I’m usually a pretty drab person when it comes to color. My wardrobe generally consists of black, gray, white with a few color items sprinkled in. My latest decision is to primarily buy white or black tops because those colors look good with just about anything.
Yes. I’m that boring. Shuttie.
When we first bought our house, I was excited to paint. I think I had hundreds of paint swatches. And I soon found out, picking colors is HARD well, especially for me since anyone that knows me also knows that decision making is not one of better qualities.
Eventually, I went with a white with a hint of green in our bedroom, a white with a hint of pink on our spare bedroom, a color called seltzer water wait, can you guess? white with a hint of beigein our kitchen and a creamy white in our living room, dining room and hallway.
Sense a theme?
The most adventurous I got was with our bathroom where I did a light green and I sponge painted it. Can’t get too out of control!
For the last few years, I’ve watched two of my good friends bring amazing colors into their houses. Colors I NEVER would have thought to use. And it made me jealous and envious. So I decided to try to get over my fear of color.
First, I started with the kitchen and I painted it a lovely brown. It looks like a completely different kitchen, in a good way! Jay wasn’t too fond of it at first — he thought it was too dark. But, I think it’s grown on him and he likes it now.
Next, I went to our spare bedroom. Which, I’ll confess, is still a work in progress. I used a color called Riverway from Sherman Williams. It’s decent. It probably wouldn’t have been my first choice but I had the paint because I originally planned to use in the kitchen but hated it after sampling it on the walls. So, instead of letting a full gallon of paint go to waste, I decided to paint the bottom half of the spare bedroom with it. I’m still trying to find a color that I like to go on the top half. Remember, I’ve already told you that I don’t make decisions easily.
I then decided to venture into our bedroom. I needed to find a color that wasn’t too girlie but also wasn’t in the blue, brown or green family I have this weird obsession and can’t paint the same color family in more than one room. I brought home 800-zillion swatches from Menards and settled on Tiger Lily and Jute Brown. I took off last Friday and Monday to give myself an extended weekend and spent all day Monday well, okay, from about 1:30 to 4:30 painting an accent wall. 3 coats later please remind me to NEVER buy anything but Sherwin WIlliams paint and still needing another touch up coat…what do you think?
I don’t think the color is actually as “bright” as it shows up in this picture. Personally? I frickin’ love it. So does Jay so that’s a win-win in my book.
Because I love it so much, I’m thinking of making this the color on the 3 walls and doing the Jute Brown as my accent wall instead. I’m concerned that it will be too much orange and if I REALLY hate it or think it looks awful, I’d be screwed because painting is not one of my favorite things to do and I’d have to prime the walls and paint them Jute Brown after spending all that time painting it the Tiger Lily. Way too much painting in my book, if it goes awfully wrong.
Le Sigh. I’m a lazy ass which is why I generally stick with my white and a tint of color. But, I’m trying to get out of my comfort zone so I should just do it, right? Again, remember that I’m good at making decisions!
I did it. I faxed in my registration for the Danskin Triathlon in July.
EEEEKKKKS. I think I want to throw up.
Come July 13th, I will be killing myself swimming .75 k, biking 20 k and running 5 k.
Dear God please don’t let it be as hot as it was in 2005 or as windy as it was in 2006. If I had to pick though, I’d rather have hot than windy. But neither is better. A perfect temperature day would be great. kthxbai.
My goal for this year is to beat my best time which was from 2005. My final time was 1 hour 51 minutes and 17 seconds which broke down to 16 minutes and 54 seconds for the swim, 47 minutes and 52 seconds for the biking and 39 minutes and 6 seconds for running.
My time from 2006 was awful in comparison but I was battling some serious back problems. My final time was 1 hour 58 minutes and 40 seconds.
Can you sense the enthusiasm dripping from my words?
In all reality though, this event is just a phenomenal experience after all the pain. Maybe one year I’ll get it right and just go watch instead of participate
The official charity of the Danskin Triathlon is the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Cancer research, of any kind, is near and dear to my heart — my mother in law is a two time breast cancer survivor (she is a FIGHTER!) and my grandfather died of cancer.
After the elite athletes kickoff the triathlon these are the people that will crossing the finish line before I even start to swim, the next group of women to go are the cancer survivors. And that, is truly amazing to watch. These women have struggled through some of the toughest moments of their lives and here they are, doing the same triathlon that I’m kicking myself about signing up for!
The first year I did it, there was a team named Team Kathleen and it was so emotional to watch this group of women. One of the woman was using arm crutches and she was surrounded by women that were doing the 5k run (well walk for them) portion with her, as a team. It brought tears to my eyes. It was so emotional.
Watching all these Survivors really puts things into perspective. It gives you courage and motivation when you most need it — before the start of your heat. And it gets you through it. If they can survive cancer, you can surely get through 2 hours of pure hell swimming, biking and running, right?
And this year, I’ll need all the help I can get so I’ll be feeding off the energy of the morning once again and hopefully won’t go into an asthma attack after it’s over, like I did 2 years ago. Ummm, yeah. True story.
Oh, and how was our weekend you might ask? Well, you know, we bought a new Harley and won a grill.
Yes, you read that right.
We Jay bought a new Harley. A 2004 Softtail Standard to be exact.
Sorry, the picture isn’t the greatest — I had limited room to work with as we were in a garage.
We Jayalready own a Sportster but that was always just a “starter” bike. Something to get him out riding. He’s been quite indecisive about what he wants to get but this bike pretty much fell into his lap and couldn’t pass it up. He did some fine negotiating and got a price that was quite fair. We didn’t rob them, and they didn’t take us to the cleaners. I’m good with that.
As if that wasn’t awesome enough…
We were at the yearly MS Benefit that our good friend plans. The same friend that we spend 1-2 hours on Friday night, walking miles and helping to look for her dog. The dog she thought was lost. The dog that was sitting on her couch all along. Yeah. Good times, right?
So here we are, at the MS Benefit, talking, hanging out with friends, having a good time and in the background, I hear my husbands name get called. What!?!
What’s going on?
OMG. We just won a $400 grill.
US.
The unluckiest people alive. EVER.
I think I need to buy a lottery ticket. Maybe my life long dream of becoming rich will come true.
Nah…that would be too easy.
So, yep. A Harley and a grill. I’d say it was a good weekend.
And now, Jay gets to put together a grill. I’m sure that will be entertaining. To say the least.
I received the results back from a home mold test kit I did (I’m guessing there is still a mold problem in our spare bedroom because Mango is still picking at his chest and legs) and guess what?!? It’s not too bad…
Every house will have some mold spores in it. Mold is always present. It’s just when there is excessive moisture that it becomes a problem.
And an out of control lady turning a humidifier up ALL the way = excessive moisture.
So, from the lab report, I have 2 colonies of Penicillium and 1 colony of Rhizopus/Mucor.
To me? This reads like 2 colonies of jfjkldniourengiuqrilfnqwejrnewuirf nernwejkrnjwqe;lkrne and 1 colony of aldfjweiqjrjfkqjehgkheqrkugjhqjrjhqweilrjqeoirj.
It’s not as bad as I was fearing though. A friend of mine did a home mold test kit and she had 16 different types of mold. 16! YIKES!
I’m still planning some major things for this room to eliminate the spores that might be aggravating Mango’s skin. Next Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday will be fun times at our house kill me now.
I’m going to take all my clothes to the laundromat and wash them. I’m going to rip up the remaining carpet in that room (which is in the closet), I’m going to wash the windows, walls, floor and baseboards with a detergent and water. I’m going to vacuum the walls, baseboards and floors with my Dyson that has a Hepa filter. And finally, I’m going to use a fogger and fog the entire room and closet with a product called Concrobium. Most of this was free advice from a “mold guy” I talked to.
Now those 4 days will not be fun but if we can eliminate whatever it is that’s aggravating Mango’s skin then I’m good with wasting spending the time doing this.
And, if all goes really well, then I may even be able to find the time to get my bedroom painted.
No wonder I’m f’ing starving this morning. Sparkpeople.com calculated that I burned 627 during my 1.09 mile swim this morning.
I’m sure I won’t be able to move my arms tomorrow but at least I burned barely more calories than I chose to eat for breakfast. Who would have guessed that my one slice of toast with 1 pat of butter would cost me 200 calories? Not to mention the 271 calories for the egg, bacon and pepper omelet YUM! Or the 12 Frosted Mini Wheats that I had before hitting the gym.
Sigh…I have mentioned that I make bad food choices, right?
I was supposed to be off work today. Not just today, but Monday also. Since I have insanely busy, but mostly fun weekend plans, I chose to take next Friday and Monday off. I was taking the time off to do some stuff around the house so I’d rather have the weekend in addition to those days off. It seemed silly that I wouldn’t be able to continuously do stuff over the weekend, if I was on a roll and got extremely ambitious HA, you obviously don’t know me if you think that will actually happen.
Man, it SUCKS working when you were supposed to be at home sleeping cleaning, and organizing and throwing stuff away and painting.
So, more on the weekend plans…unfortunately, this weekend can’t possibly live up to last weekend (I need to dedicate an entry to this all on it its own — it’s that worth it!). But, it will be be great nonetheless.
Tomorrow morning at an obscene time for a weekend I have to take Mango, the bald pickin’ pink chicken to the vet, again. He’s still picking at his chest and legs.
After that, I’m going to stop at my best friends house to see what a wonderful job her friend did with helping her decorate her house. I’m hoping to maybe bribe ask him for some help as well. That is, if he promises to pretend to not see the nasty disgusting carpeting we inherited when we bought the house 4+ years ago and haven’t quite gotten around to replacing.
Oh, and I also have to give a shout out to my bff. She is graduating with her bachelor’s degree in social work in May and she was accepted into Graduate school. What a long way she’s come from the days of ditching her freshman year college classes I am SOOOOOOO very proud of her. And, I can’t wait to throw her a kick-ass graduation party! I love you Janie!
Then, Saturday evening, I’m driving to meet up with some coworker friends. I love these girls. They are my sanity some days. I’m closer with 2 of them and there are days that if you were to overhear our conversation, you would think we actually hated each other. We have that great, “let’s give each other a ton of shit” friendship. Hopefully we don’t freak our other friend out
*Sorry for the poor quality picture. Obviously the person who took it, sucked at taking pictures.
On Sunday, the wedding festivities begin for our good friends E & J and I will be headed to E’s bridal shower. I’m so excited for them!
As if that isn’t enough going on!
My sister asked if my mom and I would come over, after the shower, and help her re-organize the furniture in her house. Her wonderful husband is giving her some resistance and tells her to “leave the office alone. Leave Guitar’s family joke that this is what they will be naming their first son room alone”. So, with all of us there to play interior designer, he obviously can’t put up a fight, right?
I’m tired after typing all that. And, why did I not keep Monday as a vacation day?
(please note the saying the mirror she is holding. It is SOOOO true!)
I remember 28…sigh.
And while we don’t always get along or see eye-to-eye, I couldn’t ask for a better sister well, maybe one that would agree that I’m always right. Her strength constantly amazes me. I don’t think I’ve EVER met anyone that is as opinionated and not afraid to voice their opinion as much as she. Granted this can be a good and a bad thing But it takes a strong person to not care what others think of them and their opinions. I’m constantly in awe of her of and the amazing life (including her extreme thriftiness) she has built for herself.
Oh, and she has a Wii — and I want one. Please invite us over more to play it.
So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARCIE!!!
I hope that you have a fabulous day and Tim spoils you rotten.
For Christmas, I bought Jay tickets to the Bears last game of the season (against the New Orleans Saints). I had never been to a game and since Jay loves to spend time with me (right honey? ) he took me to the game.
We had it all figured out and were planning on taking the train and then getting a cab from the train station to take us to Soldier Field. We even woke up ridiculously early and went to breakfast. We came home and I took a shower after which, we made the very bad decision of driving to the game instead. We left the house much later than we should have but didn’t have many traffic issues until we got closer. YIKES. I’m not very familiar with that area of Chicago so both Jay and I were clueless on how to avoid the mass congestion we found ourselves in. We also don’t do very well together in high stress driving situations — for example, lets refer to the time we drove to TN and Jay looked at me and said “Do you have a gun? If so, can I please borrow it so I can blow my brains out”. Good times. After 2 wrong turns, we finally found ourselves on Lake Shore Drive heading south. I recognized one of the exits (31st Street) and knew from some of my incessant research that we could park at McCormick Place, which was at the 31st exit. It wasn’t my first choice of places to park, but it worked and it was cheaper than my first choice parking lots ($18 vs. $40!). Unfortunately, we were running late so we missed the opening kickoff. But, we did pick up some cool hats in the parking lot!
It was COLD but the game was great and we had so much fun! We barely sat in our seats (which were AMAZING – 17th row!) because we could see just as well as on the concourse (is that what’s its called? The area behind the seats with all the concession stands?) and not be confined to our seats.
Unfortunately, my camera doesn’t have a great zoom so these are the best of the pictures:
(getting ready to kick in this one)
Is that Hester running? Probably…
We had so much fun probably because they didn’t suck which is somewhat in part due to the Bears winning. We are even contemplating getting on the ridiculously long waiting list to become season ticket holders. I figure we have 10-15 years so we can probably afford them by then!
35-7. That’s the score of the Bear-Packer game yesterday.
I don’t think many were surprised at the actual score. What I think surprised most everyone, is that the Bears scored 35 and the Packers scored 7. What excitement!
The Bears haven’t swept the Packers since 2005. If only we (and by this, I mean the Chicago Bears) could win like this all the time.
I’ve blogged about my bff previously, and just how wonderful she is. I also probably don’t give my husband enough credit as he is equally as wonderful. I have a lot of history with these 2 people and I really can’t say enough good things about them. I do not think I would be the person I am today, without them in my life.
Again this year, mother nature wasn’t smiling down on me for my birthday. Around 5pm I got the call from my mom saying that she, her boyfriend, my brother, his girlfriend and my grandma weren’t going to be making it to dinner due to the weather. Sigh…I do understand. The weather was crap and on a good day, the drive would take them 70 minutes, at least.
To kickoff the festivities, Jane and her son came over, bearing gifts. Have I already mentioned how much I adore them? Well, it turns out that Jane forgot to bring some better shoes and only had ballet flat shoes. In true Jane style, she fashioned garbage bags on her feet to prevent her shoes from getting soaked.
We normally don’t do gifts for each other, but for some reason, she felt the need to do so this year. Since she was recently laid off (or according to her son, “fired, but they fired everyone”), she visited the re-gift store located in a closet at her mom’s house. Since it was a need/want thing, Jane took the bottle of perfume for herself and gave me this:
Yep. I am now the proud owner inflatable leg things. To bad she couldn’t have given me these sooner, I could have let my dad borrow them while he was in the hospital. It might have saved him a $500 a day if he didn’t have to use the ones they provided. And as much as I laugh atlove the gift, I do think Jay might try to steal them away from me…
I also recieved this years HOTTEST gift. The 2007 we energies cookie book. I’m not kidding and I know you’re jealous. Jane had to drive all the way to Sturtevant, WI to pick up this baby. I do not care how much begging and pleading you do, I’m not giving this gift up ok, I probably would.
At 5:30, I called my friend Erica to see if they were still planning on meeting us for dinner and they were. Alas, an hour later, my mom called and said that Erica and crew; Jon (Erica’s fiance), Cheryl (Erica’s mom) and Mick (Cheryl’s boyfriend) were not going to be making it afterall. I guess they started to head to Kenosha but the roads were slippery and they saw 4 accidents so they decided not to take any chances and turned around.
At this point, we decided to change our plans and went to a different restaurant for dinner and Jane’s son kept us laughing with his nostril entertainment.
After dinner, we ended up dropping Jane and her son off at our house and they drove back to her mom’s house. She had some studying to do and we both knew it wouldn’t happen if they spent the night. Jay and I decided to frequent our familiar corner bar for a drink or ten. We weren’t originally planning on staying out for very long but our friends Danny and Chante called and said they were coming to meet us out. You know it’s going to be a long night (or should I say a painful morning?) when the first thing that happens upon them showing us is the ordering of a round of jager bombs.
As you can imagine, we had a fabulous evening and my camera captured some great pictures…and some even better self portraits.
And still better yet, a classic video of “Dancing Dan”. I must warn you before you view this though. Please do not watch this while drinking beverages of any sort. There is a very good chance you will spit whatever you are drinking onto your computer screen while laughing. Enjoy.
*I apologize for how dark the video is – it was taken with my digital camera.
All in all, thanks to my absolutely wonderful husband and friends, I had an awesome birthday. This one will be remembed as one of my favorites.
