In Which I Confess I'm a Geek (while acknowledging that this comes as a surprise to no one)

For my upcoming birthday, which I am somewhat unsuccessfully trying not to think of as the big 3-5, my parents bought me the full Adobe Creative Suite. This is a HUGE gift, which encompasses several applications that will help me move forward with my business, including:

• Photoshop
• Illustrator
• InDesign
• Adobe Acrobat Professional
• Flash Professional
• Dreamweaver

... and several other key pieces of software that have been missing from my life. Or at least from my laptop.

I am beyond thrilled. When the package arrived today, I felt a little like I did when I got a new toy or game as a kid - all nervous energy and excitement. And now that it's installed and fully functional on my trusty Dell, I can hardly wait to get started on my next project.

Shouldn't work always be like this? Shouldn't we get to do things that stimulate us, and make us look forward to applying ourselves to a purpose?

I'm only now realizing just how rare that feeling was for me in the months leading up to the end of my time with my previous employer, and what a tremendous gift I've been given to work at building my own company doing what I enjoy. Without a push, I don't know that I would have started on this path. But now that I'm on it, I think the only thing that could cause me to detour would be a winning lottery ticket.

Did I mention that PowerBall is $160 million or something this week? Do you know that even if I won, I'd still find myself playing with this "new toy" - even if it was just to create a really, really slick and well-designed "Ha Ha Ha! I'm RICH!" postcard to send to everyone I know.