Okay. So my job has me working on something kinda neat currently. I’m setting up a Free Blogs For Women service that runs on Wordpress. The goal is to be FREE! like Blogger, but PRETTY. We only have three “pretty” themes available now, but we have dozens more to come down the road (and you can tell us which ones you want to see first!) The thing is, it’s hard to test this process or this service by myself, so I was wondering if anyone out there would like to sign up for a FREE BLOG! FREE! FREE! FREE!

(Yeah. I’ll quit that now.)

Anyway - if you have thought about starting a blog, but don’t know how, here is an easy place to start. Mainly because I’ll be the one you talk to for support issues, but not as Miss Zoot, but as Kim. Isn’t that exciting? No? It’s not? Crap. Well…how about if I promise to put the themes you want designed at the top of the list? Please?

Just sign up and write an entry or 2 (or hundreds if you want! I’d love for you to fall in love with the place and stay there forever. We’ll be neighbors!). Let me know if you run into any kinks or weird hangups. The next phase will be to add forums so you can talk to other bloggers and we’ll be featuring our favorite daily entries (once we have more than, like three to choose from) on the front page. Once it grows we’ll feature the best articles in specific categories (Food! Politics! TV!) and again - it will all be free! What more could you ask for?

So, head on over to HerHangout.com and sign up today!

I had a setback in my marathon training while I was in Austin and I’m doing my damnedest to get back on track. I went 8 miles Tuesday but only ran about half of it. I went to the Y on my lunch break and ran the full six miles, which means I’m slowly getting back to where I need to be. Unfortunately - it’s not as easy as it was. Six miles were almost boring before, they came so effortlessly, but today I had to cheer myself on through ever click on the treadmill distance counter. It was TOUGH. But, I did it, and will do it again tomorrow, and will hopefully run 12 miles on Saturday successfully. Do you know my marathon is in 6 weeks? Yeah. I know. I’m starting to think I may be in over my head a wee bit.

Lucky for me, Brueggers had their chicken tortilla soup on today’s menu, making me the luckiest girl on the planet! Or at least the luckiest girl going through the drive-thru at the Brueggers on Bailey Cove. I asked, “What are your soups for today?” and let out a little “Yippee!” when she said “Chicken Tortilla” because that is my favorite soup they sell but it is only on the menu, like every 10th time I eat there. I’m sure the girl was thinking, “This girl needs to get out more.”

What can I say? I’m easy to please.

We drove LilZ to meet his Dad last night for a trip to the beach. It was nice because MrZ and I were forced to do something we rarely get a chance to do anymore. TALK. It’s funny, once you have kids it’s a little bit more tricky to spend quality time together, much less time for a simple conversation. But - for the two hour car ride home - that’s all we did. And it was nice. Of course, it helped that MrZ overdosed on sugar wafers from the gas station and was on some hilarious sugar-high that caused him to do various performances of silly cartoon voices that provided hours of entertainment. It’s nice to be married to a man with such a low tolerance to candy. It makes him a cheap date.

So, I’m back to having one kid again for a few days. I had only one child for over a decade, but now when I’m down to one again, it just feels weird. Like I am forgetting something. Like I left the oven on, or the clothes soaking in bleach. Or like I forgot to put on clothes before walking out the door. Which I’ve never done. At least not sober.

But - I must report on the most amazing of discoveries in the wake of LilZ’s departure. I went to his room this morning to grab his laundry and his BED WAS MADE. Not only that? But his room was clean. Carpet was vacuumed. And various shelves had been rearranged and reorganized. I heard a choir of angels singing and golden rays of light emmitted from every corner of his room. I’ve been lecturing him a lot (read: constantly) lately about how I’m going to quit cleaning up after him. I following that by telling him if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll clean up after himself because his filthy room makes me CRAZY. And no one wants Crazy for a Mom. He was also restricted on TV and computer use at night this week. Leaving him awake and bored. It could be one or both of these things that had him organizing and cleaning every night. Or maybe he’s hiding drugs and porn. Who cares? HIS BED WAS MADE.

Late last week, I saw ice cream on sale at Target. Now, we don’t usually by ice cream for the house because we have no self-control and we will not eat it in manageable servings but choose to make ourselves sick by ingesting it all in the amount of time it takes us to say, “Screw the ice-cream scooper. Give me a spoon.”

(I don’t have to clarify this by saying that the “we” is probably actually all “me” right?)

But - Target had this sinfully delicious flavor on sale and I had no choice but to buy it immediately. I proceeded over the next few days (or was it hours?) to eat on it in a gluttonous fashion. I went to make myself another bowl the other night when I noticed there was barely enough for a scoop, much less a bowl. Since MrZ hadn’t even had any yet, I thought I should leave the last bite for him. I’m selfless like that.

MrZ finally remembered having the ice cream last night but was extremely disappointed to open it up and see only a few bites left. “Man! The ice cream is always gone before I get a chance to eat any of it.”

How did I respond? Did I:

(a) Play dumb and act like I didn’t know who ate the ice cream. “Must have been NikkiZ.”
(b) Blame him for eating the ice cream and not realizing it. “Are you losing your mind? You’ve been eating on that stuff every night!”
(c) Get really upset and cry because he, “might as well have called me fat!”

Did you guess “c”? Than you’re the winner! I was soooo upset, exclaiming things like, “The ice cream has been here for six days! That’s a lot of days! It’s not like I ate it all at once!” (Which - you know - was a slight exaggeration since the ice cream was bought two days before.) I was on the verge of having a complete emotional breakdown blaming my adoring husband for every self-image issue I have. Lucky for him, American Idol was on so I got distracted before the meltdown was complete.

But still! He called me FAT!

Today will be my first day in for a full day of work in almost two weeks. Getting up wasn’t too bad since I’ve been going to bed so early due to a lack of a constant supply of caffeine to get my body going.

I often times wonder if we had enough money for me to do so, would I stay home intead of work a 9-5 job like I’ve been doing for the last 6 years. I really love hanging out with my kids all day, but I don’t think I’m patient enough to be a Stay At Home Mom (SAHM) full-time. I think I need breaks throughout the day to keep me from putting the both kids down for naps four times a day. I also think my kids kinda get sick of me after about 3 hours straight. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law came over yesterday and NikkiZ totally turned into a different kid. She was excited and happy and simply thrilled to see a face other than mine for once.

I guess the perfect situation would be a part-time job that would require me to send NikkiZ to daycare for a few hours a day - enough time apart so that she would would still enjoy my company when she sees me next - but so much time apart that her teacher knows her better than I do. I do hesitate to admit this - that my dream is not to be a full-time SAHM - because I feel it might make other women shake their head in disgust. I do often times feel inadequate for not being able to fully claim “It would be my dream come true to stay home with my kids all day every day!”

But then - I get a chance to do it like I have the last several days - and it comes to an end like it has today - and I feel sad. It’s hard being a little bit loony, you know?