Any good news?

Hey, you know what would improve my day, and my week, immeasurably? If y'all would post some comments to this entry (on my journal page, not in LJ) telling me some good news.

Let me know what's going right in your lives. Anything, no matter how small or how big, is fair game. If you've already written it up elsewhere, you can just post a link. Tell me something that made you smile, or cheered you up; tell me about new kids, new pets, life milestones, seeing pretty flowers by the side of the road, a good book you just read, a promotion, a story sale, an invitation you received, anything.

I may not reply, but I'll read and appreciate all the comments.

39 Responses to “Any good news?”

  1. Twig

    I saw a beautiful sunset last night, with lots of orange and gold and champagne in the sky, and clouds of periwinkle and slate blue.

    And a friend showed me this URL, which is making me laugh whenever I think about it.

    reply
  2. Tamara

    I just finished _Ares Express_ by Ian McDonald, a very good book indeed.

    Yesterday was good because on the work front for two reasons. We submitted a paper about a year-and-a-half of work, so I have a whole whack of warm fuzzy feelings of accomplishment and closure. And the lagniappe we turned it in 15 hours before the deadline! This is a splendid breakthrough – typically I don’t finish them until literally minutes before the absolute final deadline, leading to vast and horrid stress. So I’m basking in this “wow, maybe I really *am* figuring out how to pull off this professor stuff” kind of glow.

    And on the life front – upcoming boyfriend visit on Thursday, the first time he’s been to visit me. Yay! And saw other boyfriend just two weeks ago, in an ever-so-convenient business trip to the city he lives in, double yay! And saw third boyfriend in January when he too flew up to visit. Triple yay! That’s one per month, pretty darn fabulous considering that none of them live in the same country as I do.

    And the URL that made *me* crack up lately is the neurotic junkie puma extended analogy…

    reply
  3. jere7my

    You got me a job. 🙂

    reply
  4. The 'Dark' Stranger

    Jaipur and I saw a bright double rainbow the other day!

    reply
  5. Niall Harrison

    I got a new job! Which pays enough that instead of going slowly into debt, I will start coming slowly out of debt!

    reply
  6. Zak

    My friends have lately been dealing with some ugly stuff and today was the first day we got to get together and do something totally unrelated to that.

    Sharon and I went up to LA, I dragged my shopvac up (so I could drain water that’d accumulated in the truck of my friend’s car). The day worked out great. I managed to fix a slightly broken CD player, then we went out and got bulk spices — there was a sale on whole vanilla beans. We got 5 of them at $1.50 each, and some cumin and white peppercorns and some other stuff.

    Then we went to the Cheese Store of Beverly Hills, which is filled to bursting with artisan cheeses. I tried a wide variety, including one which had been wrapped in tobacco leaves. It was harsh, but fascinating.

    From there we went over to Melrose for shopping. The wimmins all got great clothes. I got a new pair of 6ga black earrings and I may finally go no bigger, but we’ll see.

    All in all, a fun, productive and relaxing day.

    reply
  7. Nao

    The flowers have been coming out around here–daffodils, crocuses, cherry trees, and even some magnolias (not the big evergreen magnolias, but the kind that grow as far north as southern Indiana).

    Theo has been smiling up a storm lately–these days he likes being turned upside down. He’ll also, when being held with just one arm under his butt, let himself fall backward so that whoever’s holding him has to put their other arm out in a hurry to catch him. He’ll land on that hand with his arms outstretched and a delighted grin. Speaking as his mother, this is simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating! When held in that laid-back position, he also likes being spun.

    reply
  8. Amy

    I am going to visit Chaos tomorrow!

    reply
  9. fran

    I have been on the job hunt and I am starting to have campus visits (Texas Tech, Ursinus, University of Kansas, Wilkes Honors College at Florida Atlantic University). That means a higher possibility of being employed at the start of the Fall.

    Brynnen, while coloring, announced that she would bestow the drawing on me. When I spluttered where had she learned that word, she said “I meant, I would give it to you”. It’s hard explaining to a three-year old that it’s just surprising and she should please go ahead and use the incredibly archaic vocabulary she is picking up.

    And my husband, who is wonderful in every way, has a comically bad haircut. The good news is that it will grow out someday.

    reply
  10. Anna Hess

    We finally got snow! I got to go sledding with one of the kids I live with, and to watch the snow falling so fast that the nearby hills disappeared.

    And yoga is wonderful. While visiting my mom and my brother, I did yoga in each of their houses. Their cats didn’t know what to think since I was moving slowly but completely ignoring them. Both cats, though, knew just what to do when I reached Dead Buck – they crawled onto my stomach and settled down for a nap.

    Flowers are just about to open here. And birds are singing loudy every morning. What can be better than show with spring on the way?

    reply
  11. Kevin Jackson-Mead

    I found out that I get to travel to Austin for my job in March. This may not sound like a big deal, but it’s my first business travel ever, and I’m pretty excited. Two nights in a hotel, eating out, plus I get some face time with some of the boss-type people.

    Also on the travel front, I get to go to England in May for a friend’s wedding. It’s the first wedding of an ex (that I know of), and I’m feeling really good about it.

    reply
  12. Tempest

    Lately I’ve been doing a lot of beading. Trying to make attractive necklaces and such, yanno. I just got a bunch of stuff from eBay that I will use to make some prayer bead chains and other stuff. I’m happy 🙂

    reply
  13. Jay Lake

    Lots of fun stuff going on in my writing life right now, including receipt of a huge box of chocolate, interest from the Texas Book Festival, and an overseas query on (possibly lucrative) translation rights to one of my collections.

    reply
  14. Chaos

    As previously noted, Amy is coming to visit me. :>)

    In geek life, the WordORama bot is almost entirely working (i’ll add two more features tonight and then call it good), so now we can all play IRC WordORama.

    Also in geek life, i had a conversation with a friend yesterday about what aspects of public-key cryptography would be adopted by Arithmancers, related to a Harry Potter fic the friend was writing.

    reply
  15. Jacob

    We’re going to have another baby!!!! (August)

    And the current baby (Nina, age 16 months) is doing remarkable things. The other day her mother, relieved at getting home and putting the baby down, said “All right!” Periodically since then, Nina suddenly pipes up with “awww riiiight!” She is also learning parts of the face and has just added “eyebrow”.

    Also, it’s Andy‘s birthday. Also, apparently, Aragorn son of Arathorn’s.

    reply
  16. Greg van Eekhout

    I just had a really good blueberry muffin at the coffee joint. It had nice, big, plump, sweet blueberries. Blueberries are brain food. My brain is now big, plump, and sweet. Braiiiiiinnnnnsss.

    reply
  17. Joe

    After the original one was stolen off the FedEx truck, and Apple took forever working out the logistics of a replacement, I finally got my new Powerbook this week! It’s fast and light and shiny and beautiful.

    reply
  18. Catherine O

    My play is opening a block from Broadway in less than three weeks, we have 25% advance ticket reservations, and several people have generously helped us to fund and produce it. Also, I’ve been accepted to my first choice grad school, and I’m working my way out of debt, slowly (very slowly) but relatively surely.

    reply
  19. Jennifer Pelland

    After months of wallowing in writing angst, I have completed a new story and sent it out into the world, and have finally sat down with the novel I had critiqued last summer and started revising it.

    reply
  20. Jed

    Thank you, everyone! All this is cheering me up a lot. Keep ’em coming! (And congratulations to all for whom congratulations are relevant!)

    reply
  21. Dan P

    Replacing a sewer line turned out to cost nearly a third less than our first estimate, and the guy who orchestrated the work was genuinely nice, not only as a professional but as someone to chat with over a beer over a newly-filled ditch.

    An old friend will have a new child by the end of the week.

    Potlatch is this weekend, and I’ll probably be able to go to at least one day.

    reply
  22. Barth

    Dudes! I just got a $2.50/hr raise! I think that’s my biggest raise evah without an accompanying promotion.

    Now my paycheck will be as big, plump, and sweet as van Eekhout’s blueberries!

    reply
  23. Susan

    I had a great meeting with my advisor on Monday, and she soothed a lot of my anxieties about the next year and a half. Also, I put together the small sections of this chapter I’m working on, and it turns out that I have forty-five pages written already. So all of my dithering and whining aside, I appear to be actually producing a dissertation, and that makes me very very happy.

    reply
  24. Beth

    Good things, small and large:

    I no longer hate my current novel draft.

    And I learned a really cool knife form in karate class.

    Plus, I’ve been accepted into the Oregon Coast Short Story workshop.

    Best of all, my son told me the other day that he believed in me. (Then he hugged me.)

    reply
  25. Michael

    The 2500-page book I’ve been cleaning up went to final proofs a bit over a week ago, and 80% of the authors have already replied with approvals or minor corrections.

    reply
  26. Haddayr

    I just sent out two count them two stories and I’m very pleased with myself. My coworker, who has been pining for a scotty dog the entire time I’ve known her, is going to be picking up her brand-new puppy this Saturday, and just today my son Éiden learned how to roll over all by himself.

    reply
  27. Fred

    For each of the last six days I’ve played poker, I’ve made $1000+.

    reply
  28. Wendy Shaffer

    My boss put in the paperwork to promote me to Tech Writer 3.

    A truck driver gave me a bunch of bananas because I offered to let him use my cell phone to make a call.

    Last week, someone brought me a bunch of daffodils. They were all closed up, but I put them in a vase of water, and by the end of the day, they had all blossomed.

    I’m going to Potlatch this weekend!

    reply
  29. Heather Shaw

    Been doing a lot of beading, which makes me very happy. Working on my novel again because an agent wants to see it. Lost two pounds last week. My cat got himself tangled up in a plastic grocery sack in the middle of the night and it looked like he was wearing a cape this morning (v. cute). We have a really nice new landlord. And, um, I’m getting a massage tonight!

    reply
  30. Jeff Hildebrand

    It’s starting to look like I might make it to Alumni Weekend after all, although WisCon is out of the question.

    reply
  31. Jay Hartman

    This is a great idea, Jed. I know not a single one of the folks who responded here but collectively, these entries are extraordinary and have vastly brightened my week. Especially, “Practice Random Acts of Banana.”

    I will add a paraphrase of what I said on my wedding day almost six years ago *because* it is still true today–this is my good news. And I don’t care if it’s corny…I still feel the same way about my wife, family, friends, and colleagues.

    When I was kid, a hero of mine was Lou Gehrig, who died long before I was born, but I read everything I could about him.

    Gehrig was dying of ALS, but on July 4, 1939, he said to his fans at Yankee Stadium that he considered himself the “luckiest man on the face of the earth” because of his teammates, his wife, and his family.

    I had always wondered what it was like to have such a feeling, and on the day I got married, I stopped having to wonder.

    reply
  32. Jon

    I’m going to Charlotte this weekend to meet my brother’s fiance for the first time. I’m going to be the best man at their wedding (first for both of them) this summer.

    My dad’s cancer treatment is going along just swimmingly (no chemo, beam radiation).

    I’m going to Portland next month with my wife. She’s going to a conference and I’m tagging along, just ‘cuz I’ve never been there before.

    I found out that a story of mine that appeared last year in Albedo One had been voted by the readership best in that issue (and they’ve put it up on their website if anyone’s interested in reading it).

    It snowed at my house yesterday, these big beautiful flakes that piled up and made everything look just gorgeous. Then it all melted away by noon, no muss, no fuss.

    reply
  33. Elizabeth

    I’m getting over my awful cold.

    reply
  34. Jenn Reese

    I went to Sea World today and took over 200 pictures of the polar bears. I freakin’ love polar bears. I also bought a really soft, floppy stuffed one and named it Churro. 🙂

    reply
  35. Eric Marin

    I left my solo law practice to start working with a law firm again. Nice people, interesting work (lots of it), and a steady paycheck. Despite the work hours, I still write a haiku a day and a longer poem a week. Life is good.

    reply
  36. Jim Moskowitz

    Today I discovered that the recent snowstorm (the same one that had delayed my flight home from the Bay Area) had done this to a drainpipe on my apartment building.

    Also, Noda and I discovered the new nickname for our apartment: “Highest Point in Massachusetts

    reply
  37. SarahP

    I was hard pressed to come up with something this week…

    But I have two, and both have to do with cats/Kats.

    One is that I got an email from the lovely Kat about WisCon. And felt full of joy at being able to see her in not too long!

    Two is that my cat Sparkle likes to carry a little plastic bead in her mouth to the top of the stairs and drop it, then chase it down the stairs. She was doing this last night, over and over again. She can also pick up the bead in her paw and carry it around.

    reply
  38. metasilk

    Aside from all the stuff in the LJ already about the Mouse (you’ll need to login especially to see the photos), I haven’t added these happy bits:

    — He smiled at my mother yesterday
    — He’s 11 pounds already!
    — It’s absolutely incredibly unlikely I will have pre-eclampsia and/or HELLP syndrome next time (if we have a next time, time being somewhat limited). And aside from needing more walks & dance to tone up more, I’ve pretty well wholly recovered from the C-section.
    — There’s another foot or so of snow that fell in the last 48 hours, and it’s darn pretty.
    — I’ve gotten a whole chunk of laundry done already today!
    — We moved into our bedroom. If you would recall how long this housebuilding saga has been, and that we’ve been sleeping in the no-longer-hypothetical-kid’s room for a year-plus now… It’s green and big and beautiful.
    — I got a comment on an Elfwood pic, which means someone came by my gallery!
    — I continue to have more work than I can get done from my Mom, and little bits from current clients.
    — The Mouse slept for about four hours straight last night!
    — Wish you were here.

    Love, K

    reply
  39. You Don't Know Me

    My son turned eight last week. We had his birthday party yesterday. He ended up really happy and satisfied. That made me feel really good.

    reply

Join the Conversation

Click here to cancel reply.