January 11, 2010

Last night I watched my cousin in his television debut on Food Network Challenge's Newlywed Cake episode. I was so very proud of him. Not for winning - which he did not do - but for having the courage to do something that he loves - under circumstances that he did not have the details to beforehand - in front of camera's that would enable the masses to park themselves in their personal judgement recliners so they could give him the thumbs up or thumbs down as they saw fit. Takes some mighty strong guts if you ask me.
This morning on my errands I saw that the small garage housing one lone firetruck (that our local volunteer fire dept. keeps there so that they can respond more quickly to our area) had caught fire during the night. the firetruck was hooked up to a wrecker when I pulled into the gas station in the same parking lot as the garage. Its paint was blackened and its windows cracked from the heat. Rather ironic and definitely not good for our area, but still better than it could have been - as I said, there was a gas station that could have gone up too.
Both of these things have had me thinking today. I'm not talking exactly an epiphany moment here, but more of a sinking i of things that maybe I have been avoiding looking at head on. Together the thoughts combine into this: you never know what is going to happen next, be brave and if it doesn't' go as well as you might have wanted it to - it probably could have gone LOT worse.
In honor of this thought I've decided that this is Be Brave Week for me. We have a place here in West Virginia called Tamarack - the best of West Virginia. They carry the works of artists and writers who live in West Virginia. They also supply all of the gift stores at all of the rest areas in West Virginia with merchandise from what I hear. Seems like a no brainer that I would have already tried to get Fiddlebug into their bookstore, right? My problem is that they have a judging process and to be honest, I'm scared of it. Thanks to my wonderful cousin Tony and a burned up firetruck, I've decided to set aside that fear this week and take whatever steps I can to get my little book into Tamarack.
I'm also on my way to getting the first round of editing and revisions done on the last rough draft. I figure that will keep my mind off of freaking out over the Tamarack process. (crossing my fingers and hoping really, REALLY hard.)