Category: Brudder

I managed to successfully complete my to-do list at work from yesterday and today.

I’d started this to-do list last Tuesday, because I knew I wouldn’t be in the office till Monday. I was still at work, but we had a Delegation coming in and I’d be away from my desk. Which made me nervous as heck because I have several events I’m working on and deadlines!!

I was nervous about the visit itself since we weren’t 100% in charge of the activities, but we went along for everything anyway and the things that didn’t work out were really only behind-the-scenes stuff and the back-up plans worked out really well. It was a stress-free visit, for the most part.

My treat during these visits is usually the food itself, heh. Don’t get me wrong: I really do love to learn about all the inner workings of our city and I always love visiting all our “landmarks” and the people! I love meeting all these different people. But my absolute favorite part is the FOOD!

I was so sad I couldn’t finish that cheesecake! *sigh* I love food, what can I say, heh.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was the low-key visit to Quinta Mazatlan.

I would love to own a home like Quinta. Or to at least have a garden like the front yard at Quinta. And that succulent fountain they have. And this swing hanging from a gorgeous old oak tree:

The ladies and I had fun taking turns and taking photos. They were such a great group! I was so sad that I couldn’t properly say goodbye to everyone since they were let loose at the mall for some shopping during their last hours of the visit and I needed to leave to pick up the kids.

I picked up the kiddos and Emmos was tired and was throwing a tantrum. I can’t even remember over what. The other kids and I spoke about her, and the reason why she’s spoiled sometimes. We picked up pizza, got home and Emily was still sobbing and went to her room, but she’d calmed down. I’m walking down the hallway and she opens the door to her room and says, “Mama? Can I speak to you in private please?” My mouth drops at how mature she sounded. I said sure, and opened the door and we sat together on my bed. She very maturely let me know what was on her mind, and I told her what was on mine and that I would work on being better, on being more patient. I pulled her near me and embraced her and said, “I’m convinced you’re a 20-year-old in that little 5-year-old body.” She has her moments (such as tonight; she was tired and mopey and didn’t want to do her homework), but she’s just such a great little lady .

My heart feels like it’ll explode from the love sometimes. I passed by the boys’ room and saw them all in there, peaceful, happy, without a care in the world and I’m just so grateful I had to capture the moment.

(Pay no attention to their messy, unmade beds .)

The girls and I passed out on the sofa and Jorge moved us to our beds. We had to get up early for Jaylen’s game on Saturday.

We all woke up super early (except Eenan, of course!) and Jorge, Justin and Jorgie went to Justin’s game and the girls and I went to Jaylen’s. We dropped him off at school, and since we had an hour-and-a-half to waste before the game started I took the girls for breakfast at McDonald’s.

Jaylen did so well at his game! He’s progressively getting better.

It still made me cringe every time I saw one of the kids get hurt, though, ever since Jorgie broke his leg (I’m still pending that post!). Several boys on the White Team got hurt. Jaylen told me one of them dislocated his shoulder *shudder*.

I waited for Jaylen, picked the girls up (they’d left with Mary to Sonia’s) and then we got stuck in traffic. There was a 5-car accident on the Expressway thanks to non other than a drunk driver. When we finally got through, I picked up Justin, who was with Jorge at a job site. Took the kiddos home, then made them lunch.

Sunset Sessions was that evening so I got the kids all pumped up to go. Well, all of them except the 2 teenagers. Eventually Jorgie was convinced so only Eenan would be the one to stay home with Mom. Emily and I went to HEB to get picnic stuff. We were finally going to break-in the picnic basket Aunt Sylvia gave us and the girls were super excited.

AND THEN IT STARTS RAINING. And the lights go out at HEB. While we’re still inside. And didn’t even have my phone.

Dammit.

Jorge wasn’t going to be out of work on time and there was no way I could move Jorgie along in his wheelchair in wet grass/mud. So we scratched the idea. There was an audible, “Ahhhhhhh!!!” from all the kids. Even Justin said, “We don’t get to plan things often and then this happens!” No kidding!

So, what else do you do when you have a blanket and a picnic basket packed and it’s raining? You have a picnic on the porch, of course!

It was Michelle’s birthday that day, but we didn’t get to hang out. She called that she was on her way to Sunset Sessions but she understood that the rain+kids wasn’t a good idea. I promised her we’d celebrate later.

About 30 minutes later, the rain stopped and a rainbow popped out. FML LOL.

Jorge got home and debated for about an hour whether he was going to take up his boss’ invite to go to the ranch. He eventually decided “yes” and took Justin with him. I hung out with the kids for a while, watching TV and put them all in bed. The girls were happy to snuggle with mama :).

Woke up the next morning and made the kids wheat pancakes. Relaxed, did laundry, then Jorge got home and I made shrimp Alfredo. More tidying up and then I decided that I would relax. But not before making banana bread.

And then playing 4-square with the girls. And THEN I got to be lazy for a few minutes before I started on dinner. I hadn’t made tuna casserole in a while. The girls helped me with the ingredients and then Eenan started joking around, like always. We get into a conversation about why we’re not very huggy with Mom and both John and I tell him, “Well, we weren’t really brought up that way. She’d hug and hold us when we were little, but as we got older well, she just wasn’t like that.” Justin’s standing next to me and pats my shoulder and says, “I know the feeling.” So I say, “Get over here!” and grab him into a hug. I say, “I think it had the opposite effect on me; I think that’s why I love hugs and hugging the kids.” Emily, then Jaylen and Alaethia run into the group. Julien hears the commotion and goes into his famous running hugs. Then Eenan comes in for a hug. We’re all giggling and in a huge, wonderful group hug and poor Jorgie rolls in from their bedroom and says, “Hey, what’s going on?” We all laugh and then I realize that I hadn’t preheated the oven. John says, “Well if you weren’t over there getting group hugs…” Buahaha!

We ate dinner quickly and gathered around in the living room to watch “The Walking Dead”. It was 2 minutes in before we sent the girls to their room. It was much more gorey this time!! But such a good episode!

Put all the kids to bed and then a new week began. And I kicked Monday (and Tuesday) in the ass!! I even went on an interview. As much as I dislike those, because I’m always afraid I’ll screw up, I just went with the flow. And it worked out :).

We picked up a cake to celebrate Michelle’s birthday at work:

I got home from work and took Eenan to get a haircut with Emily in tow, of course. Mario waited for the kids while we got home and he took the boys =\. I’ll never get used to that.

EZ, Michelle and I went to Wing Stop today to celebrate her birthday. And I finally got one of my projects completed this afternoon and finished today’s to-do list. I have so much to do still, but I hope I can keep the same momentum going! I feel good about everything I got to accomplish. We sent all the kids to bed and we’re catching up on “The Voice” before I have to shower. Have lots going on tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll feel like this at the end of the day:

As you can see, I changed the theme up a bit. It’s not exactly what I imagined; I wanted to throw a succulent in there somewhere, but I don’t have the proper tools for illustrating on this laptop and it’s late, etc, etc. I also need to figure out how to make my non-Wordpress pages work with the CSS/tables, but that’s a whole other day, heh. Oh well, at least the blog works!

It’s been pretty low-key the last 3 days.

My love and I spent the morning being lazy on Sunday and had breakfast at Taco Ole.

We picked up some stuff we needed for the pets (namely the fish) at Petco and then we picked up Jorge’s boys to spend the day with us.

They watched football while I did some cleaning, lazied around, cleaned my bedroom and organized my desk and then it was time to start the week. Meh.

The girls have been wonderful. They helped with dinner yesterday after John and I got back from grocery shopping:

They’ve been super polite and helpful and willing to do their homework and brush their teeth and go to bed without whining about it. Tonight they didn’t even watch TV or play on their iPads; they spend their time playing Teacher and Student. They would call me every-so-often to pretend I was picking Emily up from daycare and checking her folder, heh.

Poor Jaylen hurt himself in football so he didn’t practice today. I hope he’s better tomorrow, and definitely 100% for his game on Saturday.

Eenan’s into his art and tonight he showed me some of his earlier stuff, from middle school (through Facebook, of course). He’s come a long way :)!

As much as it pains me to do so–because I’d rather be painting, or reading blogs or working on the scrapbook page I never got around to doing…

(It’s been like that since Sunday. I at least managed to CUT the photos today, heh.) …I’m going to go ahead and get in bed. Hopefully, Jorge will keep from stealing the covers all night like he did last night and I won’t wake up every 30 minutes >_

Starting this post off with the more vexatious part…

Remember how I mentioned in my previous post that I’d need lots of patience this week? I was most definitely correct in my assumption. I’m usually pretty patient with people; I’ll brush something off if I’m bothered. But I just haven’t been able to brush this one thing off and I’m afraid I’m going to explode. I really do. I’m not the only who shares these feelings (which I’m relieved about! I’m not being oversensitive!), but when you’re going up against someone who gets their way 99% of the time, it’s difficult to see the light, y’know? I just think one should be more humble, more kind, but from what I’ve gathered in conversations with others, it’s just not in this person’s nature. And it’s sad.

Ahhhhh. See, now that’s better. I got my bit of therapy. Which reminds me of this article. I couldn’t agree more with it! Aside from chronicling my life, and my children’s lives, my blog (and “paper” journal) have truly been therapeutic for me.

So, anyway. I woke up at 5am Monday morning and told myself that I was going to kick that day’s ass. I dropped my boys off at school after we picked some Gatorades up for them. I got to work, went to our meeting, and when I got to my desk I wrote out a to-do list. I crossed out every single damn thing by the end of the day. I even had a work-related trip to Hobby Lobby, woo! I had to attend the Honduras Consulate ceremony at 5pm, which I’d forgotten about. I met my boss and Bob there and the first thing that happened was I was ushered off to the buffet table.

I was amazed by the unique spread. I didn’t even know what to ask for, so I went for a seafood soup and a type of bean and cheese taco in a flour tortilla. They were both AMAZING. The soup had a buttery, cheesy flavor. The Consul asked the man that made it (who also works at the Consulate) what ingredients made the soup “yellow” and he said it was “curry, saffron and a hint of mustard.” It was just so delicious!

I got home after the ceremony and Mom had already bathed and fed the girls. I helped them with homework, made Jorge dinner, read the girls their books and put them to bed. And then I sat with my love and painted.

I got those tiny pots at Hobby Lobby so I could plant my succulent leaflets in soil, now that their mother leaf was shriveling up.

These are the leaflets that have “made it” thus far, in their same planter. I’m still not sure WHAT I’m supposed to do with these (how often to water now that they’re in soil, for example), but they looked big enough to plant.

Tuesday was spent preparing for my event the next day. I’m thrilled that Michelle will be working with Laura and me on that one now :). It was a pretty normal day, except for having reception duty for a while in the afternoon. Then I went to HEB, got home and dropped the soap and supplies off, then John, the girls and I went to Wing Stop to pick up dinner.

Jorge was home right on time, we ate, and then I put the girls to bed after checking homework and then I happily snuggled on the sofa with my love, which caused me to pass out halfway through Sons of Anarchy. He’s never surprised anymore, heh. He’s the best, though, ’cause he pauses the show till we can watch it together when I’m conscious :).

I took Emily to test in the morning on Wednesday, dropped the girls off at their classes and then I met Michelle, Laura, Ivan and Thelma at the event. We had a great turnout, thank goodness! It was fun, and went smoothly, albiet about 20 minutes longer than usual.

I got to the office and immediately get a call from my boss to drop his camera off at their meeting at the Convention Center. Jorge and I were meeting for lunch, so I asked him if he wanted Subway in the plaza near the Convention Center. He said sure, so we meet there after I drop the camera off. We walk in, and posted on the sneeze guard is “Cash Only”. We never carry cash. So it was either Kumori or Johnny Rockets. Guess which one Jorge and Marco picked, heh.

It was such a great experience! I’d been there before with the guys from work, but this time they went all out. The customer service was great, music was great (thank you, Mother, for introducing me to this music since birth!), we got a show (the waiters and waitress danced for us!), and they served my ketchup in a smiley face!

Jorge said, “You just can’t be mad here. You can’t.”

I slide my head over and whisper, “I’m bringing you here when you’re mad then!”

I spoke to my boys on the way home from work. Eenan was having a bit of a teenage thing with his dad about curse words and he was venting. We talked about his day, like we usually do. I vented with him about something that was annoying me. And then I spoke to Jaylen, who sounded a bit croaky ’cause his school-issued chin-guard slipped off his chin and clocked him on the throat during football practice :(. We’d ordered some mouth-pieces and chin-guards for our 3 football players, but Jaylen’s chin-guard was missing a metal clip. I told him Jorge and I would replace it.

I get home and Mom had already fed and bathed the girls (woo! Bless her!), so that gave us a chance to paint together at the table, while I thawed some fish. They finished painting their mini pots and while I painted mine, they decided they were hungry again so Emily made herself some PB&J and Alaethia made herself a SALAD. Yes, a salad. She loves them. She asked me, “Mama, why don’t you make salads anymore?” Which made my stomach sink. I really SHOULD be making salads *slumps*.

I finished my pot:

And then the girls played. Mom stayed with them while Jorge and I went to put gas in my truck and replace the clip for Jaylen, which we did. Now my poor boy will hopefully not have that problem :(.

I actually stayed awake (for the most part) to watch “Are You Here?” That was pretty depressing! And Zack Gallafinakis (sp?) should never NOT have a beard :P!

Today was another productive day. Walked the girls to their classes. I’m so glad both are doing so much better in the morning. Emily’s attitude towards school now is like night and day!

We had an impromptu photo shoot today (well, impromptu for me, anyway) which went into lunch. I thought I missed the seminar I was supposed to attend, but I arrived only 5 minutes late. It was supposed to last 2 hours, but it only lasted around 30 minutes O_o. I got out of there, talked to the girls a bit and ate my Jason’s Deli at my desk. Of course finishing the chocolate chip cookie first. What is it about me and sugar?!

The afternoon went by fast. Did some planning regarding the Food Festival. And then I was on my way home. Jorge arrived with Jorgie and Justin and I moped about cooking. Jorge said, “Get the chicken out, I’ll cook.” I stared idly into the cabinets and I said, “It’s ok, I’ll figure it out…” I left the kitchen, came back in and he said, “Get out of here, I’m cooking.” Woohoo! You don’t have to tell me twice!

I lay in bed and called the boys while my love cooked. We talked about their day; Eenan’s excited about Super Smash Bros demo coming out at midnight and Jaylen didn’t have practice and got to relax. And read :).

Jorge came to snuggle with me…and we both passed out!

He woke up before me and finished up with dinner. It was amazing!

I got some comments on Instagram, which eventually led to me flipping through my photos and I was sad to see how “healthy” my posts were 2 months ago. I turned my laptop around and showed Jorge. I said, “Look at those healthy meals! And that watch with burned calories on it!”

He says, “If that watch cost money, you better use it.”

He realizes what he said. I turn slowly and say, “Um. How about that exercise thing you bought??” He smacks himself on the head and says, “Stupid Jorge. You walked into that one!” Buahaha.

I had said, at 9pm, that I was giving myself 30 minutes to allow my food to settle so I could get on the treadmill. It’s now 10:47pm and instead I’m blogging. Lord help me. I need to start exercising again. I feel so lazy and sloppy :(. And to make matters worse, I’ve not been eating as well as I should be, and my 3 month-check-up is tomorrow morning. Ay Dios Mio! I’m never getting off those cholesterol meds!

Wish me luck!