My Newly Won Auction Item

I have bid and won my first auction item of the WPT auction! I won a Wisconsin Cheeseman Cookbook with a gift certificate for cheese! YEAH! I got one of the four available. I was super psyched last night at 11pm. (Ya this auction is killing my sleeping pattern). I think it was a good buy. Not only that, I overbid by 1$ so I get a certificate for Pizza Hut and Noodles! I mean, how can you beat that?!

I was sadly outbid on the cranberry basket which included all things cranberry from around the state. Most people know that cranberries are my favorite so this would have been a nice little basket for me to win. I was outbid by 5$!

Tonight is entertainment night so i'm hoping there will be some good items to bid on. Its pretty fun. If you haven't checked it out yet you gotta do it quick because it only goes through Sunday. I"ll keep you posted on my next bid :)

My Obsession for the Week

My obsession this week is the Wisconsin Public Television auction! I know, what a dork right? But you can actually get some awesome things for a good price AND you are helping the WPT stay in business. I watched it from 7pm until 10:30pm last night. Wow I totally get addicted to this and I watch it every year. I don't know what is the matter with me but I love it. Check it out. I'll keep you all posted on my winning bids!

I've been slackin'

Much to my surprise and dismay, I realized I haven't posted anything since my crap-ass trip to Canada. Let's review....

• Canada doesn't take Discover card


• My phone costs a fortune to use there


• The high for 4 days we were there was 48 degrees (ya that's Fahrenheit)
  
• It was a major holiday (like 4th of July) so everything was freaking closed on Monday


• The customs people didn't even stamp my passport that I had to order SPECIFICALLY for this work trip
  

So ya, i'm not going back to Canada anytime soon! The highlight was the Blue Jays/Angels game. We walked up to the ticket counter 1/2 hr before game time, were able to buy 7 tickets together for $24, 10 rows up from the field, down the 3rd base line. Not bad! Boring game but awesome seats. Oh ya and a girl took her bra off a few rows down from us and was swinging it around and threw it on some guy. NICE.

Trip was alright, won't be going back anytime soon. I look forward to being back in the US for next year's work conference, back in San Diego.

In other news, Memorial weekend was a blast as expected. Friday night was dinner and drinks with the girls for Kristin's bday. A little Tumbleweed for dinner, a little Red Shed for a long island, a little Brother's for some shots and a little Johnny O's for the end of the night. Good times.

Saturday was Mikey and Marie's wedding. It was a really nice day, Marie looked beautiful and we all had a ton of fun, some had too much fun I think :) The wedding was at the park and we had a nice dinner and did some really great dancing until the park closed and we headed out in Waunakee. Now I remember last time I went out in Waunakee was for a bachelorette party and I danced on top of some bar. This time, I wasn't as drunk and just had a nice time. Props to Mr and Mrs Yates-you gotta luv a wedding where you can stand outside and drink while the ceremony is going on :)

Sunday brought a grill out and game day at Ecker's house. Very low key day, a nice day, we spend the time recapping the night before and laughing a lot. I also go to shoot a gun in the back yard. Alright, it wasn't like a real gun, it was a pellet gun I think but it was still cool. Thanks Eggs!

Good times all around!

Canada Bound

I'm just about on my way to ole Canada! Blah! I'm leaving tomorrow AM for Toronto for the American Thoracic Soceity's annual conference and yes its as cool as it sounds. I got my passport, my tickets, and my over sized research poster all ready to go. And boy am I excited let me just tell you..... :( Anyway, i'll be back to work on Thursday. The highlight of the trip is probably going to be the Toronto Blue Jays game but other than that, i'm expecting the trip to be a wash.

Anyhow, wish me safe travels and a good presentation at the conference. See you next week!

5 yrs ago today....

For those of you who don't me enough and for those who may have forgot, 5 years ago today, at the age of 53, I lost my mom to a massive heart attack. It was the worst day of my life and I still think about her everyday, especially today. I think about how much I miss her and how many things she is missing. Although she isn't physically here, I know she is apart of my life everyday and guiding me through my tough times and celebrating through my great times.

My mom had a lot of health problems including diabetes, heart problems and even breast cancer (which she beat just the week before she died). I think about this every time I go to the doctor and hope that I don't have to endure all these problems as she did. I may not look like her on the outside (she had blue eyes and fair skin!) but I already have some of the same problems she had which scares the heck out of me.

She was a great lady and its sad to know that she didn't get a chance to meet a lot of you because she would have liked everyone, especially her grandson. I miss her jokes and smiles, and of course her hugs and kisses. I'm lucky that over the years i've started to take after her more and i'm proud of it. She is why i'm so independent and strong, she is why I love crafts, and she is why I don't let anyone push me around. She was an OR nurse for many years, she showed horses, loved gardening and cooking, and loved her family. I miss her.

So today, I will think about her and probably cry a little, but I won't ever forget her and everything she did for me and everything she meant to me.

Wild Weekend part 2

It's truly exhausting having such awesome and fun friends! This past weekend can only be described as one hell of a good time. Friday night started with our second dinner in the series entitled "A Blooming Good Time". The theme this dinner was kabobs on the grill and just tons of other salads and treats. Very very good. Barney did an excellent job of getting people's kabobs made and Kritz cooked them up on the grill. It was very well organized and everyone's stuff was very tasty.

Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures of the food but hey it was good anyway!

Next up: A few games of beer pong and flip cup. Last summer sometime Grade and I teamed up and took on Bra and someone else (I really can't remember who) and totally kicked their ass! I'm not a good beer pong player but occasionally I do come through. This was the rematch!

Long story short, we won when it counted, much to Bra's displeasure. The prize: getting to watch our friend eat a dog biscuit!

It just doesn't get much better than that! The night continued with some games of my personal favorite, flip cup. I was first introduced to this game at Jon Coffey's 30th bday and I have loved it ever since. I teamed up with Grade and Bra for a power house team against Heather, Jeremy and Barney. And sometimes Greta jumped in there too.

Both teams won and lost but man was it a good time. After this point and actually during a lot of this I have to say i'm sketchy at best as to what was happening and when, but I think everyone had fun, some of us a little drunk than others!

Saturday brought another fun and exciting day and we headed to the Brewer/Cards game. We met and left at 10am at the park n ride and arrived only to get front row parking in Dodgers 4.5! NICE! We had lots of fun tailgating, trash talking (yes we had some Cards fans in the group and sometimes it got a little lippy!), eating and just hanging out all together.

We headed into the game and got to walk around, got some drinks, found a nice table, carried it with us and just had a blast. So why have we never thought of carrying a table with us--wow good idea! There were so many funny things during the day I can't even remember them all. I do remember that I saw a drunk bloody guy and got security and we also saw a girl fight out in the parking lot. Ya funny--dumb girls!

We continued going out, having some more drinks, pulling over on the side of the road to pee (not me, that was all about the boys!) and ended up back in McFarland and everyone made it home safely.

What will next weekend bring--well for me, a nice 'relaxing' weekend away from everything as I head to my work conference and presentation in Toronto. After these last few weeks I could definitely use a weekend away from the boos and the stress.

Happy Mother's Day

Since I won't be on a computer this weekend, I thought I'd wish all the mother's I know a happy mother's day right now! Hug your mom and tell her you love her this Sunday.

My Mom and me!

My sister, the mom, and my nephew!

Wild Weekend

I'm behind--I need to blog about the weekend but quickly, I saw the cutest thing yesterday. I was driving home from my dad's and have to drive past the landfill on 12 & 18. I was probably going about 60 when I see two geese begin to make their way across the road. SHIT-I thought I gotta slow down. As i'm slowing down I realize in between the two geese are 6 baby geese!! OMG If I could have taken a picture I would have. So now i'm stopped in the middle of a highway waiting for the dang geese to cross the road. I"m seeing cars coming behind me but I wanted to wait till they all got across. Then I see one last little goose straggling behind and even though I'm pretty sure i'm gonna get rear ended at any point I still sit and wait there until the last little baby goose makes it across. Needless to say I didn't get hit and thankfully the car behind me could see them and figured out why I stopped. Cute!

The weekend started out with a big Happy Birthday to Hot Cheese! Ann pulled off a big 30th bday surprise party and he was actually surprised. How often does that really happen?! We went to Glass Nickel on Atwood and it was nice to get everyone together. Hope you had fun Hot Cheese!

Saturday I had totally planned on just staying home and getting things done around the new place. I went and worked out, did a little shopping then got a call from the Anderson's regarding an impromptu card party. Well, I suppose--what the heck else was I gonna do. So I headed over and began what turned into a long night of drinking! Since Heather and I don't get into the poker as much as the boys do, we decided to play some UNO. But wait, Grade piped in saying he had never played UNO. WHAT?!?! Never played UNO. Well this outta be a treat then. Long story short I won! Then we got everyone to play UNO and I won again, then Heather. So pretty much the girls dominated at UNO.

Then we headed out to the Greenie for some drinks and some awesome singing by Heather and Lundo. Wow-pretty good! Now I hav e heard good things about Lundo's singing and of course I know of Heather's becasue we go way back to the Spice Girls days, and maybe it was all the booze, but they were pretty darn good.

We ran into Egner, Stacey, Kelli, and Jordan and had some laughs. The night was a fun-filled one with some dancing, singing, shot taking and oh ya, almost a fight. I don't know much of the details but i'll just say boys will be boys I guess. Grey Goose was not my friend that night and I have come to the realization that I need to switch back to Bacardi because then I don't get super drunk and don't feel shitty the next day! Until next weekend....

A victory for me!

Just a quick note--I used my new washer and dryer last night for the first time and it actually worked! Its the little things of being a first time home owner that really get me excited! I was also pleased with myself for figuring out how the trash pick up works at my place. Nice! I'll keep you posted on future home owner victories for me because I'm kinda of an idiot so i'm sure there will be many more.

Welcome to being a home-owner

I did it! I sucessfully moved into my first place, but not without a lot of help and a few bumps along the way. A shout out to Barney, Jason and Jeremy for doing just an excellent job moving all my crap across town in one trip! It only took us 2.5 hours--unbelievable. Thanks so much to them and my dad and sister for getting up early on a Saturday morning on my behalf.

During the move I also had an electrician there already putting in an outlet for the washer because apparently the builder didn't think it was important to put one in the landry 'room' so that I could plug in my washer. But that has since been fixed, and although I haven't used my washer and dryer yet i'm pretty pumped that I no longer have to hunt around the place for quarters!

The more fun part of the day was heading out for lunch and drinks after the move. We headed to Pooleys-soon to be my new hang probably since I can literally walk home. We watched the draft (blah was that boring) and actually that is probably why I got so drunk because I wasn't into the draft so I just drank more and more. The end of the night led us to Pedros for dinner-after that, I really don't remember much. Ah lovely. I do know that I made it home and slept in my new place for the first time. One thing I did notice was the sidewalk light outside shines DIRECTLY into my bedroom and onto my bed. Now because I don't have any window coverings yet, I found this to be particulary annoying! Ah well, good thing I was wasted and fell asleep easily.

Sunday brought a long, long, I repeat long day of running around, hung over, shopping and cleaning my old apartment. I woke up with the shakes but had to get up and get all my shit done yesterday. I spent a lot of money, barely ate anything and cleaned, cleaned, and cleaned. My sister also pointed out to me that my vacuum wasn't working properly so I'm betting that's why my carpet was so bad in my apartment--but luckily, I bought a new vacuum!

Anyway, the night ended with me locking myself out of my house, mind you its Day 2 that I have been living there, and had to call a locksmith. Geez how embarassing, I move into the neighborhood and have to have a locksmith come out and open my dang door. Yikes! Hopefully I won't do that again soon.