Category: Decorating

First, sorry this entry’s so long. It’s taken me all day, on and off, to complete it. I guess I’ve taken to updating every week or so. I always mean to update but when I’ve actually got some spare time I’m too busy doing other things.

Anyway, the stupid teacher’s aid tried putting Jaylen on the bus on Friday. I go into the school and my heart sank when I only saw Brianna there. I ask her where Jaylen is and she frantically starts calling out for him. The teacher’s aid came back from wherever she was (yeah, she wasn’t even watching the kids she was in charge of) and I asked her where my son was. She gets this look on her face, worried almost, and says, “Hold on.”

I had to wait 5 agonizing minutes before they finally brought him to me. He was sniffling and breathing hard. He was scared shitless, poor thing. She tells me, with the audacity to half-laugh that he was in line with the bus students. WHAT?? I could have set the aid on fire with my Death Stare. As calmly as I could, I told her, “Why didn’t anyone know he was missing? Aren’t you supposed to be watching him?!”

Her excuse? “It’s because there’s a lot of kids, Miss.”

Dumb woman. I don’t know if it’s because of what happened that day or if it’s just pure coincidence but I haven’t seen her in the morning’s anymore.

My poor boy. I couldn’t stop thinking, ‘What if they’d put him on that bus? Where would they have taken him?’ But Jaylen’s smart. He told me he screamed that he didn’t go on the bus, no matter how much they tried putting him in it. He said even his teacher tried, which is ridiculous since she knows I pick he and Brianna up. Thankfully he’ll now be in another teacher’s class with Brianna.

After we’d picked the kids up we went to pick up Mario’s paycheck from work. As he suspected he did get a small paycheck. It wasn’t small, but to him it was and it promptly put him in a bad mood. Still, we went around paying most of the bills. We left our storage unit payment till next paycheck though and we’d already sent a payment for our credit card so that worked out. We were in a hurry since we had to pick up Eenan and Brandon, but we still had to stop by Home Depot to get supplies we needed for the closets.

Big Mario worked on our closet shelves, but that was it for that day. We hadn’t gotten the closet rods yet (which are super expensive if you want good sturdy ones) so we had to wait. I at least put some stuff up on the shelves to make some more space around our bedroom.

We watched Silent Hill and Health Inspector that night. I actually enjoyed Health Inspector, as gross as it was. We watched Silent Hill next and OMG that movie’s disturbing. It’s out there and unrealistic of course, but ew, some characters were disgusting. I had trouble concentrating on the movie during some parts since I was too busy feeling Alaethia kick. She kicked so hard once that she moved my hand off my belly! I’m so glad I can finally really feel her movements. Puts me at ease.

I had plans to do nothing on Saturday but had to go pay my rings payment at JC Penny and then went to see Gramma. She’s doing great, thank goodness. We got there just in time for Mom to feed her (she doesn’t need to be fed, but Mom likes to). John and I are total clowns all the time so Gramma had trouble eating since she was laughing so hard. Mom kept telling us to be quiet so she could eat. She also said I was going to live forever since I was always laughing LOL.

The boys behaved alright while we were there, but when we got in the truck, OMG they drove me nuts. Let’s just say they screamed non-stop through two cities. Yeah, I had a headache and was gritting my teeth by the time we got home. Of course they got grounded from everything and just quietly played in their room the rest of the afternoon.

Jason, Mireya and Brianna came by later on so Brianna could jump on the trampoline with the boys. They left and Mario got here shortly. We had dinner and complained about how much it sucked that he had to work that Sunday–which was when The Scorcher was happening. John ended up going with Jonathan, Danny and Danny’s brother. I’m sort of glad I didn’t go, because when he came back the next day he looked like a lobster and was in pain. Buahaha.

Again, I didn’t want to do anything on Sunday, but we were so low on groceries I had to go shopping. I took Mom and the boys with me. First stop was Walmart, where the kids behaved okay. Next was H-E-B. As soon as we walked through the door, all hell broke loose because Jaylen wanted to get one of those rental kiddie cars, but I never get them anymore because it never fails that when I do, they climb out of them halfway through my shopping and refuse to get back in. He threw a fit on the floor and whined and screamed–everyone was looking at me. I gave him 3 chances, and when he didn’t stop I gave him a pinch on the arm. Of course that didn’t help his screaming, but he knew I meant business. He finally quieted down and then we ran into Mary and Noelia. They started asking him what was wrong and Noelia made a big deal out of his pinch so he started up again. God, I was so frustrated and annoyed.

We’d left at 2:40pm and got home at 6–Mario was here before we were. When we got here, he was sanding down some rods for the closets that Big Mario brought home. Freebies! I’m so happy and grateful that he got them for us. Big Mario working on the kids’ closet since the morning and had all the shelving up. Mary was helping him paint and then he put the rod in. It looks so great and has so much space I even put the kids’ toys in there. After hanging up all the clothes I eliminated the plastic drawers I had Jaylen’s clothes in and got rid of his tiny white dresser. And there’s so much more space now, which I love. All we need for that room are the doors for the closet, the floor moulding (that’s what it’s called!) and the door to the room.

I spent Monday morning, Labor Day, organizing the boys’ closet and room. Then we went to Peter Piper Pizza with Mary. I don’t know what was up with that place that day–hardly any of the darn games were working. A plus to that was that the kids kept getting extra tokens and tickets when the guys would go fix the machines. We left once the kids got their prizes and went to Target since Mary needed to make a payment. There were some really cute scrapbooking things in the Dollar Spot, but since I was short on cash I only got 4 things.

Tuesday was the kids’ 1st day back at school. Jaylen’s new class is down Eenan’s hall now, so I think that’s why he was so calm. He did really good in the morning, but when I picked him up after school he looked a little sad. I asked him what was wrong and he said, “I wanted you,” and told me he cried during lunch. I promised him I’d always pick him up at 11:30, right after lunch, so he shouldn’t be sad or scared. Mireya picked Brianna up that day. Jaylen, Mom, John and I went to Michael’s and Pet Smart before picking Eenan up.

At Michael’s, Mom and I got supplies for some small surprises for Mary for her birthday. Mom got her a jewelry box and put a picture of her and my dad-in-law in it and I got her two little miniature cabinets for her tiny, mini dishes she loves to collect. I painted them when we got home. She loves strawberries and has them in her kitchen, so I painted some tiny ones on the cabinets. I was debating whether I should post pics or not, but her birthday’s tomorrow so I doubt anyone will catch a peak before.

We needed crickets for poor, hungry Liz, so that’s why Mario sent me all the way to Pet Smart (why he couldn’t just go is beyond me). Before we got the crickets, John and I did our traditional Cat Visit that we make each time we visit Pet Smart together. We went to the adoption center and played with all the cats. They were all so adorable, especially pregnant Mama Kitty (that was really her name :)). Right when I decided it was about time we get the crickets I saw someone who looked familiar. I walked a few feet and realized who it was. “Betsy?” She looked over and said, “Who is it? Wait right there, don’t move!” She walked over to me and I told her, “I’m Yajaira…from OSM?” Her eyes widened and we hugged and caught up. We literally stood there for about 20 minutes, catching up. She and Greg aren’t married anymore but she remarried and had another baby with her new husband, aside from the two kiddos she had with Greg. She looked so nice for having 3 kids! I hope I can bounce back like that. We exchanged numbers and will hopefully get together in a week or so once she’s moved into her own apartment.

The boys did really well in the morning, well, once we were at school already. I had trouble getting them to do their morning routine. Jaylen was thrilled because he got a sticker at school for good behavior. I saved it on his sticker sheet with the date on it when I got home. The new lady in charge of them said he was a ‘beautiful boy’ and ‘very well behaved’ aww. They had homework for the very first time and both Jaylen and Brianna were excited. They did everything, which was tracing A’s and 0’s, right away. They were both great until they started giving me a hard time. Needless to say, I was really stressed by the end of the day. I was in such a bad mood and it didn’t help that the stupid water pressure was sucking at night. Grr.

The good thing is they fall asleep as soon as they lay down anytime from 9:15-9:30. I got some time alone and was extremely bored since Mario was at a meeting then was drinking with the guys and got home super late. I was in bed way before he got home. I was feeling really depressed that night (I don’t know why) and I hate feeling that way. I feel better now though.

I had trouble getting the kids ready in the morning again the next day, but Jaylen was good when I dropped him off. He’s been having me stay for about 5-10 minutes in his class. I’ve obliged since it helps him calm down. Once he’s situated, with his juice and breakfast, and is talking to his friends then he’ll let me go. He always runs up to me when I’m at the door to give me a hug, but he hasn’t cried at all, thank goodness! I’m so proud of him. Everyone says he’s such a good boy :).

Eenan’s doing great at school too, regardless of how strict his teacher is (I knew it from the minute I saw her that she was strict!). I think it’s good for him, though. He had to write his first composition yesterday (‘What I Did This Summer’). He wrote it on a full page and his teacher gave him double-spaced paper to re-write it on and was freaking out because his teacher only wanted it on that page, but after some revisions we got it to fit :).

I was making dinner at night and Big Mario came in to check if Mario had worked on the closets. I told him how Mario hadn’t gotten home early in days, so he hadn’t done anything. He promptly comes in with the closet rods and installed them in my closet. I had to wait for them to dry (he’d spray painted them white) so it was killing me! I just wanted to stuff all my clothes in there but I had to wait.

Mario got home early and we ate dinner, watched some TV, then later when he needed to take a shower, fought with the shower and its low pressure until we totally removed the shower head to get more water.

I had trouble waking up this morning and so did the kids but they were pleasant. I dropped Eenan off first then Jaylen. I stayed with him for a few minutes and helped Mrs. S. open a few orange juice boxes for the kids and then he said it was okay for me to go.

I came home, tried to take a nap since Mario was still in bed but nope, the phone rang so I had to get up. I can’t try sleeping after I hear the phone ring because it always happens that it constantly rings after the first time. We have these hi-tech phones and yet they’re lacking a freaking ‘ringer off’ button. Grr.

I started putting everything away in my closet. I didn’t know I had that much clothing. I really have to look through it and get rid of stuff I don’t wear or that’s super old. I’m glad everything fit and now my couch/futon actually has space to sit on!

Got home from picking up the kids and Mario had made this cholesterol-filled beauty:

I love when he’s home!

Today’s turning out to be pretty good :).

Shame on me for spending the last (quiet, chore-free, childless!) hour online and instead of updating my neglected site, I was obsessively browsing Pink Is the New Blog. I don’t know what it is with me and celebrity gossip blogs lately, but I go to PITNB at least 5 times a week. I’ve even got Mario reading those sites when he gets bored LOL.

My French Vanilla coffee’s got me peeing every 5 minutes, I’m not kidding. I decided to drink regular coffee instead of decaf so I won’t feel so sleepy throughout the day since I had to wake up at 4:30am again to pee, as is the drill every night. At least I’m feeling Alaethia move a lot more now :). (Yes, I think we decided on that spelling. For now LOL.)

So let’s see…last Friday was a good day. It was Mario’s day off so he went with me to drop the kids off in the morning. I took Eenan to his class while he took Jaylen, and Jaylen stayed tear-less and tantrum-less. When I picked him up after school I asked him, “How’d it go? Were you brave?” and he said, “Yup! I felt like I was gonna cwy, but I wiped my eyes and I didn’t cwy!” (As you can see, he still has trouble pronouncing his R’s. Eenan had the same problem. I think it’s adorable though LOL.)

We spent that morning/afternoon moving furniture around (well, Mario and John moved stuff, I just pointed to where everything should go) so that we could finish up with painting. Mario and I did the closet in our room and in the evening finished up with the kids’ room. All that was left to do in that room was the edges near the ceiling and the corners, but I would do that later.

After all the painting we did on Friday, Mario volunteered me to help Mary paint her house. I was silently cursing him since I was hoping to finish painting our house (I still needed parts of the living room + edges and corners like I’d said before) and the whole house needed a desperate cleaning. There was sheetrock dust on every surface of the house and my floors still had clumps of spackle all over the place.

But, I sucked it up and went to help Mary after I’d had breakfast. I was to help do a texture that uses a plastic bag and paint all over her walls. It actually looks really nice and gives the room a vintage look, which works out since Mary has a few vintage-looking porcelain dolls on a shelf. After I’d finished there, I came to work on my house before I became engaged in anything else over there. I was feeling a little annoyed since I had to do all the painting by myself at my house and the only person to help me move things around was John, which I appreciated greatly. Elda, Mary and Noelia were all helping each other paint and were done with Mary’s room, the kitchen, living room, Noelia’s room and her bathroom in one day. Grr. I still had the kids’ closet to paint but I was way too tired to even bother.

We’ll need to buy maybe two more gallons of the beige paint, since the “new” walls don’t look glossy like they’re supposed to. I think the texture sucked it all up.

Noelia’s birthday was on Sunday. We’d slept in as much as we could and then got ready. The food was great and everyone was here, so it was nice. After Noelia’s lunch, Mario and I hurried to Target to get a birthday present for a little girl whose party we were invited to. While we were looking around for something to buy for a 1 year old girl (we were having so much trouble! We need to get used to the baby girl toys LOL) Mario called his friend Manny to check if he was going and he said no, so Mario didn’t want to go anymore either. He’s such a girl about stuff like that LOL.

So, instead of buying the birthday present, we got the kids 2 screen-print shirts that were on sale. We wandered over to the baby department and saw the 4-in-1 crib I liked (and it was less expensive than I thought!) and the Boppy and stroller/carseat combo we liked–in pink! I need to add all this stuff to my Pregnancy Timeline page to keep track of links just in case they don’t have them at the store.

Monday was a normal day, I think? Can’t remember now. Tuesday, of course, was spent doing these things and crying my eyes out because of all the Katrina Anniversary stuff on TV. I only got the things that are marked off done that day and of course washing dishes (which I did the next morning because I was dead tired. I had to drag myself into the shower at night. I even whined to Mario, “I wanna stay dirty!” which is Eenan and Jaylen’s favorite phrase.) I’m glad the house is much cleaner than it had been for a few days, though.

I spent most of Wednesday with a headache (I didn’t sleep enough) and was nodding off every time I was sitting quietly. I didn’t do much that day since the house was actually CLEAN!

Jaylen had been doing wonderfully all week–no crying in the morning since I’d give him a You’re Gonna Be Brave, Right? pep talk on the way to school every day. Well, this morning I didn’t get a chance to give him a pep talk since we were talking about other things. He immediately started freezing up as we approached his class and threw himself on the floor in front of the door. His teacher heard and quickly came to my rescue (thank GOD!) and tried consoling him. I ran away as fast as I could to drop off Eenan before he was late.

Eenan’s been doing great in school, except for the fact that he forgot his homework folder Monday and Tuesday. When he told his teacher about it on Tuesday he said she replied with, “It’s not my problem.” Geez. I know he forgot and all, but do you have to speak to him that way? She looks like she’s a bitter old woman. Hopefully I’m wrong.

He finally brought his homework yesterday though, with the warning that if he forgot it again he was going to get a Red Mark in his behavior folder. A Red Mark is like, the worst thing, ever. I hope he remembers it today *crosses fingers*.

Mario gets paid tomorrow and we’re sort of nervous since it’s been a slow week so far. They’ve been experiencing their Slow Season since about June, but Mario’s always done great. Well, this week they’ve hardly had any work, and Mario’s finally feeling the brunt of it. We have our car payment this week, Mario needs shoes (his current ones are “talking” to him), Jaylen needs new shorts for school since all the other ones we got him are HUGE, thankyouverymuch; plus our credit card, personal plan payment at JC Penny, and storage payments. Oh, and I forgot, we need to get the trim for the doors:

(Nice improvement from before, right?)

And trim, is it? For all the rooms and whatever we may need for the closets. I REALLY need those closets to be finished. Look at where my clothes are for the time being since we took out my old wardrobe closet on Friday (and it quickly decided to fall apart as soon as they took it outside):

May God help us.

Took a break to pick up Jaylen and Brianna and he did much better after I left. He even got another sticker for behaving well :). I’ve been keeping all the stickers he gets on a little sheet for his scrapbook. I wish I’d done the same for Eenan :(. John calls me “Psycho Mom” LOL.

I’m taking a break from sweeping/mopping since my feet are killing me and I can’t seem to go more than 5 minutes between pee-breaks. I’ve got lots to do today and only so many hours to do them in, plus picking up both sets of kids (Jaylen & Brianna: 11:30am, Eenan & Brandon: 3:30pm.) I know it’s a bit unrealistic, but I plan to:

1. Sweep/mop kitchen & living room.
2. Sweep/mop my bedroom. — Mary walked in when I was sweeping and took over. Thank goodness for her.
3. Sweep/mop boys’ room.
4. Sweep/mop bathroom.
5. Wash dishes.
6. Organize stuff in kitchen and put Mario’s tools in his toolbox.
7. Look through cups/plates/bowls and get rid of old/mismatched ones.
8. Go to Dollar General and get sugar, 2 cans of black spray paint, and q-tips.
9. Spray paint all frames in living room and DVD rack.
10. Go through giant piles of bills/papers and file or toss.
11. Buy scrapbook for Eenan’s Pre-K, Kinder and 1st grade art.
12. Scrapbook Eenan’s art.
13. Go through all the rooms and organize junk by room/closet.
14. Clean bathroom from top to bottom. Yuck.
15. Paint the kids’ closet white.
16. Touch up parts of ceilings (in white) I accidentally painted beige.
17. Clean oven and microwave.
18. Get John to throw out the massive amounts of trash. Mary and the boys did it.
19. Get someone, anyone who knows how to use a saw and router to make some chair rails for that small area in the living room (that the desk chair keeps scraping…grr).
20. Buy milk from corner store.
21. Go through all the CDs/DVDs scattered around desk and toss out scratched ones.
22. DUST.
23. Put rug back in the living room.

Whatever I don’t do today will definitely be done throughout the next few days. Okay, break’s up.