Feeling extra ORDINARY and not EXTRAordinary…

I recently wrote a post about how I felt lacking in my talents when it came to photography and how I am constantly comparing myself to other people and their talents and my talents and how I need to just sit back, relax, and chill. Life is as it is, and will continue to be that way.

I’ve realized over the last couple of days, that I am not only judgmental and jealous when it comes to photography (albeit both of those feelings inside), I am in all other areas of my life as well. I am judgmental and jealous of my friends, family, classmates, people I don’t even know, and blogs I read. I am striving to grow in these areas of my personal life.

I’m jealous of friends who lose jobs and then come upon something else so quickly without having to struggle to find them. And then I feel guilty because I’m jealous.

I’m jealous of classmates who get their tuition paid for by their parents or classmates who can afford it when I’m in mountains of student debt. I’m jealous of classmates who’s parent’s fork over $2000 just for a wedding dress when my parent’s will probably only be able to afford that as a total.

I’m jealous of blogs that I read that seem to contain posts that seem so much more deep and meaningful than my every day ramblings of how much stress school is causing me day after day. I feel like I should be more like those blogs and write about something important. That my blog isn’t important enough. But, then I try and tell myself that I write for me and not for others so why should it matter what I write.

I judge the actions of my friends and family when I know I shouldn’t. I judge them because some part of me doesn’t feel adequate or important enough in my every day life right now. I care WAY more than I should about what other people are doing in their own lives, especially when it doesn’t affect me in the slightest, and I care WAY too much what same said people think about what I am doing in my life when it doesn’t affect them in the slightest.

I always prided myself on not caring, of just going with the flow. Not necessarily following others or forging my own distinct path on all things, but being somewhere in the middle. And its not that I’ve become a follower per say, but I care more than I would like to admit. I don’t outwardly express the fact that I care, at least up until this point. I don’t want other people to know about my own insecurities, who does?! But it’s true and I have to take a step back. I need to look at the things that I get jealous about and ask myself if it personally affects me or not. Should it be something that I am jealous about? Probably not.

I need to not care if someone gets a huge tax return and spends it on a bunch of material items that they don’t need, when they should be saving it because they don’t have a job and getting jealous because I know that my tax return won’t be spent like that, even if I crave some of the same items.

I need to not care if someone else’s child is smarter than Ayden because every child is different. I need to be happy that Ayden is alive and healthy and thriving at school, even if he isn’t the smartest in his grade. (Although, that’s not to say that I don’t care about his educational needs at all.)

I need to learn to just not care…

My life is important, as much as some days I think that it isn’t. I am important… to myself, to Jay, to Ayden, to my family and my friends. I need to remember that its not always the big things in life that matter the most. I may be going through the everyday motions at times, feeling like I’m not getting anywhere when everyone around me is moving forward in life, but remember that my time will come. My time is coming and my time is here right now. My days are important and it doesn’t matter if I go out and make a big impact everyday or if the only thing that makes me feel good on any given day is a hug and kiss from Ayden, each day matters.

Okay, enough of the heavy… one of the first year audiology students asked me this last week if I might consider taking some pictures of her niece for her and of course I said I would love to. Despite my better thoughts to tell her that I wouldn’t charge her because she was a friend, I decided that my time is worth a little bit of money and I did set a fee. Nothing too high, but I do put a couple of hours into picture taking and editing so I thought I deserved a little something.

Her niece is nine months old (tiny for nine months, but super cute) and I got some super cute pictures. At first I didn’t think I would get anything that I really liked because I was having some over exposure problems. Still learning my camera on manual mode and not having very good indoor lighting or studio set up, I had to work with what I could.

Here are a few of my favorites!This is baby and her grandma. My friend and her mom are doing this as a surprise Mother’s Day gift for baby’s mom. Too cute! I really like how this one turned out!They cloth diaper the little girl and so we had to get one in just the diaper. Although, I have to admit, it would have been a little bit cuter with a girly colored cloth diaper. but I think that the headband and bow and necklace make it known that baby is a girl.I am IN LOVE with this last picture! Her eyes are so big and bright! It is just too cute! There is just something about it! Most of the pictures turned out a lot better than I had anticipated, so that is very good!I can’t remember if I posted about the grade I ended up getting on my horrible Pathologies test. The test was absolutely icky and I was sure that I failed it, unless for some reason the professor really curved the test. And guess what, he did. After adding back in 19.5 points to everyone’s grade, I ended up with an A- on the test. Super yeah! The teacher is famous for having horrible tests and then adding in a curve at the end. Unfortunately, my classmate didn’t fair as well as she would have liked and I feel bad for her because I know that she studied just as hard as I did. (Forgive me if I’ve written this all already.)

We’ve recently switched internet providers at our house… converted from Charter to AT&T and will now be saving about $50 per month for the next year. Heck yeah! Unfortunately, AT&T is not as fast as Charter is, but it is not super slow dial up either. I can deal with it being a little bit slower, just for the fact that we will be saving $600 in the next year. Next step is our dish package and then our phones. We are in our dish contract for another couple of months so we still have time to shop around. And our phones… well we won’t even go there right now, ha!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Professional Photographer

I’m not a professional photographer, nor do I want to be, but I find myself getting jealous over those who are trying to start their own photography business and are making money off of it when I am just as good as them. I’ve been really working on not getting worked up over things like this. I think my jealously stems from seeing individuals pages on Facebook… they consider them professional photographers and people are paying these individuals larger sums of money for pictures that I don’t consider worth the money. But I suppose that is just me. Everyone has the right to like whatever they want as far as photography goes, don’t get me wrong.

But what I’ve been working on is not caring. These individuals want to do photography as a career, they will grow, as they should, and they will make a living from their work. I have to let it go that I cannot (and definitely WILL NOT) be a better photographer than everyone, I don’t have the equipment, or the money, to take some of the pictures that other individuals do. Although, I like learning new things about my camera and practicing with new things, photography is not going to be my livelihood and so I need to just be okay with what I can shoot and what I do shoot and not worry about what anyone else is doing. I do not need to compete with anyone, I am not competing with anyone, it is just me.

With that said, that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy taking pictures and won’t attempt to take good pictures or even do a few photo shoots (as long as I think I can pull it off) –although I don’t market myself since like I said, I don’t want to go into business for photography (at least I don’t think I want to, at least at this point in my life). It doesn’t mean that I won’t try something new when I find something cool.

Here is a before and after shot of another water drop that I took the other day. It turned out okay, but I don’t like it as much as I liked the first one that I posted the other day. I’ll probably try this again some time to see if I can get some more shots that are in focus. The one thing that bothers me about it is the shadow in the back because I had to use my on camera flash (because I don’t have an off camera flash). Even so, it’s probably something someone else would notice, but just look over. Like they would see it, but not really see it. It bothers me because I am my own worst critic. Always trying to improve, right? Isn’t that the goal?!

This week has been going pretty fast. The roads are much better yesterday than they were on Monday… still a little messy this morning on the side roads, but I suppose that that is expected. We are supposed to get some icy rain tonight, ugh!

I am sitting in my Practice Management class and we still have 40 minutes left of class! I cannot believe how SLOW this class goes! I am not getting ANYTHING out of it and it is making me so damn tired! I wish I could just pull out my book that I am currently reading and continue to work my way through it.

Alas, time will continue to move forward, at a snails pace… and I will have my last class of the day in which I will get my horrific test back from last week and it will continue to deteriorate my night. Haha!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Water droplet TAKE ONE!

I took this picture today of a water drop coming from our kitchen faucet with a piece of scrapbook paper behind it and I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE how it turned out. Okay, so maybe just LOVE LOVE how it turned out because I am my own worst photo critic. Because I had to use my on camera flash because I don’t have an off camera flash, you can see a shadow of the droplet on the scrapbook paper and you can see the reflection of the faucet in the water, but oh well.

This was like one of two dozen that actually was in really good focus (even after I cropped it)! And given that I read so many threads from the forum where I found out how to do this of people taken over 200 shots and not getting one useable one, I think I’m pretty darn lucky to get one shot in only like 24.Totally cool! I (HEART) it!!!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Snowed IN!

Ayden had an extra long weekend! He didn’t have school last week on Thursday OR Friday and then because of the snow storm we had last night, he didn’t have school today either. Of course, even though we got a foot of snow last night, and it continued to snow lightly throughout the day, the campus remained open. Go figure. But, I was not brave enough to make it to any of my classes today.

We had Ayden signed up for the YMCA’s snow day program so that if we did run into a snow day, he would have some place to go. I knew when I woke up this morning that I wasn’t going to be going to my 8am class without even looking outside. The majority of the schools in the area had cancelled the night before. No way I was going to brave the roads before 8am when our town plows like crap. The only problem was I didn’t know if the Y would let me keep Ayden home until 1pm and then take him, since my next class of the day wasn’t until 2pm.

Jay just decided that he would stop at home and pick Ayden up with the plow truck and take him to the Y for me. At that point of the morning, I had all intentions of making it out of the house and going to my 2pm class, if not make it to work at noon as well. Well, noon rolled around the roads were still pretty crappy so I let my boss know that I wasn’t going to be making it in today. She had no problem with that because I had already warned her earlier that morning that it might be hit or miss with me. I still had plans to go to class though.

An hour later, I got my stuff together and headed out the door. I figured an hour to get across town and parked and to class was PLENTY of time because it only takes me five minutes to drive across town to campus from my place on a good day. I really just didn’t want to have to push myself. (And I’m habitually early to things ALL the time, it’s just who I am.)

Well, I back out of the garage onto the road and start heading down the street. I turn onto the next road that I need and am beginning to wonder what I am doing. I’m not even a block away from my house and yet I’m already starting to freak out. I mean, the roads in town were really bad and it was already 1 in the afternoon… they should have been fine! Nope! Our town literally sucks balls at plowing! Even the main roads weren’t clear! I turn onto the next road that I need to be on, it’s a little busier and I thought it would have a little less snow… nope! It was as I was approaching the stop light at a snails pace and I could feel my car sliding that I decided enough was enough. I turned right at the stop light, headed back around the block and right back into my garage. To heck with class today! Definitely NOT worth it.

Yes, I will admit that I am a chicken to the fullest extent when it comes to winter driving. I do not have the experience driving in it that a Wisconsin driver maybe should, but I honestly don’t give a hoot about that. I was not willing to put myself, or my car, in the danger of not making it to campus. Could I have made it to campus, probably, but I would have been petrified the whole time while I was driving. So, yes, I am definitely a chicken in the winter months when it comes to driving and when I have car with tires that are not made for winter driving, it makes me all the more chicken.

Jay has been working since 1:00am this morning and it is now almost 5pm. Over 12 hours of work! Okay, so I suppose in the grand scheme of things, it really isn’t that long, I know people work 12 hours or more on a daily basis. And actually, its good for him because we need the money and he hasn’t been working for a while since we haven’t gotten a lot of snow in the last couple of weeks. He probably won’t be home until 6 or 7pm and then will probably be going back out around 2 or 3am tomorrow morning and working another long day and then he needs to go to Appleton for a consult with the oral surgeon for getting his wisdom teeth removed.

I am praying that the roads are much better by tomorrow. I have to drive to my off campus placement in the morning and would like to make it there without having a panic attack!

The clinic director for our program emailed all of the audiology students today and I thought it was a very rude email. She emailed the audiology students a few weeks back with the opportunity to do some hearing screenings at some schools with another audiologist. Apparently none of the 12 students emailed her back saying they would be willing to help. Keep in mind, we are doing this on our own time. I admit that I didn’t even think twice about the screenings. I didn’t particularly want to help, nor do I really have the time to help. I checked the 8 times that she emailed us that screenings were going on. Of the eight times, I think only three were Fridays (the only day that the second and third years have available because we have classes on Mondays and Wednesdays and all day clinic on Tuesdays and Thursdays). Also, of the 8 times, two of them were during our spring break. Who wants to do school stuff during spring break?!

The thing I found rude was how she emailed us. She blatantly put in there that since none of us signed up for it, we couldn’t complain when we couldn’t reach our 50 needed ours of education experience. But… I recall her telling myself and my classmate that we would have NO problem reaching our 50 hours during our educational placement, NO problem AT ALL! Ugh! Maybe it doesn’t sound so bad on here, but it just rubbed me the wrong way, especially after we got a rude email from one of our professors just the week before. The thing is… they preach and preach and preach to us about professionalism and then they don’t show us it! Pisses me off is what it does!

I spent my day doing nothing, so productive right?! I should be getting a head start on some of the projects that will be coming due in a few weeks time, but I’m too lazy. Yes, among being chicken to drive in the winter, I’m in a lazy streak. It’s the craptastic weather we’ve been having. I’m SO ready for Spring and the warmer weather. To get outside, to be warmer, to open the windows, to not have to deal with the snow, to not have to wear winter coats or boots or hats and mittens, to just feel not so stuck inside! I’m sure anyone else stuck inside all winter feels the same too.

Soon enough, I suppose! A month away from our mini spring break with my friend Kristi and her family! I am SO stoked about it! Three more weeks until the first week of our two week spring break! Although, we have some assignments during those two weeks. Maybe that is what I should be focused on, getting those done. I suppose maybe I could start some of that this week since I don’t have a whole lot going on this week homework wise. Just maybe, haha!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Unbelievable Stories

I was supposed to join Ayden and Jay at ‘home’ this weekend. They left on Thursday afternoon before I got home from clinic and I was going to leave Friday afternoon after work for a weekend away from our place. I was really looking forward to it because I have spent the last three weekends at our house and well everyone knows that after a while you get stir crazy and need out. Maybe not so much for those who live close to family or are super busy on weekends, but it happens to me.

We don’t have super busy weekends (for the most part) and I like that, but we also don’t live close to home and don’t get to see our families very much. After a few weeks of spending weekends at our place, I start to itch to get out and socialize with others. So… I was ready to spend the weekend just away from our house. I was going to go with Jay’s mom and Ayden to the sectional wrestling tournament in Milwaukee on Saturday while Jay was sturgeon fishing and then we all were going to go on the lake on Sunday.

Mother Nature had different plans. A snow storm was going to move in on Sunday and Jay thought it would probably be best for me to stay home so I wouldn’t have to drive in it and I wasn’t going to go ‘home’ just for Saturday. Driving to and from Milwaukee and then back to Point was going to be just too much driving in one day for me, especially when I could have a weekend at home by myself. The weekend at home alone beat out my need for wanting to get out of the house.

I worked for a little while on Friday morning and then went to the library to grab a few books for my weekend home alone. The thing is, I finished all of my homework on Thursday night so I could leave for the weekend and not have to worry about anything school related. That left me with an entire weekend free (and alone). I got two books from the library for entertainment reading and five or six books on photography to look at.

After the library, I went to pick up my friend, Kristi, because we were going to Olive Garden and to a movie that afternoon. The food was delicious, but we failed to be cognizant of the time and didn’t realize that we were first getting our food at 1:10 when our movie was going to start at 1:20. Oops! The next movie didn’t start until almost 4:00 and Kristi didn’t want to be gone that long so we decided to just go shopping instead. There was a Barnes and Noble right next to Olive Garden and an Old Navy and Gordman’s across the street.

I wanted to look for a specific book at Barnes and Noble, but unfortunately they didn’t have it. (Will have to order it on Amazon since they don’t have it out for the Kindle yet either.) But as we were going to head out I came across two books that immediately grabbed my attention. The first one was called Inconceivable.This is a book about a family who was undergoing fertility treatments to expand their family. They had already had two children naturally and then after 10 years of infertility problems they had one daughter through IVF. They had decided to give the rest of their frozen embryos a chance at life and had gone back to their fertility clinic for a frozen embryo transplant. Something went terribly wrong and the woman was implanted with another couple’s frozen embryos. And guess what… one embryo stuck, the woman was pregnant, and they couldn’t keep the baby because the genetic parents wanted him. The book is all about their journey and it was written SO great! The story in and of itself was unbelievable and oh SO sad. I could feel the emotion coming off the page. This apparently was all over the news about a year and a half ago when it finally leaked, but we don’t get the local channels and so I don’t watch much news, which would be why I hadn’t known about it until now. This book was just released a few weeks ago.

Apparently the genetic parents wrote a book as well. I’ve read a few reviews that say that it isn’t as good as the above one, but I won’t judge yet. There are always two sides to a story and people experience things differently. Both families wanted to tell their stories and they did. I am hoping to get the other one (Misconception) through an interlibrary loan and read it. The other book that I couldn’t pass up at Barnes and Noble was Heave is for Real. This is a story about a little boy’s trip to heaven and back. I’m currently only about half way through it and it is really good too. I haven’t read any books for pleasure in a couple of weeks and these were both really fast reads. I’m hoping to finish this one by tonight… I mean it didn’t take me too long to get halfway through it since I started it this morning. My only mistake was buying the actual book from the store and not getting them on my Kindle because they are both available on it and it would have saved me probably $15. Alas, sometimes it does feel good to have a real book in your hands. Anyways, I still have the two books from the library that I want to finish as well. One is only a one week rental and it cost me a $1, so I have to finish it by next Friday or pay another $1 for it to renew it. I think I’ll probably be able to finish it, I don’t think I have any big assignments due this week. I’m currently watching Titanic for the second time this weekend. Oh how I LOVE this movie! I think my very favorite part is either when Rose changes her mind and her and Jack are at the front of the boat or the very last scene after Rose dies and goes back to the boat and the passengers meet her and she finds Jack waiting at the clock. This movie is just SO romantic. I can’t get enough of it. I haven’t seen it in a while. I watched pretty much the whole thing from beginning to end last night… the whole four and half hours it was on (because of stupid commercials). But thanks to the power of DVR… I paused it and got a few things done in between and then would come back to it so I wouldn’t have to watch commercials. I hate commercials.

The music of this movie pulls me in too and sometimes I find myself going back to when the movie first came out and remember myself laying in my bed at my dad’s old house listening to Celine Dion’s song on the radio. Not afraid to admit, I’ll probably always love this movie. It’s addictive! At least to me!

Keeping my fingers crossed that the snow stops soon! Really don’t want to have to deal with it tomorrow morning, although I know I probably will have to. UGH!

Until next time…

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Motivation Stagnation

Warning! My motivation is LOST! Needs to be found ASAP!

I’ve hit a slump in the semester and we are only four and a half weeks in! Wow, that’s bad! But it’s now when the tests are starting to come up and some assignments are starting to come due and other projects need to be started. And my brain decided to take a vacation this past weekend and I couldn’t concentrate to save my life. Actually, I can’t concentrate today either to save my life! UGH! It’s horrible! I SO want to be able to study for my Pathologies test and I NEED to do good on it, but I just cannot stay concentrated. I need like a review session with someone or something to help keep me on the right page because I’m feeling Springitis already! Yes, I know that that isn’t a word, but I just officially made it one… Springitis has reached into the depths of my veins and my brain and decided to tell any logical part of me to take a hike!

For example, at this point in time, I am blogging when I could should be studying. My good ole blog is NOT helping! I think the worst part is that there is SO much that I feel like I need to know for this upcoming test and I don’t know it and it just sucks and I don’t want to take it and then I have another project that is due this weekend that I haven’t even started and another paper that is due next Monday that I haven’t even started (although we get time in class to work on it today so I’m hoping to get the majority of it written then because it only needs to be two pages long).

UPDATE… during the few hours after starting this post, then saving it and going to class, I have come into contact with some of my lost motivation. The class in which I needed to write the two page paper was probably my most productive 50 minutes of my day thus far. I am happy to announce that I have one page of my two page paper done! Sure, it really isn’t that much, especially when it is double spaced, but hey, its definitely a start! I didn’t really want to start it, I was procrastinating again, but then I just started, I mean I didn’t have anything else that I wanted to do or could do so I just started typing and now I am just about half way done. Just like that! Of course, the paper itself is just a summary of some previous answers that I already took care of, so its not as if I put a lot of work into it. Oh heck, I’m proud I got what I did done, and you should be too, hehe!

But, that doesn’t mean my wanting to study motivation has moved back in whatsoever… if you see that wandering around somewhere, please bottle it up, and send it back to me… ASAP!

I miss my honeykins! Jay’s been gone since Thursday night… that’s three full days since myself or Ayden have seen him. Ayden keeps asking when he is going to come back, boo! Ayden and I have been doing fine alone, we always do, we cope. We have our fun! He was normally well behaved this weekend. Jay will be coming home Wednesday afternoon to get a few things done, pick Ayden up from school and then head back to ‘home’ again for more sturgeon fishing (pending he doesn’t get a fish tomorrow morning or Wednesday morning and the season doesn’t close before then).

The sucky thing is that I don’t get home until 7pm Wednesday nights and so by the time I get home, he will be ready to leave so he doesn’t have to drive at like midnight. Boo again! And so we’ll get probably an hour or two together at most before he leaves again for another four days. Insert sad face here!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Heat Wave

The weather was absolutely fabulous today and is supposed to be for the coming week! Ayden and I ventured outside for a little while and he played while I played. Only, he ended up soaking wet from the melting snow and I ended up with a bunch of pictures I could edit when we came back in. We both had fun!This is his ‘I’ll smile for you mom if you really want me to, but its going to be my new fake smile’ picture. He’s too young to have inherited the Moschel ‘fake smile’. I won’t let him inherit it, haha!I love the picture below this… with his little ‘Hoerth tongue’ sticking out. It’s SO him and SO his father! And his little button nose. I am in love with his nose and I hope it stays small and perfect like that forever! I hate my own nose, so I’m happy to see he has a small button nose (at least for now). This is his ‘I’m still a young innocent six year old (as he should be) smile’! It’s too cute! The love I have for this child bursts at the seams daily! There is truly nothing better than being a parent! He is physically a part of me. I made him (well half of him genetically speaking). What an amazing gift!And this is his ‘Super adorable mommy loves it smile’! I’m in love with the picture below this. Its another one that just pulls at my heart!Okay, enough mushiness… I’m just trying to put off studying for a test on Wednesday. UGH!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Diesel Kitty

We’ve had our cat for almost four years. Ayden picked him out from a farm… an all black cat, its like asking for trouble, right?! And boy does he live up to his ‘all black cat’ urban legend! He is more fiesty than lover, he is more get in your way than sit nicely in your lap, and he is definitely more bug me than bug Jay or Ayden.

Jay and Ayden (and sometimes myself) love the cat. Mostly I just think of him as a cat, but Jay and Ayden consider him more part of the family. Okay, I suppose that is fine.

Diesel has been a pretty low maintenance cat for the first four years of his life. We had him declawed in the front and neutered shortly after got him and haven’t been back to the vet since… until today!

Jay noticed yesterday that Diesel had been more lethargic than usual, he wasn’t chasing us like normal, coming into our bedroom at night, and crying when Jay picked him up. We pretty much decided that he needed to be taken to the vet this morning… I mean, the last thing I wanted was to have to worry about a sick cat all weekend while Jay was gone.

I dropped Ayden off and school, headed to clinic, and Jay took care of the cat. He took Diesel to the vet and they looked at him. Turned out he had some crystals blocking his urinary tract and that he would need some antibiotics to help. Vet bill… $186! Boo! I told Jay that I would be willing to pay up to $500 for any procedures that needed to be done on the cat, but after that, I didn’t think it would be worth it. Not that we could really afford the $186 either, but Jay and I both felt that we needed to give it at least one shot.

Pending this happens again, we don’t think we will do anything about it, unfortunately… at least if it happens again anytime soon. We just can’t afford it right now. Boo again! I don’t want to have to put our cat down, but… that’s life I suppose. As bad as it sounds.

Diesel still isn’t acting quite like himself, but at least now he doesn’t have a bladder the size of a baseball and has started some medication. Hoping he is feeling better by the weekend! The last thing I want to do all weekend is worry about my sick cat. And in the mean time, while Jay is gone for the next six days, I have to force feed our cat three different medications for the next week! Ugh, don’t even want to think about it! But I suppose that if it makes him feel better and we get our spunky cat back, it will all be worth it!

Poor Diesel kitty!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Oops, need to retract a statement…

So either my non romantic future hubby googled my blog (or clicked on the link in my Facebook profile) and read one of my last posts about how non romantic we are these days in our relationship, or he has just been hiding that romantic side from me for the past couple of months… because when I got home from school today this was waiting for me!Happy early Valentine’s Day to me! He said that he didn’t have the willpower to keep it from me until Valentine’s Day (that, and the fact that he is leaving on Thursday night and will be gone until the following Wednesday night and therefore won’t be home for Valentine’s Day) is the reason he gave it to me tonight. Super sweet of him! As if I already didn’t love him enough!

I had mentioned to him a while back that I had one one of the open heart necklaces because I really really liked them. I just didn’t imagine that I’d actually get one (at least not without having to drop some more not so subtle hints), hehe!

I LOVE IT! Now, I need to decide what to get him, any suggestions? I had previously thought about getting him an authentic Packer jersey since they just won the Super Bowl and because he doesn’t have one, or maybe a Super Bowl t-shirt and hat?! We’ll see… but he won’t be getting it until after he gets home because I want to take Ayden shopping with me and it will be easier to do that on Friday when Jay is gone so he doesn’t know what we are going for.

We rearranged our living room tonight. It looks half way the same and half way different, haha! It seems like we have more room in it now, but I’m not so sure I like how we are going to have to put our shoes now. Times like these when I wish that we had an entry way to put our shoes in before coming right into our living room. Either way, I think we’ll probably keep the living room like this until we move (whenever that may be in the next year or two). But because of rearranging the room, I pulled a muscle in my back and now my back hurts. Boo me!

It was a typical day on campus today, nothing too exciting. I have a few presentations that I need to start working on. Not looking forward to that, but I suppose, we have been in class for a few weeks now, start to get down to business!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

I (HEART) my friends!!!

My friends, Kristi, Robin, and Leah, and I were all able to coordinate our schedules for two hours on Friday to hit up a Perkins for lunch… KID FREE! It was SO great to hang out with them for a little while (and have one of Perkins oh SO yummy chocolate shakes) and chat it up without having to worry about our kids. Mind you, usually when we get together with the kids they go off and play with themselves alright, but as a mom whenever your kids are around, you are ‘on’ and by that I mean, you are a mom first and foremost.

Well, as a mom, you are always a mom first and foremost when it comes to your kids… but a lunch out sans kids, let us be adult women as well without having to check on the kids every ten minutes to make sure they are okay playing. And did we need it! I love my friends SO much! They make life bearable and without them life wouldn’t be the same! And the lunch was good too!

The rest of the weekend was pretty low key. We had Ayden’s Green Blue and Gold cub scouts banquet on Saturday afternoon. They had swimming at a hotel in town for the boys and then supper afterwards with the oldest group of boys transferring from cub scouts to boy scouts. Ayden swam from 2-4pm and was a fish like usual! I brought my camera along and took some pictures. It felt good to get it out again. I’d really like to get outside and take some, but its been too darn cold for me!

Ayden had a bit of an attitude after swimming. He didn’t want to get out of the pool and play the other games with the boys. But after a while, he got over his temper tantrum and decided that he wanted to have fun and fun he had! I like the cub scouts and all for what it gives the boys, but I wish it didn’t involve so much parent participation. Yes, I did say that. It’s not who I am, so I don’t necessarily enjoy it. I don’t mind bringing a treat to a meeting, but I’m not the parent who will organize all of the stuff. I don’t enjoy that sort of stuff. I like soccer because I can take Ayden, watch him actively participate in something he likes for an hour and then we leave.

Actually, what I don’t like it sitting around being bored off my butt while Ayden is doing stuff. I’m not a social butterfly, I’m an introvert, so I cannot just walk up to other parents standing around and start a conversation with them like I’ve known them forever, nor do I really want to. So, like last night while Ayden was off playing with some buddies, I was bored stiff. Selfish much, yeah, I admit it, it was. And I realize that, so I just take it and let Ayden have fun. But that doesn’t mean I can’t complain about it a little bit on my blog, does it? If I really didn’t want to do it, I wouldn’t have agreed to let Ayden be in scouts. It really is a great program for kids (Although I did have a problem with them giving out badges to the kids last night who’s parents pledged money to the scouts, I mean what about the parents like us who cannot afford to pledge any money? Then Ayden doesn’t get that badge… and that I did feel guilty about, but we really cannot afford it right now.)

I saw this really cool photo effect on a blog that I frequent and I thought I would try it out at my house. It didn’t turn out perfect, but for a first shot I think it turned out pretty cool. I’d like to try it out outside at some point, maybe once it gets a little warmer. And I need to make sure that the camera tripod is super steady because all of the pictures didn’t match ‘perfectly’ like I would have liked. In any case, it was a good first attempt!

Ayden and I are at home tonight watching The Pacifier with Vin Diesel while Jay is at his grandparent’s house watching the Super Bowl on their big screen TV in high definition. Boo him! Ayden and I could have gone along, but then we would have had to drive back to Point either at like 10pm tonight with the possibility of snow on the roads (and we all know how much I love to drive with snow on the road) or leave at like 6am tomorrow morning to get back home in time for my 8am class (and no promises the roads wouldn’t have snow on them at that time either).

Reason being that we aren’t watching it at home is because we do not have local channels. As much as I don’t really care for watching football and it wouldn’t otherwise matter that we couldn’t watch the Super Bowl, but our ‘home team’ the Packers are in it and it would have been (as much as it pains me to write this) the littlest bit cool to watch it. And Jay wouldn’t have been able to drive us home tonight because he is staying over at his parent’s house because he has his first dentist appointment in 11 years tomorrow. Turns out that he is covered under his mom’s insurance for dental cleanings (and possibly more) and he is going to take advantage of it. He thinks he has at least one cavity.

If he is covered for more, he may go forward with braces, although it would be more than just your average two years of braces. Apparently he has some major jaw issues and would need jaw surgery which would result in his jaw being wired shut for like 6-8 weeks after surgery to heal and then braces. Or at least that is what they told him how many years ago when his parents decided that it would cost them too much to get it done. I don’t necessarily blame them because dental stuff is expensive, but both his brothers ended up with braces so I thought it was kind of unfair. But in any case, I’d love for him to get his teeth straightened (not that it would make me love him any more), but I know he would like it, even though he doesn’t say it. The only thing I was concerned about was the timing because I don’t really want him to have braces in our wedding photos. Yes, I just wrote that, photos I will cherish for the rest of our lives… don’t want braces ‘ruining’ that. Vain, yes. I know that people can clone them out nowadays, but it takes work and more work means more money. I suppose I shouldn’t be getting ahead of myself because he might not even be able to get any of this stuff done.

Back to school tomorrow… not looking forward to the next couple of weekends. Next weekend is sturgeon spearing and Jay is leaving Thursday night to go home. He planned on being home until the following weekend, but because I have a late class on Wednesday night and even though we have Ayden going to the after school program, he will still need to come back to Point to pick him up because my class gets out after the after school program ends (yeah, its that late). And that means he’ll be gone for Valentine’s Day. Jay is not big on holidays (or anything romantic anymore, seven and a half years later and he’s gone all non romantic on me 364 days of the year, sometimes 365) and so I’m not expecting anything. I would like to, but I know I won’t get anything. Our relationship has been pretty lack luster lately. We’ve been getting along, no fighting or anything, but most just living together, not loving together. Going through the motions of every day and parenting together, but not really appreciating each other or what we have. So, although Valentine’s Day is mostly a Hallmark holiday, it depresses me a little bit that he doesn’t really think anything about being gone and will probably just go through it as any other day.

And then after sturgeon spearing, its state wrestling of which Jay thinks he can run off to as well. Where is my weekend away?! Especially after he will be getting almost a week! But, even though he hasn’t been working a whole lot lately, he does deserve it. I could go on an on about how lazy he has been at home each day, but I won’t vent about that right now. At this point, I know he’s going a little stir crazy and it will be good for him to get out for a few days with something to do and people to see (even if it does involve a little too much alcohol at the bar a night or two). I get out of the house now five days a week and although class may not be my all time favorite cup of tea, it is something to do. He doesn’t have that right now on most days and so I think he is getting a little bored sitting at home. I’ll let him take it.

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Cellphone Drama and Snow Day!

I had the most horrific drive to clinic yesterday, I’m talking almost having a panic attack on the way to the office. (Let’s preface this with how much I HATE driving in the winter.) I left about twenty minutes before I normally do because we had gotten some snow the night before and I wanted to give myself some extra time to get there and not having to worry about driving too fast or getting there late.

Ayden woke up before I did with a stomach ache and although I thought he probably could have gone to school, I decided to let him stay home for the day, which in turn shortened Jay’s work day because he had to come home from plowing because I had to leave for clinic. When I got home last night, Jay said that Ayden was fine pretty much all day and probably could have gone to school, but oh well… you never really know at this age just how much he doesn’t feel good and I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

My drive through town was pretty predictable… the roads were halfway decent and I didn’t get too worked up because everyone was driving pretty carefully. It was when I hit the highway that I thought I would be okay for the rest of my drive… um… or not! The highways are supposed to be clear and clear they were. Of snow that is! The roads were really good snow wise, but because it had gotten so cold the night before, once the snow was plowed off and the salt laid down, the left over water froze and so the road was covered in a thin layer of ice. I can’t stand driving on ice to begin with and in my car with my stupid butt tires its even worse.

So, there I was driving along at 55 mph (when the speed limit was 65 mph) and my car is fishtailing back and forth. The feeling of not having control over your vehicle is VERY unnerving! I slowed down to about 45-50 mph and that seemed to be okay and watched as all of the other drivers whizzed by me in the fast lane. At that point I really didn’t care, all I wanted was to make it to the clinic all right. Thankfully, my drive altogether is only about 20 miles (10 in town miles and 10 highway miles) and I made it to the office with about 15 minutes to spare.

Clinic went well yesterday! The morning flew by and we had saw our last patient at 3pm and I thought we would be going home early! I was excited because it was still in the afternoon and the sun was semi shining and so the roads were going to be good. Unfortunately, we had a hearing aid rep come in at 3pm also and we spent the next two and a half hours talking with him. Total bummer! I was totally okay with maybe a half hour, even a hour, but after that it just got LONG! Even my supervisor complained about how long he was there when he finally left. LOVE her!

I was pretty apprehensive by the time we left the office about my drive home. The sun had gone down and it had started to get colder out (well its always cold in the winter here, but even more so at night) and I didn’t want to have to drive home again on iced over roads… in the dark! To top it off, my phone, which hasn’t been holding a charge since I got it, was pretty much dead. Actually, it was dead since I couldn’t turn it back on when I got home.

I had charged it the entire night before, talked on it a whole five minutes that morning to call Ayden’s school and Jay and it was blinking low battery to me by 10am. At that point I turned it off so I might have a slim chance of getting a five second phone call in if I needed it on my drive home for any emergencies. Turns out it wouldn’t have worked anyways. But back to the drive home- it was fine. The roads in town were better than in the morning, still not perfect, but fine for winter roads in town and the traffic wasn’t too bad. The highway was pretty much perfect, but it had gotten really windy out so I still only drove about 60 mph home just in case I happened upon any icy patches, I didn’t want to spin out at 70 mph. Made it home safely, yeah!

Because of the impending blizzard that the southern part of the state was supposed to get last night, UW Madison closed its campus for today around supper time last night and since all of my classes are with the Madison students, that meant a snow day for me! It was pretty fabulous too because Wednesdays are my LONG days and I so needed to have this Wednesday off. Okay, so I didn’t really, but they do get really long and I didn’t want to sit through another class with the third years this week. They are really starting to get under my skin, well only a few of them and only at certain moments. And because we have two classes with them this semester, I feel like I need to compete with them and do better than them. I know that I don’t have to, but sometimes I feel that way. I constantly hear two of them talking about how they read all of the articles and such and it drives me nuts! Who has that much time on their hands?! Oh, that’s right, they don’t work or have kids, guess then you would, huh?! Yeah, I’m a little jealous, but even if I didn’t work or have Ayden, I probably still wouldn’t read them. I think I’m more jealous that they have the ambition to read them and I don’t.

Since I had most of the day off today (I went in to work for a little while), Jay and I ventured to the cellphone place to tell them about our phone problems (his hasn’t been keeping a charge either). We were in a contract with Alltel and when we found out that Verizon had bought out Alltel, we were excited with the fact that we would be switched to Verizon. Guess again! Apparently some other company, Element Mobile, had bought out the Alltel franchise or whatever in our area and a few of the surrounding areas and we would be switched to them. That is all fine and dandy and Jay and I were excited because we were going to be getting an upgraded phone that would work with their new 3G network and it would be free, even better!

Well, it took forever for us to finally get the phones in the mail after multiple phone calls. The actual switch over went fine, but then anywhere we travelled to we were in roaming. Fine again I suppose because we have free roaming. The phones were slightly better than our older ones and the internet worked faster on them. But, my phone does not hold a charge to save its life. I have to charge it EVERY night and it usually only lasts until 4 or 5pm and that’s if I don’t talk on it at all during the day. I tried using the old battery from my last phone and that didn’t work either (apparently even though it fits in my phone, the new batteries are made for the new phones and old batteries won’t work well at all). The last straw was yesterday when my phone only made it until about 10am after a full nights charge.

Jay’s phone started out holding a charge pretty well and he talked on his morning than I talked on mine, but then recently it started acting like mine. While we had the day off together, we ventured into Element Mobile and got in line with the rest of the ‘complainers’. (I met the sweetest old lady who was having the worst luck with them!) We waited for probably 15-20 minutes before it was our turn and during that time, I think a half dozen people came and got in line after us.

Apparently the store we went to didn’t have any replacement batteries in stock and couldn’t give us new phones because they had to give them to customers who hadn’t been upgraded like we were already. We were told we could get another house charger or car charger to have around to charge our phones, but that we would have to wait a month or so to come back in and get new phones that would hold a charge. I understood about others needing to be upgraded first, kind of… they gave us a $50 credit on our next bill, okay I’ll take that for now. We’re supposed to ‘just deal with our cheap crappy phones that don’t hold a charge’ for the next month, ugh! Looks like I’ll be taking my charger with me EVERYWHERE for the next month.

I told Jay that we will be patient for this month and then go in a month from now and get our new phones whether they like it or not… or get out of our contract. I will only be patient for SO long! My previous phone could go at least three, maybe four days, between charging times and I could talk on it multiple times during that time frame! I would like that back please (and thank you)! We are unfortunately in contract with Element Mobile until next December and at this point don’t have the extra money to pay to get out of our contract. Jay thinks we will probably leave them at that time and find a different carrier. At this point in time, the only gripe I have with them is that my new phone won’t hold a charge and they won’t replace it or the batter right now. Nothing else changed as far as our bill goes and won’t until December. And other than being in roaming more often and the internet not working quite as fast in roaming, the new 3G network is A LOT faster than before we were switched. I suppose only time will tell.

CIAO! LOVE ME!