The loveliest words to read

This just hit my mailbox:

You have submitted a proposal to the Electronic Proposal Submission System. Your proposal is now stored on the EPSS system with number XXXXXX for subsequent evaluation by the Commission.

Got it done in time!

Not that the boss made it easy on me. At 1:45 I get a phone call.

Boss: "You know that we need to get a hospital to sponsor us through the ethics board, right?"

Me: [suspicious already] "Right."

Boss: "Well, in exchange for sponsorship, they want us to do a sub-study."

Me: [after big sigh. There goes the proposal I've been working on since 9pm yesterday, with only 3 hours for sleep]: "Send it over and I'll incorporate it."

I wait for the email, get it, open it, and weep. What's unique in our study is that patients aren't the subjects, the practitioners are. The grant proposal makes a big deal of this, since the selling point has to be innovation. And, of course, the new sub-study is the same old same old bloodtests to see how the patients react.

I call the boss, nearly hysterical. I know we hardly have a chance in hell of getting any money, but adding in this sub-study will kill off even the little snowball of a chance which we do have. After arguing about it a half hour or so I finally hit on an excuse even he can't deny: this will cost extra money and there's no budget attached, so I can't ask for more money in the grant request. "I'm not saying not to do the sub-study," I whine and plead, "just not to include it in the grant proposal. Let the professional fundraiser get money for it."

Another half hour later he agrees. We work on the final tweak, and with overan hour to spare, the proposal was submitted.

In my sleep-deprived state this morning I made an impulse buy that I think I'm going to really enjoy. Cathy emailed ROAK that she wanted to sell off some ribbon yarn. The price was right, the timing was good, she's willing to wait to mail it out until my parents get back from doing Pesach in Miami, and I'm starting to think about my clothes for Rosh Hashana. It all came together; I bought the yarn and either I'll wear it as a tank-vest with a pink skirt, or my daughter will (she hates pink, but knows she looks good in it, so wears it on holidays).

While I waited for proposal pages to be converted and to upload I finally started a new knitting project: Lion brand Magic Stripes yarn socks. Pictures when there's more than a row or two...