I got to be a guest on A True Friend – the pet challenge blog – this week! The topic is your pet’s favorite place, so I didn’t have to think long about this one…it’s gotta be Marymoor Dog Park! We take Bobs there several times a week for an off-leash walk, some quality sniffage and, in the summer, a “voluntary” swim.

I literally have thousands of photos from the park and there is no way I am ever going to scrapbook all of them (a mini album may be in order though, or – shock! horror! – an old-fashioned regular photo album), so I picked three photos from different seasons and put them on one layout.

I’m trying to learn more about our camera and shooting in something other than – more shock! more horror! – automatic mode. It’s so cool to finally feel like I understand what’s going on when I take a photo (and what all the little wheels and nubbins on the camera do), but it has also made me realize I will never be a good photographer…I just don’t have the patience to sit and wait for the perfect light or even set up a tripod. I prefer just shooting what I see while I’m hiking or running around with Bobby or clumsily trying to shoot with only one hand at parties (my other hand tends to be busy holding a glass of Cava). Therefore, it is good to have friends who are better photographers and can do magic in Photoshop and give that magic away for free!

That’s right, Ania made a super-cool Photoshop Action that you can download over at Scrappedugnad. I tried it on this photo of JK in the park – it really brings out that golden sunlight I was trying to capture.

…JK’s birthday was a couple of weeks ago, so we had a little party at our house. In honor of said party (and of any patrons craving rum and cokes or simply something non-alcoholic yet nice and bubbly), we purchased a couple bottles of soda (aka Devil’s Juice (Devil’s Urine if you will)). Some of you might remember my hellish detox from Wild Cherry Diet Pepsi in January and think I should have learned my lesson, but alas – the day after the party, I drank a glass and ohmygod it was so good. Cold, bubbly, fantastic. And I couldn’t stop. I kept buying more and more until I was drinking it morning, noon and night again, and immediately I was back to having insane 5-day migraines, not falling asleep until 5am and generally losing the will to live.

Diet soda is my heroin. Seriously.

On Friday I decided to pour out the rest of my stash and quit cold turkey. Again. And it was just as hard this time around. If any of you EVER see me longingly gazing at a bottle of soda, please smack me upside the head.

The only hiking we did during my weeks on the juice was a short trip to Rattlesnake Ledge (falling asleep after 5am generally makes it hard to get up early to hike anywhere farther away than North Bend) – we’ve been there before but the views are good and it’s a good workout for lardy folks like me. Methinks I have to up my trips to the gym over the next few weeks to get ready for our 10-mile hike out of a canyon in Arizona.