Virgen de Guadalupe

Dec 12 of every year is celebrated on the eve of this day. It's the day that the Virgen of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego on his cloak in 1531. That was 478 years ago. This year is my first year to attend the midnight mass in her honor. I've always been curious to know what exactly this day meant to the Catholic community and why they would say it was my mother's "dia de su santo". Well, the history behind this is that the Virgen of Guadalupe appeared to this pheasant miraculously on his cloak after gathering flowers on her request to take back as a sign of what he had seen that early morning. My friends would tell me that my mother was a special woman having the name Lupe. Until this past Friday did I understand what they meant. The song goes to say 'ser Guadalupana es algo especial' ('being Guadalupan is something special'). My mother always believed in the powers and miracles of the Virgen. She would always tell me if you pray to her and promise something in return you have to hold your end of the promise. I have heard of stories where people walk on their knees to her shrines all over the world to fulfil their promises of taking her flowers on knees for answering there prayers.

Wedding

No not my wedding, wish it were but oh well. :) We traveled to Oklahoma City, OK on Saturday for a cousin's wedding on Al's side of the family. We left at about noon and arrived at 3pm, showered, changed and headed out to the reception hall. Before we headed out, we took a photo of me and my inlaws. :)

(l-r) Chuy(BIL), Mari(SIL)& her husband Alex, Miguel(BIL), Isabel(MIL), Me, & Alonso(Mis ojos) LOL and believe it or not but me and my mother-in-law get along great. Actually, from what I heard she gets along better with me than with her other two daughter-in-laws :)

We were the first ones there and the first thing I saw was the cake. It was gorgeous, IMO, I loved the way it was tiered separately and the colors, the whole set up was really beautiful and next to it sat a table with fruit displays. The tables each had two bottles of champagne with a picture of the couple kissing and stated "Recuerdo de nuestra boda" "memory of our wedding" along with a hurricane lamp cover center piece.




The single men formed a snake line and danced around the dance hall and the girls did the same thing. I have never seen this before but I really enjoyed watching.




My little nieces were dancing about and posing when they would catch me with the camera. silly girls


Over all, we had a great time dancing and laughing, but after all these days of getting to bed late it caught up with me and I headed to my truck for a nap while everyone else continued parting and dancing. Everyone finally came out about 1am and we headed back to the house. Arrived home sunday and I was completely worn out. headed to bed early. My Thanksgiving holiday was loaded with family, friends and people I haven't seen in 20 years at the wedding.

Thanksgiving

Well, we had our thanksgiving, our first one without mom in person. I know she was with us in spirit but just not the same. Thanksgiving was mom's favorite holiday with christmas right behind it. Mom loved all the food we would cook, her stuffing, her mac'n'cheese homemade style with velveeta. While at my sister's, i could smell my mother's scent, as if she were there. I smiled really big when I smelled it, I knew she was there with us. We had a great time, my sister put mother's wheelchair at the head of the table and every once in while I would glance that way and i could picture her. we had fun laughing, food, cowboys and they won woohoo. Afterwards when the cleaning of everything and putting tables and chairs up, my sis was moving my mother's wheelchair to put it up in the garage it was then that I stopped what I was doing, loading my truck and looked over at my sister brushing off the wheelchair and I pictured my mother waving bye to me and I heard a faint whisper telling me it's ok. I lost it, I didn't want to but I couldn't hold back the tears. I cried hard. When we were ready to leave, me and my two sister were standing next to each other and my our big sister was between me and Mira and she hugged us, I knew right there that everything is going to be ok. I needed that hug from her, I love you!

Memorial Weekend

Well, talk about a busy weekend! Friday, got together with my cousins and hit a couple of stores. Saturday gave my first coupon class to a group of ladies at a church. It was so much fun, my two cousins, Jacque and Juanita, went with me and helped me out. The ladies were excited to get started, well at least I think they were. Afterwards, my cousins treated me to lunch at Tino's in Mesquite and the food was great! My cousins are so good to me :)

So seeing as my cousin John, Jacque's husband, was sitting with Tia we took advantage and had a girl's day of being out and about doing some shopping find some deals. CVS was the place to be for make-up. The Loreal brand was on clearance for no more than $2.49 on lipsticks, lip gloss, eye shadows, mascara, eye liner. Now when we shop, we are actually shopping for six people, all women. There are 6 of us in our coupon club and so when we find a deal we try to buy for everyone. Loreal on clearance for no more than $2.49 and our coupon was $2.00 off 1 loreal product. OMG that's only .49 at the most for makeup!

By the end of the day we had purchased $1500 worth of LOREAL makeup for only $80! So we each had some great makeup!

Then we headed home and I had about an hour before I had to dress for a wedding reception. Al showed up and we're off to Fort Worth to meet up with my cousin Elena who is the one that invited me to the wedding. Well, when we arrived, she was out on the porch and here comes this beautiful young lady and I hardly recoginize her, it's Bianca! Man has she grown!

So, Elena says ok we're going to National first and I'm like huh? yeah we have two weddings tonight. Damn! Elena is known throughout Ft Worth and just about every month there is a party of some sort that she's inviting me to. :)

So we get to National, very nice reception hall. This wedding is a "Tejano" wedding. The band was good, good DJ everyone having fun and dancing Tejano, Cumbias, laughing and children running about dancing as well. Everyone was well dressed.

2nd wedding - My god talk about day and night weddings. The 2nd wedding was a "Pachuco" wedding. All the groomsmen were wearing their chains on their pant belt loops with the long coat, stacy adams, hats. Don't get me wrong they looked nice as usual but the atmosphere is completely different. Music is reggaeton, hip-hop, oldies. You have people yelling across the room y que orale cabron! Funny.

Ok so we head home about midnight, long drive to Mesquite.

Sunday, I had my yard sale at a friends house, made some good money and packed up, left my truck at home and headed to my sisters for a cookout. We had a blast, Sharon was there with mom, Sabrina was there with Juju. Later in the evening we headed to the Casino, no luck got home about 1am from casino.

Monday, well, Vica has spent the entire weekend with her girlfriend so I had my whole weekend Vica free :) j/k

Anyway, on Monday me and Al decided to drive to Big Rocks in Glen Rose. we enjoyed some time swimming in the Brazos River and found this awesome spot where we can camp right on the river! Our plan? Be back in two weeks to camp out.

Today is Tuesday........back to work.

1st of many 1st

This Easter will be the first Easter without my mother. Every year we tried to drive to Bridgeport to lay flowers on my grandmother's gravesite, on Easter and on Mother's Day. There were some years we couldn't make the trip or just didn't make the trip due to weather. But each year that we did make it, we would clean her gravesite and lay flowers, then move on to clean up the other gravesites for her mother and so forth.

Afterwards, we would gather at a local park and have a nice picnic by eithering having sandwiches or cooking burgers and hotdogs on thr grill. Last year was the first year that I actually had a significant other join me. We all had a great time. We played volleyball, listen to music and ate some good burgers.


My mother told me afterwards that she was so proud of us and that she was happy that we all had someone in our lives to love us and take care of us (well somewhat take care of us, we are very independent women, LOL).

We don't have any pics of us with our mother because when we were growing up, she didn't like her picture being taken and even before she passed she didn't like it. Well, as grown women, we took her picture everytime we could and I'm glad we did, otherwise, we wouldn't have any to reflect back on. Well, this weekend will be the first of many first for me and my sisters. I know that thru the years, it will not get any easier. Even though mom didn't have many traditions that we did as a family, what tradtions we did have, we always enjoy getting together, laughing, arguing as families do, crying, and playing some good ole Texas Hold'em. I know that I for one will try to keep those traditions for as long as I can.

My Christmas

Oh my I have so much to write about it's not even funny. This may have to be done in two parts. lol

Well, let me start by saying that being with Al's family was so much fun, except for him. I enjoyed watching all the kids open their presents and their eyes just sparkling! Afterwards we ate tamales and buñelos and OMG they were good especially with a glass of milk. Well our night ended with me going home about 11pm or so, Al stayed at his house seeing as he had one too many and I wouldn't hear of him coming with me. :) I got a good nights rest too.

Christmas day I hear banging on the door and it's Al, it's about 7am and I get up and start my cleaning and cook my rice, family was to be there at 8 or 9am. I finished everything, lighted some candles and put on some christmas music and waited and waited and waited. Finally around 11am or so I find out my sister had been in line since 7:30am waiting on tamales at Dallas Tortilla. OMG! yes she said it took that long to get her order, they ran out of tamales.

Anyhoo, Sabrina was able to make it too with Julissa, Rene actuall accompanied her into the house, they didn't stay long but long enough to do the Gift exchange. I got a pair of Buffet Lamps that I had purchased for the gift exchange, Michael got a waffle maker. We all opened presents and I guess I was extremely good this year :), I got my very first Crock Pot given to me by my lil sis, Mira. Mom gave me a 51 pc kitchen set that included bowls, spoons, forks, bowls with covers, frying pan, saucepan, both with lids, also included a strainer, chip clippers and some other small stuff. I really liked it. My big sis, Dani, gave me a blue tote bag with several pockets. This is one that I had been eyeing since I first saw them in CVS when. I kept hoping I could get enough ECB's to buy this one but then when I did have enough, every CVS I stepped into didn't have the blue one! ARGHHH well, I got it anyway thanks to my sis. Oh and Mira also gave me a set of construction lamps as I call them. Well, first when I saw the box I was like alright, then she looked at me and that look kinda said nope it's just a box I used, then I opened it and yep it was the lamps! She had me in tears. Al, gave me a very nice comforter only thing is I have a queen bed and he gave me a twin, so I put it on Vica's bed, she likes it.

After presents, we women played some poker, I lost, then we headed over to Bingo and again I didn't win but I did have fun and I'm glad mom was able to go.

All in all we had a very good time.

Thanksgiving

Well, went by too fast if you ask me. However, for some odd reason felt like a Sunday every day this past off days. Anywho, my family gathered at my sister's house, had the fixins, watched the Cowboys beat Seattles ass, then headed out to the Casino. Lost of course but oh well, Al, Guicho, Gab all got drunk off their ass and all the way up to Okie they were laughing, singing, yes i said singing and drinking, coming back was another story. LOL ROFLMAO - Sis D didn't feel strong enough to drive back Gab was sober enough to so he did, Al crashed in back seat, Mija and Guicho took back seat as well with Guicho in the middle. About 1/2 way back home, Mija is yelling Guicho is throwing up, he's throwing up. So we pulled over and let him out. LOL how funny, they weren't singing now huh?

Wednesday I was prepared with my coupons and ready to hit CVS at midnight to start the Thanksgiving 3-day sale and Wags sale also, well I couldn't for the life of me find my car keys. We looked and looked and Michael and me even thought that maybe I left them in the truck so here we go to pry open my door with no luck. Stranded and no one to take me to the sales. :( Oh well, early bedtime, Thurs, sister picked me up, didn't find my keys til Saturday. Where you ask? Hanging in the kitchen on a plate display where I never hang them before. DOH!

Talk about kicking myself over and over. Last night made a couple of store runs and then searched for ALL my xmas deco,hung up lights around my carport, today we tackle the tree.

Halloween.....not the same =(

Well, I got to dress up again this year as always but this year was different. I got to hand out candy for the time in my life. I even bought Boots a little costume. I wore a black dress, black cape, 3-headed skull cane, with spider choker, some make-up and ready to go. Picture a little table with candy basket, pumpkin, small candle and a goblet with "blood" to drink.

Halloween is NOT the same as it was before. There was maybe 4 houses giving out candy on our block. When I was small, you could go to each and every house to collect candy and you would get bags full. Now it's like no one wants to give any candy out and I know some of them might be because of the weirdos out there but because of them the little ones have to pay. How sad.

Maybe next year I can get the whole neighborhood in on it. Here's to wishful thinking!