I'm no “mommyblogger,” but this seemed pretty newsworthy. It only took him 20 minutes and eight books. Yay!

Today involved driving to Lebanon, NH with our new roommate, where we learned that yes, she is a good candidate for a procedure that we all think will improve the quality of her life. So great, so wonderful, so relieved. Monstro had BK all day and Lex after preschool and still managed to cook us a delicious “congratulations/welcome home” dinner. And, I learned that the best thing to bring to a hospital if you need to kill time is a pink ukulele and about eight pieces of sheet music. Could've used more music, actually, but at least I had plenty of time to practice my finger-pickin' on “Gentle on my Mind,” a song I don't think I've heard since I was four years old and traveling on the back roads of Forest, North Carolina. Praise Jesus!

Between the endless laundry and housework and shuttling children and others back-and-forth to appointments, I'm slowing down, people. BK is finally in a M/W day-care situation with a lovely woman in a neighboring village; of course, tomorrow his brother gets out of school before 11, and next Monday, his brother doesn't have school at all. One of these days I will have the house to myself for an hour. Just not this month, it appears.

Didn't have loads of endurance but when I did run, I ran much faster than my normal speed. Was aided by some quirky shuffle lands on my iPod — Zappa's WPLJ, some Dio, Dave Grohl live, ending with Sugar Mag. Not shabby! Tonight Monstro is reading at Marlboro so Mom and I are going to make the trek. Can't wait; I haven't really seen him read since our grad-school days; his dis defense doesn't count because he gave his opening remarks extemporaneously.

Suck it up. Thrive on it. It means that you have something they envy. This puts YOU in the power seat, sweetheart. So just keep being who you're being. Find other like-minded people to hang out with. Join a support group. Have fun and laugh in your bullies' faces. Mock them. And don't fucking kill yourself. This has been a PSA from motormouth, who knows whereof she speaks. xoxoxo

I am down five sizes. FIVE. And this week I've kicked the exercise into high gear, because the pictures that were taken of me at the Smith Fall Fit 5k are revolting. Here we go, Motormouth, here we go.

I was out the door at 8:45 and decided to run up the road before turning around and running my loop. I'm pretty sure I ran about four miles today, fueled by coffee, a maple french toast bagel, and a B-complex tablet. Good stuff. Feel much better now than I did before I hit the road.

Waiting for the washing machine guy to arrive; third time's a charm? We'll see…

It's the day after my race and I'm feeling better than I've a right to. I think the three pre-bedtime Ibuprofen tablets helped immeasurably. Today I checked out a day care for BK and it looks great; he'll start there on Wednesday, hooray! Got dinner prepped already and even managed to make a double recipe of split-pea-with-ham soup. Ended up with 3.5 quarts of the stuff! Once it's all cooled down most of it will go into the freezer for an “omg I forgot to buy stuff for dinner” night. Not bad, people, not bad. Oh, and the washing-machine guy is coming to check out the washer in a couple of hours. Please think healing thoughts.