Working breakfast

It's not the easiest thing to keep typing over, but when I have a lot of emails to send or work to do I like to eat at my desk. Lately we've been having a soft boiled egg, homemade wheat bread soldiers for dipping, homemade lemon curd and a banana for health.

Perception

Strong branding must be an important focus for any business. The brand helps the consumer identify with the company and its product. Large companies pay millions of dollars annually to keep their brands at the front of people's minds.

I think people, in a way, have this same behavior. We are constantly trying to separate ourselves as individuals, after we know our identity, or brand, we then find a group of friends that we can directly identify with. These friends in turn become the consumers of our individual brand. When seeking a partner or spouse we must find someone that identifies with our individual brand and convince them they like this brand so much to live with it the rest of their lives.

Recently we fell into a show on BBC America all about bras and bra sizes and proper bra fit. I was interested in the show because I had noticed my bras weren't fitting right after all the walking I was doing, but never really thought about it enough to do anything about it. Thomas was interested because it was a show about boobs, boobs and boobs being held up by different contraptions, women talking about boobs, and boobs. From that point on Thomas would inspect whatever bra I put on. This one doesn't fit properly in this area, this part seems to be riding high, etc. While out running errands we passed Victoria's Secret, and I inquired if we had time for me to run in and test these newly learned bra theories.

I popped in to the store and Thomas wandered off to the cooking shop nearby. I had the girl measure me and she said I was definitely wearing the wrong size, and here. Try these. Ten minutes later, Thomas returns, we buy a bra and head off for lunch and other errands. We eventually get back home, set the shopping on the table and carry on with our day. I wander to my office to check my email. Suddenly Thomas appears behind me inquiring about what I had bought, and how did it fit, and what size is it? I go fetch the bag, try on the bra.

"Oh," says Thomas. "That looks very nice. It's fitting better here, and this is staying in place." He takes a few steps back. "What size is it?"

"34 D."

"WHAT?! My wife has D cups?"

"They're still the same boobs."

"Yes, but now they're exciting!"

So for $43 my individual brand has just been elevated, in more ways than one.

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

She really does kick!