Category: Friendship

A little over a month ago I started jogging with Jorge and eating better to hopefully keep from having to continue taking high cholesterol medication like I’d mentioned at the end of my post 2 posts ago. I’d been taking Lipitor since February 7th after my yearly checkup discovered that I had insanely high cholesterol. I hadn’t been taking the medication since the beginning of May and I wanted to give myself a month to “fix” myself. Of course, we would do excellently at the beginning of each week, but once the weekend came and we had work events and Pizza Friday, our progress was interrupted. We did manage to take the boys on several runs with us, but when we took all 4 to McAuliffe park and Jorge took the fast little ones (Jaylen and Justin) and I stayed behind with the older ones, Jorgie, Eenan and I realized we’d be the first to go during the zombie apocalypse lol.

Jorge and I continued our runs/walks while the kids were gone the beginning of summer (mine with Mario at Disney World and Jorge’s with his mom in Austin) but I just felt like I wasn’t doing enough. And then I started to get lazy again and stuffing my face after dinner while we watched TV.

When Emily had gotten sick 2 weeks ago and I’d taken her to the doctor, I went ahead and got my 3-month checkup. I called Laura for the results and she said I brought my cholesterol down significantly (which was better than I thought since the meals at my events at work weren’t exactly cholesterol-free). BUT, because it still wasn’t as low as they wanted, I still had to be on the pill. Boo.

I picked up my prescription, but I haven’t taken it. Yes, I know I should, but I really want to bring it down on my own!

The girls at work told me Tuesday 2 weeks ago that they started going to a new gym miss Alma told them about. I jumped in and said I’d join them, before I could psyche myself out and change my mind. So I went home and changed, made the family dinner and was on my way.  It was hard, but I was already feeling better just knowing I was doing something.

I’ve kept at it since and my Love even got me a Polar FT4 watch, which I’ve wanted FOREVER.

I’ve managed to lose 4 lbs in 2 weeks, so that’s pretty good. I switched classes and now go right after work with Alexis since going to class at 6:30 felt like I was wasting too much time. Now I can get home and make dinner and shower and be lazy with the kids :). I just hope we can keep it up. Our instructor is planning on switching locations and I think the new one may be too far :(.

I made breakfast for my love and I on Saturday and then Michelle and I got ready to attend the 11am class, but we arrived to find the gym closed =/. So we went to the park and worked out there instead. Did our own little circuit. Never did I think I’d be one of *those* people, but we were in our own little world and everyone else was in theirs :). And we burned a pretty good amount of calories for it just being us two doing our own thing!

I actually look forward to going to work now. I’d gotten to the point where I guess everyone gets to; when you just feel “blah” getting up every day, doing the same routine. And well, even though I’ve developed a new routine at least I know it’s a good one. Even Jorge said, “You’re in a much better mood all the time now!” He doesn’t like when I’m mopey and I’d been doing that a lot lately, probably because of the way I was eating and feeling. I guess they’re right about those endorphins and exercising!

So I’ve been waking up, getting ready for work, working, eating at work most of the week (while I track my calories on Myfitnesspal again. It’s a huge help!), get ready for the gym as soon as I’m out of work, go to the gym, head home, shower and make dinner while tending to the kids (or vice-versa; my Emmos is still very attached and wants attention as soon as I’m home). Then we relax and watch a show if possible and I usually crash out on the sofa right after I get the girls into the bath and put them to bed. Oh yes, and I get my stuff together for my morning smoothie, my lunch and my gym clothes (or else I’m scrambling around the next morning. I usually end up doing that one -_-). I’m hoping I can develop a bit more energy, as I was hoping I’d be able to stay up a little later hehe.

I hope we can keep it up. The girls and I encourage each other at work and even from home, on Facebook, hehe. Our gym is moving a little farther away, but I’m hoping to make it there till at least the 23rd, when my paid month is up. Gotta take advantage! We’ll see what happens after the month is up. I hope we can continue with something though!

It had been a hectic month and a half, what with 3 important, somewhat unexpected events at work. To think they weren’t even large expos or festivals. One was a dinner, the second one was a breakfast and those two were pretty easy. They flowed well. The last–and largest–was the most stressful. It was a 2 1/2 day event and it was my department’s duty to take care of all details (and by my department, I mean my boss and myself LOL). I asked myself daily if I’d actually be able to pull it off. We got tons of help from EZ, Bob, Michelle and Gerry–tons. I was eternally grateful. And in the end, everything worked out, THANK GOD.

The press conference at the airport started late, but it went well. Lunch at House.Wine was perfect; they do such a great job with our groups!

I’m pending a photo from the first evening’s dinner at the museum. Alexis, Michelle and Anabel took over for me and helped me so much that night. I made sure to have everything ready since they’d be taking over for me. Jorge and I had already made plans way before we learned about this event to attend the George Strait “Cowboy Rides Away” Tour. Of course I was on my phone the entire time, making sure the violinists arrived, that the crew ate, that the food was ok, that there was enough seating, etc. I really didn’t relax until George’s encore!

I was a little nervous about the concert, as we got to attend last year in San Antonio and it really wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. He didn’t sing an encore, didn’t sing very long, sang a few covers instead of his own songs and at the end, didn’t even sing “The Cowboy Rides Away! BUT. He completely redeemed himself with this one!! He did a great rendition of “Folsom Prison” with a huge gunshot blast and all, had an encore, sang “The Cowboy Rides Away” at the end and sand for almost 3 hours!! It was fantastic :).

Anyway, the most important part of the visit, the ceremony, was the next morning. After that, I headed to the office to double and triple check my RSVP list. I KNEW I was going to get some last-minute attendees, but so far, everything was okay.

After many, MANY visits to shops downtown and HEB, Gerry helped us get the gifts ready and then Michelle, Bob, EZ and I headed to Quinta to set up. After a misunderstanding (isn’t there always one??), we were ready to go.

Everything went without a hitch, thank goodness. Even after 13 extra people showed up O_O.

Since our crew didn’t get to eat, our boss took us to House.Wine for dinner. We chit-chatted, ate and had dessert. He even gave me a high five. All the weight floated off my shoulders. The last part of the event was the next morning and then, THEN I could relax.

The Cowboy Breakfast the next morning was a hit and everything went smoothly. I was so glad!! After picking up some vases we forgot at Quinta, I was FREEEE!!! I joked with Jorge that I needed to get a T-Shirt that says, “I Survived SLP Delegation Visit 2014” LOL.

I made sure to ENJOY and relax the rest of the weekend. Well, as much as I could following a 3-yr-old around and vice versa LOL.

I was awarded a gift certificate to Tony Roma’s so Jorge and I planned a date night for Wednesday. It was so odd to have a non-stressful week! But you can bet I appreciated the crap out of it!

My babies were picked up the Thursday afternoon (day of the first event/concert) by their dad and his family. They were taking them to Disney World. I tried my hardest not to text every 5 minutes to ask Mario to please take care of my children. And when I felt that I was missing them to the point that I was going to become depressed, I’d keep myself busy. Mario was nice enough to send me photos of their activities throughout the trip, and I spoke to them every single day, so that was nice and comforting.

I’d been running and eating well for 2 weeks straight (running for almost a month in total, with breaks in between)…until the Wednesday before the event, and after that my diet and exercise went down-hill :(. I keep saying I’m going to start again but Jorge and I started watching Orange is the New Black while our kids were gone so…yeah. You can say it took precedence =\.

Jorge and I finally had a date night on Wednesday. I can’t really remember the last time we had a date night. We eat lunch together often, but we’re usually accompanied, so it doesn’t really count, heh. It was nice to spend time alone together and reflect on our day and talk about ourselves and just everything. The food was pretty darn good, too.

We didn’t have dessert there. Instead we went to House.Wine just to have the Banoffee ^_^. It was a pretty great night :).

Thursday was a pretty easy day at work and I got to take Friday off. I made the most of it, cleaning a little, making myself breakfast and lunch and I finally decided I was going to plant a succulent garden! So I went to Home Depot and picked up these babies:

It was a lot of work to find the perfect pot and to get them just right in the pot, and even then I left a few spaces in the pot bald =\. But it was so satisfying to see it come together and it brought such a huge change to my patio table!

I hope they thrive! I check on them all the time and I even added new cactus soil to my old ones on my windowsill ^_^.

I’m reading up about propagating them and have a few started up already, most of which happened on their own.

Sally and I finally got a chance to meet up on Saturday :). We tried having brunch at Birdie’s but that didn’t work out very well so we ended up at Los Cazadores. We had a nice long catch-up chat; it was therapeutic!

We went to Marshall’s next and browsed and then I dropped her off and came home to be picked up by Jorge, Jr. and their cousin Joey and his wife, who are in town for a while. We went to Cheddar’s for afternoon drinks and this was the continuation of my bad eating (had scrambled yellow eggs, bacon and a pancake at Los Cazadores, then spinach artichoke dip and chips and a Maui Margarita at Cheddar’s). We shared some stories and shared some laughs, it was nice. We headed to a Vape Shop for Jorge and then we tidied up at home since everyone was coming over to watch the UFC fight. I managed to stay awake most of the time, until we ordered pizza and I crashed out on the patio sofa LOL. Poor Jr. wasn’t far away, lounging as well since he was in pain from being diagnosed with gout =\.

Father’s Day was the next day and my babies came home early that morning. They brought me some gifts <3. [caption id="attachment_2247" align="aligncenter" width="253"] Cheshire cat cup and Ariel blouse![/caption]

We all settled inside and I started making breakfast. Took Jorge some breakfast in bed and asked what he wanted to do. He said: nothing. Just stay home and relax and do nothing. We obliged :). Well, until we had to go get a few groceries LOL.

We had the traditional botana from Espi’s and watched movies with the kids. It was a really low-key day, just like he wanted :).

We had a lunch date yesterday at Kumori. We hadn’t been there in a LONG time!! I missed the miso soup and the jalapeño firecracker. MMMmmm.

We took my truck in to the shop since the air conditioning in the back of the truck stopped working so I picked my love up after work. We did some MORE grocery shopping and we got home to find out poor Emmos didn’t feel well. Needless to say, she had a terrible fever around midnight and I had her sleep with us since fevers at night terrify me. That’s always when they get so much worse. So I held her and gave her medicine and water and took her to pee and refreshed the washcloth on her forehead. We woke up, took Jorge to work and I took her to the doctor. She had a throat infection and the ear infection started as soon as we got home. Since I was already in the office, I got another cholesterol lab done. I was hoping I’d be eating well and exercising–the way I had originally planned so I could get off the pill completely, but I ate like crap all weekend =\. I wouldn’t doubt I still have to be on the darn thing :*(.

My Emmos had fever on and off all day, but she was in good spirits and I’m hoping the fever finally subsided. The only bad thing is, now she’s really feeling the sore throat. I cleaned up since I was home and the boys helped me with the lawn. Made dinner and now I’m beat and ready for bed. Hoping for a much better day all around tomorrow :).

Started on Friday, March 28, 2014

Haven’t posted in over a week. And I was doing so well! I knew my streak couldn’t last very long.

First and foremost, it’s Dad’s birthday today. I didn’t want to post about it on Facebook because I never posted about it before, when he was living, and I just felt…like I’d be two-faced if I did. I think that’s why I’ve been feeling inexplicably sad today. I’ve been seeing men who resemble him. A lot more than usual. And of course, I’m filled with sorrow and regret because I didn’t call him on his birthday last year. And I wish I could today :*(. I still feel so awful. I wish I could talk to him one last time.

Blah. I’m a blubbering mess now. And I just served myself dinner and lost my appetite. I’m sort of glad Mom went to her bedroom already to watch her novela after I made dinner, or else she’d ask why I’m upset and we’d have to have that conversation. She hasn’t mentioned anything at all. I wonder if she remembers. If she does, this is the type of thing we do: we avoid talking about it.

Happy Birthday, Dad :(.

Jorge isn’t home from work yet. I spent an hour and a half talking to the kids, who are with Mario this weekend. That’s probably another reason I’m feeling upset. I miss them already. Ugh.

Jorge is going to wonder what the heck happened when he gets here, so I’m going to distract myself by recapping the past week.

It was our weekend with our kiddos last week starting Thursday, so it was a whirlwind, which is always welcome around here :). For the first time, ever, we had Julien here since Thursday, too, and he was just wonderful. All the kids are. They just make everything happier, more fun :). Don’t get me wrong, they get loud, but we like it.

On Friday, after work, I stopped by the pharmacy to pick up my meds (like a good little elderly lady) and stopped by Hidden Treasures to look around. I found a perfect Baby Brite for $2! Which then got me taking my old dolls out to compare. The girls have a blast when I get the itch to do that :).

Jorge got home and presented me with yet another super-early birthday present:

Is this man wonderful, or what??

We chilled out with the kids on the porch after ordering some pizza for dinner. I got my results back from my 2nd cholesterol screening and they were great all around! So I let it get to my head and I had a slice of pizza. I hadn’t had pizza in over 2 months! (Do I take after Mom, or what?? John sure did let everyone know that on Facebook, grr.)

I retract my previous statement. We hung out with SOME of the kids on the porch. The boys of course remained inside, where there was video games -_-. The girls had their electronics, too, but at least they were using them in our company.

In our usual fashion, Emily and I cuddled up and passed out on the outdoor sofa. Those cushions are the devil! My love was on HIS iPad so he watched that bugs didn’t get into our ears or anything (well, I hope he did…) and then carried Emmos inside and took me to bed.

And then he wrote the sweetest, most heartwarming post on Facebook *sigh* . He still takes me by surprise to this day .

Jorge was off on Saturday so we lazied around with the kids all day. Sally and Priscilla were coming over in the evening to hang out, so a few things on our agenda were cleaning, feeding the kids, and taking them to the park. I’m happy to say we got everything done on time, hehe.

I was going to post photos of the kids at the park, but my stupid SD card in my phone is being an ass AGAIN and is eating up my damn photos :(. I only got to upload a few to the gallery. It’s done it once already with the 32G, once with the 8G and now again with the 32G. It’s super annoying.

Jorge and the boys were happy that I was having my Girls Night In because they got to play XBox in the living room (because they never get to, heh). Aly and Emmos got to play with Quentin and the girls and I watched everyone from our perch at the round table. Jorge ordered pizza (again, sue me!), Priscilla brought over some cake and dips, I had pineapple-coconut Moscato and Sally brought some red wine we didn’t even get to drink LOL. We mostly chatted it up and did some man-bashing, talked about how wonderful our men are, talked about when they’re not so wonderful, talked about the kids, and life and bills and you know, the usual.

We called it a night at 10:30ish and then Jorge and I hung out with the kids till I passed out on the couch with the girls again. At 11 LOL. I’m such an old lady!

We had the laziest of Sundays with all the kids. We did a load of laundry, only because we needed towels. Made breakfast and lunch at home and then my love ordered Chinese and sushi for dinner just in time for the Walking Dead. I love how it’s a bonding experience with the kids ^_^. As soon as it was over we got all of them to brush their teeth and get into bed. And then it was time for another work week.

Monday went by pretty quickly. Well except for the last hour and a half since it was my shift for reception duty. Got home, took the girls to the doctor, were there and at the pharmacy for about 3 hours. I was so tired (literally nodding off while we waited) that I stopped for Wing Stop for dinner. We ate, I got the girls in the bath and went to the laundry room to get clean towels…just to walk into a puddle in the boys’ room. The darn water heater was leaking from the pipe that hadn’t been replaced recently. Thankfully our landlord and plumber are wonderful and they fixed it that night. That was a long day!

Michelle and I spent all of Tuesday looking for the right flowers and vases for some centerpieces I was doing for a luncheon the next day. I really wanted some simple hydrangea ones, but we opted for yellow roses when we couldn’t find enough hydrangeas =\.

That was the day I started eating junk again. A lady brought me a donut while I was at reception. Then Wednesday, after I got back from lunch, Jessica and I ate 2 small pieces of Sweet & Tasty cake =\. TWO.

I felt better about my stuffing-my-face guilt when I got home to find a package ^_^. My Fisher Price Cartoon Viewers had come in! The girls enjoyed them so much, it made me happy ^_^. And so did Jorge when he got home, hehe.

I also received this:

Never see these under $50 and I most definitely didn’t get it for that ^_^.

I rushed home Thursday evening to see the girls before they left for the weekend with their dad. We got their stuff together and I made turkey chilli and then they left around 6 :(. Jorge and Jorgie and Justin arrived and we ate dinner and then settled down to watch Anchorman. The boys and I had never seen the first one, and since Jorge wanted to watch part 2, he insisted we watch it. It was good LOL.

Friday was a regular day. I dropped off some fliers at a nearby community center, paid bills for work, updated some files and picked up my Emmos ^_^. She happily ate a popsicle and then I stopped by Tacos Kissi to meet my love who had ordered me some sushi.

I literally ate in 10 minutes, asked for my cucumber lemonade to go, and kissed my love on the cheek as I got up to go. He blinks as he jokingly says, “I feel so…used.” LOL I had reception duty since 1, with a break from 2-3:30 and then went back. There was hardly anyone in the office so my last 1 1/2 hours felt like 5. I wanted to gouge my eyes out.

And then I updated some of my 80’s pages and got really depressed before I started typing here. My love got home and he saw what a wreck I was and he was loving and listened and gave his gentle 2-cents. He took me to the living room where we watched “Anchorman 2” and I felt better :).

I tried sleeping in the next day but my love’s alarm kept going off and then I was hot, then cold, then I needed to pee so I just got up. Dayse and Karina and I were meeting for brunch at Dayse’s apartment and to meet her 2-month old baby, Sadye! We chatted and I made pancakes and Dayse’s hubby made us a fab quiche. It was wonderful catching up! And of course Dayse would be the most glamorous, put-together mommy of a 2-month-old in existence!

I feel so blessed to still be friends with these wonderful girls! No matter how much time passes in between our visits, it’s like there was never a gap at all. I love my girls :).

I got home around 5 and Mom and I went to run errands for her and then we visited Gramma :). She’s doing well, thank goodness. Mom helped her eat her dinner while we chatted. Then I dropped Mom off and I picked up Wing Stop…again, while I texted with Aunt Nora :).

Jorge and I caught up on our shows, and like always, I passed out on the sofa next to him. He woke me up around 1:00am and we went to our room. As badly as I wanted to pass out again I had to take my meds and wash my face. By the time I got back to bed my love was passed out and I was so refreshed from the face-washing that I couldn’t sleep anymore. I stayed up watching this weird movie called “Venom”…and then I really couldn’t sleep. I stayed up till 3am, hearing noises and getting up to check what they were and worrying about things, like were all of our kids safe at that hour? I cuddled up to Jorge as much as I could without throwing him off the bed, wrapped his sleepy-limp arm around me and finally, finally fell asleep.

Needless to say, we slept till 10:30am. I made us omelets (egg whites for me) and we lazied around the rest of the day. Showered, went to Best Buy, picked up food at Antojitos Mexicanos (which I’m regretting right about now), Jorgie and Justin were dropped off, I talked to my kiddos on the phone, watched the season finale of The Walking Dead (could have done with a better ending, darnit!), I talked to Eenan for about 45 minutes, discussing the finale. And he has a test tomorrow so I sent him to bed. And now I’m going to enjoy my final hour of being lazy before starting a new work week. Wish me luck!