I know, I know.  I haven’t blogged in more than a week.  I’m still here, though, and still riding and running.  The following are in no way intended as excuses for my blog-slacker-ness, but merely as explanation.  So this is what I’ve been up to:

1–Running.  Everyone’s getting tired of hearing me wax inspirational about Dean Karnazes, so I’ll just say that I’ve been running a lot, and am excited about the prospect of meeting him next Tuesday.  I did 14 miles on Tuesday, at a solid 10-minute pace, so I know I can hang with the group for a good while.  It’s a round-and-about, criss-crossy sort of trail run, so I figure I’ll just run until I can’t anymore, then walk to the finish.

2–Riding.  I did Le Tour de Femme on Saturday and had a grand time.  I started toward the front, so I was able to find groups to ride with the whole 62 miles–don’t underestimate the importance of riding with a group.  It brings my speed up at least 1.5/mph, plus I have more fun, and I’m less tired at the end.  I met a cool group of women from Apex, some of whom riding DURING THE SCHOOL DAY–yay!  Buddies to ride with!  I need to hook up with them ASAP.

3–Saddle sores.  I finally went to the doctor yesterday, because they kept sort of flaring up and migrating around, and she said I need a week of antibiotics.  I spent some time online reading up on saddle sores over the weekend, and apparently they can get bad enough to require surgery.  Ouch.  Needless to say, I got up Monday morning and called for that appointment.  Having my butt lanced doesn’t strike me as a fun party.  Probably wouldn’t do much for my cycling, either.

4–We’re in appliance hell.  I probably haven’t mentioned this, but sometime around the beginning of September, when I was feeling totally swamped by riding and painting and children and general stuff, I gave up cooking.  This is hard for me, because I passionately love to cook.  I read cookbooks for fun–front to back, all the recipes–I have stacks of them.  I really, really, love being in the kitchen.  BUT–there are only so many hours in the day, and something had to go, so it was cooking.  We started eating (gasp!) frozen food.  My other secret ulterior motive was that I wanted to lose a few pounds, half of which I have now lost, but I still have a few to go–when I cook, I eat too much.  Lean Cuisine–less appealing.  So anyway, last week the microwave died.  I was suddenly thrust back into cooking, so my mental vision of my days has had to shift to make time.  New microwave comes this afternoon.  Thank goodness.

5–Writing.  I’m taking a 5-week Women’s Writing Intensive with Zelda Lockhart, an author in Hillsborough.  She’s fabulous; I took a publishing workshop a month or two ago, and based on her advice, decided that I need to extract a short story from my novel and get it out there, so that’s what I’m working on.  We have homework for the class, plus we’re expected to write as much as possible, so I’ve been writing THAT instead of THIS.  Must learn to balance . . .

I think that’s about all I’ve been doing.  Plus school conferences, Tae Kwon Do, carpool, trying to scrub the walls of the back stairwell so that I can get it painted so that I can return this unwieldy Gorilla ladder to my brother-in-law.  Oh, and of course, the ever-present dishes and laundry . . .