Wednesday, July 15, 2009

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?

22 comments:

Janna Leadbetter said...

Awesome day! I love it when stuff just goes right. And you deserved it.

Erica Orloff said...

OH, I can't wait to see pictures of the puppy!!!! Can't Ibis take a picture at the vet's?

:-)
E

Melanie Hooyenga said...

Janna, things were back to normal on Tuesday, but it sure had me wondering what ELSE was in store for me.

Melanie Hooyenga said...

Erica, I thought of you while writing this post. :) I'm hoping we can go back and take another picture.

Melanie Hooyenga said...

I mean A picture.

Stupid headache is squishing out all my coherent thoughts.

sunna said...

Sounds like a fabulous day. I could use me one of those. :)

Congrats on the partial request!

JLC said...

Very cool! Did you check to see if your feet were touching the ground, or were you too busy hugging cloud 9? Congrats!

Melanie Hooyenga said...

Thanks Sunna!

Melanie Hooyenga said...

JLC, they were close, although they were surprisingly clean at the end of the night, so maybe there WERE hovering.

Nadine said...

The whole time I was reading your post, I was wondering if you were going to mention the 192 point word in Wordscraper. If you didn't, I was going to put it in the comments!

I'm so glad you had a great day!! It's about time luck turned in your favor!

Melanie Hooyenga said...

Nadine, I'm glad you said that. I almost didn't include it because I didn't want it to sound like I was rubbing it in your face!

Nadine said...

LOL- Totally not rubbing it in my face. A 192 point word? You just gotta shout that one out to the world cause that was awesome!!

Melanie Hooyenga said...

Okay, good!

Woo-hoo!

Janet said...

Wow and congrats on the partial. And an A-lister too! How fantastic is that?

Melanie Hooyenga said...

Janet, I believe there was some jumping around on my part. :P

Aimlesswriter said...

Quick! Go buy lottery tickets!
Do they have the lottery in Mexico?
Either way what a great day! Sending postive energy for your partial request.
Go! Go! Go!

Angela Ackerman said...

Oh yes, Puppy pics!!

Congrats on the WS score--I love wordscraper...I'm a hopeless addict. :-)

Melanie Hooyenga said...

Aimless, that's what I kept saying on Monday. It was getting crazy!

Melanie Hooyenga said...

Angela, he's going back today so hopefully he'll take a picture this time.

My final score in that game was over 600! Woohoo!

Anonymous said...

Mucho congrats on the partial request! I'm so happy for you.

Keeping my fingers tightly crossed... :)

Melanie Hooyenga said...

Thanks Gypsy!

erica m. chapman said...

Yipeeee! A partial. Way to go Melanie!!