Why did the Stay at Home Moms Cross the Road?

This is my daughter's first year in school full days. My 'job' for the first few months was supposed to be getting the house in some kind of order (honestly, I was just aiming for 'not squalor'), doing some writing and getting into some kind of shape (honestly, I was just aiming for 'not perpetually lying in bed in a carb-laden endorphinless stupour'). Life does keep getting in the way, but significant headway has been made in the house (eight giant bins and four garbage bags of stuff donated, the laundry room floor rediscovered and a few flat surfaces actually staying empty for up to twelve hours at a time!), I got through NaBloPoMo with a small amount of grace and pride left intact (I wasn't reduced to cataloguing my medicine cabinet or describing my kids' rashes, anyway), and I've discovered a few healthy meals the kids will eat (sometimes I even cook them). I make it to the gym on a semi-regular basis again, and I try to go for a half-hour walk most days.

In the name of instituting a tradition that doesn't involve alcohol, my friend Pam and I go for a two-hour walk every Wednesday morning after dropping the kids off at school. I really look forward to this, because we talk and laugh and I have accomplished something significant before ten o'clock in the morning. But as far as making me healthier? 

This is how it goes: We meet in the schoolyard, kiss our kids and compare notes on how hard it was to get them out of the house. We sometimes get dirty looks for loud outbursts of hilarity when the kids are lined up quietly waiting to go inside (that's right. The kids are quiet. The parents get in trouble for being too loud). We walk up the street the school is on, walk down Strandherd a good long way to Steamers, where we may or may not stop for caffeine re-provisioning. We walk up the street past Eagles Nest (the baseball diamond). We loop around and start back down Woodroffe. We stop to rotate our ankles, in the hope (in my case) that it will stop me from feeling like my right foot is about to come apart at the ball-and-socket joint of my big toe). We go down the Burger King street whose name I can't remember right now to my truck. Pam gets in. I open the door, turn slightly sideways and try to lever myself in without actually bending at my back, which now doesn't feel like bending. We sit there and describe what hurts where, and talk about how invigorating a seven-to-ten kilometre walk is. When I can lift my arms enough to grip the steering wheel, I drop Pam off at her house. I drive to Farmboy to buy something healthy for lunch. Have you ever wrapped a cinnamon bun around bacon? Me neither, but I think I might try it. Assuming I can get up from this chair and hobble into the kitchen.
Yep. I'm on the road to wellville.