So a few weeks ago a teenage boy who was driving his dad's HUGE Expedition with his music on THAT loud and backed into me despite my honking and begging him to stop. And put a nice old hole into my brand new bumper. It was not my fault, but I was just SURE somehow it was going to cost ME money. Cause life? It just goes that way most of the time. Imagine my shock and awe when his insurance company called me after a few days of investigating and said they would take care of EVERYTHING and give me a free rental car to boot! So yesterday I went driving around in a Pontiac Charger while my pretty green car got fixed. I picked it up bright and early this morning and there she was. All shiny and happy again. When I pulled into the parking lot this morning at work I went to grab my lunch and looked down. The repair shop or Progressive had left me four new floor mats for my car. I had been meaning to get some, but since the floor of my Element is rubber I have just not gotten around to it. I called up Best Boyfriend Ever right away. "GUESS WHAT???!!!" I yelled into the phone. "What?" he asks with that voice that never knows if I am about to describe some new plot or scheme or perhaps tell him how I just signed on to do yet ANOTHER art project that will take me 2 months to do, mean we won't be going out at night for weeks on end and will make me exactly ZERO dollars. "They gave me floor mats! FOR FREE!!! How do ya like them apples?!?!"

See, here in the land of rose colored glasses, I am disappointed by things often. People that lie, people that are mean just for the sake of being mean or because they don't bother to find out the facts, people that don't mind cheating to get ahead, or people that steal - why would they DO that?! Now people, I am not perfect, not by a long shot, and perhaps I am a tad too idealistic. "Tad?" I can hear my family rolling their eyes from here. So yeah, I was just thrilled, AMAZED even when I found out that the insurance company was doing right by me and if I did not LOVE USAA so much, I would most certainly be switching over to Progressive. Because Progressive? They rock. And they give you free floor mats just cause. And I loves me some free mats for my pretty, happy car. With the brand spanking new bumper.

And in other news, Thursday is the new Friday around here, so today is the end of the week. And tomorrow? WEEKEND! And if I get enough work finished tonite on my project? POOL! I will go to the pool tomorrow! But we will see, I am pretty sure I have way too much to do, but the pool, she calls to me.

Hello from the land of 'Working A Lot' The college has gone to four day work weeks for the summer - which sounds really cool until you realize it means that in order to have those glorious three day weekends you have to have ten hour days. And those ten hour days means you get home after 7pm. And so you start working on your other job doing illustrations at about 8pm, if dinner is on time or you and Best Boyfriend Ever don't decide cooking sucks rocks and you go out to eat and before all that you hurry and get right on the treadmill like you promised yourself you would because your summer shorts from two years ago just about fit. So the days are loooong. And the projects at work are biiig and yesterday before all this began you spent two hours at the dentist getting lots of numbing shots so that they could give you a DEEP ROOT CLEANING. Yeah, it hurts like it sounds like it should. So anyway, I finished three more illustrations last night and have seven left out of the 23. And only 2 need revisions so far, so YAY! And yesterday right as I was leaving work I got a wonderful, wonderful email from my agent about my work going over really well at a big conference...and I am awaiting the details. Lovely anticipation.

So here I am back at work to do it all over again today, minus the shots at the dentist. And once my mouth stops hurting and I get some caffeine in me, I will be in a much better mood. Right now, coffee is calling my name and so is a magazine layout and annual report design. So, hi ho, hi ho and all that.