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| Supportive Spouse Award--Husband Edition |
Here's the day's timeline:
5am--wake, dress, eat, get girl's out of bed.
6am--leave for Columbia, SC with girls, hubby, and youth from out church for an activity.
10:30am--eat early lunch at Wendy's with large group of people. Survive straw fight and stray flying tomato.
11:30am--hubby heads home with friends, I fill our car up with gas and head for Woodstock, GA for Janice Hardy's early release party for Darkfall with my two daughters and one of their friends. Turn the radio up loud and sing for all we're worth.
1:00pm--stop at rest area for bathroom break. Wait twenty minutes for girls to decide what they want from the vending machines. Chase pigeons around the parking lot. Never did catch one.
Drive like crazy trying to get back on schedule. Shave off 8 minutes after driving another 100 miles. Listen to girls play the Alphabet game.
2:30pm--hit the first construction area on the edge of Atlanta. Take half an hour to travel 2 miles. Start to get frustrated. Girls start playing Sweet or Sour. (The waved at people in the cars around us. Those that waved back were sweet. Those that didn't were sour. I bet you wave the next time a stranger waves at you!)
3:00pm--Get up to 40mph, think we can make up some time.
3:15pm--move from lane 6 on far left to lane 4 in preparation for the next exit in eleven miles. While doing it watch the crazy lady behind me and chant, "stay in your lane, stay in your lane."
3:16pm--successfully switch lanes without incident.
3:16:30pm--hear a loud POP, look in rear view mirror and see the crazy lady had crashed into a car behind us. Think OMGosh! That could have been us. Thirty seconds earlier and it would have been us. Say lots of thankful prayers. Feel bad that I didn't stop to help, but scared of adding to the wreckage.
3:30pm--hit second construction zone. Feel like pulling my hair out and starting to hope that Janice is still at the bookstore by the time we get there. Think, "what if I drove all the way over here and traffic makes me so late I miss the whole thing?"
4:10ish pm--see the bookstore but can't figure out how to get there because of signs that say "no left turn" and it's on the left. Drive in circles a bit and finally get there. Look in the mirror and cringe at how I look and then realize I don't care.
4:15pm--walk in and see Janice and try not to act like a crazy stalker. You know how you feel like acting one way-A, know you should give people their space so you try to act another way-B, but come off looking completely-C...razy? Yeah, I think it might have been a bit like that.
4:20pm--pay for book and get it signed (plus to showing up late--no line?) Try not to bombard Janice with "do you remember me from your blog?", "you critiqued my story this morning", "I have such a blogger crush on you", "tell me all your deepest darkest secrets..."
5:15pm--realize I have to leave, even though I'd like to stay all day. Drive, eat, sing to Adele, Kelly Clarkson, and Daughtry at the top of my lungs with the girls to stay awake.
11:00pm--get home in one piece, happy, content, and glad I did what I wanted to do for a change. Even if it was probably crazy.
What did I get out of this? I want to be as cool as Janice and find cute places for book signings and parties. I want to be this relaxed and approachable. The fact that I got to share it with my girls made it even better. They are now reading The Shifter (first book in the series), and as soon as I'm done here, I'm reading my signed copy of Darkfall.
Don't worry, you can pick up a copy next week!
Coming Up:
- I'll continue with the Rejection vlog series on Wednesday.
- More questions from you, my wonderful followers on Friday.
- Review of Darkfall/Interview with Janice on Monday (If she has time, she's got to be busy right now.)
- Final rejection vlog next Wednesday.
- Last questions on next Friday
- Pre-Nanowrimo posts after that. Yep, it's already that time of year again. Can you believe it?
Are you doing Nano this year?
Charity, I love that you did that! How awesome :) There's a release that I want to go to in UT, but I would have to fly, and so there's no way :( So, I'm a tad jealous. I love it, and I love that your girls went with you.
ReplyDeleteAnd, uh, yes, I think I'm NaNoing. I have an idea, it's semi-outlined, but I'm so stressed with work, etc. right now that I don't know if I'll be able to pull it off. Here's hoping.
PS--I need to stop by your story, even if my review won't make a difference. But I want to check it out. My mom read it and said she enjoyed it, too. I'm hoping to get over there this weekend.
Charity, you are a jet-setter, with your cruises, and drives to Atlanta, etc. Let me know when your tour bus is in town so that I can come by and be cool too. >,<
ReplyDeleteHopefully you saw the whale sharks. I so want to see the whale sharks.
Glad you got to meet her! Atlanta traffic is insane - gridlocked doesn't even begin to describe it.
ReplyDeleteRosie, where are you again? I think going to book release parties could become addictive. :) I hope you get to go to some of the ones you want to.
ReplyDeleteI'm so ready to start my Nano project it will be hard to wait a month. Maybe work stress will calm down a bit by November? If nothing else, write whenever you can and it's more than you would have had otherwise. Maybe?
I deleted my story over there. I got so mad. Probably stupid, but I figure I can put it up fresh and move up faster than recovering from the two bad reviews. I saved the most helpful comments from other critiquers though.
Michael, LOL, I might need a bus if I keep this up! It was a lot of fun though. If I ever make it to the Salt Lake area I will definitely let you know I'm in town.
Alex, holy cow it was awful. And I didn't even go through Atlanta. I didn't want to chance all the lane changes and craziness, so I took the by-pass. I'm so glad I don't live there!
I'm going to my first book signing in January (whether my father has officially promise or not, I will find someone to drive me!). It's Ellen Hopkins' last stop on her tour for her new book. It's in Keller, Texas, about three hours away.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to start planning mine soon. I'm thinking about using pink legal pads to plan and outline, just to mix things up. I saw them at Wal-Mart.
I'm going to plan two novels this year, a duet. This is because I finished in fourteen days last year and then had nothing else to write.
Great to hear you did something just for you. I won't be doing nano this year - MUST finishing editing Tangled before I start something new! :-)
ReplyDeleteOh wow, now I'm even more flattered that you came after reading this story! Atlanta traffic can be evil and I've been stuck in it many a time. I didn't think you were stalkery at all, so no worries there :) I enjoyed meeting you and your girls. Thanks so much for driving down!
ReplyDeleteBrooke, I'm so impressed you are already planning. *thumbs up*
ReplyDeleteCally, I understand wanting to get Tangled finished. Good luck with that!
See, isn't Janice super nice!