69 thoughts on “Happiness is Three Finished Books”

  1. I’m getting a greenhouse! I was chatting to a couple on the allotments who’ve just moved to a bigger plot and are putting a polytunnel on it. I mentioned my yearning for a greenhouse, and it turned out they were looking to sell the plastic-glazed greenhouse they put up this spring on their old plot. They’re going to move it to my plot as soon as they’ve finished the polytunnel and I’ve cleared the site for it (which I sculpted into prospective new strawberry beds in spring, and now need to rake level once I’ve taken out the marigolds that have seeded round the edge).

    I’ve been dancing inside for days.

  2. Happiness is an almost finished renovation. I’m happy there are three new books to read.

  3. Congratulations on finishing your books. I look forward to reading them.

    DS and I went out of town to a 2 night wrestling extravaganza. We took the train and used Uber and public transit to get around. We had a good time and had lots of funny conversations. He’s good company and a whiz with google maps, which helped us get around an unfamiliar city. He tends to spend most of his time at home in his room on his computer so spending an extended chunk of time with him was a lovely gift. He’s 21 and I know opportunities to spend time together will become even more infrequent.

  4. I’m so happy for you and Bob.

    I’m tired. My voice-alert smoke alarm went off at 4:30am to tell me the battery was low. Why it couldn’t tell me during the day, I don’t know.

    1. Drives me batty when they do that. It’s because batteries have lower capacity in the cold, so they reach their cut-off point when it’s coldest – which is often at night. Knowing that doesn’t make me feel better when I get woken up by it!

    2. I just spent last night/this trying to figure out which smoke detector was beeping. Ended up changing all of the batteries at midnight.

  5. Yay! New books are so exciting!

    Happiness for me is time off. We are heading up to Ithaca for the book sale for a few days and maybe hike the falls… Except it’s supposed to snow… Doesn’t matter. Still happy.

    I have so much I want to do with my week off. Too much. It won’t get done alas. But I actually feel like attempting some of it, so that is good.

  6. Happiness is three new Jennifer Crusie/Bob Mayer books. Can’t wait to read ’em.
    Happiness is also having the good news delivered to my email boxes. But they weren’t! *sob* I guess I have to resubscribe. But as long as I can do that, it’s still happiness. 🙂

  7. YAY BOOKS! Congratulations. 🙂

    Writer-related happiness was finally organizing my thoughts and solidifying my ideas to the point that instructions for series/titles have been sent to the artist for the trio of premade covers impulse-bought in January. Still not even close to writing these books (they are historical and a ton of research is needed), but at least when I do I’ll be able to publish them.

    Domestic happiness was collecting the clean winter blankets and finding this particular cleaner had packed them all in a neat storage bag vs draping them over shitty disposable hangers like the last cleaner. That prompted finding a place to store the neat storage bag, which prompted decluttering of storage cupboards. Now I have more things to take to Goodwill and a few to offer my BFF down in Huntington Beach. I also took a thing to this cleaner (who does alterations etc) for a long-desired small amendment which will make the thing more wearable.

    And then, and THEN, talked to DH about a New Year dance organized by a longtime favorite studio owner who has a big new facility with lots of ventilation. We are going. The tickets are bought. We have 12 weeks to get in shape to the point that we can actually dance for more than five minutes. And I have to schedule my bivalent booster + flu shot.

  10. Happiness was a fun recital with my friends, a repeat of one we sang early last month. I got to pull out my smoky sexy voice for some Ellington, kind of new my classical me. But such fun.

    Also, I put the pile of summer clothes away in the summer clothes boxes, and I put got the Wordle today in three. And it’s only 1:30! Anything could happen!

  11. This morning saw the last of my Halloween decorations go up (lights and very large purple inflating spider), so I am THRILLED both with the result and the done-ness.
    Now just have to find my goodie bags, and look up my monster cookie recipe, as that is what I have decided to do for my Halloween dinner guests, co-workers and pizza people.

    In general, happy and productive week, Board meeting done and minutes shouldn’t be TOO bad, so next week is looking good too.

    1. I am happy you have a purple inflatable spider, because the green one I have enjoyed on my way to work and back for two years is very sad and dying this year. Instead of being centered on the front of the house, abdomen glowing greenly over the front door, legs sparkling with white lights along their length, eyes glowing red, this year it is clinging to the side of the house, the head invisible, the abdomen dimmer than I remember, and the legs drooping and unlit. Clearly it is on its way out. Long may your purple spider reign.

  12. Congratulations, Jenny and Bob!!

    I finished Chapter 1 of my dissertation, so I’m very happy to send that off for critique today. I haven’t had time for genre reading, but I’m still stalking the Thursday good book posts and making a list for when I’m really really done.

  13. Wow — three books! The seritonin high of finishing just one book is amazing, can’t quite imagine three books!

    No specific happies for me, just a general sense of contentment for the past week, which I don’t often feel. Oh, and a couple new PBS shows to watch tonight — Magpie Murders, which I’ve heard good things about, and the second season of Miss Scarlet & the Duke, which is incredibly silly, and totally not something I’d expect to like, but I really enjoyed the first season. And I think the final episode of Shetland airs on Tuesday, and I prefer to binge the season, so I watched the first episode and then made myself wait until the end was in sight before diving back in.

  14. Your books!
    Also, my last day at my job was Friday. That’s very mixed actually. I loved what I did. I’m very proud of getting the organization up and running. But the job was increasingly becoming administrative and I hate and am bad at that.
    So now I will do some very part time consulting on tbt two projects that really needed me to continue on them and will get some r and r. And then I will decide if I want to be mostly retired or build up policy consulting or look for a new job that is all policy and no admin. I’m 62 which feels like a tad young to retire but I’m so burned out its tempting . And our finances could probably use me bringing in income for a few more years … at least if we are going to do all the travel DH wants … but if I’m working we can’t do that much travel….

    Also, DS is giving a talk at a professional conference and actually seems to know what he is talking about. He is in a STEM a graduate degree program and is getting recruited by evil finance industries to crunch numbers for them but is fortunately totally not interested. It’s really sad how (in addition to the evil many of these companies do) they drain the sciences of smart kids who are lured away by money but could do great things for the world in science

      1. Well, I do love the policy work so it’s a form of enjoyment. Sone kind of part time consulting that gives me room to breathe and enjoy life and see my kids and deal with my aging mom may be the way to go.

    3. DS sent me a slide of tbr intro to someone’s talk that said “Numerically solving the Boltzmann equation instead of fun and profit” so you can see there is much recruiting of physics grad students by Wall Street …

    4. I retired at 62, and my only regret was not having a source of health insurance that didn’t cost a bomb. If you have health insurance, or possibly live where they have universal health care, then do it! Life is short, stress is avoidable, and happiness is within your reach!

      1. Well, that’s one of the reasons more money would be good. My job was our source of health insurance and while I can buy in via COBRA the lost salary plus lost health insurance is not trivial. But I don’t want to do full time employment so I think we will have to just pay big premiums until we are both Medicare eligible (dh is a year younger than me and self employed).

  15. Early part of the coming week will be busy. I’m looking forward to Thursday when I will have crossed a couple of things off my list.

    Signed the contract for the chimney work which wasn’t too bad cost-wise. The job’s scheduled for 10/31 and that makes me very happy. And I’ve started moving stuff out of the way in the attic. I may even get rid of a couple of things.

    And 3 new books in the foreseeable future!!!

  16. Yay Jenny! Yay Bob! You both rock!

    Writing happiness for me – “Hungry Ghosts” is finished. Sort of. I gave up on chapter-ing it early on so I have to go back through and do that. Meh.

    More writing happiness – I have enough poems that my “Overly Fond Of Prisms” chapbook could be done. Except… I discovered all these Japanese structures that are fun to write and I want to do 2 more. Then I have to put it together and submit a few places. No easy task.

    These days my social life is mostly Pinellas Writers group. They asked me to join the board. This week will be my first time moderatng. And next week we have an in person social!

    To quote Florence & the machine – happiness hit me like a bullet in the back hehehe.

  17. Oh that’s great news! Can’t wait to read them.

    I went to a small conference last week for my industry. It was great to catch up with people; I hadn’t seen anyone since 2019 and they’re a great bunch. And most of the sessions were even interesting and useful.

    1. I was very happy (not dancing happy, though…) to have succeeded in pulling up a total of 14 feet (I think that’s 4+ meters??) of bamboo roots from under the branch-strewn wasteland that used to be the site of the War of Weeds (which 10 years previously had been my gorgeous daylily flowerbeds). SO many more roots and yards and yards of bamboo to excavate, but it was good to make a start. And I had no idea the akebia vines had spread so far and so fast.

      Really happy, though, to hear about Jenny and Bob finishing the Trilogy. Whenever it is published, can all of us who are part of other communities pass the word along to people who (a) haven’t heard of J. Crusie and/or (b) who might like stories about zombies on flaming rivers? (Oops…j/k!) — I mean who might like funny original books by brilliant ex-art teachers plus he-men who say ‘when in doubt, kill someone’? I think Jenny’s idea that this is the only group that still remembers her needs some practical refutation.

      2. An easy option if you have an Overdrive account is to recommend it for their library purchase. My libraries now all have the Crusie collection🙂

  18. Vicarious Snoopy Dance with you!

    I had to work both days this weekend, quel drag, so now my happiness is catching up on a very trashy season of Bachelor in Paradise.

  19. I had a terrific day yesterday even though I fell, cutting my chin so badly it needed 4 stitches. Oh, well — at least neither of the 2 bottles of wine I was carrying broke.

    It was my daughter’s 20th reunion at the boarding school where I taught for 14 years. She rolled off with a current teacher who was her classmate in college, then, she joined her old high school classmates for a day which culminated with a banquet and dancing. I’m really happy for her because I’m an anxious mom who is too shy to mix easily and worries for my child. Immune to my problems, she dances in her wheelchair and chats easily with folks who have jobs and significant others — she says people like to describe their interests, rather than compete over status.

    I wandered around the campus, not quite catching up to a friend and colleague who just retired after over 40 years. But I was hugged by former students, one of whom has published a book of poetry. When I fell, I was on the way to a friend/former colleague’s house — we were planning to chat over wine before going out to eat Mexican. Instead, my friend took me to an urgent care place. She arranged for our husbands to stake out a table at the Mexican restaurant. We all had a delicious dinner, and sharing a pitcher of margaritas made my lip and chin feel much better.

    This is all a silly story, isn’t it?

    1. I’m glad that your fall didn’t kill your dinner plans and that you are feeling better.

    2. Yes! Same here. And well done to both you and your daughter, well… except for the fall thing, but your friend did great too. I’m happy things worked out for all of you!

    3. Falling is scary. I’m glad you were not seriously injured, and the evening ended well.

  20. I am so happy that you finished the trilogy!!!

    Last week I hobbled down to the library with a paper shopping bag of books to donate for this weekend’s book sale, only to be told that I was too late. I left the bag of books in the lobby because my knee wasn’t up to dragging the books back home. I was therefore, delighted to see that my books had been added to the other donations and were among the books on the sale tables when I entered the sale today. What pleased me less is that I returned home with 2/3 of the same size bag of purchases. I was really upset with myself until I remembered that this was the second bag of donations I gave them. Unfortunately the books I bought are larger than the ones I donated, so I am still out of room in my bookcases. The whole thing made me feel better about the fact that a Halloween novella I had tried to order last week was only available on Kindle and so I was unable to buy it,

    1. You made me laugh! We book lovers have a constant struggle to keep the balance and not overwhelm the storage areas. I have my books shelved in two layers in several areas, and there are books stacked on top of the shelved books in most other areas. It doesn’t help that people in this group are so good at reviewing and recommending books that I keep buying more. It’s time to weed out the ones that will not be re-read, and take them where they can benefit someone else. You are doing that, so give yourself a pat on the back.

  21. You know, readers get the happies from finishing books, too. So, how long before we get to share your happiness that way? I’m happy for you now – I wanna be happy for me with your books on my Kindle.

    Annoying story. When I acquired the bulk of my Jennifer Crusie Library, I bought them as Microsoft Reader eBooks from http://www.Fictionwise.com, which no longer exists. Killed by Barnes and Ignoble, who absorbed their inventory and threw away their customers. So, when I want to read some Crusie, I often can’t find it until I look at html back-up files. I’ve re-purchased most of my favorites, but there are still gaps. And now Kindle is switching to epub format…

    1. I note that your website added the http, colon, and slashes to the www to make it a valid link. Do NOT bother clicking on it – it goes nowhere. “It’s dead, Jim.”

  24. I’m so excited for you guys!! What a great accomplishment!

    My happy came yesterday when my almost 90 year old mother and I were invited to my older brother’s home. His wife and daughter have been estranged from our family for over 9 years. He was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year and I believe the seriousness has sparked the flame of reconciliation.

    We had a lovely afternoon reconnecting and while some feelings are still raw, it was a first step.

  25. I did not get this until today. I wonder what’t up with that?

    Yay! THREE books done! It’s amazing how fast you two did that. Go, team! Dance away. That’s a wonderful accomplishment.

    My happy is that I returned from a long-awaited visit to Arizona to see family there, and it was a great visit! My two grandchildren who live in Phoenix are getting old enough to be civilized human beings. 😝 My son drove me to Tucson to see my brother, SIL and step-dad, and on the way we discussed his formative years and the places we had lived during those years, and people who made a difference. It was a great connection, and fun to reminisce. My brother has lost 30 pounds and looks and feels better than he has in a long time, but the loss of weight in his face has aged him, and I was a little shocked, at first. There’s a reason baby-faced people look younger than their age.

    It was nice to be in the desert again. We’re getting a hard freeze here, tonight. It will be a bit of a reset. But the trees are beautiful!!

  26. My happiness is a visit from a writer pal, Alethea Kontis, who lives in Florida but spends much of fall in the northeast visiting family and friends. Usually she comes for a day, but this time she got here on Friday afternoon and isn’t leaving until Tuesday morning, and we’re having a mini writer’s retreat. Since I rarely have anyone to talk writing with, it is wonderful, plus we did some brainstorming on my new book idea that was incredibly helpful, so very much happiness there.

    My other happy was finally tracking down the cause of my septic system issues. It has been three weeks of multiple septic guys and my plumber trying to figure out why my leach field failed and there was still so much water going into the septic tank. After discussions of having to take down multiple huge pines and dig up their roots in order to make room for a new leach field on my small property, and quotes of up to $18,000 (and me refusing to do anything until we figured out WHERE IS ALL THE WATER COMING FROM), I had the tank pumped for a second time so we could cap off the pipe coming from the leach field. And discovered that there was water flowing from inside the house, even though nothing was turned on. (Yes, it was coming from inside the house. I feel like I’m in a horror movie.) The septic pump truck driver tracked it down to a malfunctioning water purification tank that was stuck constantly backwashing, was able to bypass it so I could still have running water–very important when you have a guest for 4 days–and both he and my plumber agreed that the current leach field would probably recover from being over-stressed and not have to be replaced at all. So the whole thing will probably cost me $3,000 or more, but not $18K, and I don’t have to destroy my yard. It’s not fixed yet, but still, so much happiness.

    3. Woo Hoo! Three cheers for getting the right thing fixed and having it cost two thirds less! And now you have another thing to celebrate while your friend is visiting.

  27. Hearing you and Bob finished those three books is joy beyond compare. That is an incredible accomplishment.
    What made me happy this weekend was getting a massage at Burke Williams. I got the gift certificate from the production company at jury duty back in April. Also I booked a small role on criminal minds on Sunday. I am so happy for all of your happinesses.

  28. Hooray hooray hooray for finished books! I’m so impressed by how you and Bob have ploughed through three books – THREE BOOKS!!!!

    What’s making me happy is solitude after too much travel. And getting up early to watch the earth turn towards the sun. And birds. They always make me happy.

  29. Three books finished is amazing news! I hope you both feel right proud (and happy) 🙂

    Happy this week is no personal drama (I’m trying to ignore our government’s shenanigans). I’m still feeling around my new routine, but have bits and pieces of work coming in, so that’s a comfort. I’ve also started tackling the Great Garage Clearout, and you can actually see that I’ve made progress. And last night I had my first in-person parents evening for the wee guy, and it’s all positive, so that makes me extremely happy. He has adjusted remarkably well – I’m in awe.

  30. I am so very happy for you and Bob – the sense of relief and accomplishment must be immense. And reading everybody else’s happies here always makes me smile.

    My happy this week was a night in Melbourne to say goodbye to my favourite bar (the building has new owners and they’re being evicted). One last negroni with friends, and strangers who end up becoming friends because the space only fits ten people standing up. Last time we were there, the guys I was with ended up helping the bartender’s girlfriend carry her new fridge upstairs. At one a.m. My sister and I kept the bartender company. Good memories.

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