The Title of This Entry Is Now "Susbstitutions" In Lieu of "Instead" -- Brought to You By Thesaurus.com

It's dreary and gray outside and all I want to do is go sit in the rain. I want to feel the cold little droplets on my face and let them slowly soak into my hair. I'm probably being slightly dramatic, but I've only been sitting here for a few days and I already feel the cabin fever tapping me on the shoulder. It seems that most of the things I think about are things that are frustrating, things I can't do, weird things I never really used to want to do. Things like laundry and washing the dishes. Things like vacuuming and organizing the bookshelf. Weird things.

Then there's running. I would really like to go for a run. A long, hard, totally exhausting run in the woods, where all I can hear is my heart beating and leaves crunching under my weight. One that uses every last muscle and drains every last drop of energy and fight out of me so that at the end of it, I can sit underneath the shower and not think about anything at all.

I want to take my camera (the one that's been broken for months that I really want to get fixed) to the gardens and just go nuts with it. I want to people watch, bird watch, squirrel watch, lizard watch and wind watch. I want to lie on that wooden swing in the hidden little corner and look up at the leaves until I forget what time it is.

I want to go to the mall and try on clothes that fit in any store other than Motherhood. I want to bother the stew out of Brookstone employees while I try every single massage chair in the place. I want to linger in the Godive store till the nice redheaded lady starts offering samples of weird things like chocolate caramels with sea salt or truffles that smell like pumpkins.

But instead, I'm going to go heat up another bowl of spaghetti and watch and episode of Lie to Me on Hulu.com. After that I'll probably make a few thousand additions to my wishlists on modcloth.com and lulus.com. I might even go a little crazy and look up Daddy blogs in addition to reading the current posts on all my favorite Mommy blogs.

Watch out world.