Tag: love

I had one of thee best birthdays!!

But FIRST! Sally’s birthday is on the 13th 😀 ! We usually have an all-out lunch before both our birthdays (where we gorge and split the bill) but we hadn’t had a chance that week. She was having a get-together Friday night, so right after work, I got home and got ready to go to her “Let’s Taco’Bout It” Bash at The Quarter.

We had some laughs and caught up. I made friends with a good friend of Sally’s, Irene. Super sweet lady! I saw several familiar faces and met a few new ones :).

The band took forever to start (that, or I’m just old LOL.) Poor Jorge got home around 7:30pm, but he was tired so he opted to stay home. Sally and I hung around for a bit and I started yawning around 11pm 😆 , so I drove her home after a good Chisme-Fest.

The 14th is my birthday! This is honestly the first year in my 30’s that I didn’t dread adding another year to my life. Up until last year, I just felt like I was getting older and looking the part, but I felt pretty damn fantastic this year! (Thank you: Keto 😆 )

Poor Sally had to work in the morning; originally she was my date to the Selena Brunch. Anyone who knows me knows I ADORE Selena and anything Selena-related–especially if it’s at Suerte Bar & Grill!

[Sidenote: I literally play Selena daily–the entire month of April (much to my family’s chagrin 😆 ) since it’s the month of Selena’s and my birthdays.]

The first (and only) time Jorge and I had tried to go to a brunch at Suerte it was PACKED. So we learned to arrive early. We arrived a whole hour early…and had to wait a little to go in, ha. So we took some photo ops:

(It’s funny!! Calm down…)

We sat at our usual table, near the awesome piano-ofrenda.

I took a photo of this wonderful man, whom I was super grateful to for granting the only wish I had for my birthday: attend the Selena brunch 😆 .

We perused the menu:

And I KNEW nothing on the menu was Keto-friendly, but it was my damn birthday, darnit! And I was going to enjoy it, guilt-free!

Close up of them sweets:

Jorge asked if I liked the concha and the marshmallow, to which I replied, “They taste…purple.” They totally did; they were airbrushed. But I ate them anyway!

We finished up and went to visit the family at Rebecca’s, a cabrito restaurant (Jorge and I only had some Mexican diet Cokes since we were still stuffed). Dina and Javi had come down to bring Grandma some equipment and it was great to have them over for my birthday! We would be meeting for dinner later in the evening.

We left for the mall next. Just as I suspected, Jorge took me to Pandora 😀 ! He knew I wanted a new charm that came in, so he got me 4!

I love them!!

Jaylen was at a chess meet so we scooped him up and then headed to the house. Jorge stayed at home, but Jaylen, Mom and I took off to pick up the other kiddos at their dad’s. It never fails–the kids are always with the other parents on my birthday 🙁 . So I have to borrow them for a little bit.

We celebrated at Rolling With Cream. They have an awesome sugar-free base, so Mom and I were set!

Loved getting to spend time with my babies! They always want to hear stories lol.

I took them back to their dad’s, and when I got home there were balloons! Jorge stayed behind to order some and he stuffed them into the car. Such a sweetheart, I swear!

We took off at 6pm for dinner. I didn’t know the location of our destination, and was rather confused when we were driving South on 10th St. But he drove into Tony Roma’s and I was way too excited to have ribs!!

Jorge tells me to wait in the car and takes the balloons with him. I can’t help but wonder what he’s up to. He comes back for me and the host ushers us to the back room. (The same room the Chamber had my farewell lunch at.) He says he has a surprise…and there are Sally and the kids!

I was so happy to see her!! It was such a great surprise!! But there was more!! My in-laws arrive next and then stroll in Linda and Tommy! I was so surprised to see them I gasp, “Whhaaaattt??” And go to them to hug them.

Of course Linda hands me a gift in a penis-shaped bag 😆 !!

We ordered starters and drinks and chatted and had a great time.

And then our food came:

We continued to talk and chat and the family bonded and suddenly they dim the lights. It takes me a bit to understand what’s going on and then waiters are singing “Happy Birthday!” and bringing in a cake in single file. Sally ordered it, and it was a delicious mostachon!

She giggled when I blew out the candles and plucked out the Princess topper, saying, “That doesn’t go there!” 😆

I’ve never had a surprise party in my life!! It was so wonderful of Jorge and Sally to put it together!! They’re both just too wonderful to me, and I’m so blessed to have them in my life!

Once we were done I thanked everyone for everything. Jorge and I went home, and I opened my gifts:

Then, we ended the night doing one of my faves: snuggling on the couch in my blanket with one of my shows. And passed out immediately 😆 .

The birthday celebrations followed the day after! Sally and I went to get mani-pedis. The shop is across the street from my work so this would be convenient if I ended up liking it (and the price). I’m a cheapskate, and could think of better things to do with that money, but the idea of having cute, unchipped nails for 2 weeks sounded fantastic! Plus, my Mama-in-law gifted me birthday money!

Sally and I walk in and start ooh’ing and ahh’ing over the colors. I got a little anxiety-stricken when the lady came to ask what colors I wanted–I WAS STILL DECIDING!! But she was ready to go so I panicked and picked something safe: bubblegum pink and gold glitter on the ring finger.

I was semi-mortified about getting a pedi…my feet aren’t exactly the most feminine…

I was surprised she didn’t have to bust out a sandblaster, to be honest >_<… I don’t take nearly enough time to pamper myself (because I’m a cheapskate), and you could totally tell.

But, anyway, we got hot-stone leg massages and just chatted the whole time. It was such a great experience and something I can definitely get used to!

A couple of days later my boss treated me to lunch at Yoko’s Sushi. I got my usual riceless Yume. SO delicious!

Still can’t believe what a great birthday weekend it was! Planning on making Year 36 a successful and productive one. I’ve got many goals I want to crush–I just need to stop being afraid of failing so I can get it done!

This week has gone by incredibly fast! I feel like it was just Monday–when the girls had me running around for Valentine cards (because Mom forgot!), or Tuesday–when Alaethia texted me after work to request a Valentine’s Day outfit, and that she would pay for it with her birthday money (note: she didn’t 🙄 ). So off we go, after waiting for Jorgie and their mom to stop by for Jules’ cards and birthday money from Dina. (We had a mini celebration for Jules on Sunday. Like I mentioned in my previous post: I’m so behind!!)

We checked Target and Wal-Mart and nothing. So she opted for a white blouse that she would wear with my red cardigan and necklace (yes, the 11-yr-old already wears my clothes!). Next morning: didn’t like the blouse 🙄 . She’s already such a teenager, but you can’t help but love that girl lol.

I also woke up to this amazingness!

(It’s safe to say I put Keto on hold for a little bit!)

My love went all out, like he usually does! He also got me some diamond earrings (my birthstone), that I didn’t have a chance to take a photo of because I put them on so quickly 😆 .

Had a pretty quick morning at work and had lunch with Blanca and Gerry at the cafe inside Quips ‘n’ Quotes. It’s always so good catching up with them!!

The afternoon at work went by a little slower, but it could have been because I was so excited about our date!! Jorge made reservations at House.Wine & Bistro, even before I liked the event on Facebook lol.

I got him a shirt and candies after work (he has always told me I’m not supposed to spend on him for Valentine’s Day because it’s my day, and it’s for girls 😆 , but I don’t feel right not getting him anything! I got mom some flowers and sugar free candies, too.

I got home and got a message from Jorge that he’d left his truck at home and for me to pick him up at work, so there I go. I’m talking to Eenan on the way and he’s retelling a story about saving a hen (or “Polla”, as we affectionately refer to them) from JoJo and Dodger and now he and Jaylen are trying to herd her back to safety, but she’s trapped in the yard behind the fence. So Jaylen grabs her and she just plops herself in his arms 😆 .

I love it!! Totally making it his profile pic on my contacts 😆 .

We get home and start getting ready after getting updates from the girls about their day. Mario stops by to see the girls and then I get the oven ready for the girls’ dinner so Mom can set them up before we leave. We give instructions, kisses, and tell them not to stay up late.

We arrive a bit early so we have a cocktail at the bar.

I see Jessica, the owner, and we hug. It was so good to see her!

We’re seated after a little bit and we order our meal. We’re having the Tomahawk steak and lobster meal with the works. They start us off with champagne…

…and the best crab cake I’ve ever had in my life!

Then we moved on to our wine (Moscato) and our salad:

We toast, and talk about life and the kids and our goals for this, and upcoming years. He tells me how he stayed positive even though he was scared about me switching jobs (haven’t gotten to that yet! Another blog post!) and how he knew that if he said anything at all, it would scare and discourage me so he kept it in. I tell him that yes, any spark of uncertainty on his part would have caused me to say, “Nevermind! I’m staying where I am!” Like I have all these years. We toast again to our successes and what’s to come.

And then it’s time for the star of the show:

Wait, let me give you another angle…

An arm comparison:

That steak…I finally understand what people mean when they say the steak was like butter, or cut like butter. It was incredible!! And that lobster, and the carrots and Brussels sprouts!! Oh my gosh, it was all to die for!

Then it was time for dessert:

Chocolate Créme Brulee…it was magnificent! I was so glad Jorge was full and left me most of it 😆 !

It was such a phenomenal night!! This handsome, extremely hardworking man right here–how did I get so lucky?? He went above and beyond with surprises!! And the best part is: it’s not just during Valentine’s Day lol. Don’t get me wrong: he could be moody and snappy, but I wouldn’t change him for anything!

You never know when your life is going to change forever. I never thought, when I woke up on November 17, 2017 that it would be the day I said goodbye to my lovely Gramma. My Grimmy. My Grimmy-Grim.

My poor Gramma had a hard life, but she was a trooper. I think that’s what saddened me the most: that she never had it easy. She was always in a good mood and was the sweetest little old lady. I don’t remember the facts perfectly, but she got Polio when she was 26-years-old, when Mom was only 6. She had surgery, and she literally died and was brought back to life. That’s where the large scar on her back came from and the reason she lost some mobility in her hands, the reason her speech changed forever and the reason she would be bed-ridden for the rest of her life. Mom became responsible for Gramma when she was 18 or so, making it hard for Mom to have any type of career, but that was their life and Mom and Gramma would be together till 2004 when Gramma would become sick and move into a nursing home. We thought back then that she wouldn’t make it because she was so sick, but she overcame that obstacle, like all the others in her life.

I can’t for the life of me remember exactly when they found tumors on Gramma’s thyroid and then her lungs, but it couldn’t be over a year. Gramma’s never been one for surgeries–in fact, she hated to have to go to the hospital for anything at all–so it wasn’t a surprise to anyone when, at 86-years-old, she refused a biopsy. So we would never know how serious the potential cancer was. The doctors also told Aunt Nora that starting chemo on her, or any other type of cancer medication, would probably kill her before the disease would, so nobody pressed the issue. We would just let her be, and that’s how she wanted it.

The last few months were hard on her. She went from having hallucinations due to UTI’s, to a Bell’s Palsy episode (that was grossly ignored by the nursing home until I went in and had a fit), to just being uncomfortable all the time.

Aunt Nora, Linda and I had a meeting with hospice a few months ago–which I NEEDED to have, because Aunt Nora had already brought it up to me and I just felt like the nursing home was trying to “free up a bed”. I’m incredibly cynical, especially when it came to my grandmother’s health. I felt a little better when the social worker told us that this was just to make her comfortable, and it could be 2 weeks or 2 years or more, but it was just extra help for her. So they stepped in.

She recently stopped listening to her music, I noticed, and she always loved her music. The last few months I tried visiting her as often as possible after work, because I knew I needed to spend that extra time with her. The last few weeks I saw her less, because of work, or because the kids had something going on. I had the Mexican Artisan Expo going on last weekend, so I missed seeing her from Thursday to Monday, and Monday only because I had to pay bills and do everything I didn’t get to do over the weekend. When I went in to see her on Tuesday after work, she seemed confused and uncomfortable. She kept saying she was hot and I tried pointing her fan at her from all angles and it just wasn’t helping. She was confused about eating, telling me that she hadn’t eaten dinner and kept bringing up her postre (dessert) telling me that they hadn’t given her one at all. So naturally, I started fuming that they would ignore my Gramma, and called the CNA in. She swore up and down she’d fed her and that Gramma said she wasn’t hungry, and didn’t like her dessert. I said that was odd, because she ALWAYS eats her food and most definitely her dessert. I tried making her as comfortable as possible: fluffing her pillows, fixing her fan, moving her oxygen wires and call button wires around and finally lowering her bed more and turning her light off like she asked. I left feeling uneasy. I wanted to text Aunt Nora, but I had seen photos of her at Disney and didn’t want to bother her yet.

Mom told me that night that when she and Linda had visited Gramma during lunch that she also didn’t want to eat and kept nodding off. I was about to text Aunt Nora when she texted me about hospice wanting to start Gramma on a morphine drip because she was uncomfortable. I hated the thought of it, but I didn’t want her to feel terrible.

I visited Gramma Wednesday evening after work. Again she was uncomfortable and confused about eating. I asked the CNA if she’d eaten and she said, “Very little.” Very, very unlike Gramma. I was having trouble understanding her more-so that day, but tried my hardest to answer her questions. She kept grabbing onto the bed rails to shift herself and when she would, she would cringe or moan from pain. I think the cancer in her lungs was bothering her 🙁 . She even grabbed her side once. I panicked and texted Aunt Nora and she told me to go to the nurse’s station before I left to ask them to give her something for the pain. One of the dad’s of one of Emily’s little classmates, Mark, was the nurse on duty and told me he would take care of it. I believe this is the night they started her on anxiety medication. Linda spent the night with Gramma.

They moved Gramma to a new room the next afternoon where there was a chair-bed to accommodate Aunt Nora and Linda when they’d stay the night. When I picked the boys up Thursday evening I told them we’d stop by to visit Gramma. Linda was just about to leave when we’d arrived into the room because Aunt Nora was going to relieve her. She told me that Gramma had been knocked out for hours after they gave her the morphine and anxiety meds, because she’d been hysterical the night before. Linda said, “If you’d seen her, you’d ask them to give it to her, she was bad.” It was heartbreaking to see her in the state she was in: pale, labored breathing, so frail 🙁 . Linda said the nurse told her that she was doing a “death gurgle” when she would breathe. I couldn’t believe they had a name for it. I knew I was being selfish, but I was hoping this was temporary; that–like all the other times–she would defy the odds and make a complete recovery. Poor Eenan was distraught and Jaylen was holding it in. So was I; I had to be strong for Eenan. We stayed with her for a little over an hour and left at 8pm, only because the other kids were at home and needed to eat dinner.

The next morning we woke up super early since Jaylen needed to be dropped off at Mario’s, like usual on Fridays, and I needed to get cash for the girls’ “Snack Shack” at school. Mario gave Alaethia some cash since we wouldn’t make it on time to the school if I’d stopped at Walgreens, and Emily already had hers. Alaethia had been having pains in her tummy all week, and when she got them again that morning I told her she needed to see the doctor, as it had already been 4 days of the stomach pains. I really wanted to text Aunt Nora, but I was afraid I’d wake her, so I texted Linda instead. She said there wasn’t much change, but that the nurse told Aunt Nora it was “the beginning of the end” and that she was showing more signs of it. I hated to hear that, but I needed to stop being selfish, and I knew it. After running around with Alaethia all morning and trying to find the prescription they gave her, we gave up and went to HEB to get her some broth and yogurts with probiotics, per the doctor’s recommendation. I dropped her off at home, since it was past 10am and she’d be counted absent anyway.

I got to work and answered a few e-mails. I had just gone into my boss’s office to ask him if I could skip out on working Unplugged that night since I needed to spent time with my grandmother and explained what was going on. He said, yes, of course I could have the night off. I went to my desk to finish up some bills and help my co-worker, Lee, translate a letter when I got two texts: one from Aunt Nora saying, “Linda said Mom just stopped breathing” and one from Linda that said “Call me”. So I did. Linda was crying that she and Mom had arrived and not 10 minutes later Gramma stopped breathing and she hadn’t breathed since. I couldn’t believe it. It was too fast. I grabbed all my things with tears stinging at my eyes and just started bawling when Lee asked what was wrong. I told him, and then told my boss that I had to leave, then I ran into Gerry and Michelle and then Rosie. Rosie told me to calm down and breath since I had to drive, so I did. I called John and Jorge on the way to the nursing home. John felt awful because he was planning to visit her on Saturday, but he never got the chance to. I immediately stopped crying to be strong for him and told him she knew he loved her. I arrived at the same time Aunt Nora and Tio Arturo did. I couldn’t believe how much Gramma changed from the night before. I couldn’t believe she wasn’t with us anymore. We all hugged and cried and collected her things. They called the official time of death at 12:16pm. They let us stay with her about an hour before the funeral home came for her.

I had the task of telling the kids when I picked them up from Mario’s at 5pm. Emily and Alaethia broke down. Eenan, who had already broken down the night before, took it well, but weeped a little. Mario told Jaylen not to hold it in and he broke down, too. Even Mario got teary when he gave his condolences to Mom. It took a bit to compose ourselves, but we told the kids the important thing was she knew they loved her and she was in a much better place now.

Mom was devastated, but she did so much better than I thought. Linda was taking it really hard; I know how much Gramma meant to her. She meant the world to all of us. She isn’t suffering anymore, and that’s the thought I’ve had that has helped me cope. I really do hope she knows how much I loved her, how much we all did. She’s finally free of any pain; walking, talking and together again with my great-grandparents and her siblings. I love you Grandma.