Too Little, Too Long

I don't know that I have a great way to start this post other than to tell you that over the years the Adobe Suite has become both my closest friend and my most loathed enemy. I don't know why I feel the need to share this with you as I am sure that anyone that reads this would find this post boring and would be unable to relate to it, but I must. I am compelled because I am perplexed.

Adobe and I were introduced in an intense class one cold day in January of 2002. The class pertained to digital photography, something that I was very excited to learn more about. Adobe released her sweet baby, Photoshop, into my shaky,unsure arms and from there we began the get-to-know-you dance. She laid out her basic steps and I clumsily mimicked them in hopes of taking my photography to a new level of artistic grace and beauty... maybe even edginess.

Slowly but surely she began to introduce me to her other children, InDesign and Illustrator. Thus far, Illustrator has proven to be a shy and skittish creature, preferring to keep to itself. InDesign, on the other hand, has taken charge and become very outgoing. She has shown me the ways of professional layout and I am very grateful for everything that she has offered me.

However, all three are obviously born of the same mother and have proven to be tricky and witty. The language they speak is often foreign and at times very confusing. They conceal some of their greatest talents from me and I have to coax them out into the open using every tool I can get my hands on.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure if I took some graphic design classes that I would be able to float through these programs as though I had known them from birth. However, I feel discouraged as I have taken many a class pertaining around Adobe Suite and her language of gibberish. At one point, I even had to help the professor as he had forgotten what some of the tools were capable of and how to use them.

I use the tutorials and I learn certain tricks from blogs online, but Adobe and I have been dancing partners for six years now and I feel as though I have just scratched the surface of this mysterious yet familiar beast.

This will be my lifelong goal - maybe this is my Wells Fargo Someday commercial.

Someday... proficiency in Adobe.

How I Pass the Day

This is a snippet of a conversation that I had with a co-worker yesterday. We often speak via Google chat, which helps us to keep convos on the DL since everyone and their mother can hear us.

Background before I let you read the chit-chat:

Our founder has this insatiable urge to tell long, drawn out lies, er, stories about how awesome he is. He has a tendency to one up everyone as he becomes bored talking about anything/anyone other than himself.

We often pull him into conversations with the hopes of him steering the conversation into a story about how he fought a bear/saw a Golden Eagle with an elk and a trout, one in his talons and the other in his mouth (seriously, I'm not exaggerating)/shot an elk from his neighbors front porch in his underwear/invented the school fund raiser where you sell coupons to unsuspecting homeowners via band or choir children/etc.

4:01 PM Gidge: oh God

we're having a one up contest

do you hear this?!

Co-worker: story time?

G: no, one up contest about losing glasses

CW: i lost mine in my urethra once....there top that.

4:02 PM G: hahahahaha

Well, I lost mine in the woods and a bear got a hold of them so I had to fashion a whip out of some tree branches

CW: nice, did you kick the bear's ass?

G: once I had gotten that made I had to practice a few times but I used that whip to grab the glasses out of the bears mouth

4:03 PM once I had them, the bear started coming after me, so I used the whip to grab hold of a tree branch and I swung myself to safety like Indiana Jones

4:04 PM once I was up in the tree, Pam* flew a helicopter out with a rescue team and they flew me out of there on a hanging ladder that Pam used her mighty, Amazon arms to hold on to from up in the air

it was pretty amazing

We often humor ourselves by making up stories that could come from our fearless leader's mouth. However, we analyze them and find that it isn't that far off from a story he would tell.

*Pam is our founder's wife... I swear she's 7' tall.

The Goings On of A Busy Gidge

My life has been topsy-turvy these past couple of weeks. I am insanely busy, and not just with work.

I am now the Vice President and Treasurer of a local association with national roots (no, I don't have to travel anywhere. This is an offshoot of a national social/philanthropic group and my duties are strictly stationed in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area)

In addition to my double trouble association status, the boyfriend has now requested that I begin some minor planning for our wedding before he gives me the ring. I'm not exactly sure why this is and what this means he has planned, but I think his fear is that by the time he gives me the ring we will not be able to book our venue for next year when the leaves change color (i.e. somewhere around October 3rd, 2009). So far, we have a guest list, a list of venues to request information from, a rough budget, and an overall theme.

I have three binders that are exploding at the seams with notes/minutes/meetings/pictures/information/ideas/etc. All binders follow me wherever I go. All binders are used daily.

I really, REALLY love to plan events, but I think I need a vacation!