Purging of the Site, Heart, and Home Kind

I removed my darn question and answer script yesterday because 1) it was hardly ever used and 2) it had an annoying error I couldn’t fix. I even searched all over Google for a remedy and nothing.

I’ve been thinking of giving the whole site a makeover. I desperately need to weed out broken links and get rid of old pages people hardly use. But then again I have this weird attachment to all my old content, which, after all these years, is the reason why all that junk’s still on the site.

Anyway, after the cable guy had come over on Thursday, Mary asked one of the customer service reps if she could get a better deal on the Starz and Encore channels because they were charging her double for each channel alone instead of for the whole package. She needed a box and I knew Mario would want one, too, so we got one. Now we have all the channels we used to have when we had DirecTV! Plus some I think. The boys and our bedroom still have the analog channels (which apparently are ancient and should have been sacked from the system 6 years ago when Starr county moved to the new cable-box one).

We went to Adan’s dad’s house that night, since he was waiting for Final Fantasy to download to the computer. Mario asked me to go and I finally said I would. Mom almost pushed me out the door and said it was totally okay, to go have fun. So after getting the boys fed, bathed and in bed we left.

We mostly chatted about music and websites and stuff. Isaac went over later and talked about the game. When we were leaving Mario’s uncle got there and he was still very visibly upset about Tia Alma. I didn’t know what to say, but as Mario spoke to him I developed a knot in my throat the size of Alaska. Whatever tears that threatened to spill out were held in since I didn’t want to make anything worse. Mario was giving him such good advice; he always knows just what to say.

We get in the car and are really quiet. I break the ice by saying, “Your poor uncle. He’s still so upset. Well–naturally.”

He replies, “I’d probably be the same way.”

“Really?”

He looks at me in disbelief and says, “You may not know this, but believe it or not, my whole life revolves around you. I wouldn’t know what to do. I know you need me because I support you and the kids and make the money and all that, but I need you for everything. I can’t cook, wash, clean–well, I can, but it’s hard!–and I can’t pay the bills. I need you.”

I sort of laugh because I’m a bit amused that he’s mentioning all these things. That’s how he tells me he needs me because he loves me. Then I remember what he said and say, “I need you for other reasons than paying the bills, you know. I just…need you here. To be with me. Because I love you.”

And he says, “Yeah. That’s what I mean. And who else would I talk to? You know how I hold everything in, then when I feel like I’m going to explode you’re the one I tell everything to.” Then he notices I’m going 20 in a 30MPH zone and tells me to speed it up. I spent the rest of the night feeling a weird mixture of sadness, elation, and fear of ever losing Mario, or Mario and the kids losing me prematurely.

It just goes to show how borrowed life really is. Why you really need to take in everyday and tell all your loved ones you love them and appreciate them. And not only that, but spend time with them. That’s something I need to start doing more with the kids. Spend good, quality time playing games or taking them to the park, or watching a good kid’s movie. Lately, when they ask me to do something with them the answer’s been, “Hold on a second, guys. I’m washing dishes.” Or some other chore that I haven’t been able to get done due to taking care of Aly. But thing’s’ve gotta change.

As for yesterday, I actually got to sleep in a little bit after the kids left to school. Mario made migas for breakfast, which–for those that don’t know–is eggs with corn tortillas chopped up into squares. I haven’t had migas in years and he did a pretty good job. We picked up Jaylen, washed dishes (he actually helped me *gasp*), and Mom stayed with the kiddos while we cashed Mario’s check and almost bawled at having to separate the money for bills. It’s been slow at work, and from what I’ve heard, at all other businesses as well. We’ve got to be extra-careful with our money this time, which means I need to keep my butt in the house and not out shopping!

Mario kept telling me he was going to take me to this awesome burger place downtown. We get there and I look up and it’s a burger joint we’d go to all the time as kids when we still lived in McAllen. Brought back memories :). I had a burrito drenched in cheese, which I immediately regretted as it made my stomach feel gross, but man was it good!

We got home and basically chilled out all day. Mario vacummed all the cars (including his mom’s and dad’s LOL) and then he bar-b-q’d. But right before that, he helped big Mario, er…prepare the cutest goat ever to become food. The boys took it much better than I thought they would!

When he was done bar-b-q’ing I made sure I was only served fajitas!

I finally finished reading Shopaholic Takes Manhattan and wanted to start on Shopaholic Ties the Knot, but I don’t have it. So instead of buying the book I went to the library to rent it out, and if they didn’t have it then they would have ordered it for me from another library, but they were closed. Who knows how long they’ve been closing at 4, but they did yesterday :(. I think I’m going to start on one I already have. Probably Sushi for Beginners by Marian Keyes.

Mario and I tried watching TV last night but Alaethia was in a bad mood. She gets that way about half an hour before she falls asleep, without fail, every night. I was so tired I kept nodding off, so Mario told me to lay down since I was falling asleep. So I did. At around 11pm. And when she woke up at 6 for a bottle I still felt exhausted. It’s really caught up with me, not sleeping well.

As for today, Mom, John, the kiddos and I all went to town to drop Mario’s keys off at work to him, then get him some energy drinks and then I paid bills. I stopped by the thrift store to see if they had anything good (I went today since I told myself I wasn’t going anywhere all next week) but they had nothing.

We went to see Gramma for a while, who held Alaethia for a good while. We even took pictures! John took pictures of all 4 generations of us: Gramma, Mom, me and Alaethia. I’m totally getting lots of copies of those pictures :). I’d post them here, but I wasn’t wearing makeup and looked terrible, heh.

I made a grocery list while we were at Gramma’s and made a promise to myself to stick to it. I went to Target to get all the house things I needed, then to H-E-B for groceries. I did pretty good at Target, but veered off the list a little at H-E-B and got some brownies, vanilla ice cream and caramel, to surprise Mario with.

I really gotta get everything completely ready for the yard sale in the next few days since I’m HOPING to have it on Thursday and Friday. I still have to go through the kitchen cabinet under the sink, the top of the living room closet and give our bedrooms another once-over. I hope we have a good turnout!

Going to stop being a hermit and socialize with the family at Mary’s since Jorge and Jose are back. Goodnight!