1998

nearly 10 years ago, this was us. . . . . .

many times, i jump first and then think later. this causes a lot of what i do to be harder than it was supposted to be. on the other hand, it also causes me to do a lot of things that i probably would never do. so now i have a whole lotta "life experiences" under my belt. but i learn from my mistakes and how can i learn if i don't make those mistakes to begin with. so the logic here is . . . . i will be freakin' genius by the time i'm 40!

monday madness

up at 6:30am, it's time for school. rodney and i have been looking forward to this day for several weeks now. we got everything together and got tommy there on time even though it was a mad house at the local elementry. every parent wanted to drop their babies off for the first day of school. however, i did noticed that we were one of only a hand-full of parents who walked in their 5th grader. i don't care; he's still my baby. i'll walk him into his first day of 12th grade too!

after all tom's homework was done and before Kyle XY started, vic stopped by to drop off my new PUMA bag! i love it. i wanted something cool to travel with on my up coming trip to portland. he stayed for a bit to share some of his own drama, so thank goodness i had Kyle XY set on the dvr!

jam packed weekend

we stared our weekend really early, like at noon, on friday afternoon. rod and i had a meeting with the priest at our new church regarding tobias' coming baptism. it was a great meeting. father josef was fabulous to us. he spoke with kindness and wisdom. both of which were greatly appreciated. he also gave thomas some great advise that i can only hope that tommy takes to heart. anyhow, now we're all set for 9/30 for toby's baptism. sarah and morty i hope you two our ready to take on that challenge of being my son's spiritual leaders!!

saturday we spent literally 12 hours away from home running around. it was a long day for the kids and i felt horrible about it. poor toby was soooo tired. but we got a bunch of stuff done including some last minute back-to-school shopping. plus we had so much fun. rod and i even threw in a little adult fun. we ditched the kids and hung out with maria, kevin, sarah and patrick for a quick appetizer and drink at matt's.

sunday was uber hot! the boys and i ran out to the book store and the grocery store and then vowed to never leave the comfort of our air conditioned home again! thomas spent the evening getting used to the idea that school starts in the morning. 8am buddy!

no salad for the crears

i made a salad for dinner. a salad that cost me $20 and 45-minutes in the kitchen. but my family refused to eat. they said it had weird stuff in it. but i've really been thinking lately about how i eat and what i feed my family. it's become important to me lately.

i am an adult and would like to eat like one, yet i often find myself in front of a bowl of Chef Boy’Ordee and i wonder how i got there. More than once i’ve eaten cereal for dinner and reheated pizza for breakfast. i’m trying to avoid this and eat better . . . healthier. i’m not getting any thinner or younger. So i open the fridge and cupboards to see where i stand. hummmm. . . ice cream, cookies, popcorn, Nerds, macaroni, frozen waffles, Coke and Kool-Aid. so, i’m not off to a good start. but i can take baby steps to get us where we need to be. this is why i like going out to eat so much. when i dine out i am able to treat myself to a vegetable. i can’t blame my family though. i should set an example, but it is sooo easy for me to fall into the trap of convenience foods and I give into their demands. Rachel Ray, i need your help! what is easy to make, kid friendly and healthy? i’m going to sit down with Rodney and see what compromises we can come to regarding our diet.

but not tonight because i want to go to Braum’s. nothing makes me feel better like a whopping scoop of Rocky Road! (baby steps)

tax free sunday

i saved a total of $3.80 this weekend during tax-free shopping. after friends gave rave reviews of steve & berry's, i decided to check it out. i was not much for bitten. it was cute stuff but a bit casual for this shopping spree. i was in the market for work attire. i did, however, fall head over heals for their huge line of button up shirts. they had short-sleeve, long-sleeve, solids, and prints, and everything in between. i settled on two short-sleeved button ups that were 2 for $20. not a bad deal. next to ross, i think i've found another fav for clothes shopping. then we left that mall and headed over to our favorite better mall just down the way to meet up with my brother and nieces.

saturday night

well, i wasn't upset for long because this night i went to hang out with people who have stuck around me for few years now. embasing my flaws and failings. highlighting my postive chararteristics and virtue. not once competeing with me, judgeing me nor have they looked down at me. just being my friends and allowing the same in return from me. i had previously misunderstood. we had dinner al fresca. we shared the recent events in our lives, some advise and even a few tears. (we're women so all of that is totally allowable) after dinner we hit up another swanky place on knox/henderson for just one more drink. i didn't get home until 12:45am. which, by the way, is the lastest i've been out since tobe was born.

saturday day

i took tommy to a friend's birthday pool party. i did a drop and go, which is the coolest part about tommy being 10. i came back an hour early to hang out with sarah. she was there i she didn't want to sit poolside alone. understandable. at the party, i ran into an old friend's ex-boyfriend and their son. their son and my son grew up together; in the same daycare until they were 5. tommy has no memory of this boy. and seeing him after so long was odd. he's about to turn 11! i couldn't help being overwhelmed by nostalgia just looking at him. i knew his mom so well. she was my best friend for so long and now it's been over 10 years since we were best friends and 3 years since we've even spoken. after we left the party i was upset and sad remembering my lost friendship. a friendship i've grieved for so many years now. just when i think i'm over it something like this happends. it really is a small world.

rule #1 about being married. . . .

(to me at least) don't go out to dinner with my family and leave me at home. i don't care what i said. yes, i said "i don't want to go", but he knows EXACTLY what i meant.

what started this terrible situation? well, it started because the cable went out. (not my fault by the way) well, days before i had noticed that there is a reset option on the front of the box, so i offered this suggestion to rodney. "babe, if you hold down the power button you can reset the box." this spiraled him into a rage of "you talk to me like i'm an idiot" "why don't you think that i know what i'm doing" etc. i knew that i had undermined his manliness so i backed off but later i had to ask about the shirt he was wearing. it was a misssstake.

after putting me in a terrible mood, rodney became re energized and happy. he got dressed and then laid on the bed with tom watching disney tv. while i, pouted and didn't get dressed on time to leave for dinner. so he left w/o me. . .

after they got home and after an hour long fight including tears, thrown objects, empty divorce threats and one slap to his forhead, we some what made up and watched a funny movie with tommy. but later in the night i forced him to ask me how i fixed the cable, and i said. . . . i reset the box. this is a lie, or a part truth, because i had to call AT&T and have tech support reset the box.

i'm sure that one day i will be able to laugh at this, unfortunately. . . . . . today is not that day.

summer swimming

but really i was on my way to the pool!

i took tommy swimming at the Y for an hour today. it was beautiful outside. since the temp is a whopping 105 degrees, the pool was a tubbath kindda warm. supurb. we waded around a bit. then headed out. i had to run a couple of errands then we came home for a leftover dinner lunch.

a regular weekend

the boys and i cruised north park for like 3 hours on saturday. fun stuff. i met up with fabi, maria and the rodriguez's there. did a little window shopping. but mostly i just wanted the exercise.

sunday, the boys and i went to church. got tom signed up for sunday school this year. yikes! then i got a killer headache so tobe and i took a LONG nap midday. tom was with pat and alek getting wet in the front yard. yeah! that's how us mexican's do it; in the front yard.

that's about it for the weekend.

icecream cake for jocelyn

our niece turned 7 last week. my brother had us over for delivery pizza and icecream cake. the kids got all sweaty running around and then went swimming.

paris hilton called me ugly

after a short (very short) session of swimming at rodney's sister's apartments we headed home. it was toby's first time in a pool, but we were ready to get our sundy evening started. pj's, tv, dinner, all-around-just-sitting-around. so we're driving, minding our own business, but as we discussed current events this little black car cut off rodney UGLY. she missed us by literally one centimeter. rodney goes all roadrageish, cussing etc. . . we drive on. but the skinny-white-big sunglasses-paris hilton-wannabe flips us off. so, rod rolls down the windows to ensure she hears his rantings this time. she yells back to us "so what, your ugly; you know what, you're both ugly!" . . . . . my feelings were hurt. seriously. i mean, her beef is with rodney, not me. so why i'm am bashed. do i look ugly? does the red of the car make me look fat? jeez! but in turn i start laughing. laughing at her cuz she is obviously drunk (hello! she called me ugly) she has a cigarette in one hand and i'm sure her cell phone in the other (none on the wheel, that's for sure). she's hilarious. i laughed and laughed causing her to become even more enraged. the more angry she becomes the funnier i find this whole thing, but i know i have to be responsible. so i roll up our window and motion for her to go away already. she won't go away! so rodney yells and she skwaks ALLLLL the way down frankford road.

finally, we continue on our way and stop at a gas station. i look back at thomas for the first time. he hasn't taken his eyes off of his gameboy once.

super hot saturday

we partied at the neighbor kids birthday party last saturday. it was way too hot for that shananagins, but uber fun for tommie. he had a good time. he turned the transformer pinata into a homemade costume for himself. it was awsome. rod and i pointed and laughed and took pictures of him.

it was worth going because they had fruit-kabobs. a fruit-kabob is serveral types of fruit, cubed and stuck on a stick. it was the coolest thing i've seen lately.

toby didn't mind the heat one bit. he was cool the whole time. his hair got all sweaty and then curled up the way that it does. rod and i pointed and laughed and took pictures of him.

the grandkids

so. . . my mom now has 9 grandchildren. that's crazy. seeing as how the oldest of her 4 children is only 32. (or 31, i forget) then the youngest is only 23!! over the past 15 years we have added these buggers one-by-one to the family. diney being the oldest and tobias being the youngest see the visual aid to help identify all 9 of these monsters. (top row left to right) alek, diney, xavier, hayden (bottom row left to right) thomas, lalahni, josilyn, jocelyn, tobias.

other than being unacceptably HOT outside on sunday, we had a great time taking pictures at the lake. combined, i'm sure that we have over 200 pictures, but i only have 9 that are presentable. hey! it's hard to get 9 kids to look in the same direction at the same time! and as you can see from the picture above we didn't succeed at all.