"I have a Party"

I could be doing the annual invested capital report summary....or I could be working on the capital status report and explaining for the 50th time to finance people that a budget is constant, a forecast changes, and it is impossible to have actuals greater than your total forecast...or I could be following up on the 412 people who have silly work-related questions.
But I am not. It is 4:33, and I am going to blog. Be thankful!

Everyone around here has headed to a happy hour. They ask me every week, and every week, I respectfully decline. I don’t think my all male co-workers understand that happy hour would probably turn out a little different if I waltzed in there with my two kids and ordered a diet coke on the rocks. The conversations of calvin klein tattoos, underwear not fitting, and desperate searches for the morning after pill (all true conversations from this week- I kid you not) would probably shift to alligators in hot air balloons, strawberry milk, and Thomas the Train. I am not sure that my presence would be appreciated. Let’s be honest. They know this. The verbal invitation usually happens as they are walking out the door, keys in hand and goes something like “you’re not going to happy hour, are you”. My typical response, “ahh, if I would have known earlier, I could have gotten someone to pick up the kids….have a good one”. Today it was a little different. Either because they truly wanted my company, or they were taking me up on my bogus excuse, they asked early this morning. Not only was their invitation out of the norm…my response was as well. I was able to respond with, “actually I have a party tonight”. I do have a party tonight….that’s a true statement. No one in that group needs to know that it is a keeno party. They especially don’t need to know that we really focus more on eating than the actual game of keeno. I have a party. It may end in me getting inebriated to the point I too go get a Calvin Klein tattoo….or it may end in me shouting “KEENO”, opening a brown paper bag and acting surprised that it is a $10 Kohl’s gift card (the store my mom chooses to support). The point is, I am going to a party—so I won’t be able to make the happy hour.

I do want to report on the status of my current competitions. As of this morning I was down 7 pounds. My competitor was down 10. I still have a shot. As of last night I was a recovering fast-food-aholic, clean for 4 days. I had resisted a bean burrito 3 times. Did anyone catch that? There was a difference in dates between the status report. Between last night and right now, I fell off the wagon. I have visited McDonalds not once but twice. This morning I reasoned that it was okay. I deserved it. I was leaving the house a full 30 minutes before my standard time, after sleeping only 4. I think I can safely realize that I have a food addiction when I feel entitled to a breakfast burrito just because I stayed up checking out myspace until 2am. I also reasoned that I’ll be okay because Oprah does too. I’ll be okay. Jeff claimed the competition was actually over when I stopped at the grocery store on Tuesday for sushi. I would still argue sushi is not fast food. We had decided that the definition of fast food is any place that has a drive through or doesn’t have a waiter. Although Kroger doesn’t have a drive through, or a waiter, they sell groceries, therefore sushi = groceries. I guess it’s water under the bridge now since I think everyone agrees McDonalds clearly fits into the fast food definition. Oops. However, I do have some key learnings from my competition (gotta love corporate buzz words---those words are always in documents that have budget overruns). Although my original strategy was to enter multiple competitions for greater accountability and greater likelihood of winning at least one. However, I realize now that my odds would have been greater had I hedged my first competition using my bet with Jeff. When I realized I wasn’t going to lose 20 pounds faster, I could start a competition with Jeff to see who could eat a half a gallon of girl scout cookie ice cream faster. The way I had it set up, if I lost one bet, I was guaranteed to lose the other. Needless to say, there’s definitely opportunity to improve on the matter (more corporate buzz words).

In other news, for anyone who thought that Ms. Ashley may have been kidding about the mo-hawk (mow-cawk, as hayden says)pictures to see if she could get a reaction from Dad…she wasn’t. We have the pictures. I will try to scan them in soon. “Look Mom, I have a mow-cawk”.

Have a great weekend. I will try to get an update posted about the zoo first thing Monday.