The second museum: Two Rivers History Museum

Yesterday on the way home from the Wood Type Museum, I walked past the Two Rivers History Museum. I don't see it open very often, so I decided I had better strike while the iron is hot. I got a personal guided tour from a very nice older lady there, and it was pretty interesting.

The museum is located in what used to be the convent for St. Luke's church. It is now a collection of many different things. Each room in the convent is dedicated to something different, including dolls, music, aprons, glass/crystal baskets, genealogy, local churches, Boy/Girl Scouts, local football teams/Green Bay Packers, and items from different nationalities. Basically, it's a hodgepodge of items that are old that were donated when someone died. Does that sound harsh? Yes, but it's actually exactly what the woman who gave me the tour said. She was really kinda cute the way she kept almost apologizing for the seemingly random collection of items they have. I found it kind of interesting to talk with her about what Two Rivers used to be like. She showed me a bunch of old pictures of St. Luke's church, which is where my gym is now located. It's amazing how different it looked 50 years ago! I also got to see some neat pictures of the old high school in Two Rivers. It certainly was a beautiful building.

I had a nice time talking with the woman volunteering there, although I will say it wasn't necessarily the best museum I've ever been to. If you're just sitting around doing nothing some afternoon, I would recommend you check it out. Two Rivers natives will probably really appreciate a lot of the items that they have from back in the day, although I found them interesting even though I'm an outsider.

Address: 1810 Jefferson St
Hours: Mon-Fri 10-4, Sat 10-3 and Sun 1-4
Would I recommend? If you don't have anything else to do
Awesomeness level(1=sucky, 5=CAN'T MISS): 2
Website: none
Time required: 30 minutes if you have a guided tour, less if you go at it alone

The first museum of the month: Hamilton Wood Type

The first museum I attended as part of my October challenge was the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum at 1619 Jefferson St in Two Rivers. I had visited this museum shortly after I moved to town with my parents about 5 years ago, and I wasn't too impressed. However, I watched a program about the wood type museum on PBS last week and it made me want to give it a second chance.

For those of you who don't know what wood type is (and I didn't before I went to the museum), it's the wooden blocks with letters carved onto them that were used to print newspapers, posters and billboards in the early 1900s before they came up with more modern methods. They have, I would guess, several thousand different types of fonts at the museum, with maybe 50 or so displayed. They also have a lot of the machines that they used to make the type displayed. Since I've been there last, they have made quite a few improvements. For one thing, it was warm in there. Last time I went it was during the winter and it was about 45 degrees in the building (I'm probably exaggerating). They have a lot more type displayed in neat cases that were made by volunteers. There's a nice young woman working there, who told me she had been hired 2 months ago as the assistant curator. She enjoyed that I was trying to visit every museum in the county and even asked for my blog address (believe it or not, I don't think I told her the right address). Also, the museum is a lot hipper than I remember. While I was there, a young couple about my age walked in and started taking pictures, and then a family. I'll be honest that I don't understand how people even see the museum- it's not on a main street, and it kind of just fades into the rest of the Hamilton factory. My best advice is they not only need to advertise a little, but they need a bigger sign so people know they are there and are OPEN!

While I was there a volunteer was using a press to print on the paper bags they use for any souvenirs bought at the museum. I watched her for a little while, which was pretty interesting. What I found neat was that they still allow people to come in and use the wood type to make things. It's mostly the artsy type of people who get into it, but they have samples of some of the things they made hanging on the walls and it's very old-school. My new friend the assistant curator said they have some sort of get together for people who love wood type called Wayzgoose 2 2011 in November at the museum and they are expecting over 100 people to come from all over the country.

My overall impression: I would recommend everyone go there just once to envision what work used to go into the making of a simple newspaper or banner. I can honestly say I had never even thought about wood type before ever in my life before visiting this museum, but now I do have an appreciation for it as an art form. A lot of the fonts are beautiful and decorative.

Also, and most exciting in my opinion, is that Target recently visited the museum and selected many different types of wood type for their new fall line of clothing. They had some of it for sale at the museum, but of course Target has even more. When I saw one of my friends post the link on Facebook to the Target commercial for it, I was like, "NO WAY! THAT'S IN MY TOWN!" This is the link to see all the goods at Target. com http://www.target.com/c/Vintage-Varsity/-/N-5q0fy The commercial is towards the bottom of the page so you can watch that too.

Would I recommend? Yes
Awesomeness level (1=sucky, 5=CAN'T MISS): 3
Hours: Mon-Sat 9-5
Website: www.woodtype.org
Time required: less than 30 minutes

No more dietary challenges for me!

I am so, so, so glad September is over. I have to say that I think this was my most difficult challenge- almost as bad as when I gave up chocolate for Lent. To refresh your memory, my goal for September was to eat vegetarian. I started off the month going to the Shawano County Fair with my parents, where I had to endure my dad's withering looks as we searched the entire fair looking for something for me to eat that didn't have meat in it and wasn't a deep fried appetizer. I eventually found a grilled cheese, but now I remember why none of the Smith family are vegetarians...it's just something we DON'T DO, according to my dad. He says it's something people do just for attention. I have come to my own conclusions, though. I think it's a way of life for people who feel very, very passionately about animals. Vegetarianism is not for the weak at heart, and the reason I say that is because the world is stacked against you! American culture is geared toward meat eaters. Every restaurant, festival, EVERYTHING features meat! Have you ever seen a brat fry serving an option for vegetarians? Not if you want to eat more than a plain bun and a bag of chips.

I went to Applebees last week, expecting that since they are a nationwide franchise they would have SOMETHING for me to eat. Every one of their salads came with meat on them, and unless I wanted to order an appetizer, there were no meat-free options. I ended up asking the waitress to just leave the chicken off my salad. I will also say that unless if you go to a restaurant that actually does "meat-free" on purpose (I mean actually offers vegetarian options), I often left feeling not full. My dad would argue it's cause I'm not eating enough protein, but honestly even if I got a sub at Subway with every type of veggie they offered, my brain still knew there was no meat on it and I felt like I missed out on the best part of the sandwich. It's just psychological.

We went to Fazoli's last Friday and I asked the girl at the counter if their baked spaghetti had meat sauce on it. She said no, so I ordered it. Then she asked if I wanted to add meatballs to it, and I said no. She laughed and said, "Oh yeah, you said no meat. You must be a vegetarian like me, huh?" And I just kinda chuckled and said, "Sort of."

After this challenge I am officially declaring that there will be no more dietary challenges for me. No more adding or subtracting things that I stuff in my face. It's just too much a part of my daily existence and I really feel like I am missing out on life. I will admit that I let myself eat meat at Jason and Natalie Schamper's wedding, at the Employee Luncheon at work and at Octoberfest, so at least I had 3 opportunities to remind myself of what I was missing.

Now, on to this month's challenge. After much discussion with Laura and Kyle Lobner, who gave me many excellent ideas which I didn't use, I have decided to try to visit every museum in Manitowoc County this month. Vicki Franko gave me this idea, and although I've been to several of them, I look forward to visiting them again and giving you all the feedback. Maybe I'll stumble across something really cool that I can recommend to everyone...I'm going to try to write a separate post for each museum I visit, plus rate them on things like coolness factor. Stay tuned!!!

Goodness gracious, where did August go?

Well y'all, we've got some old, current, and new business to address. Let's get to the old business first.

Remember my February challenge? If not, I'll refresh you: I wrote to a company/person/celebrity every day and tried to fill their heart with warmth and love by showing my appreciation for them or their product. Funny enough, I received another response about 2 weeks ago...never mind that I had originally written to this person 6 months ago! Had enough of the suspense already? The response I received was from none other than... Nicholas Sparks! Here is the letter:
"Dear Andrea
Thank you for taking the time to write. It's always wonderful to hear from people who enjoy my work. Being an author, after all, isn't necessarily like other forms of entertainment. While I'm in on the "performance," I seldom experience the "response". So again, thank you for dropping me a line.

It's been a busy year for me. Right now, I'm writing a new novel entitled The Best of Me, which should be out this October. Assuming I finish it, of course. I thought I had finished, but there's a bit of editing to do. Actually, I have to pretty much rewrite the ending from scratch (the last 60-70 pages), but that's the way it goes sometimes. I was a bit bummed by that, but I trust my editor. All she ever wants is the best novel possible. The good news is that Warner Brothers has already bought the film rights.

Later this year, I'll also be producing for the first time. Safe Haven (Relativity Media) starts filming in October, and I'm kind of excited about the idea. One of the joys in my life is trying, and learning, new things, so it should be a lot of fun.

Also, The Lucky One (Warner Brothers) with Zac Efron will be out next year. I saw an early cut, and it's fantastic. I hope you're looking forward to it coming out in theaters as much as I am.

You said some lovely things in your letter and had some questions, but unfortunately, I simply don't have the time to answer them right now. Most of the answers, though, can be found on my web-site (www.nicholassparks.com). I'm also on Twitter (sparksnicholas) and on Facebook (facebook.com/Nicholas.Sparks.Fan), and I answer questions there, too.

I hope you're well, and thanks again.
Peace, Nicholas Sparks"

So, I will foolishly admit that right until the part where he said that I "had some questions" in my letter that I really believed he specifically wrote this to me. However, I didn't ask him any questions in my letter, so at that point I knew it was a form letter. Darn it. He really had me going for a little while! It was still a fun surprise to receive this letter so late, though!

Now, for this month's challenge: I was going to try to ride 250 miles on my bike. Did I make it? Drumroll please.... YES! I DID IT! I SMASHED THIS CHALLENGE OUT OF THE PARK! I not only rode 250 miles, but I added some extra on top of that, for a grand total of 327 miles! WOW! I honestly can't believe I rode that much! I am very thankful to Noli and my Uncle Steve for their help in getting several of the 20+ mile rides out of the way. I've learned a few things about my biking preferences over this month: I would much rather ride down city or country streets than on a bike path or a "rails to trails" path. It's just so much more interesting to have houses and people and farm fields to look at than to be riding endlessly through trees or on flat, boring trails. Although that is the one thing I do love about the "rails to trails" paths is that they are flat, since they used to be railroad tracks and therefore had to be fairly level for the trains. Next, I've learned bike shorts really don't help much. If you're going to crank out 25 miles, your butt is going to be sore no matter how much padding you have in that general vicinity. Third, always take wind direction and speed into account before starting the ride. I never ever did this, and suffered severely because of it. Fourth, ride with your mouth closed. I honestly can't do this while biking, partly because my nose runs and there'd be snot dripping down my face, and also because I can't breathe deep enough to support the excessive effort I'm requiring from my body. Finally, I learned it is incredibly better to attempt a challenge such as this when you can ride with someone else. The few times I had someone riding with me I was able to really nail the miles with seemingly little effort, but when I was out there by myself there were several days I just wanted to rip my legs from my body and leave them on the trail because they sure didn't want to cooperate. I think having someone riding with you really helps distract from the pain you are suffering. Some of you may remember that I promised myself I would buy something nice for every 25 miles above and beyond my goal I pedaled. The first thing I'm getting is a new computer. It just doesn't seem reasonable that it takes 30 minutes for my computer to boot up in the morning. I've ordered a new one already and it should be coming in the mail in a week or two! I do want to say this has been one of my most enjoyable goals, despite how much I am complaining about it. I absolutely love riding my bike and I love the feeling of accomplishment I get after a great ride. And in case you'd like to know some other really impressive statistics, here they are: according to my cyclometer on my bike, I burned a total of 11,193 calories this month, 999 of which were fat calories. I love that little computer! The picture up top is the method I created of recording my miles. I colored in one pink box for every mile...and then had to add more boxes when I went beyond 250! Now we must move on to next month's goal...anyone got any guesses?

The goal is to eat vegetarian all month. With three small exceptions, that is. I am attending a wedding for my dear friends Natalie and Jason on 9/10/11, so I think I'm going to have to eat chicken there. Halfway through the month they are having an employee appreciation meal at my work, so I'll pig out on some meat there. At the end of the month I'm attending Octoberfest in Appleton, so all bets are off there. This is certainly going to be a challenge for me, because I happen to really love meat. I mean, I really really love it. But maybe it will be a good thing because I'll finally spend a little time cooking instead of always eating things out of the freezer. We shall see. And so again, I would like to thank you, loyal reader, for your support, input, and for taking the time out of your day to read my thoughts. I love when you make a special effort to tell me you read my blog, like Donna and Kara did this month. Stay tuned, and if anyone wants to join me on dining on lettuce and beans this month, just let me know!

It's August already!

Well, the wonderful month of July is over, and with it goes my challenge of completing several projects that have been left undone for a long time. I'm sure you're wondering how I did and just how fantastic my house looks now. In self defense...

Ok, I already told you I wasn't home much in July because I was on vacation for 9 days. Add into that the days I worked or was at the cottage, it didn't give me many days. Add on top of that the fact that I was trying to get my upstairs apartment rented out, which required several projects as well that were not on the list, and you have (you guessed it) not many things crossed off my list. Here is what my list looked like at the beginning of July:

1. Finish touch-ups in my upstairs apartment so it's ready to rent (I'm 90% completed with this goal already)
2. Attach the screen to the south side of my porch that was removed 2 years ago
3. Repaint my front porch, hopefully with a paint that lasts longer than the Dutch Boy Porch Paint I used last time, only 2 summers ago
4. Touch up paint in my bedroom, living room and dining room
5. Hang my Gone with the Wind puzzle/movie posters/pictures on the walls in my spare bedroom
6. Vacuum my basement, including the million spider webs
7. Fix the pulley ropes that snapped in 2 of my windows, leaving them unopenable
8. Screw mesh over the holes the starlings made in my roof so they can't get in to build a nest in my attic again next spring
9. Clean out my gutter that caused the basement to flood 3 times in a week

Holy. Cow. I hadn't looked at this list in a long time, and it sickens me to realize I did ONLY ONE THING ON THIS LIST! This is the worst challenge I've done so far. I am a complete and utter failure. Boo hoo. I completely repainted 2 rooms in the upstairs apartment (including ceilings) and repainted the cabinet under the kitchen sink up there. All my hard work did lead to getting a tenant, so now I have reestablished the flow of income and I'm living high on the hog again (not quite, but it's nice to dream). I TRIED to reattach the grid to the bottom of my porch last night but didn't have the appropriate tools and I got frustrated, so I just quit. That is the summary of the projects I completed this month, and this concludes my presentation *head hung low*

That's enough dwelling on the failures of last month. Let's move on to this month. As some of you saw on Facebook, my friend Noli correctly predicted this month's challenge would be to, in her words, "ride a bajillion miles" on my bike. I had initially wanted to log 1,000 miles in a month. I got zero support on this goal. Everyone told me I was crazy, stupid and setting myself up for failure. Fine, I retuned my goal to 500 miles. That breaks down to about 16 miles a day, which is reasonable. So I set out on my bike this morning for a leisurely 16 mile ride. The ride sucked. I did well for about 8 miles and then I hit the wall, and by the end of the ride I had revised my goal to 250 miles for the month. I think it was the humidity, the GIANT hill I climbed on my bike and my under-inflated bike tires that conspired against me. Also, I think my blood sugar was low cause I just about passed out a couple times despite drinking plenty of water. I'm going to have to carry a snack with me from now on. So the goal is now 250 miles, and I've decided for every 25 additional miles above and beyond 250 that I do I am going to buy myself something really nice that I've wanted for a long time but have never spent the money on, like a comfortable lawn chair, a Wii, a new computer, a road bike, a DVR, or something along those lines. You notice most of those are fairly expensive. That's how confident I am that I won't exceed my goal! I think once I hit 250 I'll be DONE! I've created a little chart for myself to keep track of my miles, and I'll keep y'all up to date. This also means I am looking for biking partners so let me know if you want to go for a ride!

July is here already!

June is over, and with it went one of my most enjoyable challenges. I attempted to find a geocache in every county in the state. Did I achieve my goal? No. I did hit 19 counties, which is roughly 26%. I'm not too disappointed in myself, though, because I found 18/25 caches I searched for, for a 76% success rate! My work schedule unfortunately made it difficult to schedule trips to the far reaches of our wonderful state, and coupled with my extended road trip to Gettysburg in May (over 2,600 miles) I just didn't feel like spending lots and lots of time in my car. I did go to a special effort on several occasions to find geocaches, however. I forced my dad to go caching with me one weekend at the cottage. We both got terribly bug-bitten, and I didn't dress appropriately to search so he had to walk through the tick-ridden woods for me while I stayed in the safety of mowed lawns. I went to visit my dear friend Claire and her beautiful family in Madison, so I nabbed several caches on the way down there. And finally, I talked my friend Christina into driving to the outlet mall in Kenosha with me. I had the honor of introducing her to the hobby of geocaching. It was a great day- we found 100% of the caches we looked for, including 3 that Christina the geocaching-rookie located! I have decided that I am going to make this a lifetime goal, because I get an immense sense of accomplishment coloring in the counties on my map.

And now, onto July's goal...Drumroll please...

My July goal is to finish all the little half-done projects around my house. There's a bunch of things that have driven me crazy for a long time but never get done, mostly because it involves a trip to the basement for the appropriate tools. Well, those projects are in serious danger of being completed. Thus far my list includes the following projects:

1. Finish touch-ups in my upstairs apartment so it's ready to rent (I'm 90% completed with this goal already)
2. Attach the screen to the south side of my porch that was removed 2 years ago
3. Repaint my front porch, hopefully with a paint that lasts longer than the Dutch Boy Porch Paint I used last time, only 2 summers ago
4. Touch up paint in my bedroom, living room and dining room
5. Hang my Gone with the Wind puzzle/movie posters/pictures on the walls in my spare bedroom
6. Vacuum my basement, including the million spider webs
7. Fix the pulley ropes that snapped in 2 of my windows, leaving them unopenable
8. Screw mesh over the holes the starlings made in my roof so they can't get in to build a nest in my attic again next spring
9. Clean out my gutter that caused the basement to flood 3 times in a week

Ambitious? Certainly! Especially considering I have become very close friends with the nurses on 3 East and I'm trying to work there as often as possible (This statement is false. I am just typing this to test them and see if any of them read this). I am also going on a wonderful vacation to Montana with my parents in 10 days, so that eliminates a good chunk of the month. I think the satisfaction I get from crossing each project off the list will motivate me. At least I hope so, since staring at these unfinished projects for the past couple years hasn't been enough to get me going.

Challenge #6, here I come!

Well folks, I have finished my May challenge. You may ask, "What was your challenge? I can't remember because you haven't posted anything on your blog in like, well, forever!" And my response to that would be, "I'm just so busy being a nurse, world traveler and monumental time-waster that I haven't gotten around to writing anything lately. And the challenge was to eat the recommended daily servings of fruit and veggies." Now that we have that out of the way, I'm sure you'd like to know how I did. The answer is: not too bad.
I'm not certain I can say that I got the daily recommended servings, but I certainly made a conscious effort to eat more fruits and veggies. Even while I was on vacation I made sure to order veggies when I normally wouldn't. And I carried a big bunch of bananas in my car with me on vacation, so I made sure to eat one every day. I would find it considerably easier if every fruit and veggie came pre-packaged in its own wrapper like bananas do, so I could more reliably track my consumption. I know that you can measure out a "fistful" of something as a serving, but frankly, my food isn't on my plate long enough for me to try to measure out how much I'm eating. I will say my chocolate consumption has returned to normal. At the beginning of May I was still gorging on chocolate, since I had given it up for Lent. Now I can go an entire day without chocolate (though I don't know why I'd want to) and only eat a small amount the next day and feel satisfied and not like I have to make up for lost time. I will admit I didn't dedicate as much time and effort to this challenge as I did to past challenges, but I still think it was a worthy challenge and I really hope to keep the consumption of the healthy stuff going and keep my chocolate and ice cream consumption down where it should be. Please observe my current food pyramid in the picture above and congratulate me as you see fit :)

Now for my June goal: I am going to attempt to find a geocache in every county in the state of Wisconsin. For those of you who are unfamiliar with geocaching, it's basically the best hobby ever. You use a hand-held GPS to find items that are hidden by other fellow geocachers. The thing they hide is called the geocache, or cache for short. I've always loved scavenger hunts, so this is awesome for me because it's like a scavenger hunt that is available 24/7. Once you find the cache you sign your name on the log to prove you've been there. Some caches are large enough to contain trinkets that you can swap. After you get home, you log on to geocaching.com and log your find. My neighbor Amber and I have 5 geocaches that we hid last fall and we really enjoy reading the feedback from all the people that have found our caches. So I'm going to be spending a fair amount of time on the road this month, trying to knock off as many counties as possible. I can't wait! I (unfortunately) anticipate many mosquito bites and lots of ticks, if this past weekend at the cottage is any indicator. Stay tuned to read about my geocaching adventures! Also, I always have more fun caching with someone than when I go alone so if anyone wants to go with me, let me know!