A dislocated shoulder or two

I love the idea of taking my dogs for a walk, but unfortunately for everyone that's all it is some days, an idea. I have been walking them much more recently. I do not always jump off my butt to get dragged around the neighborhood. Henry and Lola have been better at walking calmly but it usually isn't until after the first mile of our walk, making that first mile hell. We've tried many different techniques, using a harness, holding them back behind the left knee, general yelling and screaming, walking back and forth until the dog gets confused enough to watch where YOU'RE going rather than where they want to go. None has really worked with any consistency. But thank goodness for Mondays off! After watching an episode of the Dog Whisperer, I discovered that the problem may be part dog and part human. As much as I've avoided the program, Cesar Millan may have a point!

Dedicate at least 45 minutes of time to the dog’s walk in the morning. Let the dog know you have a consistent pattern that you expect it to follow. Utilize your dog’s energy in a positive manner.

I have never been consistently dedicated to getting them out for a long period of time each day. I think I will give this technique a try. It can't hurt!

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Week 4
Walking: 6.5 miles

Was a sleep deprived college student

Shortly after we bought our home in Southern California, Thomas's mum and sister came to visit. Mum was excited to help us hang pictures and get organized, Emily had just finished finals and was ready to hit the beach and relax. The sleeping options were not ideal for accommodating two people that didn't want to sleep in the same bed. As Mum is a light sleeper she automatically received the spare room on the cool, dark, west facing side of the house for her quarters.

Emily, being a sleep-until-two-in-the-afternoon type of sleeper, was relegated to the sleeper sofa in the living room, which is not a 'room' in our house. It should really be called the 'living space' because it's just one huge room that encompasses everything in our home minus the bed. It has the front door, back door, sofa, television, club chairs, dining table, dining chairs, bookcase and oh, the entire kitchen. Needless to say, Emily didn't have much, how do I say this? ...Privacy.

As if the sun smiling at her over our panoramic eastern view was not enough to make Emily annoyed at six in the morning, surely her bellowing brother could do the trick. Each morning he would leap out of bed at the first glint of sun and rush to put the kettle on for the first pot of tea. Just as he would crest the living space threshold he would let out a deep, booming, "GOOOOOOOOD MORNING!", instantly startling Emily awake and unable to get back to sleep.

More tired than when she had arrived, Emily was less than pleased with Thomas. That of course made Thomas only more pleased with his accomplishment. Now four years down the road Emily is yet again suffering from extreme lack of sleep only this time there is not an insanely loud older brother, but a sweet little girl at the tail end of the problem. Emily has married and had a daughter. I'm certain baby Annabella, true to family history, loves to unleash her loudest voice to get the attention of her mother, albeit for drastically different reasons.

Somewhere in between naps Emily has started a blog showcasing her beautiful girl and fabulous photography. Check it out, here.

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And, on a slight side note to the story, this was the trip when Mum and Emily found this little bundle of joy. Something that gave me many sleepless nights, but will forever give us huge smiles.

Iconic day

Today was one of those days where I woke up and was excited to spend the day with my husband. Fortunately, he felt the same about me today. We had a big day planned with running errands all over town, and right from the start everything meshed into place. We were chatting back and forth while we drank our tea. The topic changed from the dogs to news to the iPhone.

Yesterday, Thomas installed the 1.1.3 firmware to my iPhone and so this morning he was showing me the new things I could do. The most useful of which is being able to put Safari web shortcuts on the home screen. He went along adding a few of my favorite sites. CNN.com has an icon, dooce.com has an icon... "Do you have an icon for Heather Ink?", he queries knowing full well I did not. "Let's make one, it won't be hard!"

We head off to my office and start clicking away. All we had to make was a 57x57 pixel image and edit some HTML. Now my blog has an iPhone icon! Right there! See it?

Install it on your phone. Right now!

And! In the process I talked him into helping me add a favicon to my blog too. (This is something I had tried to do unsuccessfully about six months ago, but it turns out it was an easy fix and of course the mastermind figured it out while I was showering.)

So now when you add my website to your browser favorites it has this pretty little icon next to it! I'm so excited!

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How to add a favicon to your Blogger blog: Digital Knowledge Center article

Creating an iPhone icon for your website: FOREM article

From the Onion News Network

Study finds that 12% of IKEA furniture assembly ends in divorce.

She really does kick!