Blue Ribbon!

I'm going to have to update my author bio to include a new honor: champion dessert maker! They had a dessert contest at the church cookout this weekend, and I brought my chocolate pecan pie. Of course, I hoped to win, but I didn't really expect to. After dropping off my pie at the fellowship hall, I got completely sidetracked by having to learn the new music for the service and being one of only two sopranos, so I was having to sing nice and loud. Then after church I went through the serving line, got my burger and was getting settled at a table when someone congratulated me. When I didn't know why (I thought maybe it had to do with singing last week or what we'd done in the service that day), she dragged me to the dessert table, where there was a blue ribbon on my pie.

Though there was a bit of a mix-up when they were announcing names, so I thought maybe it wasn't me, but then it turns out that the person went on autopilot and said a different last name that she usually associates with my first name, and when they saw me they dragged me over after correcting the mistake.

I'm almost embarrassed by how excited I was about this. You'd think I'd never won a prize for anything, but in general I'm the kind of person who does really well but doesn't necessarily win.

In other weekend news, there were fireworks Friday night and I finally saw Inside Out, which basically was about my sixth-grade year. We moved midway through the school year, going from a nice house to an apartment and going from a school where I was the queen bee -- a class officer, in band, in choir, in Girl Scouts -- to a school where I knew no one, where there was no band and they wouldn't let me in the choir because it was already full, and where everyone hated me on sight. I later learned that the teacher had announced the day before I showed up (I had to wait a day after registration) that the class would have to work harder because I was so smart that I'd be competition. Gee, thanks, teacher. I knew we had no choice about moving because it was a military thing, so it didn't do to complain, and so that whole movie was basically what was going on inside my head. Though things didn't get much better for me until seventh grade, and even then, the same people who hated me from sixth grade were still out to get me.

I am impressed the Pixar managed to pull off a fun animated movie about psychology.

It's going to be a really busy week, with lots of promo work to do, the web site redesign, and revisions. I worked out most of my revision issues for the upcoming few chapters on my morning walk, which should help with that.