Marines – Sweat & Sparkle

False alarm! My stepson did not leave for boot camp yesterday after all. I am not feeling overly confident about the Marines’ ability to schedule, plan, or coordinate much of anything right about now. His swearing-in was just like this too: hurry up! Get here NOW! It might start at 10 AM, it might start at 4 PM, but you better arrive around 7 AM and sit in an uncomfortable waiting room with no idea what is going on and no one willing to tell you. On second thought, might be today, might be tomorrow, hell, might be exactly forty-seven days from now, who knows?

If they can’t put together a competent ship-out to boot camp, how do they operate during a war? Maybe their tactical plan is to confuse, irritate, and discombobulate the enemy until they collapse of sheer exasperation.

My poor husband drove over 6 hours total yesterday for mostly nothing, then got up early and went right back to the processing station this morning. I got up early with him and hunted down an old, cheesy-but-wonderful workout called Cardio Boot Camp Live.

I adore Billy Blanks. Who doesn’t, right? I used to have the DVD’s from this workout set, and the resistance bands, but I don’t remember what ever happened to them. I used light weights instead of the bands this morning. So another morning workout in the bag for this week.

I’m still struggling with my eating habits, but I am just trying to do a little better each day. Which at this point is “not as horrific as yesterday”, but hey, it’s a start, right?

I ended up skipping weigh-in on Saturday. That is typically a huge mistake, and I end up with a huge gain at the next weigh-in, but I just need to make sure that doesn’t happen this time. I decided to just enjoy the weekend with the kids, get a little sleep Saturday morning instead of getting up extra early for a workout and weigh-in, and start over today.

I also had something to celebrate with my husband and kids: on Friday, I had a meeting with my boss, and my promotion is now official. We started talking about it months ago, but it wasn’t finalized until Friday. I am now a director at work, and of course that comes with more responsibilities, so I am even busier than before but excited too.

We went to dinner to celebrate, and the girls helped me pick out some leopard print dressy shoes for my new job role. (Because leopard print goes with everything!)

My new title was announced at a staff meeting this morning, and there was another important announcement: the wellness challenge we are doing (tracking workout miles) now has two prizes! First prize gets 2 tickets to an amusement park, and second prize gets an extra vacation day. I feel so fired up now! I actually am not very interested in the tickets, but I would love the extra vacation day. My co-workers better get to stepping, because I intend to start racking up serious miles this week.

I said good-bye to my future Marine, my older stepson, this weekend, since he ships out for boot camp tomorrow. There was so much I wanted to say to him, but I didn’t know how to say it. He hugged me really tight and said he is nervous but excited. That is what I wanted to hear, that he is looking forward to this and not letting his self-centered, piece-of-crap womb-for-rent ruin this for him.

I told my husband last night about challenging myself to lose 30 pounds while our son is away at boot camp. I told him I have a white suit I haven’t been able to wear for a very long time, but if I can ditch 30 pounds, I should be able to wear it to our son’s Marines graduation.

I feel more motivated today than I have in a long time. I want to win a prize in our work challenge, and I want to kick 30 pounds (or more!) to the curb before my stepson sees me again. Let’s get to work!