A job well... D.O.N.E.

I am officially DONE seeing patients until the beginning of September and it feels SO nice! Kind of freeing actually, like I don't really have a care in the world at this moment (even my summer class isn't weighing me down too much). I received an 'A' for my clinic grade which is pretty awesome. My supervisor didn't go over every aspect of my grade with me, but she did say that if she had any worries about my performance, she would have told me when she had them and she did through the course of the last five/six weeks. She even offered to write me a letter of recommendation if I ever needed one and gave me a bag of hearing aid goodies! Yeah! I think a small sliver of me is going to miss seeing patients for the next few months and I will be itching to get back into it by the time the fall semester starts, but at this point I just want to enjoy a few months of none stress related stuff.

I've also been enjoying the week without Ayden. Yes, I do miss him to pieces, but I also know that he is having a great time and you know what... I know that every parent needs a break at some point. Whether that is just a few hours alone running errands or a few days away. It feels nice to recharge and it feels nice to have it just be me and Jay for a few days. Since we had Ayden when we were still so young and not living on our own, it's always been the three of us. Don't get me wrong, I love my family more than life itself, but every couple needs that recharge time as well where they don't have to worry about the kids. (Not that I'm not worrying about Ayden... ask my sister who spent the week with him, I texted her to see how he was doing more than once.)

Ayden has also called me twice too. He called to let me know that he's having a great time and that his top tooth that was loose fell out! He'll be wishing for his two front teeth for Christmas this year!

My car was into the shop twice this week... would you know. Cost me a grand total of about $150 to get it fixed for both of the times. Wouldn't you know that on the way to drop me off at clinic on Tuesday, Jay realized that he probably didn't put a sensor back in place after he checked my air filter and that was what was probably causing the problem. He called the mechanic after he thought about it and had them check that first thing when they looked at the car and sure enough that was what it was! I don't know if they replaced the sensor or just put it back on. But they ran their diagnostic on it and took it for a test drive before and after to make sure that was the problem and that it was running correctly after they replaced the sensor.

I was pretty excited that it was such an easy fix and was starting to trust my car again (I have major trust issues with vehicles after something goes wrong with them, especially if it goes wrong and I am in the vehicle and driving) because Jay had brought it to Rapids to pick me up and we got home all without anything going wrong. I even took my car to work yesterday and all was fine. After work I had a few places I wanted to stop and on my way to the last place... dun dun dun... the check engine light goes on again. I about have a panic attack because I was a few miles from home. I was shaking and almost in tears, but decided to just turn in the direction of home and pray I would make it all of the way until my driveway. I did, despite being almost traumatized, haha! I called Jay again and after he got home from work we took the vehicle back in. This time it seemed to be driving alright, but obviously something was wrong because the check engine light came on. Thankfully this time it was an air hose that had rubbed down which caused a different sensor to run the 'alarm'. And now... brought my car into work this morning and all was good again and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way. I have been very nice to my car since then, hehe!

I am taking some family pictures this weekend. I am excited about it because I am taking them at one of my favorite places in Point and the weather looks like it is supposed to cooperate for us as well! I have a few ideas up my sleeves of different poses I want to try out! After the pictures I am going to high tail it 'home' for Jay's brother's
graduation party. Sunday is most likely going to be spent helping pick up after the party and then Monday thru Wednesday next week my mom is coming to visit. I can't believe that next week is the end of June already! That means 4th of July fireworks and hopefully getting out on the boat for them and NO rain like last year! Also we get to go to see Josh Thompson (a country singer) for free on Saturday night, altough I think Jay's loverboy might be crashing our party, hehe! No matter what it will be fun, just as long as it doesn't RAIN!!!

It's taking me all week to formulate this blog post (which seems to be the norm around here). I just checked the last time I posted and it was 11 days ago already! I can't believe that it has been 11 DAYS since my last post! Honestly, where does the time go?! I know I don't post on a daily basis, but I like to post every few days. I like to get my thoughts out and down onto 'paper' because it helps. It usually helps more during times of stress and when things are not going my way and to be honest, things have been going pretty good here for a while. You know how life has its ebbs and flows... well, I've been flowing for a while and I like it. I don't want it to stop anytime soon. Selfish of me to not want my life to stop being good anytime soon, I think not, hehe!

It is officially summer according to the calendar and it looks like it might not rain today which is even better! I get to go pick up my little man from my aunt's house and enjoy the rest of the afternoon together! And then it is the weekend. I'm just all around pretty happy!

Okay, so here's a weird thought to ponder. Yesterday I was on the couch taking a nap. Towards the end of my nap I felt conscious and knew I wanted to get up and I kept feeling like I was getting up but then I would realize that I was still sleeping on the couch and not actuall up. I dreamt (and I put that in italics because I don't know if I was actually dreaming or not) that I was getting up off the couch over and over, but in reality I would realize that I was still stuck sleeping on the couch. I tried over and over to get up and I could never actually get my body to do it. Finally I actually opened my eyes and managed to get my body up, but it was the weirdest feeling and this is not the first time this has happened to me during afternoon naps. I googled sleep paralysis because thought maybe that was it. Like I wanted to get my body to moving, but I couldn't type thing, but after reading a little bit about it I couldn't determine if that was what it actually was or not. In any case, it is the weirdest feeling in the world! Anyone else experience that or is it just me?!

We had to take my computer into Best Buy last night to get fixed. The internet wasn't working on it, even though it was saying it was connected. The thing I love about Best Buy and their Geek Squad... they do most of their troubleshooting for FREE! The lady spent a good hour working on my computer trying to get the internet to work and it didn't cost us ANYTHING! Yippie! And now... my internet works again. She thinks it was something to do with my antivirus software and the settings that it had. In any case, whatever she ended up having to do we got it fixed.

And time to actually get this posted…

CIAO! LOVE ME!

One way or the other...

Here are just a few pictures from our weekend at home chilling and relaxing…Lately it seems like life is one way or the other... super busy or super
slow... Can't have it in between, can we? I fly through the week at
clinic and then either fly through the weekend or drag through the
weekend. Today starts my last full week of clinic and I'm actually work
this Saturday. Who would have thought?! Me volunteer to work on a
Saturday? You know why? Because it gets me done one day sooner. If I
work this Saturday, it means my last day of clinic is next Tuesday and
then I get to go back to work on Wednesday! Believe it or not, I
actually miss going to work every day. Ha! But the thing is, I am only
working two or three hours a day. Just enough to keep my boss from going crazy and I enjoy being around the people there so it works.

This weekend was one of those drag by weekends. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the fact that it was a weekend because that meant I was entitled to be a little lazy, but dare I say it was just a little boring as well. We didn't get as much cleaning done as I would have liked. I picked up both bedrooms, but I didn't vacuum them like I had intended. I did the laundry... well washed all of it Friday and then just had to fold and put it away over the weekend. I got the folding part done and most of the putting away, but not all of it. Jay started to clean the bathroom
on Friday. He got the vanity and mirrors clean, but the shower, toilet,
and floor never got touched... neither did the downstairs bathroom or
the cat litter (and I only reminded him about six gajillion times over
the weekend). He did clean up the mess in the kitchen, but it is already
back to its state of disarray. I managed to take out the garbage and
recycling around the house and sweep the kitchen floor. So overall it
wasn't super unsuccessful, but we definitely didn't get a super cleaning
done like I had originally intended. We all just got lazy, haha!

Because of the rainy weather on Friday, Jay ended up going into work on Saturday for the majority of the day and the ironic thing is that his
boss is going to have to pay overtime for his last week of work. While
Jay was gone working, Ayden and I went to Jordan Park and had an
adventure. It was a fun time! We spent about a hour and a half there
making our way across the rocks on the water trying to get as far as we
could. Given that we were jumping over some fast moving water (albeit
super shallow in most parts) neither of us got our feet wet until right
as we were leaving (and I was even picking my way across the rocks
carrying my camera)! I had to help Ayden across a lot of the rocks so
that he wouldn't fall in and of course on one of the very last rocks he
needed help with, my foot slipped off and right into the water!
Thankfully only the front half of my shoe went in and it didn't get
soaked. I wore tennis shoes instead of sandals because they had a lot
better grip on them and I didn't need to be as careful jumping from rock
to rock. It was a lot of fun!

So much so that Ayden ended up taking a pretty good nap Saturday
afternoon while I watched some TV and then ended up snoozing a little
bit with him!

Sunday started off well enough. Jay ended up going to the emergency room because of a bump/swelling on his forearm. His arm had started to hurt him late Friday night and it only got worse through Saturday and by Saturday night you could see a swollen spot on it even after he iced it. He decided to go in before it got worse and he had to take time off of
work to so see a doctor (especially since he is starting his new job
today, he didn't want to do that). Turns out he has tendonitis in his
left wrist that could turn into carpal tunnel. He has to wear a brace
for the next week and go see an orthopedic surgeon to see if he needs
physical therapy after this week is up to keep it from happening again.
So, he had to go into work today with a brace on, hehe!

We all went to Jordan Park again on Sunday for about an hour and walked around and then the rest of the afternoon as spent at home vegging in front of the TV and playing with toys. It was the grand lazy end to our weekend! I printed off a few pictures, started a letter to a friend, continuously switched the channels on the television (because nothing was on), and ate too much... I have a habit of doing that on the
weekends. Although, I have to say, both Saturday and Sunday morning I weighed in at less than 120 lbs so that was great... especially since I
didn't work out once this past week. I know, I've let myself go on that!
I'm going to try and turn that around this week. I'm going to see if I
can get some new wheels for my rollerblades so I can start rollerblading
again. I would really like to do that again because I enjoy it, but the
wheels (or the bearings, because Jay seems to think it is probably the
bearings) suck on my rollerblades right now. We'll see! I'm hoping to
find some halfway cheap wheels that I can switch out my old ones for and start going on a more frequent basis, especially since we have that nice paved trail right near our house!

I'm thinking my blog needs a makeover, but I haven't been ambitious
enough to sit down and create something new. We got our family pictures back and I want to incorporate those into the new makeover somehow, but I haven't figured it out yet. Speaking of our family pictures... I was all set on getting a photo book printed up of some of them because they turned out so great, but when I went to go upload the pictures, my computer told me that it was going to take four hours to upload the amount that I wanted. NO way! Instead of sitting around and waiting for that, I decided that maybe it is time to wake up my scrapbooking gene again and make a scrapbook out of the pictures instead. I want to get started right away, but unfortunately, my printer ran out of ink so I need to get some more of that and I need to purchase a few things for the scrapbook as well. Maybe I will do that tonight after I pick Ayden up... who knows?! (My first patient of the day was cancelled so, I'm writing this waiting to be paged saying that my second patient has arrived, but it won't be posted until tonight.)

I recently ordered a reflector to use when I am taking pictures for
people now. I am anxiously awaiting it to arrive so I can practice with
it. I have only the slightest little bit of an idea of how to use it.
Maybe I should google some good tutorials on how to I can make the best use out of it. I don't take a lot of pictures for people, but I have a
few shoots coming up this summer where I think it might come in handy to use. In fact, I have one coming up this weekend for a friend that I would like to try it out on (I'm just hoping that the weather holds out for us and we can actually get some pictures outside). Along with her shoot, I have another one coming up the following weekend and one more at the beginning of August for sure. Then possibly two or three more at the beginning of fall. I'm pretty excited about it because I love taking pictures and adding in a new gadget to play with, makes me even more excited!

I finished book three of the 17 book series that I wanted to read. I
think I've given up on them though. The first three were pretty good.
Not great by any means of the imagination... and I don't think that I
can read 14 more books that all have the same kind of plot in them. I
think it would just get too boring for me. I'm looking for some more
good books though... maybe I will have to peruse Target's book section
because they always seem to have some good books out. I usually take a picture of them with my cell phone and then look them up later on my
Kindle so I can get them cheaper and not actually have to carry around
the book. I might need to do that for next week.

Next week Ayden will be gone the whole week. I might have mentioned that one of my aunts is hosting a 'summer camp' for all of the cousins to
come. Thankfully she is the aunt that lives closest to us in Point... in
fact its less than a half hour drive to her place from our house
(although more than an hour for everyone else, hehe, at least I have one
perk of living so far away from my family for the time being). Anyways,
she is hosting all of the cousins for a week and has a ton of fun
activities planned for them. Best part... my sister is going for the
week because she is 'nannying' for some of my other cousins and their
mom wants my sister to go along to help keep the kids in control. If my
sister is there for the whole week, I know that Ayden will stay the
whole week. That means... a whole week to myself! (Well minus clinic
Monday and Tuesday and work in the morning Wednesday thru Friday). A few good books, scrapbooking, and maybe even... A NAP OR TWO!

So, get this. This past weekend there was a family graduation party
going on for some cousin's on my dad's side. It was back 'home' so we
had decided not to go because gas is expensive, driving takes forever,
and we just wanted to stay home and relax. My sister had asked me on
facebook if we were going or not and I had messaged her back that we
weren't. This is where facebook got me into 'trouble'. In that message
(it wasn't private) I told her that we never got an invitation for the
party and were probably included on dad's invitation and he never
bothered to call and let us know. Now, that isn't the reason we weren't
going at all (although it would have been nice to get an invitation),
like I said, we just wanted to stay home and relax. I've come to realize
that although Jay and I have been living in Stevens Point for the last
SIX years, often times we are still included on our parent's
invitations. I KNEW we were invited to the graduation party, I even knew where it was. I had talked with my aunts who were throwing the party back at Easter time. I just wish that if it was a big family event,
especially for those closely related, that we would get our own
invitation. IE: cousins getting married, grandparents anniversary party,
etc. If it's a family friend inviting the family to a grad party or
whatever, sure, invite us on our parents invitation if you want us
there, then I don't care because I'm probably not close to you to begin
with.

Anyways, one of my aunts called me today (it's afternoon time now) to
apologize for not sending us an invitation because another aunt saw my
comment on facebook and passed it along. She felt really bad about not
getting us an invitation because of course we were invited, but somehow
it got missed. Now, I wasn't upset or anything in the first place about
it. Hadn't even expended that much effort thinking about it. But it was
really sweet and heartfelt that my aunt would take the time out of her
day to call me and apologize, even over something so trivial that I
didn't even care about in the first place. It has made my day so far!
:-)

Okay, so this post is long enough without me rambling on even more... I
think I will end it now.

CIAO! LOVE ME!

More Bambi… among other things…

We were at it again this past Thursday… tagging fawns. I can’t remember if I ever explained what we did as far as tagging fawns on here or not, so here goes.

Ayden’s cub scout leader knows someone who owns a local deer farm. For the last few years his family would help the owner out going through his pens with does in finding the fawns and tagging them. The purpose of tagging the fawns is to keep track of how many are born. This is the third week we’ve gone back to help search for fawns. This week I invited my classmate and friend Katie along because she is SUCH an animal lover that I just KNEW she would love it! And… she did!

At the beginning of our second pass through the woods the owner happened upon a fawn that was not tagged yet. This one was a little bit older and was pretty active, but we still passed him around and all got to hold him!

Here is Katie holding her first fawn!And here she is geeking out about having to be the one holding the fawn when he gets tagged. It’s just like piercing it’s ear, well that’s that it is. Because she is such an animal lover she can’t stand to see animals in pain etc… so she had to look away! Hehe! It was cute!About halfway through our second pass I happened upon the next fawn that was untagged. We all got to see a bunch of the does running around and see a few fawns that were already tagged. I was excited to happen upon one myself because the first time we went we only found two and the second time was when I took Ayden to sit in the truck halfway through because he wasn’t feeling good and they found them all at the end. This one was also a little bigger so I made Jay pick him up so he wouldn’t get up and run away on me. I just took the pictures, hehe! This one cried and cried for his mom when he was picked up and mom came running, but she didn’t get too close.As we were working on tagging the one that I found, Katie was strolling around behind us and came upon another one that needed to get tagged. I was excited that she was able to find one herself and I think that got her really into looking for them. We made a few more passes in the pen (we had about 18 acres to cover) and saw a few more tagged fawns running around. I happened to walk past another untagged one, but by the time I realized it, he (or she) was up and running away from me.

On our last pass through the pen I was coming up to the fence and happened to look down into a brush pile and wouldn’t you know, I found another cute little one. This one was the smallest that we found on Thursday and I just HAD to pick him (or her, because I cannot remember if the owner said it was a boy or girl) up. I mean, it needed to get tagged, but this time I picked it up instead of making Jay and then I had to get a picture as well!Ayden held this one too! He didn’t want to hold any of the older ones or any from the first two weeks that we went so I was excited when he said that he wanted to hold this one. And Katie had to get a few more cuddles in before we left as well! By the way, this is the classmate that I took engagement pictures for this past winter. Her and her fiancé finally decided on a wedding date (about three months before our wedding date) and I’m so excited to have a friend getting married so close so we can plan stuff together (although I have a feeling her and Matt’s wedding will be a little more upscale/expensive than ours because her parent’s have enough money and she is an only daughter, but I’m going to do my best to not be jealous). And because I’m in the picture post kind of mood, here are few pictures from last weekend when we went home for Jay’s brother’s graduation. We stopped at the county park on our way home so I could take some pictures of my best friend and her boyfriend (and we all know how that turned out) and instead took a few pictures for myself.A quick attempt at trying to capture Ayden blowing a dandelion, but he didn’t want to ‘slow’ down enough for me to get the picture right. I guess I will have to try again, but here’s a cute one none the less!And here is a picture of my bestie on her motorcycle! I still think she is crazy for having one and actually driving it, but if she likes it, then so be it! Hehe! I don’t know that I would ever be that brave, but all the more power to her!And finally… a picture of my honey and his newly graduated brother and my little man! What a family, eh?!?!CIAO! LOVE ME!

Urban Family Photoshoot 2011

We recently had our family photos taken… (as I’ve mentioned probably a dozen times by now) and I got the cd with the pictures on in the mail this week and I am in AWE!!!

Our photographer, Jacki Arnold (click her name to see her facebook page), of JB Photography (once again, click the business name to see the facebook page), did a photoshoot for us last summer and those pictures turned out great. So, I enlisted her to capture some more moments of our family this summer. This time I wanted an urban type feel to our photos and I have to say, Jacki pulled it off way above my expectations! I LOVE LOVE LOVE the pictures and it is SO hard to even pick a favorite! We can’t begin to thank Jacki enough!!!

Here are just a few of my favorites from the shoot! I’m thinking of getting a photobook printed up as well!Like I said… IN LOVE!!! Looking for a photographer… email Jacki on her personal or business facebook page!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Um… spray tan in a bottle?!

I want to be tan… like all over with no tan lines… But I’m too cheap to go tanning at a salon, too lazy to go tanning at a salon, and too cheap and lazy to even get a spray tan from a salon. Maybe I shouldn’t be too cheap or lazy anymore, haha!

While perusing the Bath and Body Works store the other day I came across a spray tan in a bottle that claimed to leave you streak free and would spray at any angle. This had to be good, right?! It wouldn’t turn my hands orange because I didn’t have to touch it. I could hold the bottle upside down if I needed to to reach all parts of my body. And it was pretty reasonably priced.

Well… I won’t be using it again anytime soon, that’s for sure. I am only slightly embarrassed to say that I am a streaky splotchy spray tan mess (albeit not too orange). I suppose that it would have turned out better had I had Jay spray me instead of doing it myself. My legs ended up the darkest, I have streaks on my arms, and splotches on my back where I thought I got everything but apparently didn’t. It’s pretty funny, rather funny actually. Jay laughed at me. I laughed at myself. At least it isn’t permanent and will start to wear away in a few days. I told Jay that next time he is going to spray me so it is all even.

Yes, you read that correctly, I am going to try again. I want that sunkissed looked and I paid for it, so why not, lol!

I’d post pictures of how funny I look right now, but I won’t. I’m not that brave.

CIAO! LOVE ME!

ACCOMPLISHED!!!

I set out to make a goal last week of getting under 120 lbs before our
pictures on Saturday night (or maybe it was by Friday- because Jay keeps telling me that is what I said), but in any case, I made my goal. I was 119.8 lbs by the time our appointment time came around for our family pictures Saturday night and I was 119.0 lbs when I woke up Sunday morning. I was STOKED! When I started my weight loss goal, I had originally wanted to get down to about 120/115 lbs. I knew that 120 was more manageable and would probably be easier, but now I can't help keeping that maybe I could make it to 115 as well. I know that it should be more about fitness and not about the number on the scale, but I can't help but want to see that low number. I am to a point where I am feeling pretty good about my body right now. My pants are fitting a lot looser on me and so I know that I have lost inches. That makes me feel great! I've been more and more of a slacker though when it comes to working out. I've made some bad choices this past week and instead of working out to lose the extra pound or two that I wanted, I just ate less. No, I didn't starve myself not eating anything throughout the day, but I know that I was depriving myself of calories that I needed. I need to make a better effort to not do that and to instead work out. That is my goal now... to maintain my current weight (or maybe try and make to down to 115 lbs in a healthy way) and to continue to whip my butt into shape!

What is even better is that I've motivated Jay to get into better shape
and lose weight as well. I know that I've said that before, but now he
has extra motivation sitting in our closet at home that he cannot use
until he hits his goal weight. And believe me... that has been the best
motivator so far by a lot! He is already down almost 20 lbs which is
AWESOME! And better yet, people are starting to notice and comment on it and I know that that is making him feel good! He has started taking
nightly bike rides, going about 10 miles around town on the Green Circle
Trail we have. The trail is about 30 some odd miles around Point that
cuts through the woods, along the river, and just pretty much ALL over
the city. Last night Ayden and I biked with him for 2.5 miles on the
trail and then turned around and biked home. So Jay got in his 10 mile
bike ride and Ayden and I got in a good 5 mile bike ride. It felt good,
although I would have liked to continue on with Jay, but I knew that
there was NO way that Ayden was going to make 10 miles. He was tired
enough after just 5 miles. So much so that when he laid down in the
bedroom with Jay to watch some TV at about 7pm last night he lasted for just about 5 minutes before falling asleep.

We had some super gorgeous weather this past weekend! Too bad it isn't always that nice out, haha! Actually, I got called by Ayden's school
early Friday afternoon saying that he wasn't feeling very well.
Thankfully it was right after seeing my last patient at clinic (because
I am only at clinic for half days on Fridays) and I could pretty much up
and leave right away to go and get him. He was pretty lethargic and had
a fever all of Friday afternoon. I wasn't able to go into work like I
normally do on Friday afternoons, but I was able to get the work done
that I needed to at home which was nice. Ayden felt better on Saturday
and Sunday when he was drugged up, but he also got a sore throat and
runny nose. I wasn't so sure I was going to send him to school
yesterday, but we did and he was fine all day yesterday. That, and they
were going bowling and I didn't want him to miss out on that if he was
feeling at least most of the way okay. No phone calls and he said he was
fine all day!

On Sunday we had Jay's brother's high school graduation. It was okay as far as high school graduations go. His party isn't for another couple of
weeks so after the ceremony we met up with my best friend from high
school and went to the County Park in the area where I was going to take some anniversary pictures of her and her boyfriend. Apparently she
didn't really confess to her boyfriend that we were going to do this and
he got all pissy and the pictures never happened. If it were me and my
boyfriend, first off, I would have told him ahead of time and made sure
he understood what was going on, and secondly, I wouldn't have put up
with his pissyness. They rode to the park on motorcycles so she had her
own mode of transportation and I would have up and left. But oh well.
While we were there I got a bunch of cute pictures of Ayden playing in
the water and getting pretty much soaked before we were supposed to go out to eat at HuHot for supper. Jay wasn't too happy, lol, but I didn't
care at all. What is a little water?! Right!

So yeah, we had scrumptious HuHot for supper and we didn't even have to pay full price because I had found a gift card that still had some money on it in my wallet. Even better! It was delicious as always AND I had my first soda in over two months that night. It was like the waitress was out to sabotage me because after my first one she brought me another (free refill) and to make sure that I didn't knock it off of the table accidently, I moved it to the middle of the table so Ayden could have it if he happened to finish his soda. Apparently the waitress took that as I was giving the soda to him because he needed it because she came back with another full soda. We left with two full glasses of soda untouched on our table, lol! I was good and only had one soda and then had a glass of water. I wish I would have been hungry enough to go back up for a second plate, but I wasn't and I knew that I really didn't need it so I didn't. I was surprised that Jay only had one plate as well. One of the last times we were there I cut him off at three plates and he would still have gone back for a fourth if I would have let him.

We don't have any plans for this weekend... it's called sleep in
Saturday because Ayden is now down with soccer and then pick up the
house! My house is such a mess right now! I have laundry that needs to
be folded and put away SO bad and laundry that needs to be done period! Ayden's room has clothes strewn all about that I need to de-tag (since we replenished his summer shorts supply, I mean, he only had three pair that fit him) and put away. There are a few other things I need to organize in his room as well. The carpets need a good vacuuming in all of the rooms and the bathroom could use a good scrub down BAD (especially the bathtub)! And the kitchen is a MESS of dirty dishes, although Jay says that he is going to take care of that tonight... we'll see!

My online summer class starts next Monday. I am hoping that it is as
easy that the fourth years were saying that it is. I am not ready to
have any deadlines again. That also means I should register for the
other summer class that I need to take and get started on that, but I
was really waiting for my clinical placement to be over. When I get home at the end of the day from clinic all I really want to do is spend time with my boys. Yesterday it was grocery shopping together and then a bike ride before supper around 7pm... I hardly ever feel like going on the computer anymore (thus my lack of blogging... btw, I'm currently blogging during my lunch break at clinic, but won't post this until I get home tonight... hopefully anyways) and anything school related is SO far from my mind. Like emailing my professor to see if I will need to purchase a book for his class. I meant to do it last week, but probably won't until tonight, if I can remember.

I have the rest of this week for clinic... next week... and then two
days the following week and I will be done. I am really looking forward
to it. I like clinic well enough. I love my patients, I love what I'm
doing, but as I've said before, I am SO ready for summer!
Ayden's last day of school is tomorrow! That means we are just one step closer to summer my dear friends! YES! And the weather these last two days has been gorgeous! What I wouldn't give to have today off and the pool to be open and to take Ayden swimming! I love to go swimming with him on super hot days like today. He is such a fish when it comes to the water!

Okay, back to clinic work... I have a few hearing aids that need to be
programmed before I fit them on patients this afternoon and I have a few notes that I need to finish up as well. Working during the lunch hour... what kind of person am I?! The smart one, that's right! Better to get it done now than have to do it after my last patient of the day and stay here even longer, isn't that right?! I do have to say that my supervisor is notorious for scheduling patients after hours and then letting me know that I don't have to stay, but saying if I could that would be great as well. I'm not a good student when it comes to that because I don't stay. I want to tell her, you are getting paid overtime to stay and work with these patients, I'm not. I have a family to go home to and you don't... I wonder why I don't stay late. I'm sure that once I'm an audiologist getting paid that I will probably squeeze patients in when I can after hours if allowed by wherever I end up working, but really, I'm looking for that 9-5pm job where it stops at 5pm and I don't have to worry about it until I come in the next day. Now I know that that isn't always going to happen, but for the majority of the time. My job is my job... I love audiology don't get me wrong, but it's the money maker, the provider. My top priority is my family!

Now... back to clinic work, haha!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Will Power...

(Started yesterday, finished today… like usual for the last couple of weeks.)

It's lunch time here at my clinic placement (although it will be night
time by the time I actually get home and finish this up at post it), so
I thought instead of taking the last half hour that I have to read like
I usually do, I would get some blogging done since it seems like I've
put that on the back burner as of late. Well, actually... it's just that
I don't feel much like going on the computer after getting home from a
long day of clinic and this weekend I haven't been on my computer much either. It's just nice because it seemed like during the school
semester, I was on my computer ALL day EVERY day. And I was pretty much so it's been a nice computer break for a few weeks so far.

So... about my blog title... will power... it takes a LOT of will power
to diet and exercise on a daily basis and I've found that my will power
decreases on the weekends when I am home all of the time. During the
week while I am gone all day, I have no way to snack on all of the junk
food in the house so I'm not taking in all of the extra calories, but
over the course of the last four days that I've had off... my will power
lacked, at least on the diet front. I exercised all four days that I had
off so at least that was good. The thing is, it is depressing to see the
scale go up. On Friday morning, the scale said 121.4... super duper, I
haven't gotten below 122 yet so that was awesome. What was even better was that on Saturday morning the scaled said 120.8! Wowsers! I was super excited because I didn't think I would be able to get that low. How awesome!

My awesomeness lasted for all of one day because by Sunday the scale was back up to 123.4... where it subsequently was yesterday morning and this morning as well. BUMMER! But... despite the fact that I have been exercising, I've been overeating as well. I haven't been gorging myself and eating everything in sight, but I haven't turned things down either. I had some healthy portions for supper (albeit not going back for
seconds) and then I would have a 100 calorie pack for dessert when I
knew that I wasn't really hungry and didn't need it. I let myself down
and it sucked.

We are getting some family pictures taken this weekend and it is my goal
to be back to or under 120.8 by Saturday. If that means exercising and
no dessert this week, then so be it! I know that less than three pounds
isn't going to make a difference how I look in our pictures, but it is a
self esteem thing, you know?! I also know that every day cannot be a
perfect day and that it is okay to spurge every now and then, but that I
cannot be doing that every day. The thing that I know I am going to have the hardest time with is once I am done with clinic and home with Ayden all afternoon. I think we are going to have to keep ourselves pretty busy so that I don't eat junk food all day long everyday and just put the pounds back on. I've done really good these last two months and have kept the 10lbs that I've lost off plus a little more on my good days. Haha!

What is even better is that Jay has lost 15 lbs now too! I'm super
excited for him and I know that he is happy with himself as well and
feels better about himself. I just need to make sure that he keeps up
with it and the weight keeps coming off. He's only got about 35 more to
go before he's at what I think would be the ideal weight for him and I
think that he can pull it off!

I had a great four day weekend! My work had a furlough day on Friday so even if I wanted to go in and work I couldn't, so I enjoyed the day at
home alone doing some laundry and reading. We skipped Ayden's soccer on Saturday morning because it was kind of rainy out (even though they still held it) and because I really didn't feel like getting out of bed that early. Ayden didn't mind. I actually let the final decision up to him and if he had wanted to go, we would have gotten up and went, but he said he wanted to stay home. We did a little bit of running around
Saturday picking up a few things and then worked around the house.
Sunday was a lazy kind of day and Jay's friend, JT, from Minnesota came over that night because he was going to join us at the races on Monday and go golfing with Jay and Ayden.

All of the boys headed out bright and early yesterday morning to go
golfing while I got to sleep in and get the morning to myself where I
worked out and got some more reading in. It was nice, although the
weather was super warm. Yesterday afternoon we all went to the same
races that we went to about a week ago and sweated our patooties off in
the scorching sun. Ayden and I sun blocked it up and managed to get only a little sun burnt while Jay and JT were 'manly' men and didn't put any on and got burnt pretty bad. JT got it the worst on the back of his
neck... poor guy! Or NOT since I told him he should have put some on.
His problem, haha!

I think I might have mentioned that Jay got a new job... if not, I did
now, hehe! He starts in a few weeks after he finishes up at his current
place. He is excited and I am excited for him. The one downside though
is that depending on where I end up for my fourth year externship, we
may or may not end up having to move and then he'll only have about one year in at the new place. I suppose we will wait and see... that is
about all that we can do. I probably won't know my fourth year
externship until next January or February which is in the middle of
winter. I cannot believe that I am going to be applying for fourth year
externships this coming fall already, it's nuts! It's like applying for
college all over again for the third time, lol! And really, in reality,
I cannot believe that I am going to be a third year graduate student
this fall. Where have the last two years gone? Really... where have the
last seven years gone because Ayden is going to be SEVEN years old this August. My baby REALLY is no longer a baby! Shed a few tears with me, would ya?!

Okay, on to the part that I am writing today to finish up this post. I am sitting on the couch ready to catch up on last weeks episode of The Real World that I forgot was on last week and then ready to watch the season finale after that. I’m having to DVR another show that is premiering tonight because obviously I cannot watch two shows at once. Oh well, haha!

I only had a half day of clinic today, well really less than that since we had to be ‘out of there’ by 11am so my supervisor could make it to where she needed to be by noon. It was nice, although I didn’t get to finish up my notes for the day so I will have to finish them up tomorrow morning. I suppose that that is okay. I could have come home and enjoyed the afternoon to myself, but I was the responsible person and let my boss know that I would be in for a few hours this afternoon to help her get caught up on the stuff that I haven’t been able to do while I am in clinic all day. And I know that she really appreciated it because I was able to get a long done for her. They are coming up on there yearly audit so everything has to be in uber order and I am just the person to do that for her. And as much as I wanted to just go home and probably take a nap… it felt good to go back into work and get some stuff done. I’ll be going back in on Friday afternoon as well.

It’s been another good week so far, although I’ve only put in one and a half days this week, lol! It’s all good, right?!

CIAO! LOVE ME!