Category: Weight/Exercise

For the first time since…almost a whole month I’m writing an entry in “real time” LOL. I’m just so bored. I wouldn’t be bored if I actually had something to do. That, and when I’m bored, I tweet like crazy. I think I’m finally going to start blogging and stop tweeting so much (although I’m completely in love with the fact that I can be ANYWHERE and share what I’m thinking or show you a picture of something!).

I feel so tired and lazy. I took Mom grocery shopping yesterday and of course, Mario asked me to bring some beer. We have a bottle of Clamato in the fridge that expires on the 14th and since it was Friday and Maggie and Jorge were out of town and we wouldn’t be hanging out with them that night I thought Awesome! Micheladas and movie night!

Well Isaac F. recently got out of a relationship and he was coming over. It’s nice to see him finally come out after all these years LOL. I got some pizzas and totally thought we were going to watch movies and drink here, but they abandoned me and left to chill with Jose. Javi recently hooked me up with Weeds seasons 1 and 2 and I stayed halfway on the 1st season. The boys and Alaethia were sleeping at Mary’s (but Alaethia was brought to me about an hour later because she gets scared LOL). I stole Mario’s Michelada and snuggled up with Emily on the sofa to watch the shows. It’s actually really good! I’m surprised I never heard of it before, but it could be because we stopped ordering Showtime on cable a few years ago.

I forced myself to stay awake till the whole 1st season finished (around 2:30am) and then when the girls and I were getting ready for bed, I turned on the TV and got hooked to a show on HGTV. I must have passed out because next thing I remember Emily squirming and cooing for a bottle around 5am and Mario was in bed. My neck was all crooked from being propped up on the pillows I fell asleep on watching TV LOL.

Of course I didn’t wake up when Mario’s alarm went off to go to work. Thank God he woke up on his own. I told him where to find his lunch in the fridge and that’s all I remember. I didn’t wake up till 11:30am and I felt horrible; my head hurt, my darn cracked tooth was hurting and I felt lethargic. I hate feeling like that.

So now it’s 5pm and I’m still in my PJs LOL. All I’ve done is normal stuff like taking care of the kids, feeding them, and all that jazz. I wanted to paint my kitchen cabinets white, but I need a new paint brush and don’t feel like going to Dollar General or Walmart. I wanted to put all the random stuff we’ve got in the dining room away (two boxes, the old surround sound stuff and a whole bunch of crap from my room, too) but the storage closet’s already full of junk and I can’t even reach up to pile anything up there. That little problem would all be resolved if I could take the boxes of my collections out and put them on shelves surrounding the perimeter of my room like I used to have, but hanging the shelves is a two-person job and I know Mario won’t help me with that :(. I even tried hanging pictures up but I need a drill and I don’t know where the one Mario was borrowing from Jason is.

I want to jog, but I have to tidy up (vacuum, clean up the kitchen table and counters) before everyone gets here and I have a living room full of boys right now. And to top it off it’s super hot outside; I don’t feel like having a bar-b-q today!

Alright, alright. I’ll go clean. And then I’ll at least do some crunches and shower and then I’ll go outside. And sweat all over again.

Fri., May 8th – I’m really not sure what I did this day. I tweeted that I “hate Home Depot already” LOL but I don’t remember what I did there. Obviously got more “last minute” things for the living room but I don’t remember what. I know for sure I got my Mother’s Day shopping done at JC Penny, where I got some great deals because I had two coupons and everything was on sale to top it off! I got myself two basic fitted T’s. I’m happy to say the size Medium one fits loose! Woo!

I spent the rest of that day lounging around the house with the kiddos and surfing the web when the littlest ones let me.

Sat., May 9th – I was waiting on two Re-ment sets I bought; one for Mom, one for Mary that I was giving them along with their blouses for Mother’s Day. I was so pissed to go to the mailbox around noon and find 3 “sorry we missed you” notes telling me to go to the Post Office to pick them up. I checked the time. They close at 12:30 and I had 15 minutes to get there. Thank goodness we live 3 minutes away.

Well, I get there and what do you know? They decided to go home early that day. Grr. I had no choice but to give the moms that part of their gift a day late.

The boys and I made Gramma some beaded bracelets for Mother’s Day because that’s what she asked for. It’s a perfect gift because she’s got tons of clothes and we can only buy her so many chocolates or decorations for her walls. The boys did a great job and Gramma loved them! We gave her 3 and she joked that we owed her two: one from Alaethia, one from Emily LOL.

Elda graciously watched Alaethia for us, since I didn’t think she’d hold her pee the half hour to Gramma’s and back. I took her potty chair and a Princess bag with coloring books and extra panties over to Elda’s. She said she did wonderfully.

After visiting Gramma we went to Walmart. It’s always tough shopping with the boys because they put in double the amount of stuff I usually buy. But we all behaved ourselves and I stayed within my budget. I got some cleaning supplies for the hardwood floors and a washable microfiber broom and other things for cleaning. I wasn’t sure exactly what to get so I prayed that the Pledge hardwood/laminate floor cleaner would be okay.

I got home and Big Mario had already put up both doors and was about to start working on removing the covers for the central air. It took about half an hour for the room to cool. I started mopping the tiled floors and then swept the laminate wood floors in the living room with the microfiber cloth broom. Alaethia found the box of Swiffer dusters and said, “I’m gonna help.”

She had fun following me around being a little “mama” :).

Mario got home and was immediately hyped up about getting everything into the room that night. He began moving all the wiring for the surround sound from the old living room to the new one. Now we have holes all over the walls; reminds me of Swiss cheese…

As he was beginning to install everything in the new room they sent me to Walmart (again) for some more stuff like light bulbs, filters for the a/c, a power supply and other stuff like that. I took Jaylen with me and man he was moody because he was sleepy. He ended up falling asleep in the shopping cart.

It was 11:30 by the time I got home and Mario was fixing up the recessed lights. Jose, Elda, my dad-in-law, Mom, Adan and Tommy were all here with us, helping us with the furniture relocation. (Mary wasn’t here because she and Noelia were at the George Strait concert at Dodge Arena!)

It was 12am when we got the rest of the furniture in and my dad-in-law tells me, “Happy Mother’s Day!” and gives me a hug. He says, “I wasn’t going to rest today until we had you moved in on Mother’s Day.” I almost couldn’t say thank you due to the huge lump in my throat. What other father-in-law builds you a house to be near his kids and grandkids? What other aunts/uncles/cousins are at your house at 12am helping move furniture or helping you watch the kids while you clean up? I can’t tell you how blessed I feel to be a part of this family!

We sat with everyone once the sofas were in and just took it all in. We had a fab new living room! Mary got home and all the moms were wished a Happy Mother’s Day and everyone started leaving little by little after that since it was late. Adan hung out with us for a while and Mario and I stayed up till 4am till we got everything just right.

Sun., May 10th – We woke up and got ready to go eat at Lotus, where Jorge was treating all the moms–aww :). I had broccoli beef and for the first time ever had dumplings! They’re so good! I need to find a recipe.

Since Mario and I are pretty familiar with using chopsticks, we asked for some. They brought us a whole bunch and all the kids had a blast trying to eat with them :). We had a really good time.

Our next stop was the movies. We watched Wolverine. Really good movie. I liked it much better than I thought I would (isn’t that usually the case?).

I checked my e-mail that day and didn’t expect to find an e-mail from my “new” uncle. He asked if I’d gotten any info from Gramma and I e-mailed back that I did and explained what she told me. For some reason I understood that she said my grandfather never knew about my mom. It’s hard to understand her since she has a speech impediment. I wasn’t sure about that tidbit of info but I told him about it anyway. He’d asked before if his dad knew about Mom and he made it seem when I spoke to him 2 years ago that he did, but Gramma had just said he didn’t. I was confused. He’d asked if Mom was in the yearbooks since they were close in age, but since Mom didn’t get to finish high school because they gave her the duty of staying with Gramma after she got sick from Polio she wouldn’t be in any of them. I was iffy about sending a pic of her, but I did and asked him if she resembled any of them. I’d forgotten to mention earlier than mom’s got three more siblings: the uncle I’m speaking to, another brother and a sister! He also e-mailed back to wish us all a Happy Mother’s Day, aww :). I couldn’t wait to hear more from him. I really want to meet this side of my family!

Thurs., Apr. 23rd – I woke up in the morning and told myself Today is the day! You’re going to watch what you eat and get healthy again! I went into my school-supply stash and pulled out a spiffy new notebook to document what I was eating, kind of like Weight Watchers. Actually, I even pulled out my Weight Watchers booklet, and tried remembering little meal plans from my semi-diabetic days, because back then–when I was really watching what I ate–was when I started losing weight.

But that only lasted about 3 days.

Until I can get my sleeping schedule to one of normalcy (which means sleeping early and waking up before 11a.m.), there’s no way I’ll be able to “eat right”. I get so busy during the day with the girls and now with remodeling and cleaning all the time that I even forget to eat lunch sometimes. If it’s before dinner and I remember that I’m hungry I’ll pop a Ramen into the microwave or
I’ll reach for the nearest junkfood. This is reminding me of my days working in the library and skipping meals/eating too much junkfood. If I don’t watch myself I’m going to end up diabetic again!

Anyway, the boys had Report Card Night that evening so I left Alaethia with Mom and took Emily with me. I expected to be there at least 2 1/2 hours like we usually are but it went much faster that night. I had yet another conversation with Eenan’s teacher about his “bully”. He’d punched Eenan in the back this time. I told her that the counselor still hadn’t spoken to them like I’d requested over a month ago so Eenan had every right to defend himself and he better not get in trouble for it since obviously nobody’s doing anything about it during recess and P.E. She’s already done all she can and can’t really discipline him since it doesn’t happen in the classroom. She said to go straight to the principal. I don’t really feel like talking to the principal since the last time I had that little spat with her over the kids’ perfect attendance, but I really have no choice.

I finally saw who the bully’s mo is, and–sorry to say–I’m not surprised the kid’s a bully. She’s one of those parents who doesn’t care what goes on in school. And I’m not just making assumptions, I’ve heard from teachers themselves.

It took forever waiting in line to speak with Jaylen’s teacher, as usual. Jaylen started playing with his friend and his friend’s little sister shook Emily’s rattle for her and talked to me. She spoke beautiful, fluent Spanish and took me by surprise when she asked me in English that was just as fluent, “Do you speak English?” I told her, “Yes, I do. And you speak English very well, too.” She nodded and said, “My mom only speaks Spanish.” I smiled at her and said, “You can teach her!”

That’s one of the reasons I think it’s awesome that one parent’s primary language is Spanish: their kids speak it fluently and then pick up English from another parent or in school. Everyone here at home speak English primarily, so the kids don’t understand a lick of Spanish! I used to be fluent in Spanish as a kid also, when Dad lived with us. Once he moved out though, I slowly began to forget words and now I have a lot of trouble trying to articulate my thoughts in Spanish. I really need to look up ways to teach the kids while they can still absorb info like sponges.

Anyway, the boys are both doing great in school. Perfect attendance, all A Honor Roll. Eenan still rushes through his work, but his teacher always brags about how smart he is and how she expects nothing less than a 90, especially in math. Jaylen’s doing brilliantly and is in charge of Row Call in the morning and is reading and RR Testing at a 3rd grade level (he’s in 1st grade). His teacher says she knows he’s capable of even 4th grade, but doesn’t want to push it yet. I couldn’t even get some of my 8th graders (when I was working) to read 3rd grade level! I got a little lump in my throat when she sighed and said, “I don’t think I’ll ever have another student quite like Jaylen.” Aww *sniff*.

We went over to Mary’s when we got home, ate, and then started working on Eenan’s Castle in the Attic castle model again. We got pretty far on it. I hot-glued the “carpet” in the Great Hall and the “grass” in the courtyard, which were pieces of fabric we bought from Walmart. It’s turning out pretty good!

I spent the rest of the night just chilling out. Mario was outside with the guys while I held Emily and uploaded pictures to Flickr and made a wallpaper of the girls at 2 months. I never realized just how much they look alike! Even Mario had mistaken one of Alaethia’s pictures for Emily LOL.

Fri., Apr. 24th – Emily turned two months old!

And Alaethia turned 2 years, 3 months old! It was time for Emily’s 2 month vaccines so, as much as I was dreading it, I had to get ready to pick up the boys, drop them off with Mom and endure a 2-3 hour wait at the doctor’s office. I arrived at the doctor’s office…and it’s closed. I’d called to ask earlier if it was open and they said yes…and then I realized they were talking about the Mission office. The calls must have been forwarded over there. Gah.

I was smart this time and took my book, remembered my Centro, took only my important stuff in the diaper bag and took my Hugamonkey sling to carry Emily in. When I got off the car and walked through the lobby to sign her in, everyone just stared at me. Half of the people probably thought I was weird and the other half’s expressions showed that they thought it was the most genius thing ever, which it is. Emily slept the entire time in the sling and I got to read and finish Eclipse.

They took us in and weighed her. 9 lbs. 12 oz. All the girls took turns carrying her and saying how cute she was and making a big fuss about my sling.

And then they gave her the shots. It broke my heart to hear her scream that way but she thankfully calmed down quickly. I gave her Tylenol as soon as we got home and she was fine for a while. It wasn’t till night time that she became fussy.

I rocked her while I browsed through Ebay. It’d been a while since I’d actually searched for stuff on it. I bought myself some Macro lenses for my Kodak Z650 and I also bought a new Re-ment set and the 7th book in the Georgia Nicholson series with the cash my dad-in-law gave me for my birthday. I got a familiar giddy feeling thinking of the packages I was going to receive. Too bad it would take the lenses a while to get here since they were coming from Hong Kong with free shipping :(.

We stayed in that night and watched My Best Friend’s Girl, which I liked much better than I thought I would. Adan came over and watched the movies with us. When we left, Mario and I started watching Marley and Me, but we only watched half before we got tired and went to bed.

Sat., Apr. 25th – I was going to have tons of stuff to do that day and I was not looking forward to it. I woke up to make Mario’s breakfast and was going to set the coffee pot, but decided against it. I went back to bed for a while. By the time the girls and I woke up it was 10:30 and I still didn’t feel like getting up and going. We got ready, slowly, and left the house around 1:30. There was no way I’d have time to go to Walmart and grocery shop. We only had a chance to go visit Gramma for a while.

I rushed home, dropped the boys off with Mom, then Mary, the girls (who wore matching dresses) and I picked up Noelia. She looked so pretty in the dress she wore. She’s been feeling much better from the U.C. and is much happier now, too. It’s good to see her like that.

We got to Darla’s bridal shower early. It was being held at Macarena and Gordo’s house, Mario’s cousins, not far from where Noelia and Andy live. The house is beautiful. I fell in love with their outdoor kitchen. It was small, but what I imagine a future outdoor grill looking like at our home. We’ve already got the party porch ;). I wanted to take a picture of it but felt embarrassed.

I didn’t win any of the games, not even the purse scavenger hunt which I usually win because I’d just cleaned out my bag. Darn.

We didn’t stay long since we had Vicky’s 1st birthday party to go to also. Both parties were at the exact same time. So we said our goodbyes to the relatives, dropped Noelia off and drove across The Valley to get to the party.

Mom and the boys had ridden along with Elda. They fought the entire time we were there, mostly over their video games. Emily was passed around and Alaethia was busy playing with Matthew and Angela, so it was nice to get a little time to myself, even if it was for 15 minutes.

We’d arrived when the kids had already hit the piñata so the kids were happily bombarded with candies. We ate, then went inside to sing “Happy Birthday” to Vicky and had some cake.

We helped clean up a little and then we came home. Mario was just arriving when we got here. He did a few things outside–can’t remember if it was directly related to the new living room or not–and then Nancy and Chris came over to visit. I was washing dishes so Mom was watching Emily. She was crying inconsolably and Mom couldn’t figure out how to calm her. Nancy asked her if she could hold her (she works at a daycare) and as Mom passed her into Nancy’s arms Emily just magically stopped crying, just like that! I couldn’t help but think what an awesome mom Nancy would be. She’s so patient. But she and Chris have been trying all these years and still haven’t conceived.

We talked and caught up while she held a happy Emily and I washed dishes in the kitchen. Again, like she always did with Alaethia, Nancy told me to call her up if I ever needed help with the baby. I’m blessed to have so many awesome ladies willing to watch my adorable girls…but I still feel guilty and never call them up LOL.

After Chris and Nancy left we got in bed. We had to be up early the next morning. Mary was going to be at a Confirmation retreat with Yazmin at the church, so I had to be up early to pick up and drop the boys off at CFF. Mario was also planning to go to Home Depot so we could get more stuff for the new living room. I can’t wait till this whole project is finished!