Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

I interrupt what I'm sure is a fascinating midweek evening for you with the following important tidbits of news:

1. I was recently informed by a co-worker that she found me an incredibly intimidating person for over a year. This is news because unless you mess with my family or hurt my friends, I might be one of the easiest girls in the world to approach. I was baffled by her response to me until I realized the obvious: she has an internal ninja radar. It's the only possible answer. Somehow she looked past my fantastically graceless, laughs inappropriately ALL THE TIME red-headed exterior and saw my silent inner harbinger of death.

2. I only have three openings left in August's Plotting Workshop so if you're interested in learning story structure, pacing, tools (for both Pantsers and Plotters...I don't believe anyone writes the same way and don't seek to change your preferred approach), and a personal 1 hour brainstorming session with me, please register before the spots are gone.

3. This post just completely disappeared. In fact, the entire internet disappeared. It was like my modem decided "Hey! You know what would be super fun? Let's shut down for, say, twenty seconds. Just long enough to give her heart failure and plenty of incentive to cast aspersions upon her laptop's mama. And then let's make her doubt that Blogger saved this draft and make her think she has to start all over again. And then you know what we'll do while she's pulling up the draft? We'll DO THE WHOLE THING ALL OVER AGAIN."

4. Curse you, tiny modem. Curse you.

5. News! The most important news of all is this: After five long years of waiting, we've been informed by our adoption agency that we're really close to receiving our child referral from China. Yay!! We should be traveling in either October or November, all depending on China's schedule and when we get her picture and permission to travel.

As incredibly awesome as this news is (and I've been distracted by it for over a week now), we have a problem. Because the process with China stretched from the 6-8 months we'd initially anticipated into YEARS, we've had to re-do everything from our homestudy to our petition for orphan naturalization to our fingerprints. Four times. Sheesh. Meanwhile, China raised the orphanage fee by thousands. Long story short, we find ourselves 8k short of being able to ransom her life and take her home.

I'm not scared of that number. I could fill up this page with all the incredible ways God brought money for this little girl at exactly the moment we needed it. I know she's supposed to come home and nothing is going to stop that. Nothing has shown me how incredibly generous the heart of humanity can be like this adoption journey.

I'm planning a huge online fundraiser for Monday, August 23rd. It's called Skip A Starbucks Day with the idea that if enough people skip a personal indulgence that day and donate something instead, we can bring home little Johanna Faith.

And guess what? I'm not alone in this fundraiser. I have bloggers, authors, and agents ready to jump into the fray with me. And there will be PRIZES. Many bloggers are offering awesome prizes for those who donate--prizes like signed books and entire trilogies. (The amount donated won't matter. Every penny is precious to us.). And everyone who donates will be entered into the grand giveaway on my blog. Here are some prizes you might win:

*Handmade jewelry

*The entire Twilight Saga

*Signed copies of Kris Kennedy's medieval historicals

*A gift basket of handmade soaps

*The Harry Potter boxed set(!!!)

More donations are coming in so this list will grow! :) Make sure to save the date of Monday, August 23rd so you can skip Starbucks and make a lifelong difference to a little girl in a Chinese orphanage.

6. Also, I need to prove to my friend Mandy that yes, indeed, I did once blog about underwear. More proof that I should probably never be interviewed on national television under any circumstances.