Yay for today!

"How do I forward this?" Mom asked. I had praised her for figuring out my laptop enough to read her messages from work and advised that there was probably a button to send that particular information to another recipient. Chienne and I took a longer walk than normal in the bright sunshine and cold breeze. It was delightful.

"You need a mouse. I hate this little square thing you have to use." She said, frowning.

"I have a wireless mouse at work!" I said, distracted. "It has a magnifying button and a button that goes back when you're browsing! And the roller wheel is completely silent! I love my wireless mouse..."

Mom smiled at me, then nodded toward my laptop.

I deleted some messages, let her read some forwards and forwarded the requested email. "All done?" I asked and she nodded happily.

"I figured it out!" She announced proudly and I cuddled her for a second. Then I clicked over to my email.

For crying out loud, I said to myself, first they ruined Christmas and now my birthday visit? Bastards.

"Oh." I said in soft surprise, smiling broadly as I read the short note again. Then I turned to smile at my mother. "They're going to publish my paper."

Because there was something incredibly special about reading

Dear Dr. [Me],

I am pleased to inform you that your revised manuscript, referenced below, has been accepted for publication in [Journal that required three revisions].

while there were people here who knew of the struggle and saw how bitterly disappointed I'd been over Christmas. I battled hard for this little paper and have no small amount of pride in the work and the text describing it. My paper deserves that journal and they were absolutely right to take it. Yay for them!

After sending many emails so that others could bask in my hard-fought success, I folded laundry while Mom tried to rest. Then Dad and I worked for a couple hours to install the new dog door.

"This one is in the bottom right corner of the hole." I explained through the large hole in my door as I peered through one of the screw holes. If you drill the door in a crooked manner, it's rather difficult to fit the dog door together properly. It eventually required 3 screwdrivers (one tool for each of us, though the drink might have really helped the process), the spatula from my grill, a tiny screwdriver, a hammer and some pliers. We would have employed my electric tool but it was a touch too big.

We did get it together - all of us taking a turn lying on the floor to guide the screws to the proper positions - and it's huge, but rather pretty. I'm quite proud of the new dog door.

We then went for cheese biscuits, baked potato and salad and I found myself happy. Feeling bright and positive and lovely about life in general. While I spared the thought that I would have been miserable had the paper been rejected, I shrugged and decided I'd worry about that later. For now, I'd just enjoy the rush of getting something in press.

We picked up a few items at Lowe's. Chienne has a bad habit of entering Sprout's room, eating the food located behind the door, nudging the door too far closed to reach the kibble she isn't supposed to have, then being trapped in her misbehavior. I scold her harshly in these cases, but it doesn't help. She got trapped and dug at the molding around the door while I was at work yesterday. So we needed spackle and sandpaper to carefully repair the damage (freaking dog - so much work to do because of her and her kitten friend!).

Then we came home and I tried to do some work - answered email from the penguin (3 of his 4 figures are mine - I believe this makes me proud) then declared I was going to nap. Because it was my birthday weekend. (I'm not sure what my excuse is for the other weekends. I just really enjoy sleeping during the day.) Now I'm waiting to go find steak for dinner. And thinking that in addition to some glorious news from Friend (which made me cry - I couldn't be more happy for her), today was a really, really nice collection of hours.

28 just might be my year.