A Boomin' Good Time

This weekend marked two events, Kevin's 30th birthday and Grade's "A Boomin Good Time' party that we have all been looking forward to for a while. Friday night started off with a small gathering at the Rausch/Teter residence for lots of drinking, flip cup playing and even swimming! Jeremy and Grade decided it would be fun to strip down to their underwear and jump into the pool. And Ann joined in! Way to have guts Ann. Unfortunately I did not get a picture of that blessed event but i'm sure someone does...Happy Birthday Kevin!

Saturday proved to be a really busy but really fun day for me. I woke up early to go help take care of my nephew (long story, don't want to get into it here). I had to bring over all my ingrediants to make my dessert that I was bringing to the party later in the day.

I got home about 11:30 and got everything ready for the party. Jeremy, me, Heather, Bra, Lundo and Egner all arrived at Grade's apartment together and first thing on the list...jager bombs all around. Me and Heather just did jager shots as neither of us likes red bull. Heather and I then played a little foos ball--or I should say TRIED to play, but still had fun. There were people playing bags outside, people singing and dacing inside, and people coming and going all the time.

I think highlights of the day/night for me were:

• the multitude of jager shots happening



• Sasha sticking her nose up my skirt--and I mean REALLY up my skirt


• turning Grade's kitchen/living room into Club Grade
  

• watching Grade kick people out of the parking lot and almost starting fights



• Heather and I drinking martinis



• late night feats of strength with 40lb dumb-bells...I have to say i'm a little sore today. So much for my no-lifting order from the doctor!



• Grade #2 and I playing flip cup...by ourselves...one on one....with three cups



• Heather's wet spot caused by Lundo....don't ask :)

• and of course, the fireworks!

It couldn't have been a better day, except for the minor rain delay. Thanks Grade for an awesome party. Can't wait until next year!

What a difference a day makes!

So if you had bet that TODAY would be the day that I actually killed the flower, you might be right. I am almost positive that by the time I get home today, my nice housewarming flower will be dead! Wow, I suck at keep plants and flowers alive. I thought it was going well, the picture from yesterday was very nice. But today--not so much! Ah well, FYI, never buy me a plant or flower because obviously I have no idea what i'm doing!

In other news, I wanted to inform you of my quest for finding the perfect deodorant. I have struggled with deodorants for as long as I can remember and I"m sick of it! I used to use men's and i'm very VERY close to going back to that. I just hate the way they smell, but they work SO much better and there's no white stuff!

So this weekend I will be testing Secret's Flawless brand. It will be a good test because i'll be outside in the sunny weather all day and i'll be wearing a tank top. My pet peeves about my most recent deodorants were that when I worked out hard (ie running and doing all my cardio) it just didn't last. And it also got all white and bumpy on hot days with tank tops! ARGH, hate it! So i'm trying a new kind, getting away from the Dove deodorants and trying Secret again. If this one doesn't work well i'm going to try the 'clinical strength' sport one from Secret but it just sucks because its almost $8 a stick! I'll keep you posted as i'm sure you're dying to know all about it!

Random Thoughts

I haven't blogged in a while and instead of blogging about how much fun the weekend was (ie housewarming party and JJO girls nite out) I decided I would just blog about what's been going on this week and some thoughts I have on it!

First up, I bought a ceiling fan on Monday that is STILL sitting in its million pieces in my living room. Now good ole Kevin is coming over tonight and hopefully by the end of the night, I will have a nice new working ceiling fan in my bedroom. Very exciting and now I can cross "purchase ceiling fan" off my list

Next, last night I got the itch to do some document shredding! Now I LOVE shredding paper in my shredder at home! Weird? Maybe, but it's a lot of fun. I tend to do this periodically and shred all my purchases or receipts, my bank statements which I hate receiving paper copies of, and most of my online payment receipts. I kept the ones for 2008 but got rid of everything else. Love it!

Yesterday I also stayed late at work to attend my employee appreciation reception, which by the way made me stay 2.5 hours longer at work than I normally am here since I come in at 6am! Ya wasn't worth it! Now my work has NEVER done this before so I was curious to know what it would be like. I knew there was going to be a gift since I was asked to provide a list of names from everyone that works in the lab. So of course I had to stay and figure out what it was. I thought I could just grab the gift and go....NO OF COURSE NOT.

We had to mingle and talk (like I don't see these people enough during the week) and snack on refreshments which included fruit and chocolate cake! I had neither! THEN, they wanted to do a group picture. AH, are you serious?! So we had to all squish together, all 100 of us and the guy took a bunch of pictures from the second floor of the atrium. Totally lame. Then FINALLY I got my gift and I basically ran out of there at about 5pm! The gift was a company logo engraved metal water thingy, pictured below. Not bad, worth an 11 hour day and a lamo photo? Probably not....can't wait until next year :)

And also, I wanted to include this picture of this flower that Arick and Brooke gave me for my housewarming. Now anyone that knows me well would know NOT to get me any kind of flower or plant because it will never survive. Its a death wish for the living thing! Heather came over on Monday and saw the flower and just started laughing because two days into having it, it looked terrible. BUT, I decided I was going to try and revive it. So I watered it (for the first time since I had gotten it) and put it on my table where I knew it would get sun. I am HAPPY to report the flower has come alive again and it looking wonderful! Any bets on how long before I actually kill it??

A Night of Kitchen Supplies!

Last night I hosted my first Pampered Chef party at my new place! Wow-hectic day for me but I think it went very well. I've been so busy the last few days that of course I waited until yesterday after work to really clean and prep food and stuff but I managed to get it all done in plenty of time for the guests to arrive. I had about 15 ladies, 1 man, and two 18-month olds running around my condo and needless to say I was running around after everyone. It was a mix of work ladies and friends and of course the two kids. But the salad the pampered chef lady made was a big hit. And of course she showed us how to use all the cool kitchen tools she brought along. Me being the big cooker I am (?) didn't know how to use anything nor did I own anything. But the salad was awesome! Here's the recipe:

Mandarin Pasta Salad

Dressing:
1 clove fresh garlic
1 clump fresh gingerroot (this can be found in the produce department)
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup veg oil
1 envelope Lipton Onion Soup Mix
2 teas sugar

Salad
8 oz COOKED bow tie pasta
1 cucumber
1 red pepper
1 red onion
1 package fresh baby spinach leaves
2 cans (11oz) mandarin orange segments
2 cups COOKED chicken breast

At the end of the night, the ladies managed to order over $1000 worth of product, which for me means I get $215 of stuff for free, 4 half price items, a host special, a free chop knife and 30% off all my other purchases! I was shocked! I was shooting for a $500 show and ended up doubling it! Thanks ladies I appreciate it and I hope everyone enjoys their stuff. I'm not sure what i'm getting yet but i'm excited to pick it out :)

Over due shout out!

I just wanted to say congrats to my friends Mike and Jenny from Chicago and their new addition to the family, Regan and Riley who arrived 14 weeks early and weigh just over 1lb each. I have known these two for many years now and am so excited for them and their sweet girls. Congrats guys and good luck!

The little preemie diapers for the girls!

Job Dislikes

Do you have a part of your job that you absolutely hate?? I DO! And I feel like talking about it because I hate it so much that I want you all to know about it :) Also, I'm talking about it because i'm in the middle of doing this ALL DAY today, then on Tuesday, then 5 more times over the next three weeks!

So up until this past November I was a full time lab technician in our Allergy/Asthma/Pulmonary research lab. I wasn't too happy doing this anymore so I was 'promoted' to do half lab and half regulatory/IRB work, which is more administrative. Love it! Love doing the paperwork and handling research study consents and administration.

But of course i'm still doing some lab things. One of those things is processing lung biopsies that we collect from our research subjects. Collecting these is kinda fun because I get to go in while the doctors are doing the bronchscopy and collect the tiny little pieces of lung that the docs pull out. http://www.ehealthmd.com/library/bronchoscopy/BSC_whatis.html

Then the crap part begins when I have to bring them back into the lab and over the next three days, 'process' them or change them into different solutions, that become more toxic as each day goes on until on Day 3 when I have to embed them into glycolmethacrylate or GMA. http://www.abcam.com/index.html?pageconfig=resource&rid=11464

IT SUCKS! I hate working with chemicals that dangerous and its very toxic. I have to wear two pairs of gloves and do the procedure in a fume hood. Today i'm on day 2 of this and have to change solution every two hours for the rest of the day. The last lady that had to do this procedure all the time died of stage 4 breast cancer this past year. Now, I'm not so naive that I think this work caused her to have cancer BUT, it even says on the bottle of all these chemicals that females of child bearing potential shouldn't be working with this stuff. Of course yes I take a lot of care in working with this stuff and protect myself as much as I can but still! SO YA, not real happy about this. And lucky for me I have 5 more of these in the next three weeks! The week of June 23rd I have three, Monday, Wednesday and Friday so if I seem on edge, that is why!

Thanks for listening :)

Nothing short of a miracle....

I feel like a broken record but I had another blast of a weekend! Friday night started off with a few of us going to see The Strangers, on opening night, not the best idea we've ever had. The movie was only so-so in my opinion. I did jump a few times but the crowd, especially right around us really took away from the suspense and scariness of the movie. Ah well, fun to see.

Saturday started off with Jeremy, Heather and I participating in the Komen Race for the Cure held at the Alliant Center. It was such a great morning and the event was well attended. I got my second best time and unfortunately, much to my displeasure, I was not able to beat Jeremy! He got me by ~20 seconds. Argh! Maybe next race. It was a nice way to start the day and thanks H and J for joining me!

Next up was Dan's party out in Waunakee. Wow, fun times were had by all. Lots of flip cup, lots of wiffle ball, lots of wop, lots of falling down, and for some, lots of throwing up. (Not me thank god!) Too many funny things happened to recall but thanks Dan for hosting and thanks Kelli for making awesome wop! Until next time.

The weekend finished up with me and Heather going to see Sex in the City. Good movie! I loved the show and was not dissapointed with the flick. At least in our showing we didn't have an audience full of girls all dressed up in heels and dresses like the ones we saw on Friday night. Eh, its just a movie :)

I did learn a few important things about myself this weekend that i'd like to share:

1. I am NOT good at bidding on auction items. Although I won my first item, I somehow got out bid on ALL my others!

2. I am NOT good at running from home plate to first base. Ouch--funny to see me take a digger into the grass but yikes it hurt!

3. I am NOT good at driving big lawn mowers at midnight after a long day of drinking. I'm lucky i'm not in the hosptial due to injuries sustained while operating a motorized vehicle down the driveway :)

4. I am NOT good at leg wrestling boys in the garage for a quarter. Ouch again, I ended up on the ground. Thanks a lot Eggs!

5. I AM good at making cookies and pasta salad out of a box.

6. I AM good at flip cup, but only when i'm at the start of the line.

7. I AM good at hitting wiffle balls--got on base almost every hit except when I fell down :(

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!