Category: On The News

I realize I haven’t written in…forever. Everytime I update I tell myself: Self, you must update every day now that you’ve caught up. You must make the effort! But it never happens. I never have time and that really sucks. It might sound weird, but I feel like I’m missing so much if I’m not updating. Like, if I want to come back and read about something, it won’t be there :(. I was thinking of just not renewing my domain next month, but I just can’t let it go. I’ve had pixydust.net since, what? 2001? No, I just can’t. I’ve invested too much time. I’d rather just let it collect dust than someone else snatch it up.

Anyway, things’ve been good. I’ll update in more detail later, because I totally have to, but things at work have been great, the kids are all great and Sally had her baby shower last Sunday. It was awesome. I need to update all my pictures (I realized I haven’t updated my pictures since the kids started school August 27th!). Jaylen’s reading rather fluently now for a 5-year-old. He kind of just took off! Eenan’s in Oral Reading now in UIL, aside from Storytelling. Eenan’s filling also fell out on that same darn tooth that it keeps falling out of. Oh yeah, and my molar broke so I gotta get that fixed. Thank God I have Dental!

Alaethia turned 9 months today. I figured if I couldn’t update on everything else, I’d definitely have to find time to update about her 9-month birthday. She’s a doll. Everyone loves her, everyone thinks she’s the cutest thing they’ve ever seen. Her curls are CURLS now. She’s tiny, so she’s still wearing 3-6 months, which makes me happy since she’s got TONS of clothes she received at her baby shower that she didn’t get a chance to wear last winter. She’s trying her hardest to stand without help and she just zooms about in her walker. What else? She’s kind of reverting back to her early months when she’d wake up 2 + times a night. I’d gotten her to wake up only once — at 2:30am — but now she’s waking up at 12, 2 and 4:30. That really sucks since I have to wake up for work at 5:50 :(. I noticed this happens everytime she gets sick. First when she got the Roseola virus and now because of the cold she had.

She still loves her baths, although she still can’t spend too much time in the water because of her Eczema. It’s controlled at least. She does the cutest face when you’re messing with her face, for example, trying to wipe her down or give her medicine. She shuts her little eyes and pouts — it’s too darn cute.

Okay, Mario’s off today since they have a sale starting tomorrow and he has to work on Friday, his day off. The men are bar-b-q’ing outside and I have to drop Rolando, Eenan’s friend, off at home so I shall go now.

Oh yes. And we have a new dog. A white Boxer with Bengal spots on her body. And she’s got a brown and blue eye. She’s kinda weird looking, but she’s cute at the same time LOL.

All I know is: I ain’t picking up poop.

P.S. I can’t believe Dumbledore’s gay! I never imagined him being gay for some reason. Actually I never imagined him having intimate relationships. He was just Dumbledore! I think it’s pretty cool though, that the series had a gay character. I just wish we would have realized this when the story was unfolding, y’know?

P.P.S. MRSA is spreading like wildfire in the Valley. Two middle schools and an elementary have confirmed cases of one student at each with the bacterial infection. I’m so scared of it spreading to my boys’ school or to my workplace!

I’ve got to start off with these stories I heard on CNN when I woke up this morning.

First, there’s one where a mother was driving recklessly and was way over the alcohol limit. When they stopped her they discovered that her children were surrounded by crap…and cockroaches!

Police said more than 100 roaches were crawling all over Nava’s Ford Mustang and that amid the trash, open food containers and alcohol bottles was a 1-year-old child and a 3-year-old child.

“They were soaked and covered in urine and their own feces, and there were cockroaches all over the car. The officer says when he reached in to unbuckle the child, three roaches ran across his hand — they were just everywhere,” said Jacksonville Beach police Sgt. Thomas Bingham.

Full story here.

I don’t understand how a CAR can become infested with roaches. And to have the children in that filth?! Ugh!

Another one was one John brought to my attention two days ago, before it even came out on CNN. He found it on one of the gaming websites he frequents. I thought it was a joke when he told me. A mom and dad neglected their 11 month and 22 month old babies because they were addicted to video games, namely Dungeons and Dragons. I didn’t even know people could be so…stupid, for lack of a better word.

Michael Straw, 25, and Iana Straw, 23, pleaded guilty Friday to two counts each of child neglect. Each faces a maximum 12-year prison sentence.

Viloria said the Reno couple was too distracted by online video games, mainly the fantasy role-playing “Dungeons & Dragons” series, to give their children proper care.

Police said hospital staff had to shave the head of the girl because her hair was matted with cat urine. The 10-pound girl also had a mouth infection, dry skin and severe dehydration.

Her brother had to be treated for starvation and a genital infection. His lack of muscle development caused him difficulty in walking, investigators said.

Full story here.

I can’t believe that. The little girl weighed 10 pounds and is 11 months old! Some babies are born at that weight! God I can’t even believe it. I hope they serve the full 12 year sentence. And that they’re never allowed to play video games or reproduce again!

And the last one…I still don’t know if it’s true or not, but CNN.com linked two websites that supposedly have Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows spoilers. One of them was shut down, but the other is alive and kicking and looks to be legit. My curiosity overcame me and I clicked on the link…and regretted it instantly! I only read the first line, but if it’s true then I figured that was going to happen. I hate it though :(. I scrolled down and supposedly the person’s scanned the chapter titles and chapter art. I browsed through a few of those because it was too tempting. I saved the link and AFTER I’m done with the book I’ll check out the site and see if this person was for real. It looks real, but you never know. John is dying to scream out all the “spoilers” he’s seen so far, but I threatened his life so he’s keeping his mouth shut.

[EDIT @ 12:07pm] I’d linked the wrong site…I only linked the CNN one, instead of the “ZOMG SPOILERS” one. Again, BE CAREFUL! I’m not posting this to ruin the book for any one, by any means. I’m posting it, so that, like me, you can check the “facts” of this site AFTER you read the book! [/EDIT]

If you’d like to view the site or save it for later like I did, here’s the link. I’m warning you though, BE CAREFUL WHEN OPENING THE PAGE! The very first line (okay, the whole thing) contains a major spoiler, so watch out!

I really can’t wait till Saturday! I won’t be waiting in line with everyone else in my family at 12:01am at Walmart, since I reserved mine from Target and I’m sure they’re not going to be open at that time. Poo. I wouldn’t want to be driving around at that time anyway (I keep repeating this to myself as consolation, kthx).

I had planned to spend at least two straight days reading. I was even going to have meals cooked and ready for microwaving so I wouldn’t waste any time and Mom had agreed to babysit since she’s here all day anyway, but all that went out the window when I remembered I’d agreed a few weeks ago to go with Mary to her company picnic at the lake. Damn! And on Sunday Noelia and I have to go to the Baptism class for Alaethia (which lasts for 3 hours). Double damn!

As for my little Alaethia…she’s the same. Her fever went only as low as 100 last night but at least she got to rest. I’ve been alternating Tylenol and Motrin to keep her comfortable but this has gone on too long. I’m taking her back tomorrow morning. I bathed her around 8pm tonight and when I was drying her up noticed a bumpy rash on her back. Now I’m thinking she’s got Strep Throat, or Scarletina, or both. She hasn’t thrown up or had diarrhea at all since yesterday and she’s been eating very well, thank goodness. But the darn fever won’t break. She hasn’t gone below 100 today either. My poor girl :(.

I’ve been alright. I guess it was just nerves making me feel that way yesterday. I didn’t want to have Aly around town feeling the way she did so Mom watched her while John and I went to Walmart (where John returned some stuff and bought a game) and then to Target. I’d been planning to go and get the boys a few more school supplies — since they’re really inexpensive right now — and some T-shirts they liked (which were $5) on Friday, but we went today instead before they ran out. They were in love with their shirts. John owed me $5 so he paid me back with FOOD! Some chocolate chip cookie dough Pop Tarts and Dreyer’s brownie chunk ice cream. I know I said I was going to start a diet…but I’m going to start PMS’ing soon and I’m not a happy camper during that awful time without chocolate…

It was another rainy afternoon today and it was cool, so we took full advantage and everyone was outside enjoying the breeze. Alaethia especially loved it. Later on we went over to Mary’s since Big Mario bar-b-q’d. Then Jorge, Mario, Mary and I discussed Harry Potter LOL.

Well, my Aly’s asleep and is feeling really cool (!) so I’m going to take her temperature and hopefully we’ll have a few good hours of sleep. I haven’t slept more than 4 hours the past two nights, and last night was even worse because I kept getting up to check on her. Tonight, she’s sleeping in my bed. I love it…last time I tried having her sleep in my bed she clawed at and kicked me, so I couldn’t cuddle her. But now that she’s already asleep she has no choice!

I totally thought the perfect day I’d envisioned was going down the toilet. After blogging from my cell phone while waiting for Mario at his workplace I waited for about 20 more minutes until he was done with the car he’d been working on. He gets into the car and breaks the news: no paycheck. The boss hadn’t come around to sign them yet so they couldn’t give them out. We were totally broke so we had no choice but to go home. BUMMER. As Mario was getting out of the Equinox to get into his truck (the Silverado) I get a call from John telling me I’d received a package from FedEx. Yay, my laptop! The day seemed just a little brighter. We both left and (safely) raced each other home to get the first glance at the laptop.

I got here first with the boys (buahaha) and we started taking the box apart to look at the new beauty. And let me tell you: it’s gorgeous. The 17″ screen is huge, the case is a metallic-y indigo, it’s got a built-in webcam and mic, an SD card reader, it’s got a regular-sized keyboard so there’s a number pad…I could go on and on. I want to have its babies.

I set everything up and I had to make lunch so Mario messed around with it. We had some ice cream (those of you who live where there are H-E-B’s have GOT to try the Creamy Creations Smores ice cream. I could eat the whole thing on my own. But I held back…) and then looked at the clock. 3:15. Darnit. We’d missed the last “less expensive” showing of Transformers. I hate going after 6 because it’s so expensive. Then I got an idea–hello, the theatre in McAllen! We searched and there was two we could still make it to at that one. We rushed around getting shoes back on and I got Alaethia’s food ready so Mom could feed her (she was babysitting for us, bless her. If it weren’t for my mom I’d have no social life). We had exactly half an hour to get there on time but still had to stop at the ATM. We get there, it didn’t work. DAMMIT. Only other thing to do was go all the way around the crossover to the bank and withdraw from our savings. We’d already wasted 15 minutes — there was no way we’d make it on time. Mario stopped by his workplace to get something since we were already over there to get his drill and then stopped by Jorge’s work a few blocks away. Jorge told him about the Carmike Theatre. We hadn’t even thought of that one! So there we go and there’s two shows we can catch. Woo!

We get our snacks then get in line. The line was about a mile long but we still got perfect seats for the 4 of us. I ask the boys if they need to go pee and although they don’t, they go just in case. Then the movie starts.

SPOILER ALERT!! DON’T READ IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE MOVIE AND HAVEN’T!

It was THE GREATEST MOVIE, EVAR. Seriously, the best thing I’ve seen this year. Brought back memories of childhood and hoping we could have a car that would turn into a giant robot. I’ve got to admit, as girlie as I am I love cars and robots, always have. Maybe it comes from having mostly male cousins and a brother. I’m so glad my kids get to experience Transformers. Although they have loved Transformers even before the movie was even announced. Anyway, enough cheese. It was just awesome. I seriously had chills running up and down my arms and it was just suspenseful and awesome. There was also a sad part where I held it together and let the boys wrap themselves around my arms since they were crying. Eenan couldn’t stop crying after that. John totally missed out! He didn’t want to go because he said he wouldn’t enjoy it but my God, he’s going to regret it!

/END SPOILER ALERT.

I can’t wait till next week, for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix! I know I’m going to love it as much as (if not more than) Transformers.

We were a bit somber on the way home. Mario’s becoming really stressed with stupid things that keep happening at work. I won’t go into detail, but I just wish they’d notice what a hard worker he is and show their appreciation. Gargh. But anyway, we got home and chilled out at Mary’s with Jorge, Mary, Yadira and her kiddos, and Mom. We talked, laughed at Alaethia and Matthew’s baby-ness, and checked out our new laptop. We had some ice cream cake and then after everyone went home (and Mario went to Chris’) I came home with Aly. The boys are both sleeping over at Mary’s so the house is quiet, I washed up before bed and have Aly here in bed with me while blogging. This is the life right here, people. Why didn’t you all who surfed the web from bed ever tell me just how awesome this is?!

I may just finally get Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (if I don’t have it already…I have these weird balls on the back of my wrist that Carmen said look like the cysts she was diagnosed with) but dammit, it will be well worth it!

(Just looked at the time –it’s 07/07/07!! How cool is that?)

[Edit: 12:59am.] Okay, so Christina Aguilera is apparently pregnant and Mario’s heart has broken into a million pieces. Nicole Richie is also supposedly pregnant, but that one’s not confirmed. Craziness.

And also, J.K. Rowling bawled her eyes out while writing the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:

She finished the book alone in a hotel room.

“I was sobbing my heart out — I downed half a bottle of champagne from the mini bar in one and went home with mascara all over my face. That was really tough.”

… She also tells interviewer Jonathan Ross how she changed the last word in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” at the 11th hour.

So if she cried, I might just die. I can’t tell you just how friggin’ EXCITED I am about this book. I have all these theories swirling around inside my head but we’ll just have to see. Okay, I’m going to bed now, for reals. Alaethia’s asleep and it’s 1:05am, which is pretty “early” for her, so hopefully she’ll stay asleep when I place her in her crib. [/End Edit]