Weekend plans & Five Questions Friday

Friday is here!!!  Better yet, a three-day weekend is on the way.  I'm so looking forward to it, even if I plan to spend most of it painting my kitchen.  Anyone who's painted a kitchen knows that this room might be the biggest pain in the butt.  There's so much to paint AROUND!  I'm going to start the process tonight by taping off the room.  I plan to paint tomorrow, and hopefully complete it in the same day so I can relax on Sunday and Monday.  

Fortunately, I'll have some sports to keep me company while I paint. I love love love this time of year when two of my favorite sports -- Major League Baseball and college football -- collide and overlap.  I'll have two football games and one baseball game to monitor on Saturday.  First up, my alma mater opens their season at 1 p.m. in Wisconsin. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to tune in and listen to it somehow.  Following that will be my beloved Texas Rangers. They are in Boston for the weekend, and tomorrow's game is a matinee. Because of FOX broadcast rules, this means I will only get to listen to the game, not see it.  So Eric Nadel will keep me posted on the game while I (hopefully) put the finishing touches on my kitchen.  In the evening, my Iowa State Cyclones open their football season with the University of Northern Iowa Panthers.  I share season tickets with my parents, and I'm sad I'm not going to this game, but I knew I had a lot of work to get done, and I'll be in Ames for next weekend's CyHawk Showdown.  So I'll be listening on the radio, perhaps with a cold Shiner and my Kindle after a long day of painting. 

And now, let me answer the queries from Five Questions Friday.

1. Shoes in the house - yay or nay?

Sometimes I do leave my shoes on, mostly because I'm too lazy to take them off.  In the summer it's less of a problem since my shoes are usually of the slip-on, slip-off variety.  In the fall/winter, sometimes I forget, but I will probably be a lot more conscious about this since I put in new carpet last week.  It's so pretty and new that I don't want to ruin it.  

Here's what the living room looked like when I first moved in.

New carpet and paint, for the win!

2. What do you call them- flip flops, slippers, thongs, etc?

Flip flops.  Undoubtedly.  I own a few pairs (of the Fit Flop variety, since I need more arch support than standard flip flops provide), but you will not find thongs in my house.  Anywhere.  When I was a cheerleader in high school, we wore thongs under our bloomers because then we didn't have to worry about our undies peeking out.  I didn't like thongs then, and I don't intend to wear them anytime in the future.

This is the last time I wore something referred to as a thong. (That's me on the far left in back.)

3. What song are you almost embarrassed to admit you know all the lyrics to?

Heh.  No way am I embarrassed to know all the lyrics to this, but people are usually surprised to hear me sing along: 

4. What is the best quality to have in a friend?

A caring heart.  Sometimes a friend has to offer a dose of tough love, and sometimes brutal honesty is required, but those words are best delivered by someone who shows a little bit of care.  This characteristic feeds into a lot of other good qualities too, including loyalty and dependability.  Fortunately, I have a lot of friends who have this quality -- they're the ones I hold closest.

Here's Ashley, one of my many awesome friends. This photo is about three years old. Oops.

5. Do you know what you want for Christmas?

Oh yeah.  I have a lot of wants, but only some of them can be bought in a store.  The number one I've already told my parents about is a new coffee maker.  I've had my current one for about seven years, and while it works fine, I am ready for something a little fanciers. First of all, I will never again own a white coffee pot.  No matter how much I clean it, it never looks clean.  Second, I would really like one that is programmable, so I can set it and have the coffee ready when I wake up in the morning.

I don't have a specific coffeemaker picked out, but this one looks pretty nice.

Happy Friday everyone.  Enjoy Labor Day weekend!