Category: Holiday

I’m currently quarantining at home with the kids. Not to worry–they’re 100% OK. Well, most of them. Jaylen and I are the ones who had secondary contact with people so we got tests done last Wednesday. I had a sore throat and cough and my stomach wasn’t feeling good, but I didn’t have fever at all.

It was a rather annoying morning, really, trying to get tested. We decided to go to the Urgent Care on Savannah, where Jorge had gotten his test done in April, and we arrived on time and everything. As soon as the office opened I began calling, only to be put on hold. The longest I was on hold was 9 minutes. I almost blew a gasket so I told Jaylen to wait in the car while I told people off. I walk into the lobby and it’s already packed–as packed as you can get while social distancing 6 feet. I tell the nurse that I’d been trying to call but they kept putting me on hold. She said, “Oh I’m sorry, there’s a waiting list.” I said, “Um, OK…how will I get on the waiting list if you never take my call?” She said, “Oh no, ma’am. I mean, there’s a waiting list. There are 500 people in front of you.” I couldn’t believe it.

So Jaylen and I went to the free testing site closest to our house. My boss had sent me a flyer and it was a city away. We’re driving to the site and see a super long line. That went on for about 2 miles. There *had* to be at least 300-400 people waiting in line, too. We said screw it, we’d take our chances and go to our doc’s office.

He explained about the finger-prick blood test and how they’re not accurate (later that day I found several articles about that online). He was almost hesitant about administering the tests and gave us a good explanation about them and how the results wouldn’t be here for another 5-7 days. We said fine, we needed them for work anyway. Laura lets us know it will be painful but she’ll be as gentle as possible. I thought This can’t be any worse than the flu test that tickles your brain. But I was wrong.

So wrong.

As the swab made its way into my left nostril I felt as though I’d gotten some type of acid-water in my nose, then felt immense pressure behind my left eye and then had an excruciating pain in my left temple. My eye immediately started crying like crazy. It was a pain I’d never experienced before in my life!

I was in pain the rest of the day (headache and even my ears started bothering me) and then I felt so exhausted I passed out for a few hours. I spoke to Laura on the phone and she said it would be 7-10 days for the results, not 5-7. Geez.

So I’ve been home with the kiddos. Organizing, cleaning here and there, spending time with the animals and kiddos, watching 90 Day Fiance and reading.

These are all my half-finished books but I’m currently finishing up “Everelle’s Quest” by Roda (Hilenski Grubb)! Promised her I would finish it this time! I really don’t know how people can complain about being holed up at home–I really love it.

. Plus not having to bother with makeup or getting dressed is so nice! (Don’t get me wrong, I do miss feeling girly some days!)

The only thing that sucks is not being able to see mom. But I speak to her almost every day. I wish we could get her to use a smart phone so we could video chat with her. Maybe I’ll bother John on his phone so we can “see” her.

We had a low-key 4th of July. Not going to lie: that day, I was feeling a little melancholy. It would have been Gramma’s 91st birthday. I still wish I could see her 🙁 .

Eenan stayed at his dad’s so we didn’t get to spend time with him, but I did speak to him on the phone. I know he’s 20-years-old and he’s doing his own thing, but I miss my boy LOL. The rest of the kiddos were here but not everyone was in the mood for Independence Day. Jorgie brought Jenn over but it was way too early and then she couldn’t end up staying. We weren’t doing our BBQ or festivities till night time. One of the positive things that happened was that I woke up and Alaethia had cleaned up the whole house and done dishes…BUT because she wanted to spend time with Yezleen. That girl DOES NOT understand self-isolation or social distancing 🙄 . But she does love her friends and I love them and their momma’s so I’m ok with it.

Thankfully Jaylen and Emily went to purchase the fireworks and stuff for bacon-wrapped hot dogs. Jorge was out of work early and when I told him about BBQ’ing he said, “It’s hot AF outside” so that was that :roll:. I made them in the oven instead. When it got dark Jaylen set up the fireworks and s’mores tables. I went out and set up our tiny clay s’mores pot.

Jorgie and Justin ended up asleep and playing video games, respectively. It was just Jorge, Jules, Jaylen and Emily outside.

I was also sad that I didn’t get to celebrate with Mom, John and Dimitri. Plus, it dawned on me (and of course Jorge had to twist the emotional dagger) that my kids are growing up and aren’t always going to be in the mood to have family holidays how we used to. Boo. I don’t like it. They should always want to have family time 😥 !

Anyway! The girls and Julien have taken over my room as I’ve been typing this up and I’m sure they’re going to knock over my clean laundry.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it: this year has fucking blown.

Aside from getting “custody” of my stepsons (their choice) in January and all my kids being healthy and doing well in school–everything else has just SUCKED.

In February I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression (which I passed on to my poor Eenan) and that was the start of the snowball effect of losing interest in running (aside from injuring my knee a year ago in December 2018), gaining weight due to lack of exercise and becoming bored of Keto, not accomplishing my goals (i.e. going to school), amongst tons of other things. Don’t even get me started on the money situation–SWEET JESUS.

It seems like this year, every time we got some kind of break, or some kind of silver lining began to shine through it would all come crashing down. Murphy’s Law of Life was a quick fucker this year.

I know people could have it worse. I know there’s a roof over our heads and the kids are healthy. But everything else–it just overall sucks.

This is probably the worst Christmas in YEARS.

Ok. Moving on. I’m done whining.

Some of the best Fridays are when I get to have lunch with a friend and then take off to go see hubs right after work.

This day I had lunch at Hop Tung with Ne.va.

Yes. I am still consuming carbs. Don’t judge me!

I’ve always wanted to attend a huge Dia de los Muertos shindig since it’s one of my favorite things. It was a last minute event that we saw on Facebook, but the family decided we were totally going to do it that weekend.

I finally thought ahead and packed for my trip the night before so I’d be ready to go right after work the next day. But of course I would see that some boots I wanted were 40% off so I did that right after work first, which set me back around 1 hour.

The drive is always long, but talking to the kids and singing loudly to my music while sipping on some iced coffee or ice cream (yes, I packed it and left it in the freezer at work) always helps the trip go faster.

I really don’t mind it. (It’s the trip back that feels like it takes an eternity!) Seeing the hubs after an extended time is always a relief and he always promises me food as soon as I arrive! This time, it would be Pineapple Ninjas!

We ran into Jerry, the owner of the food truck, as soon as we arrived at The Block food truck park. The park was everything I wished I could have turned McAllen Food Park into when I still worked at the Chamber. It was a chilly night, but there were heaters where the picnic tables were under the bar area, so we were comfy. Jerry brought us some awesome Arizona teas and the food was to die for! Nothing beats fresh, healthy eats!

Ironically, I went all the way to San Antonio to try out Pineapple Ninjas for the first time! I’d never tried them when they were at South Padre Island or at the events in McAllen.

We chatted with Jerry till 1am, so by the time we got back to the hotel it was 2am. That was the latest I’ve stayed up in a LONG time.

We slept in the next morning, obviously. Well, I did–Jorge got up earlier than I did to run to the bank and to get us some breakfast from Bill Miller’s. It was a nice surprise, having breakfast in bed 🙂 .

We got ready and went to see one of Jorge’s projects. I was dressed and ready, and pretty excited, to help him with this project. It was a total trash heap, but the few days of work he’d already accomplished made the place look so much better. He walked me through as he checked off what else needed to be done. He fed me Reese’s and sour candies (even after I told him I was done with sugar! It’s screwing up my face, bad!) and then he did a few things here and there as I watched. Oh well, maybe I’ll help next time!

He took a good nap when we returned to the hotel and then we got ready to have dinner with my in-law’s in Austin. We stopped by Bucee’s to get some snacks (I had the best candied cashews and pecans) and then we proceeded to get stuck in traffic several times. It felt like forever before we finally made it to the apartment!

We chilled out a bit and Mia told us about how happy she was to receive Alf from us for her birthday. Briana told us she had a newfound love for Alf after she introduced her to the series and she had her eye on one at Minnie’s Hidden Treasures. I told her not to worry, I still had my old Alf in the garage! I’d been meaning to put him on eBay since I don’t collect Alf items, but it was truly meant to be that we keep him because he belonged with Mia.

Briana had this awesome cake made for her, too!

We went to Chuy’s for dinner, which was great because we were starving after skipping lunch.

I got my usual fajita plate (was attempting to be Keto-ish) but then had this amazing drink which was sugary (but delicious) AF.

We ate and then went to an outdoor’s 1800’s type haunted house that Briana had heard about.

We weren’t sure what to expect, but I was excited. Poor Mia was nervous and asked Jorge to carry her, since we were advised that phone light nor flashlights were allowed. All that was allowed were the red “ring” lights they gave us at the entrance.

It was dark except for some fairy light-edged arrows pointing us in the direction we needed to go. We can hear people screaming as we reach the more “mature” side of the haunted houses/trails. As soon as we walk in a little girl in white pops out from behind a door and scares the shit out of us. It’s so dark you can’t see when someone slowly creeps up behind you and is breathing behind your neck to “watch out”.

We’re halfway through (I think) when we’re walking down this trail that has dark dips in the ground. We continue to walk and slow down when we see a huge dark puddle–only it isn’t a puddle, it’s a girl, flat as ever, slowly sitting up to grab and hiss at us. We don’t even notice that Briana has run off with Mia, so Jorge, Dinah and I run to catch up. I scream, “Oh no, there’s another one!” as I see another dark spot on the ground…only to realize it’s Briana and Mia who’ve tripped on a branch and fell into a dip in the trail! Poor things! Briana ended up hurting her ribs!

And also…you know you’re getting old when someone literally scares the piss out of you and it takes all your energy not to let it flow!! THEY. WERE. SCARY!!

We were going to the Dia de los Muertos Festival at La Villita in San Antonio the next day. We didn’t really have a game plan but we did want to dress up and paint our faces. The only bad thing was both Jorge and I forgot about his black jacket, but it was too hot to wear it anyway.

We gathered our things to be ready for check-out and had a late breakfast at IHOP, where we had the sweetest waitress named Sharon. She was well-known by everyone in New Braunfels, because she spoke to everyone and hugged everyone as if they were family. Either that, or she was just that sweet.

And I think she was, because when she came up to us she said I was beautiful and told Jorge to “take care of me” and called me Babygirl the entire time. She was just too sweet. Jorge joked that she was trying to get a good tip. I said, “Well, then SHE GOT IT.”

I gave her a huge hug when we were getting ready to go. Jorge left to pay and she waved a hand over me to the next table and asked the bearded gentlemen, “Isn’t she so pretty?” Jorge said he was going to take her tip away for that one 😆 .

We had another good drive to go so we took selfies while we drove. Or, I should say that Jorge drove and I took selfies:

I brought minimal makeup for our face painting: an ELF liquid eyeliner, normal black eye liner and some hotpink rhinestones. I forgot my eyelashes, earrings and the base paint. So our first stop was Party City, where we got Jorge some face tattoos and some white paint and new rhinestones. Then we stopped at Dollar Tree where we got some eyelashes.

We found a parking space downtown near La Villita and then took about 30 minutes to put on our makeup. I quickly dabbed on white paint and drew on my swirls with eyeliner and stuck on my rhinestones. Then I helped Jorge stick on his face tattoos and fixed the ones that cracked with the liquid eyeliner. All-in-all, I think we did pretty good for 30 minutes!

We met up with everyone and admired the ofrendas.

Then we all decided we were hungry so we went to a nearby restaurant. We didn’t really know what to expect, but it was nicely decorated…(and very expensive for the type and quality of the food LOL.)

Still, it was nice spending time with the family. Poor Briana was feeling sore from her fall the night before, so she was taking it easy.

The Procession began while we were still eating but Jorge, Mia and I ran out anyway.

It was quick, but the costumes were pretty cool.

We looked around a bit more and were total tourists taking photos wherever we could.

Then it was time to say our goodbyes :(. Not before Briana gave me a gift! I love them!!

Jorge walked me to the car while everyone else waited in Dinah’s. They’d be dropping him off in New Braunfels 🙁 . We kissed goodbye and then again when I dropped him off at the car on the way back out of the garage.

Of course I would take the wrong turn, but once I was safely on the road began my car concert all the way home. That ride…felt like it took forever.

I sucked it up and got ready for work the next day. If I remember correctly, it was a low-key Monday.

The girls finally told me what they wanted to be for Halloween: 3 days before. Emily wanted to be Agnes from Despicable Me and Alaethia a character from The Purge with a very specific mask. So of course we would spend the evening scrambling. First stop: THE DREADED MALL.

First, we scooped up Aly’s friend Jaylinn. Then we made our way to the mall.

Emily wasn’t feeling well and I thought it was so cute that Alaethia took this pic.

Emily needed overalls so they looked around at H&M and Tilly’s. She ended up with some overalls and a tee from Tilly’s and Alaethia ended up falling in love with everything at H&M. That one’s a shopaholic like her mother 😆 .

We got them some Starbucks and we took a little break.

It’s about darn time they make a Starbucks inside the mall!

The girls wanted to meet their other bestie at the Disney store, so we trekked that way. After a selfie sesh we continued our search for the mask…but all the possible stores were sold out since the day before. OUR LUCK.

We got some Auntie Annie’s pizza and cinnamon pretzels and we made our way to the Spirit Halloween Store…where they and the other stores sold out. Finally Alaethia decided she’d be a baseball player (random!) so she found a men’s shirt and socks at Target. I would figure out the letters and number she wanted on the shirt later. I was EXHAUSTED.

Another easy day at work on Tuesday. I got lunch from Lei Lai, which I instantly regretted because I wanted all the noodles…but ended up chomping on rice anyway 🙄 .

Ne.va was in the office and we got to talking about the girls’ costumes and I told her I still needed to head to Walmart after work for felt to sew on Alaethia’s baseball number. She rolled her eyes at me and said that wouldn’t do–we should go over in the evening and she would screen print the shirt for us. She’s the best! Of course the girls would fall more in love with her lol.

Emmos dressed up for school the next day; Alaethia didn’t in case she would be “dress-coded”.

I wish I’d had time to fix her hair up like the real Agnes!

Work was another low-key one, heh. My biggest stressor is determining where I’m going to eat. My life lately is constantly thinking about what I’m going to eat next–because I’m kind of tired of eating 😆 It sounds crazy, but I’m sort of tired of always nit-picking if there are carbs present just to screw up and eat the carbs anyway 🙄

But I had fish that day, so that was good.

I had to mentally prepare myself for the evening. Sally and I were taking the kiddos to watch “Thriller” and Trick-or-treat Downtown. The plan was to also go to the library but I would take too long getting myself ready 🙁 . Sally was able to get out an hour early–I got out at 5:15 and had to rush home, grr. Still, I think I did ok for getting completey ready in 30 minutes. The eyelashes take long enough!

Once we were all ready, we took off and found some parking after circling the area several times.

Alaethia wanted to go trick-or-treating with her friends, so naturally, my whiny tween was whiny. There was lots of eye-rolling, sighing and teeth-sucking going on 🙄 (Help me, Jesus!)

But they still watched the show and did a teensy bit of trick-or-treating. (We were late for that, too, since we watched the Thriller Dance Mob first!)

On the way to the car we *had* to stop by for a photo shoot at the mural wall! Finally, finally had a chance to stop by.

We noticed the time and rushed into the car because once again, we were running late. We tried meeting up with Alaethia’s friend and her sister in the neighborhood we typically go to for trick-or-treating, except we couldn’t find them OR a parking spot and my anxiety was shooting through the roof. I even snapped at Alaethia to get on the phone instead of Snapchat to get the details of their location better. We finally get somewhere and park at the park I usually run at…which meant a lot of walking. in wedges. FML and choice of footwear.

We meet up with the girls and have to keep up. I can tell poor Sally and the little girls are getting tired, so I leave Alaethia with her friend and older sister and they would drop her off. What a relief. We still however, had to make the trek across the park to the car. Sweet. Jesus. But we still took a photo op!

We got to the house and I dropped Sally off at her car, then Emmos and I rushed to pick up McDonald’s. It was already late, so this mama was not cooking! All-in-all, it was a great day!