I remain impressed and encouraged and grateful re your posting -- it is always really lovely to hear from you, even when it isn't actually every day. <3

Cheerful thing: A got me a Fancy Fountain Pen last week, as a graduation present. I promptly lost its (magnetic) finial... and then yesterday the pet robot vacuum cleaner found it, by which I mean "I turned it over to see what it was grumbling about and the finial was stuck to one of its ventral screws"! So that was pleasing. :)