Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

So, slacker that I am, I didn’t go to class last night after all. I was stuck in a conference room for three hours yesterday afternoon, and when I finally got out and made the mad dash to pick Liam up from Cindy’s - late (sigh…) – it was completely blizzarding outside. So when I got home I called my professor, left a message with him asking him to email my take home exam to me, emailed my paper to him… and planned to camp out at home for the night. Well, then I got onto the computer, and saw Jenn’s cryptic message from yesterday, saying she saw me on page 162 of her new scrapbook magazine. Wah? This led me to first assume that Jenn is having a baby, thinking she was referring to the Scrapbooks Etc. baby idea book from last spring. (Sorry Jenn!) But then I checked my copy of said baby book, and Liam is on page 151, not 162. This ate away at me for a while, so I called her (only to get her answering machine), and then it ate away at me some more, and finally I could stand it no longer – I gave Chad an excuse to give my professor for why I wasn’t sitting home snowed in in case he called, and I braved the snow and went out to 2 different stores to find out what Jenn was talking about.

It turns out that I got a cursory mention in the December 2006 issue of Creating Keepsakes. As in, a byline from one of the editors that says, I'd like to give a special shout-out to these 10 readers who also had pages that caught my eye this month! - and then there’s my name on the list. This took some thinking on my part to recall, but I do remember sending in a page about Liam’s first birthday a couple of months ago when they had a call for a birthday idea book. Unfortunately for me, the book project was cancelled, and the December issue is too full of Christmas stories to be bothered with publishing birthday pages. This super sucks because (as silly as this may sound) Creating Keepsakes is sort of the matriarch of the scrapbook magazine family – the originator, the artiest, some would say the hardest to get into, and the best paying. (Scrapbooks Etc. is more like the hip older sister.) I was that close to seeing Liam’s sweet little chocolate icing-smeared face in print, and a cheque for US $150 to boot. Instead all I got was a lousy byline, and I wouldn’t even have known about it had Jenn not had the eagle eye.

This does inspire me to submit some more. I have submitted maybe 5 or 6 pages total now, and got one publication and one honourable mention – enough that I am inspired to crank it up a notch and keep a closer eye on what calls are out for what submissions. (Unfortunately right now I think everyone is winding down for the holidays; I can’t find anything I can submit for anywhere!) After all, 3 more months of work and then I am back on the pogey… this would be a great way to bring home a little extra $$ next year, especially once I have another little subject to inspire me.

(Liam’s top loves in life seem to be going outside, books, dogs, balls, footwear, and doing chores. We capitalize on that last one as much was we can. He knows it is his responsibility to unload the clementines from the crate when we get home from the grocery store and boy, does he take this job seriously…)