Took a day off yesterday to rest after a late-night/early-morning bout of food poisoning, compounded, I think, by swallowing too much pool water during my swim. Back at the track today with a pretty impressive set:
800m run
400m walk
800m run
1200m walk (I think -- I got to talking with another woman on the track and lost track (ahem) of the laps)
800m run
400m walk

So yes, that's a total 1.5 miles of running and about the same of walking. Pretty great. And I'm loving my iPod -- it's really keeping me going.

Swimming today. 32 (maybe 30, I lost count) laps in 23 minutes. Did an 18-minute set of 24 laps without stopping. Yee haw! Even the lithe, athletic woman swimming one lane over told me I did great.

Ran three laps, aka three-quarters of a mile, without stopping. Whoot! Then ran one more lap to round it out for a mile. Did a bunch of stretching afterwards (to make up for not much stretching beforehand). The next morning my back hurt a little but nothing major. Yay!

Went back to the doctor today -- quite an exciting proposition, going to the university's health center on GRADUATION DAY -- and Lex is doing much better. No more shots, unless the recovery starts backsliding. The doc also said that we can go down to a 3x/day antibiotic regimen, which means no more setting the alarm for 1:30 a.m., which is what we did last night. And then Babykins slept through the night. Typical. :)

So this morning as Babykins and I were walking in to the urgent care at Monstro's university, Monstro and Lex were walking OUT of the urgent care at Monstro's university. Kind of one of those family reunions you hope to avoid. Lex has an infected spider bite that has swelled up his hand to Mickey-Mouse proportions. Then, this morning, Babykins fell off the bed. Babykins checked out fine, but Lex has something that, 100 years ago, could have killed him. So yeah, that's humbling. He's on an every-six-hours rotation of antibiotics for the next seven days. Guess it's just as well that Babykins still isn't sleeping through the night.

After just a week of serious training, I am wearing a pair of shorts that didn't fit when I bought them (just grabbed 'em off the rack and paid for them -- too hard to maneuver dressing rooms with kids in tow). Yee haw!

Swimming today: 24 Olympic-length laps in 19 minutes!

warm-up: 400m
work-out: 6x60m, 1x100m
cool-down: chasing children back down the hill; encouraging Lex not to push babykins's stroller into the high hurdles

Felt damn good to do speedwork again. During my 100, Lex screamed, "Mommy, you go so fast!" And then, when I was done, he gave me a big hug and said, "I proud of you, Mommy." Melt my effin' heart.

My deals column for Wallet Blog continues to educate and inspire the masses. Read my most recent article, "Summerize" and Save Money, here!

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the track at the local college and ran a mile (and walked a half-mile).

This morning, I went to the track at another local college and ran a mile (and walked a mile).

Last Thursday, I swam 14 laps in 15 minutes.

I might not fit into my black leather pants in time for my 20-year high school reunion, but it's a good goal to shoot for.

... but in a good way! I promise!

DC Firefighters Pluck Baby Ducks from Storm Drain

Thank you, Cute Overload!

So I turned in my grades (yay!) and can now share my favorite picture story of the semester. Just amazing.

The multiple-Agent-Smith fight scene from "The Matrix," cast with infantile canines, aka, puppies! See for yourself at Cute Overload.

Yes, I do take requests, whenever possible. And I'll be honest -- this song scared the ess out of me. This recording is the second time I'd played it start-to-finish. The only edits I made on the recording was to take out the empty air before I started the song and after it was over.

In other notes, I recorded it last Friday and it nearly killed me to hold off on posting it until today. Dying to know what y'all think. Mwah! Happy Summer!

Claim ID: 247279
Membership Number: 218277

Dear Mrs Johnson,

Thank you for sending us the details of your recent record attempt for 'Longest-running blog'. We are afraid to say that we are unable to accept this as a Guinness World Record.

We receive over 60,000 enquiries a year from which only a small proportion are approved by our experienced researchers to establish new categories. These are not 'made up' to suit an individual proposal, but rather 'evolve' as a result of international competition in a field, which naturally accommodates superlatives of the sort that we are interested in. We think you will appreciate that we are bound to favour those that reflect the greatest interest.

Guinness World Records has absolute discretion as to which Guinness World Record applications are accepted and our decision is final. Guinness World Records may at its discretion and for whatever reason identify some records as either no longer monitored by Guinness World Records or no longer viable.

As your record application has not been accepted, Guinness World Records is in no way associated with the activity relating to your record proposal and we in no way endorse this activity. If you choose to proceed with this activity then this is will be of your own volition and at your own risk.

Once again thank you for your interest in Guinness World Records.

Yours sincerely,

Lucia Sinigagliesi
Records Management Team

The domain name I made up and somebody bought from me is called CoolOrTool.com. I thought up the name while watching an episode of "Little People, Big World," because I can never decide whether Matt Roloff is cool or a tool. Thanks, Anand, for the thousand bucks I'll be receiving in the mail from escrow.com, and best of luck with your new domain name; I hope it makes you a lot more money than a thousand bucks!!!

In the meanwhile, I know that my clever little brain is worth at least a cool grand. And that's, well, cool!

Now that I know a little more about Garage Band, I've re-encoded the first New Music Wednesday tune to mp3, for your listening and iPod enjoyment. Bon appetit!

The Butte Humane Society earned second place in the Zootoo Shelter Makeover contest, and received $50,000 in prize money.

Nora was in the top 10 for the Fangoria Spooksmodel contest and though she didn't win, she did get to go to Los Angeles (which isn't a prize, in my opinion, but some people like it there) and made lots of valuable contacts.

Thanks, motormouthers, for voting!