Category: Shopping

4-5-07 – Sorry about the new entry notification, guys! I was typing up a draft and Alaethia clicked on something when she was on my lap and Published it when it wasn’t done! I was hoping I’d be done today, but I don’t think that’ll happen. Too sleepy!

Sarcasm, of course. I hate when Mario does this. I told him all week ‘It’s okay, we don’t have to do anything for our anniversary,’ since we’re trying to stop spending so recklessly now that we have two car payments, vacation and Jaylen’s birthday party coming up. But no, he insisted and said he had to take me out. Friday, payday, he would take me out. Naturally, I became excited about this little night out.

It’s already 7:47pm. He’s outside with Chris and George — where he’s been since 4pm “working” on something on Chris’ truck — and just called me a little bit ago to invite me over to Jose and Elda’s next door, where they’re bar-b-q’ing. So I guess that’s my anniversary outing: a bar-b-q surrounded by his friends. Peachy.

Normally, I wouldn’t be bitching. I love his friends! But I hate when he makes promises and totally goes back on his word. He’s been doing this a lot lately. And frankly I’m tired of him being out with his friends all the damn time. I’d like to spend time with him, too dammit. But apparently that’s too much too ask.

Anyway, let me change the subject. I decided to drop the boys off today, since Jaylen needed to turn in some money for their Easter party and some Easter eggs. I could already see the disaster it would be letting the boy be in charge of eggs, so I went.

Or course Alaethia didn’t fall asleep till after 1am (and Mario was out having a grand ol’ time till then as well) so I was exhausted when the alarm went off. The boys were fairly fast at getting ready today, but I had to feed Alaethia then get her and myself ready so we were 10 minutes late to school (they have to be in class at 7:45). Everyone stopped us to see Alaethia (and all were intrigued by her name) so it took us even longer to get the kids to their classes.

I stuck around in Jaylen’s class and spoke to both of his teachers. They’re both so nice and I really do miss our morning chats. I feel so out of it now that I don’t drop them off. It’s just much easier for all of us if they continue being dropped off by Elda, though — especially if they want to get there on time.

I dropped a letter off at the post office, then came home and took a nap with Alaethia. Mario was still asleep, lucky bastard. By the time I knew it, the alarm was blaring again and had to pick Jaylen up. I took Mary’s new (well, 2004) Dodge Stratus and I complained the whole way about how crappy the drive was. I get back and tell Mario about how much trouble I was having and he points out that the parking break was on. Oops :P.

Chris comes over to help Mario rotate the tires on the Equinox and then we leave to pick up his paycheck. We were a little shocked to find out that Slow Season might have started a little early this year. The check wasn’t what we had expected, and it doesn’t help that they’re still taking $116 dollars out every paycheck to pay for that airbag he’d popped in the Armada he’d been working on. Oh yeah, and the damn government takes away about $230. Thanks.

We go to the bank and give our car payment and we’re starving so we stop by the mall (where we have to give another payment) and have some lunch. Jaylen had just eaten at school so he had some chocolate chip cookies and chocolate milk from McDonald’s. We pay our bill, then head home.

But not before stopping by my favorite Thrift Shop! Only Alaethia and I got down; Mario and Jaylen stayed in the car watching a DVD. After looking around for a (hurried) half hour, I got some pretty good finds:

Total cost: $10.83. I would have spent less had The Nice Lady been the one who was ringing people up. The owner was the one who was at the register and she likes to charge a little extra =\.

I spent almost an hour in there, mostly because all the ladies kept stopping me to ask about Alaethia and coo at her and touch her. The Nice Lady, who was in the back of the store, even asked if she could hold her and held her for 10 minutes while telling me a story about her sons and her daughter. It was lovely, but I was in such a hurry I kept wanting to snatch Alaethia from her and run to pay already. I thought Mario would be all moody by the time I got back, but he understood. He couldn’t blame them. After all, how could anyone resist this cuteness?

After the Thrift Store we went straight to pick up Eenan and Brandon and the rest of the day’s been spent tidying up the house, holding Alaethia, and being cross with Mario.

Well. Mario’s back now (he left everyone else at Jose’s) and thinks he can buy me by renting movies. He’s already started Flushed Away without me and Alaethia’s stirring so I guess that’s it for me. Good night!

I need to shower in approximately 14 minutes (it’s 10:16am), so I’m going to blog as long as I can while Alaethia’s asleep and I still have time.

Tuesday was Mario and I’s 8th year wedding anniversary. Everyone that asked how long we’d been together was in utter shock. They can’t believe it’s been that long. I can’t either, heh. It doesn’t feel like it, to tell you the truth. Feels like…5 years maybe?

I made Mario breakfast that morning then got Alaethia bathed before we had to head out the door at 9:30 for her 2 month physical and immunizations. Poor baby. I had no baby Tylenol to give her beforehand, so I knew she was going to be in pain :(.

Alaethia slept the whole time we waited and I read my book. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that book was written about me, heh.

They called us in after about an hour (maybe an hour and a half, I forget) and they take Alaethia’s vitals. She was asleep the whole time they weighed her (10.10 lbs.), measured her length (22 inches), and measured her head (I forget the size…23? I’m not sure). She’s in the 50th percentile for her height and weight, which Dr. C. said is excellent. She was still sleeping when Dr. C. was pulling and tugging at her extremeties and immediately started grunting and arching her back and stretching. I asked about the rash she has on her face which is now somewhat spreading to her legs and arms only, and Dr. C. said he wasn’t sure yet, but hopefully it wasn’t Eczema. Oh no :(. He advised me to bathe her only every 2-3 days and prescribed a cream.

She fell back to sleep after Dr. C. stopped handling her, so when Erica, the nurse, came in with three syringes I had to wake her up. Poor thing didn’t even know what hit her when she was injected with the first shot. It was torture having to hold her legs down so that she wouldn’t kick :(. Mother was a few feet away, watching over Erica’s shoulder with her hands cupped over her mouth. I’d been doing the same thing, plus bawling my eyes out but I had to help whether I liked it or not. She got two shots in her right leg and one on her left. Erica told me the one on her left is extremely painful, as it’s got 2 (or was it 3?) vaccines in one. My poor girl.

(continued at 12:30pm)

Mario and I would be meeting for lunch to celebrate our anniversary. Nothing fancy; just some pizza at the park, but it’s the quality time that counts. Mom was staying with Jaylen and I offered to take Alaethia since I knew she’d be moody due to her shots and I didn’t want Mom to have too much trouble (Jaylen was already in a mood himself), but she made me leave her with her.

I gathered everything we’d need (plates, sodas), stopped at the pharmacy to leave Alaethia’s prescriptions, picked up some cash from Mario so I wouldn’t use our debit card and then stopped for the pizza. We even saved $3 since I’d just gotten a coupon in the mail I picked up for that restaurant, woo!

I picked up Mario and we went to the park. We decided to stay inside the truck where it was nice and cool. “Spring” has sprung in south Texas and that only means that everything’s nice and green…and the weather’s hot. It was nice though, just being in eachother’s company and talking and laughing like we usually do. That’s what I love about us: we can always make eachother laugh and there’s always something to talk about.

It was Mario’s turn to buy snacks for work (they take turns each week) so we stopped by H-E-B to get some ice cream sandwiches and chewy chocolate chip cookies for work, and some Butterfinger ice cream and cookies for us. I also found some $.75 cardboard storage boxes that I figured I could use for my sheets, just to keep them out of sight in the closet. Too bad I still can’t put the darn things together!

I dropped Mario off and kissed him goodbye, then picked up Alaethia’s prescriptions, came home and ate a quick lunch (edit 3/31/07: I just realized I wrote I ‘ate a quick lunch’ but no, I didn’t eat another lunch LOL. I’m so used to doing that every day that I just typed it out!) and then picked up Eenan.

The in-laws invited the kids and I over for some bar-b-q and baked potatoes my dad-in-law made. I had a little, since I still had to come home and make some dinner for Mario. I made Chicken Alfredo while the boys were still at the in-laws and Alaethia was taking a nap, so it was a pretty unstressful night. Mario got home and he had dinner and instead of a bouquet of roses (I told him he didn’t have to spend any extra money getting me roses or anything, because he totally was), or chocolates or candles, we spent some time cuddling with Alaethia and getting to bed as soon as we could since we were both exhausted. What can I say, we’re an old married couple already LOL. I didn’t get to sleep till almost 2:30 again that night since Alaethia’d slept most of the day, but I got to nap in the morning.

After my somewhat-restful nap with her in the morning, I picked Jaylen up from school and since John was off and wanted to go to Target (again) we left Jaylen with Mom and he, Alaethia and I left. I would have taken Jaylen with us, but he’d thrown a HUGE fit over his homework. Since he gets out of school almost at noon, he gets moody since he needs his nap. Most of the time, he doesn’t take it, so you can imagine!

John spent about 45 minutes browsing around the electronics section so Alaethia and I browsed around, too. I know I shouldn’t have, but I went straight to the scrapbooking section and to my absolute horror, discovered that the abundant supply of beautiful, wonderful scrapbooking things that were just on clearance on Monday were all GONE. All that was left was opened, wrinkled, less-desirable stuff :(. Oh well, I would have spent loads anyway, so I guess it was a blessing in disguise *cries*.

John finally got all the shizz he wanted to buy (games for his DS and Playstation) and we left. He gave me $10 for my troubles — troubles meaning gas as I took him to Target on Monday and then again that day. Gas is once again expensive and is what’s keeping me from town today, dammit. I already filled up twice this week, which equals to a whopping $60!

We stopped by the thrift store, which was not so far from Target, and to my absolute horror, it’s closed! There’s a patronizing “See you Thursday morning!” scribbled on a cardboard sign propped on the window with an annoying smiley face at the bottom. Grr. A light bulb goes off above my head and I drive to the Salvation Army. I hadn’t been there in maybe 3 years, so I was excited.

Well, it sucked. I found a few books and a tiny Pokemon plush for the boys. 4 of the books I wasn’t too thrilled about but I think they may be growing on me. I was happy to find Little Altars Everywhere by Rebecca Wells and The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. I’ve seen the movie, of course, but have never read the book so I’m looking foward to that. Once I finish the Shopaholic series.

We get to the school just in time to pick up Eenan and Brandon and go home. Eenan forgot his spelling words for the third day in a row. He lost them somewhere and copied them down from his friend but left them in his desk. I let him know how disappointed I am and that he’s grounded from games. You’d think I told the boy I was selling him in exchange for scrapbooking supplies — he bawled his head off. He justified not doing his spelling homework with, “They’re super easy words, MOM! Like ‘prince’ and ‘princess’. I’ll get a hundred, easy!” I told him it wasn’t the point; he needed to do his homework anyway, no matter how easy it was. Today’s their practice spelling test. If he gets a hundred today, he won’t have to take the “real” test tomorrow. We’ll see *sigh*.

The boys spent the afternoon with the in-laws (well, Eenan did only for a little bit, as he was grounded). Jaylen went “practice” fishing with my dad-in-law at the lake and he loved it. Making dinner was easy again (meatloaf, mashed potatoes and corn), thank goodness, since Mary and Mom were outside with Alaethia. It was nice and breezy and she loves looking at everything.

It was Dad’s birthday, so I called to wish him a happy birthday and chat. We’d just spoken the day before, but he had a lot to say. I haven’t mentioned it much but we’ve kept in touch pretty well. We’ve made plans to get together, but for one reason or another it never works out.

He told me some pretty interesting things on both days, one of those things being that he still loves Mom and would come back to her in a second if she asked him to. (Although, I know for a fact she wouldn’t.) He also, for the first time ever appologized for walking out on us and basically ruining our lives by cheating on Mom. He said around 1996, he’d contacted Mom and asked for forgiveness and that he’d change, but she didn’t take him back. I don’t think I would have wanted her to at the time, but a little part of me — the little girl that wished her parents could be together and have a picture-perfect life — wished that it would have happened. How different our lives would have been had dad actually tried to be there. But like John said, would I be married and have my kids? I don’t think I’d want to trade that part.

Mario got home and we chilled out watching TV while Alaethia slept on my chest. She woke up when I put her down, so we went to our bedroom to finish watching the show (Untold Stories of the E.R. on TLC). She fell asleep again on my chest, and as soon as the show was over we went to sleep. It was around 12am.

At exactly 1am I’m woken up by a small voice talking and then weeping. I realize it’s Jaylen, who’s got a knee-ache. Those darn things. I’d get them almost everyday when I was little, up until I was a teenager (and sometimes I still do) and now Jaylen gets them as well. I got him a nice warm Rice Sock and some Motrin and he went right to sleep.

I slept the rest of the night through till the alarm went off at 6:45. It was a little easier to get the kiddos ready in the morning. I fed Alaethia when she woke up, got Mario’s lunch together (he made himself breakfast) and then he left. And I stayed awake. Made my regular breakfast of French Vanilla frosted Mini Wheats and coffee. I’m itching to go to the thrift store, as it’s open today, but like I mentioned before, I don’t want to waste anymore gas. We really need to start saving up as we’re trying to figure out where to go for our summer trip. I feel like going to San Fransisco!

I’m going to go keep myself busy by either reading or putting one of my other shelves together. I definitely need to go to the storage unit today and take Jaylen’s old bed and non-working Powerwheels. That’ll free up a lot of much-needed space!

I was checking my e-mail yesterday morning while eating a bowl of cereal and noticed a comment from Pia inviting me to join OPAH, or One Photo An Hour (also, a Day In The Life — my first ever!). I thought this would be a fantastic idea and although I had already missed two hours since I’d woken, I starting taking pictures of my day.

11:30 am – Arriving at the nursing home. We spent some time with Gramma. We called her nurse in since she was really uncomfortable and hot. I was a little concerned, since she’s usually really cold, but this time she was hot and her breathing was labored due to another cough. I hope she gets better soon. She’s been sick for 3 weeks already :(.

12:30 pm – Looking around for new books at the Thrift Store. I found 6 awesome books, 4 of them brand-new, and a tiny clear vase for $5!

1:30 pm – Shopping for new bras at Target. Not too thrilled with taking pictures of my Boobie Holders, like John said, but this is where I was at the time.

2:30 pm – Back at home and organizing my new books in my corner shelf.

3:30 pm – It looks like I’m subjecting her to torture, but I swear I’m not. Here we’re all getting ready to leave to Mary’s co-worker’s little girl’s birthday party.

4:30 pm – The boys playing games at the pizza place where the party was being held. They spent most of their time doing this, of course.

5:30 pm – Jaylen playing his harmonica (one of the prizes he got in exchange for his tickets) for me while I get our things together so that we can leave.

6:30 pm – Bathing Alaethia before getting myself ready for Albert’s birthday party Mario and I would be attending, alone!, that night.

7:30 pm – Reading my Harry Potter book (Order of the Phoenix) while en route to Mario’s workplace. John didn’t let me read much since he was making me laugh as always.

8:30 pm – A beautiful hanging ornament (I forget what these are called, I think it’s a thermometer of some kind), one of the many beautiful hanging things, displayed at the home where the party was being held. The house was beautiful. The deck we were on was like one out of a house on HGTV; there was a pond, extra deck with a pool table on it, a pool with a slide, and Ivys that were hiding frogs! Loud, croaking frogs!

9:30 pm – What the table in front of me looked like at 9:30. We also had cheese dip and chips and great conversation with Mario’s co-workers and their wives :).

10:30 pm – This picture was actually taken around 12:40 am, but this is basically what the night consisted of after 10:30: pictures, the men playing tricks on each other (Mario got at least 2 wedgies), the girls laughing at the crazy men and more pictures. I got distracted, what can I say? We went home shortly after this, where I drove because Mario was a little tipsy. Alaethia’d been a princess, according to Mother, and the boys were well-behaved, too. She woke up for a bottle around 1:20 and we slept till 6:40, then again till 8:30.

Today was spent mostly at home, with only a quick trip to McAllen for some Taco Bell for lunch. Paul came over so Mario was outside with him for most of the day doing boy things like installing radios and bar-b-q’ing hamburgers for dinner, and I was inside trying to console a moody Alaethia and fold her baby clothes (that took all day, no joke). I finished my Harry Potter book, finally and am ready to start on something new!