Good Things

Today was extremely full of good things. Here are some of them.
1. The peach jam I’ve been using was nice enough, but I was very happy to have a new jar of Mountain Fruit Co. raspberry jam for my English muffin today. (The table was also nice and tidy this morning, because I put all my necessary junk — crosswords, journal, pen case, paper, etc — in a basket, finally.)
2. I wore a dress I got on my birthday (it was $3 in Old Navy’s clearance!). I obviously liked it enough to get it, but every time I had tried it on at home, I decided it wasn’t what I wanted to wear out. But when I put it on today, it was suddenly super comfortable and pretty.
3. I went to the tax man. After two years of miserable tax appointments, I am very, very happy to say that I’ll be getting a big refund this year! I practically went broke trying to pay my estimated taxes based on my 2008 income while earning significantly less in 2009 (not very clever, I know), but it was worth it to not have to OWE this year. Hello, savings account!
4. I treated my car to a celebratory car wash in honor of my tax refund. And not just the basic one, but The Works. With tri-color foam and everything. It was magical. I’m pretty sure everybody noticed how clean and shiny my car was on the drive home. It’ll just take one more trip out in the slushy streets to get it dirty again, but it was nice to at least remove a layer of grime mid-winter.
5. I got a shelf to put in my bedroom closet, and it really helped me find a home for a lot of shirts. Organizing the bedroom still has a looong way to go, and it’s like a ridiculous, nonsensical puzzle. I go through clothes, put them in piles, and some of them disappear into drawers. Then I go through everything again, put them in new piles, and more of them disappear. I don’t have a clue as to what I’m doing, but it seems to be very methodical, and I’m liking the results.
6. Reading all the lovely delurking comments was excellent. I visited the sites of everybody who left a link. It was interesting to see what you guys all blog about — lots of crafts and some foodie stuff. I’m not sure I would have been able to guess what the ‘demographics’ were for twelve22 in that regard; I used to be all about crafts and now… sort of a bit of everything. So, thanks to everybody who commented! Please do so again!
7. This isn’t so much a good thing for today, but perhaps it could be a good thing of the future! It seems like there are at least a few fellow Minneapolitans (and St Paulites, hiss — but this is for you, too) in this neighborhood of the blog world. I’m thinking of organizing a friendly get-together — next week, maybe? — either dinner one night or lunch next weekend. Local suburbanites welcome, as well. Drop me a line at anna.torborgATgmail.com. If it’s a group thing, it’s way less scary in a person-from-the-internet-is-going-to-kidnap-me way; we just have to make sure the goodies outnumber the baddies (and I can’t run at the moment, so somebody will have to be prepared to protect me, if things get rough).
8. One last-y last good thing. I couple people mentioned my mug in last post’s photo, and while it would be funnier for me if I made people continue guessing who was on it, I’ll just say. It’s a This American Life mug, which shows the succession of hosts into the future. It starts with Ira Glass (you can see it a bit better in this photo) and goes through various human hosts, a brief stint by a talking cat, and then a robot. You know, once humanity falls to our evil robot overlords. Best mug ever? Yeah.