“The” email came, and my GF is on its way!
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating - the folks on this forum are wonderful and do amazing things. That is both inspiring and humbling. The GF seems like a tool that will be wonderful for both “power” users and noobs like me who just want to make pretty little boxes.
For many months, I’ve gleefully and obsessively designed things in Inkscape, longing for the GF so I could see them come to life, spend time refining designs, etc. It took a lot of effort for me to refrain from saying, “if we had the GF, we could use it for that.” out loud too much… but I’ve said it enough that my husband is also pretty thrilled about getting a GF.
and then - wham. reality.
I’ve been pretty quiet on the forum (and everywhere else) for a couple of months because my arms are in pretty bad shape - lots of pain, not enough sleep, etc. So I’m typing outside of work as little as possible. It’s a “first world problem”, and I’ve got great medical care, and this is probably nothing more than repetitive stress issues that physical therapy will resolve.
[in this post, Off Topic: Ergonomics: , I “brag” about a script that lets me type with just my left hand on the left side of my keyboard, and yes, that really helped my right arm heal, but now my left is in bad shape - woof… I’m running out of arms]
So, I have to confess that I actually considered cancelling my GF order. I’ve been rethinking and reworking how I do a lot of things so that I don’t further damage my arms, and obsessively working in Inkscape just is not an option for me anymore.
I’m sure I’m not the only one on this forum who knows the joys of “binge coding” or binge - whatever-ing. I love making things (or writing code), and it is easy to get so involved in the process that I don’t take enough breaks or pay attention to ergonomics (but, mom! I’m having so much fun! I don’t want to stop!). I’m now the “poster child” for how that can be bad for you.
All the videos of “look a kid can do this!” and “you don’t need to be a designer - it’s easy!” made me realize that I don’t have to be a “power” user to love my GF. My arms will likely heal over the next few months, but until then, maybe my GF use (and contributions to the forum) can be more from the perspective of a laser noob who has some ergonomic and chronic pain challenges [sigh] .
haiku is the perfect art form for me now - brief. I can scribble it. I’m looking forward to lasering a lot of haiku. So, here are a couple I keep repeating to myself…
a life well lived is
not predicated on the
absence of all pain
it is not about
making great art - it’s about
art making life great
Thanks again for being such a great community! I will certainly post projects on my GF once she arrives 
news.
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