{hop back to it}

It is no secret that over the last month my eating and workout habits have declined. How could it be a secret when I blog about how horrible both are almost every time I blog, haha! Truth be told, I have not made much effort to rein in my food habits too much and go back to the way I was. It was much easier to eat super healthy when I wasn't busy all day and I didn't have to cook for three. I could make Ayden something for supper and then eat something myself when Jay wasn't living with us. Lately, it's been typical summer food more often than not... hot dogs, brats, burgers, you know! What I have been trying to do is just decrease the amount that I eat and not pig out. Although, we all know that that is WAY easier said than done. Case in point... cookies from Quik Trip the other night, I may or may not have had four... four cookies at 250 calories a piece! Oops! Lol! But I had my booty kicked at my 5:30am boot camp Monday morning, so that's okay, isn't it?! Haha!

Speaking of boot camp, my legs are... KILLING ME! They weren't too bad afterwards or all day, but the day after…oh goodness! It is that good feeling hurt though. That feeling you want to feel after a good workout!

And the best news is that I've found a workout buddy to help keep me motivated! She is an almost next door neighbor and I am fastly growing to love her! Last week we went for an almost eight mile bike ride and then on Sunday we went swimming for an hour! Oh, I am going to love the fact that our town has a pool that is free for residents. Swimming just might become my new favorite workout! Plus, it burns a ton of calories and I really enjoyed it! In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I am thinking about going again tonight.

Here is me and my new friend, Sarah, after our bike ride last week! Have to admit, jealous of her bike, she kicked butt on that while I huffed and puffed on my bike!Life overall has been going good. We had a good weekend. It was mostly relaxing. Ayden got to spend some time with my mom and my dad. Sometimes I feel like he is away from the house more than he is at it lately. But that is okay because he is spending time with family that we don't see very often and for us to see them regularly now is great. He has probably also slept away from the house more days in the last month than he has in the last year. As long as he is enjoying himself I am okay with it. I can't say that I don't enjoy some extra alone time with Jay. We've never had this much alone time before and it has been really good for us. Overall I think that Jay is just happier that we are in Chilton. Not that he wasn't happy when we were in Stevens Point, but to me, he just feels more laid back about things and likes being able to see everyone so often.

My externship continues to go well. I cannot believe that I have been there a month already. Time flies (as I put in almost every post)! My only gripe continues to be time management. I hate running behind. Love my supervisor to death, but yesterday we spent forty minutes just shooting the breeze with a patient. Now, I have no problem chatting with the patient after we have finished up, but this put us behind for other patients and then I didn't have any time to finish my chart note. It's no wonder my supervisor was so behind before I got here... she just can't stop talking, TO ANYONE! However, as much as that can annoy me sometimes, I think it is a big part of why her patient's keep coming back and like her so much. She is an amazing audiologist and even in the month that I have been here I have learned so much, but she also gets very personal with her patients. I think that might be something I can take from her. I think I tend to get too focused on getting the patient in, fixing their problems, and then getting them out so I can get the chart note done and get ready for the next patient. I see no problem chatting with the patient, but because I am such a Type A personality that needs everything to run in perfect order, it bugs me when we sit and talk to a patient forever when there are other things I could be doing to get ready and then I won't be running behind. Alas though, this is not my practice and I will do things the way they are done here and not gripe about it. Life will go on. And despite that point, I do love it! My supervisor and the other audiologist on staff are amazeballs! The office managers are fabulous and everyone has made me feel like a part of their small tight knit family already so it is great!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{mall of america: sleeping with the sharks}

I promised a picture post of our fun time at the Mall of America and here it is! You’ll have to forgive the imperfectness of them though because I didn’t feel like editing them before posting them on here. That takes time, which I am usually running short on here! Enjoy!

First up is our view coming into Minneapolis… we didn’t actually have to go into the city, but the view of the big buildings was pretty cool and I am glad that we didn’t have to go into the busy town. We followed Jay’s friend, JT, to the Mall of America… that is his truck in front of us.Here is little man in the Lego store! He couldn’t get enough of it! But then again, what little boy could?!Look at ALL of those LEGOS!!!My two favorite guys and then another one that probably ranks within the top 10 (only because he means so much to Jay as a friend and he is pretty awesome with Ayden as well), haha! Jay, Ayden, and JT were playing a flight simulator in the Microsoft store. Check out the stingray and some other members of the Cub Scout troop trying to get a good picture of the fish under the water!

My two main men getting ready to go on the tour of the facility!Ayden and his best buddy, Shane, from school. Those two were pretty inseparable the whole time we were there and it was SO cute!

A five and a half hour drive home and I would be knocked out too! Love it, haha!CIAO! LOVE ME!

{as the week continues}

I had a very productive day 'off' yesterday. (Which really was Wednesday because as the norm lately, I started this post one day and am finishing it another.) It really wasn't a day off because I spent it being busy and having a good time. We have been having some super warm weather in the area lately with high humidity and we do not have air conditioning in our new house... bummer! However, I've pretty much gotten over that fact and like I mentioned before, we are now using two small window air conditioners to cool the bedrooms down at night so we can sleep when it becomes that hot out. It is survivable!

The day was spent with Ayden and my younger sister Alexis. Ayden had spent the night at Alexis's house the night before because Jay and I were going to go to Country USA and when Ayden was being dropped off Wednesday morning Alexis looked sad and I asked her why. She said she didn't want to go to daycare and told her mom that if it was okay with her that she could spend the day with Ayden and I as we had no other plans. And so it was just Ayden, Alexis, and myself all day. And I think I sat and watched maybe a half hour of TV. Actually, I don't think the kids watched all that much either.

We went to the park, went on a walk, kicked the soccer ball around, ventured to the library, did a bit of grocery shopping, played in the sprinkler and with water guns, and my dad took the kids swimming late in the afternoon. I also loaded the dishwasher (I know, big deal, right... well it is because I don't do dishes at my house), did some laundry, organized the office a lot more, and painted the rest of the patio table, and started on some homework. So you see, it was very productive! I didn't really stop moving until I went to bed last night. Jay also made some yummy homemade chicken noodle soup for me too. I had been craving it and it is just so yummy! Although, it was a little too hot out last night to really enjoy it because eating a warm bowl of soup just made me warmer!

Tonight we are going to venture to Country USA again. (Which really was Thursday night.) We never made it on Tuesday because we took my car and it started acting up on us again. I know, I have the world's most awesome car, right?! Why can't it ever just work like I want it to? Although, I kind of thought it might act up on our drive and was glad that we took it and that it did act up because it pushed Jay and myself to order the new part right away. I had been driving it to work this week and it was fine, but I didn't quite trust it yet. The new part should be in sometime today.

We almost made it to Country USA, but not quite. The second time the car started to act up we were probably only 15-20 minutes away; however, that time it took Jay a lot longer to get the car started again and it got me a little more worried. I didn't want to be stuck in Oshkosh at midnight with a car that wouldn't start. That would definitely have been no fun. So, we turned around and stopped to eat supper at Tom's Drive In... by this point it was almost 8pm. We let the car cool down a little bit and enjoyed some couple's time and then headed home. The car made it home fine and I made Jay take it to work this morning. Tonight we are going to take Jay's truck. I really don't want to miss seeing Sugarland. Plus, tonight (Thursday night) it is supposed to be a lot cooler out too. Tuesday it was super hot.

And so, to make a long story short for this post… we made it to Country USA. Haha! I will talk about how much fun that was in my next post!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{sleeping with the sharks}

We made it to Minnesota and back this weekend. It was one heck of a LONG drive, but it was SO well worth it! 5.5 hours of driving each way! We survived though and even Ayden didn't whine too much about the long drive. I thought the drive coming home was a lot worse than the drive out there though. We ended up taking Jay's truck out there because I didn't quite trust my car yet. (To be honest, even though I am back to driving my car to work every day, I still get nervous driving it and it will take me some time to feel completely comfortable with it again.) I know that it cost us more in gas to drive Jay's truck, but it was surprisingly less than I thought it was going to be which made me happy. I drove almost all of the way out there... when I stopped driving we maybe had a 30-45 minute drive left and that is only because I didn't want to drive in the city.

We stopped at a gas station to switch drivers and to meet up with Jay's friend who lives in Minnesota, JT. JT was giving us two window air conditioners that his parents no longer used for us to use at our house. Our new house does not have air conditioning and it has been MEGA hot these last few days! We put one in our room and we are going to put the other one in Ayden's room and use them mainly for sleeping at night because that is when the heat bothers everyone the most.

So, we got the air conditioners and then followed JT to the Mall of America. It was nice to see him again and I know that even though Jay won't admit it outloud, he enjoys seeing JT in the flesh every now and then too! They talk a TON on the phone all of the time, but it does suck when you don't get to see your friends in person! Anyways, we didn't need to check in for the Sleeping with the Sharks until 6:45pm and we made it to the mall shortly after 4pm. We walked around for a while and just hung out. It was nice.

When we were bringing out stuff into the mall and Ayden's buddy, Shane, saw him, his face just lit up and he ran over to him to give him a hug. It was SO cute! Shane's mom told me that on Ayden's last day of school that Shane tried to be brave, but when he got home after school that day that he just broke down in tears and missed his buddy Ayden. Break my heart! Those two were pretty inseparable the entire time that we were there and it was too cute! It seemed like utter chaos during times with all of the kids and what not, but it well pretty well.

We got a tour of the facility and even got some behind the scenes looks at different things. My favorite part was the shark tunnel. I literally could have spent the entire time in there watching the sharks and the sea turtles and what not, SO COOL! Ayden elected to sleep in the tunnel with the rest of the kids and the majority of the adults. Jay and I decided to sleep by the jellyfish because it was cheaper. Little did Jay know that when he picked the spot by the jellyfish that he did with our sleep mats that he picked one right next to a jellyfish tube that had the light on ALL night long and we are not talking a little dim light, we are talking bright. Ugh much! Not to mention that sleeping on an inch or two of foam really isn't the most comfortable thing and then add other people in the room and no white noise app on my phone... I slept like crap, haha! It maybe wouldn't have been so bad had it been darker and had I had a white noise app on my phone. I had an app for that awhile ago, but for some reason or another I had deleted it and let me tell you, you don't get cellphone reception in the basement of the Mall of America... which meant no downloading a new white noise app. Oh and I forgot to tell you about the lovely 'tidal pool' that we were close too as well that made this loud annoying noise just about every minute! I think I finally fell asleep sometime after 2am and we were awake by 7am... fun times! Haha! We left the Mall of America shortly after 9am and were home by about 2:30pm at which time Jay left to go to some family gathering and Ayden and I stayed home.

I elected to stay home because I was bone tired and because honestly, I just wanted to be alone and not around people anymore. I slept on and off on the couch for a few hours while Ayden played with his toys.

I think I am back up and running at full capacity now, not as tired anymore. I was not so secretly happy that it was storming out yesterday morning because I really wasn't in the mood to get up for my 5:30am boot camp class. Oops, haha! Next week though!

My online summer class started yesterday and it looks like a lot of online participation is in store. Boo! I am so not in school mode right now, not at all! Working all week long definitely takes its toll on me as I've written before and honestly, it gives me a whole new level of respect for those who do hold full time jobs and families because it requires a whole new level of balance that I haven't had to worry about in the last seven years. Everyone has always told me how proud they are of me for continuing on with school while having a child so young. I never knew any other way. Not going to college was never an option for me. Not graduating from college was never an option either. It was something that I always knew I would complete. So, even if other consider it hard work, I just did it, I didn't have a choice. I made it work. Now I have a new level of appreciation for what my mom went through when she was getting her degree while working full time and raising three kids! Wowers! All that said though, I still want more children. And like I had mentioned in a previous post, maybe at some point Jay and I will be financially stable enough for me to work the hours I would like to and maybe not. I thoroughly enjoy my time at clinic, but I also enjoyed the last couple of weeks of being able to leave clinic at clinic and coming home and just worrying about family time. Now I need to fit back in school time as well. Only for the next year though... actually, less than a year!

I will post some pictures from our fun trip soon!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{some people}

My week has been going great (and not so great), but mostly great. The week started off slow and I had a long day at clinic on Tuesday, but I was ready for my day off on Wednesday and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Ayden and I did not do much, but I did get some stuff done around the house. I have to say that I was semi productive. My attempts to eat healthier have been minimal at best. Like I said previously, I do well through lunch, but then when I get home it is horrible. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we haven't been having good sit down cooked meals as of late because it seems like everyone is just coming and going at our house. That and the fact that we have ice cream in our house. I think that because we haven't had an abundance of junk food in the house for quite some time I am dealing with an internal struggle of craving the ice cream and knowing I shouldn't eat it. Most of the time this week, my craving has won out. Each day is a new day though and since the ice cream is gone, today will be a better day, right?! YES! Haha!

I'm bummed about a completely different situation, although it is one of those situations that I won't be blogging about. It breaks my heart, but to be honest, I think I saw it coming. That's about as much as I'd like to delve into that topic right now. I know, quite evasive... I probably shouldn't even write about it if I am not going to talk about it anymore, but oh well. That covers the not so great part of my week.

Jay and I have been doing great lately. Did I ever mention that I feel the whole, absence makes the heart grow fonder thing might just be true?! Jay and I may have had a harder than normal time during our time apart (which seems like eons ago now), but I know that the stress of the end of the semester was weighing heavily on me and that the stress of his new job and being away from his family was hard on him too... we both has shorter than normal buttons to push and we pushed each others a lot more than usual. But now (and I hope I don't jinx myself), we are back in our groove and doing great. I cannot believe that in just over a year we will be married. MARRIED! In the past Jay and I have had some big issues between us and me being the stubborn person that I am, I was bound and determined not to budge on them. (I think I get that from my mom, haha.) But I have been really trying to work on that and I think it has helped our relationship. Honestly, as much as I enjoyed sleeping alone in our bed while we were living apart, I am much happier sharing the bed with him again. Insert smiley face here!

This weekend we get to 'sleep with the sharks' at the Mall of America with Ayden's cub scout pack. I don't really know how excited Ayden is about it. Actually, I feel like I haven't really seen much of Ayden all week and it bums me out. He slept over night at Jay's parents house again last night so Jay's mom could sleep in this morning and I was totally okay with it, but because she picked him up before I got home from work/clinic last night I didn't get to see him and haven't since yesterday morning. I am kind of looking forward to it just being us as a family over the weekend and seeing some familiar Pointer faces while we are away. We need some family time away from the house as well because when we are home we are busy doing house stuff.

Although, I have to admit, that the more we get put away, the lazier I seem to be getting at night. I have four baskets of laundry that need to be folded and put away. I have almost three weeks worth of 'pictures of the day' that I need to upload to my blog yet. I have the pictures from my cousin's photo shoot to edit and then I said I would edit some pictures for a friend of mine as well. The office is still in shambles. All of this stuff out of it's designated spot bugs me, but I'm just not motivated enough at the end of the night to do anything about it. Oh well.

I am glad that I took the time to read a few books the two weeks before we moved to Chilton. I needed the relaxation time and it was really relaxing to sit outside in the sun all afternoon without a care in the world. I got a few good reads in (they just might have been the dirty smut of the Fifty Shades of Grey series) and now that I am busy again, I haven't felt the urge to read at all. Although, usually when I read a good series, it takes me some time to pick up another book and get into it because I'm still stuck on the previous characters. I'm hoping to find a new good read soon.

CIAO! LOVE ME!