Prayer beads and Paddy's day

In honor of the holiday, Mabel is dressed up like an avocado. I gave her some wooden beads to play with yesterday, and she's really taken a shine to them. I call them her prayer beads.

Right after I ran an almost record-breaking 12 miles (my actual record is between 13 and 14 miles, but that was 7 years ago) I caught a cold and have been laid up in bed, rubbing Zicam in my nose, for most of last week. I did wickedly sneak out and go to lunch at an Indian restaurant with a couple other moms. I had to pretend it was the spices that were making my nose run (I don't think I was fooling anyone, especially since my voice had morphed into a distinguished baritone). I had just received my late but much appreciated Valentine's present from Bobby; season 1 of Monk, and I went through the whole thing in 3 days, and I reread Babbitt. But now I'm feeling most of the way better, and am trying to nudge myself into going out on a run today. Part of me is like, C'mon, just a little run...and then there's a middle part of me that's worried to listen to the "little run" spiel, because once I get out there, the other part of me (call it Martyr part) will say, Hey, now that you're out here, why don't you run 7 or 8 miles, go whole hog! And I'm afraid I will and then get sick again. We'll see who wins. If the sun stays out, I'm betting on Running part to win). There's another part of me that's like, I like cookies! But the other parts don't really socialize with that part.