On making decisions

We've spoken about this before, so it should come as no surprise that I'm not so good with the decisions. This truth prompted my family to purchase a "decision maker" for me at Christmas. It is a wooden platform embedded with magnets. It has different answers written on the top and above it hangs a pendulum, also with a magnet. The pendulum swings wildly at first, but then slows down and frantically jitters between two answers before finally landing on one. The likeness to my own decision making process is uncanny.

I actually turned to it as I stared at a "continue with purchase" button on a travel-booking site Monday. It told me yes, and I proceeded. I am now officially spending Spring Break in Paris, France. Once I made the decision I felt nothing but relief. Although, I periodically go through buyer's remorse moments and fret about the stability of the world in general. France is God's world, too, and wherever I am, there is He also.

My plunge into international travel inspired me in other areas, and I finally got up the courage to submit my book query to an agent. Let me set up the scene. I've reviewed this agent's submission guidelines exhaustively, but I did it one more time last night. Their web site states that an immediate e-mail acknowledgment should follow your query submission. It instructs you to resubmit if you do not receive one. I did not get one, so I sent it again with a different subject line. Still no acknowledgement. I waited until this morning and sent it again from my work e-mail account. As of the drafting of this post, I have no acknowledgement in either inbox. However, after the third attempt, I read the agent's blog where she happened to have posted about the agency's query policy. She casually mentioned it sometimes takes a few days for the acknowledgement to appear. . . visualize me in a state of frenzied worry and panic. I strive for perfection when making Hamburger Helper. Doing something this important wrong is the stuff my nightmares are made of. . .!!!

So, one possible outcome of all this decision-making empowerment is, I just sent the same query to an agent (not just any agent, but the one I've been researching for six months) three times, that'll go over well, very professional. The other? I have been rejected by their e-mail system, not once, not twice, but three times from two different addresses. Only time will tell. In the meantime, anybody know a good agent?