Christmas Beauty

Our patio windows with all of our Christmas stickies on it. Ayden helped a little bit, but mommy did the majority of it. We definitely have a lot more Christmas ones than Thanksgiving and this is only one half of the window. It was fun putting them up though and as you can tell, I am definitely not all for perfection, just the fun of putting them up with my family. I think Ayden had more fun taking down the Thanksgiving ones than anything.

Here is our wonderful tree sans any ornaments and with a little help from the awesome features on my camera. I like how the lights are all twinkly like because if you use your flash and try to get a decent picture you can’t really tell that the lights are on and it doesn’t look as good. Thought this one turned put really well!

Here is Ayden and our tree, plus awesome effects from my camera again. This time the tree has ornaments on it, but you can’t really tell from this picture which is okay. I wouldn’t say that our tree looks like one of those spectacular awesome Christmas trees where everything is perfect. It was lovingly decorated by me and Ayden late this morning and we had fun just pulling any ole ornament out of the the Christmas totes and putting them ALL over the tree. My whole goal was just to have fun this year and let Ayden do what he wanted with the ornaments. This being said, we probably didn’t put on as many as we did last year and a lot of the ‘good’ glass ones didn’t get put on, but that is okay. I don’t really care what our tree looks like as long as Ayden likes it and we had fun putting it all together. And doesn’t he look so happy to be standing in front of it…

Here is my pride and joy hiding under the futon trying to escape the crazy mommy with the camera who is always snapping pictures of him. We were having fun playing together today while daddy was at work plowing for most of the day. That kind of sucked, but Ayden and I played with his trucks and hide and seek and colored and watched some good TV together and had a good rest on the couch. For some reason I was really tired today and didn’t feel like doing a whole lot.

Right now I am sitting in a dark bedroom blogging and listening to the Trans Siberian Orchestra. If you have never heard of them or listened to them I highly suggest that you check out their site here and click on one of the songs. They are GREAT! I have seen them in concert about two or three times and even though all of the performances were the same, I would go again in a heart beat. They are just amazing and their music is very soothing for me. Plus the concerts were nothing short of amazing. I would love to go again, however the price of tickets isn’t necessarily cheap and I know it would be the same thing as before. My mom is the one who actually got me hooked on them and even Jay likes them now. He even came to one of their concerts with me… Anyways, they are supposed to be coming out with some new music at some point and then my mom, Jim, me, and probably Jay will trek once again to their concert! Until then, I will be content just listening to their music.

Like I said before, we really didn’t do a whole lot today. Ayden and I were home all day long and Jay worked from about 6am until 4pm out in the bitter windy cold. It was good hours for him this week, but I know that he is pretty tired now. Tomorrow, I think we might brave the cold for a little while to see if we can get a little bit of our Christmas shopping done. I haven’t been in the mood to go out and get a lot of it done right away, but I suppose that while I don’t have anything else to worry about that I should get a start on it. I have a few more ideas so that is good.

I have a short paper to write for one of my classes that I think I will do tomorrow. It is pretty much an opinion paper so it shouldn’t take too long which is good. Not worried about the grade that I will get on it because I have gotten an A on every other paper that I have had to write for this class.

I am officially done with clinic stuff, minus getting my hour form signed! I am excited about that! However, I did not end up with many hours this semester which kind of sucked and if I get a once a week client next semester I will not have that many more hours either. I suppose the only good thing is that I will have my speech hours done for my grad school part because I think we need like 10 hours of speech for that and I already have that done. My meeting with my supervisor went well and it got done a lot faster than I had anticipated which was good too. Just need to see what my final grade for that class will be, kind of expecting an A since I got a 100% for the first grade that she gave me. I hope to get all A’s this semester, but I am not going to be depressed if I get any A-‘s… it’s the B’s that I am worried about. Two classes are kind of worrying me right now. I need to do really good on both of my psych finals and they are the hard classes. Get my study boots on I guess! Maybe that is something that I will try and get a head start on this week and/or have my friend help me next weekend during girls weekend. Just what we will need to be doing during our girl time… studying, lol! You gotta do what you gotta go though, right?!

I started this entry kind of in a bad mood, but after a good chunk of TSO my mood has increased a lot… sort of has a way with me I guess! I love TSO!!!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Friday Wonderfulness!

My morning started out rather normally today. Wasn't expecting it to be a grand ole Friday or anything special like that. My work wasn't open when I went there this morning, but that wasn't new so I had a little while to spare before my 9am class. Around 8:30am I headed to the clinic to get a little bit of paper work done for my client and really didn't find anything that I was looking for in his file so that was kind of a bummer, but as I was walking out of the CMC I ran into the clinic director (not literally) and she asked me about my spring semester and if I had a few minutes to talk with her about the audiology practicum. I happened to have a few minutes so we quickly talked about what I had open and it just so worked out that my open slot worked great for her and we scheduled that in. Along with that she told me that she would kind of give me preferential treatment as far as getting a client assigned/time for the spring because she knows my current daycare situation/work stuff and that later in the afternoon and early morning wouldn't really work for me. I was super stoked to hear that, along with the fact that she would try and find me a partner and easy client that maybe was only once a week. How great is that! And from there, the day just kept getting better! I went off to the little 7 computer lab we have and logged on quickly to check my email. Oh wait, before I got there I stopped in the little student lounge we have and checked my clinic mailbox and had gotten a paper returned to me with a 100% written on it. This being a class that I can get A's in, but never a 100% because something is always not quite perfect. I was elated to see that, even if it was only worth 20 points. On to the email, and wouldn't you know it... my 11am class is cancelled for today because my teacher is sick. Even more greatness! Talk about an awesome Friday!

So my 9am class went pretty well. We didn't get through a whole lot of material, but that is okay. What we did get through was rather interesting, although we watched an Oprah segment on someone with borderline personality disorder who was a severe cutter and it was really graphic and disturbing. I am not usually one to shy away from watching gruesome stuff, but this was real and she was in pain and it hurt to watch. I wanted to see what they did with her for treatment, but we didn't get to see that part. Oh well... Then it was off to work for a little while and helped my boss get some things done and then I went to go see if I could meet with my supervisor early (I have a meeting set up for 2pm) because I was pretty much done for the day, but she was no where to be found.

After my unluck trying to find my supervisor I went to the cafe and ran into one of my friends and she had to wait for her clinic partner until noon so we sat and talked for a little while which was nice because we haven't gotten to do that very often over the course of the semester. It was nice just to really catch up and chat about school and what nots. So around noon she had to go and I thought I might give finding my supervisor another shot, but none such the second time either, and I think she has a meeting with someone else at noon. I have resigned to the computer lab and have decided to wait until around 1pm to see if I can get in just an hour early because I don't feel like wasting another hour on campus if I don't have to. I could very well go home unitl 2pm, but I would rather just get the meeting over with now.

I have also been trying to get a hold of Jay because he didn't know if he had to work today or not and I decided that if he didn't have to work that he could get the Christmas stuff out of the garage for me to find our stockings tonight. It is too cold for me to want to be out there helping him so I hope that he gets my message and does it for me! Lol, wouldn't that be nice. Otherwise I can just be a mean girlfriend and tell him to do it by himself either way. Haha, I'm radiating with evil, lol.. just kidding!

So, anyways, now I am in the computer lab trying to waste some time until I can get in and meet with my supervisor and get everything completed that I need to. Shouldn't take more than an hour I would think and Jay said that either way he would pick Ayden up from daycare today so I don't have to worry about it which is really kind of nice. I still have to walk in the bitter cold to my car, but I suppose that I can try and deal with that.

Grey's and ER were both really good last night and I am glad that I decided to watch them. I also just found out that I have this coming week and the following week of Prison Break left, so TWO more weeks of my lovely gorgeous Wentworth Miller. And here I thought we would only have one week left. Yeah for Prison Break! Self proclaimed addict, that is definitely me!!!

As for the weekend, not so sure what the plans will be. I thought maybe we would go get our tree, but we are supposed to get some snow tonight, possibly 1-3inches I think, which would mean that Jay would be out working tonight and probably most of tomorrow. I suppose that if he doesn't have to work tonight that it would be a compromise, but it would still kind of suck. Plus it would put us back on decorating, probably even getting our tree, and then who knows if I will be in the mood to on Sunday. Okay, getting a little ahead of myself, the money is still good so that is really all that matters right now. We need money and if that means Jay has to work when it snows, then so be it...

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Server Down

What is a girl to do when she has clinic at 8am and the clinic doesn’t open until 7:45am and she has four therapy reports to print off and the server for the computers is down?Hmmm… is crying okay? Okay, so I didn’t cry, but I was just about freaking out! I got into the clinic in time and thought I was going to have plenty of time to print off my extra therapy reports this morning (since when I went to the lab yesterday afternoon, which consists of about 7 computers for the undergrad clinic students, they were all being used and by graduate students who have their own lab that they can use and I didn’t have the time to wait for someone to get off because I needed to quickly print something and then head off to get Ayden from daycare.) So, my plan was to print them off this morning, but I tried logging onto three different computers and it didn’t work. Finally, I went to my supervisor who informed me that it wasn’t just me going nuts, but that the whole buildings server was down and they were trying to fix it. Great, that meant I had one report for four people to look at during our parent conference. And not to mention, this one had writing on from me when I turned it in earlier this past week and when it printed on Monday it came out of the printer looking kind of weird. Argh, wasn’t looking like it was going to be a good meeting. However, the parents showed up not too late and the meeting actually went pretty well. My supervisor even said I did a good job after they had left. It was kind sad knowing that I wasn’t going be seeing my client anymore. You know, that getting attached kind of thing. They say that you will always remember your first client and I’m pretty sure that I will. A bitter sweet Thursday.

The rest of my day went pretty good. Got a few things done at work for my boss and she was ever so grateful. She always is which makes me know that I am appreciated and that is nice because not every job is like that. I had two classes and we didn’t really get a lot done in either of them which was kind of funny because we are so behind in both of them. I guess that is okay because that is less material we will need to know for the final, right? I only have two more assignments and one online test that I need to do before finals. Wait, three more assignments, but I think the third one will be pretty easy so I am not worried.

Last night I downloaded a bunch of cool new fonts for my computer. And they were all free as well. I needed something more than Word could offer me because some of them are just not creative enough. It was nice to get some of the ones that I had on my old computer back. Crazy, I know, but I missed them.

Tonight we went to Walmart and got a little bit of Christmas shopping done. Oh, and went to Kohls as well. I had a coupon and Jay needed some new jeans. He has a habit of taking his good jeans and turning them into work jeans and/or blowing the pocket out in the back of the ones that he does have. Hmm… not fitting him as well as they should?! Getting kind of tight.

I think I must be doing something wrong with Ayden and spoiling him too much. What? Is it possible to spoil your child too much, well in some respects yes, because he was throwing a fit today when I wouldn’t let him get a toy at Walmart. He believes that we can get a toy every time we go and I am trying to teach him that we cannot. Apparently I am not doing something right because we had quite the scene in both Walmart and Kohls. Kohls wasn’t too bad after a few minutes, then he got really quiet and stayed that way until we left which I was really surprised about. I had to look in the cart/stroller thing at Kohls to see if he was still awake he was that quiet.

Grey’s Anatomy and ER are both on tonight and new! YEAH! These past two weeks have been kind of nice getting home from school and not having a whole lot to work on school/homework wise. I get to hang out with Ayden and play with him a little more. He thought he was high and mighty tonight because Mommy let him play a monster truck game on Daddy’s playstation. He was doing pretty good at the game too and he played it for almost an hour.

We only had a pizza for supper tonight. Didn’t really feel like cooking anything further and really I made Jay make the pizza. Not that throwing a pizza on the pizzazz thing is all that hard, right? I mean open the pizza, slide it on, turn on the machine, wait a few minutes. And might have some ice cream tonight. Don’t really know. Kind of tired and just want to be able to sleep in. Glad that this weekend we are staying home. Not that I didn’t get some time home last weekend, but it’s nicer when Jay is home as well.

Last week of classes next week! Cannot believe it!!! Oh, but I’ve been through that more than once now.

Overall, this week has been a pretty good week. Still have a lot of different thoughts going through my head which don’t help any or make things any clearer for me, but I am taking things one day at a time and going from there. If I worry too much about the future I get too stressed about the whole situation and thus… live today for today!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Testy Tuesday…

I had a test today that I really didn't study for last night, but not for lack of trying, it was just not a good time to study. I mean seriously, who can concentrate on their Speech and Hearing Science information when Wentworth Miller is on the TV screen? Definitely not me! Maybe I should have studied before Prison Break came on, and well I tried, but I wasn't really in the mood, and knowing that I was going to get together with the girls in the morning to study for an hour before the test only made me not study even more. When it came down to the test, I think I did okay. Some of the questions shouldn't have been on there because they referred to the data that was on the last test and we were obviously already tested on that (and were not told it would be on this test as well) and some of the questions were really vague and she didn't state clearly what she meant. I guess we will have to wait and see how I did... Don't know what she is going to test us on for the final though because we only have four class periods left and she has a tendency not to get very far with the material. Good and bad I guess. Anyways, I have done really well on the last tests that we've taken so I am not overly worried about my grade in that class. Some of my friends were freaking out though. I have to tell you that we had a great time studying together, like always. We always have a good laugh, and a few new people joined us today as well and it was fun! Made my Tuesday, that's for sure.

Today is the last class of swimming lessons for Ayden. He is really excited to go, he really loves it now and I think he will be sad that it is over. Definitely going to have to get him in the pool more often. Bring on JT and Kelsey. I think that Ayden thinks we are going right after daycare though, which isn't the case. We have two hours between the time that I pick him up and the time that we have to leave for swimming. Last week he was so anxious to go that he kept asking like every five minutes if it was time to go. Finally I had to set the timer and told him that when it went off it would be time to go. That only helped for about the first five minutes. Anxious little boys, what can you do? At least he is not screaming and crying when we take him and he doesn't want to do it. I've seen some little kids like that. For being as shy as he usually his, he warmed up really well to that class and teacher, but she is really super great with the kids as well.

I FINALLY got my garage back! Jay took the boat home, but I don't think that he took it to the barn yet. His dad said that he would take care of that for him. Our cousin's (because Jay and I are both related to each one) are nice enough to let Jay store his friend's boat (JT) in their barn/haymow (whatever you want to call it) for the winter which is really great of them. Really not our problem if they wouldn't let us because it is not our boat, but in any case, THANKS AMANDA AND SHAUN!!! However, just because I can now park my car in the garage, doesn't mean it is any cleaner than it was before or I have any more room. Actually, it is a tight squeeze because of all the junk laying around that Jay has yet to clean up. I think he said today that he was going to work on it, but I could probably call him right now and find him on the computer. I don't know, as long as it gets cleaned in the next few weeks I guess I will be okay with it. Just too bad that he had to wait until it got cold out to clean it. I am not going to wait until it gets nice out to get a nice clean garage back. Besides, we have Christmas bins out there that we need to bring in when we decorate our tree/house.

Speaking of Christmas, Jay was talking about finding some place that will let us cut down our own Christmas tree this year. I am all for it I guess. I found two places, but one of them was kind of pricey and I find it hard to pay $45 for a Christmas tree. Last year I think we paid $20 or $25 and actually it was the perfect tree for our place and the perfect size. It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, lol! Maybe weather wise, but I haven't felt inspired to get out my decorations yet. Maybe this weekend since we are not doing anything.

Next weekend I am going to Green Bay to visit with one of my best friends. We haven't actually seen each other since Ayden's birthday party and that was right after we got over a disagreement with each other and because I was hosting the party we really didn't get to talk all that much. Oh wait, I might have seen her one time shortly after that as well. Cannot remember... anyways, we are both in need of a girls weekend. She wants to go out to the bars... fine with me, but she will be the only one drinking. First off, not my thing and/or scene, and secondly, cannot really afford expensive bar drinks when it is Christmas time. But I will go along to hang out and talk. We can pretty much talk anywhere, and even though she drinks from time to time, she doesn't get wasted. Everyone has different views and I respect that... although, from when I talked to her last, it might not just be a girls weekend as she has started 'seeing' someone new. I use seeing lightly though because they aren't exactly an item. This particular guy wants to see me, and I am totally okay with this because he used to be an old great friend of mine whom I would love to see as well and catch up with. Besides, I can tell him anything I would tell Niki anyways so it would be nice for all of us to hang out. Just need to get away for a little while and be with some friends. Jay got his hunting time, I will get some away time. Not that it needs to be like that though.

So I lied, this week wasn’t the last week of swimming lessons. It’s later in the day by the way… We got to lessons tonight and found out that there is another week next week. Glad I am so on top of things, right? Tonight Ayden floated on his back ALL BY HIMSELF!!! He was in the deep end with his instructor and she was waving her arms up in the air and there was my big boy, floating on his back like it was the easiest thing in the world. I was so proud of him! It was great to see! And once again, he was all for jumping right in and putting his head in. He just loves lessons so I am glad that there is yet another week!

I had a bowl of ice cream for supper tonight. Totally chocolately and fattening, but I didn’t feel like cooking anything else and wasn’t really hungry for anything else either and Ayden had a sandwich and apple for supper so what else what I supposed to make? Have I ever mentioned how much I love to cook and I didn’t see Jay hopping off the couch to offer to make anything either. Stupid head had half the day off because his afternoon class was cancelled. He did clean out the garage though which was a very pleasant surprise when I got home from school. I didn’t actually think he was going to do it without me having to get on his case about it.

I finished up some clinic stuff tonight. Just need to print it off for our meeting on Thursday and sign up for a meeting with my supervisor to get everything else finalized. I’m thinking that that will be on Friday. Half way through the week tomorrow and because my morning class is cancelled, that means I get to sleep in! YEAH! Like an extra hour too which is really great because I hate getting up early in the morning.

By the way, those of you who haven’t happened here from MckMama’s and don’t already know about the awesome raffle/fundraiser thing she has going on right now… you should seriously go check out her site (she is much better at explaining it)… you can even enter to win a super great prize, plus all the proceeds go to a GREAT cause! Check it out… click HERE and you can learn about all it’s awesomeness!!! Do it… RIGHT NOW! Yes, I understand, I am being demanding… but it will be worth it!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Wasn’t ME!!!

More Not Me’s, because of course… IT’S MONDAY!!! Join the fun over at MckMama’s… read her Not Me’s and everyone else’s! It’s too much fun not to do!!!

It wasn’t me who went to Walmart to see if I could find some Christmas gifts and came out with two books for myself. Wasn’t me to read one of those books in two days and is craving to start the other one. Not me who has better things to do, like prep for a presentation and test on Tuesday and not me who will probably start the other book instead. I mean, who seriously likes to read and drift off to another world for a while? Definitely not something I relish doing when I get a spare second!

It wasn’t me who chatted it up with my cousin’s at Thanksgiving sharing stories about the blogs we read and how much we love Not Me Monday and how funny it is that our significant others just don’t get it when we say ‘That’d make a great Not Me’ and look at us like we are crazy. Not us! Because every should know what Not Me Monday is and the wonders it does for those who participate!

It also wasn’t me who joked with Amanda that we should drive the long couple of hours to MckMama’s house so we could get pictures taken by her because we both love her photography and would love to meet the inspiration behind Not Me Monday and so many other things. We (I) am not crazy stalkerish like that, and only blog lurk to my hearts content. But MckMama is pretty darn cool! You know it too!

It wasn’t me who took a nap with Ayden on Friday because I wasn’t tired at all after getting up really early with him in the morning. That nap definitely didn’t feel good and totally didn’t leave me feeling the least bit refreshed after I got up. And I so didn’t let him sleep an extra half hour so I could get an extra half hour of sleep!

It wasn’t me who let Ayden play in his room for an hour and a half before he finally fell asleep for a nap so I could finish my book. Moms never do that, especially good moms like me, lol! And we definitely didn’t have cereal for supper Saturday night because good mom’s good large gourmetish meals all the time!

It wasn’t me who kind of had a down day on Sunday and just wanted to have a good cry, but couldn’t. And didn’t even know why… because no one ever has days like that, nope never.

It wasn’t me who slept super great last night in a bed all by myself. I never sleep great when Jay isn’t here, oh wait, yes I do… I slept great last night, along with last weekend when he wasn’t here.

What did you not do this week? Bet it was some pretty fun stuff!!!

CIAO! LOVE ME!