Category: Family

Not Much of an Aftermath…For Us

So Hurricane Dolly came and went. We all expected this huge disaster, because that’s what they were making it out to be, but luckily it only rained, became windy, and a few trees fell over and that was that. Well, for our area anyway. I know South Padre, Port Isabel, Brownsville and Harlingen were really battered by the storm. I need to call Dad tomorrow and see how he’s doing (totally forgot to today =\)…it said on the news that in his area it rained 13 inches! It flooded badly in some other small towns, too.

We spent most of the day yesterday cooped up at Mary’s. Well, the kids, mom and I did anyway. Mario was outside with his dad, Adan and later Jason drinking some beers and enjoying the rain and breeze. We didn’t have any thunder or lightning that I know of and the lights only flickered and went out twice for about 3 seconds.

Mario didn’t have to go to work again today because there wasn’t any electricity at his workplace. So he and Jorge (his Nino) spent most of the day chopping down the mesquite tree that uprooted.

One of the Only Casualties

My dad-in-law had actually been talking about getting rid of that tree because it’s so messy, but he joked, “I didn’t want to do it this week!”

Mario and I took a quick drive around town to assess the damage. Thankfully we only saw two uprooted trees:

Down The Street

Large Obstruction

I have so many things to do these next two weeks around the house. I need to unclutter my bathroom and convince Mario to fix the patch of wall he had to remove in order to fix our shower pipes, um…about a month ago. I won’t bore you with the details, but yes, I’ve got tons to do! Eenan’s birthday’s coming up and for the first time ever, we’re not having a proper party for him at say, Peter Piper Pizza the way we usually do. We’re just taking him out to eat at his favorite restaurant. With everything going on I didn’t have time to plan, nor did I save money. But he’s okay with our new plan, so that’s what counts.

I feel like having some Olive Garden…they’re having that soup and salad special for $5.99 again! Oh! And speaking of food, a while back I mentioned that my doctor said my diabetes results were normal, but to keep monitoring my sugars daily, just in case. Well, sometimes it does spike up, but rarely. I’ve been eating junk food lately, such as yesterday. We were bored and eating junk all day long. I kept checking my sugar and I was fine! Then this morning while having lunch at Mary’s I had a small amount of regular Dr. Pepper (I’ve been leery of diet drinks and aspartame since I found out I’m pregnant. I don’t know what the effects may be?) and then had a leftover Pop Tart of hers (my first Pop Tart in 3 months!) and when I checked my sugar I was fine! So hopefully I won’t have to worry too much about it during my pregnancy. I was terrified they’d tell me I’d have to inject myself with insulin, but I’m praying that’s not the case. We’ll see during my 28th week checkup, when they make me drink that orange sugar liquid.

Oh and one last quick thing about Alaethia. She loves to sing. She randomly starts singing “Happy Birthday” and “Twinkle Little Star”. She loves to sing while I’m changing her diaper. I started teaching her “Itsy Bitsy Spider” today and she caught on really quickly! Even the hand motions!

Then she was hitting the TV with the Wii sensor (OMG, I know) and I took it from her and scolded her, “You don’t hit the TV with anything, Alaethia, you understand?” And without missing a beat she turns to Jaylen who’s sitting on the sofa, points her finger and him and tells him, “‘Tand? ‘Tand?” as if he’s the one who was in trouble LOL.

She turned 1 1/2 today and I’m just so amazed by her and everything she does. She’s so brilliant I’m hoping she’ll make potty training a walk in the park for me ;).

It’ll Be Here Soon

We were up all night with Alaethia, who caught a cold out of nowhere and was having a hard time breathing. Not even the nebulizer helped. We were waiting and waiting for the crashing thunder, but nothing came.

It’s been raining on and off since we woke up at 11:28am, since we were up watching the Weather Channel, up with Alaethia and then waiting to call Mario’s boss to check if he had to go in to work or not. Hurricane Dolly’s a category 2 now and already made landfall. I’m worried about the Rio Grande River overflowing (it was already at 80% capacity) or the levees breaking. I’m worried about my cats, Alidocious and Ash (the only two I have because someone “stole” all my other ones), and Rocko :(. I don’t even have a litter box to stick them in my bathroom till the worst is over. But everyone’s trying to convince me that they’ll be okay. Not if it floods. If I have to I’ll stick them all in the bathroom, litter box or not.

And I hope Gramma’s okay. I’m sure her nursing home took proper precautions but since I’m not over there and can’t see how they’ve prepared I can’t help but feel anxious.

We made a last-minute run to Dollar General for Mom and it was PACKED yesterday night. We went to put gas in the 5-gallon jug for the generator and Mayra just so happened to park right next to me. It was so nice to see her after all this time! Hopefully next time it’s over lunch and not preparing for a hurricane LOL.

I’m just glad we’re all together (Mario and Mary didn’t have to go in to work after all). John’s at his house, but I’m sure the big chicken will come over here soon. Mom’s already over here.

I wonder how long the power will be out once it goes–because it will go. John goes bat-shit when the power’s out.

At least we’ve got tons of canned ravioli and books to keep us busy.

Training is Canceled!

As you can tell from the title, my training was canceled. It would have been nice if they’d posted it on the website, like they did for Wednesday, but NOO. I had to make breakfast in a rush, eat in a rush, and then hopefully find the place just to get there and have them tell me it’s canceled. I would have been happy about it, except that now they’re going to do at least one of the trainings the first week of August–which is my last week of vacation! And if they don’t do both that week, then they’re going to interrupt my Thanksgiving or Christmas vacation! Grr.

I’m so not looking forward to waking up at 5:20am again to go to work. That’s seriously the only thing that I don’t like about my job. And along with that goes the piles of laundry and a messy house because I’m too tired at the end of the day to do anything. That’ll be one thing to look forward to when I’m a stay-at-home mom again.

I’ve decided, finally, that I’m going to stick out working till my I go into labor. I’ve been fortunate enough to coast through this pregnancy pretty easily, but I don’t want to count my chickens because it’s still early. So knock on wood!

I’m going to let my boss know about my plan, so she can put a posting up on the employment website since it’s a long process. It took them 3 1/2 months to call me after I put in the application. It’ll be less of a headache for her and less guilt for me.

I seriously took being a stay-at-home mom for granted. I’m going to enjoy every minute of it (or try to) when I’m staying home again. I should have listened to Mario about staying home after I had Alaethia. I feel like I missed so much time with her, but in essence I really didn’t because I got to see her a few hours after work at least.

I’ve got laundry to finish, sweeping and then I’m putting all the flashlights, batteries, and candles together where they’re easily accessible. I wonder how bad this tropical storm/hurricane will be? You look at the projected path and it’s coming right for us. I guess we find out tomorrow!