Country Folk

Working out in the country has made me open my eyes. I eat lunch at several different area restaurants and visit the gas stations and convenience stores and not once have I ever been treated less than friendly.

I have come to realize that my dream of living in the country is even more important to me than ever. When I compare the city restaurants, gas stations, convenience stores I see that the city locations are all too busy to attend to you or carry their personal problems with them or have attitudes I just don't care to deal with. In the country and by this I mean Rockwall, TX, everyone says good morning, hello, how is your day going. I visit a gas station every morning to get my daily paper and the young man there knows me by name now and knows what I like to drink, read and eat. My usual routine is a DMN paper, Dr Pepper or Big Red, and a $5 lottery scratch off. He'll point out the new ones and also will comment if I don't get anything but a paper things like, No DP today? or Got some big red's on ice for you. I love the way I'm treated!

As much as I have complained in the city stores I patronize, I have yet to complain in any store here since I started my employment in the area.

the Country is for me!

Fab's Baptism

I have officially attended my first ever church service baptism, well other than my own. My grandson, Fabian was baptized Sunday.

He had on his white tux with cumberbun and all. He is just so precious. I was not in attendance when he was born nor was my son. Perla's family at the time had some issues with Michael and with me as well but because of Michael. When the baby was born, mom was in the hospital so things were crazy. Well Fabian was actually born a mth early and doctors didn't know if he was going to make it. I thank God every day for this precious miracle.

One of my prayers to God each night since my oldest was born is that he allows me the time to meet my grandchildren from each child of mine. I would love more than anything to watch them grown into young men. I'm know I'm young enough but you know the saying "when He's ready to call you home, you go"

God is Good!

Why can't they listen

My niece moved in last Tuesday with her baby. Before moving in we had gone over some rules. The biggest and main rule of all was that her boyfriend, Rene, the baby's daddy was not allowed to my house without my permission. If you have read my previous posts you'll notice that he is violent and has actually laid a hand on her a couple of times. I am against all this and as Madea would say "I will go to jail!"

Ok so my weekend started out really good. Friday night I met up with one of my best friends and we went dancing. It's been so long since I've been and I really enjoyed myself. Afterwards we headed to my sister's house in Grand Prairie. My son, Mike, is housesitting while they are on vacation in Virginia and he had to be at work at 6am so I went over to stay so that I could take him to work. Her house is closer to the club than mine.

So I took him to work, luckily I headed back to my sisters house again to sleep a bit more but I got a call from Mike about 10, "can you come pick me up?" I'm like what? Well, Mike sleep walks and he sleptwalk and sprayed a bug spray into his mouth. He wasn't feeling very well. So i go get him, oh and all the while my good friend is with me, she decided to hang out with me the whole day :). Take Mike to Baylor and test are done, mouthrinse, IV fluids, blood drawn. Everything checks out ok, just made him really sick to his stomach. As we walk in the door to the house, my phone rings. Sabrina (niece) asks if she could give our address to her boyfriend's mother so that she could come drop off a check. I said "I'll take you when I get home". Ok so headed home to unload my truck so that I could make room for tables and chairs for my grandson's baptism. Not once did Sabrina mention, can you take me to get my check or anything. No I didn't remember at the time, I just knew that I had to go pick up tables and chairs and get them to Irving. So I left got tables and chairs, headed to Irving and then headed over to my friends house. As I sit down to eat dinner with her phone rings. Sabrina, "tia Julie locked the door and I can't get in". I'm like huh? Well, apparently, Sabrina stepped outside to get her check from her boyfriends mother and julissa shut the door and locked it. Julie is only 2 yrs old. So I tell her, ok Erica, other niece who moved in, will be there in 3 mins with a key, still hadn't gotten around to making Sabrina a key. Erica was about 10 blocks away. Phone rings again:

Sab: tia I have something to tell you
me: what sabrina?
sab: well rene's brother in law got me into the house but
me: (already mad because those people weren't suppoe to be there) what happen sabrina?
sab: well, he pushed the back door in and it broke the frame
me: WHAT?!?!?!
sab: well julie was crying
in background: lady says i'll fix it
me: sabrina all i know is that that door better be able to get locked when i'm going to bed TONIGHT!
CLICK

I got home and this is how i found my door.

I'm beyond mad at this point. I get onto Sabrina about not listening and the first thing she says is "well then kick me out" I'm like you ungrateful brat!

Sab: yeah kick me out, i'm not going thru this shit everytime
me: damn right because it's not going to happen again

I told her that is she had just waited til i got home I would take her like I told her earlier. but she is so impatient and just can't wait. well, I allowed Rene over to fix what he could for the night. Screwed in long screws to hold and tonight they come and fix it.

1st chance, last chance. I don't want his family there. Now my sister's house was broken into when Sabrina lived there and funny thing is the people who broke in happen to know where Sabrinas stuff was. Both me and my sister have our suspicions. All I know is that if my house is broken into, all hell will break loose.

I feel ESTUPID!!

Ok call me stupid, dumb, pendeja if you will. Sunday at lake I went into the water with my phone, then yesterday I locked myself out of my damn house! Anything else could happen this week it's just beginning. :)

2ND GRANDSON

Back on my sister's surprise party I got to meet my 2nd grandson who is only 4mths old at the time. He looks just like his daddy and his uncle and has my mother's eyes.

This is Fabian



He is just so precious!

Water logged weekend

I had such an awesome weekend! Spent with my family. Friday me and my sister, Mira, met up at the LaserQuest and took in three rounds of laser tag, claire my leg, my leg. :) The maze in that place has ramps to go up and down and my legs felt it after we got home Friday night. I had such fun, Nally, my neice won a 2-4-1 pass on her next visit. WTG Nally!

Saturday, met up with Mira again with Nally and Mario. We decided we would go to the Brazos river and go tubing. Never been but I'll go again. I loved it! so relaxing and soothing. Got plenty of sun, after a 3 hour trip on the river, headed back to get our cars, headed over the river under hwy 67 bridge and ate some turkey sandwiches, man did they taste good! From there Mija headed home and me and Al headed over to Ft Worth for a birthday dinner. My Tia Cuca turned 90 years old and her family gave her a dinner at a Seniors Rec Center. The food was good, saw some relatives I hadn't seen since our last family reunion. When I got there went up to my tia Cuca and said hello and she was like "who are you?" I said "hija de Lupe Rios, la de Chona", she's like oh si si. gotta love her.

I sat back in my chair and reflected as the photographer was taking pics right in front of where i was sitting and then next to the cakes. there were two big balloons, one was a 9 and the other a 0. I started to tear up, I didn't want anyone to see me but I did tear up. I sat there thinking how great it would have been to celebrate 90 with my own mother. I was watching Tia's 3 daughters, Teri, Christina, and Delores move about to get groups for pictures, serve people dinner, cut cake and make sure everything was going smooth. I pictured me, Daniela and Miranda doing the same thing. How I miss my mother. She was such a strong person and I really expected us to celebrate 70 years together. It's funny how one can go from one day of feeling fine to the next day being in the hospital and on a respirator. I love you momma and I hope that I can wake up on what would have been your 90th birthday and sing Happy Birthday to you!!

Sunday, Daniela's turn to host Sunday Dinner. Got the message, FINALLY, that plans changed to move dinner to Joe Pool Lake. OMG it was an awesome day. Daniela made the ground meat for our tostadas and it was GOOD! Stupid me, I completely forgot that I had my freaking phone in my short pocket and after being in being in the lake for about 30 mins, found out and well no more phone. I'm estupid!

We stayed til about 930, my son Michael and Perla with my baby Fabian were able to join us and I think they had fun. I had such a blast and the water felt great! Found out that there's camping available at JPL. :)

Quiet

It's been so quiet at home. My two grown boys have moved out and now have their families and my daughter is spending a month with her dad. So now at home is ME. Well, Al stays there (when i feel like it). Yesterday i got home cleaned, what my daughter and son left behind of a mess. I'm taking it slow to clean my house. Decided I would get some McD's for dinner, sat down to watch SYTYCD and the news had weather reports going, severe storms in area for an hour. :(

Erica has moved in but she's not home much. Sabrina will be moving in in about another week. So in the meantime, I'm chilling at home with the entire place to myself. Is this what it feels like to live the single life?

New Chapter

Today marks a new chapter in my life. My middle son, Michael, has moved out, again. I called him at his girlfriends and asked if he was really moving out seeing as he mentioned to me a couple of days ago that he was and last night he didn't come home. So he ask his GF, and he says "yes her parents say I live here now." Ok so I mentioned ok then I will pack your stuff for you because I need to clean your room for Sabrina. He starts to tell me no, no have Vica do it because I don't trust you, you forget....click. I hung up. I'm tired of him talking to me in a way that he believes is ok. He calls back and I answer and tell him, you're not going to talk to me like that. I'm the only one that has tried to help you and make sure no one rips you off so I think I deserve a little bit more respect, your stuff will be packed and ready for you.

This morning I also picked up my niece, Erica, from rehab. She actually is my best, best friend's daughter and we are more like sisters than friends so her daughter and now son call me aunt. I lost communication with them a few years back and we found each other again and now we are dealing with erica and her prior addiction problem. I say prior because she has cried to me and has told me she doesn't want that life for her. She has been clean now 6 or 7 mths. I decided that when she came out of rehab she was moving in with me. Both her mom and grandmom think that would be best. so today she moves in and begin a new chapter in her life as well.

Now for Sabrina, my real niece. She will be moving in too. She has a 2 yr old daughter whose father has caused nothing but trouble and doesn't really have a care in the world. His parents spoil and baby him. Now I have set the rules in my house with her. HE is not allowed to step foot in my house, but only because of the things that she has told me he has done. Now if me and him should ever cross paths again, there will be a major need for ambulance to haul his ass off and police to get me off of him. :)

His last episode was back on a Sunday when me and Mira, Sabrina's mother, my sister, were at a concert and we get a call that Rene is pushing Brina and pulling on the baby and all hell broke loose. Daniela, older sister and aunt to brina, gets a call from Brina and police are called, D goes and gets Brina and Brina presses charges. well, just this week the court date came up and he was a no-show, therfore he now has a warrant for his arrest. According to Brina he overslept. HA!

So my rule is simple, he does not step foot in my house. He can come pick her up if that's what she wants, but the minute I hear he's mistreating her and she sits there and crys to me, that is when she will have to make her major decision, either cut him off 100% or take his shit and move in together. I'm not there for bullshit like that, I'm there to help her get on her own feet and I don't mean while she's being abused by an asshole and she's allowing it to happen.

My prayer is that Sabrina will open her eyes to her life being much better off without him, unless he changes, which I don't see it happening anytime soon and for Erica to stay clean and see that she can do so much more with her life if she will just take that right turn down the road.

Another school year gone by

Well, tomorrow marks the last day of school for Vica completing 8th grade. Next year she will become a freshman at NMHS. She has been accepted into AP English and will also join the Big Blue Band. She has a full schedule with summer projects for AP English and band rehearsals starting in July. She has some very awesome friends who will also be following her to NMHS and so I know she will enjoy her high school years.

Everyday of my children's lives that they attended school and I was able to take them myself, my final words to them as they got off the vehicle are "bye baby, have a good day at school, see you after work, I Love you!" My boys always responded "ok bye" but Vica has always responded differently. She always says "you too" As she steps out of my truck, she has always made it a point to look back and wave goodbye at me. Moving into high school, I can only pray that the tradition I have become accustomed to doesn't die. I look forward to her looking back at me and waving at me. Every once in a while, when she's in a good mood lol, she even blew me a kiss. There was a couple of times that she didn't look back and I honked at her and she came back and I said "you didn't wave at me" She would say "I'm sorry, leave and look back and wave" I know this may not seem like much to lot of people but it means the world to me.

I know that as she grows into a young lady and enters high school, she will begin to set her goals and grow relationships that I hope will last a lifetime. I just pray that she doesn't forget she's Mom's little girl. :)

What a month of May!

I am so freaking happy! Our agency wrote $46,498 in premium for the month of May. Our goal was $30,000. WOOHOO!!! It feels good when you have an agency you work for with 100% positive attitude.

Surprise!!!

Me and Mira, younger sister, set out to give our older sister a surprise 40th birthday party and it worked. We had told her a couple of weeks ago that we wanted to take her to dinner and she was like ok. So Mira and I shopped on Saturday to get all the deco and food we needed to pull this off. We were at Party City for what seemed like hours just to order freaking balloons. Party City re-organized and IMO I don't think they did a very good job of it. There is only ONE line for ordering balloons even if you're not picking right then and there. ARGH.

headed over to Vet to pick up Cocoa, then headed to to pick up food for party. Sunday I woke up early, headed over to get table and chairs and then to Mira's house to get started. needed to get cake in oven for Julissa (celebrating her 2 yr b-day too), Serena, cousin, was bringing my Aunt Pat's chocolate cake mmmmmmmmm.

We prepared all the fixins, celantro, onions, limes, made the rice, had beans cooking in slow cooker all morning. Sabrina and Nathalie started decorating and me and Mario helped out, in the meantime Guicho and Al were outside mowing the lawn, edging and killing weeds. Then we moved to the patio to set up tables and decorate outdoors, this was the Luau part.

Invitaiton said 4pm, Daniela was suppose to meet us at Mira's house at 530 or 6 "to go out to eat." I saw them pulling up so everyone came to the front door, sisters house has double door entrance. So Mira opened one door and I opened the other and everyone yelled SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!! and then we all sang Happy Birthday as loud as we could. She was surprised. What I loved most is that all three of her best friends were able to make it.

Everyone had a good time and good food. happy birthday Daniela I'm so glad you enjoyed it and I hope we can do it again in ten years. I love you!