Sunday, August 31, 2008

Every Princess Deserves a Tea Party!

The table set up really pretty. Rey chose that bouquet. We used china that was given to us for our wedding by my late mother and Rey's late grandma.

The food. The recipes are from a Princess cookbook my daughter found at the library. On the left are the heart shaped raspberry sandwiches, made with raspberry preserves mixed with cream cheese with fresh raspberries on top. On the right are the butterfly shaped cucumber sandwiches. They have cherry tomato slices on top with a mint leaf in the center. (I actually was domestic and made the sandwiches!) Those are halves of egg rolls in between and in the middle of the two plates rolled up ham.


Here are the sugar cookies made by Rey and my mother-in-law. See the pretty pink homemade icing and sprinkles. Rey decorated them. That's "very berry" tea which is chamomile tea made with honey and poured on top of berries in the tea cup.

So school has started and my daughter wanted a "back to school" party. With all the activity prior to school starting it was going to be kind of hard to do that, so I convinced her to do it this weekend, especially since it's a holiday weekend. Little did I know what a week I was going to have.

This was a really nice way to finish a bad week and to remind me of what is really important in life- The look of happiness on my daughter's face when she has a princess tea party with all her girlfriends. Priceless.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

A Black Cloud With a Side of Rotten Meat

What the heck is up with the black cloud? WHY doesn't it go away? Didn't I kick it away metaphorically? Well it didn't budge. Apparently it's a stubborn black cloud.

I asked my husband the rhetorical question, "What ELSE can happen?" Of course not really meaning it.

Rotten meat happened. Yes, I said rotten meat. As in rotting brisket, bacon and what have you. All the meat that my mother-in-law had in the deep freezer that was in my garage. Either in became unplugged when my husband and daughter's boyfriend were replacing the hot water heater or it broke down.

When I got home today I went into the garage for something and I thought I smelled something foul. Well I was right. My husband got home right after and I told him my suspicions. He went out to the garage and when he came back his face said it all. The poor guy proceeded to go out there and clean up all the mess, including the blood that had leaked out on to our garage floor. It was not a pretty sight from what he described. I couldn't have gone out there or I would have been sick. As it is the smell that was drifting into the house was unbearable.

So don't ever ask what else can happen. The husband of a friend of mine asked the same question last week and she proceeded to trip on the strap of her gym bag, while crossing the street to the locker room at Memorial Park and she fell and twisted both her ankles and cut one of her feet.

And I AM NOT superstitious. It's just funny that things work out this way in my life these days.

P.S. My strep throat started to make a come-back today. I was bad and I haven't finished my antibiotics. I guess that will teach me. AND (drum roll please) the A/C for the SUV? Grand final bill? $1,700!!! Yeah, it's been my week for sure.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Kick that Black Cloud

I have had a black black cloud hanging over my head for well over a week. The funny thing is that I didn't even realize that the black cloud was there until this week when MORE things happened to me and I realized how many bad things had already happened to me.

1. I was short changed a bunch of money (can't tell the whole story here)
2. I got strep throat on the week I was taking 2 vacation days.
3. Someone was unfairly rude to me and really pissed me off. (can't really tell the story here)
4. My hot water heater busted on Sunday, so I had to buy a new one and spent $400.
5. My A/C compressor in my SUV gave out on the way to work on Tuesday and I'm going to pay close to $1,000 to have it fixed.
6. I'm in a professional limbo situation.
7. I was publicly humiliated, but since it was so humiliating I can’t even tell you what it was.

SO, I've had a lot of unfortunate things happening to me this week. I have this crazy cloud over my head. Well today, after feeling sorry for myself for a while, I decided to kick that crazy black cloud out of the way. I'm kicking it out to infinity. I refuse to let that black cloud get me down.

Today I was faced with an important question. What would I do if I wasn't doing what I'm doing now? I think I would become a teacher with the goal of becoming an elementary school librarian. I would have the same schedule as the kids and then I would have summers off too. Then I would write during the summer. That's what I would do.

So there dark cloud. I have an alternate plan! You are not the boss of me!

Saturday, August 23, 2008

No More Dress Rehearsals

We went to my son's school on Friday and met his teacher. He wasn't especially talkative with her, but he did go find the apple with his name and he took it to the magnetic board. He responded to everything the teacher told him in Spanish, but in English. It will be interesting. Monday is the real thing. He seemed to like his classroom and his teacher. There's also a teaching assistant. I'm kind of nervous about Monday. We'll see how it goes.

No more dress rehearsals! We go live on Monday. Our summer is over. Back to the structured environment of school hours. My son will go in a little earlier than my daughter, so I'll drop him off first. Then I'll drive on to drop off my daughter. I'll be going in a lot earlier into work, however I'll also have to leave right at 5 in order to pick them both up.

I'm kind of excited about getting back on to a set schedule with both of them. I'll be driving a lot less now because my son's school is on the way to my daughter's school. Same thing in the evening when I pick them up. I can get back on to a gym schedule. At least 30 min of running on the treadmill and some stomach crunches.

OK. I'm just using my blog here to list out all the things I have to do! It's not supposed to be for that. But it's my blog so I guess that makes it OK.

Anniversary update. We went to Maggiano's and it was so totally delicious! We shared different plates and just had a wonderful meal. I was able to eat which made it even more delicious. Yummy! Eleven years come and gone!

Thursday, August 21, 2008

I'm Full of Strep

I guess I'm officially not contagious any more because I've been taking my antibiotics for 48 hours now. I felt like a leper yesterday when I went out, before the mandated 48 hours, like I wasn't supposed to be out.

We went to my daughter's "ice cream social" where she met her 2nd grade teacher, a young, fresh faced optimistic looking woman. I hope she's as nice as she appeared on her first impression.

I woke up with a sore throat Monday and figured I had what Rey had. I hung in there all day at work because I had to release a section to the printer. But on Tuesday morning I woke up in unbearable pain. I decided to stay home that day. Well around noon the doctor's office called to say that Rey's strep test had come back positive. I told the nurse I too was sick and she asked me to go in that afternoon. The doctor took one day and said yes, I had it too. Lovely.

So I was out sick Tuesday, worked from home Wednesday, and I'm on vacation today and tomorrow. Today I didn't feel well, but I had promised the kids that I would take them somewhere before school starts next week. We went and spent money and a few hours at the Aquarium. I haven't been able to eat anything all day either. Good and bad. I'm hungry but when I try to eat I get sick and my appetite is instantly spoiled. Not good.

This Saturday is my eleven year wedding anniversary. I have been married ELEVEN years now and we've been together twelve and a half. Amazing.

So we're going to dinner with friends this Saturday. I don't have any idea what I'm going to wear. Isn't that the first thing women always say?

I'm still in shock that the summer is over and that school starts on Monday. I feel totally unprepared. My son is starting Pre-K and I feel like I haven't done enough to prepare him. I feel like even though I've bought the uniforms, back packs, and lunch kits, like I'm still missing something. Like I forgot something...

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Vodka, Kids and check me out on skirt.com

OK. Like I've run out of time. School starts in one week and my 11 year anniversary is NEXT Saturday, the 23rd. I haven't done my school shopping either.

Today at a friend's party I told some friends that the kids were a handful and that it wasn't anything a little bit of vodka couldn't take care of. They laughed hard and I was glad a friend who is a teacher could relate to my pain.

Then I told some other friends that I am the complete opposite of OCD. Like the COMPLETE opposite and it irritates me so much when people (aka my sister) want for me to be something I am not.

My life is way too busy to worry about mundane matters. I have a demanding job, two small children and a husband. On top of that I also have an extremely busy social life (by choice) and I am a writer. SO, where does that leave time for cleaning and being OCD? None at all. But the point is, that is my choice isn't it? It's my life not my sister's, mother's, friend's, cat's, or whoever.

OK, so that's my life. If you want to read more about it in a more "philosophical" way go to skirt.com and check out my blog for the day. Love y'all!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Lyrics of the Week

I love music. I love lyrics. I love words. So once a week I'm going to post some lyrics that I just love. Here is the first entry for "Lyrics of the Week." Feel free to share your favorites too!

Love is a temple
Love the higher law
You ask me to enter
But then you make me crawl
And I can't be holding on
To what you got
When all you got is hurt

Song: One by U2

Don't Listen to Me on the Radio

Never mind. They never seemed to fix the archives of the Nuestra Palabra show. You can go to the archives and try to access it, but the file still doesn't work.

Extreme irony! I think all the shows may work except for this specific one that I'm on. Story of my life. This is exactly how I've been feeling all week. I need to take a chill pill.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Listen to me on the Radio

The archives are finally up from last Tuesday (technical difficulties). Tune into Tuesday's (8/5) Nuestra Palabra radio show on kpft.org and hear the whole broadcast. The archives are on a click down menu under programming.

I say hello near the beginning, but my interview falls in the last 15 min of the show. The interview is about The Bodega Cookbook. Check it out!

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Wasp 1, Me 0 (zero)

Monday night, late at night, I went out to the garage for something. I was in my nightgown and flip flops. There is a foyer between my back door and a door to the garage with open doorways and windows with slanted built in shutter-like wood. In other words, it’s an open area, open to creepy crawly things and flying things.

As I’m walking to the back door I see a big black wasp sitting on the corner of the window pane on my back door. I am terrified of bees and wasps.

I back tracked immediately and called out to my husband. Of course he couldn’t hear me in the living room, so I went into the back yard to the windows of the dining room and knocked and waved until I got his attention. He looked up and saw me and walked over to the kitchen.

“What?” he asked.

“There’s a wasp on the back door.”

He peeked out the door and looked at the wasp and then proceeded to slam the door. His idea was to make the wasp fly away, but when I saw the wasp fly I panicked. I thought it was coming towards me.

I turned and high-tailed it, only I didn’t get very far. So I guess it's not accurate to say I "high-tailed" it.

Instead I stumbled on my flip flops and almost fell. I stumbled three times, hitting myself each time hard and breaking my fall.

First I hit myself on the left shoulder, next I slammed and peeled the skin on my forearm on a wooden chair, and finally I smashed my fingers into the garage door. I was in so much pain and in the instant that all this happened; I didn’t even realize what exactly what had happened to me.

“What was that all about?!” my husband yelled out opening the door in concern. But he was also laughing really hard. (yeah, real concerned)

“Why did you do that to me?” I cried from the back yard.

“I was trying to make the wasp fly away!” he said.

“But it came right towards me!”

“It didn’t even get close to you,” he said.

“Well I thought it did.”

“What was that you were doing?” he asked.

“Falling!”

He was laughing so hard as he got the wasp spray and started to kill the wasp.

“I’m sorry you’re in pain, but I wish you could have seen yourself. You were so funny!”

“I’m going around to the front door!” I called out in pain.

Later my husband said to me, “You know, I think you would have been better off getting stung by that wasp. You caused yourself a lot more pain falling.”

Maybe he’s right. Maybe that wasp wasn’t even worth all that drama. It just kicked my butt.

Sunday, August 03, 2008

I Made Good Mom/Bad Mom Again!

My post about my man breasts made it on the "Good Mom/Bad Mom" Chronicle blog this week!

If you haven't been over to skirt! lately check out my blog there too. I'm the August Muse.