Category: Shopping

I’m getting way too used to using Word. When I type a word like THis, I assume Greymatter’s going to do as Word does and fix it for me. Anyway.

Mom’s almost completely moved in. Almost. Mary, Mom and I went to McAllen on Friday night to get the cologne Mario wanted for his birthday (Mom’s gift to him) and then went to buy her and John’s beds. We picked up pizza from Little Cesars at K-Mart and we get a phone call from Mario that the Yukon left him stranded. We picked him up and he sadly said goodbye to the Yukon, which was left, abandoned, at a hotel parking lot till Vito could rescue it in the morning.

Mario and I hung out at Elda and Jose’s that night, then rented movies. We got 15 minutes into the Amityville Horror and I was slipping into a coma. The movie wasn’t boring (ok, maybe slightly) but it was nearing my bedtime and I was so tired. I’m feeling older and older everyday. And I’m barely 23!

Mario went hunting Saturday morning with his dad. He didn’t kill anything, but he did see a variety of cute, furry animals. He had fun though. All day was spent cleaning, trying to watch Season 1 of Desperate Housewives while cleaning, and making 2 flans for Mario’s birthday. Needless to say, I spent the day cleaning and didn’t even get to the bedroom. It was in shambles.

Mario’s birthday get together was really nice. He spent most of the night outside with the men, grilling shriveled up little whitewings and drinking beer. I was inside with the women having our usual girl talks. Ricci, Goyo and the girls came over for a little bit. She brought a Choco-flan, which was really good. First time I’d ever tasted choco-flan. The whole get together lasted till 1:30 a.m. First time a get together’s lasted that long!

Since Mario would have to wake up at 4 to go hunting again and didn’t go to bed till almost 2, he didn’t go hunting. We went out to eat with the kids at Jesse’s when we finally woke up that afternoon. We got Eenan’s Christmas present at Target, went to Home Depot and then went home. When we got home, Mom and I left to Wal-Mart. We spent over 2 agonizing hours there getting the rest of the stuff Mom needed for her apartment. We even managed to cram a dining table into my tiny Sentra along with all the groceries, two huge packs of toilet paper and a 4-slot toaster. I’m surprised we weren’t stopped on suspicions of drug traffiking–my trunk was dragging .

We got home so late that night I was sure I’d go to sleep late. I managed to eat dinner (the kids and Mario had already eaten), did laundry, swept, made Mario’s lunch (thank God for Crock Pots), took a shower, folded/hung laundry, fed the pets and crammed in a bit more Desperate Housewives goodness and still went to sleep at the usual time. Oh yeah.

Drove Mom around again yesterday for a few more things she needed then went over to assemble her evil dining set. I thought I wanted one just like it, but after those two torturous hours I think I’ve changed my mind. I still have to go back today and help John assemble the other two chairs .

I’m going to Tinseltown to get our Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire tickets after school for this Friday. I pray they still have some . Mario and I both have the day off (woo!), but Eenan doesn’t get out of school till 3:30 so we’re planning on going for the 5 o’clock showing.

I.

CANT.

WAIT!

Other than that, I think I’ve got the day free. I’m planning on going through e-mails (forgive me for not replying to any lately) and then watch Desperate Housewives. I’m on CD 4 . I didn’t think I’d like the show, but I am HOOKED! Mario is too, but I think it’s more that he gets to watch beautiful women for hours without getting yelled at .

We have a test tomorrow and an exam on Thursday. I got a 106 (answered all 3 bonus essays correctly!) on my last exam. This class is pretty darn easy (Operating Systems). I wonder what we’re doing after this?

I’ve babbled enough I think.

Woo! I just got a $25 gift certificate to the mall for getting perfect attendance for the month of October! This day is going to ROCK.

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A lot’s happened since I last blogged. As always, as soon as I’d sit down in front of the computer to try and update, I’d remember I had to do something else. So, a summary (which will be long anyway):

Wednesday: Took our Final Exam on Access. I think we started it at 9:00 (or was it 8:30?) and I finished by 10:30. I thought I’d done okay, since it was a pretty difficult exam. I pulled my Harry Potter book out of my backpack and waited for the girls. To make a long story short, I heard sniffing coming from behind me, slamming of books, and at around 11, Ricci came up next to me and told me she was done. She wasn’t and was clearly upset. she was having trouble with her exam and so was Mayra. Their Relationships just weren’t working and that’s what makes the queries, reports and forms work. Poor Lucy’s database kept messing up so she lost her report and form, which I’d clearly seen her finish. After Mrs. C-R and I talked to Ricci in the bathroom, she composed herself and came back to the class to try again. After a while, I started panicking because I thought I’d gone through the exam too fast and *had* to have messed up somewhere.

We got our Exams back a few (painstaking) days later and I got a 96. I usually cry and throw fits if my grade’s anything less than a 98, but I thankfully accepted the grade–I thought I was going to do much worse!

We went to pick Mom up after school and then went grocery shopping that afternoon with Ricci. Dropped Ricci off, came home and took Mom to the Housing Authority to get her an application. The lady at the window told us we could fill out the application, but they wouldn’t be helping anyone till next year, maybe, because they were only accepting people from Louisiana. Just our luck. Mario had stayed home to watch Jaylen while John did his observation and picked Eenan up, too. Mario took a nap while I dropped Mom off, which I was really annoyed about since I hate driving over there alone.

John went in for his observation that morning and to his last class that night. He’s officially a substitute teacher now . Next on his list: his driver’s license.

Thursday: Can’t remember much from that day except that by the end of the day I was exhausted. I’d even forgotten an appointment I’d had that afternoon.

Friday: Was falling asleep in class…

(…Cntd. @ 6:42pm from home…)

Anyway, I was falling asleep in class so I really wasn’t “aware” of what we were learning in Chapter 2. Before we left class Mrs. C-R lets us know we’re having a quiz on Monday, so we might like to study. I totally forgot about this during the weekend.

After school Ricci and I met Mary at Target, where she was picking out her and my gift for Belinda, Ricci’s daughter. I got her a little outfit, so we took it with us so Ricci could dress her up before the party. I took Ricci to get a few things for the party (the piñata down Conway, a few more goodies from H-E-B) and then we went to her house where I’d help her with a few things. We ate lunch (menudo that her grandma made, yum!), and then went outside to find a huge jug for the tea they’d be making. We spent so much time looking for it that I didn’t get to help her with anything else since I needed to pick Eenan up. I picked the kids up, came home, ironed all our clothes and then went back to help her a bit. They sent me to the store to get forks and as soon as I’d gotten back with them Mary called that she was home and ready. Came back, picked her and Sammy and Brandon up and we went back to Ricci’s.

It was a nice party. There were lots of kids there and they all got along really well with Eenan and Jaylen, especially Jaclyn and Natasha, Ricci’s sister and cousin, respectively. Mayra went for a little while with her little girl, Sharlyze, and it was the cutest thing when Belinda and Sharlyze held hands and walked into the dining room together. I got to meet Mayra’s sister and mom, who are both really sweet.

The kids hit the piñata, got candies when it broke open, and then they got candy bags. We sang Happy Birthday to Belinda and ate cake and then we came home.

Saturday: Mary treated us (John included) to Peter Piper for lunch. The kids had so much fun. Mary took Eenan and I took Jaylen and they played the usual games. They both really like skee ball, this other one where you slowly roll a ball to a different colored slot each time, and one where they throw ping pong balls into the bucket that lights up. They got a pretty good amount of tickets, got their prizes and then we got there just in time to eat pizza.

We watched Wallace and Grommit and the Curse of the Were Rabbit, which was totally much cuter and funnier than I thought it would be. John was in a huff and was scowling the whole time because he couldn’t believe that I was making him watch that “stupid cartoon”, but he was laughing his ass off the whole time. The kids loved it; they thought it was hilarious.

We went to pick Mom up after that and then went to JCPenny, where she was taking John shopping for “professional clothing”. He found 3 shirts and 1 pair of slacks; he actually looks pretty decent when he’s not wearing baggy clothes.

We went to see Gramma after that. We spent time joking around with her and talking about our week. Mary was picked up by Tommy and Yadira while we were there since she was tired. Eenan, who isn’t much of a shopper (just like his father), left with Mary. Mom, John, Jaylen and I went to Target after that since we had time to kill before Mario needed to be picked up.

Or so we thought.

As soon as we got to the parking lot of Target, Mario called and said he was out–40 minutes earlier than what he initially thought. I told him we’d just gotten there–that we’d be over there in 20 minutes. We went around looking for storage boxes and a garment rack for John’s stuff (since his crap’s strewn all over my living room) and checked out the Halloween stuff. Mom got Jaylen a Ninja Turtle costume, some sais and a double-ended sword for Eenan’s ninja costume (that Andy’d bought for him). By the time we got in line at the check out, we’d already been there 40 minutes . Needless to say, I was in a hurry to get to Mario’s workplace since I didn’t feel like being yelled at. I even ran one of those “yield on green to oncoming traffic” signals and could have possibly killed us all. I was so tired my heart didn’t even start racing, as it usually does when I encounter a near-death experience (which are usually not brought on by me, surprisingly). Thinking of it now, it was the most irresponsible thing I’ve ever done while driving. John yelled out, “The OTHER time, you didn’t see the stop sign. THIS TIME, you didn’t even CARE!”

It’s funny to me now, but it was so, so wrong of me. .

We hadn’t eaten since before noon, so mom asked if we’d like to get a bite to eat. We went to this taqueria that Mario had been wanting to go to. He ordered what he’d been craving: tripa tacos and a hotdog wrapped in bacon with pico de gallo in it. Mom and I got steak tacos (which they make just like they do in Mexico!), John got a bacon hotdog and the kids got regular hot dogs. The food was delicious—they even gave us complementary beans, which were the best I’ve ever tasted.

We dropped Mom off after that and made the long commute home. When we finally got home, I helped John set up his garment rack. We hung all the clothes on it and what happens? The darn thing falls apart! We took everything off of it, wheeled it into our bedroom and he started hanging all his clothes on it again. Mario and I lay on the bed and watched John have his crisis with the rack. It was the most hilarious thing I’d seen all day–even funnier than Wallace and Grommit. I was so exhausted that night that I fell asleep right there, in the clothes I was wearing. I didn’t even get to go to Ricci’s second party for Belinda, which was at her ex-in-laws’ house. I was hoping we’d be home much earlier, but I sort of had a feeling that with everything we had to do, we wouldn’t make it.

Sunday: Spent the day cleaning and reading. Took a shower mid-afternoon and then went with Mary, Elda, Sammy, Brandon, Angela, Eenan and Jaylen to the Jamaica, which is a festival/fair type thing that was hosted by the church. They have little games and lots of food. The kids got on the moon jump (which took a total of 40 minutes to stand in line and then have them jump in), played a few little games and we ate nachos and grape soda. All in all, it was a fun night. Yazmin was at the sponge throw getting, er, sponged LOL, and I also saw Ricci’s little sister and her cousin.

Spoke to Ricci that night and apologized for not making it to Belinda’s party. She asked if I’d studied for the quiz on Monday and of course I hadn’t. I’d totally forgotten about the quiz!

Monday: Was relieved to find out Mrs. C-R was giving us 30 minutes to study. I read through the chapter (which was really long) really quick and memorized the key terms. When we got the quiz I jotted down the first thing that came to my head and I was certain I’d gotten everything wrong. To my surprise, I managed to get a 98! .

I went to make Mom’s storage unit payment after school (and got $10 back, woo! Gas money!) and then picked up some cough medicine for Eenan and a few things for Mary. I only found one single brand of medicine, which is generic. What ever happened to the Triaminic soft chews and tongue tape? Was that forward I received actually true? They really did get rid of all the kids’ cough/cold meds?

And now I’m here, stuffing my face with popcorn and waiting to make dinner (should have waited on the popcorn). I tried winning the 30,000 from Wild 104 today but of course I never got through. Well, I did get through once, and then the operator came on to tell me I hadn’t gotten through after all. Grr.

Maybe next time . Oh the things I could do with that money!

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It amazes me that after all these years dad’s infidelity to mom can still mess me up. This morning, on the way to school, Ricci and I were listening to Wild 104 and they actually announced the War of the Roses early for once.

War of the Roses is a show that people call and try to bust their spouse or significant others cheating. They call up the person (you provide the number of course) and the DJ tells the person they won a free dozen roses from RedRoses.com (fake site) and what person would they like to send it to and what do they want the card to say. Well, most of the time the person IS cheating and the person calling screams out and they get into a fight on the air. It’s usually shocking and very amusing. Well, this morning was different.

A 17 year old girl called and said she wanted to catch her dad cheating. She said she knew he was, but wanted to prove it to her mom because her mom didn’t want to believe it. Sure enough, her dad sends the roses to a woman at a club and says, “Thanks for those nights and making my day easier”, or something like that. The girl was crying and asking, “Why dad?! Why?? I thought we were a good family! How could you do this to us–to mom!?” He kept telling her, “You be quiet. I’ll talk to you at home. You’re going to get it.” (Everything he said was in Spanish, so it sounded even worse.) By the time we got to school, I was shaking and had a lump in my throat. We got off and I tried hiding my face since tears were uncontrollably falling out of my eyes. Ricci saw me and I tried to laugh it off, but she hugged me and told me it was okay, that I was a great person and it was a long time ago, and many other comforting things I can’t remember right now, so that made me cry even more. Took me a while to compose myself. Thank goodness nobody asked questions since I was sniffing and my nose was clearly red, or I surely would have broken down again for sure.

I hate that that happens. I hate that I can’t think of what happened, I mean REALLY think of what happened, and not cry about it. I wish it wouldn’t bother me so much, but it does. Most of my life I ignored it; what he did never really bothered me; I wrote him off as an asshole and was just glad he left. But in the long run, it really has affected me, and that sucks.

Anyway, we started another lesson today and studied for 30 mintues of our 3rd period for our test on chapters 1 and 2 of Access. I feel really good about it; I think I did well. I’ve been really hard on myself lately when I don’t get 100’s and I really need to quit doing that. Mario said I’m going crazy and my God, I think I am. I work myself up for nothing. I got flaming mad when I got a 97 on our group project (the one I was really proud of–the 80’s Antiques one) and a 98 on my hospital project. I got points taken away because my fields didn’t fit the info correctly–something that none of us had been taught before, nor was anything about it in the chapters we were studying and it all depended on which layout you chose for the Forms and Reports. I found it to be really unfair, but whatever. I’m trying not to think about it anymore…

Ricci and I sat with Mayra for a while after we took our test and then made our way to the car. When we get there, I open the door and I realize the power locks aren’t working. I look at the lights and sure enough, I’d left them on and my battery drained out. I’d been so upset in the morning I didn’t go back and check if I’d turned them off (which I usually have to do because most of the time I DO leave them on). Thankfully the security guard had jumper cables and jump-started the car for me. Another guy was out there keeping us company since we looked all helpless.

Mario’s currently suspended from work. It’s nothing bad on his part, somebody threw a fit and decided it was the right time to take it out on someone else and Mario just so happened to be there. It’s nice having him home–he actually swept, mopped, cleaned the bathroom and we cleaned out the car and he washed it. He’s making good points .

As for the weekend, all us girls went to eat at Pizza Hut on Friday after school, and then the whole family (even John!) went out to eat there for dinner. It was nice. We got to see ultrasound pics of Gecko, Tommy and Yadira’s baby .

Mary treated us all to watch The Corpse Bride on Saturday morning, which was a GREAT movie. The kids loved it. Jaylen stayed awake the whole time even though he was really sleepy and Eenan didn’t try to jump into the isle at all! They were both very well behaved that day. Ha, notice how I said that day LOL. Kidding, they’re getting much better at behaving in public .

I spent the rest of the day chilling out and reading. We went to Isaac and Isiah’s party on Sunday night (where we ate more pizza–I had to have gained 5 lbs. just this weekend!) I also ended up finishing Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, finally! Let’s see how long it takes me to read Book 5, which is even longer!

Man I have a headache and I’m out of Aleve . I still gotta take a shower and finish eating. I feel naseous .

Quote of the night: “I want to skadoo like Blue but I always end up tripping over my feet.” – John

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