feeling on top of the world

wow. 

the huskies won the championship. vicky and i raced back to the newsroom from mcmahon. it was all a-buzz. a tingling tangible excitement in the air. 

we had to rearrange where to put the content, decided to hold off a news story so the softball story could take the whole front page. 

i. was. pumped.

i. was. scared.

i didn't know what to do. i looked at my mockups for a full front page cover. nothing special. if we got the right photo, we could do it. 

and then christian sent me his headline from oklahoma city: Later, Gators.

at that point, i knew i had to give justice to an incredible headline. i had to give justice to a great story. i had to give justice to that awesome shot. i had to do it all. and i had to do it now.

my palms were sweaty, i felt the adrenaline rushing through my veins, pumping faster and faster, like it was pulsating to the beat of the music blasting in my ears. 

i knew i had it. i saw it in my mind. i let the page dictate what my hands did. 

finally, it was almost done. i let people see it. we printed it out. deliberated. finally, we knew we had it. sending it off to the printers with a certain amount of trepidation, hoping we did it right.

turns out we did. i felt confident about it last night. i e-mailed one of the authors of sportsdesigner.com thanking him for his site and telling him how it inspired me for this paper.

he responded:

Excellent work!

As a UW grad (1994, but never worked at The Daily), I'm very impressed. I think I'll post the page. The hats are a great touch.

i re-read it, not believing what my eyes had told my mind. read it again. and again. now slower this time. and then faster and faster. omg. omg omg!!

not believing what luck i had fallen into, i quickly went to the site. it seemed to take FOREVER to load. and then...

it was like my heart stopped. and then started pumping so hard i thought my sleeping family would be able to hear it. i gave an audible YELP of excitement. i heard movement upstairs, should i go wake them?? tell them the amazing news????

my hands shook. i posted the link on facebook, still high on the adrenaline. wow.

feeling on top of the world.

probably the highest i've felt all year. :D