Wow. What a week this has been.

My husband Ray and I went to Eureka which is a little fishing town on the coast of northern California. I was filling in at the office for someone who took a few days off.

They have some wonderful places to eat in that little town. Our favorite restaurant is The Banana Hut. It is a quaint little Hawaiian place where they put pineapple gravy on everything. I know, pineapple gravy sounds weird, but trust me, it is fabulous. We also watched the sun set over the ocean. It was a very nice trip. However, every nice thing comes to an end at some point.

Our nice trip came to an end Saturday morning. We needed to get back to Redding early because we had so much to do. We had to buy dozens of flowers for the mothers in our church. We also had to buy a $25 gift card for a drawing between all the mothers. The second Sunday of each month we have a potluck at the church so I needed to buy everything for the two dishes I would be taking. Then, of course, I had to prepare the dishes. Besides all of that, I had a book signing at a local book store from 5pm to 8pm. Before I could do any of that, we had to drive 3 1/2 hours to get home.

With a day like that ahead of me, I needed to have everything to go smoothly. Of course, that was not to be. When we tried to leave town our car was dead. When you realize that we have a Prius and the car is mostly batteries, that is really dead. Our car has five giant batteries in it. Each one costs $2,000. We had no idea what this was going to cost us, or how long it would take to get going. Believe me, we were praying. As it turned out, the Prius also has a small battery and that is what was dead. An hour and a half and one jump later, we were on the road.

We did make it to the book signing. That was so much fun. There were two of us there with books to sign. I met a lot of people, many of them are also writers. I am really enjoying getting to know lots of writers. So many of them are very interesting people. I hope they find me interesting also.

Well, we got the flowers, gift card, and went grocery shopping. I grabbed stuff for a bean salad, (it takes about 15 min. to put together) and I got a Marie Callendar's frozen lasagna. I never get frozen food, but I made an exception. Mother's day turned out great, but I am glad it is over.

My website is up and running now. It is www.littlechrisamee.com. You should check it out. I think it turned out so cute. Now I have to get T shirts, book marks, and mouse pads to sell on the website, as well as selling my book.

Check out my book. I think you will like it. Lots of people are buying several of them at a time to give as Christmas gifts.

Well, I will talk to you again soon. By the way, Happy Mother's Day to any of you who are moms.

God bless you.

Sometimes when I write, the words just flow. When that happens I always know that I will like it when it is finished. If it doesn't flow, many times I will just delete it. There is all the difference when I write from my heart rather than from my head.

There are times that I wake up during the night with thoughts running through my head and all I want to do is to get out of bed and write it down before I forget it. One of my all time favorite poems came to me like that. I woke up at one o'clock in the morning. I was thinking "The temperature outside was seventeen below. Old Sarah sat in her big chair and rocked it to and fro". I lay there wondering where that silly thought had come from. Suddenly I realized it was a poem. I crawled out of bed and sat on  the couch in the dark and created the entire poem verbally. I wrote nothing down. I was afraid that if I didn't write it down I would forget it, but I was too tired to take the time to write. I decided that if it was as good as I thought, I would remember it in the morning, and if I didn't remember it, then it must not have been that good. It was three o'clock by then, so I climbed back into bed and fell asleep. The next morning I got up, sat down and wrote the whole poem. I hadn't forgotten a single word. To this day I cry every time I read it.

Last night something woke me up at midnight. All I could think about was the second book in the Little Chrisamee series. I have started writing it already. The things I thought of last night are my favorite part of the story so far. Now if I can just put it on paper the way it came to me last night it should be good. I guess time will tell.

Well, here is to those wonderful thoughts in the night.

About five years ago I was sitting in my living room and thought of a little angel observing the goings on outside of heaven. Suddenly I found myself writing as fast as I could. I had no thought of publishing a book. All I could think of was writing the story that was unfolding in my head. I was just having fun and never expected it to go any further than that.

I was using a pen and paper. There is something very personal about it. I don't know why so few people do that anymore. Computers are wonderful things, and are great fun because you can make all kinds of mistakes and just wipe them away with the touch of a key. When you make a mistake with a pen, you live with it. It forces you to strive for perfection. Then there is also the feel of the pen in your hand. I think it is probably like an artist holding a paint brush. Every movement of your hand creates something.

Sometimes I think about the old writings that have shown up occaionally in the handwriting of some of the greatest writers ever known. It is truly a piece of the writer. That is becoming a thing of the past because there won't be many hand written manuscripts to be found from our generation. You just don't get the same feeling when you see something typed on a computer. And yet, here I am, typing away.

For me, it is the same as reading a printed book compared to downloading a book on the computer. I read a lot of articles on the computer, and that isn't going to stop, but there is just something special about holding a book in my hands. It adds another whole demention to reading.

I wish I had more time to write my manuscript with a pen. Maybe someday, but until then I will keep on typing. I still love Little Chrisamee, the angel I created, and she and I will continue to spend a lot of time together. She will be in the computer, and  me sitting in front of it.

My name is Janice Austin Bates and I just published my first book. It is called "The Adventures of Little Chrisamee - Creation". The story is about a little angel who finds a window in the side of heaven where she sits for the next six days and watches creation unfold. At the end of every day she runs to the throne room and tells Father God what she saw and asks questions about it. The idea of the book is to tell children the story of creation and answer their questions.

I have a website being designed where you can order the book. It should be up and running in a week or two. I will let you know when it is ready.

In early May I will be part of a book signing at a quaint little book store called All About Books. It is located in Redding CA. Come join us if you can. I would love to meet you.