Category: Job Hunt/Work

I’m finally getting a few minutes to just sit down and relax. I’ve decided I’m just going to start updating already; no more waiting to see if I’ll have time to catch up on all the entries I’ve already missed. I will update those eventually, just not anytime soon. I still haven’t even written about Christmas or Alaethia’s 1st birthday, but I will!

I’m sitting outside in the cool breeze with Alaethia and Eenan, who are both swinging in their swings. It’s such a nice day out. I had an excellent day at work. Circulation was low for some reason (probably because teachers are busy helping kids cram for the TAKS) which I’m really glad about because I was so sleepy and tired. I had a chance to shelve all of yesterday’s left-over books (which weren’t many to begin with) and check for and stick labels onto the new books. I’m almost done with those, which I’m a little sad about. I really like doing the labels LOL.

I got to finish everything I needed to do so I actually got out on time. Well, at 3:05, but still. Once they finally install the time clocks, or whatever they’re called, I’m going to have to make sure I clock out on time. And go in on time for that matter, heh.

I picked up the boys, rushed home and then changed Alaethia to take her to the doctor to get her 1 year shots. I took her in the Friday before last, when she got sick with a horrible cold, and they went ahead and gave her her 1 year physical. They told me to take her back when she was feeling better to get her shots. We were in and out in less than half an hour, which is awesome considering we’re usually there 1 and a half hours.

Since it’d been six months since her last set of shots I was not prepared for the screaming and the tears. I had to hold down her arms and the nurse held her legs while she jabbed (yes, jabbed) the needles in. Ooy. It was awful. She didn’t do too bad though; she only screamed for about 5 seconds after each poke and got over it pretty quickly. I still gave her some Tylenol, just in case.

When I got home I got a chance to install Alaethia’s new toddler car seat into the Equinox. I bought it since Monday and barely had time to set it up today. Now she’ll be much more comfortable when we go out. She was enjoying watching Alice in Wonderland this past Sunday when Mario, the kids and I were on our way to Long John Silver’s for dinner. Got to get some cute educational DVDs for her!

Since I haven’t update in so long I haven’t mentioned just how brilliant my boys are. Jaylen’s reading at about 2nd grade level (he’s in Kinder) and can write and spell very well, with hardly any help when he has sentences for homework. Eenan’s also doing great. His conduct’s improved and he recently placed 2nd in Oral Reading and 3rd in Storytelling district-wide in UIL. I’m so proud of them :).

I’ve been incredibly tired all week. Well, since last week actually. I don’t know what came over me; Noelia convinced me to sign up for sewing classes with her at Life’s a Stitch. It’s only three classes, but they usually last two hours and I’m exhausted by the time I get home (half hour drive). I ended up staying up till 12:30am Tuesday night (Wednesday morning?) to finish up my “homework” from last week’s lesson: making my own pillowcase without help. I’m making matching Transformers pillowcases for the boys. Then I plan to make curtains (right now they have Pokemon ones in their Transformer-themed room. It’s pretty fun though. Our first lesson was making a pillowcase with piping and the one we had yesterday was how to make a quilted bag. We’re halfway done. Our homework is to sew our straps on the bad and then sew up the edges. Then next week we finish it up and start on the next lesson, which will be patterns. We’re going to learn to make pajama bottoms! Like I’m not obsessed with them enough already!

But yeah. I’ve been tired. What with the lessons, endless laundry, tons of stuff to do every day, hardly sleeping and finally getting over our colds (Alaethia and me) my body’s drained.

Which reminds me…I’ve got the white laundry to do, I need to make dinner, get the boys in the shower, get myself in the shower and try to work on my bag a little. No. I probably won’t do that. But I do have to read to the kids tonight. I promised Jaylen.

I can’t believe a year’s already gone by. My little baby girl is a whole year old today :). It’s so weird, the weather’s exactly how it was last year when I went into labor with her: cold and gray with misty rain.

Since we’re having a little get together for her during the weekend we just had a little cake I baked for her (chocolate with pink and purple sprinkles!) after I ran all my errands (going to the store, bank, Sprint and then dropping off Rolando, who’d come over for a while due to canceled UIL practice). We gave her the “small” present we got her, which was a Taggies ball. I love those things. I totally need to get her a blanket. I’m just sad I didn’t see them any sooner, when she was still into sucking on her blanket/stuffed animal tags. Mario got home early, Mom was here, my in-laws, Noey and Andy, and the boys of course. We let her go crazy with the cake — it was everywhere! She had fun, I think.

She’s blabbering like crazy right now and using her bottle as a telephone (one of her favorite things at the moment). Obviously, she’s fighting her sleep. Poor thing caught someone’s cold. Just about everyone’s sick right now except for Mario and Eenan. Crossing my fingers they’ll stay healthy. I currently have laryngitis. It’s awful. I can’t yell at the kids at work when they’re running through the library =\.

I weaned Alaethia off of her formula around Monday or Tuesday. She did great! We’re not having any problems in the poopie department, either, thank goodness. Next is weaning her off the bottle completely. Eek. It’s going to be tough since I’m working. I think Mom would gouge her eyes out if I left her with the task. As for walking, she’s not walking completely on her own yet, but we’re thinking it’ll happen soon.

Okay, time for bed. They finally installed our computers in the library and they installed the electricity into the walls. Yes. We didn’t have any plugs along any of the walls AT ALL. That contractor/company are geniuses, I tell you. There’s so many things wrong with that place it’s not even funny. But anyway. I’m just happy things are getting better and not worse, as glacially paced as they are.

It’s been in the upper 30s and 40s since yesterday. It finally feels like winter. I realized today that I loved winter a lot more when I was a stay-at-home mom and didn’t have to wake up at the crack of dawn in the freezing cold to go to work. It was much nicer when I could just snuggle in bed with the kids all morning =\.

I’d also enjoy the cold a lot more if it weren’t the same temperature inside my workplace as it is outside. Seriously. It’s like 40-50 degrees in the library. We’d spent all last week with sweat trickling down our backs and they finally fixed and set the air conditioning at 65° — a day before the “cold front” made its way down here. And since the air’s constant, it doesn’t turn off when it’s cold out or anything. We have no control over it and it’s awful! My boss was wearing her husband’s thick hunting jacking and I was wearing a thick cable-knit hoodie sweater AND my big poofy coat. It’s been cold and unbearable the past few days. I was actually pretty comfortable today though, except for my hands, which felt like they’d crack from frostbite.

So much has happened since I last updated, and yes, I realize I still haven’t updated with the second half of that entry. I just never have time for anything other than work, the kids and maybe squeezing some alone time with Mario, if we’re lucky. (Either that, or it just so happens that I finally have the computer on my lap, ready to type up an entry or something, and Mario suddenly “needs” to use it, too.) I’ve learned to balance my time much more effectively than when I first started working though, so that’s good. I just wish I had a bit more time for myself (at least half an hour!) and at least 2 more hours of sleep per night. But other than that, I’m pretty satisfied with life at the moment.

Work is great. We’re finally having this semester’s orientation and have officially opened the library. All the books are on the shelves (I had lots of help, but I busted my ass getting those darn books up!) and everything’s being set up little by little. We still don’t have electrical drops or phone jacks, therefore we still don’t have our computers set up and we’re working from laptops but we’re managing. Mrs. V. and I used to joke around when we first moved in that it was like we were our very own little third world country, but it’s gotten much better since then. What a difference two weeks make!

The boys are doing magnificently in school. They’re both great readers and are doing well in practically all subjects and I’ve gotten back into the habit of having them read 30 minutes before running off outside or playing their 30 minutes of video games. I had a chance to get some free books from work, so the kids can’t say they don’t have any new books to read, heh. I’m glad they don’t give me trouble about reading and I hope to maintain that routine till they’re in middle school, at least. I see some of our middle schoolers and how nobody encourages them or cares if they read and these kids are at 1st-3rd grade reading levels. It’s sad!

Alaethia’s just a joy. She’ll be a year old (eek!) on the 24th and I’m in the middle of planning her party. It won’t be anything extravagant at all, just close family and friends. We figured we wouldn’t go all out this year since she doesn’t even know what’s going on. Maybe when she’s 3. I just really can’t believe how fast this year’s gone by. We’re already mid-January…before you know it it’ll be Valentine’s day and then I’ll be planning Jaylen’s 6th birthday party. Then Eenan’s 9th. Holy cow, I’m going to have a nine-year-old!

Alaethia’s learning more words every day. She says mama, dada, pamper (pamp-oh), papa (which means “food” in Spanish slang), hi, by, yay, and other stuff I can’t remember at the moment. She’s still not walking completely on her own; she still needs help from people or furniture, but she’s getting there. Her favorite snacks are those little Gerber puffs and she finally learned to drink from a straw — at Taco Bell LOL. Oh yeah, and she shakes her bootie. Like, literally shakes it and moves her little hips and everything. When she started doing this I asked Mom, “What do you teach her while I’m at work, woman!?”

Aww, Eddie and Sylvia’s baby was born today! About a week early (he was due on Aly’s birthday, actually). How cute!

We spent tonight at home. Mary picked up Chick-fil-A for dinner and then Chris and Mario took the TV over to Mary’s house and we all watched Resident Evil 3 over there (which Alaethia and Matthew caused mischief and tried beating each other up). It was a nice night :).

I think that’ll be all for now. I’m going to have some nice hot chocolate and watch some HGTV. I’ve been really into decorating and color schemes lately. I actually painted my bathroom (lilac) 2 weeks ago, the Sunday before I went back to work. It looks pretty cool. Took some getting used to after having stark-white walls for 8 years but it’s growing on me. Now I just need a nice new shower curtain and a bath rug. I kind of wanted to go to Ross and check out what they have, but it’s too cold and rainy to drive. Actually, I’m going to have to pick Mom up from an appointment tomorrow morning and then go to a birthday party in the afternoon. Man. I’d really like to just stay in one of these weekends, especially when it’s cold and dreary like this. Mario just bought a new Wii controller off of Eddie’s friend (Angela had accidentally flung our second one through a frame a while back so we were left with only one) and it would be nice to play Cooking Mama (one of my Christmas gifts from Mario) or Super Mario Galaxy with the boys tomorrow. On our new 47″ TV Mario just *had* to get this past Tuesday (and so I missed American Idol–grr!). That thing is massive. It looks like a 60″ in my tiny living room!

Okay, I was going to save and publish but the internet’s down. My luck, right?