it was my boyfriend's birthday four days ago, so i was with him the day before it until last evening. he had an awful lot of work to do, all from home, so it's not as though he were absent, but still very busy and i felt bad. i know i make it easier on him simply by being around, he says so, even more sternly that,. were i not around he'd have killed himself. honestly just a terrible thing to hear, but i'll take it. he told me that opening my presents was the highlight of his day. it made me so happy, because i'd genuinely spent weeks planning what i'd get for him, and even though it was just little things i thought he'd like, i planned everything far and precisely in advance, and went to four different stores. also poured my heart out into a love letter of sorts. i'm proud of myself in that i did end up creating quite a lovely gift that he obviously liked, but not as much so in how caught up i got... i wouldn't say i'm a perfectionist, but i thought into what every slight nuance of what i gave him would reveal, literally having to draw out how the gift would look as a whole before going to get anything, to know whether i was going too far with it or not enough. i have a small trip planned with family this weekend, only a few hours drive to the falls, but i hope to get some nice pictures over upcoming days. i am nostalgic for the last summer, when i nearly always had my camera in hand. i came up with quite a portfolio of photos... oddly, i predict i'll be in my feelings quite strongly this weekend, away from my boyfriend again so feeling some odd longing, and then more so after an unfortunate dispute late last night. i still need to get used to people actually seeing what i write on here!! i am used to writing in the typical blog format, as if someone is there to read, but absolutely not to there in fact really being someone on the other end cont. sunday now. my weekend was lovely. didn't do so much in the way of photography at all, but i had a great time. i don't have classes tomorrow so i'm taking the chance to go for a morning swim, take a certificate course during the day (about six hours), and then head over to my boyfriend's house again because i really miss him and i promised i would. pretty excited about swimming. i have been about five or six times in the past couple months but i hope for it to become a real habit because i honestly have gotten better since i started. i usually swim for exactly an hour, and keep track of how many laps i do. i try to push a little harder every time, but not stress too hard since after like two years of hardly any exercise, i'm already rather impressed with the effort i've already made.