I made a sale today! Last week I queried the SCBWI Bulletin to see if they'd be interested in a short article about my "Wienerbookmobile" experience. After getting a go-ahead, I emailed my article to them yesterday, and they said yes! Hooray! (And remember how I once had an article in ByLine about how much of my writing has been inspired by fast food? I had to chuckle to myself thinking of how the Wienermobile is the ultimate fast food...a hot dog going 65 mph!)

I can proudly say that I have now ridden in a large rolling hot dog. It was an absolute blast, we gave away nearly 300 books, and the jingle "Oh I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener," which both of my kids had the opportunity to belt out over the loudspeaker, will probably be in my head forever! While they're still online, check out these sausage...I mean, links:

Austin American-Statesman article
Suburban newspaper article (we made the front page of this one!)Short article/transcript from local TV news station

What a day, what a week! And what a day it will be tomorrow. This celebrity lifestyle is so tiring. By celebrity, of course, I mean my moment of local fame as a winner of the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile for a day. First off, I found out there was a press release about me on the Austin library's web site today. And this morning the local Fox news channel, KTBC, and the Wienermobile came to my house by 6:15 am so they could tape a segment on my win for their live morning broadcast. I survived it! My kids even got on TV, and my kindergartener had a good excuse as to why he was late for school! But tomorrow, instead of just relaxing until the Wienermobile picks us up at 9:30, I have to drive to the NBC station, KXAN, around 7:00 am or earlier to be there for an early morning interview on their morning news. Then it's off for a full day of riding in a chauffered Wienermobile and distributing books, with more news stations and newspapers slated to attend. (Who knew?!) We have about 300 books for our book giveaways, everything from board books to young adult novels, and I hope it's enough... If it ends up being way more than enough, we'll find someplace good to donate the rest. I have spent much of the week shopping for books, taking price tags off, boxing them up, etc. But now, after 2 nights in a row of about 4 hours sleep, I must get some rest before having to get up early again!

Oh, and speaking of the Wienermobile chauffers, they are actually called "hotdoggers" and are basically goodwill ambassadors for Oscar Mayer, which means they have to be very friendly and personable, and to enjoy making wiener puns such as "Have a bunderful day." Since our hotdogger team was going to be here all weekend, we offered to take them to dinner tonight at The Oasis, an Austin restaurant legendary for its view. We did all meet for dinner there and had nice food and conversation, but one of our kids started feeling sick and the other turned into a maniac by the end of dinner, so I hope our hotdoggers aren't scared to be stuck with us all day tomorrow!