How I Celebrate Now

Thanks to all of you who suggested ideas for how to reward myself after yesterday's good news. Here is what I've done so far, and plan to do later:

• Sent all the kids off to their grandparents' farm for the day.


• Made a new icon for wordcount and other writerly discipline-type posts, inspired by pameladean's remark about the professional writing life that "mostly it's book, book, book like a chicken."


• Updated my website and adjusted my LiveJournal color scheme to match.


• Created a MySpace profile -- MySpace has to be the most counter-intuitive and ugly networking site in the history of the web, but is nevertheless de rigeur for promotional purposes these days, alas. (I also have a page on Facebook.)


• Got some passport photos taken and finished filling out my application, so as to be prepared for any future trips to the US.


• Found some much-needed clothes at my favorite store, all for half price or less -- a few t-shirts, a flowing knee-length skirt, a polo dress, and some ultra-comfy black capris.


• Bought two books I haven't read yet -- Nancy Farmer's House of the Scorpion and Shannon Hale's Princess Academy.


• Visited my favorite tea shop.

Now I am going to brew some of my newly purchased Monk's Blend loose-leaf tea, put my feet up and finish reading HBP in preparation for tomorrow night. And in an hour or so my husband is going to take me out to dinner at a nice restaurant -- I asked him to surprise me as to where.

*kicks off shoes and leans back with a contented sigh*