Lucy, a tiny little Tortie with a Calico face is our newest family member and complete distraction. She is the cuddliest, snuggly-est little kitty on the planet. Her favorite pastime is burrowing under the covers and hugging our legs as we sleep, or nuzzling our necks and falling asleep herself.

She LOVES her big brother Chuki, who is a little unsure what to do about her. He gets along with her so much better than any other cat, even Ollie, allowing her to cuddle up to him at times and even giving her little licks on her head. But she wants to snuggle with him ALL the time - when he is asleep, when he is eating, when he is walking across the room, and he either ends up stepping on her by accident or getting pushed over himself.

She is definitely our cat - the first night she was home she sat very patiently for Adam ’s photo shoot and poses quite nicely for all the random camera moments so far. She doesn’t seem to understand the human respiratory system since she tries to sit on our heads at night and nearly suffocates up, but she is learning…

Lucy was rescued with her three brothers Jude, Sgt. Pepper (”Sarge”) and Maxwell by Toronto Cat Rescue who are still looking for homes for one of Lucy’s brothers who is just as snugly and playful as she is.

Since Colin and Emily moved to Orie-gone they are enjoying a west coast time zone, and are consequently three hours behind us. We always tease them that we are calling from the future, and how is it there in the past, anyways? Of course the joke gets old, but that doesn’t mean we stop saying it.

Adam and Colin have both just signed into i-Chat on their Macs to watch the end of the world series together (virtually) and talk about the game just as if they were in the same room, like we do for a lot of things since they have moved. But Adam is watching on Fox, Colin on TBS and fox is about 20 seconds behind. The i-Chat has no delay, but this means that Colin’s TV is essentially 20 seconds in the future. So now they’re trying to figure out how Colin is watching 20 seconds into the future, from three hours in the past.

Of course, Adam has had a few Steamwhistles and I am sure Colin is lubricating his World Series Experience in a similar fashion, so it makes the whole thing a lot harder for them to figure out too. They’re both quite befuddled about it now.

Adam found this for me…

Available at Coolcards.co.uk

Adam is drinking from a glass that is bigger than his head.

I want an iPhone. I want it bad. I can’t have one until December 28th ( …don’t get me started on why Rogers wont let me have one until then) but until then I will have to settle for stealing Adam ’s every second he forgets to hide it.

My lovely web-designing, iPhone toting husband has attempted to placate my pining by helping me iPhone-ize sixthandelm.com. This involved creating a custom webclip icon for this site and informing me of a really handy Wordpress plug-in to make your blog iPhone-format friendly.

1. A webclip is similar to a favicon, for an iPhone. When your site is bookmarked as a menu item by anyone on an iPhone the webclip will automatically display instead of a standard safari bookmark icon. Below are the webclips Adam created for my site, his photoblog and the website for Wonderday.ca, a group started and run by Adam and some friends. He even listed a tutorial for creating your own and loading the file on your website so it is automatically recognized and displayed by iPhones.

2. WPTouch is the nicest mobile webpage formatter I have seen. It takes your site and makes it mobile friendly, easy to read on an iPhone. It acts as a Wordpress theme, with customizable colours and icons, but in actuality it is a Wordpress plug-in and set up and customized like any other plug-in on Wordpress. The extras are stripped and it presents a really clean list of your latest posts with a dropdown menu to view other pages on your site. It does not affect your blog appearance on regular computers, only the iPhone.

With the explosion of the mobile web, it is really important to have an easily navigable version of your site for people on the go. So now my site is iPhone-optimized and all I need is the damn phone.

A bonus tip from Adam on how he created the above screenshots of his phone for me:

A tip to get a screen grab of your iPhone (like shown above) simply hold down the home button and then click the lock button on the top of your phone once, and it will flash white and send the image to your camera roll in your phone.. where you can sync it up with your computer or simply email the pic to yourself.

Well, the trip to BC was amazing. We spent 4 days in Vancouver, Surrey and Whistler, then drove down (in a rented car) to Eugene, Oregon to see Emily and Colin (we miss you guys!) and came back up to White Rock for Sue & Chris’ wonderful wedding on Saturday before flying out of Vancouver again back to Toronto. I’ll be uploading my pictures (as soon as I find the damn cord for the camera) and talking about each day in detail, but for now I’ll leave you with a few of my favorite pictures of Adam ’s and links to the rest of the set.

Adam showed this to me and it is awesome…

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

A weekend at the cottage is never complete without certain required traditions, and the creation of some new ones. Here are some of my memories from our most recent cottage expedition, to celebrate “Old Man Wallace’s” 30th birthday.

Getting “While you’re upped,” which means getting sent for a beer when you’re not actually up.

Colin and Aiden getting inducted to the “I’ve tipped in a canoe” club, of which I have been a proud member for years.

Ollie trying to eat a caterpillar, a chipmunk and that ugly bug with wings we found in the cabin.

Learning that Aiden does not require sleep. We think he’s a cylon.

Adam taking record 2 Gigabytes worth of pictures in 4 days.

An 8-foot bonfire for no reason on a perfectly warm night.

Sleeping 15 people in a cottage that is supposed to sleep 10.

Adam endlessly poking the fire because he can’t let it alone, and me endlessly bugging Adam about poking the fire because I can’t let it alone.

Watering the flowers in the rain because “it was a directive.” The weather was great, except for the fantastic thunderstorm as we were leaving, and it was a perfect mix of hilarity and clarity, of laughing so hard our cheeks hurt and sitting still for almost a full hour to stare at the perfect sunset. With Colin & Emily’s move to Oregon just around the corner, our cottage days together are numbered. But even when they are over, we’ll still have all these stupid memories to keep us laughing.

From Adam ’s most recent Twitter update:

“For sale: 1 slightly used 15″ crt monitor. Has only been on the front curb of my driveway in the rain once.”

From the back of Adam ’s pouch of Big League Chew:

Sitting in a bullpen one night 25 years ago, Portland Mavericks lefthander Rob Nelson, and teammate Jim Bouton, the former New York Yankee All-Star, wanted something really different and fun to chew. So they came up with a great idea - shredded bubble gum in a pouch - and called it Big League Chew. It soon became a hit with ballplayers everywhere. 

Over 450 Million Pouches later, Big League Chew celebrates its 25th anniversary! More and more professional and amateur players in all sports are turning to Big League Chew, a fun gum that keeps your mouth from getting dry when the game is on the line.

So now you know.

“Big League Chew is so soft it’s like slime in your mouth.” - Emily