Category: Decorating

New Year’s Day! I couldn’t believe it was already 2009. Which meant it was January, which meant that it was all downhill with my pregnancy. I’d have 3 more weeks of work and then BAM! The baby would be here!

We all woke up around noon. No one was here yet, which was good because something happened during the night and the menudo wasn’t ready in the morning. Aside from the menudo, Elda made Mexican hot chocolate, yum. I had like 3 glass-fulls.

We chilled out at Mary’s most of the day and had menudo for lunch. I came back home and to my bedroom an hour later and started looking through papers and receipts. That’s one of my biggest organizational problems: allowing documents to stacking up and saving crap I could throw away. And that’s because I have a file drawer especially for all that stuff in my desk.

Later in the evening I was in the bathroom and Mario was sitting on the sofa on his laptop. I heard the all-too familiar Velcro of Alaethia’s diaper. Her wonderful father was right there and didn’t notice that she removed her diaper…and pooped on floor. I couldn’t believe it. I stuck her in the bath and Mario sheepishly cleaned up her poo. Couldn’t have pooped on the tile either, no. She pooped right on the rug LOL. Once she was all fresh and clean with a new set of PJ’s she crawled into her daybed to watch The Wizard of Oz. As I’m walking out the door into the hall I hear a gasp—she’d spilled her cup of milk all over herself in her bed. I’m getting quite used to doing laundry at 11pm.

Mario and I spent the evening watching movies. That’s what I missed most about my days as a stay-at-home mom: the extra time I’d get to spend with Mario. Can’t do that when I am working because I have to be up so darn early. Soon, though. Soon.

I got up early and started making breakfast. I had a buffet of regular pancakes, banana pancakes, omelets and bacon available. Sally was coming over later, around 9:30am, so that gave me enough time to have everything ready. Mario ate breakfast and left to work. He was going to work a half-day only, so that was exciting :).

Sally got here and we ate and talked for a good while. She said we spent a lot of time eating but I would have felt horrible just getting straight to work and not even chatting. She’s such a doll, though. She gave me such great advice and even moved everything around in my closet to make more space. She even brought me two Rubbermaid storage boxes she’d bought at Target! She also foamed up the crack at the bottom of the closet floor, which I’d been asking Mario to do for the past year! I was so sad she had to leave so soon, but she also had things to do and it was her dad-in-law’s birthday.

Mario got home around 1pm. He wanted to take a nap, but asked if I wanted him to do anything around the house first. I said SURE! You don’t have to ask me twice! He began disassembling Alaethia’s crib to turn it into a daybed for her. He finished and John, who was in the living room, went to help him move it into Aly’s room. They couldn’t get it into the room at all! The hallway curves weirdly so they couldn’t make a complete turn to get the bed inside. So there’s poor Mario disassembling the crib again in the hallway, then dragging all the pieces into her room and reassembling them. He was not a happy camper after that so he wasn’t too thrilled when I asked him and John to help me (and by help me I mean they did it all since I can’t move anything heavy myself) rearrange the furniture in my bedroom. John went home and Mario went to sleep when they were done while I looked through old magazines. Mario and I had 11 magazine folders in total. Most are his. He needs to look through all of his and I still have a few folders to go through, plus a pile of junk to sort and put away.

I made up Alaethia’s daybed all pretty with her Amy Coe bedding and then I took a shower. Everyone started arriving a while later. Much to Mario’s protests he went with me to buy fireworks for the boys. While we were at the ATM we ran into Rolando and his family. Eenan was sad he missed him; I told him to go with me!

Mom spent the whole day making buñuelos and burritos for everyone. We all ate and then started taking chairs out to watch the fireworks. Just about everyone stayed under the Party Porch since it was drizzly and cold. The boys had a blast with their fireworks (under adult supervision of course—I was freaking out scolding everyone even like that LOL) and kept their hoodies and shoes on for once.

I felt so left out LOL. Everyone was having some sort of mixed drink. I’d never wanted a Margarita in my life so badly. How strange that my pregnancies with both girls have caused me to crave alcohol (not that I drink any while pregnant of course). Jose made me a virgin salty dog. It was alright.

Mario made the mistake of bringing out his shot glass that’s like 5-6 shots in one. A boy we didn’t know, Mario and Adan all took full shots of Vodka from it, instigated by Jose. I kept telling Mario not to do it, but he never listens. At least 5 people did walk away with incriminating photos and video LOL.

When midnight neared people started going crazy firing their guns into the air. I hate that about where we live. Yeah, it’s almost like the boonies, but it is a very-populated, residential area. Some of our own relatives brought out their shotguns and at first were shooting into the ground and then started shooting into the air. I herded all my kids inside and made them stay here while I helped Mary, Elda, Mom and Mona clean up. I gathered all the dishes, washed them and got in bed with Alaethia. I was a bit upset with Mario because he was out there with the gang, but I got over it. Not before lecturing him on gun safety and how dangerous it is to shoot into the air. Heck, I learned my lesson last March! The whole conversation was a bit pointless though seeing as how he was quite drunk. John had come over towards the end of the night and Mario was telling us all this story that he’d just told the night before to the exact same people that were at Adan’s. I even repeated word-for-word to John what Mario said about a second later. He didn’t believe me, which was funny.

As soon as Mario got into bed he was OUT. First time we’d ever gone to sleep “early” for New Years!

I woke up and went on a cleaning frenzy. It was really the first day since I started my Christmas vacation that I could actually concentrate on tidying up. I was so behind on everything that just maintaining cleanliness wasn’t going to be enough; I’d have to clean hardcore in order to start maintaining! That’s what working does to me; I get lazy. I don’t know how other women do it to be a full-time mom and wife, hold a job, work and still have a clean house.

I took a break and checked my Myspace for a while, then cleaned again. I was just folding towels and telling to John I should call Sally when my phone starts singing “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”. She read my mind! She asked if I wanted to meet for lunch at Olive Garden and I said of course. Mom was thankfully already over and offered to stay with the kiddos.

It was so nice seeing her. We hadn’t seen each other since Quentin’s birthday on the 6th. We talked about friends, my pregnancy, her work, my work and our marriages—those conversations are always interesting, heh. She said it was so different actually saying Emily’s name now that we knew what she’d be called, because she’s so used to just Eenan, Jaylen and Alaethia.

We talked about our houses (she wants to re-do her kitchen and I want to get my bedroom more organized) and she asked if I needed help. I said yes, sure! She said she’d be over the next day, at 7am. I promised I’d have breakfast ready.

She insisted on treating me at Olive Garden. She spoils me. I wish we could have hung out much longer but she had to get back to work. We said our ‘see you laters’ and I stopped to put gas in the truck. Can you believe I filled up with $15 (gas was $1.39 at this time)!

I stopped by Target to buy the 500gig external that was in the ads, but of course they were out. I got my inspection on the way home, finally. I’d needed to get it since October—how I dodged that bullet with the cops over here, I have no idea, but I’m grateful. How sad that I never went to get it because it takes too long and sure enough, they took about an hour or more. I got home and started cleaning again. I went into the bedroom and for once didn’t feel overwhelmed. I figured out how to rearrange the furniture; even drew a diagram. I feel really accomplished but I still have a lot to go.

Mario called on his way home from work and asked if I wanted to go to Adan’s for a bar-b-q they were having for his birthday. I said sure. Mom stayed with Alaethia, the boys stayed with Mary. The guys are so funny. So many pics nad incriminating videos were taken LOL. Jorge, Jason, Adan, Mario, two of Adan’s friends, 3 of his cousins, me and later Mirella were over. We probably would have stayed much longer, but since I had to be up early we came home at midnight. Alaethia was sleepy by the time we got home (yup, Mom still hadn’t put her to bed, can you believe it?) so that kind of worked out for us.