Note Jack is on the right side this time and there are three women.

When I joined Blue Coast Artists after we moved here, one of the first things we did was to buy a driveway alarm.  My brother-in-law had installed one at the end of my mother’s driveway years ago so they would be alerted if anyone pull in the drive. It was a great idea because my little old mother and sister lived back in the woods at the end of the long drive. ( See Many Blessings )  The only problem with the alarm is that if a gnat flew by it, the alarm went off.  I bought a cheap one on Amazon just to try it.  That was a huge mistake because the cheaper the unit, the closer the detector has to be to the house so the waves or whatever it is that sets off the unit in the house can reach the alarm.  We ended up by having to put it half way down the driveway and by the time the sound went off, the people were already here.  I really hated it.  Besides that, the dogs started barking before the car even turned in.

The third proof of my book arrived yesterday.  The dogs started barking when UPS turned into the driveway.  Jim and I were at our computers at the kitchen table.  We looked up at each other and I said, “My book!”  He got up to meet the driver and came in brandishing the package like it was a victory prize.  It almost is.  We opened it and I went right to the previously offending pages to see if the corrections had been made. They had, and I alerted the team leader at createspace.com.  They put it up for sale on Amazon right away.

So although it was a lot of work getting the book written and published, now I have to get it out there.  I really don’t like blowing my own horn, so this is not an easy task.  But if I want to keep having my books published, I must do it.  I love it that most of my friends and  my family are so good about supporting me, but face it, there aren’t that many of you!
So although I would like to say, “screw it, I’m going to play hooky today,” I have to get down to business and get some ads posted online.  I found that word of mouth is the best. A good friend told a podcast-er about the book and she mentioned the book twice, even doing a nice, positive review for me.  But even the negative stuff is good, my sister Liz says.  I’m not so sure about that!  I wish I could encourage people to be careful about hurting my feelings.  Ha ha, yeah right! But the little ads you see on Facebook and Goodreads and Library Things, although expensive, do help. So I will keep plugging away.

I moved my new computer into my office.  Sitting at the kitchen table with Jim and the dogs, the big window looking out upon the ravine with the wild life and bird feeders was getting to be too distracting. I did put two little feeders outside that window and the blue jays amuse me when I take a break and look up.   But I left my old laptop on the kitchen table so I can sit out here in the early morning.

Mixing dyes in the studio. Having a dye day here January 11th for a group of women from Kalamazoo. Having them will be a good distraction.

The New Year is fast approaching.  How can it be 2012 already?  What do you do with your time?  I love to hear the day to day living of my friends, what they are making for dinner, activities their children are doing, how they are coping.  Its one of the reasons I like Facebook.  I might not talk to my cousins more than once every twenty years, but I know where they are eating dinner tonight, or if they have insomnia, or what they got for Christmas.

The saddest thing for me today is that I cannot call my mother and tell her the book is out.  I think she knows.