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I feel like sitting down and writing, but not really… so I thought I’d share two pictures from today. Jay and Ayden were playing a game of ‘slap jack’ and it was SO funny because they both got SO into it!
Here is Ayden concentrating really hard on what card was coming up next, never know who might lay that jack! And he wanted one bad!
And here he is after winning a big pile of cards by slapping a jack! It was too funny to watch them both get into the game!
CIAO! LOVE ME!
Here are some of the photos that I took yesterday on my day off and my walk around our normal swimming spot. I really like how some of them turned out. Maybe if the weather is nice this week, I’ll go back out, only with Ayden this time! We’ll see I guess! I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it again… I love me some picture taking!
As for now… I was on campus WAY longer than I wanted to be today with having no class or clinic… from 9am till 5:30pm! Ugh! But we got our lab done and then Katie and I started on some grad assistance stuff and sort of got caught up in that. So, like I was saying, as for now, I’m off to watch me some TV!
Hope you enjoyed them!!!
CIAO! LOVE ME!
(Thursday)
Any normal college student probably has class Monday thru Friday for some amount of hours per week. But the normal college student is probably not on campus for more than 4-5 hours per day... at MAX... I'm not a normal college student, I'm a college student who is on campus for an average of 8 hours per day... I feel like I'm back in high school with having to be busy all day long. I was pretty used to the whole 3-4 hour day of class and then going home for the four years that I got it... not anymore! Not to mention the fact that in my undergrad classes, I could skip every now and then if I needed wanted too. Well... let me tell you, with only three people in your class, it is mighty hard to skip class if you are having an off day because they WILL notice! Don't get me wrong, I love what I'm learning now versus all of those required undergraduate classes that had nothing to do with my career but were there to make me a 'better rounded person' (my butt), but every now and then... I'd like to just not have to go if I'm having an off day. You know? Not everyday is perfect!
But alas, no can do... so today, Thursday, when I have no class or clinic... I am going to enjoy the day 'off'. I worked for a while this morning and was supposed to take some pictures for my friend this afternoon (but she isn't feeling the best) so instead of going to the clinic like I should to revise my reports and summaries, I am going to be sitting at home relaxing. I can revise the reports and summaries tomorrow morning when I go in since then I'll HAVE to be there and since last week when I didn't HAVE to be on campus, I was there at 7am! Today... NOT GOING!
Especially since I took a super hard test yesterday and just want to relax and not think about anything school related for a day. I might even start a book... OMG! I probably shouldn't since I don't really have the extra time to sit and read it, but I SO would like to because reading does so relax me!
(Friday)
I neglected to finish this post yesterday... oops! My bad! So I suppose that I should try and finish it today! I enjoyed my day 'off' yesterday if any of you were wondering. I rented some movies and went home and relaxed. I watched Love Happens in the afternoon and really didn't think it was all that great of a movie. Towards then end I stopped watching and went on my computer. Then later in the afternoon I needed to get out of the house because the sun was shining and I was bummed because my friend had called and cancelled the pictures I was going to take for her. She still wants me to do them, but she wasn't feeling very well yesterday and didn't want to get me sick. Bummer since next Thursday I have morning clinic and won't have time to do them for her next week... maybe the following week, lol! Her daughter will be one before I get the pictures taken, lol! Maybe then we can do a cake smash?!
So, I went outside and to our normal swimming spot in the summer and took some pictures. I'll post some later tonight! I just needed to take some pictures of something and get to edit. And the sun was shining so high yesterday and it wasn't too overly cold out! I really had a good time by myself for about 45 minutes taking pictures!
Jay made chili for supper last night... YUM! Although the noodles were overcooked. I perfer my noodles a little under cooked if anything, not mushy, but it was still good. We went through quite the ordeal in getting Ayden to eat any of and by the end of the ordeal I was SO ready to let him stay in his room for the rest of the night and go hungry. Yes, I know, I'm a mean mom. But, there wasn't anything THAT bad in the chili and certainly nothing he hasn't had before in chicken noodle soup. There was noodles, meat, celery, and oninons... and the juice which was not spicy at all because I don't do spicy! He had a snack of fruit snacks after school and then for supper, he had a bowl of chili in front of him and I'd given him two crackers to which he ended up putting in the chili. After that he wanted more crackers, but I would not give him any unless he tried one big spoonful of the chili. At this point, he had maybe a sip of the juice and declared it 'disgusting'. I didn't think that one spoonful was too much to ask of him before giving him for crackers, however he felt that it was and after much delibration on his part and crying... he ended up in his room at about 6:30pm. I had had it and he was not going to get any more chances to try it. But alas, daddy had more patiences than mommy last night and got Ayden to try his spoonful (in which he almost gagged back up- Amy and Emily... remember the potatoes at Alisha's party- but I had already told him that if he throws it back up he's back in bed) and then he was alotted some more crackers and then it was off to bed for real.
We normally make food that I know Ayden will eat, but every now and then we will make something I'm not sure he will like and run into this sort of situation. I know that people's tastes can differ and I can totally believe that he thought the chili was gross, but he at least needed to TRY more than just a sip of it before I was going to give him anything else. Is that too much to ask? I remember being told to eat what was on my plate as a kid, even if I didn't like it and pretty much all of it. Gotta love my mom, right? What does she do for Ayden now if he doesn't like something? Offers to make something different... gotta love grandmas, right?! Hehe!
Anyways, the majority of this morning was spent running a lab... 3 hours spent on it so far, and probably another 3 to go, but thats okay. It was actually pretty interesting and fun! I also did an ear impression and without even trying to make sure it turned out really well, it did! How great is that?! I was excited, even though we turned our assignment in at the beginning of the week.
Back to the grind!
CIAO! LOVE ME!
...please stop controlling what I dream about! Pretty please!
I've been having some super weird dreams lately and I know that they correspond to what I've been thinking about lately and what I'm worrying about deep down once I go to sleep. One dream I had on Saturday night was rather scary and very eye opening at the same time. I couldn't believe what was happening in the dream and then couldn't believe what I did as a result of it. It really made me think about what I have done in the past regarding decisions I've made. And last night I had another dream regarding the same people, only with a different twist to it. I cannot remember as many details from last nights dream, but I do remember the main theme behind it. I used to have these types of dream pretty often about a year or so ago and then they sort of tapered off with... I know why they tapered off and was sort of glad to see them go.
And now, with some recent developments, I've started having them again... only they are a little different. I wish they would stop because it makes we think about things I've done a pretty good job at pushing out of my life. They don't make me regret anything in life, but I'd rather dream about clinic (okay, maybe not) than dream about what I am dreaming about... is there some magical way to rid my mind of certain thoughts before I go to bed because I know I dream about this situation because it has been weighing on my mind a lot these past few days. Maybe tonight I will be too worried about doing a full eval tomorrow for clinic that I will dream about that instead.
And besides the fact that I'd rather dream about a vacation on a dessert island than what I am dreaming about... I woke up this morning feeling like I hadn't gotten any sleep at all last night. I know it had something to do with the fact that I went to bed late and tossed an turned all night, but I also felt like I was only half sleeping for most of the night. I woke up at 5:58...two minutes before my alarm went off and then reset it for 7am because I NEEDED that extra hour of sleep and then woke up at 6:59... one minute before my alarm was to go off. I was only slightly frustrated because I know that this week is going to be a good week! I can just feel it and getting to sleep in an hour this morning was really pretty nice!
I'm trying to keep a positive mind frame even though I have this super hard test looming over me this week! I've set plenty of time aside during today and tomorrow and Wednesday during the day to study for it, as well as during the night as well, although it is always harder for me to study once I go home for the day! My motivation equals nil then...
I'm looking forward to this weekend! No particular reason why as we don't have anything planned, other than the fact that I won't have any tests to study for or any major assignments due on Monday! That and the fact that I don't have any class or clinic on Thursday or Friday which means no labs due this Friday either! How great is that?! And then next weekend my sister and I (and probably Ayden) are taking our mom out to Hu Hot for her birthday. She has never been there before and really wants to go since Emily and I are always saying how good it is and well... who could really turn down an opportunity to go to Hu Hot?! NOT ME! Jay has the little kids wrestling tournament going on so he won't be able to join us and his mom is most likely working at it so she won't be able to watch Ayden. I used to work at that tournament quite a lot while still in high school and even a few years after high school. It was always a fun tournament to work in. I remember always wanting to be on the mat that Jay was reffing on (I would keep score) so I could stare at him the whole day. I mean... do my job without being distracted all day, lol! Oh the minds of high school girls, lol!
And alas… for now, I’m off to study for the hour and 15 minutes until my meeting with my supervisor… or so I am going to attempt it for at least half of that time!
CIAO! LOVE ME!
We wait all week long for the weekend (or at least I was this week) and then in the blink of an eye it is gone! I wish it would last longer, or maybe its the fact that I wish I didn’t have studying to do so I wouldn’t worry about that all weekend and would just have fun with my family instead of worrying about not getting any studying done while I am busy doing other stuff. Ugh, I feel like I’m being pulled in a million different directions all of a sudden and the directions I chose to go definitely affect the other directions that I should be going and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. I’m trying to balance it all out, but this semester is proving kind of hard to. I’m hoping the next three years are not like this. I am amazed to say that I am almost 3/4 of the way done with my first year of grad school. I felt like I would never get to this point when in undergrad. That grad school was way off in the future, something I’d never get to. Heck, just graduating from college was something big for me, but half the time it doesn’t even feel like I did that. And then when we started in the fall I felt like such a newbie and that I’d never feel comfortable where I was or with what I was doing, and now here I am, almost done with my first year and we will no longer be the new ones in the fall. Where does the time go? I know I say that a lot, but seriously… the weeks just keep flying by! I am doing aud clinic by myself! I didn’t think I would be able to do that! I did two semesters of speech clinic by myself and made it through that as well. I really hope that I’m cut out for this! I definitely enjoy learning what I am so I think so… maybe I shouldn’t be contemplating my career choice so late in the game, lol! Okay, so I’m not actually contemplating it… I’m just hoping that I’m going where I should be!
I cut Ayden’s hair yesterday! Buzzed it all gone! It was getting pretty long and I don’t really think that he wanted it cut, but I think it needed it. Ayden wanted to grow it long. He even told me that he saw boys with ponytails and said it was okay for boys to have long hair. Now, I’m not against boys with long hair by any means, a way to express their personality, however it don’t believe that my five year old needs a pony tail at this point in life. When he gets older and if he still wants one, then by all means, I shall let him grow one, but at this point in his life, I make most of the decisions about his current hairstyle. And really, he didn’t make a fuss about me cutting it all off. He if was really against it being cut I probably would have held off for a while yet and then gone and just gotten it trimmed up at a salon or something, but he was fine and now he looks so much older again. What a little turkey!
And here’s a picture of my honey bunny because I was playing with my camera and he happened to be in the living room at the time. He was pretty adamant that I not put this picture online (more specifically Facebook), but I don’t know why… I personally think he looks pretty darn good! ;) And considering he doesn’t EVER let me take his picture… I’m going to relish this one! I love me some lover boy, hehe! Just don’t tell him I posted this on my blog, lol! I might not hear the end of it and never get a picture of him again!
And here is what my honey bunny got me for Valentine’s Day! I’d say he did a pretty darn good job if I don’t say so myself! Actually, we didn’t spent valentine’s day together since he didn’t get home until 10pm that night from being at home and sturgeon spearing for the weekend, but he did give it to me bright and early Monday morning. 
We don’t normally do anything fancy for valentine’s day as Jay is pretty stuck on that it is a Hallmark holiday and I agree that it is highly commercialized, but we haven’t gotten each other anything since we started dating and that was six and a half years ago. And honestly, after having to pay for Jay’s truck fix, I wasn’t expecting anything at all and would have been okay with that because it is not like we are rolling in the money. I try and pretend that we aren’t gobs and gobs of money in student debt. How far do you think that will take me? Hehe!
Anyways, I think Jay did a great job picking out the ring and staying within a good budget. We went to get it resized this past weekend. I wore it all week on my middle finger, but I am getting it resized for my right hand ring finger. It felt weird taking it off and giving it to the jeweler though because I had gotten pretty used to wearing it all week. I can’t wait to get it back, but it will be about two weeks since we aren’t going home next weekend (when it will be done) and are the following weekend and it will save money if we don’t make an extra trip to Appleton in between there. And it doesn’t bother me that we will have to wait another week.
We’ve booked a mini vacation to Wisconsin Dells over spring break. Can’t remember if I posted about that already or not. Quite possibly, lol! I have been so busy lately and I haven’t had the ambition to post much and then when I do, I can’t remember what I’ve already written about. We are going to the Wilderness Resort and Water Park for two nights. They had a super deal over the week that is Point’s spring break… rooms for $130 when normally they go for well over $200/night! So we cannot wait! It is going to be tons and tons of fun and nice to just get away for a little while… even if it is only for two nights! Ayden is excited too! We went to the Appleton mall yesterday (to get my ring resized) and he said that he wished that the cafe part was the water park we were going to because it looked really big from the outside. That’s how I can tell that he is excited! One month!
Actually, after spring break the rest of the semester is going to fly because it is two weeks in April of class, then my trip to San Diego, then the week after is the mini conference to Madison which means no class or clinic that Thursday or Friday, then a week of class and then the last week of class on which Friday is back in Madison for capstone projects and then finals! OMG! The rest of the semester is going to fly by and yet we are really only five weeks into the semester! Wowsers! Well the next four weeks might go kind of slow, lol!
Today was a lazy day at our house! I finally put the laundry away… from last week and this week and we cleaned the upstairs. I’ve been procrastinating on studying for my test on Wednesday afternoon. I’m hoping that it is relatively easy, but not holding my breath because pretty much anything can happen. And then while I was watching a movie this afternoon, Ayden came upstairs from playing in the basement with Jay and laid down on my lap and then ended up falling asleep. He rarely, if ever, takes a nap anymore and I just couldn’t bare to move him because cuddle time like that happens very rarely these days and so I just soaked in my little guy laying on my lap and finished watching my movie. It was just so cute how he came up from playing and laid down to cuddle with me. I love those moments! :)
I’m going to try and make a better effort to post more often this week, but can’t promise that I will! Tomorrow and Tuesday will be filled with studying, so maybe Wednesday night, if I am not too depressed about the test, lol! Keep your fingers crossed for me and I just might be back tomorrow if the studying thing gets too much! In the mean time, I’m going to be trying to remember everything about auditory brainstem responses that I can, care to join me?!
CIAO! LOVE ME!
…chicken with her head cut off! This semester is definitely… BUSY!!! It hasn’t reached the stressful point yet and I’m not sure that it will since we are reaching the halfway point soon and you’d think that by now it would be getting a little more stressful. Anyways, I’m SO glad that it hasn’t gotten to that super stressful point yet, but this week was super busy and I felt like I was running from one place to the next and never having enough time to finish the first event that I was at in the first place.
Thursday I had NO classes and NO clinic, yet I was on campus in the clinic by 7 AM running a lab. Tell me… just how insane is that?! But… I was also able to leave campus by 2:15pm, which hasn’t happened in over two weeks, so that made me happy!
It really was just a LONG week! I’m glad that it is over because this week should go better, I hope, lol! I don’t have class or clinic on Thursday again since next Thursday will be my rotating week and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I don’t have to go to campus except to go to work for a little while. And on Friday I don’t have class either because of the WSHA convention in Oshkosh that most of the professors are going to. However, on Friday, Amy, Katie, and myself are going to run our ABR lab and hopefully get the bulk of that done. We turned in our EcochG lab yesterday and honestly, I’m scared to see how we did on it because I don’t know that we answered everything like we should have or even ran the lab completely like we should have. But by the time we needed to turn it in, I really didn’t care anymore, I was at that point and it usually takes a while before I get to that point.
Our lab on Friday was actually pretty fun to run though and I think I understand it a lot better than the previous one so that is good too. At least at this point I think I understand what I am supposed to be doing, lol!
I had my first test of the semester this past week as well. It was in my hearing aids class and I thought that it was WAY easy which is good although I am a bit upset that I studied so much for it and didn’t really need to. Guess now that I will know the material either way. We have another test this coming week and I am really not looking forward to it because it is in my auditory brainstem response class and the teacher said that we should know the material in the book and I haven’t even cracked the book yet, hehe!
Guess that I should probably do that sometime soon, eh? It doesn’t sound like too much fun so I think I will continue to blog and then work on getting that laundry finished that I started earlier. I have two loads of laundry that still need to be folded and put away from last week. I’m so bad!
I think I’m going to cut Ayden’s hair today… we’ll see…
CIAO! LOVE ME!
I found out some news today that is just devastating! I’m not really at liberty to go into the specifics of it because it doesn’t specifically affect me, but one of my friends is going through a really hard period in her life right now.
For awhile there, things were starting to look up for her and her daughter. Their future was starting to look a little brighter and slowly but surely, everything was starting to fall into place, and then today… WHAM!
I feel so bad that I can’t do anything for her except be there for her as best I can. And what amazes me is the fact that she can see a sliver of positivity in all of this. She is such a strong and amazing person that it just astounds me. I’m so proud to be able to call her my friend.
We’ve been talking a lot lately about how our paths aren’t ours to make, but are already destined for us long before we even see where we are headed. And her faith is just amazing too! She’s been leaning on God a lot lately and I know that he will help her through the days that are to follow.
I apologize for the lack of details in this post, but for my readers who believe in the power of prayer, I ask that you please send up one for my friend, that she sees where God is trying to take her in light of all that is going on around her and that she leans on him and her family and friends in this time of need. Thank you!!!
I’ll be back to post some more about what’s been going on in my hectic life soon… hopefully!
CIAO! LOVE ME!
I haven’t really felt like sitting down these past few days to do any real writing. I’ve meant to and then I get on the computer and start with Facebook and then read my blogs and then catch up on the photography forum I frequent, and by the time I am done with all of that, the ambition I started out with when I turned my computer on to blog is gone and I just sit trying to find other stuff to do online. So tonight, I decided that I would blog about everything that I have been meaning to this past week, or at least try to.
It was a busy week, but then again, they’ve all seemed pretty busy since the beginning of the semester. Spending a lot more time on campus that I did in the fall, but it really isn’t stressing me out (yet). I’m learning lots and lots about my field and I love it. I know that I should be doing more reading (actually start my readings), but I haven’t the motivation for that, especially after spending all day on campus everyday.
We had this really long lab this past week… we had to hook some hearing aids up to the computer test box thingy and check to see if the hearing aid was within the manufacturers specifications. Needless to say, all three of us first years ended up doing the lab over probably three different times because we wanted to make sure we got everything correct. I ended up only getting a point and a half taken off so not bad… not bad at all!
I also had clinic twice this week. Overall it went really good since the slot on Tuesday was highly shortened and then on Thursday I didn’t have to do a whole lot. And the reports didn’t take all that long to type up and they didn’t need a lot of changes which made it even better!
On Friday we learned how to do ear mold impressions which was quite the experience! Long story short… Katie had a bad experience with a second year doing an impression on her that ended her up in the hospital being checked by an ENT to see if her ear drum was still intact. Thank goodness it was nothing worse than a scratch in her ear canal, but the blood definitely made it look a LOT worse! So, needless to say, Katie would not let us doing impressions on her, but if I were her, I’d be scared too. Amy did one on me and then Katie attempted to do one on Amy, but somehow putting the cotton block in and then taking it out to reposition it led to Amy’s ear canal to have two drops of blood and that meant no impression on her ear either.
But we practiced on dummy ears and then found some volunteers to let us use their ears! My very first impression on a human ear turned out GREAT! We need to do 10 impressions for the lab, 4 of which need to pass all of the criteria by the end of the week. Not hard since we have a bunch of volunteers who get extra credit for it in one of their classes. Plus, after doing it two times now (my second one turned out good, but not perfect), it is definitely not as bad as I thought it would be.
We also worked on our EcochG lab on Friday and I got to get hooked up with electrodes! I felt like a science experiment, but it was lots of fun being able to work with the machine a little more. We need to run the test on Amy yet, and Katie and myself need to get hooked up one more time to do the last part of the lab yet.
It’s looking to be a pretty busy week this week as well! We need to finish up our impressions, finish up our EcochG lab, Katie and I need to move lots of stuff from the first hearing aid lab to the second one, and then there is clinic. Wednesday night I’m going out to eat with my friends again and then going to see Blindside with one of them afterwards. It is playing on campus and free for students. Then Thursday I am taking the same friend’s daughter’s pictures and have Ayden’s parent teacher conference. I also have a test on Wednesday. The only good thing is that my 9am lab is cancelled on Friday for the next two weeks! I’m hoping to fit everything in!
Ayden and I have had a great weekend together… no daddy since Thursday morning. I’ve gone back and forth between being annoyed and not annoyed with Jay for the past four days. His friend JT spent the night on Wednesday and Jay was just not acting like himself and it really annoyed me. He didn’t even say goodnight to me. So, I was upset Thursday morning and made a point to not kiss him goodbye when I was leaving for school to see if would say anything about it before I left, but he didn’t. He didn’t even call when he left to go home with JT. And the to top it off… I got home from school on Thursday and Jay had left the house a mess. Okay, so it wasn’t a mess mess, but he left his coat on the couch, the computer chair sitting in the living room, a soda cup full of soda on the table, dirty clothes strewn on the bedroom floor, blankets JT had used not put away, and his old computer sitting out and the storage room in the basement in disarray. I was IRATE! I mean, he was going to be gone until late Monday night, what the F… seriously, its not like I was asking THAT much, was I? In any case, I left him a halfway nasty voicemail and decided I wasn’t going to talk to him until he got home.
That lasted all of until the second time he tried calling me that afternoon and a short convo left us in the good. And things were good until today. I even was happy because he said he would be home Sunday afternoon instead of Monday night since JT had to be home earlier! YEAH! That was until… he got a sturgeon this morning and decided to spend the ENTIRE day showing it to people. He had 5-5 1/2 hours of driving to do today and when does he leave to come back home… 4pm! So much for spending any time together today! It’s not even the fact that it’s Valentine’s Day or anything, I just thought we’d be able to get to spend some time together today. Guess not! Since by the time he gets home I’ll be in bed heading off to dream land.
I plan on getting up early tomorrow to head in to campus and start studying for my test since I got absolutely NOTHING done school related this weekend. So, going in early sounds like a good idea!
But, overall, Ayden and I had a great time together these last four days without Jay. Ayden was SO well behaved. Not that he normally misbehaves all of the time, but he does have his moments and I’m proud to say we didn’t have any of those this weekend. We have fun playing in shaving cream, racing monster trucks in the living room, cuddling in bed, doing a bit of shopping, taking pictures, being silly together! It was some great mommy and me time! And today, I had to get a few things from Walmart and told Ayden that he would get to pick out a little something from the store for being such a good boy for mommy.
Now, I know its probably not the ‘right’ thing to do… rewarding my child for being good since he should behave all of the time, right? And not expect anything, but I felt he deserved it because it was just him and me for a couple of days and sometimes I can just go bonkers and I didn’t this time and he really was good. So, I was all set for him to get some Star Wars legos like he had asked for. Well, instead we stopped at Michaels (the arts and crafts store) before Walmart because I was looking for something and happened upon these wooden model kits that kids could put together. They had a ton to choose from and came with everything you needed to make a wooden plane/car/train/etc… the parts, glue, paint, paint brush, etc… and they cost… $1! I was amazed they were SO cheap because they were really pretty cool! I took some pictures today, will have to upload them. Ayden decided he wanted one of these instead and being the nice mommy, I let him pick FOUR! After we got home, he put ALL four of them together BY HIMSELF! Not once did he ask for help and they all were put together CORRECTLY! I was so proud of him and we worked on them for probably an hour! It was so awesome seeing him sit there and work on them! He needed to follow the directions and everything!
Unfortunately, we had a bit of a break down tonight when Ayden mentioned going to see the monster trucks this year. We (Jay and I) decided we were going to pass that up this year and do something else. It just so happened that the monster truck show was last weekend when we went flying. When I told Ayden that we had missed the show, he broke down in the worst heart wrenching tears. I felt so bad for him. And then… he did the next worse thing than telling me he hated me (which I’m hoping doesn’t happen for a LONG time)… he stormed to his room! I let him take a breather and try to relax before I went and talked to him about it. He was still pretty upset with me, but calmed down enough to talk to me about it. I finally left him in his room, he didn’t want to come back out yet, and he ended up falling asleep for a while. I let him sleep for about 45 minutes and the needed to wake him up for supper. I knew that if I let him sleep through the night, he’d be up at 5am no longer tired and I really don’t want to get up that early tomorrow. He’s also getting a cold so I think that helped with him falling asleep while in there. I can tell that he’s pretty stuffed up. I hope that it doesn’t get worse and that I don’t catch it. Keeping my fingers crossed!
I’m thinking since we didn’t do the whole monster truck thing this year, we might go to the Dells for a few days during spring break. I checked out one resort and they are having a great deal on room rates during our week of spring break. Unfortunately (well not for Ayden), we might need to take Ayden out of school for a day or two, but I’m not against that, it’s only kindergarten and for the cheap prices, oh yeah!
Oh… and I talked to my mom today about mine and Jay’s taxes, since she is doing them so kindly, totally going to have to take her out to eat for this, and she informed me that Jay will get a refund this year since we were freaked that he wouldn’t and we might have to pay in because he changed something on his W4 last year. Talk about a weight off of our shoulders because I was seriously thinking about taking the money I’m getting for my scholarship and paying rent for June, July, and August ahead of time just to make sure it got paid. Yes, that was how worried I was about making it through the summer money wise. But now, I’m not so concerned, thus the thinking about taking a little Dells mini vacation.
So, Jay just called and said that the friend picking JT up halfway to Minnesota from Point just went into the ditch and will be running late. Sounded like Jay was just going to keep driving until they met up somewhere, be it in the town they were supposed to, or farther towards Minnesota. Hope Jay doesn’t end up taking JT ALL the way home… then he won’t be home until midnight or later! UGH! Keeping my fingers crossed!
CIAO! LOVE ME!
Ayden and I are home alone for the weekend while Jay and his friend are out doing the whole sturgeon spearing thing. Despite the sun shining lovely outside, I’ve been too lazy to get us outside to enjoy what people are saying is a pretty nice day. You know me and my love for the cold… so when I don’t have to go out, I don’t… So, I was trying to come up with some fun stuff for us to do while we were ‘stuck’ in the house today… and one of the ideas that came to mind (after playing some Sorry Sliders and reading some Magic School Bus books, among other things) was getting some shaving cream out and playing with it on the counter! We have the gel shaving cream so I wasn’t sure that it was going to work as good as the foam kind, but it definitely worked and we definitely had fun!
Wouldn’t be ‘fun’ unless we incorporated some learning in it as well! We experimented what a butter knife would write like and a fork. It was lots of fun and super messy, but it was shaving cream… I didn’t care!
We wrote numbers… and words and then practiced sounding the words out! Ayden is slowing getting it! He knows all of the sounds of the letters and can say them individually while sounding out a word, but the whole putting them together isn’t quite there yet. We’re working on it though!
And by the end… we were both literally COVERED in shaving cream! It started out innocently enough. We both had gotten a little bit on our clothing from leaning against the counter and then we had a battle to see who could get the most in their hands which turned into me putting some more shaving cream on Ayden’s arms, which migrated to his shirt and my shirt and then we got each others faces and by that point there was no turning back so we donned the hair as well! It really was TONS of fun! And pretty easy to clean up as well! I just tossed Ayden into the shower and for me all I had to do was take off my sweat shirt and rinse my hair out underneath the bathtub spout (you know, hands and knees style) since I really didn’t want to climb in the shower for the second time today. Easy peasy pie and well worth the laughs we had! SO worth it!
CIAO! LOVE ME!
Today, I started out in a much happier mood than when I posted last night. I ended up finishing my post, putting Ayden to bed, having some ice cream and crawling into bed myself. I needed that early nights bed time and lots of sleep to put me in a better mood. And wouldn't you know... I DIDN'T dream about anything hearing related. How wonderful was that... or at least that I remember! What I do remember dreaming about is the Duggar's of all people. Probably because I saw a commercial for their show right before I turned the TV off. But hey, I'm not going to complain, at least it wasn't hearing related! I tend to dream about that sort of stuff if I am really worried about it and I was pretty apprehensive about this mornings appointments.
My clinic slot this morning was a breeze. The first appt got cut short due to some extraneous factors, the second was only 15 minutes long because it was a screening, and the last one was cancelled because of the bad weather. So a three hour slot, ended up getting me 45 minutes of clinic time... which was okay I guess since I also have clinic on Thursday morning, so no biggee. Plus it was less that I had to write up so that was good as well. Less hours is what sucks though. I am on hearing aid duty for the day and will be on campus until about 4pm in case anything comes in, but that will hopefully give me plenty of time to get some of my lab written up. I don't think that I have a whole lot that needs to be written up for it, it is just understanding the questions that I need to work on, hehe!
Ayden only had a half day of school today which was good for him, but bad for Jay. Since Jay only has one class on Tuesdays, he was looking forward to going to work after that for the majority of the day, however he can't because he needs to stay home with Ayden. Boo for me needing to be on campus all day because I would have enjoyed an afternoon at home with the little dude. I was kind of snappy with him this morning. Jay was out working and I was trying to get ready and Ayden asks for breakfast. Normally he doesn't eat breakfast until 8ish and it would have worked perfectly since that was when Jay was getting home and I was leaving for campus. Well today, he wants breakfast at 7:30, just as I am starting to curl my hair. Fine and dandy... getting him a bowl of cereal is easy enough, except he wanted a waffle. I get the waffle out and start heating it up and it is rock hard and smells bad so I told him that the waffles were bad and needed to be thrown out. Well, that didn't go over too well with him. Tears started flowing, I was getting frustrated and starting to run behind, he didn't want cereal, he got cereal, and then he spills some of it on the couch. UGH! Can't I just finish doing my hair! I told him to take care of the mess since it wasn't too bad and got out of the house just a few minutes later than I wanted to. It didn't help that Ayden was up before he normally gets up and that's why he wanted breakfast earlier. Oh well... we'll have a better night!
The snow won't stop falling... I wish it would because I really don't like it. It makes driving only that much harder. I don't like walking in it. It's cold and messy... I don't care if it looks pretty, because at this point in the winter, I don't think it does because I want it GONE!
Have I mentioned that the friend I took pictures for a couple of months ago (of her two little girls) wants me to take some more pictures for her?! How awesome is that?! She must have liked them enough to not want to pay again for her daughter’s 9 month pictures. I’m so stoked because of course I am not going to charge her because I’m still doing this as a hobby and my pictures are definitely not of the professional caliber as I’ve said so many times. I’m just so excited because with the weather being so crappy these past few weeks I haven’t really gotten out to do a lot.
Check out this picture that I took of Ayden while we were on the lake this past weekend. It came from the following picture… I was able to up the exposure enough, pop the colors a big, and crop it to where it looks like he is just standing in white space. I know its not very original or anything, but I really liked how it turned out! As I say frequently… oh the power of editing!
Anyways, so I’m planning on taking pictures for my friend next Thursday! I hope that we have some better light this time than we did the last time because it was pretty rainy then. What I really would like to find is a coffee cup like the one in the picture below to take some pictures in.
Isn’t it the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?! I’ve found forums online that say that they are sold at Walmart, but the last time I checked ours didn’t have it. Plus, if you look for them on Walmart’s website, they only come in a brown monogrammed color and I don’t like that. Of course, our store may not have it out yet because it is still the middle of winter… but it is super cute, isn’t it?! And then when I am not using it for pictures, I can plant a flower or something in it because that is what they are actually for. Ah, photo props sound better, hehe!
I just might go work on my lab now… just might…
CIAO! LOVE ME!
It’s only Monday and already I’m feeling the pressure of the week. I think it’s mostly because I am allowing myself to feel that way. I feel like there is SO much to get done before the end of the week and I don’t want to do any of it.
I also feel like I’m behind in all of my classes and not learning all that I should, but I also know that I have already learned a TON in the past four weeks of school so I am not THAT far behind which is good. I just haven’t been very motivated to get anything done other than what I NEED to get done for my labs. It’s so hard to get back into the school mode after I get home from school. I also feel like I’ve been spending all day on campus lately and that’s because I have been which really bites.
Mostly I think I just feel kind of bogged down because I know that I have two clinic slots this week and I really don’t want them, lol. I’d rather just get them done and over with, but no can do. I’m also dreading the fact that Jay will be gone from Thursday-Monday and that is five days of just me and Ayden. Totally doable and all, but sometimes that child just drives me bananas. I’m sure I’ll be begging Jay to come home by Monday night!
And I’m feeling bogged down because of the impending snow that we are supposed to be getting and I don’t want snow… especially not the amounts that they are calling for us to get. Just thinking about it makes me shiver.
I know I’ll get through this week fine. I’ll finish the lab from you know where in time and will get a decent grade on it. I’ll start the lab that was supposed to be due this Friday, but is now due two Fridays from now and will put a dent in it. I’ll start studying for a test I have next Wednesday at some point this weekend. It will be a good week! Just believe!
For now, I’m going to go cut my nails back since they are so cracked and brittle they need to be as short as possible and paint them with a clear coat and then enjoy a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream and then go to bed and tell myself repeatedly that I WILL NOT DREAM about the hearing evaluation that I will be doing tomorrow because I plan on going to campus at 8am and my clinic doesn’t start until 10am so I’ll have two hours to make sure I know what I’m doing or at least convince myself that I know what I’m doing! Lol!
CIAO! LOVE ME!
Ayden and I ventured out onto the frozen lake late this morning for our plane ride. I haven’t been on the lake in the winter in a LONG time, so it was once again a bit of a surreal experience to walk out onto it and know that we go boating out on it in the summer. To see vehicles driving out on something that is a HUGE body of water! Should not be possible, yet it is! Still… I won’t deny that it still made me a little leary. We’re supposed to be driving out tomorrow with the ice shanties. Fun times!
Enjoy some of the pictures that we took while we were out there! It was a great time!
Ayden had TONS of fun running around on the ice, even though he did have a few falls! The weather was pretty nice for being a winter day. Little more wind than I would have liked, but it didn’t stop the pilots from going into the air. That would have totally sucked because both Ayden and I were really looking towards the flight!
Jay’s grandpa drove out onto the lake and plowed a nice long runway for the planes to land on. It was pretty cool and thanks to him, Ayden and I got our ride for free. The gathering was really looking for donations, but since Jay’s grandpa did a favor for the group of pilots, they gave us a ride for free! They were all super nice!
Standing in front of the plane that we were going to ride in! Only Ayden and I went up, but the pilot did offer to take Jay up after us as well. Jay was a ‘chicken’ and didn’t want to go. I think Ayden was disappointed because he really wanted to go again! Ayden even asked if we could go back tomorrow to get another ride!
Ayden and I ready to get in!
Ayden got to sit in the back by himself! I was a little worried this might freak him out since I told him all week that he could hold my hand, but he did great the whole flight! He was able to see out the window and we got to wear headsets to be able to talk to each other!
Getting ready to go! We were both super excited!!!
Up… up…and… AWAY! Due to the wind, we did have a bit of a bumpy ride, but I didn’t think it was overly bad. I was most worried about Ayden getting air sick than anything because I didn’t want him to throw up all over the plane, but he did great. He had a smile on the whole flight (which was about 15 minutes long) and thought it was amazing!
Back on solid ground lake! I admit I did get a little concerned when we were coming in for landing and we were still pretty high in the air and I could tell the propeller was starting to slow down. It did freak me out a little bit since… well the propeller helps keep you in the air, but I knew that we were in good hands with the pilot and we had a smooth (as smooth as it can be on bumpy ice) landing! It was a great ride and experience! We both LOVED IT and would do it again in a heart beat!
CIAO! LOVE ME!
Three posts in one day… what is going on? Lol! So, I needed to get out the rest of the festivities of my weekend. I got home from shopping Saturday afternoon and was relaxing for the rest of the day. I was all set to go to bed relatively early and enjoy a night alone in bed. However, my friend was bumming about spending the weekend alone since her boyfriend was spending some time with his family so I jokingly told her that she could come over to my place since the boys were gone. This was already at 8:30pm and she lives almost two hours away. Guess what?! She took me up on the offer! I was astonished, but it would give me something to do for the rest of the weekend, plus I don’t get to see this friend very often.
She got to my house shortly before 10:30pm and we headed out to a local bar. She wasn’t really in the mood to sit at my house and talk, which was fine with me. Neither of us are big drinkers (well actually I don’t really drink at all), but it was nice to get out for a change of scenery. The bar we went too wasn’t overly busy, so we grabbed a table and proceeded to catch up on all things guy until almost 1am. She had one drink and I just enjoyed being out with a friend (albeit at a bar).
We spent the majority of Sunday doing what girls do best, talking… she was having some issues with her boyfriend and ended up spending almost two hours on the phone with him working things out. I had no qualms with this as it allowed me to get a lot of the housework done that I probably wouldn’t have done otherwise. She left in the late afternoon and had managed to work out pretty much everything with her boyfriend and I was keeping my fingers crossed for her since she has a problem with attracting drama and making things worse for herself.
I was happy to hear last night that things were continuing to go well and that her boyfriend was coming over the next night for some quality time. They’ve been together for six months now and its becoming pretty serious and I’m super happy for my friend because she deserves it and I’ve met her boyfriend and he’s pretty darn great. So, I get this call this afternoon and my friend is in tears.
Uh oh! I’ve gotten this call before, one too many times and was waiting for the words ‘he broke up with me’, but they didn’t come. She kept saying that everything was going good and then she let the bomb drop, that got dropped on her, that got dropped on her boyfriend the night before. A former friend of his, of whom he had a one night fling with, showed up at his house claiming he was the father of her son. Talk about OMG!
Like this certainly couldn’t have come at a worse time for my friend who was already feeling insecure about her relationship, UGH! I felt so bad for her, but it was my job to get her head on straight and to get her to understand that this isn’t about her, it’s about being there for her boyfriend through the next few weeks until they get a paternity test back proving or disproving this possible fatherhood.
Definitely not something I was expecting (well who expects something like this) and I’m praying for my friend to see what needs to be seen here so she can be there for her boyfriend during this time and that she makes the best out of this situation because if she handles it the wrong way, she is apt to push her boyfriend away instead of bring him closer.
Oy vey times two!
In other drama news, I’ve recently come into a phone number that could let me open up another can of worms. The phone number of my ‘supposed’ best friend whom I haven’t heard from in months and had no way to contacting until last week. I want to call said used to be friend and let loose the anger and resentment I have built up towards him, but first off, I’m too chicken, and secondly, I’m pretty sure I really don’t want to open up that can of worms and just continue to forget about that part of my life.
Despite the fact that it still hurts to lose someone I considered my best friend for almost five years, I’m don’t know that I can ever trust that person again. I miss the talks we used to have, the complete honesty we used to share, but I don’t miss the added drama it also brought into my life. At this point, I’m putting ever ounce of self control I have into making it through each day without dialing the number… and someday it won’t be a struggle and I’ll be like so and so who?! Ugh on the whole situation, lol!
CIAO (for the third time today)! LOVE ME!
I ventured to Walmart early this evening for a few needed groceries. I really didn’t want to go, but I was sick of eating Chex Corn cereal for breakfast and we needed some more milk, among a few other things. As I ventured down the different food aisles in search of what we needed, I went down the ‘valentine’s day’ aisle and perused the valentines they had out for kids to choose from.
I sincerely hope they put more out for children to pick from because I saw Twilight cards, Tinkerbell, Spongebob, and Cars cards…
So, I scoured the internet and came across some cute (and FREE) vday cards that were available from Secret Agent Josephine’s blog… feel free to visit her site as well. These are from a previous year, she has some new ones up for 2010, which I didn’t happen upon until after I did these ones, but that’s okay, I like how these ones turned out. I am going to print them on my photo printer (and/or) at Walmart/Walgreens/someplace and then have Ayden write in the names and his name. I might even go so far as to make goody bags?!
Here is just 4 of the 12 different ones I was able to make!
CIAO! LOVE ME!
...is too many?! I happened to over hear a conversation at work today (happens a lot when the 'busy body' of the office has hers right next to the front desk area where I work. Btw, said 'busy body' is totally nice, but she definitely likes to share her opinions with her coworkers about just about everything and I get the joy of hearing just about ALL of it while I am at work, hehe) that was about the number of children people are having.
Just so happens that my coworkers sister is pregnant with her fifth child and she was discussing this with another coworker. When I heard, my immediate inside reaction (of course because I wasn't supposed to actually be privy to this information) was excitement for the new mommy. How great, another new baby for the family. I don't know the logistics of the family and whether or not this was a planned pregnancy and the current financial situation of the family, etc... but my coworker was giving off the impression that five kids is WAY too many. She said something along the lines of when does it start taking away from the other kids time etc... and then she said something about how people just don't have that many kids these days and its considered a large family.
They both went on to talk about the Duggars who now have 19 children and how the last one was born extremely early and look what having that many kids does to a woman and that her sister is getting up there with this being her fifth pregnancy. At this point I should have just stopped listening because it was starting to irritate me. Everyone has the right to have their own opinions and thoughts on situations as because what is right for one person might be completely wrong for another and so on and so forth. And because I did listen, I got irritated and thus the fact that I need to get my opinions out.
I want to know what is wrong with having five kids, or ten, or even nineteen. Is it wrong because the average household in today's society has 2 point whatever kids?! Who says its wrong? I don't think its wrong. I think its great when people have large families. I want more than the average number of kids myself... three... four... maybe even five. I love Ayden so much that I want to show that love to more kids of my own. Its a feeling I didn't think was possible and becoming a parent changes someone so completely. Its a feeling that I have in my core, that I was meant to have more kids. I don't know.
I look at the families who have more than the 'average amount' of children and think they are just amazing! Maybe its because I've become accustomed to large families that I now want one of my own. My dad has 8 brothers and sisters and Jay's dad has 11... that means LOTS of people at family gatherings and I LOVE it!
I don’t know how many of my readers watch the Duggars and TLC or know about them, but their family and faith just astounds me. There’s NO WAY I could have that many children, but I so admire their family and how easy they make it seem. It’s organized chaos! I have no idea if the fact that the mom had 18 previous children had to deal with her delivering early (all reports I’ve heard/read point towards no), but God works in wonderful ways ALL the time, whether or not we can see it in the face of adversity. If they happen to have yet another one in the future, all the more power to them, I think they are fantastic.
Okay, so I feel better that I was able to get that off my chest. Point is, I want lots of kids and I don’t think its fair for people to point fingers at those who don’t follow the norm (no matter what they aren’t following) because I’ve never been a big fan of following the pack. I definitely don’t consider myself a leader per say, more of an individual or sorts.
Oy vey!
CIAO! LOVE ME!
