I got it! I got it! I finally got my hands on the suite today and installed it on my MBP when I got home. It took a while, you have to switch CDs 1 and 2 a few times for the installation to finish. And now they are living on my laptop with the legit key. I am legal now with the best tools at my finger tips. Yea!! I know, the learning curve is deep and it will take a long time. But as long as I stick to it, I think I’ll get more and more familiar with them. I’m working on the photoshop right now. Watching episodes of the Photoshop User TV series. These pros are amazing. They whip around the software clicking here, sliding there and cool effects just jump out of nowhere. I hope one day I will have a set of these skills under my belt while I work with photos. It would be really cool.
Had lunch with K and C at evergreen, our usual meeting place. Although we only get together once every long months, we are very comfortable with each other and we share events in our lives almost without any holding back. K is really unhappy with her marriage. Her husband lives 3 hours away, working Monday thru Friday. Come to see her and the kids on the weekends and drives back again. She has no help raising her kids ever since her husband has been working as a post doc in various out of town places. Her kids are now 15 and 11. She wants to move to be with her husband but he wants her to stay at her job and continue to bring in the income. He’s quite happy about the arrangement, not having to worry about the kids and just work during the week and come home and visit the wife and the kids on the weekend and have fun. Big conflict. When someone is oblivious or refuse to own up to his responsibilities, what can the spouse do? Forcing the issue won’t help if he is not willing to change. I feel for her frustrations. Our conclusion is to have a girl’s night out one Saturday night a month so she can get away and have some fun in her life. She said she doesn’t even know what is fun for her. All she does is to take care of the kids and her husband. She doesn’t have any time for herself, she doesn’t even know where to begin. Sad life. Although she is a strong woman and learned to deal with what she has to do on her own, she is a lot like me back when I didn’t see a way out of my misery and got more and more depressed.
I kept asking myself what is the lesson God wanted me to learn and tried to learn it so I didn’t have to go through the same pain again. Look at it now, I think it could be trying to shift my view of the situation. Rather than thinking I’m helpless and giving the control to people or circumstances, think instead what is it I am doing that allow this to happen. Have the control back in my court again and know that I can change and I am the ultimate designer of my life and not the helpless victim. It is hard though. When the negative forces are all around you, it is hard to take yourself out and be objective and reasonable.