Five happy things from the week:

1. Small Graces. Author and illustrator Grace Lin is auctioning off an original 5×5 piece of artwork every month with 100% of the proceeds benefiting The Foundation for Children’s Books. (This is the same Grace Lin who co-founded the Robert’s Snow fundraiser.) Over the last year I’ve noticed quite a number of authors and illustrators using their blogs or internet presence to bring attention to and/or raise money to support various causes. I think this is a wonderful and amazing thing.

2. Along the lines of wonderful and amazing things that writers are doing, fAiRy gOdSisTeRs, iNk has announced their 2nd Annual SCBWI Summer Conference Scholarship. The lucky recipient will receive a $1500 scholarship to the LA conference. Click on the link for more details.

3. My previously mentioned breakthrough in my revisions made me happy (see last post), and in general all the writing progress I’ve made this week. The next batch of my proofreading project arrives on Tuesday so I’m hoping I can keep up the writing pace (or some of the pace) while balancing it with work responsibilities.

4. This box of tangerines arrived from my parents yesterday. They also have a lemon tree and an orange tree in their backyard, and I’m hoping I’ll be the recipient of some of that bounty too. Citrus trees are one of the things I miss about California. I’ve been tempted to buy one of those small Meyer lemon trees to keep in our house. We have a lot of windows and a sunny exposure, so I think it would do okay. (Assuming the dogs and the cat leave it alone.) But it definitely wouldn’t be the same as my parent’s giant orange tree, lemon tree, and tangerine tree.

5. Spent the morning snowboarding with my husband at Breckenridge. It was a gorgeous day in the mountains. Wide-open runs, freshly groomed, no lines. We got in about 8-9 runs and then left and were back home by 12:30, where we had very pleasant mid-60 degree weather. Spent the afternoon working on revisions. That’s a pretty perfect day in my world.