Today was my last day of work for the year, so tonight is my first official evening of summer vacation! I’m so excited and in desperate need of this break. Don’t get me wrong, work’s been awesome (even this last crazy week of endless inventory and seemingly longer hours), but I need sleep need like crazy. Alaethia’s been on this weird schedule (she’s currently kicking my legs and telling me to bring her more “monk”, which is “milk”), but that’s probably thanks to my mother, who allows her to sleep till 11am. Grr. She forgot about Eenan yesterday and let him play 9 hours of video games. 9 HOURS!!!

Anyway. I can’t believe this year’s over. I survived my first actual year of working after being a stay-at-home mom for 7 years. Okay, so it’s not an actual year since I only work about 9 months out of the year…but still.

It was something else, let me tell you. But I’ll never forget working at Nellie Schunior, our crazy packing and unpacking, getting the new library up and running, our field trips and the laughs and good times I had with Mrs. V, Pilar and Elvira :).

It was a busy, crazy week but I’m so happy to announce that I completed all of my tasks and did a little extra. I even helped the summer school librarian with a few things; she was impressed, which made me feel great. Mrs. V. treated me to lunch today (Whataburger) and we had awesome conversation, as always. We got back to work and finished up the final things and when I was gathering all my belongings she hugged me and said this is the first year everything’s been done and completed and it was all because of me. That’s the best thing I’ve heard in a long time :). In turn I told her that she’s the best boss I’ve had, and I mean that sincerely. I got to pick up the kids on time, go to all their assemblies and she just did tons for me. I’ve been truly blessed.

Natalie’s Quinceañera is this Saturday, so we started off my summer by going to the mall and getting a discount on Mom’s dress (she returned it and got $10 back with a coupon), she and Alaethia got shoes and then she treated us to dinner at the food court. She and the boys had McDonald’s and I had stuffed pizza (mushroom, broccoli — yes, broccoli –, cheese and spinach), and Mario met us there and had the same thing. He took off with Jaylen and then Eenan, Aly, Mom and I took a stroll through the mall and came home. Then I watched Mario and his dad (finally) fix our shower. It had been leaking and then the hot water pipe took a crap completely. Now I’ve got new, leak-free pipes AND a new spray/massaging shower head. Woo!

I helped Mary with a few things for the Quinceañera after that. We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow before the big day!

I’m going to savor this summer. I’m going to read, BLOG (I’ve got so many old entries to edit and upload), sleep and not feel guilty about it, hopefully get at least a new layout going on this thing, paint the kitchen and redecorate it, visit and have lunch with friends, get on Myspace (addicted, much?), clean!, get organized and just spend quality time with the family, especially the kiddos. We’re not doing much this summer since we’re trying to get bills paid off, but I’m hoping to do a few things with the kids, like going to the museum, movies, beach, and the library. I won’t have to take them much to the library…I went a little insane at the Scholastic warehouse and then at our own book fair. We’ve got plenty of reading material to keep us busy! Oh yes, and work on rekindling the romance with Mario! I had no idea working would put so much strain on a marriage!

I’m so tired. I hope Aly goes to sleep soon. And doesn’t wake up more than once during the night. And hopefully that one time wakes up isn’t half an hour before I need to wake up like she’s been doing. Anyway…I’m rambling.

Been a while since I’ve updated, as usual, but I’m being lazy and sitting around and figured I’d update a little. There’s no way I’ll be able to remember everything since I last updated, but I’ll try and remember the important parts.

My Mother’s Day weekend was awesome. Hope all the Mama’s out there had a wonderful day :). I started my mother’s day since Saturday. Mary, Mom the kiddos, and I all packed into the Equinox and ran some errands then had lunch with Mario at Jesse’s, one of my favorite Mexican restaurants. I had some crab enchiladas, which were really, really good and my sugar was okay when I checked it later :). Mario left and we went off to Conn’s to hand over our TV payment and then to Target where I couldn’t resist and bought Alaethia some cute outfits even though I was supposed to be shopping for myself. Mario said, “Get yourself something since I won’t be able to surprise you this time.” He’s excused since he outdid himself for my birthday, heh.

I got myself a blouse at Target, but had no luck finding anything else. We ran a few more errands and then went to Edinburg to the Scholastic warehouse. They have this huge 30-80% off sale at the end of May and I didn’t want to miss it. Jaylen picked two books, I got Eenan a few chapter books to keep him busy during summer (the Animorphs books were $1-3 each!), I got them the 365 Disney Stories for bedtime, and got myself a few books, too. I spent $50 and Mom got me My Sister’s Keeper by Jody Picoult for Mother’s Day. Mary bought a whole bunch of books, too. We had a great time, except for the smoldering heat in that mostly-metal warehouse.

We had a book fair going on at work (which went fairly smoothly if you ask me, and I was in charge of it) and my boss told me to take the kids over to pick some stuff since I was having a hard time choosing (I wanted everything!). I should have just left them at home; they ended up spending another $40 and before the book fair was gone I spent another $35!! My bookcase is ripping at the seams! One thing’s for sure, though, I definitely won’t run out of reading material during summer!

On Sunday, Mother’s Day, Andy and Noelia brought over a botana for lunch and treated Mary, Mom and me. How sweet of them ^_^. They brought us gifts: Noelia knits these wonderful blankets and knitted me a pink/green/brown one! They also gave me a scrapbooking tote. Loved, loved, loved my gifts :). Had a great day chilling out with my kiddos. We took Alaethia outside and she had a great time collecting petals.

I’m totally printing this out as an 8×10!

John’s birthday was Friday, the 24th, so we took him (and the family) to eat at Kumori. We invited Sally and she was so sweet and took a cake. I was so upset with John that night…he was being such a bad sport! He wouldn’t take pictures, wouldn’t say thank you, and didn’t even want to cut the cake. Grr. I get angry thinking about it. But at least I got to eat sushi, watch the boys and Alaethia have fun eating their rice with chopsticks, and spend time with Mario.

Jaylen graduated from Kinder on Wednesday the 28th. I thought it was going to be fancy and at the Fine Arts center but it was in their cafeteria and had an underwater theme. It was so hard to take pictures since it was so crowded, but everyone made the best of it. They performed to such cute songs and then once they got their “diplomas” and walked back to class we signed him out and brought him home.

The boys had their End of Year awards assemblies on the 3rd and 4th of June. I had to miss work both mornings, but my boss is the best; she had no problem at all with me being out each morning. It’s not like we had a lot to do anyway. The most we were doing was collecting payments for books or taking in books people were finding while cleaning the classrooms out. Jaylen got tons of certificates, but since he’s in Kinder and they only give trophies and a gift (this year they were giving away stereos) to kids with perfect attendance (and he’d missed a few days due to Strep each time) he didn’t get a trophy. He got tons of certificates, but hello? What kid doesn’t want a trophy. When I took a picture of him with his thick folder of certificates I told him how proud I was of him and that he did GREAT this year. His eyes got watery and he blinked away tears and said, “Then why didn’t I get one of those?” You don’t know how awful I felt. He is such a smart kid, top in almost everything, but the lack of a trophy made him feel like he wasn’t good enough.

When I was at work I told my boss about Jaylen’s assembly and how sad he was and how awful I felt that he felt that way. She said, “Hold on, we had an extra trophy!” So she finds it and gives it to me to give to Jaylen. How nice is that?! I’m telling you, this lady’s wonderful!

I gave it to Jaylen after school and he loved it. He proudly displayed it on top of his TV and showed it to everyone :).

Eenan got TONS of trophies and ribbons and even got a bike. I had to rush around signing them out to take them home, driving around with Alaethia to pick up the bike and get the huge box out of the car to get to work.

The last days of work were spent sorting/organizing our storage room. We had the help of a few kids and in the end a few things were missing, but they solved that problem. Well, part of it. It’s so disappointing, but that’s what we get for trusting too much. I’m glad the room’s ready for next year, though. It was about time!

We had an awards assembly for the top readers and had a raffle as well. It was so nice watching the kids faces light up when their name was called. One of our readers got about 7 prizes…she practically got a whole entertainment room’s worth of stuff! See, it pays to read ;).

We had a Librarian’s meeting during our last week of work (where they gave us each an Eric Carle mug!). It was one of my first times drinking/eating something really sweet (mango tea and cream pie) and my sugar didn’t go up at all!

I left the darn doctor’s office at 6:15. I was sitting there for two hours just to see the doctor for 15 minutes. And to top it off, they charged me my co-pay, which would have been completely avoided had they just talked to me on the damn phone!

BUT, I have good news. My sugar is controlled. The lab results came in completely normal, even the diabetes part. My Hemoglobin A1C was as normal as could be, which freaked the doctor out because according to my monitor readings my levels had been jumping all over the place. Well, a week ago. I’ve been pretty controlled the past few days. She said I had two choices: get on a very low-dose medication or continue doing the 3-hour diet. I chose DIET, of course. I’ve lost almost 4 lbs. in a week, just from cutting out all that junk food and tons of carbs. I weighed 128.7 when I went in two Thursdays ago in the 1st, when I was sick. Now I weigh 124.9. Woo!! Now I just gotta start exercising, but I gotta get a treadmill first.

The doctor said what most likely triggered the diabetes was that I was going so long without eating. My sugar was dropping dramatically (hence the shakes, dizziness and racing heart) and since our body’s natural defense is to accumulate all the stored sugar when we’re starving, it would compensate and my sugar would spike up. She said to monitor my sugar the way I have been for the next 2 weeks and we’d see what happens. I have to keep it under 120, which I’ve managed to do the past 5 days or so. My last spike was last Monday when it was at 194. Scary.

So I’m glad. I admit, it’s hard as hell turning my back to donuts, Oreos, and cake (especially ice cream cake from Dairy Queen *sniff*) but I’ve been doing good for the most part. Adding lots of veggies and fruits to our diet and I seriously feel good. I made some badass chicken sandwiches tonight for dinner. Mario got home early so that was a nice surprise.

It was hilarious. When I was defrosting the chicken breasts and he was cutting up avocado I pulled open the curtains on the door and looked–rather suspiciously–from side to side. I didn’t mean to, it’s just this habit I have. He says, “Okay. What was that all about.” Without missing a beat I say, “You’re home too early. Warning the sancho.” And he started saying how I was going to start flicking the lights on and off, S.O.S.-style, to warn him. And then we were going to hear these weird owl-type hoots, which would be the sancho letting me know he got the message and was leaving. Well, I thought it was hilarious. You had to be there.

Mario started running (yes, running) tonight. I hope he continues. He’s going to start eating better, too. I’m glad. If he could only stop smoking it would be GREAT.

Okay. Going to sleep. Alaethia’s brushing her ‘teefs’ and doesn’t seem to be sleepy at all. I just asked her to give me her toothbrush and she said, “I can’t!” which is her favorite phrase as of late. It gets kind of annoying. I had to wrestle it away from her. She’s strong for a 1-year-old.

Anyway, we have a Book Fair tomorrow at work. This shall be interesting. Goodnight.