Not Everyone's Mama

And boy was I trouble when I got home.  I took off yesterday at 11:45 AM to go to the casino with my mom. Pato asked how long I’d be gone and I said, 3-4 hours.  I stopped and got cash out, then went to the gas station to put gas in his car. (I had to leave my car because it has the car seats in it.)

Then off to the casino I went.  I had so much fun, partly because I wasn’t losing all the money I brought in the first 20 minutes.  I was staying even. Having a wonderful time with my mom and dad.  My dad cracks me up at the casino.  I can’t even think of anything funny to tell you, he just makes me laugh (with him, never at him) with all his tricks that I wish would work. Love ya dad!

I didn’t come home a big winner, but I didn’t lose everything either.  When I was down $15, Pato called me to see where I was.  I said, what time is it?  He said, almost 4.  Crap.  I told him I was going to eat something because I hadn’t eaten anything all day and then I’d leave.  Mom and I went off to the snack bar where I got a swiss mushroom burger and she got a reuben and we both got breaded mushrooms.  We sat a keno machine while we ate, and I got my $15 back and went up $15 (I know, it’s not a huge amount, but I was happy because I always lose).  I had promised the kids if I won some extra that I’d get them a little something something.  I told my mom I had to go and went outside.  Man, casinos are tricky things. I went outside and it was dark.  Uh oh.  I looked at my phone and it was 6 PM.  I called Jordan (he knew better than to wasn’t going to yell at me) and asked him if Pato wanted me to bring home anything for supper.  I heard Pato all snippy in the background, like a housewife who has been sitting there for hours waiting for her husband who is really late coming home (hmmm, I resemble that), no I’m making supper.  Ok then.

You have to remember, Christian nurses still.  I fed him really good before I left, and he’s almost 11 months, he’s fine without me for a few hours, he eats what we eat, but in order to go to sleep, he still has to be nursed to sleep (I don’t do cry it out, just my choice, no looking down on those who do.), if he doesn’t get nursed to sleep, you have to cradle him and walk the floor. 

Pato gets snippy when I give him grief over his never wanting to put Christiano to sleep.  He snaps back with, I don’t have a boob that I can whip out and magically put him to sleep.  Lovely. So, if Christiano won’t go to sleep for him, everyone will be happy (not really) when I get home.

I walked in the house at 6:30 and Pato was in a crap-tastic mood.  I looked at Christiano who was covered in spaghetti, pulled off my sweatshirt, took him out, and gave him a bath. Hoping that Pato might be happier knowing that I was home and that he wouldn’t have to do it. 

I also split my whole $15 winnings between the oldest 3, each getting $5. They could get themselves a little something something later.

He still walked around in a bad mood, telling me Nano had only slept for 20 minutes the whole time I was gone.  Finally I threatened to take away his um, long talk (as we call it around here when speaking in code in front of the kids) that evening if he didn’t stop trying to ruin my good mood and relaxed state from being childless for 6 hours.  He perked right up at that and even offered to go grocery shopping – and take 2 kids with him.

I put Christiano and Alyce to sleep while he was shopping and had a few more moments to myself.

It was all and all a wonderful day. To my cranky husband I say, thank you for my once a month get away that was much needed after 2 snow days, the weekend, and an email to myself from my google calendar reminding me the kids are off from school on Monday too. 

and the Ricky Martin Tweet Of The Day – since I missed posting yesterday.

(How did I get started on that?)

Image is linked to the video.  Can I say oh – h-e-double hockey sticks (you know I got in trouble for saying that once when I was like 14 – it’s the intention behind it mom said.) NO!  No way, no how, nu uh.  How are they not getting frostbite? 

On that note, I’ll leave you with a funny picture I took on my phone the other day that shows our own snow here in Iowa.

Can you read what the says?  It says MOVE.  The snowbanks all the way down my street were painted with that the other day.  You can’t see around intersections and out of parking lots to pull out safely and I guess a ginormous dump truck was coming to dump it all in a lake.

Done here?  I’ve got a new giveaway posted, my project 365 day 10, and then if you like giveaways I have new ones listed on my other blog.

Have a great day!

Popularity: 1% [?]

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To you, this might look just like an old box. To me, it’s one of my most prized possessions. 

I don’t know how old this Samsonite case is, but I’m 35, and it’s been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.  This was what my grandma used as her make up case. 

I can remember when I was younger sitting in her kitchen watching her put her make up on.  This case would be sitting on a chair in front of her with the lid propped on the back of the black vinyl swivel chair because it wouldn’t stay open on it’s own.  She’d lean over the case to look in the mirror to do her make up.  Every day. She was so glamorous to me with her hair that she had done every week (as so many of our grandmas did) and her make up that she’d put on just so. 

She passed away when I was 14 and part of my heart went with her. I got her make up case, and though it might look like only an old beat up traveling case, I’ve cherished it ever since.  I use it for my own make up case and hopefully my girls will have the same fond memories of watching me put on my make up. (I say girls, but that includes Christiano who feels the need to dig through all my make up as I put it on.

The A on the box stands for Alice.  Some of you who have been visiting me for years know the story behind Alyce’s name, but I’ll share for those who don’t.  My grandma’s name was Mary Alice, but she wouldn’t answer to Mary.  Even in the hospital when she was fighting the cancer that started in her kidneys and would eventually take over her whole body, the doctor’s would ask her a question, something simple like, how are you today Mary?  And she wouldn’t answer them.  She went by Alice.  Her name was Alice.  Don’t call her Mary.  When I was pregnant with Alyce, I came across some papers that showed my grandma’s middle name spelled as Alyce and my mom said she thought that was actually how it was spelled, but that my grandma spelled it Alice.

So, Alyce was named Maria Alyce to give it more of a hispanic flair (For those of you here for the first time, daddy is Mexican, we try to give tribute to his heritage when we name our kids).  We call her Alyce because I wanted her to be named after my grandma and I wanted it done just like my grandma’s name.  The only thing different is we don’t pronounce Alyce – Alice.  We pronounce it as uh-leese.

It helped with Pato’s family that both of his grandmas are and were named Maria. 

I turned this into a blog post all on it’s own. I had to explain the significance behind this box that holds so many precious memories for me. I’m not sure where the burn on the box came from, but even that holds memories.  It reminds me of the burns on my grandma’s kitchen floor.  She had a habit of letting her cigarettes burn out, light it, take a puff, sit it down, let it burn.  Woe to the person who tried to put it out so that she could smoke it later as my mom can attest to.  Sometimes, the cigarette hit the linoleum and it would burn a mark into it.  That mark on the case looks just like one of her burn marks, but I’m not quite sure how that would have happened.  It probably seems sad that cigarette burn marks on a kitchen floor are part of my cherished memories, but when it comes to my grandma, every memory is cherished. 

Popularity: 2% [?]

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Winners!

So, I’m not sure why this giveaway didn’t have many entrants.  I’ve started the book and it’s excellent.  But, we’ll go with the lucky people who entered!

Click on the image if you need to enlarge it.

Now, see where it says number 18 is a winner?  Well, number 18 and number 13 are the same person (winner).  So then I went down to the next number and number 19 and 23 were the same person (winner again) so I went down to number 24 and we had the 4th winner.  The others are the numbers that were drawn.

Winners will be contacted now and they have 48 hours to respond with their mailing address (no PO boxes).

Thanks for entering!

This site was used to draw the winners since I needed more than 1 number.

The night was

always Abby Whitman’s enemy. As a young girl she walked in her sleep, and one night, she started a fire that scarred her sister for life and left Abby with unbearable guilt . . . and a loneliness that echoes within her. Now Abby has begun blacking out again-with apparently fatal results. A car accident has killed the son of a prominent family. Even though the evidence seems to exonerate her, Abby is plagued by doubts-and soon by mysterious threats. Psychiatrist Dr. Jason Coble is intrigued by Abby and offers to help her explore the dark recesses of her mind.

I cannot wait to dig into this book. It looks like something right up my alley!

While I’m waiting for my copy to review, how about we give five of you a copy too!

MAIN ENTRY:

Visit Susan Crandall’s site and tell me another book of hers that you would like to read.

EXTRA ENTRIES:

(If you came to my blog via http://the247mom.com you may need to go to http://digiscrapping.net/blog to get any URLs you might need. It’s the same blog, 2 URLs.)

• - Subscribe to my blog via email or reader
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• - Follow me on Twitter (either @HeatherM74 or @GiveawayChick – you’ll get all the giveaways from other bloggers that I enter on @GiveawayChick, either one is fine.)
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Please leave a separate comment for each entry.

Giveaway ends on 1/17/10 at 11:59 PM CST. Only US/Canadian entries. Winner will be chosen by random number generator. Winner will be emailed and must respond within 48 hours or an alternate winner will be chosen.

I will be receiving this book to review.

Popularity: 5% [?]

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