{maurices is my friend}

Best part of this week so far... I went to the store Maurices today to look for a new pair of low heels for clinic and ended up trying on some dress pants and I ended up having to get a size 3/4 in the pants so that they would fit properly AND the size 3/4 was still a little bit loose. Yes, I know I am gloating, but come on people, I have NEVER been a size 3/4! Probably not since I was like 12 or 13 and maybe not even then! This working out thing is AWESOME! And, the scale read 115.0 yesterday! HA! Made my goal! SO happy and excited (even though I'm sure you are sick to death reading about my working out and weight loss). My blog, if you don't like it, don't read it. But keeping it realistic, the majority of my pants are still size 7... I put on a pair of size 7 jeans this morning and they fit perfectly. Not too tight or too loose, I can deal with size 7 pants. Besides, every different brand of pants has a little bit different sizing so really, being in a size 3/4 isn't that big of a deal because some of my pants are still a size 9 (albeit they are a little looser than they used to be).

I ended up finding a cute pair of shorter heels, two pair of dress pants, and two dress shirts that were on sale. Maurices tends to get me in trouble, hehe, its just as bad as Kohls, although I don't go there quite as often. I could have spent a lot more there, but I was trying to rein it in. And, I had lost my 20% off coupon for Kohls so I couldn't go there as well. I did have a coupon for Maurices and ended up saving almost $50 so that's good.

I had my first day of off campus clinic for this semester yesterday and it went really well. I think that I am really going to like it. My supervisor seems really cool and everyone there is really friendly too which is always really nice. I even got to see a couple of really cool cases on my first day which is probably the best part. Tomorrow Jay and I get to carpool together to work. Aw, so much fun, right?! But it is going to save us on gas money for at least one day a week so that is good! Anything that saves money is good!

We had Ayden's first cub scout meeting of the year yesterday and it went well. We get to the lovely job of selling popcorn again this year. They even let us taste test some of it this time and I fell in love with the Mud Puddles! I am not a big popcorn lover, but popcorn covered in chocolate, yum! We are definitely getting that kind, and probably two more kinds. I am kind of bummed that this will probably be Ayden's last year of cub scouts with this Pack. We decided that if we have to move away that we are definitely going to look into getting him into cub scouts wherever we end up, he likes it too much not to. Also, we are going to do all of the summer activities too with his current pack. They are going to spend the night at the Mall of America sleeping in the shark tube aquarium! Last year they slept with the Dinosaurs at the museum down in Chicago and we couldn't go because of a schedule conflict. Ayden is excited to go this year as he has become really close with all of his den members (and I've grown to love the leader and his family, they are great).

Today is my late night class. Being back in class is kind of weird. Seeing the campus full of students again is kind of weird. I need to write down all of the due dates that I need to remember before they start creeping up on me as they are bound to do. I don't really like getting home at 7pm at night... it means eating late and working out even later. I should have gotten up earlier this morning to workout. I even had my alarm set to get up, but when it went off, I reset it for an hour later. I was just too tired after a early and long day on Tuesday. So, I will end up working out later tonight. I picked up two new dvds yesterday to try. As I think I stated previously, the two P90X ones weren't really my favorite. I got a Biggest Loser one and a Tae-Bo one. I'm debating which one I want to try out tonight. I skipped working out last night since I got home, ate supper, and then we left for Ayden's meeting and didn't get back home until almost 8:00pm and by then I was just SO not in the mood to workout. Everyone has those kind of days, right?! Hope so!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{made it}

There has been kind of a lull around here lately. Nothing overly exciting going on, making finding an interesting blog topic that much harder. Although, I think it's pushing it saying that all of my blog posts are interesting, or even the majority of them. But when our days are mundane and all similiar, my want to blog is next to nil.

Last week I had an appointment with one of my professors regarding my research project, off campus clinic in the Spring, and my externship. Overall, the meeting went really well. I am able to start mailing out my surveys, I think I know where I will be for clinic in the Spring, and the possible externship sites over in eastern Wisconsin better be multiple or I might cry. I am pretty much set on us finding an apartment/duplex/house to rent in the Chilton area and sending Ayden to that school district. But we all know, even the best laid plans often do not go as planned.

This past weekend we went home because Jay wanted to do some goose hunting and I just didn't feel like sitting home all weekend with Ayden. Jay didn't get any hunting done, but we did spend a majority of the weekend out on the boat because the weather was so nice and the lake was relatively calm. Okay, so it was nice and calm Saturday night, like glass almost, and on Sunday it was kind of wavy, but not too bad. It was a little rough heading out to where we wanted to fish, but once we got the boat anchored and situated, I felt a lot more comfortable. We caught a decent amount of fish both days. It was fun. I just like being out on the boat and the best part is that I get to go out on it both days this weekend as well because we are going hook and line sturgeon fishing in the Dells. I cannot wait! I think this is the third year that we will be going to the Dells to go and so far the weather looks like it should cooperate.

After being going this weekend and not eating all that great, when we got home on Sunday night I was expecting to see a not so good number on the scale, but the number I did see surprised me. What was even better was stepping on tonight and seeing the magic number that I have been waiting for.... 115.8. Like before, let's pretend that the 0.8 isn't actually there and that it is just 115 pounds. SO excited because honestly I didn't think I was going to make my goal weight and now I have without having to really push for it. I've still been working out, it's become a habit now and I've been eating pretty good. Not overly healthy, but not overly dieting either. I definitely enjoy some chocolate here and there!

Okay, don't blame me when you get to the end of this post and realize it really wasn't that interesting either, ha! I start my off campus placement tomorrow and I am excited about that too. The hours don't sound too bad and I should be home by 5:30-6:00pm at the latest. And guess what?! Lady Antebellum's new cd comes out tomorrow. Guess who is definitely going to go buy a copy (along with some body wash and fash wash because we are running low on both of those) tomorrow night! ME!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{everday}

I've set a goal for myself to post to my blog every day for the month of September. I haven't been blogging nearly as much as I would like to in these last couple of months and I would like to do it more frequently again... mostly for myself, but you may find some enjoyment in it too. It may be a long post, it may be a short post, it may be just a picture, but I want to do at least one post every day of this month. Wish me luck!

Ayden enjoyed his first 'week' of second grade. His first 'week' consisted of only this Thursday and Friday, but none the less, they were a good two days. He said that they even had a party today for the second day of second grade and got popsicles! Lucky! He has his very own planner that he has to write his homework on everyday and that the parents have to sign. I think it has definitely been a good start to the school year. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the rest of the year. I won't think about the fact that he will be in the third grade after this school year is over because I thought second grade was too much... third grade is inconceivable right now!

Jay and I talked a little bit more about our future this afternoon as we were waiting for Ayden to get done with school. I think we are both on the concensus that moving back towards our home town is in our best interest. There are pros and cons to not moving back towards that area and pros and cons of moving back towards that area... and it looks like the pros of moving back there weigh out the pros of not and the cons of both. That, and Jay has been having a hard time with his current boss and doesn't know if he wants to continue working there past the winter.

My willpower this week with sweets has been nonexsistent. I've had two bowls of ice cream in as many days. I have trying not to over eat during my meals so that the ice cream would sort of balance it out. The ice cream just kept calling my name though and it was so hard to say no. It is like the best ice cream ever and it is just too bad that I had to give into my seven year old son and buy it at his insistence. Oops, haha! I have been doing good working out though. I am now on Week 4 of Ripped in 30 and pushing through it. Day 3 is tonight! Working out at night seems to work good for me, but I am really going to try and get up earlier in the morning and get my workout in before leaving for class or clinic in the coming weeks. I'll be sure to keep you posted on my progress, whether or not you really want to know.

And that about ends it for my second day of posting this month!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{somewhere someday}

My type A personality is starting to win out on me. I am a planner, a planner at heart and with the unknown of the coming year comes a lot of apprehension for me. I absolutely hate not knowning were we will be 9 month from now. A baby in my arms?! Ha! Got you there, didn't I?!?! No, no baby in my arms, although I do wish. But I won't get started on the whole baby thing right now. I hate not knowing where we will be living, where Ayden will be going to school, where Jay will be working, where my 4th year placement will be, who we will have for childcare... all of the unknown is driving me nuts and it is still 9 MONTHS away! Ugh! I know that I just need to chill out and that everything will work out as it should, but like I said at the beginning of this post, my type A personality is getting the best of me! Instead of worrying about this fall semester starting, I'm fast forwarding to the end of Spring already and i all honesty, I do not want to wish the next 9 months away. They will go fast enough with me doing that.

Speaking of this fall semester, I got a letter in the mail today saying that I got another scholarship. I was sort of expecting it because I got all 'A's last spring, but despite that, I am still grateful for it. Any little money will help and it comes at the end of the semester, just in time for Christmas shopping... even better! I was also able to get most (if not all) of my paperwork finished for my clinic placement this fall. I emailed it out today and I will hopefully hear from the facility sometime Monday if I need to send anything else in. Then it is just a matter of going in for an orientation and starting my placement. I am kind of excited at the possibility of seeing some surgeries this semester since it will be at a hospital.

I've been keeping up with my working out despite not really wanting to. I have to say though, the promise of getting Ripped in 30 is a little misleading. I am about halfway through the third week (one week left) and although I can definitely see a bit of a change in my arms and I probably have a bit more thigh strength, my abs are definitely not as flat as I would like them. I have to say that the second time around with this DVD, I haven't had to stop through any of the workouts while I am doing them. So I know that my stamina has definitely increased and I can workout longer. That is not to say that the workouts aren't hard and that I am not sweaty and gross afterwards. I have debated about what I want to do after I am done with this DVD. I don't think I want to do it again. My cousin recently became a coach for the Turbo Fire program and so I thought about that. After looking into it and reading some reviews and seeing some videos, I am totally convinced that it works and works well, but I don't think that it is the right program for me at this point in time.

Around the time we moved into our current place (just over two years ago), I bought two The Firm dvds and thought that I was going to do those. Um, I am not coordinated enough to do those dvds... they go way too fast for me and do not have enough instruction. After watching some Turbo Fire videos on youtube, I have come to the conclusion, that although not like The Firm, this program is probably too intensive for me at this point. I would get it and be so confused and get frustrated that I would not bother with the program. That is not to say that I have written it off completely though and maybe in a month or so, I might revisit the idea of it. At this point in time, I am going to rotate through another Jillian Michaels dvd I have, a new Jacki Warner dvd, and two of the P90X dvds that Jay has. Jacki Warner is another well noted fitness guru and from what I've seen of her workout dvds, they are in a similar teaching format as Jillians (ie: a format that is slow enough for me to follow). I am going to do the Cardio and Kenpo dvds of the P90X program as well. I have seen both of those and even semi worked out to both of them while Jay was previewing them. I can't say that I will be able to do all 60 minutes of those dvds, but my goal is 40 minutes each day... 10 minutes more than what I currently do because including the warm-up with Ripped in 30, it is about 30 minutes long. If I can keep up that schedule for a month, then we will see what comes next. I'd really like to continue to workout on a regular basis because although I am almost cursing my way through it sometimes, I definitely feel good afterwards! And that is an accomplishment!

I am writing this blog post on my new Asus tablet! My original goal was to get an iPad. I was going to use the money that I made this summer doing photos and my birthday money to purchase one. Jay was totally against the idea at first because he didn't think I needed one. Well, of course I didn't need one, but I wanted one and its not as if I was using just any money, it was money that was mine. (And he didn't even get me anything for my birthday.) We ventured to Best Buy at the beginning of the week to look at the different tablets that were out there. You know, wanting to make an educated decision and all. We talked with some of the techie people at Best Buy about the different tablets. Jay's friend JT thought I should go with an Android tablet since he like that operating system better. I suppose it is all fine and dandy, I mean we have Android phones and I like it well enough. Maybe with the Android system, I could sync apps from my phone to the new tablet. So... we were looking at two different tablets when the tech told us about a different one all together and how he thought this new one was probably the best Android tablet on the market.

The iPad didn't come with any docking station, no SD card slot, nothing. You had to buy all of that seperate. The Asus tablet didn't come with a docking station or SD card slot either, but it was $100 cheaper than the iPad and the same amount of storage. Plus, you could buy the docking station, which came with USB ports and an SD card slot for an extra $150. That put the total $50 more than I had wanted to spend, but I really couldn't pass it up. Unfortunately, the store didn't have any in stock and they had to order one for me to come in later this week. In the mean time, I found the tablet on Walmart's website for $50 cheaper and when my tablet came in at Best Buy they price matched it for me and I got the tablet and docking station/keyboard/SD card slot all for the price I would have paid for the iPad! Score! And I can sync apps from my phone to the tablet and vice versa. For example, there is an app on the tablet that I can use to take notes with in class and the notes will sync with my phone and my computer. So, no matter where I am, I can have access to the notes I've taken in class and study anywhere. You know, because I am such a study-aholic! Haha! Plus, this will beat bringing my computer to school everyday... it starts up so much more quickly and is a lot smaller and lighter and yet I still have the functionality of a keyboard! I think I'm in love, hehe!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{something new}

Trying something new here... hoping that this posts. Sorry if you were looking for an actual blog post, will update the blog with something actually worth reading a little later...

CIAO! LOVE ME!