This morning, not only did Mr Darcy let me stay in bed until 7:30 (comparatively speaking, bliss!), but I woke up to the best kind of news: my short story "The Andrassii Agreement" has sold to Lone Star Stories! It'll be published in the December issue. "The Andrassii Agreement" will be only my second published science fiction story, which makes me feel even prouder to have sold it. I know there are some people who are naturals at both SF and fantasy, but fantasy is definitely where 99.999999% of my ideas come, so the rare SF story idea feels like a gift from the blue.

(Also: my first SF story, "Behind the Rules", was very dark; "The Andrassii Agreement" is the opposite. I giggled as I thought of the first few lines, and I wrote the whole story just to amuse myself. So selling it is a great side-effect!)

It was great timing, too, because the last few days have been filled with absolutely massive levels of exhaustion and, therefore, haven't been fun (to say the least). Patrick and I tried to switch our night-time Mr Darcy-care-schedules; it didn't work, and we both ended up even more tired than we had been before, which was nightmarish. Oops. :( We're back to our original schedules now, which may be flawed but at least get us both the minimum of sleep we need.

We also had to visit The Store of Doom, aka Mothercare, yesterday; afterwards, I had my first taste of real shopping as a mom, when we went to Clarks to buy me some new shoes at long last. (The old ones finally died after 3 years this summer, and as the rains of winter have started to hit Leeds, my plan of just wearing sandals all the time has died a grim and soggy death!) Unfortunately, after sleeping all the way through Mothercare (which has a huge room just for nursing mothers, and which is the most baby-friendly environment possible), MrD woke up and started screaming for food the moment we pushed his carriage into Clarks. Aack! Patrick managed to keep the noise down to a bare minimum by scooping him out of the carriage and walking him round and round the shop as I tried on shoes...but wow. I don't think I've ever tried on any clothing that quickly before, or felt that tense as I did it! Luckily, I ended up finding a great pair of shoes anyway...but yeah. Any ideas I might have had about leisurely fun-shopping-with-baby...well, let's just say that I've been disillusioned.

Now, though, he's sleeping against my chest, looking like a tiny angel, and I'm buzzing with happiness about the story sale.

Hope everyone's having a great weekend!