Golf Range Outing!

  CIAO! LOVE ME!

Summer Lovin’ Havin’ Me a BLAST!

It may not technically be summer yet, but the warm weather sure makes it feel like it and today was gorgeous. Today after Ayden got home from school he took advantage of the fact that Jay was watering the lawn and ran through the sprinkler. It was so much fun watching him! Enjoy some of the pictures that I took! Yes… his pants were having trouble staying up! Haha! The funny part is that they really weren’t THAT loose because he couldn’t get them unbuttoned by himself to take them down the right way… that and he did have his underwear pulled up higher than normal (not that I know why)… we don’t make this look a common occurrence in our house because honestly, I can’t stand boys who wear their pants down to their knees! Please don’t let Ayden grow up to be one of them, lol! And here’s a picture of me from a couple of weeks ago, courtesy of my sister for my mom’s mother’s day project!Jay and  I have a wedding to go to tomorrow night and today I found the cutest dress (and some new heels, necklace, and ring, and a free tote). Don’t judge, hehe! The dress is dressy enough for a wedding, but casual enough for a summer party. In fact, I just might wear it again next weekend for my brother’s graduation party, who knows?!

So ready for a good weekend!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Randomness…

I got the movie Dear John yesterday. It was supposed to be pretty good. I was fairly certain that I had read the before, maybe even had it, but couldn't pass up the movie. I mean the commercials said it was an 'instant date night classic'... who could pass that up?! Jay I'm sure, hehe!

I was not very impressed. Sure, it had to follow the book for the most part and I'm not even sure if it did that very well since I only think I read the book before. But, really... I didn't think it was all that great. Not even that sad at the end. Oh well, it was still worth getting and I will definitely watch it again. One movie that I will be for sure getting when it comes out on DVD is Remember Me because that one was really good.

Its nice now that there are blue-ray players out because it makes DVDs that much cheaper. We don't have a blue-ray player and don't intend on getting one anytime soon. Probably because I don't really know all that much about them, they are expensive, and our DVD player is working just fine for us right now.

I was cleaning the office the other day, well the little alcove we have designated as an office area, and as I was doing that, I realized that Jay and I are big techie people. Like I didn't already know this! Okay, so I did, but not the extent that we really are. Actually, I just realized that we have A LOT of stuff! Tons 'litter' the entire basement! It's pretty crazy! And the crazier part is that Ayden doesn't even play with half of them! We spend the majority of our time upstairs and we don't keep a lot, if any toys upstairs, thus most of them don't get played with. I'm hoping that we start spending more time downstairs this summer with the warmer weather. We'll see!

Ayden asked me the other night if we could live in our current place forever. He must really like it! We're 'stuck' there for at least the next two years. Our landlords said that they wouldn't raise the rent on us if we signed our next lease for two years instead of one. It actually worked out kind of perfect because at the end of the next two years, I will be done with my schooling and ready for my externship so we will be able to leave and go where ever that will be if needed. If we indeed need to move some place for it.

Another busy weekend ahead for us! Ayden's last soccer game on Saturday morning, although this one is later which means we get to sleep in and then headed back 'home'! This will be the first time I'm sleeping at Jay's house in probably two months! It's been quite a while since I've stayed over night, but that's okay. Ayden and I are going to help my mom plant some flowers and then he is spending the night there while Jay and I go to a wedding reception. On Sunday we have Jay's graduation/his parent's 25th wedding anniversary party and on Monday is recoup day. I'd love to go out on the boat on Monday if Jay's parents had it ready, but I'm not going to say anything since they will be really busy with the party all day Saturday and Sunday and don't want them to have to be busy getting the boat ready too. But who knows, maybe they already have it ready and the weather will be nice and we could go out on it, hehe!

Tomorrow is a mandatory furlough day at work and although I'm not an actual employee of my work (but rather a student employee), I don't have to mandatorily take it. However, since no one else will be in which means the doors will be locked, I get the day off too. And guess what!? The weather is supposed to be fabulous again tomorrow which means lots of 'catching some rays' while reading!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

New Babies!

We have a robin nest in one of the trees next to our garage… and this morning Ayden found part of an egg on our grass. I really didn’t think anything of it, other than that there was a nest nearby and that the eggs had probably hatched recently. (You know, not really thinking about the nest next to our garage.) I told Jay that Ayden had found part of an egg and that he was going to take it for his sharing day tomorrow and Jay said that the babies in the nest had probably just hatched. We ventured outside and sure enough… there were new babies in the nest! We were sure to venture close when the mom was not around (she’s pretty protective- but who wouldn’t be, hehe) and to not touch anything, not even the tree.

But since they were so visible… I HAD to take some pictures because who knew when I would get this chance again?! Take a peak at the new babies! CIAO! LOVE ME!

Fun weekend!

Ayden and I had a great weekend while Jay was in Minnesota hunting and going to a Brewer's game with his loverboy JT. Don't tell him that I wrote that, he doesn't like me calling JT his loverboy, hehe! They had a good time though and Jay even came out $7 ahead at the casino which I thought was pretty good, considering it could have been the other way around.

We had quite the busy day on Saturday. Soccer game, pictures, then birthday party! We were all over the place, but it turned out to be a great day! Soccer went well. Ayden teams won, although according to his coach 'We don't keep score, we just play for fun!', lol! Tell me what parent doesn't keep track of the score?! Anyways, it doesn't really matter if he won or lost, I go to watch him play and did fairly well. He got a few good kicks in. He's definitely a better defensive player than offensive. He gets very timid being on offensive and doesn't go for the ball like I think he should. This coming Saturday will be his last game. I hope he can get in there a little more and maybe score a goal! He did great as goalie this week and didn't let the other team score at all! Go Ayden!After that we headed towards Winneconne where my friend's carnival was set up so I could take some senior pictures of her brother for her. I got some pretty good shots and was excited to get home and edit them! He was a good sport too! He's almost like a younger brother to me. My friend's family and I are really close! By the time we were done the rides and games were open so Ayden and I played a few games and rode a few rides before heading to our next location... Jay's cousin's birthday party!The little dude that the party was for had just turned two! He is the cutest little thing and SO social! And he has the cutest red hair!!! Ayden had a GREAT time at the party because there were other little kids there to play with. He got to play some baseball for a while and then later in the afternoon some of the big guys took on the little guys in a kick ball game! It was so great to see the big guys out there playing with the little guys! Ayden had the best time! We ended up leaving around 7:30pm, just as they were getting the fire started. I would have liked to stay longer and I know that Ayden would have too, but we had over an hour drive home and I knew he would be zonked ten minutes into the ride, or so I thought!

That child of mine... who didn't sit down for the ENTIRE afternoon, stayed awake the WHOLE ride home! It was a miracle, lol! He almost fell asleep a few times, but didn't. I was shocked! I thought for sure that he would be out like a light! No-siree! It was good though because then he was up and awake to take a shower when we got home because he was one sweaty mess!

Sunday was a lazy day for us. The weather was hot (and even hotter today) and neither Ayden nor I wanted to do a whole lot. I kept asking Ayden if he wanted to go to the beach or outside to play, but he's recently become really scared of the bugs and bees outside. And in this warm weather, you are not going to get away from them. He freaks out anytime he sees a bee! Oops, have I passed that on to my son?! I doubt it because even though I am slightly afraid of them, I am no longer terrified of them. I don't like them in my house or having to kill them, however I don't think I've showed Ayden the fear he is expressing for them right now, or at least I hope not. Hopefully it gets a little better!

I’m so enjoying not having class right now and being able to come home and just relax in the afternoon while Ayden is finishing is day up at school. I know that I will be looking forward to the beginning of the summer session because it will keep me a little busier, although I really don’t want the summer to fly by and somehow even though it hasn’t really even started yet, it feels like it is almost over. Is that possible?!

I’ve been sitting outside and reading a lot lately. My cousin Amanda has lent me her Karen Kingsbury books and they are SO good! I love that the majority of them are about the same family. I’ve read two or three of them out of order before she lent me them, but I’ve started with the first set now and I can’t put them down! I feel very connected to these fictional characters and can’t wait to see how things play out for them. (Although I sort of already know some of how things play out from the other books that I’ve read, I’m looking forward to seeing how it ended up working out to the way that it did.)

And… I can’t believe that its only a little over a month before the third Twilight movie (Eclipse) comes out in theaters. I’m looking forward to it because Eclipse was a very good book, however I most likely won’t see the midnight showing. Probably a week or so later. The bummer part is that they aren’t shooting the last movie until this fall which means it won’t come out until at least next summer and there is talk that it will be split into two movies. That would extremely suck! But I guess I don’t have any say in it, lol!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Mommies Night

I got together with two of my mommy friends last night and their kiddos! Kristi has an almost four year old daughter and a one year old daughter and Leah has a four year old son and is expecting twins girls this summer. We had a great time! I love getting together with the girls! We were missing Robin, who has an eight year old son. I've probably already mentioned all of them. We miss Robin because it seems like she is always missing out at the last minute! We decided that the only way we can make sure she shows is if we commandere her house! Hehe!

Anyways, we met up at a local park/beach. I took some pictures of Leah's son for her and the kids played in the sand and water. They got soaked, but it was SO nice out and the water not extremely cold that we didn't care. We were going to my place afterwards and Ayden had dry clothes there, Leah had dry clothes for Seth in her car, and Lily, Kristi's little girl didn't get too wet. Kristi's youngest wasn't feeling very well, so she stayed home with daddy.

After the kids got nice and soaked at the beach, we headed back to my place for some food! Jay grilled out some brats for us! Yummy! The kids played so great together! I loved watching them all interact, especially since Ayden is almost two years older than both of them, it was still great! Of course they were all really wild by the end of the night and no one wanted to go home, but it was definitely a fun couple of hours. All of our get togethers are and I always leave feeling great!

You see, I'm a very shy person and making friends is difficult for me, so when we first moved to Point and I started taking classes on campus (mostly gen eds), I didn't really have any friends here. I didn't have the same people in my classes, until I really got into my communicative disorders class. It was in those classes that I realized there were other students who were moms too and it was like we instantly bonded. Our kids brought us together! We knew what the other was going through and it was really great! I loved it and I love my friends. Of course having more than just one class together helped too. I will say that I did make a few aquaintances in some of my other classes, but no one that I continue to talk to. You know the type... the ones you chat it up with here and there in class, but not on a regular basis and definitely not outside of class.

However, Point definitely feels more like home than it ever did. I have a group of friends here that I don't have back 'home' and I love it. It just feels good... I don't know how else to explain it. I don't mind going back 'home' by my parent's house or Jay's for weekends and holidays, but that doesn't feel like home to me anymore. Probably because I no longer have a bedroom at either house, which means, when we do go 'home' for a weekend we are staying at Jay's parent's house, which isn't the house(s) I grew up in. The more time that passes, the more I feel like a guest when we go 'home' and really that is what we are. Its not a bad feeling, but I'm sure you know what I mean. I enjoy driving back into Point after a weekend away and feeling like 'yes we are home again' and everthing is the way that it is supposed to be. I didn't think I would ever feel like that when we moved up here almost five years ago, but it does now and I really enjoy that feeling. Driving into town and knowing where almost everything is, but its not so small that everyone knows you. I can go to Walmart, buy whatever I want, and check out without running into anyone I know and having them wonder why I'm buying such and such. Because as much as we'd like to believe that people don't do that, they do... unfortunately, whether they voice those thoughts or not. At heart, I'm a middle sized town person, lol! Not small town or country, but not a big city girl either... give me a middle size town and I'll be happy!

My friends and I definitely will be getting together sometime soon! I think the next time we'll hi-jack Leah's or Robin's houses because Leah always has to drive the farthest and Robin never shows. Whichever it is, we'll have fun because we always do! We're already planning a mommy getaway for next summer... hitting up some waterparks is on our agenda! Maybe Noah's Ark in the Dells... maybe getting a hotel room and hitting up the waterpark one day and some shopping the next, that'd be great fun! Who knows?!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

I took some pictures for my friend today who is expecting twins in the middle of the summer. Actually, I took them of her son, but couldn’t resist this cute pose. Apparently they have a lot of the little dude kissing the babies already, but I don’t think you can have too many! My only wish was that it would have been a little more in focus… apparently snapping on the go doesn’t always work for me, lol! Anyways, I figured the black and white edit made the lack of super good focus not be such a big deal. And I really loved how it turned out so I couldn’t not share it with everyone!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Long post full of randomness...

It's taken me three days to finish this post. Well maybe that isn't the right saying. I started this post three days ago, and just haven't gotten around to posting it so I just keep adding to it. It's LONG... but thats okay!
Weekend Wickedness! (start of post number one)

I had some major wicked fun this weekend! Okay, so maybe not. But I like the word wicked, lol! I have a few friends that live out east and they use that word ALL of the time, I love it! Haha!

Anyways, I did have a pretty stellar weekend and I didn't even do all that much. In fact, I even missed Ayden's soccer game on Saturday because I left early to make it to my friend's house at a decent time. My friend lives about an hour and fifteen minutes away, but the drive was easy peasy, especially for it being to a place I've never driven before. I'm not very good with driving to places that I've never been and this particular route involved me going through an area that I don't particularly like. But I made it there and back in one piece!

It just so happened that my other friend was visiting the friend I was going to see, so we made it into a girls day... since the friend we were visiting has four little girls of her own. I went to take some pictures for my friend and I think they turned out just great! I was so excited at the end result! But it wasn't just the picture taking that was fun, it was getting to hang out with two good friends as well, even if we did have four little ones to watch. We caught up since we don't get to see each other all that often and had lots of fun!

I ended up getting home pretty late on Saturday night so I just watched a little bit of TV and then crashed in bed. I slept until 10:30am! That hasn't happened in like FOREVER! But it only happened because Jay and Ayden weren't home. I spent the majority of the day on Sunday sitting outside reading and/or editing pictures. I didn't do a whole lot and Jay and Ayden ended up getting home WAY earlier than I had anticipated, especially since Jay had told me that they were planning on staying later. Oh well, it was nice to have my boys home and we enjoyed a relaxing afternoon at home together!

Busy Busy Busy (start of post number two)

I can't wait for tomorrow night! I am getting together with my two girl friends (possibly three if the third can make it) and I am going to take some pictures for my friends of their kiddos (and possibly my friend since she is currently pregnant with twins). I've taken pictures for my one friend twice already and just wants a few of her little one for her 12 month pictures. And the other one I haven't taken pictures for before, but I am super stoked! The weather is supposed to be gorgeous and afterwards we are heading back to my place for supper. I love girls nights, even with the kiddos, just a few hours together makes the week that much better!

Then this weekend Ayden and I will be all over the place. Jay is leaving Friday night to go turkey hunting out by his friend in Minnesota. Technically they will be hunting in Wisconsin, but his friend lives right across the border in Minnesota. Anyways, it will be just me and Ayden this weekend. He has soccer Saturday morning, then we are headed to take some senior pictures for my friend's brother and ride some carnivals rides since it is the friend who's family own the carnival (don't know if I ever mentioned that or not), then off to a birthday party and then home at the end of the day. On Sunday we are headed to my friend's baby shower! I'm excited, however I won't know anyone there since none of our friends are able to make it. That's a bummer, but I can't not go! It will be fun either way, I hope! Lol! I'm shy around new people.

In debt forever?! (start of post number three)

Jay printed off his final loan amount for college the other day. SCARY! I won't even put how much it is, that's how much it sucks! All I have to say is, ugh! Seriously, the amount of money to go to college sucks ass! I'd say about half the amount of his loan was for the cost of college for five years and the other half was for cost of living during that time. And unfortunately, even though we are not in credit card debt, we didn't necessarily live stingily (is that a word) either. While we don't have every high tech gear thing out there, nor the name brand clothes, or a huge house or awesome vehicles, we do have cable, we do have high speed internet, we do have cellphones, etc... all of those costs add up. And now... we'll be paying off student loans (mine and Jay's together) for probably a SIGNIFICANT amount of time. Its not so much the amount of the loans that bothers me, its that I hope when I graduate, both Jay and I will be bringing in enough money to not only continue to live as we are (at least) and still make a loan payment each month. Because damn if I am paying $40,000+ (and this is just for my doctorate degree, not counting my undergrad loans) for a doctorate degree to not be making at least enough to continue living as we are now. I don't know...

For the most part I try and push this all of my mind as time continues to fly past me. I figure, we aren't in thousands and thousands of dollars for credit card debt and our both of ours credit is good. So that is good, right? As well, I keep reminding myself that we are not the ONLY ones in student loan debt. I read a post on this forum that I frequent and it was about how much student loan debt you were in. I wasn't brave enough to post the amount, however it sort of damped my fears reading that there were others out there who were in just as much, if not more debt that Jay and myself and they weren't ALL doctors or lawyers (hehe!). It took a weight off my shoulders for a little while. It just scares me a little bit because many (I'm not going to say all) people I talk to about the degree I'm getting automatically asume that since I'm getting a doctorate degree that I'll be making the big bucks. Just because I'm getting a doctorate, doesn't mean I'm going to be a medical doctor. Yes, I will have AuD at the end of my name which means I can put Dr. in front of it, however, the median salary for audiologists in Wisconsin isn't over $70,000. That my friends, really isn't THAT much in the grand scheme of things, especially since I'll have gone to school for SO long! If you divide that out (minus any tax stuff because I don't know how that all works)... it works out to roughly $35 an hour. Now that seems like a lot, however the $70,000 doesn't. And maybe that amount really is a lot, however I'm used to living off of like $20,000 a year and with the amount of loans we will have, I'm just scared.

I suppose that I should factor in Jay's hopeful yearly amount as well. But we won't really know what that is for a couple of years depending upon what he ends up doing. Don't get me started on that, lol!

Okay... this is super long, I should probably just end it now...

CAIO! LOVE ME!

Pictures taken for a friend…

Here are just some of the pictures that I took for my friend yesterday. She has the cutest little girls and I got some adorable pictures!!! I was so excited when I got home. I took over 300 pictures yesterday!!! I had SO much fun taking pictures for her and getting to know her girls more. The older two were so talkative and friendly! The 18 month old didn’t care for me too much, but her mom said that she took a while to warm up to people. So that was okay and the baby was SO tiny! Talk about baby fever! I had to have held her at least for a couple of hours. I ended up spending pretty much the entire day there having fun! The weather was so nice out, and thank goodness because it was SO crappy all week! Did I mention how much fun I had?! Enjoy! CIAO! LOVE ME!

Hooked on Phonics

We bought Hooked on Phonics for Ayden a couple of months ago… actually I think it was more than a couple of months ago, but at that point he was NO where near learning how to read. However, it was on sale, and my mom had said it worked for my brother WAY back when, and I figured Ayden would be behind in the reading department with his articulation errors. I was right. His teacher hasn’t flat out said he is behind in anything, more in the middle of the pack, but I know that the majority of kindergarteners know more site words than him and with summer approaching and the fact that having 20 some kids in his class isn’t going to win him any one on one attention from his teacher in that department, I thought now would be a good time to start working on it with him. He could get the one on one attention from me, especially since I’m done with school for the next couple of weeks.

That, and the fact that compared to when we first got the reading system, he didn’t know all of the sounds the letters made and would get so easily frustrated, I thought now would be a good time to start. I know that they do some phonics stuff at school, but not a lot, at least not a lot that I have seen so far.

Side note: we definitely don’t have the resources to homeschool Ayden, not that I could ever do it because I just know that it isn’t in me to, I do find one downfall to him going to a public (or private school) is the fact that the class sizes are so big and I don’t think the kids get the one on one attention that some of them need. Thus, the ones who are bound to excel, don’t get that opportunity, and the ones that need that extra help are often lagging behind. The classroom is geared towards the average students. Okay, so this may not be the exact case, but I think you get my point. And that is exactly what it is, MY point. You may have a different view, but that’s what is okay about it, everyone is allowed their own view. Okay, totally off topic.

Anyways, because of Ayden’s IEP, I don’t fear that he will get left behind. His SLP is keeping a good eye on his speech and language and because of the IEP, his teacher also knows he has some difficulties and is bound to watch him a little closer. But all of that doesn’t mean he won’t benefit from some extra work with mom at home because after all, parents are the best teachers, right?

So, last night I dug out the Hooked on Phonics stuff and we started at it. Ayden did really well for the little bit that we worked at it. It starts off with short ‘a’ stuff and so far he is doing well. He still gets frustrated really easily, but we are working on that. I’m doing my best to stay extremely calm while we are working on it and encouraging him the entire time. He tends to just guess at the word when he gets frustrated and we are working at looking at each letter and sounding it out instead of just guessing. We worked on it again today after he got home from school and he did good. He’s good for about 10 minutes before his attention starts to wander and then he gets really frustrated, but I don’t blame him because he is at school all day and they do some learning there, lol, even in kindergarten.

We’ll continue with this, and see how it progresses. I don’t want him to not like learning to read, however, I think he needs a little extra help too. Maybe its just the mommy instinct in me, don’t know.

All of that, and this is definitely information that doesn’t leave here, lol, but I’m ready for school to start again. Okay, maybe just not yet, but I need something to do. I like having a purpose, and if that’s not going to class every day or clinic, it is teaching the little dude. Thus, I can’t wait to graduate (again) and be working everyday. I like having stuff to do. Hehe!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Wordless Wednesday

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Pictures of snow and my nails…

Here are some pictures of the snow that we got last Friday night, I told you it was pretty crazy! No lie, these are pictures from MAY! Snow in MAY! I’ll say it again… UGH! Lets hope this does not happen again this spring! Thankfully it disappeared by mid day Saturday. You can’t even tell that we got any snow now which is great!

Here are my nails (freshly clipped) before putting the fake nails on. I hate my nails because they chip so bad, so I tend to keep them short, like I said in my last post.And here are my nails (the other hand) with the fake nails on. They totally look fake, I know, but fake in a good way, like salon fake, or at least I think so. You can tell the thumb is a press on, but only if you look close. One would never know just by looking at them quickly. My two classmates actually asked me today if I went out and got my nails done last night. Oh yeah… for $5!!!If you look close enough in this bottom picture, you can see where the thumb nail doesn’t fit exactly to my thumb, but that’s okay. For $5, I’ll take it! It was easier to work with them on today and they didn’t feel as weird as yesterday which was good, however texting on my phone has become a little harder since I do it with my thumbs, but nothing too bad. Can’t you tell that I really love my find?! I’m pretty proud of it! Lol!

I’m done with all of my actual written exams and have one last ABR practical next Wednesday afternoon. I’ll be glad to get that over with. Oh… and I found out that I PASSED my written practical exam that I had last week and wasn’t so sure I was going to pass. OH YEAH! Scored on that one!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Snow in May… it DOES happen!

We had inches of snow on the ground the other night! Snow in May! Can we all say blech?! How disappointed was I to look outside this past Saturday morning and see snow covering the ground… very! Definitely sucked! Oh and I definitely have pictures of it, however, I’m too lazy to upload them right now. I’m currently sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by school papers and wrapped in my heating blanket. I’m freezing!

I just finished with my ABR online final exam and I’m just hoping that I pass the class. I didn’t think that the exam was overly hard, but there were a few questions on it that definitely tripped me up a little bit and I don’t think that we really talked about them in class either. I had until midnight Thursday night to take the exam, but I wanted to get it out of the way right away and I did. We were given two hours to take the exam and I finished in an hour and 20 minutes… not too bad considering it was only seven questions.

Last week was our last week of classes and I’m so glad to be done, however I was on campus a LOT longer than I had wanted to be today. On Friday we were in Madison listening to capstone presentations all day and they went well. Pretty boring for the majority of the day, however it definitely beat sitting in class all day and we got some yummy free food!

Soccer was cancelled on Saturday due to the snow, total bummer, or NOT since it meant that I got to sleep in. We left for my mom’s house just before 10am and got there just in time to help start lunch. My sister and I gave her the Mother’s Day gift that we had made. I’ll have to see if I can attach it somehow, but right now, you guessed it, too lazy. It’s pretty cute and hilarious too! We spent some of the afternoon there before heading over to Jay’s parent’s house.

Ayden and chilled out there while everyone else went to church for Steven’s confirmation. Afterwards a bunch of people came over, we had supper, and then I left to come back to Point with the intent of getting my take home test done on Sunday. Oh… and getting to sleep in my bed all ALONE on Saturday night. What a great Mother’s Day gift, lol!

Yes, I do enjoy sleeping in my bed alone and I slept SO great Saturday night and even got to sleep in on Sunday morning which hasn’t happened in a LONG time! Of course, I shouldn’t complain because some parents never get to sleep in, even on a rare occasion. Speaking of Mother’s Day (of which I didn’t mind spending alone getting homework done and soaking up some Lifetime), Jay and Ayden surprised me with a new lens for my camera. I was very surprised and excited! It is a zoom lens, not a mega zoom one, but one that will work for trips to the zoo, one that I can use for zooming in on Ayden when he plays soccer now. I’m excited to get to use it at his next game.

So today I went out and bought some Kiss Everlasting fake nails and let me tell you, they do not disappoint. I’ve only ever gotten my nails professionally done once and I will never do it again. First, it was expensive, and secondly, I didn’t have them professionally removed and it took over six months for my regular nails to grow back and I hated that. My regular nails have been very brittle and crappy for the past couple of months. I’m sure that means that I’m not as healthy as I should be in some form or another, right?! Lol… anyways, because of that I keep them cut pretty short. But I’ve been seeing these nails on TV and wanted to try them out.

I’ve tried fake store bought nails many years ago and did not have very good success with them. Don’t know if it was the brand or what, but wasn’t going to try that again either. This time, I couldn’t resist though. And let me say, wow, total surprise, definitely not a wasted $5! At quick glance, you can’t even tell that they are fake nails! Even at a longer than quick glance. Actually, only the thumb nails look like they have a fake nail glued onto them and it isn’t even overly evident. They feel kind of weird, but I remember that from the time I had them professionally done. I also got the short kind because I am used to my nails being short and they look good. I’m excited to have ‘cute’ looking nails for once, lol!

So, I’m taking some family pictures for a friend this weekend. This is a friend who I haven’t taken pictures for yet. Another friend of ours will be there too. Well, I was just asked by this second friend if I would be able to give the first friend the pictures the same day as I took them. Said second friend and first friend are a little closer than me and first friend and said first friend asked second friend to ask me. Confused yet, lol! Anyways, although I’m not in business, not getting paid for any pictures I take, I normally don’t give any pictures to people that I take some for until I’ve edited them. I’ve taken pictures for another friend twice now and I’ve edited the pictures and then sent them to her along with the originals that I liked good enough to keep.

I’m rather hesitant to give this friend her pictures before editing them. I know I can take at least halfway decent pictures, but its the editing that ‘fixes’ them and makes them look more than just someone was taking a snap shot. I like editing the pictures I take and then showing the people that I took them for because I know they look better than the originals. I don’t want my friend to be disappointed because they are not perfect out of the camera. Secondly, I don’t want to her have them before I edit them because then she will have free reign to put up the unedited ones on facebook. Now, she has every right to do what she wants with the pictures, I don’t care, just so long as she doesn’t take credit for them. However, the credit will go to me and I don’t want people seeing unedited pictures of mine and thinking she’s not all that good.

No, I should not care what other people think. Yes, by putting mostly edited pictures up on facebook I am giving people an unrealistic expectation of what my skills are, but yes, I do say that the majority of my pictures are edited in some way. I don’t know… I guess it just bugs me because its like editing is the fun part for me, well I have fun taking the pictures too, and if she wants the pictures right away, then the fun part is sort of sucked out because I can’t take what I have in camera and create something really great for her because she’ll already have seen the pictures. Oh booger! UGH! What to do? What to do?

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Ayden’s Hearing Sensitivity!

I took Ayden with me to the clinic tonight because I had to use of the machines for my final exam. I wasn’t going to, however, he wanted to come and I didn’t think that we would be there that long so it wasn’t going to be that bad. What I needed to finish was going to take like five minutes, if I could remember how to use the machine, lol.

I was right, it did only take me five minutes to get done what I needed too and then… I grabbed the chance to look in Ayden’s ears. I don’t know if I’ve said anything before, but he has this big chunk of ear wax (or what I’m assuming is ear wax) in his left ear, so much so that I can’t see his ear drum in that ear and it’s been there since LAST August (that I know of because his doctor said something about it at his five year old check up and then I’ve been keeping an eye on it at school). His doctor said that it would work its way out… and it hasn’t moved AT ALL! You know, because I’ve been checking. Yes, I admit that I have what might some consider a sick obsession of looking in my son’s ears. I’m a future audiologist, so sue me, lol!

And so, the ear wax hasn’t moved yet. I also looked in his other year and saw what I thought was a retracted ear drum. However, I can’t be sure since I haven’t actually seen one in person yet, just pictures and it didn’t look overly pulled back. Well, to determine if it was or not, I ran tympanograms on him. That test tells me how well his middle ear is functioning. On previous times that I’ve run this test on Ayden, I’ve gotten abnormal results, but both times, he had a cold and so the results were explainable. This time… NORMAL! So excited! I was about done then, but Ayden really wanted me to play the ‘beeps’ for him. IE: give him a hearing test.

Well, at his five year old check up, the nurse did a short hearing screening with one of their tools and said that he wasn’t responding at the lowest levels for a few frequencies. I don’t remember what they considered the lowest level, but his doctor wasn’t overly concerned. She said we could follow up with hearing test with an audiologist or just wait and see at his next appointment how it was, since it wasn’t exactly a loss. I wasn’t concerned because I knew I could test him at school, versus having to get it done at the doctor’s office.

I tested his hearing a couple of months ago, but didn’t really get reliable results since he wasn’t responding as he should and was fidgeting the whole time. This time, I just tested one frequency quieter than what we consider the ‘highest’ normal level, both for the tones and speech. And… he’s NORMAL! I wasn’t concerned that he had a hearing loss, but I did want to know what he was hearing. And since I didn’t actually find his thresholds, I’m sure he hears a little better than what I stopped at.

Below is an audiogram of where some everyday sounds fall. On the left side you see the levels in decibels. It goes from 0 (which is really quiet, and actually we test down to –10, up to 120 which is really loud) IE: leaves rustling are quiet and lawn mowers are really loud) and along the top are the different frequencies from 125 really low pitched sounds, to 8000 really high pitched sounds. We consider anything 20-25 dB and lower normal hearing. Ayden is hearing at 15 dB, possibly even better because I only tested that low.This is an audiogram of what someone’s normal hearing thresholds would look like once plotted.So, after all of this, I wanted to try and take a picture of Ayden’s ear drums with this otoscope camera we have at school. However, I couldn’t get it to work. BOO! But, I will, and I will bring Ayden back in to take a picture because I’m crazy like that! We are always looking for something different to take pictures of.

And then, I went in and tried to get rid of that ear wax! I want it OUT! Unfortunately, it was not to be moved! Its hard and dark, like you needed to hear that, and not moving anytime soon! But this was the first time I had Ayden at school where I had the materials I needed to really get a good look at the ear wax and even attempt to remove it. Ayden sat really good and still in the chair and I even got to pick at it a little bit and he said that it wasn’t hurting. I didn’t try too hard to remove it because our professor was adamant about us not going any further than we were comfortable with and well Ayden’s my son, so of course I’m going to be extra careful.

But seeing that it hasn’t moved any in almost a year, at Ayden’s six year check up, I am going insist that his doctor remove it, and/or if she can’t, that we be referred to an ENT who can remove it. ENTs usually remove ear wax with an operating microscope. Jay’s asked if I could get one of my supervisors to remove it (the one who taught us) and I was like no way am I having him put something in Ayden’s ear! I’ve had him look in my ears before and it’s not necessarily very comfortable, I don’t want Ayden scarred for life, lol!

Okay, not that you really want to read a whole post about ear wax and hearing tests… but if you got this far, you did anyways, lol!

And since Ayden was such a gem while I was at school and even let me look in his ears, I treated him to Cold Stone when we left! YUM!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Taking a hesitant deep breath…

Last day of class for the semester today and it all went pretty well, surprisingly enough. Go figure, right?! I was on campus by 7am and class didn’t start until 9am. Why? Because during my 9am class we had our final exam and the amount of studying that I had one the night before was just a little more than nil. The two extra hours of studying I got in before the test are was solidified the ease with which I flew through the test with. Overall, I was really happy with the test, mostly because every question on it came from the study guide exactly. The first two questions kind of threw me because I was under the impression we would be able to chose the mini-conference labs we wanted to write about, and then she had those chosen already for us. I wrote what I could for it though. The whole test was A LOT of writing, but I felt pretty good when I turned it in and am not worried about my grade in that class at all anymore.

My second class went kind of slow, but I made it through it just fine. Glad to have it done with. That class has a take home final which is super long, but I just finished reading through the test and it doesn’t seem too hard. I’m thinking it will take about two hours or so for me to get the whole thing written up, but that is okay. Much better than having to study for it and worry about getting a good grade. This is one of those classes where I know the professor wants us to learn the material versus worry about getting a good grade in the class. She said we can even ask her questions about the test, just so long as she doesn’t give us the answer. She is VERY accommodating which is great.

Speaking of exams… I had my overall hearing evaluation practical exam yesterday and it went GREAT! I by no means did perfect, because there is always stuff that I can do better with, no one is perfect, but I think I did really well. I’ll be happy with anything A- or better, definitely don’t think I deserve anything lower than an A-. In any case, I was anticipating being A LOT more nervous with all three supervisors in the room with me watching every move that I was making, however I was SO calm and laid back and just went through the eval as I would with any other patient.

I was one of my classmate’s ‘patient’ for her practical and she did so great right up until the end where she totally flubbed up one part of it. I was sitting in the sound booth feeling so horrible for her because I knew what she was supposed to be doing and she wasn’t doing it. About halfway through that portion of the test she realized that she had messed up. I think she was just super nervous about it because she does it fine during regular clinic evals every week. She’s really worried that she is going to have to do it over. I don’t know if she will or not, but I still feel bad for her because I know she can do it, we practiced it together. It will all work out as it should!

After her practical, we had our big written exam for being a first year grad student and I was SO miffed to find that almost the entire test had to do with stuff that we don’t regularly do during clinic stuff. Thankfully, we were warned ahead of time by the second years that it would so we were mostly prepared, but some questions still got me. This test we keep retaking until we pass. I’m relatively certain I passed the first time, however won’t be too surprised if I had to retake it. I’d like to not have to do that, however you can only get like 6-8 questions wrong before having to retake it and there were at least that many that I wasn’t too confident on when it came to the answers that I was writing down. So yeah…

Anyways, my last class of the day, which is like my least favorite class of the semester because it is almost two hours long and it has been super boring all semester went a LOT faster today than I think all semester. It was actually halfway decent too and I liked the way the professor organized the material and I think I got the most of this class than many of them throughout the semester. I was happy with that and then headed to pick Ayden up from school.

We came home and practiced his soccer some and then had supper. After supper I ran off to Kohls because I had $10 in Kohls cash that was going to expire today along with a 15% coupon, I mean who could pass that up?! So off I went and when I found this tee shirt I couldn’t pass it up! I mean, it is SO me, right?! Take a look for yourself!Yeah, I thought so! Other than the fact that my hair isn’t blond or long enough to put up in a ponytail like that, I’m always behind the camera, so I definitely thought it was fitting, hehe! I’m totally wearing it this weekend! I’d wear it tomorrow, however, since I am such a dedicated student, I am accompanying my classmate tomorrow afternoon for her clinic slot where she will doing an ABR on a newborn. I wouldn’t be doing it, but first, it’s a baby, who can pass up seeing a newborn? And second, its with a supervisor who I haven’t seen do an ABR before, and thirdly, I definitely need the practice for my ABR practical coming up in two weeks, so all in all, it will be a good thing since it won’t take but maybe an hour a half to two hours and I don’t have anything else really scheduled for the day other than maybe starting my take home test and working for a little bit.

And then ALL day Friday… I’ll be in good ole Madtown listening to capstone presentations. I’m kind of looking forward to it, but also, I’m just ready for this week to be over with! More so, the semester… although soon enough!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Efficient what? Overmasking, huh?!

I swear that I will be dreaming about efficient masking levels, overmasking, and sufficient masking levels ALL night long! I’m so masked out and I haven’t even had my practical or written exams yet! I’ve studied what I could tonight, but know that I will need to do a lot more tomorrow during my free time, which unfortunately won’t be all that much.

I plan on heading into campus around 8am… going to study until 9am at which time we will have our clinic meeting in which we will learn cerumen management by irrigation. After that, I will have an hour from 10-11am to study for my practical exam which will most likely run from 11-12, maybe a little shorter, maybe a little longer. Then, more studying for my written exam until 1pm, at which time I will then be a ‘patient’ for my classmates practical exam. I should only be needed for about 45 minutes, maybe an hour since she works a little slower than I do.

Then… another half hour to study before my written exam starts at 2:30pm. Definitely not looking forward to it, but I know that it doesn’t involve a TON of writing, but it does involve a LOT of masking, which is why I’ve been trying to study it so much.

Unfortunately, Tuesday night will not bring any more relaxing, as I have another test bright and early on Wednesday morning at 9am for my Hearing Science test… a test that I just started studying for a little bit tonight. That’s great, right?! And in the midst of all of this, I’m supposed to be finishing a lab write up! Will most likely get started on that lab write-up Wednesday afternoon before my last class of the day. Well maybe, since we haven’t met with our professor yet on the lab and the equipment wasn’t working last week. Katie and I joked that maybe he will say that he is too busy to grade it and that we won’t have to turn it in. Hardly! If anything, he’ll be upset that we haven’t met with him sooner and then grade us extra harshly! I swear, if I don’t get at least an ‘A-‘ in that class, I’ll be mad!

This past Saturday marked my ‘two year blogiversary’!Happy Blogiversary to me! I can’t believe that I’ve been blogging for two years now! It’s really pretty crazy, isn’t it?! It totally doesn’t seem like it has been two years, time flies SO fast! There are a lot of posts that I’d like to go back and erase completely… I’ve changed a lot in the past two years, but at some point, I might decide to print this ‘ole blog of mine off and keep it like I have my old journals. Then again, maybe not, but in any case, I can’t get myself to erase them because even thought I may regret some of the things that I’ve done in the past, I can’t change them, they’ve changed me, and continue to do so. So here’s two the last two years, and the next years to come!

Because, even though I may not have a wealth of followers, I don’t need them. I enjoy blogging, and if time continues to stay on my side (wait, my bad, time on my side?! What’s that?!), I mean, if I continue to need an outlet, I’ll be here! Sharing my stories, sharing my pictures, and enjoying the feeling that just getting almost everything in my head out gives me!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Not Enough Time

I’ve been meaning to blog all week, however it just hasn’t happened. After Tuesday night, the rest of the week just seemed to fly by! I went to bed relatively early for the rest of the week too, well Wednesday and Thursday night that is. Well, not actually to sleep, but laid down in the bed earlier than normal. Just didn’t feel like blogging, even though I had stuff that I wanted to blog about. Even now I’m not really in the mood to blog, but I have lots of stuff that I want to write, so I thought I’d start and see where I end up.

Wednesday at school went okay. Found out that I didn’t do as well on my online test for my ABR class as I would have liked. Didn’t fail it or anything, however for it being open book and online, I would have liked to done just a bit better. All the more pressure to do good on our online final, right?! I am seriously looking forward to that class being over with!

I started watching Avatar on Wednesday night and got through the first hour and really didn’t think it was all that great of a movie. I mean, it wasn’t bad or anything, but definitely not something I would want to go see in the theater. Plus, its a long movie and so I turned it off after the first hour and went to bed.

On Thursday I didn’t do a whole lot. I didn’t have class so I didn’t need to be on campus. I went in for about ten minutes to finish some reports and then went to work for a little while. After that, I came home and relaxed on the couch for the majority of the afternoon until Ayden got home. I should have studied or worked on my lab report or done something productive, but with it being so close to the end of the semester, I’ve lost pretty much all of my ambition to do anything school related or take on any extra work. It definitely sucks!

Friday wasn’t a whole lot different. I had my practical exam for my amplifications lab and I wasn’t too worried about that. Turns out that I didn’t need to be because I only got one point off for the whole 120 points it was work… awesome! It wasn’t that hard either. After that, I went to work for a bit, and since there wasn’t a whole lot that needed to get done there, I came home. Actually, I spent the majority of Friday afternoon running errands which kept  me quite busy and hoping that the bad weather would stay away.

Friday night was the awards banquet to which my mom, dad, and dad’s wife, Wendy, came along to. Jay and Ayden stayed home, which was probably a smart thing to do considering we really didn’t get a meal, the room was VERY crowded, and it cost $12 a person (outrageous for the crap amount of food we got!). My mom spent the night and came to Ayden’s soccer game with us in the morning!

The weather has been great this weekend which makes wanting to study a lot harder! I have a test on Tuesday afternoon and one on Wednesday morning, as well as my practical hearing evaluation mid morning on Tuesday. Which means that at some point today I will need to study, or at least start to study!

After Ayden’s soccer game Saturday morning, my mom treated us to breakfast at IHop and then Jay, Ayden, and I headed off to Green Bay to meet up with my sister and go to a benefit my friend was having for her disease (myathesenia gravis). It was at a bowling alley and we all got to bowl three games for $10 (it was only $5 for Ayden). I thought that that was a good price! Ayden had lots of fun bowling and I had fun watching him. I bowled only semi decent, but I never said I was a good bowler, lol!

Then we went on a hunt to find one of the waterfalls in Green Bay with my sister. We found it all right! We didn’t get as close as I would have liked, but it was a little muddier down there than I had originally anticipated that it would be and I didn’t have the proper shoes on to go any farther towards it. Maybe if I had rain boots on or something I would have gotten closer, but oh well! It was neat getting to see it! We also went down to the bay by campus and I took some pictures down there. It was definitely a good Saturday, especially since we stopped at Hu Hot in Appleton on the way home for supper, lol! What beats Hu Hot?! Not a whole lot, lol!

Today has been pretty relaxing a well. I took Ayden ‘fishing’ this morning down by the river. And by that, I mean, I took him with his fishing pole that had a little red fish tied to the end of it so he could practice his casting down by the river, lol! Like I would take him fishing by myself?! Maybe someday, but not today, and especially since I don’t have my fishing license for this year yet.

And then this afternoon we went and got some flowers to plant in our flower beds along the back of the house and did that. If you’ll notice, not once have I mentioned anything about studying. That’s right, I’ve managed to bypass everything and anything to do with school this weekend. Oh ugh!

Still have a lab for ABR to finish, and need to make it through Wednesday, then all should be well because the rest of my tests will be take home or online and only one practical left after that. Keeping my fingers crossed anyways!

I’ll leave you with a cute picture of the little dude! CIAO! LOVE ME!