An award for my blog!!!!

Who'd a thunk, we received an award.

Vivian Zabel, my publisher, has honored the JGDS series blog with the Honest Scrap award. Scrap means left overs, fragments, discarded material, and many times truth and honesty is discarded material, considered fragments and left over. So, we need to tell it like it is, and let the scraps fall where they will.

According to Lea's blog,The Writing Jungle, the guidelines for winning this award include the following:


1. List 10 honest things about yourself (make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep!)
2. Pass the award on to 7 bloggers


Kind of like being tagged again except now I have to post something honest about myself, not that I have been dishonest in the tags.

1. I hate my mouth (in dire need of repairs or having them all taken out) so I don't smile as much as I used to.
2. I love receiving hugs from friends.
3. I hate kissing though.
4. I used to be really shy - when I was in school, before college days. People find that hard to believe since I am such a people person now.
5. I want to travel to every state before I die; if for nothing else but to just say I've been there. I have had extensive travels up and down the eastern seaboard and a few states out west, but with my series, I now have more of a desire to visit every state. I was glad when my father retired because it meant no more traveling and now I want to travel again.
6. I'm weird when it comes to snow. I love snowflake designs and would trim my tree (if I were doing a tree) with lots of different snowflake ornaments but I don't like snow much. I only like it for the time it has come down and enough to say it has snowed and then I want it to go away. If it lasts more than a day, then I'm tired of it.
7. I hate shopping - I've never felt a need to really do the girly shopping thing. Run in, get what I want or need and then out again. But I don't mind wandering through the store and looking at everything every once in a while, just out of curiosity.
8. When I make a friend, it is for life. There is no friend for a season or just in my life briefly.
9. My godmother was more like my mother than my real mother is. I felt I could confide in her without a problem. I miss her tremendously.
10. I'm at a loss for what to put for this one since it seems all my bases are covered with the list above. It's fun to receive an award just because.

The 7 blogs and people I will nominate are:

1. Batya Wininger
2. Janelle Dakota
3. Cassie Litton Gregory
4. Chai
5. Vonda Skelton
6. Mr. Hughes

The problem with 7 is that I visit many blogs but only consider a handful true friends. I am not sure who else to put here. Forgive me my friends. See you all in the postings - E :)

Mini update

State of Quarries is now at the editors (my friends Lana and Batya) and should be completed when I return from my trip (see below). Once I get it back, I make my revisions and send it on to Vivian for her editing.

Class visit happened today after a long absence (a week). Mr. Hughes' class had "fall break" last weekend - Thursday and Friday and then his wife's grandmother passed away and they had to make a trip out of town to go to the funeral, so no class time Monday and Tuesday. It was a good visit. We are starting on dialogue and the kids seem to be picking it up for the most part.


The SCWW writer's conference is this weekend and I will have limited or no internet access so won't be able to do any updating until after the conference Sunday night.

Remember that Vivian's Midnight Hours tour starts Sunday. See my other blog for details on that.

You all have an enjoyable weekend. See you next week.

Decatur and Back

Ms. Elysabeth has been so busy she has kind of left us hanging. We knew she would be right up until leaving for the book festival. So a bit of a rundown of what went on from your favorite kids.

Funny how you plan things in your head and want to do some fun stuff and then you never get around to it.

Ms. Elysabeth had some plans to do some matching games and fun things with the bookmarks and perhaps some state related giveaways but she was so out of her element that she didn't get to do what she wanted. Hopefully next weekend she'll be better prepared for the book signing at The Open Book.

This is Ms. Elysabeth and Ms. Jacque and Ms. Vivian right after Ms. Elysabeth had been unloaded and got to the booth. She had called Ms. Vivian to tell her she was going to get some ice and that she would be back to help fix the booth up. So she gets there and these two women had already done all the work.

Sunday night packing up was the same way. She had a good time and if nothing else she did get the bookmarks in the hands of the kids. Started a guess the state based on the clue the child had to give away one of the puzzles.

She wore us out but all in all it was a very good trip - For more information you can hop on over to Ms. Vivian's site and check out some pictures and other things about Decatur.

Next up we are going to be doing a book signing at the Open Book on Saturday so come see us from 3 pm to 5 pm and have fun, learn some geography factoids and who knows, you may even win a puzzle - see you then - the JGDS

BIRTHDAY non-contest and fixed SNAFU

It's Ms. Elysabeth's birthday and she is running a non-contest from now until Thursday (her actual birth date). Here's the deal. Anyone who signs up for the monthly newsletter that keeps you informed about the series as well as happenings in different states and emails Ms. Elysabeth at eeldering@gmail.com with their snail mail addy and subject line of JGDS Newsletter sign up will receive a state-related gift. So don't delay. Sign up for the newsletter and stay informed on what's happening with us and around your area. Get your free state-related gift. Hurry non-contest ends Thursday.

SNAFU fixed: (the low down on the SNAFU and the fix)
Well, it seems Ms. Elysabeth has fixed the little SNAFU she had. Here is the rundown of what was going on: Apparently, Living Waters Publishers was being a bit evasive about when she would actually be published and was keeping her in the dark about things. They had been having some problems since the beginning. Ms. Elysabeth had a feeling that something wasn't right, so she kept asking Ms. Aidana if she should get out of her contract. Ms. Aidana said to let things settle and that everything would be okay. Just to be patient. So Ms. Elysabeth let it slide for a bit. Then when Ms. Elysabeth asked about the company having booths in book festivals and particpating as such, she was told by several people in the company to whom she had sent emails that all her emails were going to spam and when they finally got the emails, she was told they would get back to her. No one ever got back to her and no one would give her a straight answer. So she was in limbo. Finally, she had told Ms. Aidana, she wasn't too happy and she needed to know what was going on and what direction to go in. Then Ms. Vivian popped up and started chatting with Ms. Elysabeth. Ms. Vivian is the owner of 4RV Publishing. After a couple of days of chatting with Ms. Vivian and being encouraged to return to chatting with Ms. Aidana, Ms. Elysabeth found her solution. Ms. Vivian and Ms. Aidana had been chatting and Ms. Aidana had told her that Ms. Elysabeth was concerned about things and she didn't know what to tell Ms. Elysabeth.

Finally on Saturday, May 10, Ms. Elysabeth and Ms. Aidana had a little chat. Things had been pretty busy during the week and so neither had been communicating with each other. Ms. Aidana told Ms. Elysabeth that she was fine at this point for her to request to be released from her contract with Living Waters Publishers. Come to find out the reason Ms. Vivian was encouraging Ms. Elysabeth to chat with Ms. Aidana was that she was interested in her series about us.

So the ball got rolling. Letters were sent and a request for release was made. The release was done and a new contract has been signed with 4RV Publishing and State of Wilderness, the first in the JGDS series will be released in August as scheduled. Ms. Vivian will be doing a virtual launch party for all her upcoming releases in the children's book areas including this one July 14-18 on www.writing.com - More will be posted as to where to go for that. There will be prizes, contests and lots of fun, so keep checking for a link to get you to the launch party. You have to sign up with www.writing.com before you can participate but it is free.

After the virtual launch party in July, there will be a live launch party release at Decatur Book Fesitval the end of August, Labor Day weekend. This will be for all books 4RV Publishing has released in the recent past up to the middle of August. So if you are in the Atlanta/Decatur, Georgia area Labor Day weekend, stop by the 4RV booth and meet Ms. Elysabeth, Ms. Vivian and Ms. Jacque. We are so looking forward to being there. There will be gifts, giveaways and items for purchase including the books. So definitely come see us if you are in the area.

Well we are out for now - the JGDS