I’ve had most of this entry typed up (in bulleted form) since the day after my last post, just never got around to arranging it into coherent sentences and posting it.

So last Friday Mario worked to have Saturday off for Aly’s baptism. It was a same-ol, same-ol type of day. I spent most of it in a cloud, daydreaming about how awesome it would be to have the job and even started creating mental maps to Target.

Saturday was Alaethia’s baptism. I woke up first and, of course, ended up rushing around as usual. I spent about 40 minutes ironing everyone’s clothes (insane, I know). Andy and Noelia got here and Noelia started helping me get Aly ready (thank GOD). She looked gorgeous :). I didn’t get to straighten my hair, which I noticed later in the pictures just how bad I needed to have done. When we were all ready and about to leave Mario throws a fit because he can’t find his brown belt that matches his brown shoes. Grr. We’re supposed to be at the church at 9:45 and at 9:48 we’re still looking for the darn belt. He finally gave up and wore the other brown one I told him to since the beginning.

We arrive at the church. There’s tons of people and there’s still two other families that are late after us, so we were good. No lecture (which they really like to do there). There were about 30 babies/children. Alaethia did really good considering how hot it was at the church and how many layers of clothes she was dressed in. She became fussy halfway through because she’d woken up too early and she hated having the water splashed on her head, but other than that, she was fantastic. She fell asleep immediately after the “dipping”. She probably thought it was a bath LOL. Baths at home usually mean a nap afterwards. We took some group pictures and then headed home.

We had everyone over for Cabrito. I don’t usually eat it, because it’s GOAT, but I was in the mood to try something different so I did…and uh, no thanks. I bit down on something rubbery that tasted like kidney. Bleh. I wasn’t in the mood to eat anything after that.

We sat around for most of the afternoon and we talked about my interview. We (Mario, Jaylen, Aly and I; Eenan was sleeping over at Mary’s) went to Jorge and Maggie’s later. We chilled out for a bit and then Aly and I went with Maggie to her mom-in-law’s to pick up her “practice” nails. She started cosmetology school and is really excited. She’s going to practice doing nails on me when she’s ready :D. After we picked up that set of nails, she picked up some more from her friend’s house. We stuck around and watched a girl do another girl’s nails. When we left her friend’s house we picked up some Church’s chicken since we were all starving. We ate at their house and chilled out a bit more before we left. We actually got home before 1am from their house for once — 11:30!

We went to sleep as soon as we got home. Around 3:22am I was jolted awake for some reason, and went back to sleep. I had an awful dream and woke up crying. My heart was pounding in my chest. I’d never felt that way before with that sort of dream; the kind where Mario cheats on me :(. That’s only happened when I’ve had awful dreams about bad things happening to the kids. Mario woke up when I was sniffling and quickly pulled me over to him and wrapped me in his arms. I couldn’t stop crying; I just felt so weird and sad and like it was real. I’m so glad he held me and made me feel better. I don’t think I could have slept again that night if he hadn’t consoled me. I love him <3. We woke up late-ish on Sunday morning. Mario was up before me. We ate breakfast, then spent the rest of the day cleaning up the living room. Since the desktop died we took the desk apart and took it out of the room. I mopped, vacuumed, tossed, stored, and rearranged. I need to take our big desk chair to storage and maybe then it'll look like there's more space in here, because right now, it still looks really crowded since the playpen took the place of the desk. It's kind of sad. I've no place to put my desk stuff, like my pens, collection of Sharpies and my notebooks and stuff. I still need to look through and shred stacks of paper. Bleh. Mario left to Chris' later to help him with a home project, all Weekend Warriors-like.

I’d been trying to force train Alaethia to go to sleep earlier so I can get enough sleep in case I do get the job. I stayed awake after Mario left to work. Mary was taking Big Mario to the doctor since he was having chest pains the day before. He was fine, thank goodness. The pain was chest wall pain due to stress and overworking himself. I’m so glad he agreed to go to the doctor, especially after Mario’s uncles and aunts and Tommy’s dad who’ve passed from heart problems. We’re all a little upset that he didn’t go to his follow-up appointment, though =\.

The bad news of the morning: Tippy got run over :(. Mary accidentally backed up on her. Tippy’s one of two female kittens Brushka had and she was so cute :(. Chris was supposed to take her once she was ready to be weaned from Brushka. I hadn’t mentioned it, but Brushka and Waffles are now missing. Artemis, Panther, and Skinny have been missing for months, as have John’s cats Daisy and Pixy :(. It’s really weird. The animal catcher wouldn’t take them because the catcher is Mario’s friend. We’ve also never seen traps set around the neighborhood either. I wonder if someone in the neighborhood is poisoning them or something? Anyway, yeah. Brushka’s kittens are now orphans. She had 5 originally, one died at birth. We haven’t been able to find one of the little girl cats and now Tippy’s gone :(. We’ve only got the two little boys left and Ash and Alidocious. I want my Artemis back :*(.

John stayed with the boys that day while Mom and I went to town. I returned some white, sheer curtains at Target. We stopped by Petco because Mom needed bird food but it’s still not open. Mom treated me to Chili’s. We shared the Tripple Dipper and Classic Nachos. YUM. Alaethia was a hit with the waitress –she’d play with her whenever she came back to check up on us. She was really nice. We even talked about our children (she has three kids two and is 22!). We ordered some boneless wings for Mario and went to drop them off to him, then went to Pet Smart where Mom finally bought her Betta fish. Aly was made a fuss over by a nice lady :). I fell in love with the crabs (I’d totally name one Eugene Crabs if I got one!) and I will be getting at least two Robo Dwarf Hamsters/! They are SO CUTE. They sort of look like my old Pecan (R.I.P.), but smaller. Aly was thrilled watching them and was clenching her little fists in excitement.

We went to Walmart to pick up some groceries and food for Aly since we were completely out. Then we FINALLY came home and chilled out. Were supposed to have practice for Yazmin’s Quinceañera, but that fell through. Mario was out with Chris again that night, but I tried not to be too bothered by it =\.

I stayed up after Mario left to work on Tuesday morning. I finally decided to make myself an actual breakfast of eggs over easy, but all the kids decided to wake up and after tending to all of them (making the boys cheesy eggs and bacon and getting Aly’s oatmeal ready), my food was cold. At least I had some great hazelnut coffee.

Mom came over and I took a ziploc of old floppy disks to Mary’s to look through so we could get rid of them already. I found old pics of Eenan I thought I’d lost. I uploaded them to Flickr. I still need about 70 more disks to go :(.

The boys were obnoxious and rude all day and pretended they couldn’t hear me most of the time. Jaylen was especially moody in the evening and that’s because he’d had a nap in the afternoon. Transitioning back to “school night” bedtime wasn’t going too well, but we’re doing better now. I wonder if Elda’s gotten her boys to sleep earlier. They go to sleep at 4-5am and wake up super late. I would never let my Twerpies stay up that late, not even as teenagers!

Mary brought pizza for dinner that night, so that was awesome. Mario called to “ask” if he could go to his friend’s house which I thought was sweet of him. He doesn’t have to ask for “permission” but I guess since he knew he’d been out practically every night for the past week he should get in my good graces LOL. I spent a lot of that night trying to blog, but that wasn’t happening since Aly became a little moody.

I’m not sure which two days it was, but Jason and Brianna came over one day for a little while, then the next day Jason, Brianna and Adan came over and chilled out for a while.

John and I went to Kumori again on Wednesday. He’d asked if I wanted to go on Tuesday, then changed his mind and promised we’d go the next day. So we did. And it was delicious as always. I had a different roll this time, the Nevada Roll, since it has everything the rolls I usually get do (the Fiesta Roll) except the tampico paste, which I love, and fried salmon skin, which I hate. John liked that it was a dollar cheaper, so he told me to get the tampico paste added on the top. So I did it. It came out to $1.35 more than the other one because of that LOL. I love that place. I wish it was closer!

Thursday was spent biting my nails off, literally, waiting to hear from the school/job. I called and the Librarian didn’t have any info, so she told me who to get ahold of to ask. I called, she was out to lunch and nobody called me back. Rats.

I’m not usually the type of girl who feels pain and discomfort during That Time of the Month; I usually only have a little back pain. But Thursday night I started to feel really crappy.

That night was the night that some crazy, drugged up man came knocking on our doors. It was around 11:30pm and I was talking to Ricci on my cell. Mary calls to the house phone to ask if Mario was home because someone was knocking and she was afraid to get up and answer and Big Mario was already asleep. I tell her no, he’d left to Tommy’s. As soon as I said that, I heard a knock at the door and Eenan, who was sleeping in the living room, groggily yells, “Come in!” I drop both phones, grab Alaethia and run to the living room. I tell Eenan to get in my room and I pull the curtain slightly back. The crazy man notices and I see a huge eye staring back at me. I gather all my courage and pull the curtain open and see a 30ish year old man with a receding hairline and wearing a dingy white t-shirt holding a pack of cigarettes and waving money in my face. He says, “A dime, lady! A dime, c’mon!” in Spanish. I shake my head at him and wave him away and quickly close the curtain. I kind of stand there for a few seconds, wondering if he’s crazy enough to break the windows on my door. I grab Eenan and we run to my bedroom. I call Mario right away and he’s here in 5 minutes from Yadira’s. The man had long gone, but my in-law’s had called the cops and apparently they’d been looking for him because they knew he’d been knocking on other people’s doors looking for drugs. Crazy. Mario felt really bad that he wasn’t here and kept apologizing. I played it cool, because I didn’t want to make him feel worse but I was terrified. I’m just glad nothing worse happened. Mario and I stayed up watching gross videos on Ebaumsworld.com for about an hour and then went to bed.

We all slept a little late on Friday. I felt even worse than I did the night before. My legs hurt, I was cramping, my back was killing me and I was SO TIRED. Even after sleeping 9 hours. We got up and got ready to go to town. We had to pick up Mario’s paycheck and get a few more school clothes for the boys. We had totally forgotten it was Tax-Free Weekend, but it wasn’t too bad. We had lunch at Burger King and it was pretty packed there, though. Aly was so cute eating her green beans, which I remembered to pack this time. It was nice being out together :).

We went to the bank then to Target where we got the boys another pair of jeans each, socks, undies and a few other things. And then we went to Academy where I bought Mario a rifle shotgun he’d been wanting for at least 2 years. Dove (is it doves? Whitewings, whatever) season is coming up and he didn’t get to go last year since his dad was out hunting with the shotgun Mario was going to use. He deserves it for everything he does for us, especially working his fingers to the bone to give us everything we need and want. I sat at the shoe department with the kiddos and I’m pretty sure I saw my childhood friends, Jesse and Daisy, shopping around. They’ve been together since 8th grade. And I thought Mario and I’d been together long!

We went home afterwards and then to Yadira’s later, where we learned about some family drama. We came back home and went over to Elda’s where we sat around chatting and visiting with Isaac, who’d stopped by. They decided to bar-b-q and I felt like total crap so Aly and I came home (right next door LOL). I didn’t feel any better that night, after eating some chilli and cheese tater gems and munchers from Star’s. I’ve really got to stop eating so much fast food and just general junk. I felt sluggish and like I was about to barf right before I laid down. My back hurt so bad I needed to get up and warm up a rice sock.

I felt really tired this morning; so tired that I went back to sleep after the alarm went off to wake up Mario for work. Poor thing was rushing around like crazy. I slept a little longer and woke up when Alaethia did. We all ate breakfast then Mom came over. I got in the shower and John was here when I got out. We made plans to go to town. Dropping a pizza off for Mario for his lunch was the first stop, then we went to the mall. Tax-Free Weekend was in full-effect — there were no parking spaces what-so-ever. I went around the parking lots of the whole mall and finally went over to the Sears side. After a few rounds I found The Perfect Parking Space at the doors of Sears. I changed Aly’s diaper, Mom stayed with the boys at the little seating area in front of Sears and John, Alaethia and I walked off. We went to JC Penny first. I had a $10 off coupon so I was going to get a pair of jeans (because the ones I have are like, 3 years old already) but I didn’t find ONE pair of Arizona bootleg jeans. Damn sales. Instead I got two little T’s and a blouse for Mom for her birthday tomorow. I estimated it should come out to $18 after the coupon but it didn’t. It came out to $10.47! I love JCP!

John got what he needed, bought some games and met Mom and the boys. The boys wanted to get on a ride and the stupid machine ate my quarters. Grr. We picked up a pizza for ourselves and ate on the way to Gramma’s. Mom cleaned up her room a little and after talking with her for a while and getting a list of stuff she needs we went to H-E-B.

The kids didn’t want to walk around anymore so we popped a DVD in for them and Mom stayed with them in the car. As usual, John and I spent an hour in there shopping. I bought extra canned foods just in case Hurricane Dean makes its way over here. Hurricane Erin totally missed us; it went Northeast of us, but this one seems like it might hit us or Northern Mexico. The last time a hurricane hit Northern Mexico we lost power for 24 hours (and that’s also the fateful day I began reading the Harry Potter books!). So, I’m just preparing. If nothing happens the boys will be happy to know they’ve got tons of ravioli to eat LOL.

And after that we’ve just been home. I made tacos for dinner and I waited up with the boys who were waiting up for Mary. She went to a casino in Eagle Pass with her co-workers and the boys were desperate to sleepover so they waited up. And then Aly fell asleep so now I’m finally updating! She’s so cute…and grown up. She recently started holding her own bottles!

Okay, so that’s going to be a long one. I thought I heard her stirring so I should stop tapping on these keys. Goodnight!

I shouldn’t have drank that whole glass of chocolate milk. I drank it about 2 hours ago and I still feel uncomfortably full *burp*.

Right. So my interview was Friday. I hadn’t even mentioned what I’m being interviewed for. A librarian’s assistant. At a middle school.

I got ready with plenty of time, grabbed my resume, kissed all the kiddos for good luck and was out the door. I didn’t feel nervous till I put the key in the ignition and started backing out of the driveway. Then I felt as if my heart was in my throat.

I left the house about 15 minutes early, since the school I was being interviewed at isn’t far from home at all. I sat in the car for 3 minutes, composing myself, fixing my hair, then decided to get down since I didn’t know exactly what office I was meeting the woman at. I see two different entrances and try both. There’s old, yellowed newspapers at the foot of each door, and both doors are locked. Panic sets in. I curse myself for sitting those extra three minutes in the car, since now I had only 7 minutes to find the correct door. Luckily a lady sees me walking away and asks me what I needed. I told her I had an interview and she points me in the right direction: the “main” door was at the side of the school.

I walk to the front office, am asked to sign in by a cheerful secretary and sit down next to a clammy, nervous-looking young man. And do I mean nervous. He kept sighing, shaking his leg, cracking his knuckles, coughing — he started to make me feel even more nervous than I already was. My heart suddenly started pounding in my chest and then my throat. I was sure everyone in the very quiet lobby could hear me. I caught myself cracking my knuckles and thought ‘What if this guy’s here to get interviewed for the Librarian’s Assistant position, too? I can’t show him I’m nervous!’ So I tried being as calm as possible (boy was that tough) and almost screamed when a woman with black hair called my name.

She’s cheerful, introduces herself and I introduce myself. She gets to talking immediately about the job’s responsibilities and asks if I can handle the workload. I tell her yes, definitely. She tells me about how far the new location will be and asks if I’m still interested. I gulp, because it’s about 7 1/2 miles away from my house, and say yes, I still am. She tells me my hours would be from 6:30 a.m. to about 3:15 p.m. She tells me about the pay and I nonchalantly nod (but in my head I’m screaming ‘YES, PLZ!’). She has me review the questions she was going to ask me while she reviewed (and made tons of notes on) my resume.

She was impressed with my resume, overall. The whole interview lasted 1 hour. Half was discussing the job, my strengths and being questioned about my ability to do the job and the other half was talking about reading, books, our kids and schools. It was pretty interesting and honestly, I felt relaxed and comfortable after 5 minutes of speaking with Mrs. V. I could totally work for that lady.

At the end of the interview she asked if I had any questions and we started talking about how far the school was from my house. She said, if I wanted, that I could take a drive and time myself to see how far it would be, but to keep in mind a few extra minutes for morning traffic. I completely forgot to ask the important question that should always be asked at the end of the interview: ‘When can I contact you about your decision?’

We walked out talking about the school I graduated from and shake hands. I’m feeling pretty chipper and as I’m getting into the Equinox my heart sinks when I realize what I’d done. Or not done. I wasn’t at peace all day until I called to ask her, politely, when I could call back to check on the status of the position. She said there were 9 applicants. She’d submit The Name on Monday, the board would review on Wednesday and I could call by Thursday to find out. Holy shizz, I’m dying to know.

There were 8 other people. I’m competing with 8 others for this job. She told me I could “time myself” to see how “far it was” for me. Did she tell that to everyone? She wouldn’t tell me to go and waste gas and drive all the way over there if she didn’t pick me, would she? Why would someone do something so mean?

If she picks me, I’m not sure how I feel about waking up at 5:30 to get to work on time since Alaethia still isn’t falling asleep before 11, but at least it’s progress. At least it’s not 1am anymore. We’ve (Mario and I) already discussed the drop-off, pick-up situation for the boys and it would work perfectly, although I’m nervous about them riding the bus. Mom would be taking care of Aly and would probably take over making sure the boys are ready on time in the morning once I leave so Mario can drop them off, but I’m nervous as hell about what to do when she has one of her many doctor’s appointments. It’s gonna be a bitch driving down that long road in the dark, on my own, but I would totally do all this, no matter how taxing it’s all going to be. This is a good job, with good pay, benefits and days off when the kids have them off (well, most of them since they’re still in elementary). I get to see them after school for some good hours and still do everything I need to do, like help with their homework, get their showers ready and have dinner on the table by the time Mario gets home. And hey, if I do get this, after a few years I can maybe transfer closer to home? Okay, okay…I’m getting ahead of myself.

We’ll just see what Thursday brings. Right now, I’m sleepy and my lap is sweaty since Alaethia’s on it. Will update with the rest of Friday-Today tomorrow.

Aly actually stayed asleep last night after I put her to bed at 10:40. She didn’t wake up for her first bottle till 2:30 and then again at 5:30. She scared me in the morning. I kept checking up on her because she didn’t wake up till 10:30am! Even though she fell asleep early, I had trouble falling asleep. I had a thousand things on my mind and Mario was out with his buddies so I wasn’t comfortable. I cant sleep when he’s not home. When I finally had fallen asleep he called to let me know he was on his way and woke me up. Then he woke me up again when he got here and Aly woke up for her bottle at that exact moment. Still, I got roughly 7-8 hours of sleep and after a cup of coffee and hazelnut coffee cream I felt refreshed all day.

The kiddos chilled out all morning and behaved a little better than they had been. John came over after I’d served the boys lunch and sat next to me at the table. I was quick to let him know how upset I was that he hadn’t offered to go with me to town the last 3 times I’ve gone and he sort of brushed it off. I held my tongue and he said, “How about some sushi?”

You don’t have to tell me twice. All was forgiven!

I had some errands to run anyway, like depositing at the bank (where we talked to Yadira for a while), and getting a few things and going to the salon.

They practically know what we get at Kumori already. They brought us our lemonades and Miso soup and this time John ordered an extra plate of rolls: the Bonsai rolls. He got them because they were inexpensive; didn’t even check what they contained.

They bring us our Spicy Fried Calamari (which we ate in record time) and our rolls. I’d asked for my usual Fiesta rolls with no salmon skin. The waiter brings us our plates of rolls and when he places mine in front of me says, “Fiesta rolls with extra salmon skin?” I felt a mix of emotions: felt bad for the cook because the rolls looked really nice but I loathe salmon skin, felt bad for myself because I was going to have to wait longer for a new order and I was starving, and I felt bad for the waiter because I might just yell at him for getting the order wrong. As I sat there in silence staring at the rolls, wondering where the salmon skin was, the waiter starts laughing and says, “Eh, I’m just kidding!” I start laughing, relieved for all of us, and the waiter leaves and I glance at John. He’s smirking and says, “You looked like you were gonna kill somebody.”

I happily eat my no-salmon-skin rolls and John tries out his new Bonsai ones. He makes a face and says, “It has a familiar taste.” I try one and DAMMIT! there’s salmon skin in it…and broccoli. Ahh, “bonsai”…makes sense. Little trees. I tell him about my connection and he says, “I HATE broccoli.” Still he ate the whole plate of them.

It was good. I think they put something in it — chemicals or something — that make you crave it like crazy. I want some more.

We went to Mario’s work next, to steal their internet so I could order something for Jorge on Ebay but it was blocked. So we leave to the mall where John spent an eternity at JC Penny looking for work-out shoes. We checked out a few stores then left to Target. We got Mom what she needed, I got what I needed, including some white pillowcases and some white curtains. I get home and realize I got sheet ones. Not what I wanted. So I’m taking them back and getting the teal ones to match the sheets, even though they were a little more expensive. I like no light seeping through the curtains in the morning.

I got the kids fed, bathed, and in bed by 10 tonight. Aly WAS asleep, but she started stirring when the phone rang (Mario’s on his way from picking up a goat…long story) so now she’s fully awake. I’m so nervous about my interview tomorrow. I hope, hope, hope I get this!