How Sweet It Is

This past week, a friend from Vancouver was in Halifax for work-related meetings so we -- me, Dwayne and my mother -- went to the city to have supper and a nice, long visit with him over big bowls of chowder.
It turns out that he'd missed the announcement that I'd sold a book to Nimbus.
"So, are you still writing?" was his question after we'd ordered.
Seriously?
I stared at him long enough to determine he wasn't being sarcastic.
So our celebration at getting together after so long then became a celebration that I'd sold a book.
"It's about time," he said -- assuring me he meant that I've worked hard for this, not that it's taken me a gawd-awful long time (although he'd be well within the bounds of our friendship to admit that).
Funny thing, though, as I sat there and we talked about getting published, it still didn't feel real to me. Like a woman who has battled infertility for years, is this how it feels to be pregnant finally? Your creation is growing, you can feel it,you can see but until you are actually holding it in your hands, you can't believe it's actually happening.
This won't be real until the Advanced Reading Copy pops out of the mailbox and I see it with my own eyes.
My husband, on the other hand, is making up for my lack of faith, and my lack of excitement. He, at long last, presented me with my "Congratulations!" gifts this week. It wasn't like him not to have given something to me immediately but now I know why: One is a  handmade mug that he custom-ordered from our friend, Pugwash potter Jen Houghtaling, to commemorate the day I signed the contract. The mug says "My First Book" across the bottom while "December 9" is written on the inside of the handle and "2015" on the outside.
Then yesterday, the necklace he ordered finally arrived:

How sweet it is to be loved by this man, but also how lucky I am to find a partner and best friend who supports my work whole-heartedly -- who believes in me far more than I believe in myself.
I'm surprised that in the last couple of years, he never gave me a Houghtaling mug with "You can do it" written on it. After "I love you", it's what he says most to me.
But he keeps everything normal, and keeps me firmly grounded in reality, by complaining today about how many mugs he had to wash this morning.