Category: Crafts

I hope all the Mommys out there had a wonderful Mother’s Day!

Mine was nice and eventful. We woke up on Sunday morning and John, Mom, Mario, the boys and I headed to McDonald’s for breakfast. We went to visit Gramma afterwards. I was pretty disappointed by the nurse’s/CNA’s/supervisor’s service that day. Gramma had ants on the table beside her bed. I pressed the call button to have a nurse come over and help and nobody ever came. When I peeked out the door I could see all the nurses circled around the nurse’s station, chatting. The alarm sounds at the station; it doesn’t stop until you come to the room to turn it off. I started getting really frustrated thinking, “What if there was an emergency and these bitches never came to check on her?” I took a deep breath and calmly walked over to the station to let them know what was going on. I let them know how I was disappointed that they’d take so long, or rather not go check on her at all. The nurse that was in charge of her that day said (in Spanish, because she didn’t understand English), “I already checked on her. What does she need?” I told her, “So since you already checked on her you’re not checking on her again? What if there was an emergency?” She goes into the room and tells Gramma, “Sorry, Love, there’s nothing I can do about the ants.” And leaves.

We visit with Gramma a little longer and then I tell everyone I was going to put in a complaint. Mario and John scurry off as fast as they can to the truck, because it embarrasses them, how I “make a scene”. Well, I talk to their sorry excuse for a supervisor, who’s just as incompetent as the nurses, and basically tells me that I’m wrong, the nurse is right. So much for customer service.

We had time to kill before our movie, so we went to the mall. We got some iced coffees at Gloria Jean’s and walked around. We went to Circuit City afterwards, where Mario got himself some CDs. He kept telling me to buy myself something but it never fails that when I actually have money nothing appeals to me. All the cute shirts I liked at 5-7-9 before looked drab and boring. We went to Ross after Circuit City, where I always find something I like, but no such luck this time.

We met Mary and Noelia at the movies to watch The Wild–not my first choice. The kids had been wanting to watch that cartoon since it first came out and we kept promising to go but we never did. It was actually a cute movie–I thought I was going to hate it.

Mary had something to do after the movie, so she and Noelia left. Since Mario had promised Gramma dinner, something other than the bland, goopy stuff they serve her there, we bought her some barbacoa tacos and took them to her. After Mom fed her we left to have dinner ourselves. Mario gave me the choice, so I chose Johnny Carino’s. Mario was certain he’d hate it, because he’s not a fan of Italian like I am.

We ordered Calamari, which was great–even the kids were grabbing handfuls. I ordered Spicy Shrimp and Chicken, which wasn’t supposed to be “that spicy” according to the waiter. Mario ordered Lasagna, which he said would base his decision on whether we’d ever go there again or not. The kids ordered pizzas, which were actually whole medium-sized pizzas. Our meals came with soup, so we got the potato soup and it was delicious. Mario said it was the best he’s ever eaten. I’d never tasted it before at all, but I loved it. When our food came we were highly disappointed, although I was really trying to hide it since I was adamant on going there regardless of Mario’s warnings.

My “not that spicy” dish was the spiciest damn thing I’ve ever eaten. And it had a total of two measly shrimps in it. Mario didn’t like his lasagna at all, so he told me to have some of his since he didn’t want it anymore. It had this weird taste–an insane amount of oregano or anise, I couldn’t tell, but it was gross. It was less expensive there than it would have been at Red Lobster, my 2nd choice, though. Needless to say, first and last time at Johnny Carino’s.

We went to Wal-Mart to get house-cleaning supplies and groceries and then came home. It was 8:30 when we got here–we were literally in town all day.

I put everything away when we got here and sat down on the rug in front of the TV for some scrapbooking. Mario left to Chris’ so it was just me and Jaylen; I’d already put Eenan in bed for school the next day.

Mary had come by earlier and said to keep candles and flashlights out since we were under a thunderstorm warning. I thought nothing of it since just a few nights before we’d been under a warning, but nothing ever happened. Well this time, it did. The lights went out at around 11:30 or 12. Jaylen stayed near me while he lit the way with his Gameboy so I could light candles. I couldn’t find my lighter anywhere since Mario had taken it. Mario got here before I started panicking and we lit as many candles as we could. He gets a call from his Mom to move the van out of the carport and move the Equinox in. He went out there and I lost sight of him as soon as he walked out the door. The wind and dirt were flying around so fast and hard it stung when it hit you. And the noises! I thought it was a tornado for sure. We layed out the futon in the living room and brought Eenan over from the bedroom. We dragged Eenan’s twin into the living room and Mario and I layed there (just like when we first started living together!). We shut the door to the bedroom just in case the windows broke apart–it sounded like they were going to, they were rattling so bad. We went to sleep around 1:30 or 2, and the lights came back on at 3:15, according to John who was awake all night. When we woke up the next day we saw branches all over the yard, part of the wooden fence had fallen down. When I watched the news later they talked about a mobile home that had been thrown on it’s side and another home that had the roof torn off and was left tilted. They said it was only a thunderstorm with 60mph winds. I’d HATE to know what a tornado feels like. This was really scary.

As for today, I’m going to watch some movies I rented and finish with laundry. I feel so bored and I don’t know why :(.

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I can’t stand this effing cough. Somehow, in the middle of this heat, I ended up getting a cold–which has proven to be one of the worst ones this year (although I should knock-on-wood because it could be worse *knocks*). It’s those dry, nasty coughs that make your throat itch so much you feel like you’re going to barf. And my nose! It won’t stop running. Grr.

So let’s see…Saturday was spent in town, like all day. We picked the pictures up at Walgreens which turned out really nice. We went to see Gramma at the nursing home, then went to Target, where I was going to pick out either a bedset or rug–my Mother’s Day gift from Mom. No such luck at the Target at Las Tiendas. They were out of the duvet cover that I wanted and I didn’t like any of the rugs. Well, I liked some, but I had to find something that would match our awkward green floor and the beige futon cover I want to get for the futon and nothing matched. We went to Ross, where we only found about a thousand Mexican tourists, as usual. I tell you, they need to declare a day, like Tuesday, a day that tourists can come and shop over here, and for a few hours only. I swear, I can NEVER find a parking space at the mall or Las Tiendas because someone with a license plate from Mexico is in them. Blah.

We went to Kohl’s afterwards, where the kids behaved horribly. I was trying to look at the rugs and candleholders and the kids were running around. I was afraid they’d knock something over so I gave them a designated place to sit. Of course that didn’t work out–they were crawling and kicking eachother. I grabbed them by the hands and pulled them up and started walking out the door. All I was doing was holding their hands and lecturing them when Jaylen starts screaming, “Ow! Stop! YOU’RE HURTING ME!!” You can imagine the look on people’s faces. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone dialed CPS. I look around and smile and hiss down to Jaylen, “Quit saying that! I’m not doing anything to you!” and smile again as we passed other people that were scowling and shaking their heads at me. Darn child–he sure knows how to make me hurry out of a store. Please believe he got a pinch on the arm when we got to the car–which he hates more than an actual spank on the butt.

We went to the Target that was down the block and I found the perfect rug there. Two actually, but the other one was mostly red and super bright and Mario would have hated it. We got one with earth tones and it was perfect because it matched the floor tile perfectly. We decided to make Gramma a corkboard scrapbook for Mother’s Day, so we got the supplies for that.

I stopped by Mario’s work to show him my new rug (hah, sounds dirty) and he loved it. He asked John to drive the Sentra back home and wanted me to pick him up after work since Albert and Jannett had invited us to watch the fight (de la Hoya against Mayorga).

I got ready that night, took clothes for Mario and we went. The fight was showing at Jannett’s parent’s house and they couldn’t get the channel to work. Turns out the idiots at Timewarner screwed up and didn’t put in the order correctly. Jannett called her cousin and we went to watch the fight at his house. It was so awesome the way de la Hoya kicked Mayorga’s arrogant ass.

What did we do Sunday. OH YES, now I remember. It was my brilliant idea to take the living room apart and rearrange furniture. We took the old, blue rug out, put the new one in and moved the desk and computer and all the crap on it to the other side of the living room. Of course, with computers come wires and that was just a mess. It took us all day to arrange everything. And we still didn’t get to center the entertainment center with the rug and futon since the turtle’s tank is on it and it’s heavy.

Can’t remember much from Monday and Tuesday. The usual happened. Except Eenan went on a field trip to a ranch that day.

Tuesday evening was spent with Mom at Michael’s looking for more stickers and embellishments to put on Gramma’s gift. Eenan had a Mother’s Day program on Wednesday afternoon. He was great–his class danced to a hip-hoppish song and sang a cute song called, “My Mom”, or something like that. All the other classes did such a good job too. They had two mariachis sing for us and then we had cake.

Mario and I rented movies last night, but he spent too long talking to Chris outside his house so by the time we got home I was falling asleep. After about 30 minutes of watching the movie I went to bed. Hopefully we can watch one of the others today. I rented Like Water for Chocolate, woo!

Spent today scrapbooking. I’d like to continue but these damn boogers don’t let me look down for more than 5 seconds at a time. And I still have to make dinner and clean up the living room (scrapbooking stuff EVERYWHERE) and wash dishes. Blah.

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I’m going to have a wonderful, unemployed week of scrapbooking come this Sunday. Since Mario left with Chris around 4 this afternoon to fish and ride the ATVs, I spent the day reading (Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel is proving to be quite a good read! Just got two more chapters to go!), cleaning up a little, made dinner, washed dishes, and went to Mary’s to spend some time with little Matthew, Mary, Yazmin and my boys. When I came back over here, I checked my e-mail and found a most lovely coupon from Walgreens, where I could get 5 5×7 prints for free! So I went ahead and did it and it came out to a whopping $0.27–no shipping cost since I’ll pick them up at the store. I’m planning to frame and hang those chosen pictures, and since I hadn’t gotten my 20 free prints yet, I uploaded 36, got the 20 free and the rest came out to $3.08–beautiful! I can finally use up at least half of those scrapbooking supplies in my plastic drawer.

I can hardly contain myself *squeal*. I’m a dork like that .

Last night was the first night in about 3 days that I had to cook. Having Mario home this week has been such a relief and just…wonderful. He cooked burgers outside on Tuesday night, bar-be-cued Wednesday night, and made hot dogs for us Thursday afternoon. I love having him around to hug and cuddle when I please–it’s nice not having to wait till 9p.m., or whenever he gets home from work, to hold him. I love that we can watch movies and take junk to storage (still getting ready for remodeling) when we feel like it. He goes back to work tomorrow, and in a way I feel sad, as if my vacation’s over, too.

In a way, my vacation kind of is over. Gotta get on the ball. I have an appointment with the Career Services Department at school to revise my resume and check what jobs they can hook me up with, if any. I’m hoping I can get something good .

I finally spoke to Jessica M. yesterday. We had a long talk–catching up on just about everything since our last conversation, which was right after I had Jaylen and she found out she was pregnant with her second little girl. That’s what I love about Jessica–we lose touch sometimes but when we get back in touch it’s like there wasn’t a break in our friendship at all. It’s hard to come by friends like that. I hope we can get together soon and have some coffees or something.

Part of the conversation Jessica and I had was about jobs. She’s making an amazing amount of money where she’s working and I kind of want to go there too, but they want you to be available all the time and I just can’t. I’ve got Eenan, who needs to be ready for and taken to school by 7:40a.m. If I were to apply and they were to give me their latest shift, I’d be getting out of work at 1a.m., getting home about 1:45a.m. and sleeping for about 4 hours if I’m lucky. I just can’t function on such little sleep. But we’ll see. If I become desperate enough I may just go there. The bad thing is, John wanted a job there, too!

We went to Jorge and Maggie’s last night and talked about jobs and politics. When I sit down and really think about it, it hits me that we’re actually adults and have the responsibilities of adults. When the hell did that happen?? And there’s no slowing down either. By the time we know it, we’re going to have a freaking mortgage! If all goes well, of course.

It’s almost 12 midnight. I really want to finish up that book before I fall asleep, so I can start on my new one (Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman). I love that the library’s down the street :).

Yeah. I’m enjoying this free time. For now.

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