An Overabundance of Goodness

The dream I talked about yesterday happened Monday morning, just before I woke up. Well, Monday got considerably better after that.

First, long-time readers know that we've wanted a dog for a very long time. We came close to buying one while we were still in Chicago, but held off since we knew a move was possible. Then last summer we were all set to buy a Chihuahua puppy, but decided that we really need to stick with a breed that doesn't affect my allergies.

I love Miniature Schnauzers -- my parents had two throughout my lifetime -- and Ibis actually likes them, too. No pressure from me, I swear! One of the neighbors whose yard we look into recently got a puppy, so the dog talk has increased in the past week. I made a deal with him that if we were still here on our anniversary (end of August) we could get one then, but then I changed that and said if he can find a Schnauzer we could get it right away.

I figured it would take him at least several days just to track one down, and that there could possibly be a road trip to a larger city in the near future. Mid-day Monday he headed downtown for the puppy search and returned half an hour later.

"I found two 20-day old puppies!"

He brought me to the vet's office where we held the teeny little puppies. We'd LOVE to have two, but realize it makes more sense (on many levels) to only get one. We can't bring it home for another 20 days, but we're already SO excited!

While he was off galavanting downtown, I was trying to come up with a title for my other wip. Since November 1st it's been called nanonovel08 -- very creative, no? I know a title isn't that important, but it was irritating me, especially since 2008 has been over for SEVEN MONTHS now. After hours of making lists and playing with a thesaurus (and visiting the PUPPIES) I found it:

After the Fall.

The story opens with a violent attack that leaves one man dead, and the remainder of the book follows two families as they come to terms with the events that lead to his death. Sort of a "fall from grace" type of thing, AND it takes place in the fall. Ingenious, I know. (yes, that's sarcasm.)

THEN, my mom emailed to tell me that a package from a friend arrived, so she will be sending us a care package that includes that package this week. Among the items are Erica Orloff's book Freudian Slip (which has traveled to two different states to get to me), Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper & a mystery gift from Sara, lots of goodies from my mom (including a tshirt for Ibis from the Champions League final that took place while they were vacationing in Rome). Plus some makeup and hair ties that I can't find here, and several magazines. Yes, I'm very excited.

As if all this wasn't exciting enough, around 6pm I received my first request for a partial! Squee! I've had five rejections so far with six "pending", so the fact that the request came from one of my top two agents really made my day.

To cap it all off, I scored 192 points on the word CRAZILY in Wordscraper on Facebook. :P

Don't you love days like that?