The 50 Days Contest and My Day

Two days ago it occurred to me that my 26th birthday is in 50 days. So, I've decided to start a "50 Days Contest," in which I am going to diet and hit the gym hard for 50 days straight. The word "contest" is so much more fun than "diet," though that's precisely what my goal is to do-to stick with something healthful, anyway and hopefully achieve certain results. If I reach my goal, I will reward myself with a vacation to Orlando, Florida because I got a phone call the other day about a special promotion for 4 days/3 nights in a villa. I have a few weeks to call back and claim it, so we'll see how my personal contest goes. I'm normally not too conscious of my weight like most women tend to be. I'd just like to get back to what I was before I had my son...or before I got married, for that matter. It's more of a game than a health or image thing, anyway. I feel healthy enough and I'm pretty satisfied with how I look, but I think we all always feel like we could be in better condition.

Two miracles happened today: In the midst of a streak of Christmas music on my favorite station, the Thompson Twins came on with "Hold Me Now" (an 80s classic!), and I got an A in my Occupational Safety and Health class. The latter caused me to break out in my own rendition of the former as I was cruising home from class...at 90 mph. I wasn't aware of how fast I was going or how loud I was singing until I almost got to my exit.

I awoke at 5am on the couch as my husband was jumping up from his palette he made on the floor last night after I drifted off during our second Sunday night in a row of watching The Wizard of Oz. He was off to work so I stayed up and watched a goofy show called The Parent 'Hood until I dozed back off. At 9:30 am, I awoke to Dawson's Creek and decided I needed to get up and hit the gym. First I had to make a few phone calls and hop online to see if my grades had been posted yet (nope).

But before I got online, I received a phone call from someone at a pharmacy wanting my permission to RE-fill a prescription. I was like, "Uh, I don't have any medications." Click. The guy hung up on me. So I ruminated about it while I was online and decided I'd better call the sheriff's department and see if there had been any scams of such nature. That's all I need, is someone utilizing my identity to purchase mass quantities of drugs! So the dispatcher said he was going to send an officer to my house, and me being in a stupor, says, "Okay," thinking the guy is going to put an officer on the phone. After the click on the other end, it finally occurred to me what he said, so I ran around in a frenzy, trying to get myself clothed before the officer arrived. That wasn't really a problem, though, which I should have realized since it takes a good half hour for an officer to get anywhere in this county. Even without snow-covered roads.

As I'm waiting, I get a call from the dentist, who I'd called last Friday to make appointments for my husband and myself. They couldn't get him in next week because they're closed the ENTIRE week (which is when Steve took off so he could actually get to the dentist) so I wentt ahead and filled a sudden cancellation for tomorrow at noon for myself. Oh yay. Then, within 10 seconds, the neighbor lady calls and says that the window guy wants to come fix the windows tomorrow. I tell her really early or really late is fine. She calls back and informs me he'll be here at 8AM!!! Okay, whatever.

So the cop gets here circa 10:30am and at this point I'm chasing my son around, trying to get him clothed, as well. He's in this stage where he does NOT want mommy changing his diaper, he does NOT want to go bye-bye, and he does NOT want clothes on. It's very frustrating to get ready and go anywhere these days, let alone the hassle of making sure every item is packed in the gym bag, the diaper bag, etc.

I stepped out on the deck to explain to the officer that I didn't consider this an emergency, but I was just hoping to at least get the situation documented and find out if someone in the area has been running up pharmacy bills on anyone. He said that he hadn't known of such incidents, but he'd look into it.

I resumed getting Clayton ready, but only after about ten more minutes of having to lure him out from behind the couch with, "Okay, mommy's leaving..." followed by fake footsteps away from the couch. As soon as he peers his head out, I snatch him up and proceed to get his coat and boots on. But he takes off again to fetch his puppy, drinky, three blankies, and a tracty.

We get to the Y and everything's kosher except I can't find my ID card to get in. It never fails that I always lose/forget something. But I find my husband's card and make do with that. No questions asked.

I ride 10.6 miles on the bike; walked/ran 1 mile on the treadmill, and stepped up 20 flights of stairs in 6 minutes on the stair climber. I did a few miscellaneous machines, but I couldn't even tell you what they were now because I was so "out of it" by the time I got to them. When I walked by the mirror I noticed my face was the shade of a ripe beet. It's been about 6 weeks since I last had a really good workout, so I know I'm slipping. Afterwards, I headed to the hot tub just to discover it's still out of commission. Dammit.

So I gathered up my things and realized I couldn't find my keys. But I knew I'd just had them, so I meandered about the locker room for a good 10 minutes before I realize I had put them in the front pouch of my sweatshirt. DUH.

Head to the Child Watch, which I really don't like, and Clayton runs at me full force with arms wide open, screaming, "Mooommmmyyyy!!!" He's smiling, so I knew he had fun. But before I could get him out of the door, he insisted on kissing each of the 6 staff members and 3 little girls. Finally, we're on our way.

I need to do a return at Wal-Mart; had bought a USB cord for the lovely endeavor I went through Saturday to get my dad on the Internet and we ended up not needing it. The returns line was halfway through the store, but that doesn't mean one of the nine...count them, NINE...blue-vest wearers in the immediate vicinity will open up another lane. A lady tried to cut in front of me, but thank goodness the register lady said, "Um, SHE'S next," and pointed to me. If she would have proceeded, I would have gone ridiculously ape on her ass.

The whole time we were in line there, Clayton was shrieking because his eyes fell upon a balloon. He kept repeating, "I want it. I want it. I want it..." He even answered himself ever so sadly with, "But I can't have it." So I bargained with him that if he was a good boy I'd get him a balloon. Well, he was just that, so I found myself having to live up to my word even though it meant I was going to be about 80 CENTS over the amount of cash I had on me. What to do?

Well I couldn't risk him growing up recalling that incident when mommy didn't keep her word, so I grabbed him a balloon. After fishing through several, I finally got an unmarked Batman balloon and ran with it. Though I'm glad to see Rainbow Brite is making a comeback, I didn't think Clayton would enjoy that one as much. Then there were all the "Congratulations!" and "Happy 29th Birthday...Again!" balloons, so Batman was most appropriate for the occasion.

But dang, if that little mylar puff of helium wasn't $2.50! Nonetheless, I opted to write a check to keep the kid content. It wasn't for long, though, because it blew right out the top of the Jeep as I was trying to stuff my bag, purse, kid, and balloon into the seat. ARGH. Now, not only did I lose a balloon I paid way too much for, but I had to listen to the wrath of my 2 year old.

Fast forward to 5:30pm and my OSHA exam is in front of me. I'm blanking on almost everything, but slowly it starts to come to me. I'm writing away, and when I get to page 8, I'm wondering how much torture there is; how much useless random facts about welding, fire safety, machinery, forklifts, and electricity I have to regurgitate. Finally, I am done and I await as Elise grades it. She tells me I need a 90% to get an A in the class, which I had already figured up on my way over.

My grade: 89.6%.

Where I come from, a 6 means you round UP. She's telling me how close I was to an A and I just stand there. Finally she writes down an "A" on the official grade log she has to turn in and turns to me, saying, "Is that fair enough?" This is in front of the Purdue secretary, no less, so I stammer around a bit with something like, "Uh, yeah, but I'm uh, not asking you to GIVE me a grade, but I'll uh, I'll tell you anything you need to know, I can answer anything more in depth if you'd like, but I uh, I got switched around on the terminology..."

The thing is, some of her questions are quite vague, as is she. And she doesn't intend for them to be, but she's a little haphazard. Like on the section where we had to identify the classes of fire, name the materials that burn on each, and write out a list of types of materials to put out each type of fire. I knew them all, though she worded it to sound like only ONE example was needed...so on the Class B and Class C examples, I used "bromotrifluoroethane," though I didn't write down combustible liquids and electric components. I mean, hey, at least give a girl credit for spelling out bromotrifluorethane...and doing so correctly, no less!

Because it's my last trip to Richmond for the semester, I decided to pop into Meijer on the way home and grab one last bag of jerky. I tallied up earlier how much money I've spent in jerky alone this semester, and it came to over $90. Yowza!

I'm going to miss my Monday/Thursday trips in there for snacks.