I am a woman of my word, and I have plenty of paper in my printer, so yesterday I printed out my 8-week pass from the Discovery Health: National Body Challenge for Bally Total Fitness as promised and headed for the gym. But first I drove around the mall and through some commercial properties’ parking lots, not because I was lost, just because, um, I like to make sure no one is following me. And I wanted to search for pot holes to report to the department of public works.

Next week I have a training session with Aaron (name changed to protect innocent personal trainers), who recently lost 50 pounds himself. We’ll see how it goes, though after reading an article a reader named Greg sent me about 10 Things Your Gym Won’t Tell You, I’ll be happy to get through the experience without contracting a staph infection or having my spine severed by the weight machine.

Bally’s and Bed, Bath and Beyond are in the same mall complex. Since I was in the neighborhood, and [...]

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In fifth grade I won a Christmas greeting card contest. I don’t remember what I drew, but I sketched something with my crayons and a week later I was called to the art teacher’s office to take a photo with my nice big trophy. I beat out all the other kids in the school district, including Jennifer, who was the most talented artist in my class. It was nice revenge because Jennifer had recently won the Young Author’s contest with her picture book. I had written a 20-page tome about the forbidden friendship between a fox and a bunny rabbit and won bupkis. I like to think the universe got its wires crossed and I ended up with her art trophy and she ended up with a certificate or plaque or whatever they gave the Young Author’s winner.

If you too have a desire to design greeting cards, you should enter Hallmark’s your Greeting Card Competition. They won’t give you a trophy, but they will give you $250 if you are one of the ten finalists. [...]

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