Normal photos gone…PSYCHEDELIC!

I was perusing a photography forum on a website that I frequent (you know, trying to increase my ever expanding knowledge on photography, well mostly just oogling over photos taken by professional and wishing that at some point I might manage to be half as good as them) and I came across some totally awesome looking photos that someone had done. I just HAD to know how this photographer had ‘made’ these creations! Did she manipulate something on her camera, was it done on the computer?! Someone please tell me!
Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one who just HAD to know… because the board was flowing with comments from others please asking for directions on how to accomplish this feat! The photographer posted her instructions and said that she knew it would work in Photoshop CS4 and CS5. Well, those are the actual versions of photoshop. My version is just Photoshop Elements (and version 6 at that… they have a version 9 out already, so even mine is pretty outdated). Being the computer savvy person I am, once again, I just HAD to know if it would work with my version and I set out trying to use the photographers instructions.
Wouldn’t you know, I didn’t have to change a thing and I got it to work! My main concern was that she would be using tools that only the actual versions of Photoshop have and that Elements leaves out, but nope! I followed each step to the ‘T’ and came up with the following pictures. I’ve included a few ‘before’ and ‘after’ picture so you can see what I was working with.

And here are just a few more that I made without the ‘before’ and ‘after’… I tell you, this new technique is really addicting, I’ve been going back through my old albums, just trying to find old pictures that would look cool!I think I’m in love! Hope you like them as much as I do!
I had what I thought was going to be a killer test last night. I was literally freaking out about it because I had no idea what to expect and the professor who was writing the exam is a notoriously hard exam writer and we hadn’t had him as a teacher for over the last month since he has been out. Ugh! But… guess what?!?! The test turned out pretty awesome! I know that I at least passed the test, it just depends on how well I did. I think if he curves it enough, I could probably pull of an ‘A’, but we will see. I probably wouldn’t be happy with a ‘B’, but I’m not going to complain, just so long as it isn’t lower than a ‘B’. And I pulled off an ‘A-‘ on the first test that I thought I failed, so just maybe…
Now it’s time to get motivated and work on the other stuff that I have going on. I have the majority of my presentation that I have to give on Monday complete. I plan on going to work for a little while tomorrow, going shopping for a little bit (I mean, I do have $10 Kohls cash burning a hole in my wallet), and then working on school stuff in the afternoon. I have an assignment due on Wednesday that I need to start (hoping it doesn’t take longer than two hours, but it just might) and finish. I have quite a few other things as well…
A presentation for two different classes, an application process that should be completed by the end of April to get my capstone research project okay’d, a lab assignment, a case study, a business plan to finish, and another assignment… and then I think that’s it for the semester. Seven different things and a few finals, not too bad.
Jay got our bikes down yesterday. Ayden wanted to go for a ride and we thought that it was probably a good time. And, if we got our bikes down, then it wouldn’t snow anymore, right?! Jay took them to put air in the tires at the gas station, since we couldn’t find our bike pump at home and those two went for a ride yesterday before I got home from class. I’m looking forward to going on a ride with them both tonight because the crappy rainy weather is supposed to start tomorrow (and hopefully take a break on Saturday so I don’t have to drive in it).
CIAO! LOVE ME!

Kick in the behind…

…is just what I need to get motivated!

It’s ‘back to the grind’ here in my life. Back to class, back to clinic, back to work (not that I took many days off of work), and back to real life. Can we say… UGH!

I have the same list of things to complete now that class is back in session that I did before I had two weeks off, oops! And then I have this upcoming horrible test on Wednesday that I have yet to start studying for, oops again! Such a bad student I am!

I am just SO ready for summer break! I am just SO ready for summer weather! I am just SO ready for this semester to be over with. I haven’t started counting the days yet, but I do know that there are TOO many for me to like! Catching the drift of this post yet… whiny and negative! Haha!

The sun is shining (that’s positive, right?) and the weather is supposed to get a little warmer this week. I’m looking forward to that! This coming weekend is my Great Grandma’s 90th birthday party. It will be nice to see everyone again since I don’t think we’ve seen them since Christmastime. Hoping for good driving weather because I don’t plan on staying ‘home’ the whole weekend and I think that Jay might want to, so we will probably drive separately. But I won’t get my hopes up that I will get a few hours to myself this coming weekend because then it probably won’t happen.

Okay, I suppose that I should get back to reading some articles that I need to discuss in class today, right?!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Almost Birthday Time...

Blog birthday time that is! On May 1 this year I will have been blogging for a total of three years so far! THREE years! I canNOT believe that I have kept it up for this long! When I started I really had no idea where this blog would go, what it would become, how much I would post, and what not. And now almost three years later, I'm still here. I LOVE blogging! I admit, this blog has changed over the years, but so have I. I wrote a lot about stuff that I do not want to relive, stuff that I should probably delete, crappy life in general, but because I'm too lazy to go back and censor all of those posts, they will just stay there... my doubt is that anyone new to my blog won't go back and read them anyways.

I have a counter on the sidebar of my blog that shows how many people have visited it. I need six more hits (well as of the last time I checked) to get 10,000 views. Although... probably a good 1000 or so are my own views from previewing my blog when I change it around to make sure it looks okay and just from other times I've viewed my own blog. If you divide that down... its about 9 views per day over the last three years. Doesn't seem like a lot, but I don't write to get a lot of followers. I write for myself. I don't have giveaways on my blog and so that doesn't attract more followers, I don't review products and so that doesn't attract more followers, I don't go around promoting my blog on other people's blogs and so that doesn't attract more followers, I don't comment a lot on other people's blogs and so that doesn't and so that doesn't attract more followers... get my drift. I don't mind that people read my blog, it's why it's public, it's why I post it on facebook when I update, but I don't need 100 or even 1000 followers. If you read my blog and enjoy it, then great! Thanks!

That's not to say that people who do all of the above are bad or wrong in any way. I happen to follow a lot of blogs that have hundreds of followers and commenters and I really enjoy them. I've heard stories of people who have made great friends through their blogs which is awesome. It's just not why I write mine.

I have a test coming up in what I thought was going to be my favorite class this semester... Pathologies. Do you remember how horrible my night ended up being after I took that last test (and then how I managed to get an A- as my grade when the professor threw in the curve)?!? Well, this test will be next Wednesday, after two weeks of Spring Break and two weeks before that with the professor out sick and us having a guest lecturer and a replacement teacher. We (the students) have no idea who wrote the exam, although I did email one of the fill in professors to see if she would tell us, because knowing who wrote the exam will definitely help us (the students) know how and what to student. We had three different professors and one guest lecturer for the last how many weeks and that makes a lot of difference. If our regular professor is writing the exam I think I'm screwed no matter what, even with the curve, because his tests are terrible. If the first fill in professor wrote the exam then I might just be able to pass it and she won't have to curve it. (Her exams are usually pretty straight forward and easy.) If the second fill in professor wrote the exam... then I'm probably screwed again, although I did manage a 100% on one of her online exams this semester. We'll see I guess... but just one more thing to add to the list.

Jay and Ayden may be going home this weekend... I can keep my fingers crossed, right?! It would be nice to get a weekend to myself, but either way it doesn't really matter I guess. I just need to keep myself motivated enough to get my presentation done and my other project maybe started. Said other project isn't due for a week and a half yet and I'm not too worried about how it is going to go. It shouldn't be too bad.

We got a new water heater today. Poor landlord for having to pay for it. The other one was working fine, but it was leaking and apparently the plumber said that that warranted a new one?! I don't know anything about water heaters so who knows. He said that it should save us money though, so maybe?! This is the first place that we've rented where the water gets hot enough for me in the shower. I like really hot water and at the previous two other places we lived at I could crank the shower handle all the way over and it would be warm enough for Jay and Ayden, but I always wanted it just a smidge warmer. Hoping the new water heater doesn't screw that up for me now, hehe!

This will be my fifth post in the last two weeks. I feel like I have been posting a lot more frequently than usual. I kind of like that. I'm going to be sad when my life goes back to busy next week... or should I say normal and then I don't post quite as often. I am really looking forward to summer this year... for not reason in particular, other than I won't be super busy with school and clinic... just clinic.

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Mt. O-FUN!

We had a great trip to the Dells! It was definitely relaxing and nice to get away from our house and from real life for a while and to be able to do it with friends was even more fun!

Our drive down to the Dells was easy peasy. Jay decided that since we weren't supposed to have any super serious bad weather, that we would take my car and save on gas, you know, because it's costing us like an arm and a leg these days to fill up our vehicles (no lie!). But you already know that. The forecast stated that northern and central Wisconsin could expect some precipitation on Tuesday into Wednesday and Point was only looking at an inch or two of snow. No biggie, my car can deal with that, especially since it was all highway driving and the highways are always the cleanest when it comes to snow.

We (my family and my friend's) arrived at our hotel around 12:30pm and pre-registered, got our wrist bands, and found some food to eat. They rob you blind with their food prices down there! $4.99 for a HOTDOG! I mean... come on! It was crazy! But we didn't get a whole lot to eat because I wasn't paying $40 for a lunch of hotdogs and hamburgers, no way! After lunch, we went to the indoor amusement park and rode some rides and played a few games. Ayden even got to go on his first roller coaster! His reaction... 'THAT was dangerous!' But it didn't stop him from going on again the next day with Jay!

And what would a post about our Dells trip be without a few pictures?! Yeah, that’s exactly what I thought. (Although I do have to say that I was a little disappointed with my camera this week and how some of the pictures turned out. The lighting sucked and I don’t know enough about my camera settings with poor lighting to make them how I wanted so maybe I should say that I was disappointed in myself this week and how I handled my camera.)

Ayden was just tall enough to drive the bumper cars himself! And him and Lily had a blast on the teacups! Even I got dizzy watching them spin around so fast!

Here is the rollercoaster that Ayden and I went on! He was just tall enough to ride this as well! It was lots of fun, but I’m pretty partial to any rollercoaster, hehe!

Ayden and Lily also hit up the ‘drop’ ride! It was hilarious watching Ayden go on it the first time because I don’t think he knew what was going to happen. They both had a blast! Lily was technically about an inch too short, but the operator let her on (but she did get turned away a few times when the operators switched, boo). They both LOVED this ride!

The hotel had guaranteed us our room at 4pm, but we headed back to the front desk around 3:20pm so see if our room might be ready a little early... NOPE! They said it wouldn't be ready until precisely 4pm! So what did we do... we parked our butts on the couch across from the front desk to wait.

Unfortunately, the kids were starting to get antsy and crabby and tired and more and more people were milling around waiting for their rooms to be ready too. Kristi and I got into line to finally get our rooms! Our rooms were conjoining which totally rocked! Lily and Leila spent a lot of time in our room playing with Ayden!By the time we got settled into our room it was time for supper so we munched on the food that we brought along. Remember me telling you they rob you blind with the food prices... we came prepared (for at least the time we were in our room, we didn't feel like eating in our cars for lunch and they wouldn't let us carry any food or drinks in with us). After supper it was time to hit up the water park! Ayden was tall enough to go down the tube slides with someone, he loved the lazy river, and couldn't get enough of the hot tubs! I didn't get a lot of pictures in the water park because I didn't want my camera getting too wet. Boo, but it was still loads of fun!We also went to this place called Wizard Quest. It was SO much fun! You had to go and find the wizards and then free them. For the younger kids, they could just find the wizards and free them, but for the older kids and adults, you have to find answers to questions and earn points to be able to free the wizards, so even if you are able to find the wizards, if you don’t have enough points, you can’t free them! It was a TON of fun!

Here is a less than glorious picture of me in the ball pit. There was this tunnel you had to crawl through to get to a secret room to see if you could find one of the wizards. Of course the kiddos wouldn’t do it unless someone else went first. Let me tell you, it was no easy feat to get through that tunnel and then because I had slip on shoes on, one of them fell off… IN the tunnel and I almost couldn’t find it because it was pitch black in there. Haha! SO much fun though and unfortunately, the wizard was not in the secret room beyond the tunnel. Better luck next time!Would you believe that after going through a secret maze, that you had to crawl under the table and through another tunnel to find this wizard?! I would have NEVER thought to crawl under the table! They do give clues along the way to help though!

We ate at the Moose Jaw for supper and it was pretty yummy, expensive, but yummy!Here is my lame attempt at a family photo in the mirror. Jay was none to thrilled about it and I chopped Ayden’s head off at the neck. Oh well, they’ll get used to me and my camera at some point, right?! And finally, my friend Kristi, her daughter Lily (who was my bud for the trip), Ayden, and myself. Kristi’s husband Nick and youngest daughter, Leila, were waiting for them in the car… gearing up for the horrific drive home!

The drive home in and of itself should be its own post. It was terrifying! Kristi and her family left about a half hour before us and I text her asking how the roads were. She said that they were pretty good, but that it was really windy out. My car can handle windy, just so long as the roads were okay.

We headed out and the roads were, like Kristi had mentioned, pretty good… for about half of the trip. Then they started to drift over… not too bad, and then they started to become snow covered, okay getting worse, and then it went down to one lane and we were going about 30-35 mph and I was almost in full blown anxiety attack mode. Thank goodness Jay was driving! It was probably one of the scariest, if not the scariest drive I’ve ever been through. I prayed and prayed and prayed that we would make it home safely and when we hit our driveway I thanked God over and over and over and almost burst into tears. It was THAT bad!

Thing is, our driveway was plowed shut and Jay thought that my car could make it through it… um… or NOT! We got stuck… turning into our driveway. I was just overly thankful it wasn’t on the side of the road or in a ditch somewhere along the highway. I could deal with being stuck at the front of our driveway. And some neighbor was out plowing and was nice enough to give my car a push with his plow to get us out and then plowed our side so we could pull in. Some people are just SUPER nice! I couldn’t believe how much snow we got though! Will teach us the next time we think to take my car out of town for a weekend when this can still happen. Oops!

It was a super fun vacation though and I’m so glad that we decided to go! Three more days and then it is back to reality… ugh!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Ashley’s Weekend ‘To Do’ List

It’s almost 1:30pm on Sunday afternoon and I have to say that all I’ve done today is get out of bed, lay on the couch, read a little bit, sleep some more, make some French toast, lay on the couch some more, and finally get up and take a shower. That’s A LOT for a Sunday, right?! Talk about a lazy day around here. I don’t know that I’ve been THIS lazy for a LONG time and it feels kind of depressing, HA!

Here is the list of things I wanted to get done by the end of the weekend... whether or not they actually all get completed, well that's another story, ha!

1. Start laundry Done and did, except I have a basket to fold and some clothes to take off hangers and put away, but at least it’s all washed.
2. Make Katie's cds
3. Organize office
4. Clean off upstairs table
5. Vacuum basement
6. Go through Ayden's 'left over' toys and determine what can be saved for future rummage sale or Goodwill We even dropped the toys off at Goodwill. I had a whole care full of stuff that we no longer needed.
7. Organize underneath the stairs storage
8. Organize basement closet (I at least looked in the closet, but since we are waiting on a plumber to come and look at our water heater, it doesn’t pay to organize it fully because stuff will need to get moved again.)
9. Vacuum living room (I was so on my way to doing this, but then I realized that I needed to clean the vacuum filter and then wait for it to dry, and then I ended up doing something else. We have a bag-less vacuum and every now and then the filter needs to get rinsed off. This time it needed it BAD!)
10. Organize Ayden's closet and book shelf I took a look in the closet and thought to my self… looks good enough for me right now, HA! At least I got the bookshelf done!
11. Go through Ayden's clothes
12. Start Geriatrics presentation*
13. Start capstone IRB approval application*
14. Start Pediatrics presentation*
15. Start Amplification presentation*
16. Listen to Pathologies recordings*
17. Start Practice Management project*
18. Organize and go through my and Jay's clothes (I went through a few of my shirts, but that’s about it, didn’t get much further than that.)
19. Pack for the Dells (On my list of things to complete today, since after all… we are going to the Dells tomorrow!)
20. Organize Jay's work clothes and basement shelves
21. Finish FAFSA if I can get the error figured out
22. Pay bills
23. Print off some updated pictures
24. Look for more articles on CROS*
25. Work on Mother's Day project
26. Gather and list stuff on Craiglist?!

*Starred items include school related things and as you can very well see, I was super unmotivated to get any of that done this weekend! I do have to say, that the Geriatrics presentation rough draft is the only thing due soon and that is not until March 28th, so I’m good yet, real good. I just haven’t been motivated to get a real head start on anything.

Spring cleaning much?! HA! Attempting to be ambitious much?! HAHA again!

Work has been pretty slow lately which makes the time that I am there go just that much slower. It's not that I don't enjoy my job, because I totally do. My boss rocks and I do enjoy what it is that I have to do each time I go in, it's just that sometimes it gets a little slow.

I think I may be getting sick. It started with a runny nose a few nights ago and a lot of sneezing and then a sore throat halfway through the night which is continued with a runny nose and a lot of sneezing again the past few mornings, but it hasn’t increased. Spring allergies?! Who knows? The throat isn't very bad anymore which is good, but I really don't want to be sick going into our Dells vacation. One of the little girls I watched on Tuesday night had a bit of a runny nose, so maybe I caught it from her?! And or my supervisor who had the beginnings of a cold on Tuesday as well, although hers was more throat than nose so we'll see.

The weather was absolutely beautiful yesterday and believe me, I took advantage of it and got out to take some pictures. I hadn’t taken any pictures for myself since sometime in February and just wanted to get my camera out. I headed off to the beach and Ayden joined me with his fishing pole. He just had a rubber fish tied onto the end that he was using to practice his casting with. (Unfortunately, he got snagged on a tree branch just before we left and we ended up losing the fish, oops! Just goes to show that you shouldn’t send a woman and kid off with a fishing pole by themselves, hehe!)

It felt good to get the camera out again for myself and just have fun with it. Ayden and I tramped through the melting snow and enjoyed the beautiful sun that was shining down on us.

This is Ayden and his future wife, Lily! If I say it enough, it will be true, hehe!And here are a few pictures from the park. Ever since I took some for my friend, Katie, there last weekend, I wanted to go back and just get some scenic ones.The blue sky just soaked me in! I  couldn’t get enough of it! Oh, and of course, the little dude!I got a few of Ayden… without having to bribe him into letting me take any. The premise of the time out with mommy was that I wouldn’t make him be in any pictures, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t take plenty of him when he wasn’t looking!Then we came home, you know, after the whole losing the rubber fish to the tree branch, and Ayden played outside where I took some more pictures of him while I relaxed in a lawn chair.I love Ayden’s face in this last picture, the scrunched up nose is SO Jay!Do any of you have any weird quirks? What a question, right? I realized that I do. (I mean, it’s not like I just realized that I do.) HA! What a shock, right?! I habitually play with the rings on my fingers. Especially if I am bored, yet have to listen to something, like pay attention in class. I have realized that I play with the earrings in my ears as well (it used to be my nose ring years ago), but now I just twirl my earrings around in my ear, and mostly just my left ear. It feels good. I know, send me to the loony bin (pretty please, I've been trying and trying to find good reason to go back to the padded rooms, hehe!) stat! There has to be something wrong with me!

A few other funny things about me include, having to sleep with the curtains entirely blocking the window because I fear waking up and seeing someone staring in our window at me in the middle of the night, even if only a sliver of the window is showing. When Jay is gone and I'm sleeping alone, I leave the bedroom door open at night (we usually leave it most of the way open each night so the cat can come and go) but not all the way, I put one of Jay's slippers on each side of the door to keep it in a certain spot so there is no extra light coming from the kitchen windows. Crazy again, I know.

Okay, so those are only a few funny things about me.

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Unproductive Blissdom

I’ve been pretty unproductive this week so far and I must say that it feels kind of nice. I just need to make it through the next month and a half and then my stress load will be significantly lighter (or at least I am hoping so). Not that I am feeling very stressed right now, although I’m sure that it will be coming in the next few weeks when due date start creeping up on me yet again. Three projects due, but alas, I always manage to get things done.

I started filling out my FAFSA form today, for the umpteenth time, and unfortunately I ran into some problems. Of all the times that I’ve needed to fill it out and get it approved, this is the one where I run into difficulties. And to be honest, I don’t know that I’m doing anything any different than I have in years past. So, what does a woman do when she is having trouble filling out her FAFSA for the umpteenth time?! She calls her mommy for help! Not that my mom was able to help me anymore than what I had already tried, but she offered to take a further look at it and call the FAFSA people to see what they could help with. Like I really want to talk to those people anyways, ha! LOVE moms! Isn’t that what they are there for?!

I got to sleep in today, like really sleep in, not get out of bed until 9:30am (although some people might say that doesn’t really qualify as sleeping in- it does to me!) and then lounge in my pajamas until 11am watching a movie that I had DVR’d. Reason being… well I was supposed to have a morning of clinic today, but my supervisor let me know last night that she was not feeling well and would not be going in to work so I could have the day off. It sucks in that that is one less day that I’ll get hours for, but I had planned on going in next Friday afternoon anyways, now I’ll just go in a few hours earlier. No biggie, plus I get to see some really cool appointments next Friday that we don’t get a lot of experience with on campus, actually, pretty much no experience with on campus.

Here is a picture composite that I made for my friend Katie, I really love how it turned out because as I was putting it together, I didn’t think it would turn out so cool. It’s not perfect by any means, but it is still pretty neat! And good for a first attempt! Or at least I happen to think so, hehe!Tomorrow, Jay has to head to Appleton for a check up on his gums from getting his teeth pulled last week. He is feeling pretty much back to normal which is good. I think he managed to sneak past the dreaded dry sockets which is even better. That didn’t happen to me either, but I’ve heard that it is rather painful, so I really didn’t wish that upon him. I may or may not accompany him. He doesn’t have to leave until after I get back from work. After his appointment, we may or may not peruse a few furniture stores. We are getting more than we had anticipated back for our tax refund and decided that we might get a new couch with a bit of the money. Unfortunately, we can’t spend it on a lavish vacation or splurge on something we really want since we’ll need it to live off of. But, our couch, albeit still ‘sitable’ is starting to get a little uncomfortable.

I can’t say how old the couch is as Jay’s aunt was SUPER nice to give us a couch of hers that she wasn’t using when we moved to Point. It was sitting on her porch and her dog was using it. It has worked for us ever since. Her dog did bit a hole in one of the front flaps covering the bottom of the sofa, there are some staples holding the side fabric on, and there is hole in the top that we need to keep covered so the cat doesn’t pull out the stuffing, but it has worked. It is also a sofa bed, but the bed is missing some springs, and the cushions are not staying on very well anymore. And lately, its just become pretty uncomfortable to lay on. Maybe it’s just me. In any case, it’s just a thought… we looked around in Point and have a few ideas, but in the end we may just stick with what we have for now. We’re pretty indecisive at this point.

I don’t want to jinx it or anything, but Jay had a job interview today. It’s for a larger landscaping company with the possibility for more money and benefits. He said he thought it went well and that they would get back to him within the next week and let him know. Keeping our fingers crossed over here! He still has his other job and he loves it, but the potential to move up and make more money just isn’t there. And he said it would probably be four ten hour days instead of five days a week. It would then give him Fridays to start his own little side business like he has been talking about. I guess we’ll hold on and see what happens!

I made some homemade ice cream for dessert last night. It was super easy and pretty good. It was sweeter than I thought it might be, but the two main ingredients are heavy whipping cream and sweetened condensed milk, so I don’t know what I was thinking it might taste like. And then I added some cookie dough (probably too much) and some turtle magic shell. Either way, it is still definitely edible!

Ayden has a cub scouts meeting tonight. I should want to go, but I don’t really. I didn’t put any make up on today since I stayed home all day and my face is breaking out because that time of the month is approaching (although not soon enough because I’d rather much not have to worry about it next week while we are at the water park).

Can’t wait for some waterpark fun though!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

More Random Thoughts from ME!

I feel like writing, but I don't feel like I have a lot to say. Although the past week has been busy like usual, not a whole lot of excitingness (yes I made that a word) has been going on. The days continue to progress like usual, with getting up in the morning, leaving for the day to do whatever it is that happens to be that days agenda, getting home, eating supper, watching some TV, and going to bed.

Last week, the little dude and I watched Titanic together. Not the whole thing, because when they air it on TV, its like four and a half hours long, which means they add in an hour and a half of commercials because the movie itself is three hours long. We probably watched two hours of it. For the first hour we cuddled on the couch together. I treasure those moments more and more each time because I know they will be few and far between in the coming years (unfortunately). And for the second hour, I remembered I had a paper that I had due the next day that I needed to finish up, so I worked on that, while Ayden constructed the Titanic out of his legos and reenacted what was on TV. (I love when he does that, it's super cute.)

I started a new book on my Kindle last week too, and am still not finished with it. Its taking me a lot longer than I had originally thought and its not quite as good, but not bad enough for me not to finish it. I'm hoping to get in a few good non school related reads within the next two weeks. Its always relaxing to cuddle in with a good blanket and book for a few hours! Would be cheaper if I just went to the library and checked out some books instead of buying them on my Kindle, but I have quite a long 'wish list' on my Kindle so I thought I might get one or two books for the time being.

It felt super good to not have to go to class today, and knowing I won’t have to go for another two weeks is even better. I was even productive school wise this past weekend and got two quizzes that I needed to finish done. I have a few other things that I need to work on still, but it was better than nothing, right?! Both quizzes ended up being fairly easy and didn’t take me too much time so that was good as well.

Jay got his wisdom teeth out last Friday and I’ve been calling him ‘chipmunk cheeks’ ever since. I know, not nice, hehe! He’s still in a little pain in the mornings, but he said it wasn’t as bad as he thought it was going to be. His face is still pretty swollen, but when the dentist called today to check in with him, they said that the swelling usually peaks around the third or fourth day and then it starts to go down, so totally normal. Just one more thing to have done.

I took some engagement photos for my friend and classmate Katie this past weekend and I have to say, it’s been my favorite shoot to date. I am in love with some of the pictures I got and only wish they were of Jay and myself, hehe! Jay doesn’t know what’s coming this spring when we have our shoot!

We had a laundry list of different places that I wanted to go to around town and I think we hit up most of them. After driving around on Saturday, I couldn’t believe how many different places I kept adding to my list! And some of them will be even cooler in the summer with no snow on the ground! Can’t wait!!!

And of course, here are some of the pictures I took. I took 455 pictures and after going through them and deleting bad ones, I had 347… of those 347, I edited 115 for Katie and her fiancé. Talk about lots of clicks! It was WAY fun though!Aren’t they super cute together?! I love the door behind them too!This picture is one of my favorite! I love how Katie is pulling Matt towards her. There is just something about it… maybe it’s me?!I also like this one a lot!!! The blue building was the COOLEST, unfortunately, there was snow piled up in the front of it so I couldn’t get the shots that I had in mind for this building and on the side of it, when I tried what I wanted, I got lots of stuff in the background. But we did get a few cute shots with it!I LOVE this church door! The color of it is just SO rich and the pictures we got with it turned out awesome! And… we did get some railroad track pictures, against my better judgment. Technically, the sign said that it was trespassing if you crossed the bridge (and really, who would be dumb enough to cross the railroad bridge?) so I don’t know that we were actually trespassing, ha! We did get some super cool pictures and I’m happy that we did go up there!This is also one of my absolute FAVORITES from this shoot. I love the color and the texture of the different materials. It’s super cool!And one more just because! The red door was super cool, although once again, this was against my better judgement because the sign did say ‘no trespassing’. Oops!

Ayden and I read for quite a while tonight and he didn’t get frustrated AT ALL! Big YEAH!!! That was quite an accomplishment because not only did we do his Hooked on Phonics lesson that we are working on, but we also read another book from the library together and not once did he complain or argue or whine or cry or yell! It was GREAT! I really enjoyed it and I think he did too and it was great to see him try so hard and he did SO well too! We are definitely making progress which makes me SO happy. I don’t need a first grader that reads at a fifth grade level, but to know that he’s not struggling as nearly as much as I thought he was and that he is willing to work at it with myself and Jay is great!

It’s off to clinic tomorrow! And a week from today we will be in the Dells with my friend Kristi! Can’t wait. I’m watching her girls tomorrow night so her and her hubby can go out for Kristi’s birthday.

Time for some ice cream?! I think so…

CIAO! LOVE ME!