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It's always fun when you're invited to something, and in the past week I've been invited to two different, but totally cool things.

First, fellow African American author Kyra Hicks invited me to be interviewed on her blog. Kyra has a great blog so I was really honored. You can take a peek at www.BlackThreadsinKidsLit.blogspot.com.

Then, I was invited to participate in the Illinois Reading Council's Author Luncheon at their March 2008 conference. They have an author sit at each table and the guests at your table each receive a copy of your book. Plus good old Anderson's Bookshop will be there selling books. Wow!

The other totally cool thing that happened in the past week was that my friend Jacky, who is an art teacher, gave me a very cool idea for my school visits. Prior to this, what I was going to do was pretty routine stuff, but this has totally energized me. I'll say more about that when I see if I can actually pull this off.

I have to mention the other really wonderful thing that happened to me--I got to go to Millennium Park in downtown Chicago. Now I just live in Chicago's suburbs, so you might think, "Hey, what's the big deal? She's had three years to get down there." But you can't get to Millennium Park without walking and lately walking is not something I've been doing very well. My lupus has caused some peripheral nerve damage in my left foot so if I try to walk very far or very long, I really feel it. The most walking I've been doing is shuffling around a grocery store or resale shop behind a shopping cart or navigating the book store or library on a good day.

But I was super motivated to go to the park last Thursday. My favorite quiz show, NPR's "Wait, wait. . . don't tell me!" was having a free taping of the show in the Pritzker Pavilion. And the special guest was the rock stars of prosecutors, Patrick Fitzgerald. My teenager really wanted to go also so I was motivated to try. I studied the map of the park and figured out where the best place to park was and went for broke. It was a beautiful evening, the program was a riot, the park is beautiful, and I got to do something with my 16-year-old. How cool is that?!

So the message to myself is to keep trying to do those hard things (like finishing that middle grade novel). The feeling is unbelievable when you accomplish it.