Some good things

Because there's a lot of bad news out there and at one point today I was threatening again to become some kind of religious hermit, here are some small bits of good news:

- One of my cousins, who had a benign brain tumor that was causing epilepsy-like seizures and who could not work as a result, had successful surgery to remove it last week. He was awake and talking shortly after the surgery, so nothing seems to have been harmed. Doubly good that he's getting some relief; he is engaged to be married. (Long journey for him: at first he tried doing "discernment" to become a priest, but the conclusion was that he didn't have the call. Then he met back up with an old girlfriend and things got serious...then he started having the problems). I wish him all the happiness in the world, especially now with him getting married.

- A young man at church who "popped" a disk (lifting weights to train for football) and who had a lot of pain had successful surgery today. Apparently it wasn't a major procedure; apparently he had an unusually narrow channel for the spinal nerves and that was part of the issue. So hopefully with some PT he'll get back to functional.

- One of my students is (rightfully) super excited about his research project; depending on how much additional data he can get he may well have something publishable at the end of this. It was a really good plan and was one of the unusual cases where someone had a doable idea in mind that wasn't just repeating an existing experiment.

- The church I belong to won "best community float" in the combined (university and high school) Homecoming parade.

- I was able to come up with an acceptable "replacement lab" for the field lab this week (it's going to be too wet, if not outright flooded, to go out) AND we have a departmental credit card again, so I can go get the crickets and lettuce on the department's dime instead of my own.

- I was able to sort of help a student (not completely) with a bureaucratic issue today and ultimately got her enrolled in classes for next semester.

- More selfishly, I have Friday off this week (no more mid-fall break, but it's Mid-Semester Assessment Testing day, and no word has come telling us we must be at some meeting or another so I am going to assume I get that day to myself). I had tentatively planned to go to Whitesboro and now I *definitely* am because they are having a 20% off "Rhinebeck Consolation" sale.

(for the non-knitters: Rhinebeck - which is in New York - is an enormous fiber festival, it's kind of like Woodstock for fiber people. Lots of people go, it's huge and exciting, and I often feel slightly sad I *can't* go even though (a) it would be very, very expensive for me and (b) I hate crowds and I know I'd be slightly freaked out the whole time)

But I can totally do a 20% off sale at a yarn shop I know and love. (I'll have to look at my accumulated patterns and see if there's anything I "need.")

I may also go to Lovejoy's for lunch, and will definitely do "big grocery shopping" (which I have not done in quite a while).

I do have the duty on Saturday of providing jam bars for the memorial service they are doing for the former member of church, but that's the only real requirement I face this weekend.

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And yes, I kind of suck, because I broke down and bought this:

That's supposed to be a heart on his chest but the sequins are harder to manipulate than I thought. I think this is going to be a sofa pillow rather than a bed-critter, because I could see the sequins being a bit fragile...

(Yaffa the Unicorn. I like the name and it's not that far off of "Jaffa cakes" (I can't get genuine ones but I can get knockoffs of them - Pim's orange biscuits - and they are a favorite). It may be a good stress-reliever thing, flipping the sequins back and forth, even if they don't stay as smooth and uniform as I thought they might be)