These days, I've been feeling large. Larger than usual, as in, "It's time to actually do something about the way I feel other than sit there and feel large." In fact, I actually got motivated enough to get my rear out of bed early on a Monday morning and go out for a hour-long power walk. For me, that's quite an accomplishment; I'm normally quite fond of my oh-so-sedentary life.

Mondays are great, I said to myself. I don't have to be at work until noon. I've got all the time in the world to do some laundry and run to the bank. And that's exactly what I did - took all the time in the world. See that picture up top? That's me, calmly surfing the web and checking email, calmly sure of the fact that I'm running well ahead of schedule. At 11:30, when I stepped out the door, car keys in hand and ready to drop by the bank on my way to work, I froze.

Where's my car?

And then I remembered, too late by far: Eric had stopped by the library on Sunday when I was on duty, and we had decided to drive in his car to get dinner, then pick mine up on the way home. Guess what we forgot to do? Guess who now found herself having to jog to work?

I, as a rule, don't jog. I am not good at it. Now I am exhausted, and there is very little chance that I will be able to do a repeat performance on the morrow of this morning's walk. My shins hurt.

Eric had to go to work Saturday afternoon, so we skipped out on the rather ornate reception in order to get him some real food. On our way out, though, and while he was checking the oil again - I'll get to that in a minute - I saw a "For Rent" sign halfway down the block. Mind you, this is in a very nice section of Maumee, Ohio; real "kids, dogs, and Norman Rockwell"-type living. I walked down to check out the house.

It turned out to be the lower part of a duplex that was for rent. Two bedrooms, bath, living, dining, laundry, and basement. Large front porch, shared backyard. The rent is a little less than we currently pay, and the whole place had atmosphere. The living room had a window seat and a fake fireplace with a cute little mantle. The front porch has hooks for a porch swing. I could actually hang laundry to dry outside instead of in the garage! We filled out our application immediately and took it over to the guys house, even though by doing so, Eric forfeited his lunchtime.

Of course, now Eric's hemming and hawing. This isn't unusual; he often talks himself out of doing things after we've gotten excited about them. It's most infuriating to get my hopes up, hear him talk about his excitement, then, two hours later, hear him start in on the "Maybe we shouldn't do this" trip. Unfortunately, it seems to be unavoidable.

It may turn out to be for nothing, though. The guy said that about eleven couples were looking at the house that day, and I have no idea how he's going to choose between us. Put all the completed and non-bankrupt applications in a hat and draw one? It sure would be nice to live there next year. It seems like such a nice place to begin a child's life.

We heard about a local car dealer having a $2000 push/pull/drag trade-in sale, so we decided to go see what they had in our price range. Eric got himself a rude awakening; we're either going to have to raise our price range or lower our expectations. Gee, that sounds familiar. We left with more worries than those with which we arrived.

Later that night, as we were pulling out of a parking lot, I spied a puddle on the ground. "Is that oil?" I asked. Eric sniffed at it; it was oil. Hurrah! An oil leak is much better than burning oil! We may be able to repair this thing yet! He took it to the dealer today, and he's in a rental car in the meanwhile.