So, I just got finished doing something I always swear I'll never do again: giving my 85-lb dog a bath. Since there's snow on the ground, we had to use the indoor bathtub. Even though Izzy's a Lab and he loves dirty water, he apparently has a phobia to clean water and generally refuses to get into the tub without an excessive amount of persuasion and assistance (obviously, there's not a lot one can force an 85-lb dog to do ;-)). In other words, I've just spent the last hour having a heck of a lot of fun trying to coax him into the bath tub, convince him not to jump out of the bath tub, somehow manage to get his water repellent coat soaked thoroughly, lather the shampoo and then rinse him off--all while telling him what a good boy he is as he looks at me like I'm trying to drown him. It's really, really fun.

Over the weekend, we added a gigantic RSS feed button (and, also, a gigantic Follow me on Twitter button). I'm curious to hear your opinion. Do you like gigantic RSS buttons? Do you even notice them? Do you click them to subscribe? Do you ignore them?

Are you ready to learn what works, and what doesn't, in ezines right this very minute? Then join me for a free phone seminar on this very topic. I'll be sharing my favorite techniques for building relationships with readers that will profit your business and prosper your people. (Don't you just love win-win relationships that help people and earn you more money...)

I am ridiculously excited about tonight's episode of Chuck. I watch a grand total of two TV shows (Burn Notice is the other one), because I love them both--the silly, escapist tones, the lines that make me giggle, the way they manage to feel consistently fresh... The reason I'm excited about tonight's episode, though, is that it's done in 3D which is apparently a pretty darn big deal for a TV show. And, that, of course, is the point. When's the last time your customers were excited about what you offer? More importantly, when's the last time *you* were excited about what you offer? If business is slow, it's been awhile.

If you haven't yet downloaded a copy of the free perpetual calendar I released earlier this month, check out the photo of it in use in my office, the download link, and what people are saying about it over on Andrew's blog.

Let’s get one thing straight before we begin: I believe YOU can publish a thriving, profitable, FUN newsletter. In fact, I believe ANYONE can publish a thriving, profitable, fun newsletter.

If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t bother publishing Newsletters in Focus. I would just continue to privately work with the people who could publish successfully. I don’t believe in giving people false hope, so when I share stories of stunning newsletter success, I’m sharing them because they’re almost always possible for YOU, too.

Because I believe you have what it takes to publish a successful newsletter, it really upsets me that you might have been lead to believe one or more of these lies are true. Especially because you may believe these lies because of hype-filled marketing mumbo-jumbo that’s disillusioning because it sounds so preposterous–so you believe the reverse is actually true.

I simply won’t allow you to believe these lies for one moment longer! So, let’s set about to smash through these lies, shall we?

Thinking of closing up shop because of "the economy." I won't try to talk you out of it (though, I will secretly think you're being shortsighted), but promise me one thing. You WON'T do this with your domains...

A long-time NIF reader, is getting ready to launch her blog. With oodles of experience as a programmer, and as a brilliantly creative gal, she dug in and worked to edit the template on her own. Everything went swimmingly until it came to using CommentLuv (a plugin that automatically links to your commenter's latest blog post) which was working, but not displaying in quite the right place. Now, like I said, she's an uber experienced programmer, but she doesn't know much about JavaScript, and she thought that that was where the problem was. She Twittered for help. When we'd spoken by phone a few minutes earlier, I'd assumed she was right, and then, reading her Tweet, I realized there was something I hadn't asked...

So, I've talked (and complained) before about how I'm rehabbing a 1960s house and how much fun it is. (Seriously, it's usually a lot of fun.) Today, though, when I was trying to fix this spot where the baseboard and the flooring weren't willing to touch (apparently, the flooring has Cooties), I sliced two fingers open. So, now I have a bandage on the tip of one finger which makes typing awkward. (I've also slashed open eight of my ten fingers/thumbs in the last month. Clearly I need to be more careful...)

When my mother was but a wee girl, her mother, Blanche, fell in love with a gorgeous glass dining room table set. Glass top, iron base, with iron roses all along the side. Though Blanche was not an impulsive woman, she brought the table home. When Frank (my mom's dad) arrived home from his work as a typewriter repairman, he took one look at that table and roared: "What were you thinking? This table is crazy. The kids'll put one milk bottle down on the table and it'll smash into a million pieces."