Category: Shopping

I finally have time to blog and whaddya know, I can’t! I’m currently typing this in Word (9:00am).

I hate the cable guy right now. Namely, the cable guy who came over yesterday to fix the few channels that weren’t showing from our box and ruined everything. My channels are now working correctly, but for some reason he ran a new line to the pole and totally effed up Mary’s cable at her house—the box in Noelia’s room and the regular cable in her bedroom. Oh yeah, and the Roadrunner as well.

Alaethia decided that last night was the perfect time to fall asleep at 2am. Grr. She always does things like that when I absolutely have to stay awake the next morning after Mario and the boys are gone. I feel so darn sleepy right now.

So, I guess I can update a bit since I haven’t really since last Saturday. Lord knows I have the time right now. The Little Miss won’t be awake for at least 15 more minutes.

Sunday, the 6th – Mario and I spent all of last Sunday morning and afternoon putting together our new TV table for the living room. We cleaned up a tangle of wires and several piles of dust bunnies from behind and under the old entertainment center. Everything looks much neater now and there’s a lot less free surface on the TV table to leave junk on. That’s always a plus. We also freed up at least 10 cubic feet of space since getting rid of the old entertainment center.

We went to Home Depot (accompanied by John—Mom stayed with all the kiddos) to buy the stuff for The Bathroom Floor Makeover. Some 16×16 ceramic tile, adhesive, grout, a step ladder (yay, now I can finally reach the highest cupboards in the kitchen!), and a few other things equaled to $125. Our bathroom is kind of small, so that seemed like quite a lot but what can you do?

We went to an impromptu party on the way back home. It was a Communion party for one of Mario’s co-worker’s little girls. We had some posole and John and I talked about the fight from the night before and how I was more like Oscar de la Hoya (hitting and going crazy) and he was more like Mayweather (running around like a sissy after getting a little punch in) LOL. It was John’s analogy, not mine!

I tried not to leave the house unless I absolutely needed to the rest of the week. 1) because of gas prices (going to and from town will guzzle up a quarter of a tank) and 2) because I had a lot to do around the house and leaving would only prolong housecleaning. I did, however, go to Goodwill on Monday with John to drop off all the dishes, breakables and trinkets that didn’t sell at the yard sale.

Remember how I said I shouldn’t take my junk to a thrift shop I frequent because I’d buy it back? I almost did just that! I told John, “Let’s look around real quick,” after getting the stuff off the car. I ended up finding a really cute Fondue set, which I’ve always wanted for $5. Can’t WAIT to use it! I also got the boys a brand-new Golden Book of Poems for $1.

One of the items I’d donated was a ceramic Care Bear. I’d glued it back together after it came crashing down on the floor once. Since Noelia gave me another Funshine Bear exactly like the one I’d glued back together I took that one to Goodwill. As we were walking out I noticed they were bringing a shopping cart out from the back. That only means that they’re bringing out “new” merchandise. I scuttle over to the cart and tell John, “Oh, look! This Care Bear looks just like mine!” As I get closer I notice IT IS MINE. The one I’d just donated LOL. Told you I’d end up doing that!

I spent most of last week trying to gather all the junk leftover from the yard sale and what I didn’t take to Goodwill to distribute it wherever it needed to go. Didn’t help that once again the darn news didn’t tell us that it was going to rain so a lot of the stuff got wet. I had to let a lot of the clothes air-dry and some of the toys, too. I was trying to find a place to take the clothes to where they just give them to the needy and I had no luck until I remembered Norma C., one of Mary’s co-workers. Her church gives the clothes, toys, anything to needy people. So Mary took all the clothes and small toys. In all she took a good 10-15 bags of toys and clothes combined.

I still have a few things left to take to Goodwill that I didn’t notice the last time I went, so I’ll save that trip for this weekend.

(Grr. It’s already 10am and the darn cable guy STILL hasn’t gotten here. Alaethia already woke up and had a bottle and went back to sleep. I could have spent all this time sleeping! I KNEW Time Warner would do this to me!)

Mario had his day off on Friday, of course, so after picking Jaylen up we went straight to pick up Mario’s paycheck. It was pretty depressing. He made a pretty good amount this time but most of it went towards the bills. I was so hysterical over how we’d make ends meet that I was already talking about trading in my Equinox for a smaller, less expensive car. But Mario talked sense into me and told me, with the size of our family, the truck was the most practical vehicle we could have. And, as always, he was supportive and made me feel so much better about being poor LOL. He also took us to the Taco Bell/Long John Silvers restaurant, which was really sweet of him since I know he doesn’t really like either one and both are my favorites :P.

(Mother’s such a bad influence! We’re watching the DIY channel and they’re showing how to make really cute things out of polymer clay. Well, she wants to go to Michael’s—which’ll use up that quarter of a tank I was talking about—to go buy some. And some paints. Lately she’s been the one nudging me to go places when all I want to do is stay home and save gas!)

We bar-b-q’d that night (it was Jorge’s idea), which I didn’t mind at all since it saved me from cooking! I tried going to sleep early that night but of course Alaethia had other plans. I didn’t take a shower till really late and had to wake up the next morning to go run errands.

I deposited money at the bank to pay bills (damn bills!) and then I drove Mom around all over the place to get a check and then find a bank that would cash it. We ended up going to her own bank, which she was positive wasn’t going to cash it *scowl*. We went to JC Penny next, where I was going to buy myself some capri pants from Mario for Mother’s Day and got Mom some Capri pants for herself. I bought two blouses with $20 Mom gave me for Mother’s Day. I didn’t try them on at the store since there was a line a mile long for the fitting room, so unfortunately when I got home and finally tried them on I didn’t like how they fit.

We bought Gramma an outfit and some snacks for the kids and then went to see her. We spent some time with her and fixed her closet a bit and then went to have lunch again at the Taco Bell/Long John Silver’s restaurant. (And then I wonder why I don’t lose weight!)

Mario, bless him, tried to surprise me for Mother’s Day and got me a PSP. He’d overheard me saying how cool John’s was, so he thought I wanted one for myself and got me one. He told me he was going to Sears with his co-worker, Ricky, since Ricky was buying one for his son. He kept going on and on about it and said he wanted to get one. Since I thought he was talking about getting one for himself I told him John said he didn’t really like how you browsed with it online and then he said, “Well, darnit, I got you one for Mother’s Day.” Aww. I told him to keep it, since he never gets anything like that for himself. He tried. He really did try to love it and use it but he got bored really quick. That’s why the boys have the Xbox in their bedroom—Mario got bored of it REAL QUICK. He’s currently getting offers from guys at work (I think he’s selling the PSP + game and all the accessories for $250?).

We stayed home Saturday night and watched Spiderman 3 (shh!) with the kids. We had some brownies and ice cream and just sat on the couch together. It was great—we hadn’t had a night like that in quite some time!

I woke up around 10:30am Sunday morning, Mother’s Day. I noticed Mario disappeared for a while but thought nothing of it. When I got out of the shower he tells me breakfast is on the table. He’d gone over to his Mom’s to surprise me with an omelet he’d made and fruit—my favorite breakfast!

John, Mario, Mom and Alaethia stayed at the house while the rest of us went to church. It was a lovely service—long, but nice. They even sang “Las Mañanitas” and “Wind Beneath My Wings.” All around us people were crying silently and sniffing. I was emotional but held it in and was proud of myself for not bawling. Eenan had been acting up, so I told him to sit down and listen to the words of the song and after a few minutes he turns around, tears in his eyes, and wraps his arms around my waist and says, “I LOVE YOU, MOM!” I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing after that LOL.

We came back after church and this time Mom and John stayed with all the kids while Mario and I went with Mary and everyone to the cemetery to visit Mario’s maternal grandmother. We visited Grandma Ofelia, his paternal grandmother, next. She immediately told us to leave upon noticing that we didn’t have Alaethia with us LOL.

After visiting for a while, we came back home and chilled out for a bit. Noelia invited us to the Olive Garden and Mario quickly started making excuses about not going. He’s the only person on Earth that I know that doesn’t like Olive Garden. He said to take Mom with me and it can be a Mom’s night out. Plus Andy LOL. I, of course, took Aly with me since Mario was already becoming panic-stricken about looking after her. The boys are no problem since, you know, they can basically look after themselves.

It was a 2-hour wait at Olive Garden. I had to have Alaethia in my arms since it was hot and steamy with all the people that were clogging up the waiting area. We eventually made it in to the benches inside with the cool air, after we’d been waiting about 45 minutes. It was actually an hour wait, so it wasn’t that bad.

I ordered the Seafood Alfredo, which is one of my favorites. It was a really nice meal and a nice evening altogether. It would have been much more enjoyable had Mario been there, but I’m not going to force him to eat something he doesn’t want to eat.

Alaethia spent the whole time, since we left the house, sucking on her bottle and didn’t finish one ounce. It was like she was just sucking on it for comfort. I really do think she’s teething. When she became inconsolable in the car I gave her her pacifier, even though she doesn’t use it. Well, to everyone’s surprise she used it for a good 15 minutes until she fell asleep.

I half-jokingly told her, “You’re finally, at 3 months, using your chupy! You do know I’m going to take it away from you in three months, right?”

We got home later that I thought we would. We stopped by Subway to get Mario and John some meatball subs and then at Noelia’s friends’ house to drop off Noelia’s wedding invitation. By the time we got here I was exhausted and had a huge pile of dishes that had slowly accumulated throughout the week (please tell me I’m not the only one who puts off chores like that!). Since it was Mother’s Day I thought, “I’m not doing dishes today!”

The boys had Monday off from school. Inservice day. After Mario left to work and giving the boys breakfast, I cuddled up with Aly for a nap. Until around 10am when I heard Jaylen yelling at Eenan. At least I got about an hour’s worth of a nap.

I had lots of places to go that day, like Target. I knew though, that if I went without John I wouldn’t hear the end of it, so I waited for him. Then I remembered that the stupid cable guy was supposed to come by and fix my nonworking channels and I had to wait for him from 1-5pm. Greaaaat. I spent the whole afternoon washing all the darn dishes (I made a vow not to let that happen again!) and did laundry, too.

4:30 rolled around and John had already gotten home from work. Mom told us to go ahead and go, she’d watch the boys. I didn’t want to get home super late, and I knew I was, so we went. We got Alaethia in the car and left.

Post office first, forgot Mario’s PSP so we went back home, then went to the Mall to return my blouses, couldn’t find a white long-sleeved shirt for Jaylen’s field trip, John went to a few stores, then we went to Target. Our last stop was H-E-B to get groceries since we were low on everything. We got home at 8:30pm. I’d bought a ready-made lasagna since I wasn’t going to have time to get dinner ready but Mario didn’t get home till 11:30pm anyway. Hate when he does that. He could at least call and let me know he’s going to be late!

Which brings us to now, 12:12pm and still no signs of the damn cable guy. They called Jorge, to let him know they were coming to Elda’s to fix her problem but they haven’t called us. What fuckers!

(3:03pm) I got Roadrunner back up. All it took was a call to reset the IP address. The cable, however, is still not fixed. We’re still waiting for the cable guy. So yes, I stayed awake and I’m dead sleepy right now for absolutely nothing. They supposedly didn’t have a work order for our address at all. GRR.

Posting my One Photo An Hour a bit late, as usual. I decided to start extra early that morning, at 1am, since I was up anyway:

1:00am – Feeding Alaethia and reading a book (currently Sushi for Beginners by Marian Keyes). This is the usual time Alaethia falls asleep.

7:00am – Time to start the day. Aly has a bottle and once she’s asleep and in bed I get ready to iron and make Mario’s breakfast and get the boys some cereal.

8:00am – Browsing Target.com to look for a new TV table. We need more space in our tiny living room and wanted to get rid of our 6-year-old, huge entertainment center.

9:00am – My breakfast: French Vanilla Shredded Wheat and some coffee.

10:00am – Looking for something to wear so we can leave already.

11:00am – At the bank to deposit all the coins from the yard sale.

12:00pm – Arriving at the Goodwill where John pointed out that the sign said “InsuranceClams” instead of Claims!

Didn’t have a very successful thrifting day this time. Got a Making Memories album with accessories (brads, flowers, metal embellishments, etc.) for $6.50, some Rat treats for Mario’s rats ($.99), a brand-new box of 64 Crayola crayons for the boys ($.99), a cute crackled glass vase ($.50), and some thank you cards ($.27). Mom got the boys a HUGE case of sidewalk chalk for $2.00!

1:00pm – Our next stop was the mall. I’m leaving a note to my dear neighbor in the parking lot, who parked ridiculously close to my parking space. I took a picture of their license plate just in case they hit my door. I’ve learned my lesson–I got a huge dent in my door the last time some bozo parked super close to me at the mall. The first and only casualty my Equinox has suffered! And it wasn’t even my fault–that’s what gets to me.

2:00pm – When we were leaving JC Penny (where I bought some cute capris for $10.81 with an awesome coupon I had!) we stalked Spiderman per the children’s request. He was nice enough to pose with them to Jaylen’s delight.

3:00pm – Having some Taco Bell since we were starving by now. Since Mario works nearby, I was picking a snack up for him, too.

4:00pm – Saying goodbye to the Equinox as we’re leaving in Mario’s Neon. My battery died for some weird reason, after only having the truck for a year. Thank GOD we were close by to Mario’s work. He came over to check the car but the jumper didn’t work. I walked over to his work and picked up his car. He’d go over with his co-workers later to check out the car. We were going to drop some stuff off to Gramma but totally forgot everything in the truck :(.

5:00pm – Leaving Target with our new TV table :). This is John struggling with the incredibly heavy box.

6:00pm – We finally get home and Jorge and Mary are at the carport trying to get the PPV channel to work since we’d all pitched in for the fight. Jorge brought over his 32″ TV but since the box wouldn’t cooperate on that TV we had to bring out our little 27″ LOL.

7:00pm – I could have sworn I took a 7 o’clock picture, but I couldn’t find it on my camera.

8:00pm – I walked into the boys’ room to check up on them and the room was a disaster. To their disappointment I made them start cleaning up ASAP.

9:00pm – Watching the pre-big-fights and eating and holding Alaethia.

10:00pm – Alaethia fell asleep after having a bottle. She slept from 10pm to 7am the next morning! First, and so far only, time she’s done that!

11:00pm – Watching the fight. VERY disappointed with the outcome!

I removed my darn question and answer script yesterday because 1) it was hardly ever used and 2) it had an annoying error I couldn’t fix. I even searched all over Google for a remedy and nothing.

I’ve been thinking of giving the whole site a makeover. I desperately need to weed out broken links and get rid of old pages people hardly use. But then again I have this weird attachment to all my old content, which, after all these years, is the reason why all that junk’s still on the site.

Anyway, after the cable guy had come over on Thursday, Mary asked one of the customer service reps if she could get a better deal on the Starz and Encore channels because they were charging her double for each channel alone instead of for the whole package. She needed a box and I knew Mario would want one, too, so we got one. Now we have all the channels we used to have when we had DirecTV! Plus some I think. The boys and our bedroom still have the analog channels (which apparently are ancient and should have been sacked from the system 6 years ago when Starr county moved to the new cable-box one).

We went to Adan’s dad’s house that night, since he was waiting for Final Fantasy to download to the computer. Mario asked me to go and I finally said I would. Mom almost pushed me out the door and said it was totally okay, to go have fun. So after getting the boys fed, bathed and in bed we left.

We mostly chatted about music and websites and stuff. Isaac went over later and talked about the game. When we were leaving Mario’s uncle got there and he was still very visibly upset about Tia Alma. I didn’t know what to say, but as Mario spoke to him I developed a knot in my throat the size of Alaska. Whatever tears that threatened to spill out were held in since I didn’t want to make anything worse. Mario was giving him such good advice; he always knows just what to say.

We get in the car and are really quiet. I break the ice by saying, “Your poor uncle. He’s still so upset. Well–naturally.”

He replies, “I’d probably be the same way.”

“Really?”

He looks at me in disbelief and says, “You may not know this, but believe it or not, my whole life revolves around you. I wouldn’t know what to do. I know you need me because I support you and the kids and make the money and all that, but I need you for everything. I can’t cook, wash, clean–well, I can, but it’s hard!–and I can’t pay the bills. I need you.”

I sort of laugh because I’m a bit amused that he’s mentioning all these things. That’s how he tells me he needs me because he loves me. Then I remember what he said and say, “I need you for other reasons than paying the bills, you know. I just…need you here. To be with me. Because I love you.”

And he says, “Yeah. That’s what I mean. And who else would I talk to? You know how I hold everything in, then when I feel like I’m going to explode you’re the one I tell everything to.” Then he notices I’m going 20 in a 30MPH zone and tells me to speed it up. I spent the rest of the night feeling a weird mixture of sadness, elation, and fear of ever losing Mario, or Mario and the kids losing me prematurely.

It just goes to show how borrowed life really is. Why you really need to take in everyday and tell all your loved ones you love them and appreciate them. And not only that, but spend time with them. That’s something I need to start doing more with the kids. Spend good, quality time playing games or taking them to the park, or watching a good kid’s movie. Lately, when they ask me to do something with them the answer’s been, “Hold on a second, guys. I’m washing dishes.” Or some other chore that I haven’t been able to get done due to taking care of Aly. But thing’s’ve gotta change.

As for yesterday, I actually got to sleep in a little bit after the kids left to school. Mario made migas for breakfast, which–for those that don’t know–is eggs with corn tortillas chopped up into squares. I haven’t had migas in years and he did a pretty good job. We picked up Jaylen, washed dishes (he actually helped me *gasp*), and Mom stayed with the kiddos while we cashed Mario’s check and almost bawled at having to separate the money for bills. It’s been slow at work, and from what I’ve heard, at all other businesses as well. We’ve got to be extra-careful with our money this time, which means I need to keep my butt in the house and not out shopping!

Mario kept telling me he was going to take me to this awesome burger place downtown. We get there and I look up and it’s a burger joint we’d go to all the time as kids when we still lived in McAllen. Brought back memories :). I had a burrito drenched in cheese, which I immediately regretted as it made my stomach feel gross, but man was it good!

We got home and basically chilled out all day. Mario vacummed all the cars (including his mom’s and dad’s LOL) and then he bar-b-q’d. But right before that, he helped big Mario, er…prepare the cutest goat ever to become food. The boys took it much better than I thought they would!

When he was done bar-b-q’ing I made sure I was only served fajitas!

I finally finished reading Shopaholic Takes Manhattan and wanted to start on Shopaholic Ties the Knot, but I don’t have it. So instead of buying the book I went to the library to rent it out, and if they didn’t have it then they would have ordered it for me from another library, but they were closed. Who knows how long they’ve been closing at 4, but they did yesterday :(. I think I’m going to start on one I already have. Probably Sushi for Beginners by Marian Keyes.

Mario and I tried watching TV last night but Alaethia was in a bad mood. She gets that way about half an hour before she falls asleep, without fail, every night. I was so tired I kept nodding off, so Mario told me to lay down since I was falling asleep. So I did. At around 11pm. And when she woke up at 6 for a bottle I still felt exhausted. It’s really caught up with me, not sleeping well.

As for today, Mom, John, the kiddos and I all went to town to drop Mario’s keys off at work to him, then get him some energy drinks and then I paid bills. I stopped by the thrift store to see if they had anything good (I went today since I told myself I wasn’t going anywhere all next week) but they had nothing.

We went to see Gramma for a while, who held Alaethia for a good while. We even took pictures! John took pictures of all 4 generations of us: Gramma, Mom, me and Alaethia. I’m totally getting lots of copies of those pictures :). I’d post them here, but I wasn’t wearing makeup and looked terrible, heh.

I made a grocery list while we were at Gramma’s and made a promise to myself to stick to it. I went to Target to get all the house things I needed, then to H-E-B for groceries. I did pretty good at Target, but veered off the list a little at H-E-B and got some brownies, vanilla ice cream and caramel, to surprise Mario with.

I really gotta get everything completely ready for the yard sale in the next few days since I’m HOPING to have it on Thursday and Friday. I still have to go through the kitchen cabinet under the sink, the top of the living room closet and give our bedrooms another once-over. I hope we have a good turnout!

Going to stop being a hermit and socialize with the family at Mary’s since Jorge and Jose are back. Goodnight!