Art journal and venting

I did this art journal canvas yesterday afternoon after reading Lucrecer's tutorial on the year of color blog about doing a monochromatic art journal page. So much fun and so stimulating, forcing myself to use only green. This is a great exercise in creativity.
And now a little venting - I have to admit I am getting pretty tired of entering challenges with time limits on them and then because someone whines about not finishing in time, the person running the challenge extends the time and invariably someone wins who was late with regard to the original deadline. My son who is a teacher told me that students today always ask for extensions and he is one of the few teachers who will not extend unless there are extreme circumstances. Aren't we teaching our children and ourselves that deadlines don't matter?
I am also pretty down on swaps as I entered a Valentine swap on a blog, corresponded with my partner, made her several items, mailed them off, and then nothing for me and she does not answer my emails. I finally emailed and told her to consider the items a RAK. And then I entered some atc swaps where the deadline is 4/1 and all of a sudden after I mailed my cards, people are cancelling.
I am not entering nearly as many challenges as I did for a while and actually I'm pretty down on challenges and swaps right now. I read a quote by Bruce Mau who said not to enter competitions as they are not good for your creativity and I am beginning to think he's right. (But I have to admit I plan to enter the Memory Makers Masters contest - I'm so glad it's via email this year and you don't have to mail layouts to them.)
Anyway, on to happier stuff. I am going to a luncheon today that is a thank you for the library book store volunteers. Should be fun!
Be back tomorrow in a much better frame of mind. LOL