Thirsty Thursday #10

Thirsty Thursday is my own recurring meme whereupon I lift a glass (metaphorically speaking) to celebrate the triumphs I have experienced in the last seven days. They can be big, they can be small, but there has to be something because I believe life is all about looking at the positive. It's simply too short and too unpredictable to focus on the negative. So with that in mind, here is why I'm raising a glass today:

1. A special shout out and lead off entry to my best friend Dan. He and his wife have brought a brand new baby boy into the world and I couldn't be happier for the both of them. Congratulations you two.

2. We have pumpkins! I color this as a reason to celebrate because, despite the fact that it's several months still before Halloween, the pumpkin plant in our garden had done a lot of growing and taking over (to the point where I jokingly refer to it as the pumpkin infestation) without a whole lot of producing. That has now changed as we have two growing and a what looks like a couple of more on the way.

3. This actually took place over a length of time but it is only now that I feel like it is an actual accomplishment. My son has graduated into a full-time potty-user. If you're a parent, you understand the significance of this statement. Now we just have to work on my daughter, who has half the equation down and still goes to bed with a diaper on. However, we fully expect by this time next year, or even sooner, she will have broached this milestone as well.

4. We stayed within budget on our grocery shopping this month, but actually ended up buying much more in terms of worth. Our coupon-saving efforts have worked out and we're going to attempt to drop our monthly grocery budget down a bit since we don't need to buy as much for a bit.

5. I discovered something awesome last month that has me giddy and hopeful for my future as a writer. Over the course of about a month, in the Sony e-book store, The Plan, my failed contest short story, had been downloaded over 300 times. I have done no actual marketing on it, so people are basically coming into it on their own. It has also been downloaded a lot in the iBookstore, and while I don't have any numbers there, it has 19 "reviews" (current standing at 3-stars, which just reinforces my thought that I could have done better). I'm also interested in seeing the numbers on B&N when they come in. As an experiment, and to see if it'll help sales to Spiral X, I have permanently reduced the price of Split to FREE on Smashwords and its distribution channels. This was the plan anyway, for later this year, I'm just accelerating it a little bit. The sales were minimal at best, so doing this isn't going to hurt and might even help garner me some new fans.

That's it for now. I'll see you guys in a couple of weeks.