Category: Alaethia

You know global warming’s taking it’s toll on the world when New Mexico is ‘yellow’ (65°) and Texas is Flaming Hot Cheetos ‘red’ (88°) on the temperature map on the news. There’s yet another red tornado watch box to the North West of us.

I started this blog yesterday, May 8th sometime in the evening. Obviously I never got a chance to finish it. Now that I’m freshly showered, drank some nice warm chamomille tea to soothe my throat (I’ve got an annoying sore throat), and have Mario occupied with dinner (a sandwich) I’ll try and post as much as possible. I’m going to do this in “chunks” of days since I probably won’t cover everything tonight.

I’ll start from Thursday. The night I last posted we were hurled by a thunderstorm. A bad one. I didn’t believe we were going to get much of a storm, since we hardly ever do when they’re announced on Channel 4. Well, that day I’d been watching the Weather Channel and they mentioned “strong, severe thunderstorms and 40% chance of rain”.

Nah, I thought to myself. Nature wouldn’t do that to me. Not the night before my Yard Sale. Not when all the stuff I’m selling is already outside in nice organized boxes!

Nature hates me. It rained so hard and it was over as fast as it started. Most of my crap was outside, drenched.

I woke up in a mood the next morning. I didn’t sleep much; if I recall correctly I think I slept a total of 3 hours and it wasn’t because of Alaethia. And not only was a lot of my stuff wet (though, thankfully, not as much as I thought would be) but Mario and I got lazy and didn’t work on the signs the night before, nor had I put the neon-colored price tags on any of the merchandise. The kids were in a fairly good mood, though I did have to get after them a few times. Once they were off to Elda’s to leave to school, I started getting everything that was inside the house outside, and woke Mario up to at least help me set up the tables.

Mom came over and watched Aly for me while I waited for Mario. He never woke up. When he finally did, he said he was already late (“Why didn’t you wake me up early?” Can you believe him!?) and couldn’t help, sorry. I could have gouged his eyes out. I ended up having to take down the huge, heavy wooden table down all by myself and had to move it with Mom’s help. I am so grateful Mom was there to help. I couldn’t have done it all on my own, especially with Alaethia. She slept a good long time that morning, but still, we had to keep an eye on her so I did most of the work myself after the tables were set up since Mom was watching her. Noelia woke up about half an hour later and helped me out a lot. Thank goodness she’s very organized–she helped me put things into piles and helped me keep focused. I was so stressed I couldn’t think straight.

I put up signs at all the “main” corners, which made a total of 3 signs. If I’d thought it out better, I would have put signs up at stores, the City Hall announcement board and the post office, but nooo, I didn’t think it through. I didn’t plan much, even though it felt all I was doing last week was for the darn Yard Sale.

People started arriving even before we got the tables fully ready. My good friend Karina from our middle school days came over with her mom and took a LOT of stuff off my hands. The people who usually come to our yard sales came by and were impressed by how much stuff we’d accumulated since the last time we had a yard sale, which was about 3 years ago. The weather was merciful too, thank goodness. It was breezy and overcast until around 3 o’clock. Then it got a bit warm but not to the point where we couldn’t stand it. Jaylen was such a good boy that whole day. He found (yes, found) a brand-new “Dig Out Dino” set Mary had given him about a year ago. It’s a block of clay where you dig out and gently brush away clay from dinosaur fossils. He was so proud that he found all the pieces and had Jorge help him put it together. When Eenan got home from school he went straight into the house to do homework and then played video games. All my babies were well-behaved :).

Even though we were selling everything super cheap and didn’t get to take everything we were selling out, we made pretty good money. Mom didn’t have much stuff to sell, but even she made some bucks. The only bad things about the day was 1) the two ladies (I remember one was pregnant) that came by with a little boy who stole a huge Ziploc full of Spiderman toys and one of dinosaurs. So RUDE. I mean, c’mon. The bags were a dollar each for a huge amount of GOOD toys! The vintage Spiderman toys that I was so opposed to selling in the first place were in there!

And 2) Two of the kittens died. One overnight and the other in the afternoon after I got home from picking up Jaylen. I felt guilty all day thinking I may have run him over, because he was fine before I left, but I don’t think I could have run him over. I would have run over the other one too, because they were always together and slept on top of eachother. Poor things :(. John and I think it’s something genetic having to do with Brushka.

Jorge and Big Mario were outside with us (Mom, Alaethia and I) during the yard sale, so that was cool. We had company. The part I hate about Yard Sales is having to clean up afterwards, after you’re already tired and just want to shower and lay down! Thankfully Jorge and John helped :).

I was so thrilled that Mario was going to be home the next day (Friday) but nope, he had to go in to work since he had a huge system he was working on. I was grumpy all over again. It was easier taking everything out this time since everything was already laid out on the tables. Noelia came out to help again and we made sure to bring ALL the stuff that we didn’t take out the day before. I didn’t sell as much as I would have liked, but we did do well again. What I don’t like about Yard Sales is the people who come to you and ask you to drop the prices even more. That happened several times. A dollar was too much for some of those people!

Noelia, Mom, Alaethia and I sat outside on the front porch (with the fan this time!) and just chit-chatted during breaks. Mario called around 1pm and said he was coming home. Yay! He and Jaylen went to pick up McDonald’s for everyone, which was awesome because I was starting to shake and wouldn’t have had enough down-time to make something to eat. After Noelia left to work the rest of us sat outside and then Elda and Jorge arrived. Jorge ran over a box of toys with his truck. I jokingly told him to pay up–$50 LOL. He said he’d trade his labor (helping me put stuff away) for the cash he owed for the toys :P.

When the day was over we put all the clothes and toys that were left away. Next came the task of separating stuff for thrift shops and giving the clothes to the needy. I felt so lazy though. I was so thrilled that once the Yard Sale was over I could just relax and stress only about normal, everyday things, but nope. Next came worrying about where everything was going to go and getting the rest of the house looking decent. I still had boxes laying all over the place and piles of laundry to fold and put away and dishes to wash that I hadn’t had a chance to do because of the yard sale.

The next day was Saturday, which was the next One Photo An Hour day. I’ll get that, and the days after that, typed up tomorrow. I’m so tired. I hope Aly feels like going to bed now. She’s all hyped from the movie Mario’s watching (he’s sitting on the couch with her while I type this up). She’s so cute. She’s recently started trying to sit up, laughs and squeals (and squaks LOL) all day long. I love how she flutters her big eyes when she’s “holding conversation” with you. She’s also been sleeping in her crib for a little over a week now, which is a Godsend since I’m sick with Jaylen’s leftover cold and don’t want to get her sick.

I feel accomplished. I did good today. I deserve some ice cream. Too bad I already had some :(.

Dear JC Penny,

Please quit raising my credit limit, as I’m having enough trouble paying off the $600 balance I currently owe you. It’s quite rude of you to keep tempting me so.

Yours Truly,
Me

Dammit! Why do they do that to us!? I already have a $10 off on any purchase of $10 or more coupon I’ve been dying to use (I need more jeans or capris!) and now they raise my credit limit another $300? Argh!

Mario and I completed 10 years of being together (our “dating” anniversary) yesterday, April 30th. I still can’t believe it’s been that long. It doesn’t even feel like it, really. Can’t think of anyone else I’d like to spend 10 years with :).

I’m so beat. Alaethia fell asleep about 15 minutes ago and I should already be in bed taking advantage but I decided to blog before the days accumulate on me. Alaethia actually let me sleep in with her till 11am after the boys and Mario left (though I was woken up by a phone call from Jorge once and jolted out of bed a second time because I was dreaming that I slept in and was late picking up Jaylen). Poor Eenan had a fever in the morning of 100.3, but I gave him some Motrin and it got back to normal so he went to school. After I picked Jaylen up I went straight to tackling the yard sale stuff, as much as I didn’t want to.

I tidied up my bedroom and closet since I hadn’t paid much attention to that part of the house in a few weeks. It looks much better and more organized in my closet. I also managed to pick a whole bunch of flip flops to get rid of! I had no idea I was so obsessed with those darn things. I also looked through the kids bookcase and although I didn’t get rid of too many books, I did get rid of 4 huge school boxes full of crayons! The things these kids collect.

I emptied out the two 30-gallon bins the boys had toys in (that are mostly being sold in the yard sale) and put Mario’s car collections and my 80s stuff that’d been in cardboard boxes in them instead. I need Mario to help me get the highest stuff out of the living room closet so that I can properly stack the bins. The whole house is a mess right now, what with all the yard sale stuff that needs to be taken out, and I’m getting a bit…overwhelmed by it all. I can’t wait till we’re done with the yard sale!

I went to the mall yesterday with John to pay a bill and John went to get an application but they weren’t hiring yet. Later in the evening, we went to Yadira’s for a bar-b-q Jose and Elda had planned (Alaethia wore the overalls that both my boys wore and held her bottle for a good long while for the first time!). Both events totally threw my day off, so I didn’t get anything done for the yard sale (and I kind of didn’t want to, heh). Oh! And Ricky, Big Mario’s friend, came to check our sink and figured out the source of the leak was from our darn spray thing! It was messed up since we bought it at Home Depot a few months ago and that’s what was causing all the leakage. I’m still not sure what we’re going to do about the wood, though.

I went to Dollar General today to buy some neon-colored posters to make signs and some more gallon-sized Ziplocs to stuff toys in and sell. Then I went to buy the permit at the City Hall. We’re allowed 3 days. I’m doing mine Thursday and Friday and Elda’s doing hers on Saturday. I was originally going to do mine on Saturday, too, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste my Saturday doing the yardsale LOL. I’ve places to go and a Gramma to see :P. I also plan on taking all the stuff that didn’t sell straight to storage or Salvation Army. I hardly ever go to Salvation Army, so I figured if I take them to a charity shop that one would be the best bet. I wouldn’t leave the junk at the other ones I go to since I’m fully capable of buying my own crap back!

Tomorrow will be spent putting neon-colored price stickers on everything. How fun. We’ll that’s if I don’t end up taking Eenan to the doctor after picking up Jaylen. I’m scared for the little guy. We don’t know what’s wrong. Nothing hurts. He keeps getting a slight fever and his eyes get hot, but he doesn’t feel pain. He also says his legs feel “jiggly” and that his tummy bothers him. I’ve asked him if he feels like throwing up, but he forgot what it feels like. My poor dude.

Mario put him to bed before leaving to Chris’ since I had Aly in my arms (he took a towel and put it next to Eenan’s bed on the floor with a trashcan on top of it), and I went in afterwards to tuck him in. I brought him an extra pillow to prop him up, just in case. As I’m fluffing his pillow I hear him sniffle and he says, “I love you guys. Thank you for everything you do for me.” My son, with his big eyes and his big heart, can always dissolve me to a pile of mush :*).

I hate when my kiddos are sick. I feel so…helpless. Then I start to feel all icky, too, and I hate when that happens. I should be strong for them!

Okay, I’m brushing my teeth and going to bed while I can. I also plan on putting Alaethia in her crib from now on, since Mario flings his arms around and although he’s careful with her, you never know. Better to be safe than sorry.

I can’t wait till the yard sale’s over.

I removed my darn question and answer script yesterday because 1) it was hardly ever used and 2) it had an annoying error I couldn’t fix. I even searched all over Google for a remedy and nothing.

I’ve been thinking of giving the whole site a makeover. I desperately need to weed out broken links and get rid of old pages people hardly use. But then again I have this weird attachment to all my old content, which, after all these years, is the reason why all that junk’s still on the site.

Anyway, after the cable guy had come over on Thursday, Mary asked one of the customer service reps if she could get a better deal on the Starz and Encore channels because they were charging her double for each channel alone instead of for the whole package. She needed a box and I knew Mario would want one, too, so we got one. Now we have all the channels we used to have when we had DirecTV! Plus some I think. The boys and our bedroom still have the analog channels (which apparently are ancient and should have been sacked from the system 6 years ago when Starr county moved to the new cable-box one).

We went to Adan’s dad’s house that night, since he was waiting for Final Fantasy to download to the computer. Mario asked me to go and I finally said I would. Mom almost pushed me out the door and said it was totally okay, to go have fun. So after getting the boys fed, bathed and in bed we left.

We mostly chatted about music and websites and stuff. Isaac went over later and talked about the game. When we were leaving Mario’s uncle got there and he was still very visibly upset about Tia Alma. I didn’t know what to say, but as Mario spoke to him I developed a knot in my throat the size of Alaska. Whatever tears that threatened to spill out were held in since I didn’t want to make anything worse. Mario was giving him such good advice; he always knows just what to say.

We get in the car and are really quiet. I break the ice by saying, “Your poor uncle. He’s still so upset. Well–naturally.”

He replies, “I’d probably be the same way.”

“Really?”

He looks at me in disbelief and says, “You may not know this, but believe it or not, my whole life revolves around you. I wouldn’t know what to do. I know you need me because I support you and the kids and make the money and all that, but I need you for everything. I can’t cook, wash, clean–well, I can, but it’s hard!–and I can’t pay the bills. I need you.”

I sort of laugh because I’m a bit amused that he’s mentioning all these things. That’s how he tells me he needs me because he loves me. Then I remember what he said and say, “I need you for other reasons than paying the bills, you know. I just…need you here. To be with me. Because I love you.”

And he says, “Yeah. That’s what I mean. And who else would I talk to? You know how I hold everything in, then when I feel like I’m going to explode you’re the one I tell everything to.” Then he notices I’m going 20 in a 30MPH zone and tells me to speed it up. I spent the rest of the night feeling a weird mixture of sadness, elation, and fear of ever losing Mario, or Mario and the kids losing me prematurely.

It just goes to show how borrowed life really is. Why you really need to take in everyday and tell all your loved ones you love them and appreciate them. And not only that, but spend time with them. That’s something I need to start doing more with the kids. Spend good, quality time playing games or taking them to the park, or watching a good kid’s movie. Lately, when they ask me to do something with them the answer’s been, “Hold on a second, guys. I’m washing dishes.” Or some other chore that I haven’t been able to get done due to taking care of Aly. But thing’s’ve gotta change.

As for yesterday, I actually got to sleep in a little bit after the kids left to school. Mario made migas for breakfast, which–for those that don’t know–is eggs with corn tortillas chopped up into squares. I haven’t had migas in years and he did a pretty good job. We picked up Jaylen, washed dishes (he actually helped me *gasp*), and Mom stayed with the kiddos while we cashed Mario’s check and almost bawled at having to separate the money for bills. It’s been slow at work, and from what I’ve heard, at all other businesses as well. We’ve got to be extra-careful with our money this time, which means I need to keep my butt in the house and not out shopping!

Mario kept telling me he was going to take me to this awesome burger place downtown. We get there and I look up and it’s a burger joint we’d go to all the time as kids when we still lived in McAllen. Brought back memories :). I had a burrito drenched in cheese, which I immediately regretted as it made my stomach feel gross, but man was it good!

We got home and basically chilled out all day. Mario vacummed all the cars (including his mom’s and dad’s LOL) and then he bar-b-q’d. But right before that, he helped big Mario, er…prepare the cutest goat ever to become food. The boys took it much better than I thought they would!

When he was done bar-b-q’ing I made sure I was only served fajitas!

I finally finished reading Shopaholic Takes Manhattan and wanted to start on Shopaholic Ties the Knot, but I don’t have it. So instead of buying the book I went to the library to rent it out, and if they didn’t have it then they would have ordered it for me from another library, but they were closed. Who knows how long they’ve been closing at 4, but they did yesterday :(. I think I’m going to start on one I already have. Probably Sushi for Beginners by Marian Keyes.

Mario and I tried watching TV last night but Alaethia was in a bad mood. She gets that way about half an hour before she falls asleep, without fail, every night. I was so tired I kept nodding off, so Mario told me to lay down since I was falling asleep. So I did. At around 11pm. And when she woke up at 6 for a bottle I still felt exhausted. It’s really caught up with me, not sleeping well.

As for today, Mom, John, the kiddos and I all went to town to drop Mario’s keys off at work to him, then get him some energy drinks and then I paid bills. I stopped by the thrift store to see if they had anything good (I went today since I told myself I wasn’t going anywhere all next week) but they had nothing.

We went to see Gramma for a while, who held Alaethia for a good while. We even took pictures! John took pictures of all 4 generations of us: Gramma, Mom, me and Alaethia. I’m totally getting lots of copies of those pictures :). I’d post them here, but I wasn’t wearing makeup and looked terrible, heh.

I made a grocery list while we were at Gramma’s and made a promise to myself to stick to it. I went to Target to get all the house things I needed, then to H-E-B for groceries. I did pretty good at Target, but veered off the list a little at H-E-B and got some brownies, vanilla ice cream and caramel, to surprise Mario with.

I really gotta get everything completely ready for the yard sale in the next few days since I’m HOPING to have it on Thursday and Friday. I still have to go through the kitchen cabinet under the sink, the top of the living room closet and give our bedrooms another once-over. I hope we have a good turnout!

Going to stop being a hermit and socialize with the family at Mary’s since Jorge and Jose are back. Goodnight!