This week...

This week...

• Time flew by. Way too fast.
• I didn't have luck turning my old blog into a book. I spent several hours trying to "slurp" my blog to Blurb, disabling firewalls, and doing whatever the tech support told me to do. In the end, it didn't work and Blurb stopped supporting Typepad this week. Now I'm going to try to move the blog to Wordpress and slurp from there...
• The dog above - that I love and adore - tested my patience in the mornings when she bossily invited me to get out of bed at 5:45am after Matt left early to go play hockey. Last summer was the summer of puppy love and this summer is the summer of taming our wild beast. Once the shy little pup grew into her big powerful body and realized she could kick butt, we had a remarkable challenge on our hands. She's half skittish and half bossy. Not a good combo. When we noticed the first small signs of trouble last fall - mainly fearfulness - we should have gotten her into dog training immediately. We did basic training on our own but seeing that we own a husky mixed with some kind of herding breed, we needed help.
  
• After some serious consideration, I've decided I'm squarely in the Victoria Stilwell TV personality dog training camp. Not just because she's got the best wardrobe designer but because she reinforces what our real life dog trainer says.
  
• Instead of signing our lease for another year, we've talked about packing up our stuff up and moving back to Michigan against all common sense. Only CNN Money was able to dissuade me.
  
• This post on Tuesday, July 28th about a trip to Detroit made me want to go home anyway.
• And, her blog design inspired me to switch things up here already. I'm happier with the new design.
  
• This radio story made me want to go backpacking with kids again. And the following story about his observations of Detroit made me want to go home. Did I already say that?
  
• I realized I completely forgot about Nature Photo Monday. I think it's because my hands have been too full with the pooch to pull out the camera much this summer.
  
• But in happier news, today I restarted my weekly Sunday hike. Met up with a friend at the Fells. I'm thinking that this fall I should try to hike a different mountain every weekend. Okay, maybe most weekends, not every weekend. I'd be good for me, good for the dog, and this may be the last fall for while where I can attempt such a feat. For sure, I plan to finally hike Lincoln-Lafayette by snowfall.
• I started thinking about snowfall. This summer has gone by way too fast.
  
• I baked this cake today. Just for me. Just because.
• I've been making use of zucchini and summer squash for the first summer ever. I've made this lemony goat cheese zucchini pizza twice. It's killer.
  
• And I haven't done anything crafty at all this week, but I'm going to try before I go to bed. Something to get me through a week that hopefully goes a little more slowly.

Have a good week!