Oh, yes, despite it all, I did make progress today--I recreated the cover for Trang in GIMP, minus the text (since the new title is going to take some tweaking). I feel much more comfortable working in GIMP now, I have to say. It's not the most intuitive thing, but it's very robust, and if you do it right you have a lot of flexibility.
I have been in a position all too frequently lately where I have to wait on someone else to do X before Y can happen. So I am going to remind myself that one of the main benefits of working for yourself is that you don't have to do that. Which is good, because I HATE IT.
P.S. I also recreated the Trust cover, minus the text.