My Day in The Dispatch

The phone rang at work. It was the call I was hoping for. “Just one minute, let me switch phones,” I said, buying myself a couple of minutes to compose myself. It was Jonathon Turner from The Dispatch/Rock Island Argus. He was calling because I am going to be in our local paper for being in the top 100 entries for my Reader’s Digest “Your Life” story entry (link here to read and vote).

My heart was beating so hard I thought it was going to jump right out of my chest and start flopping around like a fish out of water. I took a couple of deep breaths and gave myself a little  talk.

Calm down, girl! You are used to talking to people and even standing in front of large groups of people talking. You can handle a phone interview/discussion about your writing. Get ahold of yourself. All that schooling and training from your Ambrose education has prepared you for these things. They put you through the ringer with presentations for the education department just to graduate.

“Thanks for holding,” I said.

Here we go… I was so excited and nervous. I have been trying to plan out in my head how this would go and what I could say, if and when I got the call. When it came down to it, I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. I guess I would wing it.

I think I might have stuttered. I felt like I couldn’t put a complete sentence together.

I could hear him typing at a hundred miles an hour as we were talking.

We started talking about my kids and blogging and I started to calm down and relax.

I hope I said what I meant to say. I hope I included everything I needed to. I wish I would have said this…or maybe that. I’m sure it was fine.

Time went so fast. The conversation was coming to a close.

Send a photographer to take our picture at 5:00?!

AWESOME!!

Oh, wait. “Tonight is Bradley’s school carnival. We can’t miss it,” I explained.

So they came to Bradley’s school and took pictures in his kindergarten room. How perfect!

I can’t wait to see the paper!!

Thanks Reader’s Digest.

And a great big thank you to all of you who have supported me and who are voting for me. I really appreciate it!

You can check out my Reader’s Digest “Your Life Story” with this link here (you can read my story and vote. You have to sign in to facebook to do this. Just follow the prompts, it only takes a minute).

And don’t forget to look for us in the paper this weekend! I will link to it when it is published.

Thanks again.

xxx