Sometimes I surprise myself.

People who know me call me particular, picky, thorough, or anal-retentive, depending on their mood. (Yes, it does have a hyphen.) I freely admit it, but what's wrong about wanting things done accurately? Yesterday, I surprised myself by reaching a new level of specificity.

I was completing a landscape plan on the computer. I had, naturally, done the basic steps for any plan: including a scale and north arrow, making sure all the words run in the same direction (so that one doesn't have to turn the plan or one's head to read it), and spacing labels for a neat, concise plan. I even made the effort to keep the lines between labels and the objects they identify from overlapping or crossing. I then took it one step further, and this is where even I think I got a bit obsessive. I made all the lines on the left side of the plan point to the left, and all the lines on the right side point to the right. Unfortunately, that meant respacing or even relocating many of the lines and labels.

Hey, Boss doesn't realize I spent half a day on that alone, and the plan looks darn good, so I think it was worth the extra time.