Planning ahead

We haven't even finished edits and my next novel is already on Amazon.com! "Violette Between" will be released May 16 (according to them--the first official date I've heard, so I'll take it). I'm just waiting for the line edits, which I think I'll get around the 14th, and then, after I get those in, I think I'm done! Hallelujah!

The Artful Dodger

The jury duty bullet was successfully dodged! Actually, I told the judge honestly that I would love to serve on the jury, but it would mean giving me a break every half hour to pee and eat and walk around (my back locks up if I sit for too long). He said he'd leave it up to me, but if I wanted to postpone it till after the baby that was fine. Gee, what option do you think I'm going to take? So he dismissed me until February, which is silly, since I'll be breastfeeding then and I don't think they'll want my two-month-old in the jury box with me! :) So that was a huge, huge relief. Although, for some bizarre reason, I feel guilty for having gotten off, I guess because the judge was willing to make it work and I didn't take it, and who knows what kind of a trial I might get stuck with next time? This was one only a week--next time it could be one of those month long ones, or worse. Whatever. Anyway, thanks to those of you who said a little prayer for me; I appreciated that. :)

Civic Duty

Well, tomorrow I have jury duty. It figures that I'd finally get called at a time that is just SO inconvenient. I've actually always wanted to serve on a jury, although I'm sure those of you who've had to sit on one think I'm daft for wanting to, but it would definitely be an interesting experience and who knows what kind of great story ideas I might get from it? But for pete's sake, why couldn't they have called me any of the other 5 years I've been here when I wasn't great with child (and great with the need for sleep and constant food)? Not to mention that I have an honest-to-goodness business trip to Dallas on the 8th. If it's guaranteed to be a quickie case (and how can they possibly guarantee that? They told my mom her case would be a week or two, and it turned into three months!) then I wouldn't mind so much, but the fact is you never know how long it might be, and that's not a risk I want to take right now. I'm hoping it won't be a risk THEY want to take, either, and that my massive stomach will elicit their mercy. So those of you who are the praying sort, please send up a plea for compassion for me. I'll let you know tomorrow how it all turns out....

Q: Who needs sleep?

A: Apparently not my husband. It is now almost 9:15 on Friday night, and Dan has not slept since waking up Thursday morning at 10:30. Yes, that's about 35 straight hours up--and he's still going strong! Why, you ask, did he pull an all nighter that just never quit? Because he wasn't tired. Duh.

So this morning when I got up we went to IHOP for breakfast, which was a fun treat. While he was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I felt like crap, because I only got 7 hours of sleep, which is the equivalent of about 5 hours to the non-pregnant Alison. It's incredible how I can do absolutely nothing and still be exhausted. (Actually, I didn't do nothing--we registered last night, which means I was on my feet for two solid hours while we wandered Babies R Us, and that's the longest I've stood in a LONG time.)

The Angels game is on now, bottom of the 7th, so I doubt Dan will even think about bed until the game is over. I don't think it'll be hard to cajole him into going to bed afterwards, though. The trick will be for me to make it that long.

So quaint!

Having grown up in a church where the weekly attendence was more than the permanent population of many decent-sized suburbs, there are often things at our little 900 attendees church that strike me as being so quaint and traditional. Case in point: the photo directory. Dan and I just got back from having our picture taken for the directory, and Dan laughed at me when I mused about how fun it was to be in a small church. (Talk about relative: to Dan, this is a big church.) But honestly, to be able to print an entire church's membership in a booklet smaller than the Yellow Pages is such a foreign concept--and I LOVE it. I won't ever knock my church upbringing, despite how much I may disagree with certain aspects of it--bottom line is, my family is where it is because of that church, and I can't be grateful or thankful enough for it--but I have to say that the small church community is way more my speed. I love being able to recognize faces week after week, although it helps that I'm up on stage every other Sunday singing and can look at all those faces head-on, since otherwise my poor observational skills wouldn't remember half of them. I love it when the pastor can refer to a member by name and not have to give s hort biography of the person to give the name context--everyone already knows who he's talking about. I love that we have a Fellowship Hall, and that I've attended two birthday bashes there, because why not have your birthday party at the church? Everyone knows how to get there, and there's a kitchen and a sound system for the karaoke machine. I love that, when our child is born, we'll be able to appeal to the entire church body for their prayers and encouragement as we embark on first-time parenthood--and then know that people will actually come up and ask us how things are going and coo over our little bundle of joy.

The small church setting has its drawbacks, but I'd take those limitations over the endless resources of the megachurch anyday.

Edits!

So I got my edits back from my editor on Monday, and I was shocked (and mucho relieved) at how little actual rewriting she wanted me to do. Good thing, though, since they want the changes back in to them by Monday. Still not entirely sure that's going to happen. I'm going through and doing all the easy changes, then I'll go back and do the more time-consuming stuff, but even after that is done I need to go through and input all the changes I wanted to make myself. The problem is, I still haven't finished reading through the manuscript. Ugh. So I'm feeling a little under the gun here. (Which should be obvious given I'm procrastinating.) TOmorrow Dan is at a seminar at school all day, so I'm going to spend the entire day working on it, although that's sort of the plan for today as well. Once I finish checking my email and reading all my favorite blogs, that is. :)

Cancel your TiVo!

Well, we've been temporarily bumped from TBN--they wanted to focus the show on Katrina and wanted us to "minister to the victims"--not exactly something that is up my alley, or Dad's. When we explained that neither "Worlds Collide" nor "Case for a Creator" have a whole lot to say on the themes of natural disasters and losing all of one's possessions, they agreed that rescheduling us would probably be the best idea. When I get our new date, I'll let you know.

Set your TiVo!

If you're looking for some family entertainment, check out "Praise the Lord" on Sept. 15 at 6PM PST on TBN. My dad and I will be two of the featured guests on their live talk show discussing our latest books and who knows what else.

Would love your input...

Since I don't know how many of you regularly read my pregnancy blog, I wanted to direct your attention to a post I just wrote there. I'd love to get everyone's input and ideas. Take a peek and drop me a comment if you can think of any other time capsule ideas!