Inflated...

I had this whole post formed in my head about how I was feeling so deflated lately... some things that I was trying weren't panning out, I was feeling sort of cheated, etc etc etc... basically it was a self pity post, but then something happened yesterday afternoon. I decided that I was the only one keeping myself feeling like that and if I wanted to feel happier and less deflated well then by golly all I had to do was change my sour attitude. And... that I did!

So instead of writing a post about how crappy I was feeling earlier this week, I'm going to write a post about how I've changed my outlook and am making an effort to feel better about myself and my life and everything that I have going for me.

Yesterday afternoon I was sort of lounging around with Ayden when I asked him what he wanted to do. He said that he wanted to go outside and sit on the swing with me. This isn't out of the norm, but I wasn't anticipating it lasting for so long. We sat and swung for a while and then he had the brillant idea of getting his little pool out and filling it up so he could swim in it. I warned him that the water would be pretty cold, but he wanted to just the same. I filled it up for him and he had at it! I gave him the job of watering the lawn and he went about taking buckets full of water and dumping them all over the lawn. It was lots of fun watching him.

After the pool was empty, he came back to sit on the swing with me. We were probably outside for a good hour or more... it was just peaceful to sit and swing with my not so little guy!

This weekend is Jay's dad's side of the family camping (does that make sense?). And so that means 12 aunts and uncles, numerous cousins, a growing amount of great grandchildren... and lots of fun? Is it bad that I'm sort of dreading this event? You see... this camping event is known to get quite out of hand, quite out of hand in the drunken aspect. Jay has told me numerous stories about years before we started dating, stories that he finds just hilarious, stories that I find rather repulsive, anything but funny, and pretty stupid. Stories about relatives getting plastered and being dumb. And he's excited about it this year! Ugh, I just cringe, because yes folks, nights around the bonfire at this camping event involve LOTS of alcohol! I won't go so far as to say that everyone gets drunk or wild because there are some people who are responsible, but enough do. Don't get me wrong, there are family events where the majority of the people aren't liquored up, but it seems like so much of what we do is based around alcohol or the stories at least. i mean these are good people without it, I guess I just wonder why they think they need it to have a good time?!

Anyways, I'd be just as happy to go with just Jay's parents and brother for a weekend. Yes, they drink and yes they get a little wild sometimes, but not usually when we are around. I guess most of my dislike has to come from the fact that I don't drink (and no I don't count the one or two winecoolers or Mike's Hard Lemonade per year as drinking- and when I do have one, its because of the flavor, not because everyone else is donig it or because I want to get drunk and have a grand ole time) and I don't like what it does to the people who do.

I know I've had a rant about drinking before, but I just needed to get it out. Since the campground is only about 35 minutes from our house, I will probably go during the day on Saturday when most of the family is sober and then come home at night so I don't have to deal with it. Jay will probably stay with Ayden in his parent's camper. That way, he can have fun (but not too much since he still has to watch Ayden) and I don't have to see it. I won't tell him he can't drink, but he knows well enough to not really do it around me. Actually, we had gotten some beer when he parents came up to watch the fireworks and had some left over and so Jay would drink one here or there to get rid of it (why waste good beer- or money- right?!) at night after Ayden went to bed and honestly, it bothered me. We don't keep beer in our house unless we are having a party. Yes, we have some bottles of liquour, but for that same purpose. I think that is why he drank them at night after Ayden and I went to bed and he was still on the computer and it was never more than one a night.

I'm sure this weekend will be filled with lots of fun...

CIAO! LOVE ME!

The First Step to…

recovery is admitting you have a problem.

I am a chocoholic!

WAIT! Am I sure this is something that I want to recover from?! I’m thinking not! I am just too addicted! I don’t think I could EVER give it up… well you know, it is just SO darn good!

I’ll be the first to admit that we are not necessarily health conscious in our house, however we do not go overboard and by every cookie in the cookie isle or every kind of ice cream or ever piece of candy that grabs our eye (although sometimes I’d like to). But, we usually have some sort of snack food in our house… something that is chocolate! However, we haven’t gone on a ‘big’ grocery excursion in a while and thus are running short on things. We have no chips, no cookies, no ice cream, nothing chocolate… that was until…

You see, I bought some stuff so I could organize a surprise package to my family from Ayden and myself and bought some candy for everyone. It has been sitting on my table for almost the last week and we’ve been good and haven’t dug into it. But last night was just too much for me! I needed something chocolate and so I had to open the kit kats I bought for my brother. I oh so graciously ate enough to satiate myself.

But it gets worse… today I had to dig into the Hershey’s kisses I bought for my mom because the kit kats were gone. They were one of those snack packs with the little ones in. I have helped myself to way too many Hershey kisses than should be allowed in one day. My bad for not getting that package out sooner so I wouldn’t have had to dig into them, but my self control just went out the window. I reason I can get them more candy at our next grocery trip… ugh, I’m such a chocoholic, lol!

In other news… Jay is off to a Brewer game tonight with his mom and grandparents. I don’t think he has ever been to one before and I hope that he has fun. It is my intention to never have to sit through that sort of thing as baseball is not really my thing. I’m not really a sports watcher at all though. I had to deal with a little bit of a fiasco as I told Ayden where Daddy was going when I picked him up from school today. I didn’t think that he would have a problem with it, but it started about a 45 minute crying/whining spree. I reasoned with him, but it didn’t really seem to help so I just let him get it out.

When we got home, he continued his crying and I made lunch for myself. I kept telling him over and over that when he was hungry he could let me know and I would fix lunch for him and after a while he came about and settled down. We talked about how there wasn’t enough tickets and that some day we would go to a game as well (even if it is just a Timber Rattlers game). And because we (him and Mommy) were stuck at home we decided to go to the park after supper (where Ayden made some quick friends who were very nice to share their fruit snacks with us) and then off to Dairy Queen for some yummy ice cream!

Here we are waiting for our order to come! They sure took long enough to make two blizzards and the place wasn’t even that busy. But I suppose that that was a good thing because Ayden was kind of loud… fewer people to annoy, hehe!

Nothing better than a good Oreo blizzard! We sat in silence as we dove into our yummy treats! They were so good… you know since I’m addicted to chocolate at this point!

Ayden ended up bring the majority of his blizzard home… but I scarfed down all of mine! It was only a small… but so yummy!

I’ve gotten ahead of the game and emailed my professors regarding which books I will need to buy for the fall semester. I’m thinking I will only need three books which is awesome considering textbooks do not run cheap these days. First off I emailed the grad student I observed with last semester to find out if we would know ahead of time or what and he told me that we had to email our professors and to not expect a response right away. Luckily, I only had three professors to email and two of the three have gotten back to me. One told me that he was still debating on which book to use and would let me know ASAP, one told me which one we need (which happens to only be about $65 new), and the other one replied with an out of the country automated reply until this weekend. Hopefully I will hear from him within the next week.

I am getting into the mood to go back to school or more so getting everything together. I did Ayden’s school shopping on Monday and managed to get all of his supplies for under $25! How great is that! Staples had some great sales… that and not much is needed for kindergarten and he had a backpack already and a folder. I also bought myself a computer chair for $10 and some mechanical pencils for 50 cents (like 10 pencils), and a pack of probably 30 pens for $6. So we probably didn’t need any pens, but this will keep the stock supplied. That, and well I didn’t need anything else for me. I am going to print my own planner like last year and we already have enough binders and paper.

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Zibbo Time!!!

On Friday, Ayden and I were invited to join my aunt and uncle, their two kids, and my dad and sisters at a cabin my aunt and uncle were vacationing at this past week. The cabin was only about a half hour away from Stevens Point so I thought that since we didn’t have anything better to do, we would go visit them for the day on Friday. I had no intention of staying any later that probably after supper on Friday, but that got thrown out of the window.

Friday morning Ayden and I ran to Walmart to get a few things before we left for the cabin. I had wanted to be out of the house and on our way by 10am and we hit that right on the mark. It just started raining as we were leaving, but not too heavy so I didn’t care. I had no idea where I was going, but I had Jay’s GPS and was armed with directions from Yahoo Maps… I knew they were both landed me up on the same spot, so during the drive I followed the GPS and we got there precisely a half hour after leaving. The drive was easy enough and were greeted by my dad and sisters…

For a while we sat and relaxed in the gazebo, which was appropriately renamed the ‘zibbo’! This was was hopping gazebo with the most comfortable chairs! We lounged in there with my aunt and uncle and cousins while Ayden and Alexis played trying to devise the ‘plan of attack’ for the rest of the day!

We decided that we would try this place for their Friday fish fry and then we were going to go try this new beach that my aunt and uncle had heard of. The fish fry was yummy and Ayden ate so good. He was kind of loud while we were waiting for our food to arrive, but that is just usually him for you. My loud child who doesn’t know how to use an inside voice when asked. We had quite a few talks over the course of the past two days, but overall he was very well behaved.

The beach that we went to was AWESOME!!! I wish that I had known about this place sooner! It has this shallow swimming area and then a deeper swimming area and the seaweed is SO minimal which is good because I really don’t seaweed AT ALL!!! The have two water slides in the shallow area for the younger kids and then a diving board and water slide in the deeper area. Both Ayden and Alexis were able to touch by the deeper water slide in the shallow area and it was awesome to watch them come down that slide and fly off! They were having SO much fun and then they built some sand castles!

I took lots of pictures with my sisters camera because we rushed out of the house so fast Friday morning that I forgot my camera, among a few other things. Anyways, my sister had her camera and so I commandeered it and took lots of pictures both Friday and Saturday.

After we got back from swimming we had a small supper (since it was around that time) and dipped our feet in the hot tub. Ayden and Alexis were a little eager with the hot tub and ended up getting their clothes pretty wet so we just took them off and let them go all the way in with just their underwear on. They had lots of fun, not to mention the trampoline jumping!

That night, my aunt, cousin, and sister went to see a community play in Waupaca… it was Beauty and the Beast and it was really good for a community production. We got home and the kids were sleeping already. It wasn’t long before the rest of us headed to bed as well (well after some ice cream of course)!!!

I slept like crap Friday night, but that was okay. It wasn’t a super early morning, but needless to say… my bed felt really good last night!

Anyways, Saturday morning held more gazebo time, (Jay joined us Saturday as well) some riding on the four wheelers, and then a paddle boat ride that I was about dying after. Word of advice, don’t try to outrun a motor boat with a paddle boat no matter how slow you think the motor boat is going… not when your dad is on the motor boat and cheats by using an oar as well! It was fun though! The only downside was the fact that we had to climb up 87 steps to get back to the house (yes… down 87 steps to the lake and back up those same 87 steps to the house)!

By the time we got off the paddle boat, my aunt’s brother and nephew had arrived and another uncle and aunt and their kids had shown up as well! It was beginning to look a lot like a party! More four wheeler rides ensued, more jumping on the trampoline, grilling out for lunch, and then a swim in the lake after lunch! We ended up taking the paddle boat out towards the middle of the lake to escape the seaweed which meant we all had life jackets on or some sort of floatation device… It was lots of fun, but then Ayden and I got pretty cold so we went to to hit up the hot tub!

Ayden was able to get back up onto the paddle boat with my help, but I ended up swimming to shore… through the icky seaweed (ugh, I hate sea weed)! We sat in the hot tub for a while before the others joined us and had fun! The rest of the afternoon was lazy time and then my dad took us out for pizza for supper. It was pretty good and both Ayden and Alexis were still pretty well behaved.

We got rained on a couple of times… one being when a bunch of us were down the long driveway at the trampoline. It sort of sprung up on us and we didn’t think it was going to dump on us so we stayed during the sprinkles and then it started to get heavier… we rushed to load up six kids, one baby, and four adults onto a six seater and four wheeler! We zoomed up the driveway while getting poured on and rushed into the house! Ah, the joys of unpredictable summer showers! But over the course of the weekend we didn’t get as much as we could have so I was happy for that!

My sister, cousin, and I hit up the hot tub one more time before leaving Saturday night. We sat in the hot tub while getting rained on… it was nice! And then we made it home by about 10:30pm and headed straight to bed for a wonderful night sleep!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Can’t Help Myself

It’s like I can’t stop… once I get started I search and scour my photo folders to find news ones that could use a little flair. I’m a flair-aholic! And besides… it is just too much fun! Here are just a few photos of our adventure at new park today (minus the first one, had to add that in because I thought he was too cute in his new hat- which by the way came from France courtesy of Jay’s cousin who was over there watching the Tour de France)

Although we have a park literally about a block and a half away from our house… maybe a five minute bike ride if that… today we ventured further down the road to a park that I knew existed, but we hadn’t been to yet. It is pretty secluded so I didn’t think anyone would be there and we were in luck. The only thing that I don’t really care for and do care for at the same time is the secludedness. It means that probably not a lot of people go, but also that it is a good place for bad things to happen. And by bad… well you know, people who don’t follow the law and smoke things other than cigarettes etc…

Being our first time back there it was a good experience and I would never have though of something like that (yes, I am kind of oblivious to the bad things that happen in life) but my boss mentioned it to me when she first told me about the park. So, I guess we will just have to keep an eye out when we go there… always better safe than sorry, but I’m hoping that in the middle of the day in bright sunlight the bad people will stay away…

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Catchin' Up

I've been a 'bad' blogger lately, or feel like I have been. No excuse other than I've been too lazy too after I would get my fill of photo editing done at the end of the day. That, and I've read two books in the last week and haven't felt like doing any blogging. Oh, I keep up with my stalking reading, but that has been my extent. I feel kind of out of sorts lately. Like so much running through my head that I'd like to get out and write down, but this is a public blog and I don't know if I'd feel comfortable writing it all. I'm big on writing how I'm feeling, I've been journaling for a LONG time and never before have kept my feelings in check when it comes to that, but I feel like I've been doing that more and more on here. It has become more of a day to day talk about our activities versus about how I'm feeling. As I've always talked about what is going on while journaling, I also used to write a lot about how I felt about a certain situation. Maybe it's the fact that I write it down, it makes things a little more real. I don't know... I also know that because I do have people reading this, however few... I'm afraid of judgment, even silent judgment. I try to pride myself on not caring about what other people think, but sometimes it cannot be helped. Well, I'm going to try and be more open (at least in my terms) when I write versus just writing about our daily happenings.

To start off, we haven't been extremely busy lately, at least during the week. This past weekend we were gone from Thursday afternoon until late Saturday night, but it was lots of fun! Ayden and I headed out Thursday afternoon for my mom's house. We could have left later, but he was getting kind of antsy and so I decided to leave around 3:30pm. That put us in Appleton traffic just before 5pm and let me tell you, I thought Fridays 5pm traffic was bad, I just might revise that to Thursdays suck worse! The only bad part about it is that we have to travel one of the busiest stretches of highway in order to get to our house. Those maybe five miles of road are definitely not on the top of my list, not to mention there are two on ramps close together and they are just before going over a bridge! Well, we made it through there okay and home in time to make supper for my brother and sister. I made hamburger helper (one of my specialties) and we had a yummy supper. It was nice to have my sister home as well to help keep Ayden busy. Plus we get along very well and its always nice to catch up on the gossip with her, hehe!

The rest of the night was kind of laid back as we watched some TV and Ayden played. My mom didn't get home until after 10pm because she had to work late. Ayden and I slept on our air mattress on the living room floor. I slept like absolute crap Thursday night, but redeemed myself Friday night (because I was so tired)!

It was an early morning on Friday as we had to leave for Madison by 8:15am for my brother’s pre-op appointment. I went along with my mom to act as co-pilot like I did last time. Jay’s mom watched Ayden and it sounded like he had a pretty good day because they went down to the lake and Ayden got to play with another little boy his age. Guess they had lots and lots of fun!

We didn’t get lost on the way to Madison which was good… no detours scenic routes this time. My brother had to meet with the care coordinator person who went through all of the surgery stuff with him and my mom and then had a physical before getting his CT scan. All in all the visit went pretty fast giving the fact we had three different people to meet with. And we totally rocked navigating the hospitals as well. We got home by about 4pm (I think, can’t remember for sure) and then I went to relieve Jay’s mom of Ayden. Ah, like grandparents need to be relieved, lol!

We made supper and some yummy Wild Tree brownies for dessert! And boy were they yummy! We ate the whole pan by the next day! So thick and delicious!!! We topped them with a little lot of powered sugar since I mistakenly let Ayden do the honors with that, hehe! Like he needed anymore sugar!

Saturday was our day of fun! My mom had off from work which doesn’t happen very often on the weekend, but wouldn’t you know that the weather was pretty sucky. Friday was worse, but Saturday was no picnic either, although we did have a picnic. We went down the lake and climbed the tower… only to get the top and have Ayden tell us that he wanted to go back down right away. Okay kid, do you ever slow down?! But my legs didn’t hurt as much the next day as I thought they would from climbing the tower. My mom, sister, Ayden, and I had a picnic next to the water with sweatshirts on… but it was fun!

Since we had headed to the lake to find some seashells, we started our search after lunch… however we couldn’t find any where we were so my sister suggested another beach site to try. Off to the county park and wouldn’t you know, we found some sea shells! Our main goal was to collect some so we could make a wave machine once we got home! An ice cream later and it was back to grandma’s house, but only for a little while since my sister got a hold of our cousin Amanda, who happens to be selling her Lia Sophia jewelry, and then headed over there to do some retail therapy!

Oh and shop we did! My mom graced me with an early birthday present by paying for some of my picks! Yeah to moms and early birthday presents because I sure stocked up on some new jewelry and yeah to cousins (and their super cute kids!) who were gracious enough to let us come over to do some shopping!

After a supper of burgers on the grill, Ayden and I headed out to another get together of Jay’s mom’s side of the family back down by the lake. By this point it was already 7pm and we had an hour and a half drive home yet, but Ayden wanted to stop in and I am glad that we did. He had so much fun playing with his little cousin Baden for the two hours that we were there! They searched for shells again and played tag and hide and seek with their aunts! Lots of fun!!!

We left around 9pm and got home before 11pm, but not before getting stuck behind a train! The short cut to our house ended up being the long route Saturday night and after realizing the train was moving at about a snails pace and really wanting to be home, I turned around (thankfully no one came up behind me and blocked me in) and took the extra mile long route to our house. Who knows how long we would have had to wait for that train to get moving again.

And speaking of getting stuck behind a train, the same thing happened today… only Ayden and I waited it out this time and ended up sitting there for probably a good 15 minutes before the train finally cleared… at least this time we were not the only ones. And Ayden didn’t mind so we just sat there.

This is getting long and I didn’t get much of what I wanted to say written, but I’ve lost the blogging mood at this moment so will catch up more a little later…

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Teeth and Cavities

One more day and my week is over... I hate to even mention it, but I am sort of kind of maybe just a little bit looking forward to grad school starting. I mean, I LOVE coming home at the end of the day and not having hours of homework to worry about, tests to study for, clinic to fret over... but I love the sense of organization and purpose it brings into my life. I love my job and all, but it is just that, a job. It is not something one could do forever, well at least not me (although I'm sure my boss wouldn't mind keeping me around). School means I am getting somewhere in life. I cannot wait to be done and do something a little different each day. I know that I have a LOT to learn about audiology yet, but I'm already in love with it. Honestly, I think I'm a little obsessed with ears (or at least the inner workings) right now and I'm sure if I had my own otoscope (you know, those things doctors use to look in your ears with) I'd be wanting to check out everyone's ears! I know, crazy weird, right... but that is just me! As much as I am a shy quiet pretty non-outspoken person (at least in person most of the time)... I am getting more and more used to the fact that my job is going to revolve around people interaction and having clinic last year really helped me move out of my shell some more! As much as I dreaded clinic last fall... it was a great experience and I am not as nervous about starting clinic this fall... that and it will only be one time a week (at least for the fall semester).

So, I can't remember if I mentioned anything about the scrapbook that I am trying to make for Ayden's 5th birthday. I think I might have, but anyways... okay, so instead of rewriting it all, I went and checked my old posts, and indeed, I did mention it. I've been a slacker lately though. With all of the new techniques that I have been learning, I haven't been up to making any pages, but that is hopefully going to change. My biggest problem is designing layouts because even though I'm oh so talented (hey, it's my blog, I can talk myself up just a little, right?! hehe!) I am lacking in the creative juices that some of those other awesome scrapbookers have! My solution... googling sample page ideas and going from there. I can gain ideas that way and create my pages. I have themes that I want... ie: christmas, family events, outings, etc... but not the uber cool brains to put together awesome pages! But... with some hard work, okay I lied, photoshop makes everything pretty easy and awesome... I am going to try my best to have the photobook completed by Aug 1st. I would like at least 20-30 scrapbook pages and then some pages with just pictures. Wish me luck!

With yesterday being kind of a blahgh day, I've set out to make today better. I did finish my book last night. It was pretty good and I am glad that I read it. Besides, 340 pages is nothing to read in one day... okay so it might be, but I wanted to know how it ended and it only took until about 11pm to find out. I may or may not start reading another one today. Probably not so I don't end up spending the day reading and not with Ayden.

Speaking of my darling son... he had a little tantrum this morning before we were leaving for school. He has it in his head that he is old enough to stay home alone while mommy goes to work. I tried to reason in my head that he was just tried and didn't want to stop what he was doing to go to school. And most likely that is what it was, but dealing with a crabby kid in the morning is definitely no fun! He cried and I offered up the suggestion of taking a nap in the afternoon if he was going to act that way... didn't stop the bad attitude, but it didn't curb the crying and refusing to put his sandals on. He pouted all the way to school, but then it was like a switch was flipped and he couldn't stop talking about all sorts of different things.

Which reminds me... he is still on this kick that he is going to get a brother or sister soon (does he know something I don't... I hope not) and even said that he wanted to pick out some names for said brother or sister. Well, so far he has come up with the name Austin for a brother. I have NO idea where he got that name from since we don't even know any Austins. Well, we have a cousin name Austin, but not one that we see very often that I think Ayden would remember the name from. Maybe he has an Austin in his summer school class, I don’t know. He said that he didn’t have a girl name yet and that he would have to think about that a little more. I just thought it was too cute.

On the bad mother side of things, I’m afraid my son has a cavity. I admit that I haven’t taken Ayden to the dentist yet. The sites I read say that you should take your child to the dentist by age one… he will be five in a little over a month. I don’t really have any good reason for not taking him yet, other than it hasn’t been on the top of my list. We have a great pediatric dentist here in Point, I’ve just been on the slacker side of things getting a hold of them. Although, my one little excuse could be that we don’t have dental insurance that visiting the dentist is by no means cheap! We have medical assistance, however most dentists do not accept that. An initial visit to the dentist would probably run us over $200 (and that’s without getting any work done, but just a cleaning and x-rays)! Honestly, to us that is a lot of money, but shouldn’t Ayden’s teeth be pretty important as well! Of course! I’d like to say that he doesn’t eat a lot of sweets, and in truth, I don’t think we overdo it at our house. Probably more on the juice than anything. He does brush his teeth every night, but I am not in there making sure he’s an excellent brusher either.

Well, today after lunch he told me that his tooth hurt when he was biting on a his straw. I thought it was just because he was biting on his straw that was hurting his tooth, but after taking him into the bathroom and looking at it with the light and trying to brush away the spot I was seeing, I realized that it was probably a cavity, especially since he told me that it was hurting.

I feel bad as a mom for not getting him in sooner, for letting him get a cavity, just like I should have been better on top of it. I know that a cavity isn’t the end of the world… the majority of individuals have had one or more (me included)… just something I feel I should have been better about. Okay, I won’t sit here and dwell on it. Life goes on and a cavity won’t kill him… let’s just hope it doesn’t hit the bank hard either.

Ugh!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

One of those days…

I’m in one of those moods tonight, and have kind been in one all day long. It’s not exactly a bad mood, but it’s definitely not a good mood either. It’s kind of indescribable, but if you’ve ever been in one, you know what I’m talking about.

My morning at work was kind of blah. I got done what I needed to, but for the majority, it was just work. Usually I enjoy work, but today it was just there. I don’t know how to explain it.

After work I started a new book. I wasn’t to get sucked in the way I did, but I’m planning on almost finishing it tonight. Well, it is only 340 pages so it isn’t that big of a feat. In any case, I got sucked in and spent most of the afternoon reading while Ayden was playing.

First we went to Walmart to get some groceries… we didn’t get a whole lot. The only thing I think we NEEDED was milk, but grabbed a few extra things. I don’t particularly like cooking (if you haven’t noticed by now) and like to find things that make my duties in the kitchen short and sweet. And I have to say that since we’ve moved, I have not occupied our kitchen half as much as our old place. Partly because I’m just lazy when it comes to cooking, partly because Jay doesn’t keep up on the dishes as much as he used to, and partly because I don’t care for the layout of our kitchen just yet. I’m thinking about moving some things around yet to make it flow a little better, but haven’t really decided where I want to put things. That, and nothing seems to fit in the cupboards like I want them to, so it is just frustrating. It’s the one part of the new place that could be bigger. But I’ll deal…

So, Ayden was okay at Walmart. A little meltdown when he wanted a toy and I wouldn’t give in, but that’s life for you. He was super great all afternoon though so that made up for it. I feel like I was kind of short with him at parts… but we made it an okay day.

Maybe it was the dreary cloudy colder weather that we had today that sort of funked up my mood. Can I blame an ugly mood on the weather? Well, I am, lol!

So, I found this site where you can rent cameras from to sort of test them out. They rent out DSLR cameras for a nominal fee. I was thinking about renting one for our trip to Minnesota later this summer, but they rent for a minimum of four days and that would cost me $80 for the four days, not to mention if I wanted to rent a extra lens for it… which would probably add another $60, not to mention the optional $40 insurance I would want to get. I definitely love to test one out and think I could get some awesome pictures with it, but the whole travelling out of state with it, and it being almost $200 by the time I add everything in… I’ll stick with my point and shoot, plus it will be smaller to carry around.

Speaking of our trip… we have most of our summer booked up. Here is a list of what we have going on thus far…

July 16-18: Going to Madison with my mom and spending time with her and Ayden for the weekend

July 24-26: Going to Green Bay to spend the weekend with my best friend, races, demo derby, New Zoo, parade

July 31-Aug 2: Camping

Aug 3-8: Ayden at Jay’s parents

Aug 9-11: Minnesota trip

Aug 15-22: Ayden at my dad’s and his birthday party

Aug 29: Corn roast on my side

Sept 4-7: Rhinelander with Jay’s mom’s side

Quite the list, but I guess the weeks that Ayden is gone don’t really count for anything regarding me, but it is something on our list. It will be nice for the first day or so, but then I miss him like crazy. And him, he doesn’t even notice I’m gone. Okay, yeah, I’m sure he does, but he’s a kid and having fun is what it is all about for them!

So, I’m hoping tomorrow goes a little better than today and the rest of my week turns around! I’m looking forward to a fun weekend at my mom’s house and with my brother and sister there as well, it will give me a little break from Ayden. Always nice to have some extra hands… you mom’s know what I’m talking about.

CIAO! LOVE ME!

In Other News...

Where does the time go when you are having fun?! This last week just flew right by me and I didn't blog about a single minute of it. My excuse?! What? You are expecting an excuse from me?! Well okay... I have renewed my love for Photoshop Elements and have discovered a whole new world with it! Thus, much of my night after Ayden has gone to bed has been spent on my computer making new creations with the techniques that I have been learning. Oh and it has been SO much fun!!! The hours just fly by and before I know it, it's late, I haven't blogged, and it is time for bed...

Not to mention the fact that at least one night last week I was busy all night long at the SUGARLAND CONCERT!!! But first, let me tell you about the super fun that I had with my friends at the beach on Tuesday. Originally we were going to go to a water park, but the weather wasn't super warm for that, so we decided to do a picnic at the beach instead. Two plusses to that... it is A LOT closer and it is FREE! So that is where we headed... me and Ayden, my friend Leah, her son Seth, and her two nieces Aubrey and Sienna, my friend Robin and her son Tristan, and my friend Kristi and her daughter Lily.

Lots of kids for Ayden to play with and boy did we have a great afternoon! We went at noonish for the picnic and stayed until close to 3:30pm! Out in the sun all day playing with the kids was great fun and it was even more fun for me to catch up with my friends. A girls day out was sort of talked about, but I don't know if we will be able to plan anything before the end of the summer since we are all getting so busy. But it was nice to just get together for a while and with the kids occupying each other, we really got to just relax and chat. Obviously we were watching the kids as well, but you know how it goes. The kids had fun catching frogs and crayfish! I think they caught almost 20 crayfish, it was crazy! We definitely love the beach this year and with it being within biking distance, it is even better. Well, it was within biking distance at our old place too (probably closer) but it was harder to get there because of no sidewalks and busy roads... and I don't care for those when I have a four year old biking with me.

Wednesday night (as I said) was the Sugarland concert. We left for home about mid afternoon so we didn't have to rush anything too much. Jay and I were planning on meeting up with my friend, Niki, in Green Bay to eat at Hu Hot for supper. She then told me that her boyfriend would be joining us as well. He was originally supposed to come, but then had to help his dad on the farm and then got done working early so decided to make it. It was fun! And besides, it was Hu Hot... it was DELICIOUS! I gave my friend my approval of her boyfriend (not that she needed it by any means) and Jay even said that he liked the guy. For Jay to like one of Niki's boyfriends is a big deal because normally he doesn't really care for them. Although, I have to say I think that he has met only about four of them now and well she's had quite a few boyfriends. I've met quite a few, and well there have been some good and some not so good... this guy... he seems like one of the good guys... so YEAH for her!

After Hu Hot it was off to the concert! I was super excited for it and it was super awesome! We heard Billy Currington before hand and he was really good too, although I didn't know as many of his songs and then it was time for the main event! Both Jay and I were superbly surprised at the energy that these performers put into their concerts! They were great!!! We expected it to be good, but not GREAT! We had good seats for the cheap seats price. I wouldn't have wanted to be on the floor anyways because then you couldn't see. We could see, although were not uber close... we were not ALL the way back either. Jay and I joked that we had the Housewives (and their mothers) of Brown County sitting in front of us. It was a group of rich women and their mom's and did they ever act like it. It was funny just watching them, lol! Originally I had wanted a t-shirt, but after seeing that they were charging $30 a piece, I passed! They weren't even that good looking anyways... and we had Hu Hot for supper! We got home around midnight and I was glad that we had decided to stay the night at his parent’s house instead of drive back to Point that night/early morning. The following are some pictures from the night. Like I said, not super close, but close enough and I thought for the quality of my camera that the pictures turned out pretty good.

   

We left for Point in the morning around 7am which wasn’t too early. Made it back in time for work and school for Ayden which was what we were shooting for. It was a long day though and I was pretty tired, but we made it through it and I took a bit of a nap in the afternoon.

Friday was another gorgeous day (actually we have been having LOTS of gorgeous weather days lately) and Jay ended up not having to work because his employer was holding their annual rummage sale and apparently they got all of the mowing done earlier in the week. It was a nice surprise. We headed off to the beach as a family for a picnic lunch and some swimming in the afternoon. Jay had wanted to see the path that lead to the beach so we biked. Ayden really didn’t want to bike, but he did great! Our picnic was yummy, we’ve been eating lots of sandwiches these past few weeks, and had some fresh fruit to go along with it!

More crayfish catching and a relaxing afternoon in the cool basement rounded out our night! Saturday mid morningish I asked Ayden if he wanted to go fishing at all and he said that he would like to. I talked to Jay about it and he said we could as well (not that I needed his permission or anything), and as we were trying to figure out where we would go, he thought maybe we could go by his parents and take the boat out. Turns out we were making a spontaneous trip back home for the rest of the weekend. In a matter of a half hour we were packed and out the door. It is nice to be able to do that with Ayden at this age. I know precisely what we need and it isn’t much. I remember trips home when he was only a year old. I can’t imagine having to pack or remember everything for more than one kid so props to the parents who do! I’m sure my day will come… actually I hope that at some point it does!

Anyways, we were out on the lake by 3pm and didn’t get back to Jay’s parent’s house until almost 8pm! It was a GREAT afternoon out on the boat! We brought Jay’s brother along and went on a little lake since Lake Winnebago was too rough. I much prefer very calm lakes since I have this perpetual fear of tipping over (in all sorts of vehicles) and thus knew we would not have any problems. I mean, I think I was terrified enough last July 4th when we were out on the boat and were going to attempt forging a wicked Lake Winnebago after fireworks. Ugh… NO! So glad we didn’t! In any case, the water was calm, the weather was great, and the fish were biting!!! We caught at least 20 bluegills, two bullheads, and like one or two perch!

Saturday repeated itself on Sunday, only we were out from about noon-4pm and caught probably just as many fish, only we didn’t keep half as many! After some supper we headed back to Point and pretty much called it a night!

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite pictures that I’ve edited thus far…

…I’m in LOVE with this not so little guy!!!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Photoshop Elements Fun (again)!!!

I’m enrolled (happened to find a free class) in an online photo editing class for Photoshop and here are some of the creation that I’ve made since learning some new techniques. Even with the few lessons that we’ve had so far… I’ve learned SO MUCH! I mean, who would have thought that Photoshop Elements would have come WITHOUT a users manual.

Anyways, I’ve googled and youtubed so many things now and am falling in love with Photoshop all over again! Hard to believe I’ve had it for almost a year now and am just finding out about all of this stuff!

I’m stoked to find out what we are going to learn next week in my class! It is just a two week free course, but totally awesome! These few techniques have opened a whole new world for me! A world that has put the burn for a DSLR camera on the back burner for a little while until we can afford one… and let me really revel in my point and shoot because of all of the post production stuff that I can do… ENJOY!!!

 

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Caved...

A few months ago I wrote a post 'saying goodbye' to a very dear friend of mine. I wrote it on here because I wasn't going to send it, but needed some outlet because I was feeling pretty upset about the whole situation. I mean, from my stand point, I was losing a friend. And in all respects, I pretty much did. After that 'goodbye' I did not hear from said friend for over two months, and this was not a mutual decision.

Given the circumstances of the situation at the time, when my friend said he would write, I expected that he would write. I waited and waited for said letter... and it never came. Anger boiled when I knew he was capable of writing, but wasn't. I rewound time and fueled my anger at him with how he reacted when we lost touch four or five years ago. I justified my anger with the fact that he was just the same person as then and in fact nothing had changed. Our entire friendship was a ploy and I'd been had AGAIN! But I refused to let the anger bring me down to a point where I would retaliate. I kept myself calm and said over and over that this was how it was meant to be. We were apart of each other's lives when the time counted and there was a specific reason for it. As each day went on, I stopped hoping for a letter or even a phone call. I was enjoying life to the fullest and often went days wondering what my friend was up to. (I mean you can't just stop wondering about someone you called your best friend.)

So, what happened? I caved...

I decided that for my own piece of mind, I needed to write my friend one last letter saying goodbye. Not something to post on my blog for everyone, but said friend because he doesn't read this, but something personal to him. I wrote... but my letter was not all nice and cheery. It was three sentences long. I said that I needed to write for my own personal goodbye and the rest was in his hands. I needed to know that I just didn't give up, and that if he wanted to get in touch at a later date, he had the means. I also wished him the best with what life was to bring him.

I wasn't expecting anything back, nor did I really know if I wanted to hear back. But I did... I got a letter in the mail a couple of days later saying that we needed the time apart to focus on other things and while in retrospect I agree that there were things in our lives that we each need to focus on, I do not agree with the fact that one person in a friendship can just decide to call it quits for a while until they feel the time is right.

Probably against my better judgment (heck, I probably shouldn’t have even written in the first place) I wrote back… twice now. Both letters have been void of anything personal and relatively short. I will not jump back into this friendship like nothing happened. My friend stated that of course he was not going to throw me to the curb and that he had every intention of contacting me soon. I call his bluff, but of course I’ll never know. I cannot say if I want to be best friends again or if we will be… as always the future is unknown…

Part of me wishes I wouldn’t have caved… part of me wishes the whole thing away… part of me is sad for all that was lost… part of me longs for the friendship that used to be that will most likely never be the same…

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Long Weekend

We had a great super awesome long weekend! Jay ended up having most of Friday off which was really nice. He had to go in for just a few hours to water some grass and that was it, which left the majority of the day for us to do whatever.

Of the three day weekend we had, I’d have to say that Friday was probably the lazy day of the weekend. I did two loads of laundry (about the norm these days… two loads per week with the bigger washer and dryer) and hung them out to dry. It takes longer to hang the clothes out, but it also saves on energy!!! And me, I’m all about saving energy, lol, well at least when I can!

I also was able to con the boys into letting me take some family pictures earlier in the day. I got some good ones to say the least. They aren’t professional, but they will do for me, besides… they were free! I haven’t finished editing them yet, but when I do, I will be sure to post some. I talk like I am some professional picture editor or whatever. Me and my amateur photoshop elements skills… hey, I can try, can’t I? And besides, it is really addicting!

Saturday and Sunday were both long days, well more so long nights, but you know what I mean. The mornings were spent lounging around the house. Wait, I take that back, we were actually out of the house by 11am on Saturday. We were going to to go Walmart to pick up a few things and got about halfway there when we decided that if we were going to go to the city parade that we should turn around and go. A quick stop at home for some chairs and downtown we went! The parade was short, NOTHING compared to my hometown Father’s Day parade, but it was nice. Ayden got some candy and it gave us something to do for a little while. We went to the city festival (Riverfront Rendezvous) after the parade and got some food from the food tent and had a picnic lunch. It was yummy and because we didn’t have to pay to get into the festival, we didn’t feel bad about spending our money on some food. And the food was really reasonably priced so it wasn’t all THAT bad.

After the parade and lunch we got our stuff at Walmart and went home for a couple of hours before heading back to the festival around 5ish. We wanted to go to the concert at 9:30 and wanted to get good seats, lol! Okay, that and well we felt like since the weather was so good and it was the weekend, we should at least be spending it outside! We packed some blankets, toys, stuff to keep us busy and headed off to Riverfront once again. We listened to three different bands Saturday night and it was a great time! Ayden rocked it out! He was such a GREAT little boy the whole night long! I was so proud of him! He was also at his first country concert as well.

A late night lead to a later wake up call, which was fine… most of the day Sunday was spent around the house doing some cleaning and what not. We were waiting for Jay’s parents to get here because they were going to come to the fireworks with us. It was another longish night for Ayden, but once again he was SO well behaved! I couldn’t believe that I got that two nights in a row! The fireworks were pretty good, definitely enjoyed the finale more than anything and we had pretty decent seats. Getting home was the hard part. We had a really good parking spot, but we didn’t expect the road that we parked by to be closed when we got back to our vehicle. The police or rent a cops or whatever who were directing traffic just didn’t know what they were doing and thus caused everything to take a LOT longer than it should have. Thankfully, Ayden fell asleep and Jay and I just waited patiently until everything pretty much cleared out and we could leave.

Overall, it was a really good weekend. Relaxing to stay home and the weather was beautiful!!!

Tomorrow I am meeting up with my girl friends again… this time at the beach downtown. Ayden and I went there today and had fun. We are having another picnic and then letting the kids swim! I’m excited for Ayden to have someone to play with tomorrow because although he had fun today, I know he likes to play with kids his own age better. I try to be a fun play mate, lol! It will be good to catch up with my friends again though!

And then it’s off to Sugarland on Wednesday! This week is just going to fly by me! It’s already 9pm and I have so much that I want to do. Well only really because I thought of a cool idea for Ayden’s birthday this year. I have a lot of his first two years regular scrapbooked and made a powerpoint slide show of digital scrapbook pages last year (when I first got photoshop elements), but this year I want to make some digital scrapbook pages with some of the free kits that I’ve downloaded and then get the book printed. That way I will have an actual book of the pages and them not just sitting on my computer. I’d love to do some actual scrapbooking as well, but I’m not really that motivated right now when I can do it on my computer and be creative that way, lol. Anyways, I’m excited to make my creation and get it printed and have it be out for his birthday party.

So, I’m off to the world of photoshop for a while!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

We’re going to MINNESOTA…

…come you know what or high water! I booked the hotel room tonight!!! It feels so good to have something solidified into place that means we are taking our first out of state family trip. (Because Jay has determined that we’ve gone on family trips before- well of course dearie, but always with other family.)

So this will be just us three hitting up good ‘ole Minnesota for three days in August! Well, probably more like 2 1/2 with the driving included, but fun none the less and cheapish, lol!

I’ve scheduled three things that I would like to do while we are there, pending on Sunday we cannot make it to the golf course with Jay’s friend JT. Jay and JT could most definitely go golfing alone, but that would leave Ayden and myself alone in Red Wing, MN with nothing to do. I have no doubt that we would get along with JT’s family, as Jay has met them and says they are great, however I told Jay that I will not spend four hours with someone that I’ve just met while also trying to keep Ayden entertained. I would not mind going with them on the golf course and just reading while Ayden golfs with them, but JT is not sure if the course would allow that or what they would charge us for that. I will not pay to sit in a golf cart watching someone golf.

If golfing is not in the cards, I’ve decided we can hit up the Minnesota Children’s Museum in St. Paul for a few hours on Sunday (we are going from a Sunday thru Tuesday in August because we are hoping the places won’t be too busy at the beginning of a week) before reaching the hotel in Bloomington. I was stoked to find a good deal on expedia.com for a Days Inn right across from the Mall of America. I’ll admit, they are not five star quality, but they will suffice for sleeping arrangements as we don’t plan to stay there for much else.

On Monday (btw, praying for good weather)… I would like to visit the Minnesota Zoo and on Tuesday the Underwater Adventure/Lego Land/anything else that looks fun in the Mall of America and then head home.

The three places will run us about $130 for admission and parking which when figured out is about $14/person per place… considering the places, I guess that is not too bad. The hotel for two nights was just over $100 (thank you expedia- well I checked hotels.com, hotwire.com and travelocity.com and all had good rates… regular priced rooms for hotels around there were over $100 PER night!)… and I factored in another $100-150 for gas/shopping/food/etc… so about $350-400 for the trip. If you think about it as $400 for a three day trip, that sounds kind of expensive… but for a family of three who cannot afford to fly anywhere, much less afford to stay anywhere longer than that and do anything, I think it is okay. Plus, I reason, it IS our first family trip and want to have fun without going TOO overboard!

I told Ayden about it and he asked if we were going tomorrow. Part of me wishes yes, and a HUGE part of me wishes no because that would mean July is OVER and half of August and right around the corner is the start of my first year of grad school! Lets not go there, lol, not yet!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Insert Title (of your choice) Here

Written yesterday… posted today because the video at the end wasn’t loading last night and I just said oh well and went to bed…

It has been a pretty lazy week thus far. The weather is cooler, which makes wanting to go outside and do anything not really on the top of my priority list... that and I've just been tired in the afternoon. Both yesterday and Monday I ended up taking a short nap in the afternoon while Ayden has been playing with his legos. He was super great yesterday afternoon, but then got a little attitude towards bed time.

Ayden has been playing the basement a lot more often by himself lately which is what I am liking. I want him to feel comfortable in any room of the house by himself and that is what is starting to happen. I am really liking this 'stage' that he is in. He still loves his mommy and daddy (well most of the time), but he is old enough to comprehend a lot more, I can trust him playing alone while I am cleaning, working outside, etc... Obviously, I still check on him to see how he is and what he is getting into, but for the most part, he knows what he can and cannot do. Being the semi overprotective mother that I am, I probably check on him more often that someone else would, but that’s okay.

We went and fed the ducks today… twice! Both times we had them eating out of our hands! These ducks were wanting some bread and bad! They were so excited to get some food that they were literally running over our shoes, they were THAT close! It was a lot of fun and we went through the bread in the blink of an eye.

We also made a quick trip to Walmart where I found some shirts for Ayden on sale for $3. I had probably 7 or 8 shirts in the cart that I wanted to get for him since they were all super cute, but told myself that I could get four. Ayden helped pick out of the four that he liked best, and actually one was two shirts, so I got 5 shirts for $12. Not too bad! I’m planning on taking some family pictures this weekend and he needed a shirt that matched the ones that Jay and I are wearing and I found two/three possibilities. I’m happy about that and even happier about the price tags. We haven’t had any family pictures taken since about Christmas time and I love setting up the tripod and getting some good ones and Jay isn’t even trying his hardest to get out of them like usual, lol! So yeah!

Oh, and I got the okay from my boss to take off for our Minnesota trip and Jay did as well… so it time to book a hotel! I found a Days Inn that is right across the road from the Mall of America in which we can get rooms for about $55/night, however the hotel only has mediocre reviews. I don’t need a five star hotel, nor do I want to pay for one, but I do want a clean room to sleep in. I figure we will most likely only be in the hotel to sleep so it will probably do. Just need to discuss it with Jay. Once we get the rooms booked, it will seem more real!

I finished my first book for the summer… It was called Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell. I love her books and have read a lot of them! Well mostly because my mom and I (since we share our books) have most of them.

I’ll leave you with a short video of Ayden feeding the ducks this afternoon, the very end is the best part! Like I said, they were some hungry ducks! Enjoy! 

CIAO! LOVE ME!