Author: Yajaira

Jan. 19th – My head hurt that morning and my eyes were puffy from bawling my eyes out watching “My Sister’s Keeper” the night before with Mario. I’d already seen it at the movies during one of my Girl’s Day Out, and it was so incredibly sad I vowed never to see it again. Well, we’d watched “500 Days of Summer” before that and I was already feeling kinda down because who likes a somewhat happy ending to a movie? I want HAPPY ENDINGS! So we’re trying to figure out what else to watch and end up watching “My Sister’s Keeper” since Mario hadn’t seen it. Ugh. I cried even more that time! And to think they didn’t stick to the original ending! I would have shriveled up and died of pure sadness!

Mom came over and watched the girls while Mario, John and I went to Palmview. I dropped Mario off at Adan’s since he was going to try and get the truck he’s buying off of Jorge working. He has to replace a fender and a few other things before it’s ok to use.

John and I (against John’s will LOL) went to Target for a few things. Then we went shopping at Walmart. We got home, John went home we had lunch and then I picked up the boys.

The vintage Braveheart Lion I’d ordered for Alaethia for her birthday (she asked for that one, “the bunny, the kitty and the doggy”, but not even Mama has the kitty LOL!). Her lion’s probably nicer than mine. Ever since that day I’ve been itching to dig all my collections out and display them again, but Mario’s adamant about not putting my shelves back up.

I started cleaning the house that night. We were only having a small party for Alaethia since we’re budgeting (and since we have Emily’s 1st birthday coming up exactly one month after Alaethia’s!) so we were just going to invite closest family and friends. The only problem was we weren’t sure if it was going to be cold and ugly the way it usually is on Aly’s birthday. So I was to clean and organize the house, mainly the living room, dining room and kitchen in case we needed to fit everyone in here. I had my work cut out for me. One dining room corner had become somewhat of a storage corner, with Rubbermaid boxes stacked halfway up the wall. So it was my job to move some of them to the laundry room and get rid of everything else!

I’d made fideo and beans that night and smushed some up for Emily. She’d seen me licking my finger when I’d been eating and now she does whenever I pretend to do it LOL. (If you’re already a Friend/Family on Flickr you can see the video!)

After dinner and after the boys had already gone to bed, Mario and I went to the living room with the girls to watch TV. Alaethia had very neatly arranged her Care Bears and, so as not to disturb them, perched herself on the back of the sofa. We watched quietly and then I tell her, “Alaethia, get off the back of my sofa, please!”

She replies, “I can’t! My Care Bears are in the way!”

She’s so cute!

Mario and I talked about the Future Kitchen Remodel. Well, it took a few hours to actually talk about it. He kept asking me to come up with ideas and to draw out plans and when I’d bring something up or show him a picture he’d shoot down the idea. Rudely. I hate that about that man. He can’t just nicely say he doesn’t like it…he has to elaborate on how stupid an idea it is. Makes me so mad. Eventually (after I blogged about it…which immediately made me feel better. I really need to start using my site as my therapist again…), we talked about it and actually came into the kitchen, taped parts of the wall off where the counters and new walls would go (I’m visual) and I felt a little better about the whole thing.

Jan. 20th – I had a few errands to run like going to the ATM and then the bank for Mary. We were on a time crunch since I had to pick up the boys from school but we managed to go to Dollar Tree for a few birthday party supplies for Alaethia. We went Downtown to look for some Care Bears, at the same place I went to last year, but I didn’t find the small ones. I got 4 of the bigger ones and when we got home I realized she already had Cheer Bear. Oh well, that one can be Emily’s LOL.

Of course she wanted to hold the Care Bears all the way home. I had a feeling I wouldn’t get them back till her actual birthday LOL. Which was fine; they were going to be hers anyway, I just had to figure out how to “borrow” them from her to decorate them and hang them up the day of her party.

I started unloading all the stuff when we got home. Alaethia had already gotten comfortable with her “babies”, or Care Bears, while I was outside and got really upset when I tossed my bag onto the sofa. She screamed, “Mommy! Get your bags off the sofa, my Care Bears are watching TV!” She’s too cute!

I texted Luis, my TKD instructor, to ask if I could have class at 4 instead of 5 since Jorge, Mary, Andy, Noelia, Mario and I were going to the Leeann Womack/Joe Nichols benefit concert. He never texted back, so I figured he wasn’t going to be able to go at 4. Oh well. I was going to shower early, but I wasn’t going to class I figured I’d shower after I got the boys. Well, Luis texted back at 2:50 that I could got at 4, so I got in the shower, stuck my hair in a bun and picked up boys. I finished getting ready and went to class. He had me to the fitness part first and then practiced some kicks. I had a water break and then…sparring. It was officially the 3rd time I’ve sparred if you count my yellow to yellow-advanced test.

I did horribly. I probably annoyed him. I hate that I scream and pick my hands up all dainty-girl-like–so embarrassing. He kept telling me to stop doing that, to just slide back when he was about to strike, but I would slide back and then shut my eyes and bring my hands up LOL. I hope we practice more often. I don’t wanna suck again during my test! He did say I kick fast, I just have to work on the sliding part.

I told Luis that’s what makes me not want to continue with my belts; the sparring during the tests! I’ve literally spent nights tossing and turning worried about it! They think it’s hilarious though, stressing me out about sparring. They’re always making stuff up about how an upcoming tournament is mandatory and that I have to compete!

I got home, rinsed off all the sweat, blow-dried and flat-ironed my hair, and got dressed. The boys were separated ahead of time since they like to fight when I’m not around. I got the kids’ food ready and got Mom situated in the living room with the girls’ things. Mario got home and got dressed and then Mary, Mario and I took off to pick up Jorge.

We stopped by Taco Bell/Long John Silver’s in Pharr (yum) and we ate in the car before we got to Jagz, where they were having the concert. I used to like that place when it was a pizza buffet/rides place for kids but now it’s an event center. Very awkward layout for an event center; the ceilings are REALLY low.

The line was HUGE and we met up with Andy and Noelia. We joked all the way inside. We were too late to get seats and since I’m vertically challenged it wasn’t like I could see anything anywhere that we stood. So we just talked. A local band was playing first and we could hardly hear anything. Then when Joe Nichols came out his mike didn’t work, so he had everyone sing along to “Brokenheartsville”. He also sang, “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off” which is one of my favorites of his. We could hear Leeann Womack a little better and I may have gotten at least one good picture. She sang a few songs, but my faves are “I’m Gonna Love You Tonight” and “I Hope You Dance”. Ah, that last one was beautiful! I’ll always remember that song because it’s the one they played when Eenan graduated from Kindergarten *tear*.

Ah yes. This was also the day I started drinking sodas again and eating crap! Ugh!

Jan. 21st – I stayed up late downloading music and then spent like half the day (till noonish) exchanging music with John. I made one badass work out playlist and another one with my favorite songs. I meant to start on my cleaning/organizing as soon as I woke up but I can’t do anything when John visits. He keeps showing me videos, stories and makes me listen to music when he’s here, hence the reason I didn’t start cleaning till noon.

As I was walking into living room once Alaethia runs up to me with a little finger pressed against her lips and hisses, “Shhh! I just put my sons and daughters to sleep!” She had all her Care Bears lined up on the sofa again, all covered up with our throw blankets LOL. She’s hilarious.

It was very easy to get my work done with my iPod on. I got almost the whole house done, except for the dining room. Ugh. That was going to be a project all on its own!

I had to shower and get dressed to pick up the boys and then took then to Taekwondo. I think that was the night Luis said Jaylen would start going to class with the kids who needed help. Jaylen was NOT happy about that. He does everything correctly (you should see the kid’s Pandae (sp?) kick!), but he gets too overconfident and just half-asses (there’s no better way to put it LOL) his Horse Stance and the basics. So, until he improved on that he had to go to the other class. Which meant he’d be going on the evenings I go, right after my class. Eek!

I made shrimp Alfredo and garlic toast for dinner. Then I made some chocolate chip & peanut butter cup Tollhouse cookies Mom bought for me to make. And I had half a Pepsi. OMG. I seriously need to make some dietary changes. And well, I need to quit going to sleep late and waking up late. I’m not even making poor Mario breakfast these days! And I’m still stalling on starting the P90X workout again! Argh!

I’m so bad at updating everything. Well, except of course Twitter/Tweetdeck, which automatically sends everything to Myspace and Facebook. I’d started the whole 365 thing on Flickr–not joining the groups or anything, just for myself really–and I think I got to day 7 or 8 and that was it! I was hoping at least keeping up with that since I do a crappy job of keeping up with this blog. Oh well!

Mario and I were supposed to be working on the plans for our hopeful, future kitchen/dining room remodel, but he says he was waiting for me all day to talk about it and I was busy. Of course I was busy! I was getting the rest of the stuff I needed for Alaethia’s birthday this weekend (and I still forgot the helium tank, 2 bags of tortilla chips and mayo) and then I got home and cleaned and then I took the boys to Taekwondo. Luis, the instructor, gave them kind of like a pop quiz. The boys almost ended up having to go back to the white belt class for extra practice! They’ve gotta perfect their form by Thursday or else!

Anyway, so yeah. After I made dinner and fed all the kids (Rolando included; he came to visit after TKD) I came over to the living room where Mario was on his laptop so we could start jotting down plans for the remodel. We’ve been sitting here for at least 2 hours on our respective laptops and I keep bringing it up but he says now he’s not in the mood. Makes me so mad!

Well, since he won’t hear me out, I’ll jot down my ideas here. We’re both thinking of completely flipping the dining room and kitchen, kind of like what Sally and Pete did at their house. So when you’re walking in the from the living room, it would be living room, dining room and then kitchen. The only problem is the darn bathroom! It’s right next to the dining room right now, which I HATE! We’re thinking of completely flipping the bathroom around making a tiny hallway for it. I was thinking of making a partition wall next to the hallway, so that it’s not RIGHT THERE next to the kitchen when we remodel. But I don’t know. Mario doesn’t like the idea because he says it’ll take away from the cabinet space. We’re going to have so much more room anyway if we do flip it!

And in the dining room, I want to make that awkward angled wall a mostly chalkboard wall with a cork board on one side, with a nice moulding around them/separating them. I also want a credenza or hutch or something with shelves and doors to hide the kids’ game boards, crayons, notebooks and anything else they usually leave lying around in the dining room. BUT, Mario doesn’t like the idea of cabinets in there. Poo.

(…1 1/2 hrs. later…) Well we finally went in there, measured and taped things off. We’re going to have to do some major changes in there to get the counter space we want. Like moving the hallway entrance (to the bedrooms) from the dining room to the kitchen (were the awkward wall is) and then the rest of the space on that wall will be chalkboard for the kids! The bathroom doorway will be moved completely to the opposite side with a partition wall so the door way’s not THAT close to the kitchen. We’ll have a top-to-bottom pantry where the bathroom door used to be and we’re going to hopefully have enough space for an island with cabinets for the bigger appliances and pots/pans and a space for my cookbooks. I’m so excited, you have no idea. Unfortunately, though, we’re going to have to do it all little by little since we’re on a tight budget. But we can do it. Just gotta have a little patience with our situation…and each other LOL.

01/01/10 – New Years – I stayed up a little late but woke up early (and woke the girls up early) to go over to Mary’s to help embarar (spread) tamales. She was shredding the pork off the bone with her fingers for the pork ones and she’d already seasoned the deer & beans for the other two batches.

Sonia, Mom, Elda and myself helped Mary spread the masa on the tamales. I suck at that LOL. Not to mention what a perfectionist I am; the whole thing had to be even and perfect! I didn’t even get a picture of the mountain of tamales. We were too busy eating them. But I only had 4 (I can usually eat up to 6 or 7!).

Mario was still in a mood from the night before. He stayed holed up in our bedroom pretty much all day. I chilled at Mary’s with Mom, the kids, Andy, Noelia, Sonia and Elda for a good while.

When Mario finally got out of bed we had the moms watch the kiddos and we went to Walmart for a few things. I wanted some cheapy boots, because I have nothing nice or warm to wear for winter (I’ve only got flats and sneakers) but of course, they didn’t have my size.

We get home and I decided to make Velveeta cheese dip (with Rotel & ground beef) for dinner. Hey! It’s got all the food groups (chips made the grains one LOL!).

Aide and I sat in the dining room and chit-chatted about everything and looked through a little Izone album I had since Eenan was a tiny baby. Emily looks exactly like he did back then, aww :).

When Adan, Aide and their kiddos left we got all comfy on the sofa and watched “The Half-Blood Prince” on Blu-ray (one of my gifts from Mary :D). Mario hadn’t seen it and he actually enjoyed it.

I started my 365 that night. I highly doubt I’ll keep up with it, but we’ll see LOL.

Mario and I stayed up till 4am that night, even later than New Years the night before! We’re such an old married couple. We were sitting in the living room, across from each other on the sofas looking for pictures of kitchens we liked on Flickr and Ikea.com LOL.

01/02/10 – Girl’s Night Out – I spent most of that day cleaning. John had come over and kept bugging me to make banana muffins, so I made some. We had Sebastian, one of our neighbors here most of the day; he’s Eenan’s age. He’s always here, poor kid. I don’t mind, though.

We went to pick up Subway for lunch, ate really quick and then Aaron came over to play video games with Jaylen for a bit. I continued with cleaning but oh my gosh. I have so much to go. The living room & kitchen were clean, but a corner of the dining room’s a storage unit for now. I still need to go through all those boxes of Alaethia’s old clothes and hang up what I’m going to use for Emily.

I texted Mario and asked if he wanted to go out. He said he’d already made plans with Jorge so to make plans of my own. I called Sally up and she invited me to a bar-b-q at her friend Monica’s house. I got ready in record time (heh) and drove over to her house. We switched to her vehicle and made it over to Monica’s. It was a CRAZY night. We played Flip Cup, which I’d never played before and we played with this really crappy champagne so I got tipsy really fast LOL, but it was fun!

We ate, had some laughs and talked about high school and old crushes and by the end of the night polished off almost a whole block of Philadelphia cheese and salsa with tiny wheat crackers.

We wanted to get some drinks somewhere so we went to Woodreaux’s. Neither of us had ever been there, so we figured we’d try it out. As soon as we walk in, a surly short dude with a black cowboy had and a huge mustache pulls my sweater from my shoulder. I scowl at him and shake my head when he waved us over to his table.

Sally and I sit at the bar and browse through the menu and talk about how weird that guy was. She says, “I thought you knew him. Thought he was one of Mario’s friends.” I tell her, “I have no idea who he is,” and we just laughed about it.

10 minutes later the dude comes back. Tries to literally pull us off the bar stools asking if we want to dance. We both say no and he insists. We again, politely decline and he leaves. Sally and I can’t help but laugh. We decide that if any other creepy guy approaches us again we’d pretend we were lesbian Life Partners LOL.

Well, that completely goes out the window as we’re finishing our drinks and the same dude comes up to us and begs us to dance with him again. We couldn’t stop laughing from how uncomfortable we were! He told us just about every lie and line in the book. Couldn’t stop talking about how beautiful we were. Even mentioned how he was a widower. Uh huh, sure. I started getting really mad once he kept insisting we see his truck. He kept raving how we’d love it. Um, no. I kept staring at the bartender, asking for help with my eyes LOL. He finally got the hint and directed the crazy dude to a couple who was already getting up to leave. Bartender tells Crazy Dude, “Look, this girl in the purple? She LOVES to dance!” So Crazy Dude goes over there and embraces both the guy and girl as they’re getting up. We took the opportunity to run out of there like bats out of hell LOL.

We got to Sally’s and retold the story to Pete, Alyssa and her boyfriend. Buahaha. It was insane but truly a night to remember!