April 6th – I spent the first day of my 3-day vacation cleaning the house, doing laundry, and going to Dollar Tree and Target to get a few last-minute things for the kids’ Easter baskets :). I found some pretty cute things at the Target Dollar Spot, which I completely missed the first time. I got some Gerber goodies for Julien, which is what Jorge and I finally decided on for his basket. I got home, made lunch and started on the baskets. I think they turned out pretty good :).

I was told something that day–something that I knew would eventually be said–but I had no idea it would affect me the way it did. Apologies were made and all was well in the end, but it’s something that I won’t easily forget. Only because, like Jorge says, I have a very good memory LOL.

Jorge got home and we watched Rango with the kiddos that night. It always makes me so warm and fuzzy inside when all our kiddos are sprawled around the living room, comfortable and happy .

April 7th We lazied around the next day and celebrated Easter that night. Since the other parents wanted to pick up the kids at opposite times of the day we figured we’d celebrate the night before. The kids opened their baskets, Jorge got home and started up the pit, we had the egg war and then we ate.

When we’d finished we sat outside and watched a documentary on snakes on the big screen. The kids were enthralled!

April 8th – Mario picked the kiddos up around 9:30 or so. They drove off and I already felt a hollow pit in my chest and a knot in my throat . It sucks that I can’t have them with me all the time.

I went back to our bedroom and cuddled up next to Jorge, but I couldn’t go back to sleep. I got up and made us breakfast. We got ready for the day and around 3pm Jorge dropped the boys off. He got back and we kinda sat around in the quiet house, staring at each other heh. We figured we’d do some work around the house. Our little flower bed had been completely destroyed by the hail storm, save for some little stumps that we’d been trying to revive. I’m so glad we didn’t give up on them:

I’d been meaning to move those little flowers into a flower pot. They aren’t supposed to be in direct sunlight, heh.

We had some Red Mango (which was over half off since I had a birthday coupon :D!).

We finished up and went to Home Depot across the street. Everything else was closed due to the holiday. Shary Road was like a ghost town. Jorge said, “You do know we’re probably the only people not celebrating today, right?” That made me feel a pang for the kids again .

We found some Petunias to replace the other flowers, got some drinks and headed home. Jorge started cleaning the garage while I started working in my little flower bed.

We heard the familiar sounds of the ice cream truck and we glanced at each other, both knowing we were about to run over there, heh. I’d been trying to eat better, but some things you just can’t give up! He got a corn in a cup and I got some Flamin’ Hots with cheese *drool*.

I finished up and was pretty proud of my work *beams*.

The little flower-less stumps are my old Petunias that survived the hail storm. I can’t wait till they start flowering again!

Jorge was finishing up with sweeping the garage. I started going through boxes and Jorge and I discussed organizing everything so that we could park both vehicles just in case we have another freak storm. We needed 3 more boxes to accomplish this, so Jorge, Mom and I went to Big Lots to get some. We got back, I went through all the boxes, filled up the 3 new ones and got rid of a whole bunch of cardboard ones. We were pretty darn satisfied with our work. After a year (yes, one whole year on the 8th!) of living here, we finally got our garage how we wanted :).

We were starving, so I whipped up some Green Curry Chicken salad, which is celery, green apples, olive oil mayo and chicken. It was so delicious. I’m pretty sure we burned off all our snacks of the day with all our work and eating a healthy dinner always makes me feel great. I was ready for the week. Ready for my last week in my 20’s!

Some people are something else. I don’t usually put stuff like this out there, but enough is enough. I’m at full liberty to express myself.

The Ex is throwing himself a pity party; relishing in the comments and smack-talk about me. He’s complaining about ME supposedly keeping the kids from him, yet, hello?! That’s the court order MF’s!!

I recall him being the one wanting to start a war. Wasn’t he the one who separated my kids back in September 2010? Wasn’t he the one who ACTUALLY KEPT MY KIDS FROM ME for over 3 weeks in October 2010 after he filed a Temporary Restraining Order when HE’S the one who jumped in my van and attacked me? Just to put on a show for his little family while they BBQ’d? Wasn’t it he and his mother who went to Alaethia’s school last month and LIED and withdrew her from school without my knowledge, when I’m her custodial parent: by court order! This was a day after I allowed him to have the girls spend the night on a Wednesday, because he supposedly wanted to spend time with them, and they come up with their drama show the next day?? He’d guilt trip me and ask me to let Emily stay with him extra time so the kids would spent time together when I only had custody of her, and then his mother was urging him to use that against me in court! And I’m supposed to TRUST him after all that, and countless other shit, after these 2 years?? HA!! No more being nice. I’ve FINALLY learned my lesson :)! He or anyone can think I’m a bitch as muuuuuch as they want! I fell for his shit enough for 13 years and even after we filed for divorce. I’m done being stupid!

He doesn’t even call the girls unless I call to talk to the boys. I speak to them every day I don’t have them. But he–even when I do call–doesn’t bother with them at times. I talked to the boys last night and he didn’t bother asking for the girls. And they noticed, and I had to make an excuse. But it’s the last time. He needs to do it himself.

He sees nothing wrong with all he’s done. He’s exempted himself because he posts a few bible quotes on Facebook lol. Whatever, live it–in all aspects of your life–and then you can preach to me. Until then, you’re a hypocrit! (Wait, wasn’t he an Athiest when we were married and called everyone who believed in God, stupid?)

Understand that we’re in this situation, the children are in this situation, BECAUSE OF YOU!!!! Yes, the kids are suffering, BECAUSE OF YOU!

But he knows. He has his family and 700 “friends” fooled, but he knows exactly what he’s done. It’s not much of one, but he has a conscience. And that’s why he finds the need to blame me for everything:  our children’s separation, our failed marriage. That’s why he finds the need to put up little indirects and quotes about me and starts his pity parties. But he knows. And GOD knows, and everyone will know.

Make a nice little Facebook post about all that, will you ;)?

The beginning of the week (March 26-30) was quite…uneventful at work. I kept trying to find stuff to stay busy. I was thrilled when a certificate would come in, heh. I was giddy with suppressed laughter at the following pins:

Source: shibleysmiles.com via Yajaira on Pinterest

Source: static.someecards.com via Yajaira on Pinterest

Source: google.com via Yajaira on Pinterest

On Monday, the 26th, I’d made baked fish and green beans and it was SO GOOD. Since Mom got a scolding at the doc’s and since the rest of us really need to make an effort to eat well again, I wanted to start making healthy meals. Mom’s done good, though, and sometimes doesn’t even wait for me to make dinner like she used to; she’ll just make herself something healthy and she’ll retire to her room.

Jorge vacuumed my van that night, without being asked, heh ♥. He’s awesome. I put the girls in the bath and had them bathed before 9, woo! We asked Mom to keep an eye on them while we went to get a Redbox movie. We finally watched Contaigon; it was an awesome movie! Now Jorge knows why I wash/germ-x my hands all the time; you never know!!

The boys were all STAAR testing the next day; I’m confident they aced it and scored well in the writing part :).

We went to have dinner with the girls at Chili’s on the 28th; I had a coupon, which was a plus, heh.

I’m glad I took this photo of them before we left the house; those pine trees don’t look like that anymore (you’ll read why later). They look grumpy in the pic because this was about the 5th one because they kept moving and getting blurry. By this pic they yelled, “Let’s just go eat already!” LOL

They had a great time :). I tried eating “healthy” but you really can’t eat healthy when you go to Chili’s LOL. I had a shitton of chips and salsa and ordered the Cajun chicken Alfredo =\. I had a lot leftover tho, hehe.

The next day was the All About Women event. Michelle and I spent the afternoon running errands for Gerry. We got back to the office, helped set up here and there and then I excused myself to pick up my boys ♥. I picked them up and we went back to the office. We got there just in time for dinner; Costa Messa was catering :).

We finished up and got home. Mom had already made dinner for herself and the girls and Jorge ate lightly when he got home. Freddy came to visit and we all sat in the garage chatting. We started noticing the sky was quickly becoming dark and it got windy. I’d seen a FB update from the news that they expected thunderstorms here and there and possible hail. I figured it was one of those types of “storms” where it drizzles and goes away.

We had just set up Monopoly and Puss and Boots to watch with the kids when it started thundering. From one second to the next, it was hailing!! All the kids huddled in the living room with Mom while Jorge and I tried to clear the garage as quickly as possible to get my van and his work truck in. Only the front of his work truck fit since the lawn mower was in there; but at least the windows would be ok.

When the rain and wind had just started, the van was moving back with every gust of wind! Winds were about 75MPH that night. I’d never heard anything like this. It was the loudest, quickest storm I’ve ever experienced in my life! I can only describe the sound as a machine gun in an action movie; it was scary.

As Jorge was moving his work truck he got clocked in the head with a huge hail ball! I’m so glad he was swift and quick-thinking and moved the vehicles when he did. We were worried about his truck, which he’d left at work.

We took pics as much as we could, calmed the kids as much as we could. Eenan–who has feared storms since he was a toddler–wasn’t very happy, but he prayed and tried keeping as calm as possible.

We called everyone and told them to stay home/go home/put your cars away! And at some point we came inside and Jorge checked on the bedroom. Our window was completely broken and there was about an inch of water on the floor and glass everywhere; it even hit the other side of the wall!

We started cleaning up as quickly as possible and put a fan on to dry the room and cardboard to keep the water out. It was the best we could do with what we had at the moment. I’m so glad nobody was in that bedroom when the window literally exploded.

The girls’ room window broke, too, but only the outer panel, so their stuff didn’t get wet, thank God. I’m glad none of the other windows broke; I seriously thought the octagon-shaped window in our master bath didn’t break.

It looked like it had snowed outside, but it was about 6 inches of ice balls. It was the craziest sight I’d ever seen in March.

There were tornado watches and flooding all over the place. We heard the BMW dealership had tons of cars wrecked by the hail. We turned the news off and the kids finally calmed down and went to sleep around 11pm. Eenan stayed up later because he was nervous. Jorge and I went for a drive to check things out and we realized we were practically on an island; some places, like Shary Rd. had up to 2 feet of flooding. Damage to schools and the roads was bad enough to close them down. I ended up staying home and cleaning up; it looked like a disaster area outside. The trees were all bald; our flower bed was completely destroyed, my bougainvillea was bald :(. It was really sad.

Those who showed up to work were sent home in 2 hours due to lack of power. I hadn’t gone out to drive around, but Jorge called that 10th and Nolana was wrecked. His truck, by some miracle, had 0 damage!

Jorge and I were on our way to Walmart on Sunday to buy a push-broom and another rake. We took a detour instead to 10th and Nolana. The damage was crazy. Some places looked abandoned. We stopped by Starbucks and were taken aback at the sight:

We got home and started cleaning up outside. The boys had been playing games all day so we sent them all outside to help us. We had an ice cream break when the ice cream truck passed by and we cleaned some more. We made a game out of it and took turns holding bags open, raking and shoveling. We finished up in an hour and a half. We filled up about 25 bags! I thought we’d never get it done!

I’m glad there weren’t any casualties that night. I’m glad everyone was safe. It was a wake-up call though; heaven forbid we have a hurricane that hits us directly. I’d hate to know the type of damage that would happen then!