For some reason when the temperature finally dips a bit and a leaf changes color just a wee something happens in me. January never ever seems like the new year, the time for new beginnings. Neither does Spring, even with all the rebirth. Fall is my time of year. I admit, I am a summer girl. I adore glasses of wine on my porch, dogs at my feet and watching fireflies light up the night sky when the evenings are warm and balmy, but Fall brings me great comfort. Almost every year about this time I declare, "Someting BIG is going to happen!" For the past two years this time of year meant beginning to paint everyday for almost 10 hours right up until December 24th. This year it means the same thing, but I will be doing it in a studio out of my house. I still don't quite believe it. I have the final meeting today at 11am to tie up the loose ends. More people in the online community know from my journal than those around me. I don't know if it that is because I don't want to jinx it, or that speaking it out loud may make it disappear. Who knows, but soon I will be there and then there is no turning back. This summer has been filled with so much freelance design work that I am itching to paint again. I have had paintings here and there, but I have hardly advertised or done summer festivals. I suppose I was readying myself for the holiday season without even knowing it. Things are happening even if we don't feel it at all. Even when we are so desperate to know they are happening and still can't manage to feel hope at all.

Yesterday I contacted the big publisher I submitted my book to last February. Yep. February. How is that for patience? I emailed and said, "Yo! You all have had my book a really long time, what the hell?!" Ok, I was a wee more professional, but still, that was the basic concept. I got an actual real person in the children's department to email me back. Very quickly. She sbasically said that I haven't been rejected yet, so they hadn't seen it yet or it was in review. Um, that is hopeful, right? LOL. I of course wrote back my uber heartfelt thanks for her time to look up my lil' ol' name in their big gigantic stack o' submissions. I stirred up the pot a bit. Sometimes we need to stir. Sometimes we need to crack the door open a bit ourselves, I guess. Who knows what might happen, but I do feel the urge once again to say, "I feel BIG things happening this Fall!" Hope is my favorite feeling in the world.