Category: Creepiness

I picked the boys up from school yesterday and went straight to my appointment. Jaylen really wanted to go to the Scholastic Book Fair they’re having at school, but I couldn’t take him so I promised I’d take him today. I’d completely forgotten that Eenan has percussion practice on Wednesdays, but thankfully Jose picked him up for me.

I talked and joked around with Elisa when I got there. She asked if I was ready to get it removed and I said sure, we’ll see what Dr. C. said when he saw me.

I read a chapter or two of Eclipse and after what seemed like forever was called in to the vitals room. I had a whole slew of questions I wanted to ask Dr. C., now that I had a chance and had actually made a list. When the girl taking my vitals asked me what I came in for I told her it was mainly so that Dr. C. could assess the ganglion cyst I needed removed. I figured he needed to give me an order for the hospital or something.

I get sent into a room and I’m in there another hour or so. I was completely bored and remembered that it was April Fool’s Day, so I thought of the perfect joke to play on Mario. I was giddy with anticipation. I texted him that they did a urine test (which they didn’t) and that he’d never guess what…I was pregnant! How could that be?!

He takes a while to respond and when he does, texts You better stfu! LOL I didn’t want him to be mad, or die of a coronary, so I texted back ROFL! April Fool’s!

Again it takes him a few minutes to respond and says That’s impossible…

My response: I’m bored. I bet you panicked a lil’, tho! 😉

He says: F u. Don’t talk to me for the rest of the day. U’re the devil.

OMG I couldn’t stop laughing.

We keep chatting and 45 minutes later I text Lord Jeebus. I reckon they forgot about me…

He says U’re little 🙁 Stand up. How rude LOL.

Right when he sent that Dr. C. comes in and we exchange some small talk and takes my hand in his. He turns my wrist from side to side and says he’s going to get everything ready. I laugh, thinking it’s some kind of April Fool’s gag and he’s completely serious. I almost puked. I was so not ready! I didn’t even know what he was going to do!

Laura comes in and we chit-chat and she leaves then comes back with a rolling cart full of stuff. My heart immediately starts pounding.

But not as much as when I saw these and heard Dr. C. telling Laura he needed the biggest gauge needle she could find. Then he said to forget it, he’d just use a scalpel. Again I thought he was playing a prank on me…but he wasn’t.

First of all, I HATE needles. I’m a total wuss when it comes to having IVs inserted into my hands and arms. These needles were MUCH bigger than those. I started feeling really sweaty and nervous when Laura rubbed that brown, sterilizing stuff on my wrist.

She walked out and left my door open. I could hear them talking outside, Dr. C. making jokes about ex-girlfriends and talking about work. Laura gasped and said be quiet, then peeked in and said, “Oh it’s Yajaira anyway. She’s family!” That made me feel so happy :).

Dr. C. took a seat opposite me and started tapping the syringe to numb the bump. I really started panicking, even though I was laughing to brush it off, and I seriously almost started hyperventilating. I took a deep breath and told him, “Wait, wait, wait! I’m not ready!” Laura ran to my side when she saw me freaking out and held my hand.

Dr. C. told me I’d be fine and I just stared, waiting for the pain I knew was about to come. Laura told me, “You don’t have to look!” So she pulled my face over to her chest and covered my eyes. I braced myself and winced when I felt the needle break the skin and then the sharp pain when the liquid started making its way in. I slowly pulled Laura’s hand off of my eyes and peeked to see what happened. The cyst was double the size it originally was and Dr. C. playfully says, “You did say you wanted it double the size it was, right?”

I nervously laugh and start panicking again when Dr. C. reaches for the scalpel. I quickly place Laura’s hand over my eyes and ask her, “Laura, Laura! Is it gonna hurt?!”

Dr. C. chuckles and says, “It’s okay, I’m already cutting. You don’t feel anything, right?”

I exhale, because I’d been holding my breath the whole time and remove Laura’s hand from my face. Sure enough, Dr. C.’s already gently piercing a little hole in the cyst and I don’t feel a thing. Next thing I know, clear goop is bubbling out of the tiny incision.

Of course I was going to get a picture of it! Mario requested this one in particular LOL.

Dr. C. gently squeezed out all the gel, covered it with a thick wad of gauze and tightly rolled some medical tape around it. He said I should keep a bandaid on it and then wrap it in something tight, like an ACE bandage. He gave me some literature on ganglion cysts and told me that unfortunately they come back in 50% of people once they have them aspirated like I did. I hope I’m not one of those people :(.

We joked around as he was cleaning up and Laura said she was going to miss seeing me as often as she got to during my pregnancies. I told her I should just go work with them when I was ready. Her eyes lit up and she said I totally should and started explaining benefits to me right away! I really, truly would consider working there; I love all the girls and Dr. C. Once I was ready, of course.

I waited in the pharmacy area for my antibiotics prescription and helped Laura measure a window. I get a text from Mario telling me that he just missed a call from Border Patrol. I automatically think, “He’s totally getting back at me for the pregnancy joke,” but then I start wondering what if it’s for real?

He goes into this whole spiel about how he was talking on the phone with his boss and he called back and they explained to him what the next step would be, which was picking up his ticket. He would be leaving on Monday. My heart sank when he told me this, but again, I just had a feeling he was joking. I kept telling him he was lying LOL.

I went to Target and then Home Depot. Mario talked to me during my drive and was going on and on about how sad he was; how he wasn’t even going to get to finish our new living room. When I hung up with him I texted Maggie and asked her if Mario had mentioned anything about the call from Border Patrol, because he’d just told me he was leaving on Monday. She said no, that he didn’t. I told her not to say anything about it. She asked if I could do her a favor and text Jorge. She wanted to trick him, too.

So I text him What happened today? Mario got home from work and said he wasn’t going back tomorrow!

I know Mario did have a crappy day, so it was jiving with what I said. Jorge texted back that he didn’t blame Mario for feeling that way and so on.

I had just gotten home and Mario was already here. I try getting it out of him for about 15 minutes that he’s joking, but he’s playing the part really well. I finally tell him to break the news to his Mom and the boys and he can’t help but break a smile. I then get a great idea…supposedly he got the call around 5:30, so I check his call log on his cell and there isn’t anything about Border Patrol or Homeland Security or any number I don’t recognize. He has no choice but to confess LOL.

I tell him about the whole Jorge thing. Maggie texts me and says, Jorge is walking around all sad and mad LOL. I feel bad, so I text Jorge back April Fool! Don’t hate me! Heh.

Jorge texts back, I already told the boss he quit!

I KNOW he’s trying to trick me, so, using Mario’s prank to my advantage, I text back, Well, I guess that’s good because Border Patrol just called Mario. He leaves on Monday!

Jorge doesn’t waste time in calling Mario to confirm LOL. Of course Mario tells him it’s all a joke and we’re going over.

Mom offered to watch Alaethia and Mary had the boys, so we only took Emily with us. We ended up having an impromptu movie night, watching Monsters vs. Aliens first (which was really cute!) and then Last House on the Left (which was really effed up).

We got home around 12:30 and were in bed by 1am. Emily didn’t let me fall asleep till around 1:30 or so, which I was grateful for because she slept the whole time we’d been at Jorge and Maggie’s.

She woke up at 6 for a bottle and of course, was wide awake and didn’t let me go back to sleep till 8am, when Mario needed to get up to go to work. I feel awful when I don’t can’t get up to make him breakfast. The good thing was, she let me sleep till 10:45 and then all of us girls came to the kitchen to have breakfast.

It was a lazy day, for the most part. John came over and I told him about my cyst, which he called his “Cyst-er”, because he says it was so big it could be another person LOL. I went to deposit at the bank, paid bills online and did some housework, like laundry and tidying up. I can’t get much done with Emily. Even when Mom holds her she howls for me. As soon as I get her, she’s completely fine. Her wails turn into whimpers and dissolve into content sighs once she’s in my arms. As hard as it is to get things done around the house, I have to admit that it makes me feel super special inside knowing she’s happiest being with her Mama :).

I picked the boys up from school while Mom watched the girls and took the boys to the Book Fair. I spoke to a few of the kids’ teachers and then we were on our way. Jaylen had been making a big fuss about it yesterday and almost didn’t buy anything today. He just got one book. Eenan did, too, although if he had his way, he would have bought a whole bunch of expensive ones LOL.

I spent the rest of the day with Emily and then Mom watched her while I made dinner (artichoke lasagna). Adan, Aide and Belle came over and us girls sat around talking while the guys were outside doing guy things, like installing a radio and drinking. We found out Kilala had her puppies sometime today! Mario discovered her under our storage shed and declared, “I’m a grandpa!” LOL

I bathed Alaethia and then sorted through her clothes in the closet. There were tons of things she outgrew, so I weeded them out and put them in storage bins for Emily.

I took off my bandage and replaced my bandaid earlier and realized I still have a bit of the bump on my wrist. I’m not sure if there’s liquid in there still or if it’s swollen from the procedure but I stupidly tried to squeeze out whatever was in there. Now it’s throbbing more than it had been, but thankfully it hurts a lot less than I thought it would.

And now I’m waiting for Emily to wake up for her first bottle of the night. Her bath will wait till the morning. I have a few dishes in the sink and that’s where I bathe her. My wrist hurts so I’m trying to take it easy and not move things around. Believe it or not, typing doesn’t bother me. I’m supposed to keep my fingers busy, and what better way than a gajillion-word blog entry?

Sun, Nov. 9th – We woke up with a cold and soggy bed. Alaethia slept most of the night (in our bed obviously) which meant I slept most of the night and I didn’t change her diaper. Just the push I needed to start laundry early.

We had breakfast at Mary’s, as we usually do on Sunday. I spent the whole day cleaning. The house was in desperate need of it; let’s just say I hadn’t had a chance to mop in about two weeks. Bless Mario—he tried watching the kids but he was also outside and playing on his laptop so, um, I could have used more help, heh.

Mario was going to bar-b-q for lunch, but since it was going to take a while I made hamburger helper and brownies. John came over and made me laugh for a while then Jennifer, Aide, Adan and Belle came over. I was washing the pile of dishes that had accumulated since the day before and although I felt awkward cleaning I had to. My feet were killing me. I timed everything so that I’d be done with most of the cleaning by 8’oclock. You don’t bother me at 8 o’clock on Sundays—Desperate Housewives is on. Mario lay on the couch with me and though I told him I still needed to bathe he walked to the bedroom, got nice and comfy and fell asleep. I was so pissed. I woke him and he reluctantly go up at 9 to watch Alaethia while I showered.

Mon., Nov. 10th – I had the mini vomits all. day. long. I’d started having never-ending heartburn the week before: even cantaloupe gives me heartburn!

I started going to lunch earlier, at 11:30, like I’d planned to. Going to lunch from 1-1:30pm (I have breakfast at 6am) just wasn’t cutting it anymore. It was cool going to lunch so late before, because then it felt like the rest of the day just whizzed by and by the time I knew it, it was 3:00.

Sometimes I wouldn’t even have a chance to have a snack at 9:30, so I’d be shaking and starving by the time Mrs. V. got back from her lunch. That’s what caused me to develop diabetes in May to begin with–totally not what I need right now during this pregnancy.

I had everything done around the house since the day before, so I got to chill out and upload pics to my Flickr. Well, I did have a bit of laundry to do, but that was it.

Mom and the in-laws bar-b-q’d outside, so I didn’t even have to make dinner. We got the final details down for Mario’s birthday on Wednesday, the 12th. I had the perfect idea for his present, and it was such a great deal at Walmart! Even better: Mary said we’d go halfers on it! I was going to call in on Wednesday since I had my glucose screening and it was going to take forever, so I could go shopping right after the appointment.

Tues., Nov. 11th – I had another one of those ugly, vivid dreams Monday night—only this time it was about Alaethia. It was a really long dream but the short version is:

We were at my school, which was some kind of dorm. We had a suite and the boys were already asleep, Mario was out and I already had the baby, who looked exactly like Alaethia only smaller. I was having trouble putting Alaethia to sleep (just like I was in real life that night) and when she finally went to sleep I sneaked off to pee. I washed my face and when I opened my eyes and looked in the mirror I saw something rush behind me in the reflection. I turn around and some brown, slimy lizard creature lunged at me and tried attacking me with these tiny, razor-sharp teeth. I was terrified and tried choking it but when it refused to give up I started banging its spine against the corner of the sink. When I felt it go limp I looked at it…and it was Alaethia, only much smaller and the same brown, speckled color as the lizard creature. I screamed in horror as I see her little head bob to one side and her arms hang limp. I kept telling myself in the dream that no, this creature was trying to trick me and make me believe it was Alaethia, but it wasn’t. As hard as it was for me to do I lay the Alaethia clone on the floor and scream for help. Someone was in the hallway and I asked them to please check if Alaethia was asleep in bed, it was an emergency. I kept watch on the creature, sobbing because I wasn’t sure what was going on, and I’d never forgive myself if this really was Alaethia. The woman helping me ran and checked and when she came back she was panting and said, “She’s not in bed! That’s her! Don’t hurt her!”

I turned and looked at the creature on the ground and my heart banged in my ears. I woke up after that and couldn’t sleep at all. It should be illegal to have dreams like that. I prayed and prayed to God to let me sleep and erase that dream from my memory. But when I finally did fall asleep I had another horrible dream, this time about some hollow, dying dogs that Jorge, Mario’s friend, had given us. That one was terrible, too, but nothing’s more awful than bad dreams about my kids.

I thought about the dream all day and almost started bawling when I told Mrs. V., and later Mrs. Ruiz about it. I texted Mario in the morning and told him about how awful the dreams were and what a crappy day I felt I was going to have. I even forgot to put on deodorant!

The day would have gone even worse had Mrs. V. not returned when she did from running errands around the school…I didn’t leave for lunch till 11:37. I was so glad she got back and once I actually had lunch, the day became a little brighter.

I got home and just wanted to chill out and relax, but I get a text from Mario letting me know he’s got his birthday off! There was no way I’d have a chance to buy his gift the next day and surprise him so I had no choice but to go to Walmart that same evening. I go online to check the prices one more time and realize I’ve made a huge boo-boo: the Playstation 3 bundle I wanted to buy him was only sold online. It wouldn’t get here till November 27th! I called around looking for other specials or bundles but had no luck. I was lucky Target had some available.

It took some convincing, but I finally got the boys in the Equinox. They hate going anywhere, especially to town, during the week after school. Reminds me of their father, heh. They were looking forward to spending the money they’d saved up. Eenan had $13 because he got $10 from the Tooth Fairy and I knew Jaylen had been saving money, but I had no idea how much. I took his word when he told me he also had $13.

We got to Target and I got Mario the console, the cooling bundle with remote, a Blu-Ray movie: Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and the 3-yr warranty. That’s really why Mario’s always wanted the PS3: for the Blu-Ray player.

The boys wanted to stop by Game Stop since they didn’t find anything at Target. Eenan bought himself a game for his DS and Jaylen got one for his beloved Game Cube. He passes me his little Transformers wallet and I unzip it. With our Game Stop discount his game came out to $9.50. I thought Cool, he’ll even have some left over. I look into the wallet and I don’t know whether to laugh or scream: there’s two dollar bills and the rest are pennies and quarters, mostly pennies. I glare at him and pull a $10 out of my wallet. He smiles.

I’m raising a con artist.

I’ve had most of this entry typed up (in bulleted form) since the day after my last post, just never got around to arranging it into coherent sentences and posting it.

So last Friday Mario worked to have Saturday off for Aly’s baptism. It was a same-ol, same-ol type of day. I spent most of it in a cloud, daydreaming about how awesome it would be to have the job and even started creating mental maps to Target.

Saturday was Alaethia’s baptism. I woke up first and, of course, ended up rushing around as usual. I spent about 40 minutes ironing everyone’s clothes (insane, I know). Andy and Noelia got here and Noelia started helping me get Aly ready (thank GOD). She looked gorgeous :). I didn’t get to straighten my hair, which I noticed later in the pictures just how bad I needed to have done. When we were all ready and about to leave Mario throws a fit because he can’t find his brown belt that matches his brown shoes. Grr. We’re supposed to be at the church at 9:45 and at 9:48 we’re still looking for the darn belt. He finally gave up and wore the other brown one I told him to since the beginning.

We arrive at the church. There’s tons of people and there’s still two other families that are late after us, so we were good. No lecture (which they really like to do there). There were about 30 babies/children. Alaethia did really good considering how hot it was at the church and how many layers of clothes she was dressed in. She became fussy halfway through because she’d woken up too early and she hated having the water splashed on her head, but other than that, she was fantastic. She fell asleep immediately after the “dipping”. She probably thought it was a bath LOL. Baths at home usually mean a nap afterwards. We took some group pictures and then headed home.

We had everyone over for Cabrito. I don’t usually eat it, because it’s GOAT, but I was in the mood to try something different so I did…and uh, no thanks. I bit down on something rubbery that tasted like kidney. Bleh. I wasn’t in the mood to eat anything after that.

We sat around for most of the afternoon and we talked about my interview. We (Mario, Jaylen, Aly and I; Eenan was sleeping over at Mary’s) went to Jorge and Maggie’s later. We chilled out for a bit and then Aly and I went with Maggie to her mom-in-law’s to pick up her “practice” nails. She started cosmetology school and is really excited. She’s going to practice doing nails on me when she’s ready :D. After we picked up that set of nails, she picked up some more from her friend’s house. We stuck around and watched a girl do another girl’s nails. When we left her friend’s house we picked up some Church’s chicken since we were all starving. We ate at their house and chilled out a bit more before we left. We actually got home before 1am from their house for once — 11:30!

We went to sleep as soon as we got home. Around 3:22am I was jolted awake for some reason, and went back to sleep. I had an awful dream and woke up crying. My heart was pounding in my chest. I’d never felt that way before with that sort of dream; the kind where Mario cheats on me :(. That’s only happened when I’ve had awful dreams about bad things happening to the kids. Mario woke up when I was sniffling and quickly pulled me over to him and wrapped me in his arms. I couldn’t stop crying; I just felt so weird and sad and like it was real. I’m so glad he held me and made me feel better. I don’t think I could have slept again that night if he hadn’t consoled me. I love him <3. We woke up late-ish on Sunday morning. Mario was up before me. We ate breakfast, then spent the rest of the day cleaning up the living room. Since the desktop died we took the desk apart and took it out of the room. I mopped, vacuumed, tossed, stored, and rearranged. I need to take our big desk chair to storage and maybe then it'll look like there's more space in here, because right now, it still looks really crowded since the playpen took the place of the desk. It's kind of sad. I've no place to put my desk stuff, like my pens, collection of Sharpies and my notebooks and stuff. I still need to look through and shred stacks of paper. Bleh. Mario left to Chris' later to help him with a home project, all Weekend Warriors-like.

I’d been trying to force train Alaethia to go to sleep earlier so I can get enough sleep in case I do get the job. I stayed awake after Mario left to work. Mary was taking Big Mario to the doctor since he was having chest pains the day before. He was fine, thank goodness. The pain was chest wall pain due to stress and overworking himself. I’m so glad he agreed to go to the doctor, especially after Mario’s uncles and aunts and Tommy’s dad who’ve passed from heart problems. We’re all a little upset that he didn’t go to his follow-up appointment, though =\.

The bad news of the morning: Tippy got run over :(. Mary accidentally backed up on her. Tippy’s one of two female kittens Brushka had and she was so cute :(. Chris was supposed to take her once she was ready to be weaned from Brushka. I hadn’t mentioned it, but Brushka and Waffles are now missing. Artemis, Panther, and Skinny have been missing for months, as have John’s cats Daisy and Pixy :(. It’s really weird. The animal catcher wouldn’t take them because the catcher is Mario’s friend. We’ve also never seen traps set around the neighborhood either. I wonder if someone in the neighborhood is poisoning them or something? Anyway, yeah. Brushka’s kittens are now orphans. She had 5 originally, one died at birth. We haven’t been able to find one of the little girl cats and now Tippy’s gone :(. We’ve only got the two little boys left and Ash and Alidocious. I want my Artemis back :*(.

John stayed with the boys that day while Mom and I went to town. I returned some white, sheer curtains at Target. We stopped by Petco because Mom needed bird food but it’s still not open. Mom treated me to Chili’s. We shared the Tripple Dipper and Classic Nachos. YUM. Alaethia was a hit with the waitress –she’d play with her whenever she came back to check up on us. She was really nice. We even talked about our children (she has three kids two and is 22!). We ordered some boneless wings for Mario and went to drop them off to him, then went to Pet Smart where Mom finally bought her Betta fish. Aly was made a fuss over by a nice lady :). I fell in love with the crabs (I’d totally name one Eugene Crabs if I got one!) and I will be getting at least two Robo Dwarf Hamsters/! They are SO CUTE. They sort of look like my old Pecan (R.I.P.), but smaller. Aly was thrilled watching them and was clenching her little fists in excitement.

We went to Walmart to pick up some groceries and food for Aly since we were completely out. Then we FINALLY came home and chilled out. Were supposed to have practice for Yazmin’s Quinceañera, but that fell through. Mario was out with Chris again that night, but I tried not to be too bothered by it =\.

I stayed up after Mario left to work on Tuesday morning. I finally decided to make myself an actual breakfast of eggs over easy, but all the kids decided to wake up and after tending to all of them (making the boys cheesy eggs and bacon and getting Aly’s oatmeal ready), my food was cold. At least I had some great hazelnut coffee.

Mom came over and I took a ziploc of old floppy disks to Mary’s to look through so we could get rid of them already. I found old pics of Eenan I thought I’d lost. I uploaded them to Flickr. I still need about 70 more disks to go :(.

The boys were obnoxious and rude all day and pretended they couldn’t hear me most of the time. Jaylen was especially moody in the evening and that’s because he’d had a nap in the afternoon. Transitioning back to “school night” bedtime wasn’t going too well, but we’re doing better now. I wonder if Elda’s gotten her boys to sleep earlier. They go to sleep at 4-5am and wake up super late. I would never let my Twerpies stay up that late, not even as teenagers!

Mary brought pizza for dinner that night, so that was awesome. Mario called to “ask” if he could go to his friend’s house which I thought was sweet of him. He doesn’t have to ask for “permission” but I guess since he knew he’d been out practically every night for the past week he should get in my good graces LOL. I spent a lot of that night trying to blog, but that wasn’t happening since Aly became a little moody.

I’m not sure which two days it was, but Jason and Brianna came over one day for a little while, then the next day Jason, Brianna and Adan came over and chilled out for a while.

John and I went to Kumori again on Wednesday. He’d asked if I wanted to go on Tuesday, then changed his mind and promised we’d go the next day. So we did. And it was delicious as always. I had a different roll this time, the Nevada Roll, since it has everything the rolls I usually get do (the Fiesta Roll) except the tampico paste, which I love, and fried salmon skin, which I hate. John liked that it was a dollar cheaper, so he told me to get the tampico paste added on the top. So I did it. It came out to $1.35 more than the other one because of that LOL. I love that place. I wish it was closer!

Thursday was spent biting my nails off, literally, waiting to hear from the school/job. I called and the Librarian didn’t have any info, so she told me who to get ahold of to ask. I called, she was out to lunch and nobody called me back. Rats.

I’m not usually the type of girl who feels pain and discomfort during That Time of the Month; I usually only have a little back pain. But Thursday night I started to feel really crappy.

That night was the night that some crazy, drugged up man came knocking on our doors. It was around 11:30pm and I was talking to Ricci on my cell. Mary calls to the house phone to ask if Mario was home because someone was knocking and she was afraid to get up and answer and Big Mario was already asleep. I tell her no, he’d left to Tommy’s. As soon as I said that, I heard a knock at the door and Eenan, who was sleeping in the living room, groggily yells, “Come in!” I drop both phones, grab Alaethia and run to the living room. I tell Eenan to get in my room and I pull the curtain slightly back. The crazy man notices and I see a huge eye staring back at me. I gather all my courage and pull the curtain open and see a 30ish year old man with a receding hairline and wearing a dingy white t-shirt holding a pack of cigarettes and waving money in my face. He says, “A dime, lady! A dime, c’mon!” in Spanish. I shake my head at him and wave him away and quickly close the curtain. I kind of stand there for a few seconds, wondering if he’s crazy enough to break the windows on my door. I grab Eenan and we run to my bedroom. I call Mario right away and he’s here in 5 minutes from Yadira’s. The man had long gone, but my in-law’s had called the cops and apparently they’d been looking for him because they knew he’d been knocking on other people’s doors looking for drugs. Crazy. Mario felt really bad that he wasn’t here and kept apologizing. I played it cool, because I didn’t want to make him feel worse but I was terrified. I’m just glad nothing worse happened. Mario and I stayed up watching gross videos on Ebaumsworld.com for about an hour and then went to bed.

We all slept a little late on Friday. I felt even worse than I did the night before. My legs hurt, I was cramping, my back was killing me and I was SO TIRED. Even after sleeping 9 hours. We got up and got ready to go to town. We had to pick up Mario’s paycheck and get a few more school clothes for the boys. We had totally forgotten it was Tax-Free Weekend, but it wasn’t too bad. We had lunch at Burger King and it was pretty packed there, though. Aly was so cute eating her green beans, which I remembered to pack this time. It was nice being out together :).

We went to the bank then to Target where we got the boys another pair of jeans each, socks, undies and a few other things. And then we went to Academy where I bought Mario a rifle shotgun he’d been wanting for at least 2 years. Dove (is it doves? Whitewings, whatever) season is coming up and he didn’t get to go last year since his dad was out hunting with the shotgun Mario was going to use. He deserves it for everything he does for us, especially working his fingers to the bone to give us everything we need and want. I sat at the shoe department with the kiddos and I’m pretty sure I saw my childhood friends, Jesse and Daisy, shopping around. They’ve been together since 8th grade. And I thought Mario and I’d been together long!

We went home afterwards and then to Yadira’s later, where we learned about some family drama. We came back home and went over to Elda’s where we sat around chatting and visiting with Isaac, who’d stopped by. They decided to bar-b-q and I felt like total crap so Aly and I came home (right next door LOL). I didn’t feel any better that night, after eating some chilli and cheese tater gems and munchers from Star’s. I’ve really got to stop eating so much fast food and just general junk. I felt sluggish and like I was about to barf right before I laid down. My back hurt so bad I needed to get up and warm up a rice sock.

I felt really tired this morning; so tired that I went back to sleep after the alarm went off to wake up Mario for work. Poor thing was rushing around like crazy. I slept a little longer and woke up when Alaethia did. We all ate breakfast then Mom came over. I got in the shower and John was here when I got out. We made plans to go to town. Dropping a pizza off for Mario for his lunch was the first stop, then we went to the mall. Tax-Free Weekend was in full-effect — there were no parking spaces what-so-ever. I went around the parking lots of the whole mall and finally went over to the Sears side. After a few rounds I found The Perfect Parking Space at the doors of Sears. I changed Aly’s diaper, Mom stayed with the boys at the little seating area in front of Sears and John, Alaethia and I walked off. We went to JC Penny first. I had a $10 off coupon so I was going to get a pair of jeans (because the ones I have are like, 3 years old already) but I didn’t find ONE pair of Arizona bootleg jeans. Damn sales. Instead I got two little T’s and a blouse for Mom for her birthday tomorow. I estimated it should come out to $18 after the coupon but it didn’t. It came out to $10.47! I love JCP!

John got what he needed, bought some games and met Mom and the boys. The boys wanted to get on a ride and the stupid machine ate my quarters. Grr. We picked up a pizza for ourselves and ate on the way to Gramma’s. Mom cleaned up her room a little and after talking with her for a while and getting a list of stuff she needs we went to H-E-B.

The kids didn’t want to walk around anymore so we popped a DVD in for them and Mom stayed with them in the car. As usual, John and I spent an hour in there shopping. I bought extra canned foods just in case Hurricane Dean makes its way over here. Hurricane Erin totally missed us; it went Northeast of us, but this one seems like it might hit us or Northern Mexico. The last time a hurricane hit Northern Mexico we lost power for 24 hours (and that’s also the fateful day I began reading the Harry Potter books!). So, I’m just preparing. If nothing happens the boys will be happy to know they’ve got tons of ravioli to eat LOL.

And after that we’ve just been home. I made tacos for dinner and I waited up with the boys who were waiting up for Mary. She went to a casino in Eagle Pass with her co-workers and the boys were desperate to sleepover so they waited up. And then Aly fell asleep so now I’m finally updating! She’s so cute…and grown up. She recently started holding her own bottles!

Okay, so that’s going to be a long one. I thought I heard her stirring so I should stop tapping on these keys. Goodnight!