Babelcube sent me $64.63 today.

I blinked at the email in surprise for a few seconds, then said, out loud, “Seriously?” Zelda put her paw on my knee and stared earnestly into my eyes, informing me that I should really not be reading my email before walking her, so I didn’t bother to look up the circumstances until later, after walking and breakfast. My walk thoughts, though, concluded that it was likely to be a mistake.

But nope, turns out the German copy of A Gift of Ghosts actually sold a few hundred copies in January and February on Tolino. I’m delighted — really more for the translator than for me, because yay, she’s finally earned some money for her hard work. Not much money, obviously, but I hope it came as a nice surprise to her, too.

I promptly spent almost my entire $64. My first purchase was two nut milk bags. My homemade yogurt tasted pretty good, but it was too thin. The internet informed me that if I want thicker yogurt, I’ll need to drain it, and offered lots of options for how to do so. I went with the nut milk bags as feasible, low-effort, and requiring minimal storage space. For obvious reasons, items that can be rolled up and tucked into corners make a lot more sense for quixotic cooking projects than mesh strainers or boxes of industrial-sized coffee filters.

Next up, AmazonBasics 4-Piece Packing Cube Set. I met a fellow Travato owner last week and her above-the-cab storage was so much more organized than my own chaos. It’s not space that I find very useful — I’ve got clothes, linens, jackets, towels, a yoga mat, window covers, and hand weights all stuffed in there, more or less haphazardly. She was using it for the same type of stuff but with packing cubes, which seemed so much more efficient. Her packing cubes are nice ones, but I decided to go with cheap ones instead. Fingers crossed that they last more than ten minutes.

Then I spent $38 on books, all by Lois McMaster Bujold. Huge mistake, most likely, because obviously, I am now going to want to read all weekend, but I’ve been slowly but steadily re-purchasing the books that I regretted leaving behind. I used to have everything of hers in hardcover and when I cleaned out my storage unit in April, I didn’t even look in the box that I was taking to goodwill. I knew once I saw them, I’d want to keep them. But Paladin of Soulswas only $4.99! And once I started… well, my two favorite Miles bookswere in a boxed set for only $8.99, and the books I was missing from the Wide Green World serieswere only $6.99 each and The Curse of Chalionwas only $2.99 and… yes, my resistance was low.

It feels delightfully improvident of me to treat a windfall as an opportunity to splurge. But it was really fun. If it had been just a slightly nicer windfall, I’d have a new shower headand/or a rather cool hanging organizeror maybe one of the interesting cookbookson my wishlist. Maybe next time!

Last night, it was so windy that the van felt like a boat, rocking from side to side. It was fun in a worrying sort of way. My neighbors, who are in a pop-out trailer, had a much more anxious night than I did, though.

ocean view at sunrise

Looking west at sunrise.

But I’m loving the weather. It’s only going to last for another day, but I baked cornbread (gluten-free) this morning to take advantage of it being cool enough to use my oven. I’m going to make a bay scallop chowder with coconut milk and ginger to go with it for lunch. In fact, I think I’ll go do that right now. And then I’m NOT going to reread favorite books, but am going to work on Grace. Well, at least for a little while.

(All those links are affiliate links, so if you buy something from one of them, I’ll get some percentage of sales. So far I’ve earned .20 from my affiliate linking, so thank you so much to whoever bought… well, probably a book! I appreciate the contribution. 🙂 )