Just Thursday... 9.30.10

Link up over here, if you want to play along!

Outside my window..it's sunny... but I think it's cold cause I watched the forecast for today... 

The time is..8:50am

Today I feel..lazy, but have so much to do!

I am thinking.. my tummy hurts

At the moment, I am thankful.. for my boyfriend

I am going..to finally drink some coffee today

I am wearing..jeans and t-shirt

I wish..for world peace

I am reading..nothing.. yet.  I was told about this series that starts with a book called the girl with the dragon tattoo, have any of you read it?  Good? Bad?

I am working on..cleaning up folder on the hard drive and preparing for a new server tomorrow!

I am hoping..that the day goes by quickly

I am hearing..computers hum...

I bet you didn't know..that tomorrow is October 1st.  Oh crap.. never mind.

One of my favorite..things to do is travel.

Weekend Plans.. 

[Thursday] work, go to grandma's and clean her apartment, hopefully sell a few more yearbooks, go home, crash

[Friday] Work (so not normal!), then who knows.

[Saturday] Cars and Coffee, meeting with a financial advisor type person,  making dinner for boyfriend

[Sunday] TWINS GAME!!  last regular season home game of the year.. and we're going!

F-sticks!

To clarify - I am not talking about fish-sticks.  I'm talking about people that I'd call a bad word, that starts with the letter F.  Think about it.

Here is the story - so I'm at the local grocery store here in the little town I work in and I am there simply to get a couple pictures printed for my work desk (I needed an upgrade).  So I print them on the machine and stand at the counter to pay for them.  The nice lady says "it'll be just a minute" as she had her hands in a black box trying to get something apart inside.  No worries, I wait.

After a couple minutes she looks over at the 'customer service' counter and says to the nice lady over there (who was ringing somebody up) "Can you do me a favor when you're finished; could you ring her up for a few pictures?"  Lady #2 says "Sure".    I walk 7 steps to the next counter and wait for her to finish.  The customer leave and I step up to the counter, set my pictures down and proceed to pull a dollar out of my wallet. "WHAT THE HELL!" I hear from behind me.  I turn to see this middle-aged man staring me down "I was next!"  Completely embarrassed I move and say, "Oh, I'm sorry!"  He walks up to the counter and looks back to me "Not to be rude, but I was ..." I cut him off and say "Well, you were rude."

I'm so sick of people thinking they can just walk all over people.  I used to speak my mind more and tell people when they were being assholes, but as I grow older I do that less... and since dating Steve I do it even less than that.  I felt this dude needed to know he was rude, so I told him.

After I said that he looks over at me, shocked that a little girl like me is talking back and I say "A simple 'excuse me' would have got my attention, I wasn't trying to cut in line, I simply didn't see you".  Then he starts doing the head roll thing... he looks at me in, what I can only imagine is, his best attempt to be ghetto and says "I don't know those 2 words, cause it's not every day I run into people like that up in these parts".  No joke.  I cut him off again and say, while rolling my head back to mock him, "you ain't gotta roll your head at me".. and stopped listening at that point.

I grew up in the city, I know how to be ghetto fab and I know how to talk back to people.  I choose not to do it daily.  Today... I couldn't hold back.  "WHAT THE HELL!" is not the way to tell someone they cut in line.  The cashier and I had a nice laugh about it afterwards.

So anyhow - to end this on a positive note; you've already seen these pictures probably, but now they are framed on my desk, so I can see them daily:

Reunion Success!

Well ladies and germs - my reunion was held this past Saturday and I would go so far as to say it was a success!

We sold a grand total of 19 tickets in advance.  This was a HUGE concern to me.  We rented this space for a certain amount and based on the number of advance tickets, we ordered food based on the money we had from those sales.  Basically, let's say the room was (these numbers are made up to give an example) $1000, we need to order food and sell enough drinks to pay off $1000.00.  So we ordered half the dollar amount in food, which happened to be pretty much the exact amount of advanced tickets, less fees we had to pay in to certain websites.  So going in we know that we have half the balance covered and that we need to sell X amount of tickets at the door OR sell X dollars in drinks at the bar (can I just mention that I love how the bar sales go towards our room balance, it's fantastic, 'cause Nordeasters can DRINK)!  More on this as the night goes on...

I make myself even more beautiful than usual:

I go to Party City to pick up balloons - due to be ready at 4:00.  They ask my name, "Angela", I tell them.  "Angela, Angela... Angela..." - no balloons to be found.  WTF.  This is not the way I wanted to start my evening.  Finally the dude who took my order the other day comes over and says "Yeah, they're blue... right here" as he grabs a brown bag of balloons not even remotely close to full of He (helium for those not familiar with the periodic table of elements).  SoooOOOoooo... Long conversation short - I was out of there no more than 10 minutes later.  ugh.

I shove 24 balloons into the backseat of my little Yaris:

and drive to NE Minneapolis.

I arrive just after 4:30, and Pam got there about 5:00.  Our reunion was set to start at 6:00 - we didn't have money for decorations aside from balloons, so we set our our balloon bunches and stand around talking to the bartender, Buck.  I know Buck from my previous life in NE, so it's a pretty casual conversation.  He offers to buy both Pam and myself a drink before this event gets hoppin'.  I opt for a shot of tequila to calm my nerves and Pam asks for a weak captain diet as she is hungover from Friday night.  lame.

6:00 rolls around and we have our first pay at the door purchase with a spouse!  2 tickets down at the door, so far, so good!  We didn't really expect to see anyone right at 6, but whatever.. the more people arrive, the less I feel worried.  Shortly after, another couple arrive, prepaid.  Now we're talkin'.  I feel comfortable talking to these people and we talk about music and school... life in general.
I don't even know what time it was when the rest of the people started to arrive, but before I know it we have kind of a lot of people in this room!  On top of that, we've sold a lot of tickets at the door!

The shots and cocktails are flowing like mad - I can just see dollar signs in the are over the bar and I'm thinkin' "We're gonna do this, we will drink the balance away!!".  A bit later Pam comes up to me and says "Paula (the lady who she's been coordinating with to plan and book this gig), said we are good at the bar and we can pay her anytime for the food"  SUCCESS!!  I figure, rather than try to pay with the money in the bank account, let's see what we have sitting at the door for cash.  We have enough to pay her, plus I got the $200 I put in to open the bank account.. PLUS some extra to deposit for our next reunion!

I heard from a lot of people that they heard people talking and read comments about how people were commenting on the price of the reunion and, while it was good feedback, it made me kind of pissed because a) do people think this shit is free; the food, the bartender, the space? b) who the fuck cares!?  Its a fee you have to pay once every 10 years, it's not like we were charging $50/ticket and having nothing to offer?  c) we had NO money before this, as a class... now we can maybe do some fun stuff in another 10 years OR lower the price based on the money we have...   dumb bitches.

The day before the reunion I was contacted by the school's Yearbook advisor and was asked if I wanted a box of year 2000 yearbooks to try and sell - he'd split the cost with me.  OKAY!  Those were a huge hit!  We sold 8 of them and had one out on each table for people to look through!  The people who purchased were walking around having people sign their yearbooks, which was so much fun!  Seriously, I think having those out really helped save the night!  We went through and talked shit about people who didn't come or had lame excuses for not coming (serious excuses were excused).

All in all, it was a super fun night!  People showed up who I generally wanted to see and talk to, no fakey stuff going on... a few faces that I didn't remember but we got past it and made friends now - I think I've added like 15 new facebook contacts since Saturday!

Some pictures to share from the night:

Me before the shot of tequila:

 Pam and I before everyone got there and after the shot of tequila (I absolutely love this picture of us):

Me and my girl, Amy: 

The entire group, at one point, I think more people arrived after this:

Shanee and Ang (I love this girl!!):

A few of the hot ladies, with Shadd P (the ladies man):

So in all... I told you we paid off the space, I got my $200 back, we have some money accruing interest in the bank for the next 10 years... I think about 35 people were there (not everyone signed in, so I can't say for sure).  Not the best turnout, but more than we expected and all wonderful people to see!

The super odd thing... remember the girl from this post - she bought a ticket in advance, you know, cause we were planning it, and she didn't show up.  I felt really bad and everyone was asking where she was - all I could say was "I don't know".  I really thought she'd be there.  I did send her an email the following day and told her she was missed and let her know that we made some money and it was a successful evening.

Parts of me want to try again in 5 years, because since picture have been posting all over facebook, there are a lot of people who regret not coming (whether excused or not) - and I feel like we'd get a better turn out now that one has gone down.  HOWEVER!  HOWEVER!  HOWEVER!  I most likely will not plan another one in 5 years - maybe we'll just have a night to get together at a bar or something.

It's done now - I can sleep soundly again.

Red Red Wine

So, boyfriend made dinner last night and bought a bottle of wine to drink with dinner, so I had another wine photo shoot.. but I screwed up big time by taking the pictures after dinner when the wine glasses had icky fingerprints and were just dirty looking.  Nothing is more disgusting than a dirty wine glass, imo.  The lighting sucked too...

However, here are the pictures anyways, for you to enjoy!

Any of them jump out at you?

Bathroom Vanity Project

So.. my mom is dating this dude who owns a home remodeling company.  People will rip apart their homes and throw the stuff out that they don't want.  For the longest time I've had a pedestal sink in my bathroom, which allows for no storage space!  Upon meeting this guy it was discussed that if he ever come across a bathroom vanity, to steal it for me.... so he did!  It needed some work, easy stuff that he took care of for me (patching, sanding, etc.) - but it also needed to be painted once in the bathroom.  After months of seeing it look like this:

I decided something needed to be done!

So, first things first - take off the doors and hardware.  If I'm going to paint this bitch, I'm going to do it the right way!

 Also.. BEFORE you begin... make sure you have a paintbrush that is good quality and comfortable to hold and fit into smaller spaces.  I began with a crappy, piece of crap, crap-tastic paintbrush and it SUCKED!  So mid-stroke I left my house in my purple Vikings crocs and went to Lowe's to buy this beauty:

Next step is to prime the wood - wood is extremely porous and will soak up paint and likely discolor it as you go.  Using primer is basically assuring that your paint will go on evenly and give you a nice base coat to work with.

Once everything is primed... wait for it to dry.  Go check your facebook, eat lunch, play with your niece, whatever.  The specific primer I used was a quick dry and I put on a pretty thin coat, so I wasn't worried about waiting HOURS before I began painting.

So.. moving on to painting - the key here is to apply thin coats.  Thin coats will look more even and they dry quicker.  Glopping on paint only leads to future chipping and overall destruction.  For my project, I had to apply 2 coats and I let everything dry completely between coats and before installing any hardwares or installing the doors.

I also wanted to change up the hardware (see ugly 'before' pictures), so I made boyfriend make the trip to Home Depot with me (I absolutely hate those big tall ceiling stores; Lowe's, Menard's, Home Depot - and in effort to get over my fears, I make him go with me and {literally} hold my hand the whole time - 'nother blog in itself).  So we go in, not even bothering to think about the current hardware (towel racks, etc) and what they look like... I knew the stuff was chrome - so we had that to go on... I also knew the general shape of things... AND I had a new TP holder that I was going to install that I knew the look of... so we based everything on my crappy memory (note to you: look at your current hardware before driving to Home Depot to buy 'matching' hardware).

HOWEVER - we did good and everything we bought (hinges and knobs) look just like they belong!

So... I put on the knobs and install the hinges myself, no problem.  

I go to install the doors and get the first one on, no sweat... the second door... not so easy.  I start grunting and making Snooki sighs and Steve comes in and helps me take the first door off so that we can put both on the right way (insert blushing face here - apparently I don't know how to ask for help).

Without further ado - here is the finished product:

I began working on Friday afternoon and finished installing the doors on Sunday evening - I let the first coat of paint dry overnight Friday, and the second coat dried overnight Saturday, to ensure completely dryness!  It makes the bathroom look so much better too!

Baseball - Minnesota Twins - WOO-HOO!

With the huge excitement of opening in a brand new ballpark - The Minnesota Twins could only dream of where the season would take them.


I'm proud to say that I've been to probably a dozen games this season.  The ballpark (Target Field) is absolutely beautiful, stunning, breathtaking... simply amazing.  The first few games I went to were spent looking around - I'm still not even sure if we won or lost those games.  It doesn't matter right now because my hometown team has accomplished so much this week.  On Tuesday night, beating the Cleveland Indians and watching as Oakland destroyed the Southside Chicago White Sox - it was official; we clinched our spot as the Champions of the American League Central division!  How fucking cool is this for Minnesota and the loyal sports fans we have here?!


Currently, as I type this, the Twins are tied (TIED) with the New York Yankees for first place in the entire American League!  This is NOT small apples ladies and gentleman; we lost to the Yankees in the first round of the playoffs last year.  It was a sad day.  We are now playing our butts of to try and secure home field advantage (which doesn't have the same ring as Dome field advantage, but it'll do).


The season has had it's ups and downs for sure - the signing of Joe Mauer for the next 8 years was a huge high for me!  The knee Morneau took to the head, essentially causing a concussion and ending his season was a huge blow to our team - but everyone stepped up and did their part to get us where we need to be.


Our players are real, they are down to Earth, and they are good at what they do.  The don't walk around cocky like the gay-rods and jeters of the world.. they're hometown boys who want to win and have fun doing it.  It's electrifying to enter Target Field and feel the energy.  


I have tickets to the last regular season home game AND apparently Steve has playoff tickets.  I have my 2010 homer hanky (thanks to my wonderful boyfriend and his downtown Minneapolis office) and I'm ready to use it:

If this season takes us no where, we can all say it's been a beautiful, fun, and simply amazing run this year - but something tells me this 2010 baseball season has a lot more in store for the Minnesota Twins.


Can you imagine the celebrations yet to come?


So come on everybody - if you haven't already jumped on the bandwagon, now is the time!



We're gonna win, Twins
We're gonna score
We're gonna win, Twins
Watch that baseball soar.
Crack out a home run
Shout a hip-hooray
Cheer for the Minnesota Twins today!


These are the moments that 'The Pursuit of Happiness' in my blog title is so apparent.
God, it's an exciting time to be a Twins fan!

Random Pictures

I brought my camera to work today - to post this little project I did over the weekend (don't get too excited, I just painted my bathroom vanity).... and realized I had a crap ton of other pictures I needed to do something with.

So... without further ado:
A couple weeks ago I got home from work and needed wanted to drink.  Upon opening my bottle of wine and opening my white and orange string cheese wrapper, I decided that I should take some pictures of my wine.  I've always thought wine is a great subject:

Then, after that I decided to update my facebook status asking about drinking wine and eating string cheese; let me share that with you, in case you're ever in this situation (click on this to enlarge, if you can't read it):

It struck me as pretty funny... the response I got for asking that silly question.

Then - I went over to my brother's house the other day to babysit for a couple of hours.  I was able to get a few good shots while there:

Jordan and her daddy (my brother), daddy's girl much?:

 

 Jordan is in this phase of not wanting her picture taken.. so the times you can get her to smile it is sometimes a pretty sarcastic smile, see first picture below (her and 'party grandma' (my mom):

This one turned out cute though...

THEN...  this past Friday my mom was watching her for a little bit and they went shopping only to return with a surprise for auntie (that's me!)... they walk downstairs and my adorable little niece is wearing this:

Then we say "GO VIKINGS!!" and she says "GO VIKINGS!!" and I snap this picture:

Isn't she the cutest thing ever?!  seriously...

Project post coming soon-ish.