Umm...

So I noticed yesterday that the flags here at the hospital and around town are flying at half staff (sp?). PLEASE tell me its for something else besides Michael Jackson? Really? I mean please--he was just a celebrity with child molesting on his record. I hope we honor ALL child molesters with flying the flags at half staff.

If there's another reason please someone let me know...Could it possibly be for Robert McNamara, the ex-Secretary of Defense that died this week?

Summerfest

I made an appearance at Summerfest this year...twice! I decided to head up to MKE for the weekend, left Friday morning and came back on Sunday afternoon. Friday started out with me and Ryan going to get the best bloody marys on earth. They have cheese strings, a pickle, a mushroom, green olive (blah!), a beef stick and are just spicy enough for me. Then we headed over to Summerfest and we happened upon free cereal, well just a sample. But hey, I luv free samples so I took one and put it in my purse! Score!


We enjoyed the afternoon people watching and walking around. We even rode the sky glider thingy! Then, Ryan and I spotted a give-away. WHAT?? Free M&M Ice Cream sandwiches! Holy shit! The line looked long but we got in it and it only took a few minutes and, ah, a nice ice cream sandwich totally hit the spot! Yummy.


Ryan and I came back to Summerfest later in the evening with Russ and Chris. A funny thing occurred on this trip. It happened while we were walking to the gates. I was ahead of the boys so I didn't actually see this happen but all of a sudden I heard a big splash sound, like water falling onto the concrete. I turn around and there is Russ and Ryan all wet! We immediately look up and someone had thrown a bucket of water out of a window on the side of this building. Ha, I start laughing immediately because, well, it was funny. And I was happy it wasn't on me! They started investigating to figure out what it was and it smelled like dirty dish water. It was soapy and kinda sticky! YUCK! But really funny!

Then I got to see Shinedown! Yeah, fun! They were good. I was way in the back but I had a good view of the screen.


Day 2 (Saturday) began with what else, another trip to get bloody marys. Then Ryan, Russ and I went to the Miss Bradford Beach competition.








Ha, too funny. All i'll say is that these girls looked pretty good from afar but up close, wow, they were a hot mess! Lots of wrinkles, cracked out looking females! I assume there was no age limit on this competition as I could tell some of these 'girls' were a little older than I first thought!





Fun times. We quick ran over to Russ's house, let out their dog--HUGE DOG. OMG. Scared the shit out of me really, but wow, that's a huge dog.


Then we headed back to summerfest to meet up with the Grade's and to see The Fray.


The whole concert was pretty good. It was a more mellow show obviously but we had a good time. For the opening acts we had to sit in our exact seats but they let us move up for the Fray so we ended up moving up quite a bit and had good seats for the main show.


Overall, fun weekend! I hadn't been to summerfest in years and I had a good time! Can't wait for next year.

Ahh, Another Year at Sweet Minihaha

This past weekend, we traveled a long journey down to Albany/Broadhead to spend another fabulous weekend at Sweet Minihaha Campground. We arrived Friday and some of us were able to get our tents up before it rained, but luckily, we had three awnings to hide under until the rain finally let up around 10pm. Then we got the fire going and had a great night.

Saturday of course was absolutely beautiful for our 5 hr tubing trip. The river was pretty high due to all the rain on Thursday night and it was moving pretty briskly!! It was the quickest moving river I think I've ever tubed down. After we got everyone tied together and loaded into the water, we were on a crash course through the downed trees. There weren't many places to stop but we did find a few on the side. All in all it took about 5 hours or so.


We got back to the camp site and after some wild Barney shenanigans, we ended up having a really great afternoon and night. We were packed and gone by 8am (late this year!) Sunday morning and I think everyone had a fabulous time!

I'm bringing back a little segment I like to call "Cheer and Jeers." Its hard to talk about every detail on these trips but here are some of the highlights:

• Cheers to Kevin for bringing a couple awnings, we would have had a really wet Friday night otherwise
  
  
• Cheers to the Bublitz's and crew for making the long 2-4 hour journey to spend a weekend with us! Thanks for coming!



• Jeers to Jeremy for starting such a dumb ass game called Bombardment! Ass! If you 've never heard of this game, after you finish a beer can, you yell "Bombardment" and then proceed to chuck your empty can at some unsuspecting person. Not cool!

• But Cheers to Hot Cheese for throwing a direct hit on Jeremy's nose/face. Take that!


• Cheers to my new bf Rick for professing his love for me to my ex :)


• Cheers to Nancie and Patty for organizing the tent set up to make sure we were the farthest away from the snorers as possible





• Jeers to Barney for dropping my burger on the charcoal! What the hell were you thinking?!


• Jeers to us for letting Barney be the grill master only 1/2 hr before he passed out drunk. What the hell were WE thinking?!


• Cheers to Barney for being so wasted that you passed out on the grass and rolled over a dirty plate. It was very entertaining




• Jeers to Sweet Minihaha staff for not getting those bathrooms in any better shape! I think they were actually worse than last year!


• Cheers to Greta for making pudgy pies with me Saturday night--Yummy!




• Cheers to Patty for single-handily saving us from a few trees in the river by holding on and shot gunning us around the corner!


• Cheers to Billy for making the trek down to just go tubing then go home.


• Jeers to Egner and Dan for not showing up, your loss!


• Cheers to Patty and Nancie for NOT silly stringing me in the middle of the night!


• Jeers to Barney and Lundo for continuing to be the loudest MF'ing snorers I have ever heard in my life.




• Finally, cheers to all who attended, it was a blast!
  
  

Painting Mania!

Well, I did it. Yes, I finally painted my darn condo--well part of it anyway. I painted four rooms: Two bathrooms and two bedrooms. And I did it all by myself (except for some taping help from Barney on my bedroom, he's a good taper!). I'm pretty proud of myself. Its not perfect or anything but its nice to know I can do that stuff so in case I want to change the color, i'll know how to paint!

Each room I did got a little better, so I decided to start in my guest bedroom. I chose a Brown Teepee color. NO ITS NOT BROWN TOILET PAPER as everyone says to me. I think it turned out nice. I ran out of paint by just a little so I need to buy a small can for touch ups. I went with the Eggshell finish and I quite like it. Just shiny enough without too much shine!

Before

After

Next I went for my guest bathroom. I decided to go with a color called Russian Blue. Painting bathrooms are the worst!! I wasn't quite tall enough, standing on my Firm Step to reach certain areas so I was crawling up and down my bathroom sink. I was picturing myself falling off and cracking my back in half the whole time! YIKES, this goes along with all my irrational injury thoughts I always have....that's a post for another time.

Anyway, I think this also turned out quite nice. I went with the finish one step above eggshell for the bathrooms just to make sure I would be able to scrub off my hairspray that will inevitably end up on the walls.

Before

After

Next up was my bedroom. I wanted to go for a warm buttercream type color. I chose a color called banana cream. It looked pretty bright once I brought it home and then again when I started putting it on the walls. I was hoping it would dry a little darker but it really didn't. So its pretty yellow. I'm getting used to it and I think it will look nice once I get my new bedroom furniture in and my new brown curtains up. I'll post new pics once the whole room comes together but for now...

And finally, I tackled my bathroom. This room turned out the best for two reasons. First, it has the best lines around the edges. I learned something by each room I did so the last room looks the nicest. Second, I LUV this color. Its called Tide Pools. Its really really nice. It reminds me of beach water from a really nice beach with white sand. I luv it.

Overall I'm pretty happy with my selections. Next I need do to my living room/top part of the kitchen/stairs going up to loft/loft. This i'm going to have to have some help with, if not hire out for the whole thing. I have really crazy vaulted ceilings and weird angles so I just don't think I can do that all myself. We'll see.

The Sickness

I have a sickness...It is called "Obsessed with the Wisconsin Public Television Auction" sickness. I think its fatal!

I can't explain how I caught this sickness or how long its supposed to last but every year the week after Memorial Day, it rears its ugly head.

But seriously, i'm unnatural. I'm obsessed with this auction. For those of you who don't know about this auction, WPT (Wi Public TV) each year has a big auction to raise money. It starts the Tuesday after Memorial Day and runs until Sunday night of that week. They have a plethora of items, everything from gift cards to certain restaurants to packages put together of items from around WI to bigger ticket items like trips around the state.

Last year I won my first item, the Wisconsin Cheeseman Book, and as you can imagine, this year I was out to win more items. Now mind you, I stayed up each night and watched THE ENTIRE THING--which means I was up until 12:30 every night last week, still getting up at my normal time of 5am. So needless to say I was tired, but nothing was going to stop me from winning items and I had hopes of seeing an item that I got beat out last year on.... (more on that in a minute).

I won my first item on Thursday night. You can get the best prices/deals either early in the night right at 7pm or late like 12 midinght. I bid and won a scrapbooking kit. It was valued at $60 but I got it for $22.



I wasn't satisfied with that...

Friday night (yes I was home Friday night watching this damn auction, but I also had to run on Saturday so I would have stayed home anyway, at least that's what I'm telling myself so I don't feel like a complete loser) I won my second item, a commemorative Auction 2009 T-shirt. Its red, so I liked it. It is valued at $15 but I actually bid $16 because anytime you over-bid an item, you get coupons from the over-bid sponsors, this year it is Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. I over bid last year and got these coupons and they are actually good coupons, free pizza/pasta and free lunch at the other place. I placed bids on a few other things but got beat out :(



Saturday rolls around. I had a busy day Saturday but I wanted to keep the auction on in the background while I was home so I could hear if my special item was announced. I also laid out on my porch on Saturday afternoon but kept the auction on loud enough to hear outside so I could listen to it. (My neighbors might think I'm a freak now if they didn't already!).

Saturday evening I won my 3rd and 4th items. A speciality cutting board, a $55 value to which I got it for $25 (I needed a new cutting board anyway) and I succumbed to the pressure at midnight Saturday night and bid on a chocolate package, valued at $63, got it for $46. This buy gave me buyer's remorse big time because I knew I"ll be eating all those chocolates after I get the package, but it just looked so good on TV!



I also FINALLY saw my Cranberry Basket, my special item I had been waiting for. I was frantic in my bidding.... I COULD NOT LOSE THIS. Its valued at $75 and it includes everything Cranberry. I luv cranberries by the way.

To back up a second, there is actually an art to this bidding thing. Its not as simple was just calling, placing a bid and hoping you win. If you do that, you'll never win anything. The auction announces the board once, you write down you item numbers you want to bid on. Then they go through other boards or speciality items and come back to the board you were looking at with a 'Last Chance' sign by it. Now you can see how high the bids are, and then its all about timing to get your bid in so you are the last one to bid. Once I bid on something I really I want, I call back every two minutes to see if I still have the highest bid--that's the trick. People are tricky so they'll out bid you by even a $1. So when I call just to check a bid, if its not mine, I out-bid.

Anyway, back to the Cranberry Basket. I called several times, made my bids and when they officially closed the board, I thought I had it. I saw my amount that I bid up on the board....but I never got a confirmatory phone call. If someone calls in right before the board closes and bids over you, but they don't have a chance to write it up on the board, that person wins. I was out of luck, I lost it! I was devastated.

I had one glimmer of hope because usually they don't just have one of those baskets, they usually have two or three. I was determined to win it...

Sunday I got up early, worked out, grocery shopped and made sure to get home in time for the auction to start. I was intently watching each board to see if the Cranberry basket would show up. By 2pm I was defeated, discouraged, ready to call it quits. I went outside to lay out, never heard the Cranberry Basket announced.

Around 5pm, I had all but given up hope and started watching Ice Road Truckers and I just happen to flip back to the auction and OMG, OMG it was there! The Cranberry Basket, last change on the A board! Holy Shit. I gotta call in.

I called in three times, each time having to raise my bid a couple bucks. My last call, the lady wrote down the time I called, I gave her my information, I bid $63 and she says, "Oh the Board has closed, but don't worry I got this bid down with the correct time." OMG, could I have done it? 20 minutes later, I got my confirmatory phone call. I had won. Ah, what a great feeling.



The sickness has subsided for this year and I'll prepare for it next year. I know this post is troubling to some, but its an obsession, we all have one. Mine is the WPT auction. What a crazy world we live in?!? :)

Breaking News

So if you DON'T know....

The Wisconsin Public Auction has started!!

OMG, its great. You remember my excitement from last year when I bid and won a cheeses of Wisconsin book! Yup, every night from now through Sunday you can watch the auction on PBS.

I'll keep you posted as to bids and winnings!

Busy Weekend

Whew, I think I need a vacation from my long weekend. I decided to try and take a half day on Thursday and take Friday off. Well I didn't quite get my half day but I got Friday off which lead into have a 4 day weekend!!

What did I do with my 4 day weekend you ask? A LOT! Friday I woke up early to bake cookies for two events. Then I started painting my condo (more on the painting in the next post!). Friday was lost to taping and painting, although I did manage to do a load of laundry, run to Home Depot and run a load of dishing all while painting two rooms! Wow, that feels like a lot huh?!

Saturday morning was supposed to be filled with me working on my fitness, but sad to say, Bootcamp (or fat camp depending on who you talk to) was cancelled. Next up, Dan's Wiffle Ball party! Once a year, my friend Dan, who lives in Waunakee has a big BBQ/Wiffle Ball/Tractor driving drinking party. Ok ok, only tractor driving when I'm dumb enough to attempt it!

This year the party was pretty fun. It included the usual people (with some extras who may or may not be invited back!), the usual games (wiffle ball, flip cup, beer pong) and the usual good times. And I might add that a card game NEVER broke out! Amazing. It was good to see everyone and I think everyone had a fun time, with no major incidents.









Sunday was spent waking up early and painting my bedroom, laying out on my porch for a couple hours, then a Sam's Club trip with my friends Adam and Bry and their daughter Kayna. Oh how I luv going places with 2 yr-olds! YIKES.


Monday: Brewer Game, my first of the season! I went with Adam, Bry, Ryan, Red, Katie and some newbies Ryan met. We had a great time. It was a little chilly in the morning but by the afternoon it was bright and sunny. Perfect for sitting in left field bleacher seats, sweating our asses off. It wasn't a very exciting game but we did pull out a win over the dear old Cardinals!!

The McFarland Crew

Great weekend-busy busy--but very fun and enjoyable.

Photo of the Week

My nephew holding some antlers he found in the yard. What a cutie (in my opinion!).

An Anniversary of Sorts

Six years ago today, my mother left us too soon. She died of a massive heart attack at the young age of 53. Its been six years and I still think of her every single day. I miss her more then ever and wish she was here with me.



Forever in my thoughts and never far from my heart...

Time for a Change

Ok, so I've decided that I had a hell of a year last year, or I guess since I bought my condo. April 08 to April 09 has been a whirl wind of up and down experiences and its time for a change. I can sum it up in a few major events.... Bought a condo, had a fantastic summer with my friends, went through the worst physical pain in my life with subsequent back surgery, and have gone through (and am STILL going through) a very emotional break-up. So ya, what a crock of shit that all is!

Its time for a change and I'm classifying this year as a rebuilding year, not only for me but for my condo. I'm going to work on myself but also work on my condo. I've been working on my fitness as you can tell my some of my running posts and have consciously made an effort to eat less calories. If you know me you know I don't eat badly at all, probably healthier than most people I know but my problem seems to be portion control. So I've been making an effort to do that and continue my work outs. I'm down 9lbs (ya I know its not a lot but it something!) and I hope to continue.

On the condo side of this rebuilding year, I've been there a whole year and have hardly done anything decorating-wise. A couple curtains, window treatments, but nothing major. I've now picked out paint colors, haven't bought the supplies yet but it will happen this month. I'm going to try and paint my two bedrooms and two bathrooms myself but will have to hire out for my living room/loft area because of the funky wall heights and weird angled ceilings. Stay tuned....

My other big project is buying new furniture, like real, adult, condo-owning furniture. I generously gave my kitchen table away to my sister because she didn't have and that one was a hand-me-down so I needed to buy a new one, which I did, from Amazon!! YIKES, I was so nervous buying a piece of furniture off a website without having seen it. But it turned out quite nice.

It came in 3 boxes yesterday, plopped outside my front door. Now although I consider myself a pretty independent lady who is fine not having a bf, it definitely would have come in handy yesterday. The two chair boxes were pretty light and I was able to haul those up my flight of stairs without a problem, but holy shit, the table top box was SUPER heavy. I debated with myself knowing the I probably shouldn't try and lift this up my stairs but knew that I was going to try it anyway because that's just how I am. Well 15 minutes later I had the thing upstairs in my living room. Slowly but surely I was able to lift the box up one stair at a time. My back is thanking me today, but not as bad as I expected it to be!

So after unpacking, here's the mess I found myself in...











I knew it needed assembly but wow, what a sight!. I started with the chairs because I figured those would be easy....yeah, well, I mean, easy wouldn't be the word I would use BUT after 1.5 hours, I had the chairs assembled. I was sweating, stretching, using an allen wrench thingy, quite exciting!

I think they look pretty nice!



Next up, the table itself. Luckily for me this was really easy. Screw the four legs on and done! Finished product.





Overall I think it looks nice in my place. Of course it doesn't match anything because everything else I own is hand me down but now I have a good starting point to buy more stuff. I'm proud of myself for hauling the damn thing upstairs all by myself and then putting it together all by myself! Yeah me!


My next big purchase is a bedroom set. I have a great queen bed but no headboard or foot board. I would like to wait until after I paint my room to buy the set so stay tuned for that as well.