Today, I was the solitary Scrabble girl. I kissed Jeff goodbye and shooed him out the door to go work the marching contest back at his alma mater, then proceeded to work on a new design.

Yes, you have yet another design for your enjoyment available over at the skins page. I've named this one "twenty-one," for reasons that will become obvious once you take a look at it; the skin is based around the idea that I'm the only person I know whose initials (AQ) can be represented by two playing cards.I mentioned it to Noah recently and got quite a delighted surprise when I opened up my inbox this morning and found the image that now forms the backbone of 'twenty-one.' I squealed—via email to Noah, instant messages to anyone and everyone that was online at the moment, and a couple of friends who were only reachable by telephone.

In other words, it's awfully easy to tell when I'm happy. Just look for the squeaky, bouncy domesticat.

I had bowed out of almost every activity for today, and hadn't felt terribly good about doing so. I passed on helping Jeff at the marching competition, passed on attending the RenFaire with Heather/Jess/Gareth, and passed on attending hockey with Geof. My reasons were murky—"I just want to stay home today" jumbled with explanations of feelings-of-hermitness and excuses of a new book.

I just wanted to stay home.

But when I opened up my inbox this morning and found that graphic—a gift from the air, morelike—I suddenly had a reason and purpose for the day. So, in traditional domesticat style, I got right to it.

In the afternoon, as I was finishing up, Kat called. "We're having steaks for dinner tonight. Want to join us?" I did. I finished "twenty-one," picked up the potatoes they needed, and joined them for dinner and a couple of rounds of Scrabble.

All in all, a quiet, good day.