Hope

The new Writer's Digest (that I bought on our mini-vacation weekend before last) had an article that gave me a great deal of hope. It was called "Life After Almost: The Next Best Thing to a Book Deal - An Encouraging Rejection."

Two of my favorite quotes:

- "I'd guess that most agents add a personal and encouraging touch to no more than 5 percent of the queries they read...By itself, a personalized rejection is actually a good thing: It means you've got the writing chops or some other compelling factor on your side that will likely lead you to eventually becoming a published author."

-"If you're a writer who has received personal attention or an 'encouraging' rejection from even one reputable agent, this is a good indication that publishing has become a numbers game for you. It's now just a matter of finding the right agent or editor at the right time. I'd strongly urge you not to get even a little bit discouraged until you've received 50 - maybe even 100 - rejections on the project in question."

So with some help from the world's best writing buddy (aka Jennie Anderson) I've resolved to send out some more query letters for Rell. I have a long way to go to reach 50, I'd better get to work.

New Printer

Yay!! We've been wanting to buy a new printer for months now, and now that we know where our next go round of bill paying money is coming from we finally did it. We looked at Consumer Reports for a good model, did some comparison shopping with the stores and found a new Canon Pixma MX860 for a good deal!

It can fax, copy and scan too! No more running to the grocery store to fax at $1 a page. Plus, it has individual color ink catridges that are $13 to replace. I think we're going to like it.

Time Flies

Maybe it's because it is the last month of summer, my favorite season of the year. (Well, anytime it isn't snowing is my favorite season.) Or maybe it's because I'm working more, but the last couple of weeks seem like they almost vanished they went by so quickly. I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since I posted here!

Things to be happy about -

1. We could pay our bills and we know where the money for next months bills is coming from!

2. One of my best friends, Becky Criddle will live about a half an hour from me by the end of the month. (From Arizona! She claims she's missed snow, I think that's a little crazy, but I'm glad she's going to be close)

3. Thanks to the public library I always have good books to read. And even with a couple of library fines here and there it's still significantly cheaper than buying them.

4. As always, I'm married to one of the world's sweetest husbands!

Visitors

I'm excited that my brother Brett and his family are coming to stay for the weekend. Should be a lot of fun!

It's been a crazy week. Tracy finally gets to start his new job on Monday after a week and a half of paperwork wrangling. As he put it you'd think he was applying for the "unsupervised, night shift gold handler at Fort Knox" with the level of background checks they had to go through, but hopefully everything is on track now.

I started working reference at the Archives this week, which was really fun. I like helping people and getting to look into different things, it's a great experience.

Haircut

So I finally got my haircut this morning. I made the woman who was doing it nervous when I told her how short I wanted it. I had to reassure her, "I'm not a crier, and it grows really fast" before she was actually willing to cut it as short as I wanted it. It's shoulder length and fun, and I feel like I've lost ten pounds of hair weight!

Insanity can be fun

So I'm just working like crazy this week, more hours at the archives and 70 pages of lesson plans to proof for the curriculum project, but I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit. (Hopefully that feeling will last!)

My Family is Awesome

While Tracy and I were visiting the Boise area (this photo is technically in Middleton) we had a chance to go to church with my family. I don't think we've ever had this many of us there at the same time so it was pretty exciting. Next time we'll have to bribe Eric to come along too :)

Don't we look like a fun bunch?