My dreams and my cute sweet husband.

So yesterday was an important day for me.... *Ahem.* I went to the local Books a Million and bought my very first copy of Writers Market, 2010 edition. It's so pretty! (It's green and brown, and very classy-looking.) For those of you who don't know, Writers Market is a huge fat book that lists book, newspaper, and magazine publishers and how they want work submitted to them. It gives all kinds of useful information from who specifically to contact to how much money you can expect to get paid. It's VERY helpful, and I'm so excited to have one.

I spent several hours last night reading about writing contests across the country. Some of the novel writing contests pay thousands of dollars in cash prizes for the winner, as well as publication of the novel. Wouldn't that be so exciting!? I've decided to research several of the contests and pick two of them to enter next year. It would be an amazing way to get the attention of the literary world and jumpstart my career. Okay, so I realize the odds of winning a contest like that are slim, but I've just got to try! There are also several contests for short stories, essays, and creative nonfiction that I might enter as well. These ones would be way smaller so less would be required of me than writing a novel. And I'm only entering contests with cash prizes, too, so there's always the possibility of getting paid for my work.

On a different note, Paul is doing very well in his new program. In the next few weeks, he will start doing research with his peers (collaborating on their person projects and on the projects of the professors) and then he will become way more busy.

He's been a little sad because of a recent conflict with another family member who demeaned him in just about every way possible. (This person criticized his spiritual wellbeing, his mental state, and his choice of career. It was so horrible!) I've been impressed with his ability to cope and to not hold onto bad feelings for this person. He says to me, "My heart hurts, but I'll be all right. It doesn't matter what she said." I love what a pure person he is!

And he's so cute too! His old back injury sometimes acts up and last night it was hurting him again. We went to Target and he was riding around on one of those little carts for people who can't walk (because it was much easier on his back). He's just so big that he looked hilarious zooming around so close to the ground. I laughed my head off at him!