Category: Pets

As you can see, I changed the theme up a bit. It’s not exactly what I imagined; I wanted to throw a succulent in there somewhere, but I don’t have the proper tools for illustrating on this laptop and it’s late, etc, etc. I also need to figure out how to make my non-Wordpress pages work with the CSS/tables, but that’s a whole other day, heh. Oh well, at least the blog works!

It’s been pretty low-key the last 3 days.

My love and I spent the morning being lazy on Sunday and had breakfast at Taco Ole.

We picked up some stuff we needed for the pets (namely the fish) at Petco and then we picked up Jorge’s boys to spend the day with us.

They watched football while I did some cleaning, lazied around, cleaned my bedroom and organized my desk and then it was time to start the week. Meh.

The girls have been wonderful. They helped with dinner yesterday after John and I got back from grocery shopping:

They’ve been super polite and helpful and willing to do their homework and brush their teeth and go to bed without whining about it. Tonight they didn’t even watch TV or play on their iPads; they spend their time playing Teacher and Student. They would call me every-so-often to pretend I was picking Emily up from daycare and checking her folder, heh.

Poor Jaylen hurt himself in football so he didn’t practice today. I hope he’s better tomorrow, and definitely 100% for his game on Saturday.

Eenan’s into his art and tonight he showed me some of his earlier stuff, from middle school (through Facebook, of course). He’s come a long way :)!

As much as it pains me to do so–because I’d rather be painting, or reading blogs or working on the scrapbook page I never got around to doing…

(It’s been like that since Sunday. I at least managed to CUT the photos today, heh.) …I’m going to go ahead and get in bed. Hopefully, Jorge will keep from stealing the covers all night like he did last night and I won’t wake up every 30 minutes >_

Monday – We started our Monday off by having breakfast at Denny’s, courtesy of our boss ^_^. By the time we got back to work, I had about an hour and a half to do a few last-minute things, like confirm attendance from VIP’s and pick up the Birds of Paradise, for the reception the next day before I had to pick Emmos up from school. My luck would have it that they didn’t have the Birds of Paradise in yet; not till 1pm .

I picked up Emily from school, had a quick lunch at home, and went straight Downtown to get supplies for the centerpieces. Again, my luck–they didn’t take American Express, so I had to go back to the office and find a Visa or Mastercard. Got that, went back and collected all my supplies. Made a few more calls, guided the men who were dropping off my linens, bar and cocktail tables, then started on my centerpieces. I have to say, they came out cute ^_^:

I talked to my boys when I got home, made dinner (shrimp, cheddar and jalapeño stuffed mushrooms), spent time with my little ladies and then put them to bed. My love and I were naughty and enjoyed some RGV Cupcake Factory cupcakes that Jessica and her hubby got us :).

Tuesday – The next day was a whirlwind. First, our Temp. employee didn’t show up, so we had nobody to set-up the event that was happening that morning. Thankfully, EZ was there and was a total hero, setting everything up and icing down the drinks and wine along with Wally. They and Michelle stuck around in the evening for the event. I was glad to have moral support LOL. Everything went off without a hitch, even though Corner Stone was a bit late. I can’t be mad at them though, they always help us out and I LOVE their food. We had a great turn-out and we got to bring leftovers home, woo!

Alaethia got to enjoy some fruit while she played on the laptop (Mom had already made the girls dinner) and Jorge had leftovers. Sometimes it’s nice not having to cook, heh.

Wednesday – Since I mostly had e-mails to reply to at work (98% of them in Spanish, FML), I took Emily with me in the afternoon and Mario picked her up on his way to pick up Alaethia from school. She always enjoys going to work with me ^_^. She enjoys it too much sometimes, I think, because she’ll become mopey and upset when I won’t let her go with me. She was a total angel, though, coloring Hello Kitty pages with my highlighters ^_^.

I got home and spent time with the girls and John, who usually visits on Wednesdays. We were entertained by Ruffles, who always manages to stuff his enormous self into a small box or shopping bag :3.

Thursday – The next day was cleaning day at work, so we got to wear jeans! I coasted throughout the morning since I finished cleaning pretty fast. I concentrated more on answering a few e-mails, then went to pick Emily up. I was running late, so I didn’t even really have a chance to eat. Luckily, Anabel had an event and Koko’s was catering so we got to have some of the best fajitas and guac :).

When I got back upstairs, I had a nice pile of STUFF that needed to be filed/put in storage, courtesy of my boss, heh. When he peeked his head around the wall to check if I’d noticed the pile I gave him a look like, You’re kidding right?

But he wasn’t! He said it wouldn’t take long; just to stuff the things in the cabinets, but I spent the next 3 hours tossing things out, some that didn’t even belong in our cabinets and organizing by event. You can’t ask someone who is self-diagnosed OCD to “organize” things.

Picked up my boys in the evening and they suffered for about an hour and a half while I looked for a blouse for my Christmas party outfit. I couldn’t find anything in gold, grrr.

Got home, made dinner quickly, snuggled the girls awhile and put everyone to bed.

As I’m cleaning up the dining room I found this letter from Alaethia to Santa:

Isn’t she the most adorable, innocent thing??

Friday – Early morning for the boys and myself. Got to work and ran a few errands, including picking up the cake for our Business and Tamales event and the cupcakes for our staff Christmas party in the evening. Got back, dropped them off and picked up Emily. I got back to work, helped serve our members and then I got to eat some tamales. There were some leftover, so they gave us some to bring home. I was thrilled to have dinner “ready” for mom and the kids, since Jorge and I were going to slip out for 2 hours to attend the party.

I picked the boys up, got home, changed, Jorge changed and we were out the door.

We had such a great time :). I’m seriously a lucky girl to work with such fun, great people ^_^. The white elephant game was hilarious; about 80% of our “gifts” were wine or liquor and those were the ones people were “stealing” LOL. And of course the food was delish: Corner Stone Grill was catering again, woo!

When the party was over, everyone broke up into groups and went off to their after parties. Michelle wanted us to join them, but we wanted to get back home to the kids. And we did, and watched movies and relaxed :).

Saturday – All the kids and Mom and myself piled into the car and ran errands: mom had a bill to pay, I did some shopping for Briana and Dina at this cute boutique we discovered Downtown and then took the kids to Game Stop. Got home, made lunch and then the girls and I did some shopping at Target while Mom stayed with the boys.

Jorge was BBQ’ing for us that night (which everyone was glad about–the boys love BBQ’ing). Mom and Julien played with a tiny soccer ball, Julien rode a bike around and then he and Mom went inside since a cold front was coming in. I assisted with the cooking and we brought all the food in since it was chilly by the time it was ready. Eenan and I had about 5 quesadillas each that night. Lawd.

Sunday – We lazied around on Sunday, watching football and doing chores. The kids wanted to watch one of the Walking Dead episodes, and although I told the girls they’d be scared later they piled into our room with the boys. It was hilarious when Jorgie yelled, “Ok, everybody scootsies!!!” LOL

Eenan WAS going to watch the TV with the other kids, until I busted out my phone to snap a pic and he bailed LOL. I miss the days when I would force him to take a photo *sigh*. They grow so fast!

*sigh* I never finish with these darn posts!! I started this one last week and am JUST finishing it up (I hope).

I got out of work at 4pm on Thursday (the 9th) and stopped to get soups, orange juice and pineapple sherbert ice cream (spoiled? Yes, heh) for Jorge since he wasn’t feeling good. I’d eaten really well all day…and ruined it by buying these:

*sigh*

I was on my way home when Jorge called that he was on his way to the bank because he’d forgotten to go earlier. He didn’t sound good at all, but he insisted on going since the bank was about to close. He got home, had some juice and started tidying up. I told him he should really lay down and rest, but he said the drive and getting out of bed made him feel better. I was impressed; he vacuumed and did some laundry while I cooked dinner. I made chicken Alfredo. Emily had about 3 1/2 servings of the noodles!

The kids and I had some Oreos after dinner. I had 5 . I totally would have eaten more, but a voice inside my head kept saying, Quit your crap, fatty!

My love ate some soup and then continued cleaning. I think he just really likes that vacuum, heh. I painted the girls’ nails with the new polishes I’d bought and then they entertained themselves while we finished with the bedroom.

We got the kiddos ready for bed since we’d been invited to a gathering/party thing. We weren’t sure what the attire was so we dressed business-casually. I wore this one dress and of course complained about my fatness the entire time I dressed. I moped and pouted and asked Jorge what he thought of the dress. He opened the shower door, scanned me over and said, “God, you’re gorgeous. What are you doing with me?!” and dramatically closed the shower door. I told him, “Oh, stop it!”, and rolled my eyes. He continued with his compliments the entire evening. I even caught him gazing at me sweetly when I was putting my make-up on in the car and he said, “You’re so beautiful!” He always knows how to flatter me . I love him ♥!

I’ve always had pretty crappy self-esteem, and even with all his compliments I’m still hard on myself, but I’ve honestly never felt more confident than I have since Jorge and I got together :). (Even during my bout of weight-gain and bad acne .)

Anyhoot, we didn’t want to be out long since Jorge still wasn’t 100% and the kiddos were at home with Mom. We stopped at Starbucks to get coffee since both of us felt sleepy (and it was barely 9:45pm). We realized as soon as we arrived at the “party” that we were overdressed, heh. Everyone was in jeans and t-shirts. We said hello to the organizers, stuck around for about 10 minutes just so we didn’t seem rude, and left. We were all dressed up with nowhere to go, so we stopped for a quick drink at our favorite place.

I only had one because I could hear that voice inside my head scolding me again. Jorge watched a little bit of football and we talked about his weird bout of sickness that day. He had chills, fever, aches and felt dizzy and disoriented, but had no signs of any type of cold or stomach flu. I brought up his Guy’s Night from the night before and told him, “What if you gave yourself some type of weird alcohol poisoning?!” He got serious, then laughed and said, “Nahhhh. That couldn’t have happened, could it??” We laughed and joked about different reasons he may have gotten sick for about 10 minutes and then we headed home :).

The girls were asleep, boys were still awake (of course) when we got home. We gave them 30 more minutes and then all electronics were confiscated, heh. We snuggled in our room and poor Aly woke up with a knee-ache. Got the Motrin and her rice-sock heated up and she fell fast asleep again :).

Friday, August 10th

It was Friday and I managed to eat homemade food all week, with the exception of Tuesday, when we had Corner Stone Catering at work. I was pretty proud and felt pretty darn good :).

The morning went by pretty quickly. I got a few bills signed/approved and when the Boss Boss saw me he said, “Hey Shorty, are you wearing your ‘tall’ shoes?”

On cue I pick up my foot and show him my wedges. He laughs and says,”You know, I was watching the Olympics and I remembered you.” I laughed and knowingly said, “The short Gymnasts?” And he says, “YES. They’re the same height you are!”

Ahhhh. The short jokes will never get old LOL. And to think, as I get older, I’m just gonna get smaller

I The marketing rep from a local bank had stopped by and we chit-chatted for a bit. I’m hoping they’ll be sponsors for a few of my upcoming events.

I ate lunch, read some blogs, tried blogging (but didn’t get to do much) and then I covered the front desk for an hour. Maritza and Gerry got back from lunch and told me there was Starbucks coffee in the kitchen. They brought me a glass of iced coffee; about 12-15oz I’d say. And I prepared it with regular creamer and Sweet N Low. It was great! I went to Beto’s office to check on my hours (since we’re still cutting during summer) and he said, “Time to go!” This was around 2pm-2:30pm. I got my stuff and headed out the door :).

I got home and was greeted by 8 kids LOL. Briana had dropped off Nick and Mia for a few hours since her babysitter cancelled on her. The girls followed me around, we fed the new kitty, and then I had them play with their homemade Koolaid Play-doh while I made dinner.

Briana got here right when the food was out of the oven but couldn’t stay long. The rest of the kiddos ate and then I went outside in the 103 degree heat to clean the pool. Darn thing. The cover STILL flies off and the mesquite trees make a darn mess! So I busted out the hose and vacuum and got working. Jorge got here and changed and then helped me finish up. We all got ready and got in for a good hour or so. It dawned on me that this awesome summer is coming to a close very soon. It makes me sad, because then we’ll get back into the old routine, which means my boys will only be here every other Wednesday from Thursday-Monday morning . Ugh. I hate to think about it.

I bathed the girls, debated whether I should work out but instead I came to the living room with the kiddos and watched their shows with them. And promptly fell asleep. I think that’s a pretty good way to spend a Friday night :).

Saturday, August 11th

My love left to work 🙁 and I laid in bed, waiting for one of the kids to wake up. It’s usually Emily. I tossed and turned and COULD NOT go back to sleep. I waited and waited for a child to make one peep, like they usually do Saturday morning. But nope. An hour and a half later they were ALL STILL ASLEEP! Just my luck, eh??

So I finally got out of bed and weighed myself. I was pleased to see that I’d lost 2.5 pounds in a week (or 6 days, actually) from staying away from restaurants for the most part, and keeping track of my calories again. If I could just get some exercise in…

I went to the kitchen and started banging pots around to wake the children up. Kidding! But I did end up waking Eenan up, and then Emily. We were out of milk, so there would be no cereal (and I actually wanted some Special K for once), so I whipped up some homemade cinnamon vanilla waffles (2.5 pounds, what?). When I get that recipe just right I’ll add it to the recipes page :). I texted Sally to ask if she’d had breakfast yet. She hadn’t, so she was coming over, woo!

We gossiped over coffee while we waited for the waffles to come out and I removed little girls off the counter. Finally I gave up and just let them wash dishes:

We talked about everything under the sun. We talked about our Moms’ health, and then about our dads. Our dads go waaaay back. They were best friends before we were. I told her Dad still visits her dad often. When I get a chance to talk to him, he’ll tell me something like, “Fui a visitar a mi viejito. Le ayude componer su secadora.” I went to visit my little old man, I helped him fix his dryer.

She laughs and says, “That’s what we’re gonna say! I’m going to visit my viejita. She’s making waffles again!” It was hilarious :). I really do hope we’ll still be having waffles and coffee and gossiping years and years from now :).

We sat around talking for a while and then I paid some bills online and chilled out with the kids. The girls were all over the new tiny kitty. Alaethia randomly tells me, “I love little kitties more than big kitties. The kitties at Dad’s are kitties. But I’m pretty sure Ruffles is a LION” :). She’s so cute!

I paid some bills online (story of my life!) and then Jorge got home, early! We went to HEB for our weekly shopping and some BBQ stuff, since we were celebrating Mom’s birthday early. Her birthday is on the 19th and the kiddos would be with the other parents that weekend.

Jorge fired up the grill when we got home, brought down the projector and tuned in to his football game. Oh lordy. Here it comes! Guys screaming at the tops of their lungs on the porch LOL.

Freddy and his son came over and then Sally and Carlos did. We chilled out outside and watched our guys bond over football, aww LOL. The kids all ate and then played in the boys room. Emily, of course, was the only one who sat outside with us. She’s glued to me, always. But I don’t mind because she won’t always be :(.

Even though I was watching what I ate, I made Sally and myself some mango Margaritas. They didn’t come out as good as when Jorge makes them, though :(. And they could have been mango-ier but the girls kept stealing pieces .

Sally and me (or me and Sally, actually). With my curly hair, ’cause I was too lazy to flat-iron it. Or to put on make-up. Heh. This might be only my 2nd full-body photo on my blog, ever, if I recall correctly. But then again my mind isn’t what it used to be .

Anyway, it was another great night :). Quite a great way to end a great week!