Where there is a will, there is a way

Once I have my mind set on something, there is very little getting in the way of seeing it happen.

A few days before I left for my Girl's Weekend, I heard that Judy Blume was going to be at the National Book Festival. Instantly I had visions of getting the book "Are you there God? It's me, Margaret" signed for my sweet little girl, Samantha. My mom gave me a box set of Judy Blume's books when I turned 9 or 10 and they forever changed my life. Judy Blume started my love affair with books. I absolutely love to read and owe this all to the wonderful books Blume wrote about being an adolescent.

One of the girls I was enjoying the weekend with is the wife of a good friend, John. Dana told me that her husband was taking their girls (ages 5 and 3) to the Book Festival and would be more than happy to get me a signed copy of the book. How wonderful!!

John made a valiant effort, but the line was more than 300 deep and not something that would be realistic to stand in and wait. I very much appreciated the effort and planned to come up with another way to accomplish my goal. Now that I had this in my head I wanted to do it, there was nothing going to stop me. Although, my back-up plan was to wait for her to come back to town and camp out if needed to get to the front of the line. I had 8 years to see this through.

John (determined to get me a signed copy too) and I must've come up with the same thought, because we both found an email address for Judy Blume and wrote her.

And to my delight, here is her reply:

Hi Robyn,

Thanks for your email. Judy feels terrible that so many readers waited so long and then were turned away. It was really a problem of the organizers, most of whom were volunteers and so had no experience dealing with long lines at a book signing. They should have cut the line off but they didn't until it was way too late. Of course Judy will sign a book for your daughter. If you send it to the address below with these emails and your daughter's name we'll get it back to you ASAP.

Very best regards,
Pippa Mills
Assistant to Judy Blume

How incredibly cool is this!?!?!? I've always greatly admired Judy Blume as an author, but have now taken my love for her to a whole new level. It is so refreshing when you put someone you admire up on a pedestal and they don't disappoint.

I am most excited that when Samantha turns 9, I'll be able to give her a personalized, signed copy of "Are you there God? It's Me, Margaret". This means more to me than Samantha will probably ever know. However, if she is anything like me (and so far, indications strongly point us to being 'cut from the same cloth'), I know one day she'll appreciate the gesture and look forward to handing down the copy to her daughter.