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Early Friday morning, the 17th of October, while going through my daily reading I was struck by a distressful column from columnist, William Janz, of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel staff -- an excellent example of the writer I hope to become.

He is my favorite among their staff because he is always positive, always has something good to say about those that few others ever even think about. I was compelled to click the " send a letter to the editor" button, and write a short letter telling him to keep those rose-colored glasses on, despite scornful readers ... and in doing so, I fulfilled a prophesy I made last January.

Julie thought that I may have been setting myself up for a fall the first week of this year, when I told my cousin, Steve, to watch the Journal Sentinel letters --"I'll be there," I told him, "just keep watching for my name at the bottom of one of those letters." I hope that Steve was reading, but if not, I'll have to send him a copy.

When I put my home page together last year, I promised myself that I would read the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the New York Times every day -- every day that I am home, that is. Furthermore, as a new year's resolution, I set as a goal, that I would have a letter to the editor printed in the New York Times by the end of the year. At that time, I set as an intermediate goal, a letter to the editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The best part of this, the first letter to the editor of any paper to which I have written that was printed, though, is that it is a letter of encouragement, not of disparagement. I meant every word I wrote. In past letters I was thinking "what would they print?" but this time I Just wrote a short message, hoping that my letter would be formatted correctly, given the vast difference between LYNX and other, more widely used, web browsers. Editing can be done in that type of form, but with difficulty, so I just wanted to say as much as I could, as concisely as possible.

This was not my first attempt, and I am grateful that the first two were not printed. My initial forays into the literary world were not as balanced as they should have been, and I have come a long way towards correcting that. A public forum is not the place to vent -- unless you're sure it will do some good, and you do in fact know what you're talking about.

Within 12 hours of submitting my letter, I woke to the sound of the phone ringing. Now, I normally just roll over and go back to sleep, letting the machine get it, but this time I thought it may be important so I answered: "Hello?"

I'd love to quote that conversation verbatim for you, but alas, I was still clearing the sleep from my head and only remember the woman from the Journal Sentinel editorial staff, who's name I don't recall, saying "It's so good that we're going to print it in this Sunday's edition." "So you got my letter then?" I responded. I told her that I got an error when I submitted the form, so was not even sure if it went through. She assured me that it looked fine and thanked me for writing.

Julie was nice enough to go out and buy a copy for me on Sunday morning, and she cut out the letter for me as well. I now have the clipping here next to my monitor. I think it may be time to start a scrap-book.

I realize that this is not such a big thing, really, and next week I'll be on to something else but I've never been a goal-oriented person before. Although, I think that I may be getting the hang of it at last -- better late than never, right?

I am running out of time for my primary goal, the New York Times, and I have no Idea what to say yet. I do, however, know that I'll be keeping the rose-colored glasses, on.