apologies

well it has been forever since i posted, and i apologize for that. i was on vacation starting friday the 20th through sunday the 29th of july, then that next week and yesterday i was super busy because i had to be first one person at work and then another as they both took time off. unfortunately, all that really id for me was allow me to have no extra time for blogging, cause i don't get compensated for doing anyone else's job, so there's no real benefit there for me. i got to make a couple covers, which is sort of exciting, cause it allows for a little creativity, so i guess that was good.

either way, it is done now and i am back to being me! yaaaay. although i think someone else wants help with his pages, so i may end up doing some of his stuff too. yeesh. as if this nonsense wasn't bad enough, we are switching from cni and quark to incopy/prestige and indesign. i have had two training sessions so far, one for incopy and one for indesign, and i am fairly confused on the indesign one. we went really fast and didn't even really cover all that much, so how we went fast i'm not sure, but we seemed to always be doing something that i was too far behind to get. i missed the first step a lot, like 'go up to file and find ...', and if you don't know where to begin, it's hard to follow the directions from there. blast. i am not really excited to be switching to indesign.. it's supposed to be better, but from what i've seen so far (which, to be fair, is not a lot), i think it seems like it's more work and more annoying. but i am sure that is probably just because i was "raised" on quark and it's all i know.. and i'm good at it. so switching to a new system and being thrown for a loop is sucky, i hate not being good.

aside from that, i dyed my hair sunday, and at first i hated it.. i am still not sure i love it, but it's growing on me (no pun intended, hahah). it was supposed to be a dark/deep red (think addison on grey's or grace on will & grace, or ::shudder:: lohan before she dyed her hair & went crazy druggie), but it just came out super dark. and purple. but it's lightening a little, and it's more red than purple in some lighting. i'm hoping it keeps lightening, because the dark just isn't good with my pale (slash translucent) skin. unfortunately, it's starting to grow on me, but i am seeing at least one area that didn't quite get as much dye as it should have, and i'm just hoping it's not as noticeable to other people as it is to me. i was contemplating redying my hair immediately (like, friday), but now i am thinking i might just leave it for a little while.. mid-september-ish should give my hair enough time to breathe a little, and then if it gets messed up, i can get it fixed at a salon before my dad's wedding in october. i'm supposed to go to my mom's tonight to see what she thinks of the color. it's getting a little more liveable for me now, although that one spot is going to irk me, and i am not buying a new bottle of dye solely for one stupid spot. but grr! so yeah. it is definitely the darkest my hair has ever been in my entire life, and i think that threw me for a loop, especially given it was soooo dark when it first finished. it was literally black when it was wet. think ink. i had ink-colored hair. and when it dried it was just a dark purple. but now it is more red, and i am liking it a bit better, although it's not what i was going for. which seems to happen often, i never get what i'm going for.. i think i'm going to have to go to a salon for that color red, and that sucks, because i am poor and i don't want to pay for it! booo!

so. nothing too interesting has happened lately besides vacation, which was swell. it was lovely to just relax and go swimming and jet skiing and kayaking and .. well, canoeing was not relaxing at all, it was terrifying. i did not remember canoeing being so tipsy and oh-God-we're-going-to-dump-over feeling. my dad helpfully pointed out that the last time i went, i was like 12, so i was considerably smaller, which is true. i hadn't taken the canoe out in years, taking instead the two-person kayak, which sits much closer to the water. also not helping are the broken seats on the canoe, cause you have to sit on those life-raft-seat-cushion-thingys (well, you don't have to, but the other option is uncomfortable), and the child-sized oars (exaggeration, yes, but they are small) that force you to bend over to really get into the water, especially if you're 6'4" (cough boyfriend cough). so we took that out once and that was the end of it, because i kept freaking out and trying to rebalance thinking we were tipping and jon was laughing every time i tried to not fall out, and i thought he was shaking it on purpose, so i was getting mad, but it turns out he wasn't, and then there was a steering issue cause, well, he kinda failed. you can't just paddle on one side the whole time. it doesn't work. and it doesn't matter if the other person paddles on the opposite side the entire time. unless you are perfectly in tune and have balancing strength and direction with your paddles, that will not work. so i'd switch to try to turn it, and he'd switch, and i'd be like ..uh, no. or i'd tell him to paddle on the other side. well, someone had to! he didn't really appreciate my directions, though, and eventually tried to make me paddle it by myself, from the front, which didn't really work either. yeesh. so from then on i took out the one-person kayak and had a much more stable, direct-route time. hahahah.
there was also a puppy who was adorable! my aunt got a little yellow lab puppy and he was just a little bundle of love and fun. he was pretty classic yellow lab -- never really in a rush, happy to play, thrilled to be loved, etc. very cute.
also cute was jon's mohawk! he decided he wanted a mohawk on vacation, so we had a big project sunday night in which my brother buzzed jon's head (down to the no-guard, which means the shortest length you can get without bic-ing it, basically, which was a...conversation we had. i said, take it down.. jon was a little afraid at first, but then we finally got him to do it) and i helped shape the mohawk, with my dad looking on and snapping pictures and his sister, his fiancee and his fiancee's sister all looking on and offering directions. they wanted us to take down the top to a shorter length, but i wanted a tall mohawk, so we left it up. my aunt helpfully supplied some "instant freeze" aussie hair styling spray and some spray gel, both of which we used, and we spiked the hawk, and it was freaking hot. i love mohawks, and i loved my boyfriend with one! unfortunately, it's gone.. he buzzed it last thursday night cause friday was supposed to be hot and he didn't want to wear a hat and he clearly couldn't have a mohawk at work. (can you imagine if an ambulance came to get you and your emt had a mohawk?) so now he's just all naked-head-ed, which was weird at first but i'm getting used to it. i think he can pull it off, but he doesn't like it. weirdly, i think it makes him look taller, haha. the hawk definitely did, cause it was 3ish inches of spiked hair on top of shaved sides and his freaking tall body. i liked it. we don't really have any decent pics of it spiked, just one he took on his cell, but i will try to upload some pics tomorrow. it's almost time to go home today, so that's a project for tomorrow.

well. i think that's a fairly decent update for now.. i owe more, i know, after two weeks of no updating, and i will certainly try for more tomorrow and the rest of the week. woot!