I did it!

Today I survived my 2nd half marathon. And I swear, I'm not doing another one. I know, I know you're saying "Missy, I've heard this before." (If you haven't, you can change that here). But, this time I mean it... That is unless I become a real runner. Which I doubt will happen. These races just take so much out of me. And I have enough problems with my joints and what not from my hips down.

Today's half marathon was held in Concord at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. For all you NASCAR fans - yes I've gotten to run on your beloved racetrack (no, I'm not a fan myself).  The race started on the speedway, headed toward the dirt track (which we ran around), and then we got onto the dragway. The finish line was on Pit Row.

At the packet pickup event yesterday, I got this awesome shirt

I'm not that type of girl!

Here's what I brought home from the race today. I popped it to create this

It hurts to walk (and not just from the tender skin left behind from the blister)... so I'm trying to do that as little as possible. But, what makes all this torture worth it? This glorious thing:

What did I learn today?

Today's lesson was: Ya can't trust a stripper. I'd like to thank Melissa for that line. But, yes, it's true - you really can't trust a stripper.

Today was one of our co-worker's last day. Lorrie is moving on to bigger and better things and she will be greatly missed. But, that's beside the point. This being her last week, a few of us decided to make this week a memorable one by pulling a prank on Lorrie every day.

Today's prank was having a stripper come to our office around 4:30pm. The mastermind behind this, Lora, handled finding a company and emailed said company to hire a stripper. Everything was sailing along until today.This morning, Lora got an email saying things didn't work out with our entertainment. He couldn't get off work... Yeah, we all learned that most strippers actually have day jobs. Huh. I guess stripping isn't as lucrative as I thought it was.

Anyway, all day Lora, Melissa, and I scrambled around trying to find a replacement. Would you believe it is actually hard finding a stripper??? What the hell???  TV makes this process look so easy.

We were desperate to find someone... so desperate we actually pondered hitting the streets to find a random hot guy that was looking to make some cash. We stopped ourselves (just barely) from doing that.

Another co-worker, Rhonda, started helping us. She actually got in touch with a company who said they did have a guy available and they would have someone contact us to get the nitty gritty details. This all went down around 11:00am. We thought we were set. The women in our office were all salivating and counting down the minutes until 4:30pm.

When 2:00pm rolled around and we still hadn't heard anything from the company, we got a little worried. Rhonda called them back and they said not to worry, all was good, we hadn't been contacted because things had been crazy with the company.

At 3:00pm we STILL hadn't heard anything, so Lora called to check up on things. We were told that if we hadn't heard anything by this point, then it was a sure bet that things weren't happening. When Lora sent the email to all the ladies (sans Lorrie since this was a surprise for her) saying the party was off, I swear I heard a collective cry of NOOOOO around the office.

Sadly 4:30pm came and went and we were stripperless. Yes, I admit, I had been holding my breath the whole time, hoping that the guy would come through for us.

So, say it with me boys and girls - ya can't trust a stripper. Sigh.

My Awesome Sunday

Today Jason and I decided to head to the gun range. It's been over a month since we'd last gone shootin' and I was itching to get out some aggression. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon?

Jason owns a Springfield TRP Operator. This thing is a beauty. It's a .45 and I'm in love with it. So is he.... Thankfully he shares.

God, I love this thing

As usual we bought our standard 2 targets (white sheets of paper with the numbers 1-6 running down the middle), but then we saw these really cool targets and had to get one. They were pictures of zombies! Who loves killing zombies? This chick! Seriously - give me my Dead Rising or Dead Island on my gaming systems and watch me double tap those bitches.

This is the zombie target we bought. I named him Horatio. 

After 200 rounds of ammo (for those of you who are mathmatically challenged like I am, that's 100 rounds a piece), here's what our targets looked like:

Our first target o'the day.

Target deux

Jason's shots are on/around the odd numbers and mine are on/around the even. I'll go right ahead and hoot my damn horn - I am not too shabby with a handgun. Not too shabby at all.

Oh and you wanna know about Horatio? Sad to say, he didn't make it. Here's the after picture of him:

Night night, Horatio.

Isn't that awesome? When the bullets hit the target, the paper turned different colors depending on where you hit Horatio. Jason and I pumped 25 rounds a piece into him. I went first and my first shot was right in the center of his forehead. Umm, yeah, I am a bad ass. I'll go ahead and admit that.

Sigh, what an awesome Sunday.

Shaking my money maker

Last Wednesday, Melissa and I started a belly dancing class. This class is just a once a week, month long thing. As we're learning, the title "belly dancing" is a misnomer. We work everything. Yes, from the 2 classes I've been to so far my abs are sore... but so are my arms and hips.


In our first class, there were quite a few folks who had taken belly dancing classes before, so they were wearing coin scarves (ya know, those chiffon wraps belly dancers wear around their waist?). Our teacher told us where we could go get them, so over the weekend Melissa and I rushed to get ours. Because, how could we not get one for ourselves? They're so pretty and they make a fun jingly noise! Also, we wanted to be like the cool kids.

This is my butt and my coin scarf.

This is Melissa's butt and coin scarf.

In the days leading up to tonight's class, I wore my scarf around the house. Mainly to annoy Jason (is there really any other purpose to life than to annoy the Hubster?). Oh, and I also wanted to see how the critters reacted to my noisy tush. I can't tell you what the guinea pig or the sugar gliders thought, but my dogs immediately came running to me to try and figure out why momma was making that noise ("Is it a toy??? Where's the toy??? What's the noise??? What's going on????"). My cat, just eyeballed me before passing back out. I had obviously woken him from his 30 hour a day nap.

Tonight was our first class with our coin scarves. And, yes, they did make the class that much more fun. Tonight's class was extra super duper awesome because the teacher made me stand in front of the class and lead everyone in a movement. We were drawing a figure 8 pattern on the floor with our feet (one at a time, because, well, we're not that talented) and the old ballerina in me came out. I was in my own world doing the exercise when the teacher pushed me to the front of the room and commanded that I continue doing what I was doing and told everyone else to watch my feet and follow along. Eeeee! My ego swelled quite a bit with that honor... hasn't deflated back to its normal size yet (I'll admit, I am a bit of an attention whore).

Tomorrow I've got a Crossfit training session and Jason is daring me to wear my scarf to that. Hmmm, very tempting. I DID wear it around work for a bit this afternoon (remember - attention whore). Sigh. I can't wait until next Wednesday for my next belly dancing class.

What month is this again?

Yesterday, the Hubster and I hit the grocery store to buy some necessary stuff and a whole lotta high caloric shit that we don't need (hey, Pillsbury cookie dough was on sale for 2 for $5. I wasn't passing that up.... neither are my thighs or mini-Buddha belly).

As we were wandering aimlessly through the freezer section, I glanced at the Toaster Strudels, trying to decide if I wanted any. Here's what I found:

Whaaa? No, please don't confuse me any more than I already am. I'm going to expect presents AND an Easter basket delivered by a rabbit wearing a red and white suit. Instead of an egg hunt, I assume there'll be an ornament hunt.

In case you're wondering - no, I didn't buy any Toaster Strudels. After seeing this hot mess of the seasons colliding, I couldn't even bear to get any regular-non-limited-edition flavors.

One reason why I think animals are better than humans

That's right. I like animals way better than I do most humans. Why? For a whole bunch of reasons. But the latest reason is because - I've never had an animal hack one of my credit cards. Sigh.

Last year I decided to get the Barnes and Noble MasterCard because every time I racked up 2500 points on the card I'd get a $25 gift card to B&N. Being a reading fanatic (seriously, I get grouchy if I go too long without reading) and a Nook owner, I thought this card would be perfect. And it was... until February 25, 2012.

That day I repeatedly got calls from the company's automated system saying there was a charge on my card that was thought to be fraudulent. It wasn't until later that evening that I was able to look into this. I jumped online to my account and sure enough - there was a $50+ charge that I didn't make. As soon as I logged into my account a box popped up saying they believed this charge was fraudulent and asking me to confirm. I, of course, confirmed that it was not my charge. The box then informed me to call customer service immediately. Which I did. I spoke to a nice guy named Scott who confirmed this charge was marked as fraudulent and that he was freezing my account so no further charges could be made. He was also going to issue new cards to me. Yay! Nice and easy. Things were done.

Yeah, not so much. Why the hell did I think it would be that easy??? Sunday, I logged into my account just to look at it again. I didn't think I'd see any action since it was a Sunday. But, boy oh boy, was I surprised to see ANOTHER charge to my account. This 2nd charge was an identical twin to the one I had called Scott about. Soooo, now I have two charges that equal to over $100. How the hell did this charge go through since my account was frozen? Oh and why is that first charge still there?

Fast forward to today - March 7, 2012 - I've talked to customer service reps in 5 different phone calls between February 25 and today, the latest convo was about 30-40 minutes ago. This chick told me that the charges (including the interest  that has accrued from the fraudulent charges) would be reversed after the fraud department looked into it. It should take 24-48 hours. Really? What's there to look into?? Originally your system was contacting me to let me know there was a "possible fraudulent charge" on my account. Soooo, how much more research needs to be done to my account?

You can bet that as soon as I get the balance on this card paid off (because, yes, I do have quite a few charges that ARE mine on this card), this card is getting cancelled.

So, just one more bit of proof of why I think animals are better than most humans.