiday in Poland. I don’t know which is my favorite in the doors below. The Polish obviously accord a lot of importance to their doors. You can see it in the architecture, the engravings and

That’s all for today from my side. I hope it’s made you think of all of the things that you can be grateful for. There’s a lot- literally everything – the way we can move, digest our food, move, talk, see. We take it for granted until we have a problem. So, why not, starting today, thank God for these things, thank your senses for working for you and who know, maybe, they’ll work better and longer.

I leave you with this thought. Wishing you a lovely Diwali, a lovely Halloween and a lovely weekend.

Last but not the least, here are my books. Both are available on Amazon. If you haven’t read it yet, check out the link in the caption below. If you have read it, please share a review. I look forward to knowing what you think of it.

Copyright@smithavpennings.com. All Rights Reserved.