Kids, Publishing, and Chocolate

“You rock, Ali!”
-Katherine

The past couple of days have been fairly eventful for me. Eventful enough so that I’m very much looking forward to Friday, when I’ll have a day off.

Saturday: Okay, mostly positive. When I saw the schedule, I knew it was too good to be true. Me, the first one in on a Saturday (and thus, the first to go home)? Right. The minute I got to the bar on Saturday, Dave told me that Rebecca called in sick, so it was just me all night. No problem, I thought, it’s been dead for over a month. Ha! Saturday was not so dead. In fact, I set a new personal sales record $908. A hectic night, but ultimately a profitable one. Next month’s car payment, here I come!

Sunday: Polymer day. I spent about four hours experimenting with canes and making beads – ended up with about five or six necklaces worth.

Monday: Started an overnight babysit, which means a nice check in my wallet.

Tuesday: Did the substitute mom thing, including waking up really early, getting a five-year-old ready for school, picking the five year old and two of her friends up for lunch and tennis (and oh-what-fun it is to wrangle two four-year-old boys with lots of energy), and going to gymnastics. Then, after Carly had her bath, I corrupted her mind because we watched Miami Ink while I combed out her hair. Okay, I’m not worried about the corruption. Miami Ink is a nifty show which emphasized artistry and personal stories vs. the “so cool” non-conservative aura of tattoos. To top it off – this gal who lives and breathes cartoons actually liked it.

Wednesday: Finished babysitting once the kids were off to school and came to the office to find a nifty e-mail. I’ve been collecting publishing price quotes for the Writing Project’s 2006 Essay anthology. Fidlar Doubleday can do the project (approx. 100 pages, 150 copies) for about $500, which is nearly a grand less than Katherine’s total budget for the project. I’m feeling kinda pleased with myself on that one. Now I just have to get the anthology ready for publishing – which is something I’ve never done. Right now the anthology is a handful of Word documents which have been proofread, but that’s about it. I have to now combine them, format them, create a contents page, etc. and then convert them to a PDF so I can send the “output ready” document to the publisher. Oh yeah, and Katherine’s given me the job of designing the cover also. So, aside from actually printing the book, I’ve kind of been delegated to being the publisher. On one hand – mundo cool. On the other – very scary and intimidating.

In other news - it's Valentine's day, so there's chocolate cake in the main office. Yay!