It's finally Day 55! And here I am in my birthday suit!!! Well, not the one I was born with -- the one I bought to wear on this special day. :) We were at the Oklahoma Diamond Miss Pageant today. Granddaughter was competing in the World of Babies competition. What a wild day this was! Flying tires, midnight photo madness, early morning racing around in the dark -- oh yeah! Will get into all the juicy details after I talk about the outfit.
I am standing in the midst of mommy madness as mothers swarm their little darlings to get them ready to take the stage for the next event. In total, there were 4 events in this competition.
I'm sporting my roman sandals as usual, and a new tiered skirt and a turquoise vest that I bought from Zulilly. If you haven't heard of them, you really need to check them out. They are a clearing warehouse for name brand clothing. Lots of bargains. Boy oh boy could I really get in trouble if there were funds to back up my credit card. LOL The white blouse I have on is called a *popcorn* shirt. You can wad it up into a tiny ball and stuff it in a suitcase and it takes up very little room. You take it out, shake it out a bit and even though it looks tiny, tiny, it will spread out and cover a lot more territory than it looks like it would. So, that was the clothing I had on for this day of chaos and mixed blessings.
All the madness started early in the week as daughter realized that things she had ordered for this pageant were not going to come in on time. Either they were back ordered, delayed shipping, or the person she purchased from didn't mail when she thought it would. Also, some packages started out as Fed Ex but once they arrived in town, they switched over to postal delivery. That was nuts. So, something that arrived yesterday didn't get delivered because the carriers were already out for the day. So, the outfits she needed got here TODAY while we were gone to the pageant. Nice one. NOT!
But we managed to pull things together and come up with outfits for every category from the things that did come in and from things we purchased locally. Granddaugther got decent scores so it was nice to know our mad cap efforts paid off.
The really crazy part was getting a portfolio together. As you can imagine, babies are squirmy and hard to photograph, so daughter called in a professional. It was a friend visiting on vacation and she couldn't come until this past Wednesday but she assured daughter the photos would be ready in plenty of time for us to be able to print them in time for the pageant. Which meant we had to have them no later than 7pm on Friday to get prints before the photo department closed which was at 8pm. Through a comedy of errors that weren't so comedic, the photos didn't arrive timely! UGH! We were tanked on the portfolio! So in desperation we pulled together some photos from what we had and were prepared to make due. It was stressful and disappointing after paying to have photos done specifically for this pageant but there was no use crying over spilled milk. We just had to dust off our big girl panties and go game on. Well, lo and behold, at 11pm the photos shot through in an email. Very exciting and yet a big DANG IT moment because what could we do with them? No place opened until 8am or 9am and wouldn't be able to have photos until 10am at the earliest. We had a two and half hour drive to our destination from daughter's house and I had a one hour drive to HER house! That meant I would be leaving my house at 4am to get to her place and then us leave her house no later than 6am to race our way to the destination. There was absolutely no way we could expect to pic up photos locally. We have no photo printer and everyone we knew that had one had already left for pageant and spending the night on location. We were the odd ducks driving up on pageant day -- mostly because the hotel was booked and we needed to save the money. Sigh....
But then a pageant friend told us that there was a Walgreens in the town we were going to and if we would push an online order to it, she knew the photo center worker and would call and give her a heads up. YES!!! Mercury Retrograde, take that!!! We were back in the saddle and riding high. Photos were ordered and we finally laid down to try to rest between midnight and 1 am. It was going to be limited sleep for me.
Got up on time and made it to daughters. She was ready to roll. We got granddaughter in the car and off we flew. We were making record time until..... the FLYING TIRE HIT US!!! Oh my goodness, it was totally crazy. We were taking a ramp to merge into traffic on a highway we needed. Ahead of us was a pickup pulling a trailer with a tractor on it. Behind us were SUVs and a big Semi. We were all booking at high speed and that's when it happened. The truck ahead of us hit a bump and his trailer bounced and when it did, the back left tire flew off -- the trailer tipped, and the tractor got tipsy. The truck was fighting to keep his load and his tire was free wheeling down the highway and passed him up. We thought it would hit a pillar on the over pass but it cleared it and shot right out into traffic that was running 75 miles an hour. I have no idea how the miracle happened but NO ONE HIT THE TIRE! It shot through traffic as though it was perfectly timing the space between the cars. Then it hit the center median and bounced back and IT FREE WHEELED BACK THROUGH TRAFFIC AGAIN. Once again, no one hit it. I was is awe! But then with a sickening lurch of my stomach I realized what was about to happen -- we were still running down the highway and the tire had veered at such an angle that we were going to intersect with it. I expected to hit it full in the radiator and have it plow through the windshield. I started yelling for daughter to hit the breaks -- she hadn't seen it because it was in her blind spot. She thought it had jumped the center median and flew off in to the ditch on the other side of the highway. Not so -- here it was like a boomerang returning to its owner that was still fighting his truck and tractor load to a hault on the side of the highway. As daughter saw the tire was upon us, she glanced in the review mirror and said *OH GOD!* and then she hit the brakes. Thankfully, the semi and SUV behind us had seen enough to avert running us over as we braked. The tire WHACKED OUR BUMPER and then shot on past us and flopped in the ditch. I guess it was *tired* of its freedom run. (sorry for the sappy play on words but I had to do it) We came to rest on the side of the road behind the truck, trailer/tractor. He was shaking and white as a ghost. He came running at us and wanted to know if we were ok and did the tire hit us. We told him it did hit us but that we were checking the damage. It just popped the plastic bumper loose which should be easy to snap into place. Poor man tried to fix it but he was shaking too hard to really accomplish much. Once we were assured we were road worthy and only very minor damage, we told him we had to get moving because we had a deadline -- we were going to a pageant and had paid big fees to be there. We couldn't be late. We assured him we were fine and told him to take care of himself, that he had his hands full with his tire and trailer problem. He seemed somewhat relieved and shocked -- I'm sure the thought he was facing a lawsuit big time. Granddaugther never so much as blinked during this whole escapade. She slept though it all. I was quite impressed with daugther's driving skills. She has always lacked confidence but she learned today that she has much better abilities than she has ever given herself credit for.
There were other mishaps throughout the day but nothing like these I've detailed. I kept telling daughter it was Mercury Retrograde and explained to her what it was. Later in the day we had a nice stress relieving belly laugh at the restaurant when she realized she left the keys in the car and I had locked all the doors. Daughter was on the verge of tears and then she reached for her door and yanked the handle and it flew open!!! She had forgotten to lock her door. Saved from a mistake by another mistake. Daughter said, this Mercury retrogarden can stop about any time. I was like, WHAT????? She repeated, you said it was Mercury retrogarden -- well it can stop any time. I've had enough. I got the giggles that grew into a loud and obnoxious laugh. She was not amused and wanted to know what was so funny. I explained between snickers and snorts that it was *Mercury Retrograde* not *retrogarden*. She began to laugh too and nearly spun into tears. [I stand corrected -- daughter informed me she did NOT say *retrogarden* -- she said *rondingo* BUHAHAHAHA -- that is even funnier than *retrogarden* -- she cracks me up. But if I'm going to tell it, I have to tell it right, says she. So, it was *Mercury Rondingo*.]
Thankfully, the ride home was uneventful unless you count missing our exit from the turnpike that caused us to have to drive 20 extra miles out of the way. Yes, this was a very interesting birthday, indeed.
And now I am 55! And the Funky 55 Count Down is over. I hoped you enjoyed reading about my 55 day journey to age 55 as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Bright Blessings and Blessed Be!
Rayven Michaels
Wiccan Witch of the Midwest
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