Small Good Things

1. Grades are in! (There's a longer, crabbier version, so let's just leave it at that.)
2. In lieu of Thai curry--which is on the slate for tomorrow, probably--I made gumbo last night and boy was it yummy.
3. I also ate about 10 cookies last night, because my tummy felt rotten--and you know, cookies cure everything--which I think has to do with taking pepcid unnecessarily (I'm making my own version of the CCRM cocktail), so I'm going to stop that. Or at least halve the dose and see if it makes a difference. Why is this a good thing? Because I enjoyed the hell out of every cookie. Down with guilt!
4. I know I've said this before, but LG is honest-to-goodness reading. Like, she checked out three chapter books from the library yesterday and is plowing her way through them. And she's delighted by the fact that I'll let her check out whatever she wants, including the books I refuse to read to her (that list would include things with magic animals, barbie, and princesses).
5. In lieu of sitting in my overheated office, I came home for lunch today. And had leftover gumbo. (And now I have to get back to campus. Sigh.)

And a few more for good measure:

1. I have not extolled the virtues of my neighbor's tea shop lately. How nice it is to be able to get a cup of tea and be able to put rice milk in it. Last week I took LG and she got a "kid cocoa" with rice milk--the first time she's ever done that in a cafe (you know, because rice milk, cocoa, and sugar taste really different at a cafe than they do at home!). If I get brave, I'm going to ask my neighbor to whip me up a homemade concoction of stress-reduction and immune-boosting tea, sans chamomile.
2. Just received the official acceptance for my usual February conference and, as usual, they have scheduled me to present on the last day. The upside is that both panels I'm on are scheduled back-to-back, so potentially that cuts down the amount of time I need to be there, if I happen to be, umm, pregnant or gearing up for donor egg.
   
3. My chair told me, completely unsolicited and completely off-the-record, that my outside letters for tenure were very strong and that I should rest easy over the holidays. I understand that's a guarantee of nothing, but that's the closest thing to real good news I've had in a VERY long time.