Category: Events

Mario and I went to sleep pretty late Saturday night (the 8th). I didn’t feel like waking up the next morning and because I still had that strange feeling about going to Mario’s Grandpa’s property I wondered if I should wake Mario up at all and just forget the whole thing. But no. I knew if I did that he’d be upset. So I got up at 9am and woke him up at 9:30. Mom stayed with the kids and we were out the door with ammunition and weapons in tow by 10:30.

We took the scenic route in Mario’s truck and saw an array of birds, like cranes and parrots. It was such a nice day, sunny and breezy. All the way over there I questioned Mario and nagged about this being a bad idea. I clearly remember his words: “When I start to worry, then you can worry, okay?” Besides, his uncles would practice there all the time.

I was nervous, but I believed Mario and started to calm down. I took pictures of the beautiful scenery before me: Mario’s grandfather’s property is right on the Rio Grande River border with Mexico. The property’s on a cliff and you can see the river below and the brushy fields of Mexico just on the other side. There’s about 10-15 feet of space between the fence of the property and the edge of the cliff.

I actually got kind of excited watching Mario shoot his handgun at the paper target he placed on the large mound of dirt, or berm. I wanted to try. He reloaded it and let me try. It was an unexpected jolt, that first shot, so I closed my eyes and Mario corrected me and told me to aim as best as I could. So I did better. We took pictures of each other and then Mario started shooting with the AR-15. It looked so awesome. Mario reloaded and handed me the rifle. It felt sort of uncomfortable and I kept changing my mind because I thought I’d dislocate my shoulder or something if the gun kicked back too hard, but I did even better with the rifle than I did with the handgun. I even hit a few targets!

Mario was on his way to reload the Glock when we see a Sullivan City police cruiser drive up in the tiny space between the fence and the cliff. My heart sinks and I shoot a look at Mario that says, “TOLD YOU SO!” He hands me the Glock and I put it on the bed of the truck. Mario was already at the fence speaking to the officers by the time I got enough courage to walk over there myself. They asked if we knew it was illegal to be shooting there. Mario said, “No, sir, I didn’t.” The first cop, who was being really aggressive, told Mario, “Oh, c’mon! You know you can’t be shooting here.” He immediately gets on his phone and we turn our attention to the other cop. He was an old co-worker of Mario’s back from his hospital days. They started catching up and then he updates Mario on what’s going on and why they’re there. Turns out they got a call from someone reporting that people were shooting into the Rio Grande River, which is illegal. Then they heard that people were exchanging fire between Mexico and the U.S. Then they heard that someone had gotten shot in the arm and was being transported to a hospital in somewhere called Santander. It was all too much to take in. They didn’t have a straight story, but what alarmed me was that someone might possibly be hurt. We were just there to practice and all of a sudden one of us may have shot someone, more than likely ME because I missed a shot. Just one freaking shot.

When the cops had walked away I whispered to Mario, “Are you worried yet?” He squeezes my shoulder and says, “No, I’m not.” I asked him what they said before I got to the fence and he said they asked if we’d heard any screaming. I thought, “WHAT? How terrible!”

They told us they’d have to hold us there for questioning and filing statements; something I never thought I’d have to do in my life. My head was spinning. I just wanted to know if I did shoot someone. Border Patrol showed up with their own AR-15’s to “back-up” the cops because they, too, were told that there was an exchange of fire. By now I was bawling and all these thoughts were going through my head like, “How much will we be fined for shooting here illegally? Did I hurt someone? What if the bullet had gone just a few inches to the right or left–I could have killed someone! Will I go to jail? Will I see my kids again?”

The cops noticed I was inconsolable and the aggressive one softened up. The one that new Mario walked up to me and said, “Ma’am, don’t get that way. You didn’t do anything wrong. It was an accident. Don’t get sad.” But still, no matter what anyone said, I couldn’t help but feel a ball of guilt in my chest.

Border Patrol left because they figured out they had nothing to do there. Everyone was getting frustrated because stories were being criss-crossed here and there and they weren’t getting anywhere. The cops were communicating with someone on the other side of the river; shouting responses and gesturing with their hands. This was around the time Jorge, Jose and Isiah got there. I turned to Mario when I heard feet crunching on branches behind me and said, “Oh no.” The last thing I needed was to be made fun of or be scolded. Neither of which ever happened. Jorge saw me crying and said, “Don’t cry, you didn’t do anything wrong. It was an accident.” Mario was being great and held me and said everything he needed to say to keep me from hyperventilating and passing out. Mario called his mom during this time to let her know what was going on. She rushed over there between one of her meetings stayed with us for moral support. Jose crossed over the fence to see what was going on and talk with the cops. We couldn’t see what was going on over the cliff, but he said they’d been shouting and gesturing to a group of men on the other side; men who were supposedly working in the fields, which later raised questions because only two of the men had hoes and the fields hadn’t been worked on in 10 years. They’re still not sure if they’re the ones who called, because whoever called, called the Sullivan City police and it wasn’t a hospital or any type of institution. Jorge and Jose were convinced that these guys were ready to cross.

About half an hour later the Sheriffs show up. We give them our details and he asks Mario, “Is she your girlfriend? Wife?” and Mario says, “Wife. 9 years.” The sherriff chuckles and says,”Happy couple? You’ve got to be after 9 years! Only a happy couple would shoot together and not at each other!” LOL. We apologized for shooting in the property. The officer said, “Who said you couldn’t shot here?” and Mario replied, “Well, the cops from Sullivan did.” The sheriff shakes his head and says, “This isn’t part of the city. This is County. You have every right to shoot here as long as you’re following the rules — which you were by shooting at the berm — and as long as you’re not shooting into the river, across the river, or towards houses.” I shook my head and tell him, “I don’t understand how I can’t hit a bull’s eye on the paper target, but I shoot the only Mexican standing on the other side of the river.” I didn’t mean it to be funny at the time, but he laughed LOL.

So we weren’t going to be fined. Now it was a matter of finding out if this guy was okay. Sobbing, I asked the sheriff if they knew if “he” was okay; that we’d even take care of hospital bills, I just wanted to know if he was okay. He, like everyone else, tells me not to cry and that so far they couldn’t identify anyone and now they’re wondering if anyone got shot at all.

We were there another hour before they heard anything else. Mary had left to her other meeting and Jorge, Jose and Isiah stayed with us. I told them they should go; it was hot and we were going to be there a while and they shouldn’t have to suffer for my mistake. They said we’re family and we stick together. Aww :*). I’m so glad they were there. They helped us relax a little and they’d joke around and we even went to the fence of the ranch next door to feed mesquite tree greens to the goats. I kept thinking about Carmen’s babyshower and how I was going to miss it. I texted her to let her know I wouldn’t be making it.

Meanwhile, the sherriffs had been making calls to every hospital in the area in Mexico and nobody had any info on anyone who’d been shot in the arm, or taken in for being shot anywhere on their body. They also started questioning the path of the bullet; it was windy, which wouldn’t affect it’s direction too much, but the area where the man was supposedly shot and the area where we were standing and shooting on the property weren’t adding up. We got cards from the sherriffs in case we needed to speak to them and the older of the two men told me again that I hadn’t done anything wrong and we could continue to practice if we liked. The younger one even told us how to create a higher, less-penetrable berm.

They stayed with us till the crime scene investigator showed up a while later. He took our info, our statements, took pictures of the crime scene (my gosh, I never thought I’d be saying that either) which was just pictures of the berm, the targets, and the casings that were littered on the ground; all the while joking with us and trying to keep us calm. He also told us we weren’t doing anything wrong and that, so far, it didn’t seem like anyone did get shot. He said I would have had to be standing on the edge of the cliff, shooting down in order to have hit anyone on the other side. He said, “This guy would have had to be the unluckiest guy in the world to get hit with a stray, one-in-a-million bullet, and I doubt yours was the millionth one.”

So I felt much better after that. They held our weapons just in case someone who’d gotten shot came forward; then they’d have to run ballistics. It’s been two weeks and we haven’t gotten them back, so I’m assuming that no news is good news.

We all went to eat at El Pato after that. We were starving. Mario and I hadn’t even had breakfast that morning and it was now 4:30pm. Now we were alright and somewhat in the clear and everyone took the opportunity to joke around. Jorge started calling me Annie Oakley, and now everyone calls me that LOL. We get home and Andy and Noelia are on their way to visit and Andy’s dubbed me Killer! By the time we’d made it home both sides of the family had somehow gotten word about our fiasco and were calling to make sure we were alright. Word really travels fast!

Couldn’t find a more perfect title for my entry. Rushing. It’s how I live my life these days. I rush to work in the morning. I rush around getting everything done that I need to get done at work, I rush at the end of the day so that I’ll get out on time — at 3 — and I rush all the way down that long, empty road to the boys’ school to pick them up. I get home and I rush around running errands, helping with homework, spending time with them, spending time with friends and/or family, making dinner, working out (yes, I’m REALLY working out!), getting everyone bathed, into bed, spending time with Mario and rushing into the shower myself, ironing and rushing to get into bed by 10:30 so I’ll at least get 7 hours of sleep — which usually doesn’t happen. And in the morning…I do it all over again.

I have to admit, it beats being bored like I sometimes was when I was a stay-at-home mom, but I also have to admit that after all these months of working: I’m still not used to it!

The last time I wrote I was weaning Alaethia off the bottle. I’m proud to say that that last time I updated was the last “bad” night we had while weaning. So, in total, it took 2 days to wean her off. Record! It took 3 days each with the boys. One of my proud moments as a mother, if I do say so myself!

The zoo was awesome! Mario didn’t get to go because we went on a Saturday and he works on Saturdays. But he didn’t want to go anyway. He’s been a sport in the past but he doesn’t very much enjoy himself LOL. Anyway, it was a cool day and Alaethia was dressed in fresh capris and floppy hat and the boys wore caps and jeans since it was cool in the morning. The aviary was closed but they had this cool new addition where we feed parakeets and cockatiels! That was probably the kids’ (including Alaethia) favorite part of the whole visit. I took some pretty awesome pictures; first time at the zoo with my Kodak Z650.

I didn’t take as many pictures of the boys with Alaethia as I wanted. Our traditional picture with the large, metal (?) alligator had two takes…the second one with a crying Eenan because he didn’t want to take the picture. I only got one with the turtle at the Reptile Room of Jaylen and Alaethia…and it was blurry. We didn’t even get one with the lion statue. Oh! And speaking of lions: all the animals were in heat! I took an awesome picture of the lioness on her back, roaring like there was no tomorrow. At first we thought it was a fake roar being emitted from some type of huge speaker. But nope, it was a real-life lion looking for her man…who was lazily licking himself feet away from her in a corner. Typical!

The boys got to pet a snake but I didn’t even get pictures of that. Or of them lovingly stroking a Silky Chicken…the fluffiest damn chicken I’ve ever seen! He was so cute and so tame. He’d let everyone pick him up and he’d just hang there, all limp LOL. I didn’t get pictures of the camel licking Alaethia, just on my cell camera. My camera and batteries aren’t used to me taking THAT many pictures in a few hours. It just died on me.

We bought souvenirs ($40 worth — EEK!) then ate at the mall in Brownsville. When we were getting back into the Equinox Eenan and Jaylen climbed in and I began to fasten Alaethia into her new big-girl car seat. It always happens: Mom doesn’t check to see if any of the kids are leaning on the door and the boys always lean on the door. You can imagine what happened next. Mom opened the door and out flies Eenan, back-first onto the sharp, bumpy pavement. It happened so fast I didn’t even have a chance to react, and even if I did, I had Alaethia in my arms and I was on the other side of the vehicle. I’d never heard Eenan utter such an earsplitting scream, and he screams a lot. A huge bump quickly formed where he hit himself. We held cold bottles and cold, wet napkins to his head since the ice in the ice chest had already melted by then. We kept him awake for 3 hours and he never showed signs of losing consciousness or slurred language so we didn’t rush to the hospital. We went to church that night and I prayed and prayed that he’d be alright and that the bump would go away. I prepared him for a visit to the doctor on Monday if the bump still hadn’t gone away.

We attended Mario’s cousin, Amy’s, baby shower on Sunday the 10th. It was at one of my favorite Mexican restaurants. She looked too cute. She’s small-framed and even though this is her second baby, she’s still tiny.

I took Eenan to the doctor after school and work Monday afternoon. His bump had mostly gone down but I was taking him in anyway, as a precaution. Turns out it had been a Hematoma but since nothing odd or scary happened during the first 24 hours, he was absolutely fine. THANK GOD.

I spent Tuesday night finishing up my darn sewing project, the bag. I attended my last sewing class on Wednesday the 13th. We finished up our bag and then got a quick lesson on using patterns. We prepared pajama bottoms; all we had to do was sew them up at home. I still haven’t finished them!

Wednesday was such a stressful day at work. I spent the morning creating and sending out purchase orders, which is a new chore I’ve recently inherited. It’s such a pain do to those things. Plus the program wasn’t working on my computer so I had to keep bothering the ladies in the office for one of their computers. They didn’t mind, but I still felt like I was intruding. When I got back to the library I was in shock to find it completely full of kids. It was loud and my headache got worse. Then this kid made it worse by just being completely rude. I sent him back to his class and told him to come back when he felt like being respectful.

Valentine’s Day, well, it sucked. We were broke so I already knew we weren’t doing anything special. Mario didn’t get home early at all, either. And I don’t know what caused it, but we had one of our “talks” that we’ve been having quite often lately and he ended up leaving to Adan’s (his cousin) a street away instead of kissing and making up or something. Well, it’s not like it would have been much kissing since I had to go to sleep for work the next morning. Mary even offered to watch the kids during the weekend so we could get away alone together, but they’re having this huge sale at his work for the next two months and they’re not getting any days off. Yippy.

We had our first school dance at the new campus, the Favorites. We closed the library down since my boss was one of the coordinators and I was helping with the sashes and photos. Mrs. G. visited us and updated us on her life. Us being Mrs. R. and me. It was a nice afternoon. I had to rush home and get Aly and the boys ready so we could go pay bills. Mom tagged along. I was in such a rush, it was awful. I also had to buy an outfit for that night, since it was my company V-Day party. It took me forever, of course. Almost halfway home I realize I didn’t pay my Conn’s payment. I almost wanted to wait, but there was no way. It would ruin my no-interest, no-payment for 12 months!

I got ready in a record half-hour and still left a little late to pick Mario up from work. I was picking him up and he was leaving his truck in the garage at work. He changed and then we got to the restaurant. A new Mexican restaurant called Juancho’s. A whole lot of co-workers made it this time and we had a really nice time. My strawberry Margarita was delicious and the food was awesome. And Mario and I spent time together and laughed like the day before had never happened. After we’d had our fill of talk and food, we went over to Adan and Jason’s. We stayed there till 1am and then I got home and crashed the hell out!

I dropped Mario off at work the next day and rushed home to pick everyone else up. I shopped a little at Target, which was my Valentine’s Day present from Mario: shopping. I bought some really cute shoes and some blouses. Which was awesome because I’d be able to wear them with jeans the next week since we were having a fundraiser the whole week of the 18th to the 22nd. Mary’d gone with us that day. We paid bills, saw Gramma for a while, ate at The House of China (yum!), went to the movies to watch The Spiderwick Chronicles (which was an awesome and super cute movie! Now I want to read the books!) and then we topped it off by going to Walmart. I was SO TIRED.

We had another baby shower to go to, this time Cindy, another cousin of Mario’s. They had such cute decorations and even chocolate-covered strawberries! Alaethia started walking a lot more after that day. I think it was because everyone kept asking if she was walking yet and we’d say, “Well, sort of. Not really. Sometimes.” She’s doing pretty well taking steps on her own, but she’s not completely walking on her own yet. She is, however, dancing like there’s no tomorrow! And she “sings” which is really just humming. As soon as she hears music, she starts shaking her little hips and waves her arms up and down. She’s got excellent balance when she dances, too! And she’s still got her little “fangs” on her upper gums, but her two middle ones are coming in, too. Gotta get a good picture of the fangs. She’s just darling. And she’s only waking up once at night, thank goodness!

Oh, I forgot to mention: when I’d taken Eenan to the doctor the Monday before, I weighed myself and OMG, I weigh 127.5 lbs!! That’s seriously the most I’ve ever weighed while NOT pregnant! The most I should weigh for my height is 125, so I’ve got a slight problem here. Mary and I decided we were going to start working out. So we work out 3 times a week (it would be more if we had time!) for half an hour to 45 minutes. We worked out Wednesday and Thursday and stopped from Friday to Sunday. I’ve been trying my hardest to eat a little healthier, but my gosh, with my schedule at work I’m always starving and when I get home I pig out. And here I thought working would keep me from snacking. I weighed less when I was at home all the time!

Thursday was Eenan’s GT Parent Night. It was nice. There were several schools there and his class sang a song and they had this awesome display where they made sea animals with clay. He made this awesome barracuda! We had snacks at the cafeteria and then we bought chicken from Church’s. Totally defeated the purpose of working out, but we ate first and worked out afterwards. Yadira worked out with us that night. It was fun!

Not too sure what I did Friday…oh yes! The whole family was here and we all helped out dicing and slicing stuff up for the shrimp cocktail we were having that night. Eenan’s friend Pat came over for a while and his mom and I had a chat outside for a while. I had no idea his mom was the school nurse!

I cleaned house most of Saturday morning and we left to town about 4pm. The boys stayed with Mary, thank goodness, because I was going to Ross and they HATE Ross. I bought a few house things there: a lilac bath rug, some floating shelves for the living room and a huge pillow because I needed a new one. We went to see Gramma after that and then we came home. Then Mario and I and the kids (minus Eenan) went to Jorge and Maggie’s. I hadn’t seen her in a month and she’s been working! A pretty good job, too! We chatted and then I painted Alaethia’s toenails for the first time ever and then we came home.

It was Jorgie’s 7th birthday party the next day. Mario and I picked up some brisket plates I’d bought from a co-worker and then we had a mini shopping spree at Target. Gosh, I love Target.

The kids had a blast on the Moon Jump, including Alaethia. Maggie out-did herself with the food, as always. I got to see Jorge’s Mom, sister and cousin. I hadn’t seen them in forever!

Mario had the brilliant idea to pick up his dad’s screen, projector and the 360. Let me just say my 8 and 5-year-olds kicked 20-something-year-olds’ butts!! They came in second each time. They were only beat because Jorge or Mario would win at the last minute LOL.

Mario ended up staying there and I came home with the kids since I had to get ready for Monday. I was a bit upset about that. Even moreso when he never got home and then ended up sleeping at Adan’s because he didn’t have a key to get in the house, the moron LOL. He SAYS he knocked on the window so I’d let him in and he did text me, but I guess I was dead asleep. Oh well.

Monday was like every other Monday, including running around paying bills. Tuesday was SUCH stressful day at work. First, the internet was down most of the day and so I ended up with a huge pile of books that didn’t get checked in. Then at the last minute I’m asked to set up a projector, digital document camera and a laptop (and a screen, which I had to track down the janitors to put up) when I had 10 minutes left before I had to clock out. I ended up staying 20 extra minutes, which made me super late picking up the kids. At least I had dinner with Jessica to look forward to! I hadn’t seen her in forever! 5 years in fact! It was so fun. We went to Dustee’s Accessory shop and then ate at Chili’s. We ran into another classmate’s hubby and we spoke to him for a while and then when he left we gossiped and just had a great time. I don’t want to lose touch with her again! She’s one of my very best friends. I still need to meet up with Karina, Sally and Carmen sometime this week, I hope. I’m glad to be at a point in life where I’ve “found” a lot of my long-time best friends. My life seriously didn’t feel complete without them!

Today was a much easier and low-key. We had faculty meetings in the library all day so it was closed to the students. I had a chance to catch up on checking in books, shelving books (and Mrs. R. came in today and she’s LOADS of help!), chatted with my boss and then helped one of our best helpers reach his reading goal so that he can go with us to the field trip to Fantasyland Skate Center next Friday. He’s already half way there!

So there we go. Whoo! I made dinner tonight and worked out and got my blog typed up and finished for once! I didn’t finish up laundry, nor did I finish hanging up the laundry I did yesterday, but that’s okay. I deserve some time for myself, I think.

Okay, so I didn’t update the day after my Long Update post like I said I would. I never had time. SO…I shall continue, for my own reference mostly. You may skip this entirely if you wish. It’s dreadfully long.

Thursday, Nov. 22nd – Thanksgiving Day. I woke up early to help Mary with the Thanksgiving preparations. The boys’d slept over at Mary’s house and were already awake and ready to come play Halo 3 but had to wait till Mario woke up. He slept till 11 or so, lucky. I kept having to come and check on Alaethia since she was sleeping in like her Daddy. The food was DELICIOUS, as it is every year. It was fun sitting around with everyone and chatting. It was nice having Noelia and Andy over especially, since we don’t get to see them that often these days. Everyone loved my Death By Chocolate desert. Andy ended up taking a huge chunk that afternoon when they left and then took some later on during the week LOL. Tommy and Mario went to the store to buy the newspaper to get the Black Friday ads, which is tradition in our family. We all sat around the table and worked out a game plan: we decided who was going to which stores and everyone got a list of what to buy. Yes, we’re that serious about getting a bargain!

Friday, November 23rd – Mario and I were in charge of Target. The main thing we were getting were the gifts for the boys. We tried sleeping but didn’t have much luck. Mario is constantly battling his insomnia and so he began playing on the computer after he couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep because of Alaethia. Mom was sleeping over and was watching the kiddos while we went on our shopping expedition. We made some coffee, grabbed our jackets and our bags and left the house at 2:30. We were so surprised to see tons of other crazy people on the road at that hour. We arrived at Target at 3am and sat our butts down on the cold concrete for another three hours. Of all the days for it to be in the 40’s. It was complete agony. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that cold in my life. I was wearing my white, puffy jacket, a beanie, a scarf and gloves and I still couldn’t get any type of relief. Mario was only wearing his fleece pullover and a beanie. We were huddled together trying to stay as warm as possible. When we’d first arrived I scoffed at the people who’d brought lawn chairs and thick blankets along with them but after about an hour of being in the cold I felt jealous. There were even some teenage boys in a tent!

People who were arriving late tried cutting in line or standing around at the entrance to try and get in, but I was pleased when the security guards held them back. There were 27 people before us when we’d arrived and at 5:30, when everyone stood up and got ready for the stampede, there were 40. Grr.

I started regretting having that warm cup of coffee when I got an incredible urge to go pee. We ran in when it was time to and grabbed a cart. We went straight to electronics. We couldn’t find the special edition Zelda DS’s anywhere; the reason we were there in the first place. Another woman and I followed each other around asking employees and managers. I guess we both figured we were after the same thing, so if one of us found it so would the other. In my search for the DS’s I left Mario behind, which was fine because he looked for other stuff we needed. I stood at the entrance of the back room with 3 ladies (and a whole bunch of other people behind us, PUSHING) because for some reason the employees brilliantly didn’t scan the games for sale. It took an additional half hour to actually get the games. The manager comes out and holds his hand up for silence. He asks one of the employees, Rodrigo — who’d already let me and the two other ladies know we’d be getting first choice — who were the people who were first in line and he points me me and the other women. Woo! At the last minute the manager was trying to tell me they had a limit of one DS per person and I told him HELL NO, just more nicely. While I was arguing with the manager, Mario was on his way back from the bathroom. He had a Powerwheels Jorge asked us to get for him in a cart and had to abandon it while he went to pee ’cause he couldn’t wait. We hoped it wouldn’t get stolen and thank goodness, it didn’t! We had a pretty successful shopping trip; we got everything on the list! Mary, Noelia and Andy were all at Walmart and Toys R Us and got everything they (and we) needed. Mario and I went to Home Depot and to Game Stop and then met Mary, Noelia and Andy at Denny’s for breakfast. We’d started our official shopping at 6am and finished by 9am. Well, the first part anyway. We got home and had a nap with Alaethia while Mom watched the boys and then it was back to town for Mario and I again. We picked up Mario’s paycheck and stopped at a few game stores and Harbor Freight and I forget where else. At night, we went to Nelsy’s (Annie’s sister) daughter’s 1st birthday party.

Saturday, November 24th – I don’t remember much about this day except doing more shopping with Mary. We left the house around 8am and spent a lot of the day in town. If I remember correctly, when I got home with Mary I left to town with Mom and the kids to visit Gramma at the nursing home. Alaethia turned 10 months old on that day :).

I tried looking for something to wear to a wedding Mario and I were going to on Sunday, but I couldn’t find anything. I’m not too fond of the moo-moo style that’s oh-so-popular these days. I don’t need to look any heavier, thank you.

Sunday, November 25th – I dropped Mario off at work in the morning and later on all us girls (and my boys) went to Jennifer’s baby shower. I won two games :). The boys had fun. Jaylen was really upset because he hadn’t won anything. He ended up winning the last prize, which was a little plaster trinket box that he now proudly displays in his room LOL. Too cute. Alaethia was adorable as usual and was passed around the room. We rushed home because I had to get ready for that wedding I was going to with Mario. I was a little moody about going, I mean, who has a wedding on a Sunday? I didn’t even have time to do my hair since I needed to pick Mario up from work, take him his clothes so he could change, and then rush to the wedding. It was just us for a long time, until two of his female co-workers joined us. It was actually a pretty cool wedding. Everything was really quick — not like those weddings that wait to serve the cake until 12am. I guess since they knew people had to work the next day (some of us wake up at 5:20 *cough*).

I really wished Mario and I could dance, even he said so. The entertainment was awesome. They hired this awesome 10-person band and they even had dancers, balloons and black-lights! It was so cool. I told Mario I wanted to leave by 9:30, but I made him stay till 10:30. He almost had to drag me out when we were walking out the front door and there were two guys on 8 foot stilts wearing funky patterned vests and pants — I just KNOW they were going to do something cool. But anyway, what we got to see was fun. I had a blast.

Monday, November 26th Ah yes, crunch time at work. This was the week we had to haul ass and pack as quickly as we could, because the next Monday, December 3rd, we’d be starting work/school at the new building (which is 8 miles away from my house. I’m used to driving 9 streets down and getting to work in 5 minutes.).

Tuesday, November 27th I think I spent a lot of this day making copies of reading logs and passes for our new folders at work. We closed the library (meaning no more circulation of books in or out of the library) and spent a good deal of time packing.

Wednesday, Nov. 28th We started taking in all the A/V equipment (TVs, overhead projectors and projector carts). I started feeling this weird tickling in my throat around the afternoon. I figured it was the dust from moving and boxing stuff up. I went to H-E-B with John later that evening and I started feeling achy and feverish while waiting in line to pay. The sickness developed rapidly; I felt like absolute crap at night.

Thursday, Nov. 29th – Decided to go into work, even though I felt like death warmed over. I couldn’t abandon the boss, she was already at her wit’s end about what to do (she told me herself). The boss had mercy on me, thankfully. She kept saying how sorry she felt for me and that I should have stayed home. Had kids helping us with our new reading folders. Just chilled out most of the day. Got back from lunch and some guy was at my desk, in my chair. Starts telling me about how he’s a sub and was basically fired on the spot because of some incident that happened with two female students. I didn’t want to seem like I was bothered, by in my head I was panicking a little. Even more so when my boss never got back from work (she had an hour lunch that day but was actually gone for about 2) and then there was an announcement about not letting the students out of the classrooms for any reason. I was dizzy and felt like total shit by the time work was over, and I still had to pick up the boys from school. Good thing work was only a 2 minute drive to their school at the time. I got home and went straight to the doctor. I felt so horrible, even my blood pressure was way up and concerned the nurses. I was given three meds, plus ear drops and Ibuprofen for my fever. I got home and had the hardest time staying awake or walking straight. I don’t usually get sick that severely, so I was pretty freaked out. I later realized the Durahist, or whatever it’s called, was the pill that made me drowsy and dizzy. I wouldn’t take it when I was going to drive or go to work.

Friday, Nov. 30th – Alaethia started getting sick Thursday night. I spent my Recovery Day taking care of both Aly and myself. We were both boogery and sick already, so there was no point in staying away from her. I took her to the doctor and when we came home, we snuggled on the couch and passed out. Mom took care of us. Mario was out doing God knows what with his Godfather, Jorge. I was so pissed at him that day. I hardly ever saw him anymore; either we were working or he was getting home late from going out. It got to the point where the mere sight of him (when I actually saw hime angered me. I kept wanting to say something about what I was feeling but didn’t want to start a full-blown fight. Besides, if we did start arguing, what would the argument lead to? That’s what scared me.

Saturday, Dec. 1st – I tried spending most of the day trying to recover from my awful flu. My ears were pounding but other than that, I felt a little better. My fever had finally subdued and I didn’t feel as dizzy. Mrs. Ruiz was having a quinceañera for her daughter that night, but Mario didn’t really make an effort to get out early so I was more than positive I wasn’t going. I spoke to Yazmin later in the evening and she said she’d be getting back from their football game earlier than she expected so she could accompany me. So I started getting myself and Alaethia ready. Mom offered to babysit the boys (who didn’t want to go) so we were golden. Mario got home as I was straightening my hair and said he’d get ready to go with us.

We get there and the place is packed. I’d never seen such a huge turn-out. Everything looked awesome, especially Mrs. Ruiz and her daughter! I couldn’t find her at first, so we went straight to sit down while Yazmin buzzed around talking to people she knew from school. Alaethia was so well behaved and we had some cookies while we watched a presentation Mrs. Ruiz’s daughter was participating in with the ROTC (we arrived too late for dinner 🙁 ). After only an hour of being there Yazmin wants to go home because she didn’t feel comfortable. Mario also kept saying we should go home, which bothered me because I did go to his co-worker’s wedding when I really didn’t feel like it and I ended up enjoying it very much. I kept dropping hints about it but he never got the point so we gathered our things and left. I said hello and goodbye to Mrs. Ruiz when we found her, chatted a bit and dropped Yazmin off. I was peeved. Mario asks if I’d like to go to Jason and Adan’s since we were already out and I said sure.

Mirella and I chatted and I expressed to her how frustrated with Mario I was lately. I even managed to mention a few things to Mario and he was, I can only imagine, a bit startled. He probably thought I was good and fine about “us” but he had no idea.

Monday, Dec. 3rd I couldn’t sleep at all Sunday night. I wasn’t able to attend any of the tours of the new school so I had no idea how long it was going to take me to get there, nor where I was supposed to park. I got about 3 hours of sleep total and woke up at 5:20. I used to wake up at 5:40, when work was 5 minutes away. Now it’s 12-15 minutes. Those extra 20 minutes I used to get made a difference, man. Doesn’t help that the road I take to avoid traffic is super dark. I felt like I was going to fall off the edge of the world the first week I was driving over there.

The new school is HUGE. Unfinished at the time, but huge. The library is in the center of the school and it’s enormous. Let me just smash that whole first week together: The power went out for about an hour the the water went out for two hours. We didn’t have any of our library furniture in; it would be ordered on the 12th and delivered the 14th. Oh yes, and the band was being housed in our empty library because the fine arts hall wasn’t complete. I didn’t mind the kids’ music much, it was the darn metronome that drove me nuts. Even when I wasn’t in the library I’d hear “Toc toc toc toc” in my head.

We didn’t have water for two whole days, Wednesday and Thursday. I ended up being on Water Duty, where we passed out cups of water to students. The district donated 1,000 bottled waters to the school those two days. Then they tell us we might “be that way” for a month or two. Thankfully the problem was fixed by Friday.

The boss and I kept ourselves busy by finishing up the reading folders, making boxes for each class to put the folders in, cataloged and passed out presentation carts to each teacher (I actually did that myself), inventoried A/V equipment, and my gosh I can’t even remember what else. Two days out of the second week I spent in the 7th grade hall as a hall monitor while the kids benchmarked. I spent a good amount of time reading The House of the Scorpion. That is a GOOD BOOK. I really hope they make it a movie. OH! Speaking of movies! Confessions of a Shopaholic starts filming this month and should be out by October 2008! I’m so excited about that :D. I think Isla Fisher will make an awesome Becky Bloomwood!

Getting back on track…My darn phone wouldn’t get signal at work since we’re way out in the boonies so I was really bummed because Sally was due to go into labor at any minute. I was even more bummed that I was still sort of sick and wouldn’t be able to be AT the hospital with Sally like we’d both wanted. On Tuesday, December 4th, the day of my dad-in-law’s birthday, Pete and Sally’s little Peanut, Quentin Cash, was born. He’s so fair-skinned and might just have Pete’s hazel eyes. I picked up a little gift for him from Babie’s R Us and went to the hospital to see them. Poor Sally ended up having a C-Section. She was a little upset she didn’t have a girl, because we both thought she was having a girl and that they’d be best friends since childhood like us, but I told her it’s okay; Quentin can be Alaethia’s future husband LOL.

The boys caught colds around Dec. 6th and missed school. I took them to the doctor and thankfully they didn’t have strep or anything like that, but Jaylen wasn’t allowed to go back to school till the 10th. Of course the darn cold set Jaylen’s allergies off; he’s been sniffling since. I’m going to have to take him in to get checked out.

Oh, I forgot to mention. Mario got me an early Christmas gift, a Palm Centro!

Mario and I’d had that “talk” I’d been wanting to have for a while Thursday night. I won’t go into detail but I’m glad we had that talk. On my way home from work I get a text (because my new phone actually accepts them, unlike the other one!) that he’s got dinner covered. He was bar-b-quing and was genuinely making an effort to make me happy in any way possible. It’s been going much better for us since then.

On Saturday, Dec. 8th we ran errands, visited Gramma then went over to Sally’s mom’s house to visit her, Pete and Quentin. We ended up staying for an impromptu bar-b-q. It was awesome visiting with them and watching Sally care for Quentin. She’s such a good mom :). Pete’s just elated with his little man. The boys actually went with me this time and behaved pretty well. They entertained Alaethia and she just had a blast playing with Sally’s neice’s dollhouse and little cars. That’s when I got it in my head that I wanted to get her a cute dollhouse.

Mario and I went to Home Depot on Sunday, the 9th to get all the materials to fix the leaking bathroom sink. I was so relieved to have that darn sink fixed. It was so annoying. I spent the rest of the day doing last minute science projects, just like I new I would be. I kept asking the boys if they wanted to work on them during the week, but nope, they waited. Jaylen was doing a rock collection and Eenan was doing a lava lamp. Jaylen borrowed my collection of rocks (that I’ve had since childhood) and I took him to the park to get some more. I went over there with Jaylen and Alaethia and Mario met us there since he’d been dropping something off at someone’s house. I never got Jaylen’s project back for some reason?

Thurs. Dec. 13th – I picked the boys up from UIL practice and then took them to the Fair they were having at the school. Eenan didn’t end up going so it was just Jaylen, Aly, Mom and me. Jaylen got some face painting done, we got some food and came home. We were too late to play any games, but I didn’t feel like staying late anyway.

Friday, Dec. 14th – That day was so fun. We had our Extreme Readers field trip that day. At Fantasyland Skate Center! I hadn’t rollerbladed in 5 years, since I had Jaylen, and I’m 20 pounds heavier so I was quite nervous. My boss didn’t end up going since she wanted to be there when they installed the furniture so 2 6th grade teachers, the art teacher and myself were the chaperons. My group of kids were awesome, they even behaved on the bus! It was so cute watching them stick to the wall like flies when they got out on the rink. It took me a while to get used to skating again but I got the hang of it. I got too confident and tried doing a spin to stop and fell flat on my butt when one of the students called me. I couldn’t stop laughing, more from embarrassment than anything really. But it was fun. I realized Eenan’s already 8 and we’ve never taken him or Jaylen skating. We all need to get rollerblades.

We got back to work and ate Subway sandwiches and it was only about an hour before it was time for our gift exchange. I participated in the Secret Elf exchange and was more than certain my Santa was one of the girls from the front office. Turns out my Santa was a male 8th grade teacher LOL. He got me a Bath and Body works gift set. Yum! I thought I had my elf fooled, and I did at first, but some big mix-up happened and he ended up finding out who I was. He told me he liked everything he received, so that was cool.

We had another early bar-b-q that night like we’d done the week before, because Jorge loved all the food Mario’d made and then we got ready to go to my Christmas party. We were having it at Whiskey’s, a new sports bar. Mario and I’d always wanted to go there but never had the chance before. It was so awesome. The frozen strawberry margaritas were cheap and really good and they had kareoke! I didn’t feel comfortable enough going up there, but it was fun watching all my co-workers who did have the courage to sing do their thing. I was exhausted, but we didn’t end up coming home till 12:30am, which is SUPER LATE for me.

Okay, this is it for now. I WILL finish the rest of this, Dec. 15th – now, tomorrow.