"The three greatest lies of all time. Big is beautiful, the cheque's in the mail, and of course I won't come in your mouth."

It is ridiculously hot. When it's 90 degrees in Maine in May you can just assume that the world is ending and that we're all gonna die. Seriously. It should not be that hot. Rebecca said something about an earthquake and the earth's axis and the horror that fills my brain with those thoughts I can't deal with at all. All I can see is polar bears with sunburns, it's terrible.

The dogs think it's terrible too, they sleep all day. And then they sleep all night. They must be the most tired dogs in the whole world, you'd think the beatings would keep them on the hop but they're so LAZY...sleeping on the couches all day. With the heat we've started running between 5 and 6 so it's cool enough for all of us and we're all pooped by lunchtime. It makes a very long day for all of us. The runs have been going really well. I'm super impressed with myself. I spend the whole time telling myself I can do it and it turns out I can. When I say I can keep going I do keep going and my legs rock because I really think they could go forever. My lungs don't burn like they used to, my knees are feeling great and the new sports bra is freaking awesome...breasts of steel thanks to victoria's secret. It makes running so much better, I'm only a few weeks from running the entire mountain trail without breaks!

"God Damn, These electric sex pants!"

It's not so much that I'm disenchanted with blogging in particular I'm just disenchanted with everything...except ice cream. This weekend Matt and I found one thousand military history shows to watch on netflix so we spent the whole weekend captivated by horror and now I feel sad and paranoid about zombie nazis. I don't know, I just watched too much tv and now I need to be alone with britney spears videos or something, maybe her mouseketeers era work. I need a fluffy pink bunny to hold my hand or something because i think i damaged my soul. I'm watching the IT Crowd now while I write some resumes in an effort to erase the damage. I'm afraid we might run out of ice cream before I'm healed. Or I'll have a dairy induced heart attack. I really need to get a job...

my baby was a stock image and i don't know why but it made me mad...so i moved her. we'll see if it works.

"You're not the manager, even in your own fantasy?"

This week has been crazy, Matt has been home for two days this week and you wouldn't believe how little I get done having a boy around. Jolie, however, has had a busy week smelling porcupines and getting almost 20 new and exciting quills in her nose. It was the best, I loved pulling them all out with tweezers and pliers while she looked at us like we were killing her slowly. It was hard and sad and I really hope she learned everything she'll ever need to know about porcupines.

I am learning more about sparkpeople and it turns out that when you tell it you walk five miles a day you get more calories and also very different meal choices on their meal plan (which I can't help but look at even though it's crazy...like staring at the sun). The meals make marginally more sense with more calories and it seems less like someone spun a wheel of low cal food and picked things with their eyes closed, and also that person had tourrettes, but yeah they do better when they have more calories to work with. I get to eat awesome things I couldn't eat last week when I wasn't honest with sparkpeople, when you share your true feelings with sparkpeople they let you have vanilla frozen yogurt...like a parent might after a frank discussion. I'm still not sure how you eat a yogurt, a granola bar, carrots and 1 tablespoon of grated parmesan cheese...do you mix the cheese into the yogurt...melt it over the carrots...I just don't know.

"She's as nervous as a very small nun at a penguin shoot."

The thing I hate most about sparkpeople is that I started it ONE THOUSAND years ago and it tells me about how I used to be skinnier. Rub my face in it sparkpeople, cold. Anyway, I'm using spark again just to see where I stand with things and it's not so bad. Smart dogs and eggs are just not high calorie food, so yay for that. On the other hand when I ask Matt about how long he thinks a particular walk is he estimates low and this weekend after walking with us he decided that we do in fact walk at least 4 miles a day. Adding today's exercise into spark people i've burned almost 1000 calories without any of my indoor planned exercise. So I'm left to wondering as I did when I was doing weight watchers that I'm not eating enough calories or drinking enough water. The water I'm working on with a chart on my fridge white board. I put eight slash marks on the board and I wipe one off every time I fill my water glass. If I have a soda...sigh...or lightly sweetened iced tea I add a slash mark to make up for the caffeine. It's my intensely complicated water drinking system because I can't be trusted to fill a water glass an appropriate number of times to sustain life...and/or weight loss.

Even if I can't be trusted to drink enough water I can be trusted to blow dry the rear ends of my baby chickens. Last year we monitored the rumps of our chicks very carefully and nothing ever happened. This year I'm hardly even trying to find butt problems and they keep throwing themselves in my face. Did you want to know about that? No? Shocking. Maybe we're just paranoid but when a chick has a bumper problem we have to wash it...and the downy fluff gets wet and when you put the chick back in the box: A. the other chicks are way too interested and B. the wet chick is then wet and cold. So I blow dry them. On low as to not burn the, err, region. It really seemed like the most reasonable thing to do but probably perdue doesn't bother. Lo the worries of the small and anal retentive farmer.

"He has fingers in more pies than a leper at a cookery course."

It's come to my attention that there is no chocolate in my house. And I have to go bra shopping. It's been an embarrassingly long time since I've bought new ones and I'm deathly afraid of gravity so it's my mission for the week to buy some new ones...and some chocolate. I genuinely wish I had more to chat about than buying bras and eating chocolate. Surely I haven't devolved into a bad sitcom wife? We're getting new chicks so I can work on being Amy the Farmer. And I'm cleaning out my linen cupboard to be Amy Stewart. It so happens that linens are the one thing I haven't reorganized 1000 times. Isn't that fascinating? I'm going to take out all my towels and sheets...and wash them...and put them back. 8th world wonder that. Aren't you glad I shared?

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you're a mental case."

Remember that time I had leprosy? I got it again this weekend planting apple trees. Black flies are really, really annoying. I'm not an expert but once you have more big bites than you can count there's a whole lot of bug poison in your body and it really kicked my ass. I must have some kind of sensitivity because I've felt like crap all week. Matt not only had half as many but didn't have the exciting swelling, itching and burning like I did. That's really all I have to say, I've been busy swelling and itching all this time instead of blogging. Don't be jealous!

"And which part of my subconcious do you hail from?"

Today we planted 12 trees and every inch of my person is broken. Tomorrow is going to be vastly unpleasant. I'm not much looking forward to our morning run but hey, maybe it won't be the worst hour of my whole life after all. Gotta be positive. The dogs need it even if I'm dying, which is pretty much the best reason to ever get a dog. No rest for the pooch owner. Cats don't care at all how fat you get, they probably prefer it but dogs are along for the journey, bless 'em. I had to go to the cat food store today and lo there was another beautiful adoptable kitty and his name was speed racer! so maybe he would care about my running progress...maybe it was a sign. If only I weren't too broke to adopt every kitty and puppy in the whole world. If only I could lift my arms over my head. So many things to wish for.

"I have faith in you. There is no one you cannot piss off."

Dudes, I have had a busy week with things to do, for people if not for money. It's been very exciting. I had to bake cream puffs and brownies and then I had to eat them...which is taxing...and then I got to babysit for a sickypoo baby who was actually in the best mood I have ever seen him ever and today we are picking up more trees for our orchard. I haven't had such a busy week in a LONG while and it feels almost like being human. I have a weekend of physical labor to look forward to, planting and other gardening duties. It's kind of awesome.

My running is coming along great. The icyhot really helps my knees and the snowshoeing kept my muscles in awesome shape because there has been no warming up curve at all. I'm kind of amazed. I have to admit it feels better than I ever would have thought to work the muscles that way. I have a strong memory of running till I felt like I would die, 3 minutes or so, and now I hardly ever feel like I'm going to die at all. Progress is a beautiful thing!

"But sweetie, you'll get bedsores."

I'm taking a quick break in my domestic duties to tell you all how very disappointed I am that while I feel ill I'm not sick enough to lose thirty pounds. A little stomach flu never hurt anyone! Sigh. There's always next time. Perhaps I'll mail order a tape worm.

And that's where I want to stop because my blog has turned into a collection of brain dead text messages. My narcissism level is critically low lately. But perhaps I should keep typing till I get a paragraph? Or even two. I applied to work at some banks today. It just occurred to me that it might be a good idea, better late than never...maybe. I suppose it's better than debtor's prison but the more i think about it it's very much the same, only the clothes are less dickensian. And that's it, I'm spent. I have not another thing to say. Or Blog. Jolie is making out with a clifford doll and it's taking all of my attention. They make a very cute couple.

"content to do very little, slowly"

We're all pooped from our run this morning. I don't know what they were up to but I made a point of running and jogging every flat and uphill grade. Matt has a theory that downhills are more damaging than uphills so I skip those. I've been using icy hot on my knee before runs and at bedtime as Roxy suggested and it's been very helpful. I feel pretty good lately and the one day I skipped the morning run I felt so ridiculously stiff that I promised myself I wouldn't skip a walk/run again. Now I'm preparing to have my second breakfast and leave the house to do errands. Leaving the house is such a big deal lately, I'm going to put on real clothes with no holes or stains and it's going to be momentous.

I have one hundred returns to make and then buy some oven cleaner...so you know i'm spending my afternoon with my head in the oven but hopefully without the gas on. If I don't blog tomorrow send flowers.

"I'm not saying that we should kill a teacher every day just so I can lose weight"

If Knox could blog he would totally tell you guys that I'm in the well and to send help but probably only because he wants me to stop cleaning. Dooce says it's her mental illness that keeps her floors so clean and to tell you the truth I do feel better when I'm vacuuming. Jolie let me vacuum her feet which really solves the whole dirt to floor problem before it starts. It's going to be a long day for the woofs in my house.

"have you seen my drawer of inappropriate starches"

I finished the first season of Dollhouse on netflix yesterday and I only got one quote. Damn you Joss Whedon! Today I made a deal with myself that I wouldn't spend any amount of time sitting down so I'm typing quickly while standing in my kitchen. I have baked beans in the oven and am working on the laundry, it's domestic goddess day. I'm making coconut cupcakes later and then any other thing I can think of because I didn't get anything done yesterday and I felt terrible. I'm determined to be more productive today to get out of this funk. If I have to force myself through it I will, one to do list at a time. The cupcakes will help too.

"dead people are talking to you, do the math"

So, I exercise a lot and I don't spend my whole day eating cake so it's starting to get kind of annoying that my weight never changes. I mean I'm not asking for a lot and I don't always count my calories but I have a very good idea of the calories i eat because I'm boring and I eat the same things all the time...like when I was doing weight watchers and spark people and reading labels. There are ideas that maybe I'm not eating enough calories or that I need to get my thyroid adjusted and I'm definitely not drinking enough water, they're all good ideas and I'm working on all of them but I'm still pissed off. And now I'm venting. Le sigh.

"No. But then again I'm probably lying."

The last few days I've been running part of my walks. The dogs like it and my muscles like it but my knees are on strike. There is something about how good running can feel that always surprises me. Like it's against the rules to enjoy it. Weird enough I've been feeling incredibly unfit lately and it's really pissing me off. It genuinely doesn't seem right that I walk and hike and run more each day and feel like I can breath less each time. I feel like at the pinnacle of each walk I feel more beat than I did the day before and I'm pretty sure it's supposed to go the other way. It's starting to get really annoying, like I don't have enough reminders about the nowhere I'm going. I'm really puzzled and not sure what to do about it or if there really is a root to the problem but what I do know is that I don't like feeling like dirt doing my every day things.

"You should never hurt the feelings of a brutal killer."

The weirdnesses that have occurred lately are starting to pile up and wear me down. I thought the dead bunny was like the most upsetting thing that could happen but it turns out that was just the beginning. After the bunny incident I went out alone to find the rabbit foot that Jolie left behind. Something else must have stolen it because I couldn't find it but I did find that all of the chickens had escaped their pen. The door is broken and the wind blew it open and there were chickens everywhere. I caught them all, eventually, and I figured if the bunny foot was out there the dogs would no doubt find it and I'd deal with it then. So I took the dogs out for their afternoon walk and they didn't find the foot. Yay. I thought yay until we were coming back and Knox went into the woods and came back with a leg bone. I'm telling myself it was a deer bone and Matt is telling me it was a deer bone and it's resting in the extra fridge, with the bunny, so I can make soup with it later. Heh.

That was yesterday. I didn't take the dogs out again until Matt came home because I just couldn't take it anymore. Chasing and wrestling dead things from puppies is exhausting. I had to make myself some medicinal caramel corn to relax. And then some brownies. And a cocktail. I was hoping today would be better and I was all full of hope when we took our walk...until we saw a car. Our road is private, you can tell by the no trespassing signs EVERYWHERE. And yet whenever I speak to an interloper they always say "I just realized this was a private road!" Uh huh. This morning was no different and the dudes in question drove away pretty fast...toward the highway...with the dogs following them. Neither the dogs nor the driver would stop or turn around for anything so I had to chase them up the road, yelling. It was awesome. I was pretty sure they'd follow the jeep onto the road and be killed when the little dog came back. We kept going and yelling and eventually the big dog came back and my heart rate slowed enough to walk home.

We work on come every day, every single day. But trespassers make me nervous and make them nervous and we all lose our grip just a little, Cesar would not be proud. And I really do know that it's my fault my dogs wouldn't come when I called them but I'm still mad that people drive on our private road without permission, and leave trash and shoot into the woods and steal things. If there hadn't been a tree down blocking the road I never would have caught them and I'm sure the dogs would have run the other way a few miles. These guys said they were looking for somewhere to fish but they didn't have poles and they drove away awful fast so I seriously doubt it. I'm sure they were armed and they were definitely weird and Matt has promised to drop more trees at the head of the road so I won't call him from the edge anymore. I think any amount of manual labor would be worth not having emergency calls from home every day. Personally, full time employment is looking better and better.

"I just figured you'd be terrified, and I would be sarcastic about it."

When I call my dogs and they don't come my worst fear is they are hurt. My second worst fear is that they have found a treasure. Treasures are usually dead things or parts of dead things. Today's corpse was a bunny. Most of a bunny anyway. It's not like there is a good corpse to find but bunnies are so cute! I felt extra sad about stuffing the bunny in the broken refrigerator which has since become the dead stuff store room. Oh how I wish we didn't have a dead stuff store room.

The interview went pretty well I think. They're making a decision in the next week or so and I guess I'll know how well it went then. I'm not going to talk about how exciting the job is because that never works, I'm going to plan on being broke and bored to death at home. I will say that this job involves a lot of cake so it could be pretty awesome...and fattening.

I didn't expect to start my day with a dead bunny so I'm not really sure where my day is going from here. Anything would be up I guess.

"I was being patient but it took too long."

Today I have a promising interview. Is that redundant? Aren't all interviews supposed to be promising. I don't know, some of them are depressing from the get go. This one sounds pretty awesome and I'm excited about it. Hopefully I come back home just as positive.

the Don Draper contrition tour

I've been watching Mad Med all day and I have decided that I don't need to exercise anymore, I just need a corset and a hairstylist and I'll be Joan. Doesn't that sound like a good plan?

"if a fashion magazine told her to, she'd wear cats strapped to her feet."

Nothing, nothing, nothing...that's what I've got lately. Sat on my couch and got nothing done but some dishes, and a pot roast. I am a housewife, a bad one. Remember that show Married with Children and Peggy ate bonbons and they were broke all the time, I feel like that's my life. I know it's not the truth but that's what it feels like. Some weeks are harder than others. Having nothing to do but run the house feels like it should be awesome except it's not. It's boring beyond all recognition. I kill time all day, kill kill kill it. A hundred years ago when I thought about being home all the time I thought I'd be exercising all day and cooking all day and I'd lose a hundred pounds and write the american novel and be awesome in some third as yet unknown way but mostly it's just boring. I have clothes to fold but you know what...it doesn't matter if it gets done today because I have tomorrow...and the next day and the next day. I thrive on deadlines and pressure and getting things done and when there is nothing to get done on any particular timetable I just kind of unravel. This is me unraveling I guess.

I keep thinking of ways that I can give my day structure and turn my life into something beyond killing time. Sometimes it works. Sometimes I have whole weeks where I don't feel the crushing weight of nothing. This week is not one of those weeks and as Merry says this is a no blogging zone. I hate blogging about nothing, it depresses me and I'm sure it depresses you.