The time I painted a ... model.

I have been in an infinite number of awkward or uncomfortable situations in my life.  INFINITE.  I hadn't had an extreme situation in a while.  And then, I went to a bachelorette party.  The bride's motto for the party planners (her MOH/sister and her BFF) was "classy, not trashy".  I knew I was going to enjoy myself, with a motto like this!

On Saturday, we did one of those wine and paint things that are SO popular these days.  There is an instructor, and he or she walks you through a painting, so everyone in the room's painting has the same base, but since people are different, all of the paintings are unique in their own ways.  Does that make sense?

Anyways, this was my kind of bachelorette party!  Though I am not overly artistic, if someone is walking me through step by step of what to paint, I envisioned myself being able to do alright.  Anyways, the paintings that I had seen done were like, landscapes, or silhouettes... not anything overly complicated, so I thought.

When we got to the studio, we had an hour to paint on glassware.  I chose beer glasses, since the Romenesko Ranch (as Pete fondly calls our humble abode) is seriously lacking in that department, and it's embarrassing when we have people over and can't even offer a beer glass.  How about one of our 20 oz. water glasses?  

That whole beer is in that GIANT glass!!

We could paint whatever we wanted on the glassware.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh.

I do not have much of an imagination.  The girl next to me, Jess, and I asked the instructor for ideas.  Dots.  Dots with a q-tip.  Easy.  Pain-free.  Usually turns out not manly at all, and I was kind of going for the manly look pretty cool.  With the hour to paint the glasses, I had plenty of time for my super complex design.

Turned out neat.  I like them.  Pete was a little less wild about having girly beer glasses.

Obligatory art + wine photo

While we were finishing up, the MOH, who was sitting across the table from me, was getting super giddy.

"I can't wait for the surprise!!!!!"

Jess and I were curious, so about 10 minutes before canvas painting began, the MOH whispered/mouthed across the table.

"We're painting a NUDE MODEL!"

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?  Did I hear right?  I did.  

I immediately began stress eating (and stress drinking...) the Gardetto's (and the wine) that I had just put on a plate for Jess and I to share.  Gaaaaaaaaaaawd.  

How awkward!  And uncomfortable!  How was I expected to paint a naked person!? Do stick figures count??  I am a HORRIBLE artist!  Look at the glasses that I painted WITH A Q-TIP.  Can I paint a naked model with a q-tip??

More stress eating/drinking.  Did I mention that I started to sweat profusely?  This whole situation was just soooooo not me.  SO not me.

Jenna did a horrible an AWESOME job of keeping me calm, as usual.

Meanwhile, in walked a male who was mid-twenties in a robe.  The instructor said, "This is John, and we will be painting him."

I died.  And drank more.  He dropped his robe, took a seat on a stool in the front corner of the room, and there he was, in all of his glory.

The instructor gave us the option to not paint the model.  Oh HELL no.  I was ALL IN at this point.  ALL.  IN.  And so, I painted.

I actually had one of the best seats in the room.  Please see my below diagram of how the room was set up.  

It's hard to tell in this picture, but there is a sheen of sweat glistening on my forehead.

I'll bet you thought that I was going to say that I was facing him directly when I said I had the best seat in the house - you pervs.  

The whole time that we were painting, I focused a LOT on the instructor and her direction of what color to put where, etc.  I was DETERMINED to have my painting look like a person, so I followed her instructions EXACTLY.  Poor girl, I made her keep coming over to my canvas and making sure I was mixing the perfect colors.

With about 10 minutes to go, the instructor told us to to focus on something on the painting that we wanted to finish, because we were NOT going to be able to finish the whole thing.  My choice was easy.

Since I was following EXACTLY what the instructor was telling me to do, and since she was painting the model EXACTLY as he was sitting, I didn't have anything covering his... private parts.  Other girls were smart and placed the guy's hands over that area.  Me, not so much.

There was no way that I was going to paint what I was being told to paint.  No.  Way.  So I thought for a little bit about what he could be holding in his hands.

I settled on a wine bottle, since we were at a wine and paint party, after seriously considering a wrapped present.

The results of my picture were:

- To my surprise, he looks shockingly human with abs, pecs, and awesome hipster hair.

- Unfortunately, the instructor didn't show me how to paint the stool he was sitting on.  I made a horrible, horrible attempt at it myself with some poorly chosen brown paint... can you see where this is going?  So I settled on another failed attempt at painting a bench, but since I had to mix colors myself, it just didn't work out well for anyone.  

- Since he's not sitting on a bench or stool, it looks like he's doing a little jig, because his knees are bent.

- He also looks like an alcoholic since he is holding a wine bottle, with no glass in sight.  Not that there's anything wrong with drinking straight from the bottle every now and then...

- Final summation of the result: He looks like he got a liiiiiiitle too wild at a party, stripped off his clothes, climbed on to the table, and started doing a little jig with his bottle of booze covering his man parts.  Quite the party, it looks like!

When we were all finished and the model was fully clothed, we took a group picture.  I did my best to not be standing right next to the man that I had just seen naked, but of course that means that I ended up right next to him.  

I mean, you can see the resemblance, right??

I made his head a little too egg shaped... and his neck a little too long and lean...  But they both have brown hair?  And a nose?

Also, please notice how awkward I am standing next to him.  Just glistening with sweat.

Note: the red on my face is NOT sunburn.

I obviously texted Jenna when I was done.

On Sunday driving back up north, I kept chuckling to myself because I just couldn't believe that in my overnight bag, I had a painting of a naked man that I PAINTED.

The most common question I've gotten since sharing this story with ANYONE WHO WILL LISTEN BECAUSE IT IS HILARIOUS (including one of my friend's daughter and son-in-law whom I met about 5 seconds before I started telling the story) is: Where did you put the painting??

It's on my kitchen table, obviously, where else would it be?

Playing catch-up

The best way that I can think to catch you guys up on the last four months is to take pictures from my phone and put them here.  I vow never to not blog for four straight months again.  I hope.  Actually, it's been so long since I blogged that www.realworldsara.com doesn't exist anymore!  Peter said something about Google not supporting something, but I've got my IT guy on it.  He conveniently lives with me.  So for now, we just have to use the blogspot.com address.  Have no fear!

Aaaaaaanyways.  These pictures are in chronological order.  

This was my knee after my last blog post when I fell off the ledge.  Ouchie!

I went to Canada for work and the booth across from us had someone carving things out of big ol' blocks of cheese!  Kind of gross, actually.

We went over to the neighbor's house and Pete got to try out our neighbor's new bow and arrow.

My very own Katniss Everdeen.  Two bulls-eyes!  We were all shocked, to say the least.

I got a new decoration for the kitchen.  Yummmmm

The Birthday Boy!

I went to South Africa and got to go on another safari.  I saw some wildebeests in the gorge, but Simba wasn't there, so all was well.

Africa is cool.

A couple weeks later, the women of the family went to Disney World for Taylor's 21st birthday.

It was awesome.  We went to a luau on her birthday and drank fancy drinks that were divine.

Then I got to go on another safari in the Animal Kingdom.  Pretty awesome.

Happiest place on Earth.

I've been fortunate enough to be able to go to Disney World a few times.  This time, we ate at a few places we had never gone before, including Tony's from Lady and the Tramp.

The next day we had lunch at Beauty and the Beast's castle.  It was awesome.  That movie was one of my favorites when I was growing up, mostly because Belle had the same passion for reading that I did (and still do).

We went on some Star Wars ride and I got REALLY motion sick.  Like, if the ride would have continued for 3 more minutes, I would have needed an airsick bag...  This was obviously the before picture.

We spent some time in the WONDERFUL sunshine drinking fancy drinks.  This one was heavenly.  Take me back!!

I spent too much time in the sun (YES I WORE SUNSCREEN, ASK MY MOM) and got HORRIBLY sunburned.  I could hardly walk for two days and was essentially in constant pain.  It was a very sad return to reality after a wonderful vacation.

I made fish tacos with mango salsa for the first time ever and it was so delicious.  I could have eaten this right out of the bowl.  Actually, I did.  Oopsie!

We had our neighbors, my sister, and her boyfriend come over for the Badger game when they were in the Final Four.  It was really sad when they lost.  So. Close.

When Taylor and Kyle visited, we played board games on Sunday morning.  Our new favorite is "Ticket to Ride".  I despise when Peter wins. 

The snow finally melted, and we could put out our patio table and chairs!

When the snow melted, we had a TON of water.  The river in front of our house went over the road!

Nice little pond in the backyard.  More like a swamp, actually.  But I didn't care, because the snow was on it's way OUT.

And then Mother Nature gave us a big "EFF YOU" and we had like, 4 inches of snow.  This was the end of March, in case you're not from Wisconsin.

Easter Sunday was awesome weather.  What a great day.

We're a great looking bunch.

Pete and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary.  Time certainly does fly!!

I had spring cleaning fever.  I wish I would have taken a before picture so that you could get the full effect.  Turns out, if I don't fold a basket of laundry right when I take it out of the dryer, it will sit for days and days.  (I'm working on getting better...)

I bought outdoor dining plates.  I love them.

I took an unexpectedly cold shower one morning at 5.  At 10 that night, Pete did some investigating and learned the the water heater was broken (something with the pilot light and it wouldn't re-light or something).  He did some youtubing and found a video on how to fix it.  We were both shocked that it actually worked.  My very own water heater repairman.  It's like my dreams have come true!

This was my face when I watched the season finale of Revenge.  I sent this picture to my friend who also follows the show, but couldn't watch the finale until the next day.  If you don't watch that show, you are missing out - clearly.

More spring cleaning!  I love how my kitchen looks when there aren't pot and pans and dishes all over the counters.  

B came over and we PAINTED THE BASEMENT!  I need to do the trim still, but man, what a great feeling to have the majority of the painting done!  What a great friend.  I had to do an exercise about 10 days ago where I had to set short-term goals, and one of mine was to touch up some spots that we missed on the walls.  So I've got about 10 days to finish that.  One of my 12 weeks goals (same exercise) was to paint the trim, so I've got a couple of months to do that.  And by heavens I will GET IT DONE.

This is Peter in heaven.  We had dinner with some friends and Pete got to have some quality dog time with their dog Petunia.  He was soooo happy.  But I am still heartless and won't let him get a dog of his own.  I'm so thankful for our friends that get dogs so that he can have dog time.

We had a Taco Potluck at work and I made churro cupcakes.  They were soooooo good.  So good.  

We even had a piñata!  Just like Mexico!!

My family came up and visited over Memorial Day weekend and it was wonderful.  Except the mosquitos.  That was really unfortunate.  A great way to celebrate the start of summer!!

Nora and Joshua were really happy to spend time with us too.  Party Animals.

When I was showing my grandpa our house over Memorial Day weekend, we went down to the basement to find a bunch of water.  One of the pipes outside froze this winter, and we didn't know it until we turned the hose on.  It's all dried up now, but it was kind of depressing.  It's a good thing that I'm OCD about storage, so everything was protected in the RubberMaid containers!

Pete and I finally decorated our bedroom.  I love it.  And it also helped that I dusted, so the furniture was actually polished instead of being covered in a layer of dust.  

Look!  Wedding pictures on the wall!  It only took two years...  By the way, our bedroom looks all picked up like this about once a month.  There are usually clothes on the floor and the bed is only partially made (Pete straightens the comforter every morning).  But obviously I only take pictures of it when it's looking all straightened up.

I finally finished the hallway!  Woohoo!!!  I love it.  It looks fantastic.  

This is my favorite cluster of pictures.  Obviously because it features me and the love of my life.

Well.  That's it.  That's my update.  Hopefully it won't be so long next time!!

Oh, and HAPPY SUMMER!!!!