Category: Yay!

Pleasantly Surprised

Last Wednesday, after having yet another frustrating day at school with Quickbooks, I went to the post office and ran into an old friend, Jessica, from my OSM days. We caught up (she’s married, has a little boy, one on the way) and found out she’s been living 3 streets away from me for the past 4 years! What a small world we live in. I knew I’d seen her at the Dollar General once and she swears she saw me walking down the main street with a stroller (ah yes, when I was actually making an effort to lose weight) and at Wal-Mart. We talked for a while on Saturday; I need to remember to call her back.

Sometime at the beginning of last week, Aunt Nora called and asked if we’d like her old bedroom set since she was buying a new one. I remember LOVING her bed, and ask, “Is it the one I said I liked?” and she said, “Yup, that one.” Score. She gave us the drawers and bedside table too. The dressers she’s had since she first got married () but the bed is brand new. It looks beautiful :).

Mario was going to take the Sentra Saturday morning, but when he tried to turn it on, nothing happened. Turns out the starter died. All I could think about was my final on Monday and how we were broke, couldn’t afford a new starter and HOW WAS I GOING TO FINISH CHRISTMAS SHOPPING??

Mary came to the rescue and bought the part for us (we need to pay her back *adds to long list of debts*) and Mario waited around all day for someone to help him out to no avail. Finally, later at night, Jose came home and fixed it with the company of Mary and Big Mario. Mario was too upset to go out there.

Brushka had her second litter of kittens yesterday. Panthy-Poo (who’s solid black) was the one who mated with her, yet she had black tabby ones (probably from Panthy), gray tabby ones like her, and a WHITE ONE. I told Mario, “Aww, she’s so cute! If she’s got long hair like Artemis, I want to keep her.” And to my surprise he replied, “I kinda want to keep her too.”

Booka (as Jaylen calls her) will be staying indoors until we get her spayed. With all these new kittens, that brings the total to 14 cats and well, I’m too young to be a crazy cat lady . I hope we can find them good homes (Booka’s last litter: Bah, Enchilirido, and Goop, were all given to Ricky and they disappeared a week later since they had them outside. He lives in a ranch–I’d hate to think what animal, like a coyote, could have gotten to them). I gotta get Choco Cat spayed and John needs to get his cat spayed, too.

I went to school all by my lonesome today. Ricci moved to Mission, so she won’t be going with me to school in the morning. I gotta say, I’m so used to going everywhere with her it feels strange without her there LOL. I’ll be bringing her with me afterschool and dropping her off at her Grandma’s, where Goyo will be picking her and the girls up. I’m really glad they got their own place–they really needed it.

We got to school and I tried explaining to Ricci and Romeo how to do a few things (that I could remember) in Quickbooks when Mrs. C-R suddenly asked us to sit and get ready for our final. She said, “Your final is your assignment from Friday. There’s 3 cheat sheets, each one’s 5 points off of your final if you ask for it. There’s also a bonus you can do. If you get it right, it’s 20 extra points, if you don’t, it doesn’t affect your grade.”

My mouth dropped. I stayed an extra hour after school on Friday to finish that assignment because I JUST HAD TO get it right. And I did! When I was about 1/4 ways done with the bonus Company, Mrs. C-R places a letter on my desk. It says that I already had a 100 for that class (yeah baby!) and I could take the bonus if I wanted to. She also said she was proud of me (aww ) and to always keep my head held high. She left a P.S. that said, “Thanks for always helping out your classmates.” I was beaming and smiling from ear to ear. I gave the bonus a shot anyway (I think I messed up on a deposit though ) and thanked her for the letter. I’m going to miss her when I graduate .

I was so worried about that Final. I was sure I was going to bomb it. I even had a dream–no, a nightmare–Saturday night that I’d set my alarm wrong on Sunday night and woke up at 12:20pm. I totally missed class and Mrs. C-R wouldn’t let me re-take. I woke up with my heart beating a mile a minute!

I went to drop Mario’s lunch off at work since he forgot it and Mom, the boys and I went downtown to get Tio Arturo’s gift and to this Japanese store I’d always wanted to go to. After 30 minutes of looking for parking we went over there and I’m in love. Mom bought me a little Lucky Cat snow globe and I think I found my inspiration for decorating the living room. I’d always wanted an Asian theme and now I know where to go for all my decor :). They have gorgeous vases and such pretty paper lanterns.

Welp, I should get to baking those Snickerdoodles. I’ve got TONS of baking to do before Thursday!

(more…)

*disco dances*

Good day today. Did not a thing in class. Nothing but chatting on Yahoo with everyone, which was fun. We do, however, need to study for our final in Accounting tomorrow. God help us all.

I’m about to go and pick up my rings. I cannot tell you how excited I am to finally wear that ring on my finger!

Quote of the day:

John: What does ostracize mean?
silence
Me: …I know! It’s when an ostrich is exercising. You know, like jazzercising?

That’s got to be the most airheaded thing I’ve said in my life.

OKAY. I think what Eenan just said beats that “Quote of the Day.”

He says, “Mom, you look like a teenager.”

I say, “Yeah, because I’m short.”

He comes up to me to measure himself against me and I say, “You’ll be taller than me by the time you’re in 5th grade!”

He looks a bit annoyed and says, “Mom, stand up!”

I’m silent for a bit, trying to register what my child just said and I squeal, “I AM standing up!”

Ah. Someone else to add to the short jokes.

[edit 8:34pm] I got them! Mario might have to have his resized AGAIN, but they’re beautiful :).

We did a bit of shopping (Mom, Noelia and I), since we had to wait an extra hour and a half since they weren’t ready. I hope they don’t take too long after we take Mario’s back in. He was kind of upset about how big it fit :(.[/edit]

(more…)

Christmas Shopping 2005, Part 1

Mario and I are in one piece after our Black Friday shopping. We got up at 4:30am and went to Wal-Mart (Mom watched the boys) and got Jaylen’s Powerwheels. I was almost hyperventilating and worried sick that they wouldn’t have any since we got there at 5:08am (the sale started at 5 and people usually stay there since 12 midnight–no, really), but there were plenty. Mary asked us to get 2 Cabbage Patch babies and 2 Fairytopia Barbies for her, but when I went to get them an employee told me they were gone within the first 5 minutes. So were the computers, DVD players and laptops. There were so many cool, inexpensive things; the DVD players, which we need since our living room one died on us, were only $10 and WE DIDN’T GET ONE. *stabs something* Mario and I decided that next year we have to put aside at least $500 to do all our Christmas shopping in one morning.

The mob of people wasn’t as bad as it was in previous years. People actually weren’t pushing and shoving this time! Well, at Wal-Mart anyway; who knows what it was like at the other stores, like Best Buy. They had computers for $150! Can you believe that? I’d have elbowed someone to get a computer at that price .

Mom and I got up early on Saturday morning to join Mary for another round of 7am sales. John stayed with the boys this time. We hit K-Mart first and got a lot of cool stuff (I found Sammy and Brandon’s gifts there–they’re our gift exchange recipients, the other two are Sonia and Yazmin). Then we went to Target and then to Wal-Mart and the other K-Mart. I did pretty good and only spent $73 in total. We only have 6 family gifts to get and then my gift exchange at school (still have no idea what to get that person) and my gifts for Ricci, Mayra and Lucy. Mario’s got 2 more paychecks till Christmas, so I think we’ll do pretty good.

We (John, Mario and I) went to eat at Jesse’s first (where John was quite impressed that Mario has his “own” table. He kept making jokes about how Mario was a mafia mobster LOL) and then we went to the mall. Got a few things at Bath and Body Works (LOVE that store), John got a game at EB Games, and Mary asked us to pick up some stuff from the Disney Store and then JC Penny.

Since I’d drank SO much sweet tea at Jesse’s, I really needed to go pee. I searched everywhere for a bathroom and they were either closed, the lines were a mile long or, in JC Penny’s case, I couldn’t find it. I was so frustrated (and my bladder in pain) that I just went straight to the jewelry department and got what Mary asked me to. John and Mario were waiting a few yards away and on my way back I notice Mario’s checking his ring size. When I approach them I notice he’s at the wedding rings! We get to talking with the sales lady and we get our fingers sized and get to talking about prices. It all happened so fast. Since Mario forgot his wallet they ran my credit and we just waited, with our hopes as low as they could be since we’d just tried getting a laptop on credit last week and it didn’t pass. Well, I passed for $1,500 (more than the darn laptop, mind you) and we are officially getting our wedding rings! Finally, after 6 1/2 years! They’ll be ready by Wednesday, are white gold with diamonds (or cubic zirconias, don’t know and it doesn’t matter) and cost less than $800! We were expecting much more than that; even the sales lady was surprised.

Some of you may or may not know, but a month after Mario and I got married I lost my wedding ring. A month! We got into an argument in the parking lot of H-E-B, I handed him the ring and told him to give it back to me when he decided to be nice to me (drama queen, I know) and he THREW it at me and it got lost in our then-car, a green Ford Taurus wagon. I remember we forgot what our fight was even about as we frantically looked for the ring and never found it. I still wore my engagement ring, but stopped wearing that about a year later as it CRACKED where it got re-sized. I still have it in my jewelry box but never got it fixed.

So that was a nice surprise. Our Christmas present to eachother. Couldn’t have gotten a better one *beams*.

I’ll leave you with a picture of the new dining set Mom got us last Monday night. It’s my Christmas present from her. We FINALLY have a dining set. It gives the whole apartment an actual ‘homey’ feel .

[edit 6:33pm] Aw, Mr. Miyagi passed away :(. [/edit]

(more…)