Sunday

Okay, so everyone knows about the song “Friday” by Rebecca Black and if you haven’t heard of it, I will spare you your ears and make sure to thank the Lord above.  Earlier, Jayde came in here asking if I’ve heard the parody for Friday called, “Sunday.”  I hadn’t so she played me the video on Youtube.   Its still really cheesy but I like it much more than Friday.  Here it is. 

A couple of weeks ago, I actually found a different video for the actual “Friday” song that has clips of the movie “Friday” that has Ice Cube in it which is by far my favorite.  Check it out.

 

Okay, I’m annoying my kids because I am singing, “It’s Tuesday, Tuesday.  Eating enchiladas on Tuesday….Hmmm. maybe I should make my own parody.  mmmmmmmmmm. not!

3 dimes & 1 nickel.

 

I had a great time celebrating my 35th birthday yesterday.  It started off with the kids bringing me breakfast in bed.  Jacob made the egg & coffee, Jayde made my 1 strip of bacon, Jaidy made (poured) the o.j.  It was great & I felt so loved.  For lunch, hubby usually comes home & I make him something.  Before he left work, he called & said that he wasn’t that hungry so don’t worry about making him anything.  I was a little hurt because I expected some sort of surprise lunch.  I felt so selfish for being a little “down” about it, but I decided I better be thankful for all of my blessings.  So I said a little prayer & got our Survivor show ready for us to watch at lunch.  He comes thru the door with nothing.    I was trying not to show my disappointment but after a BIG hug, he goes back into the foyer & brings out a bag of goodies for me.  I squealed, Eeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!  I knew what it was.  My shrimp brochette from El Toro’s. 

My favorite meal ever!  Also a fajita taco from Nena’s.  Oooh, I was in heaven. 

You can’t see it in all its splendid glory because my camera is so messed up right now but believe me it was beautiful & soooo delish!

 

I also assumed that since he brought me my shrimp, he wasn’t taking me there for dinner.  He did say that we had reservations some place & to be ready to leave by 5:30.

After an afternoon walk in the park, I came home, took a shower & started getting all doodied up while catching up on some episodes of Yn’R. 

 

 I also made sure the kids were all spiffy & clean too.  Stephen finally came home, got all clean-shaven & ready to go.  The ride to our destination was so suspenseful.  We ended up going to Guadalajara,  my dad’s favorite mexican restaurant..  I was  a little shocked & yeah, I guess you could say disappointed because I felt over dressed.  I’ve been to this place before for breakfast & I never saw it as great food much less fun or exciting.  It’s a pretty small place too & when we get inside, I see a long table with a couple of reserved signs on it & a couple of people I recognized sitting there waving at us to come over.  It was my grandmother & her husband.  I was seriously shocked.  I had no idea they were gonna be there to celebrate with me.  Another surprise that was waiting for me was the 2 galvanized buckets filled with Bud Light in the middle of the table. 

 Oh, you just don’t know how excited I was at that moment.   A short while later, my parents came & we all had such a great time.  It turned out to be better than I thought.  They had live music & thanks to my sneaky husband, ended up announcing my birthday to the restaurant & sang a song just for me.  The whole place was clapping to the beat.  It wasn’t just your regular ol’ “Happy Birthday” It was great. And I was so relieved that they didn’t put the humongous (embarrassing)  sombrero on me like my beloved El Toro does.  Some other family of mine that I hadn’t seen in forever also showed up.  Not for my birthday though.  They go there all the time for the music & food.  I ended up getting a few Andrew Jackson’s from them.  Cha-ching! Stephen ended up getting me the 3 cd’s that the musicians had for sale.  They also signed them for me.  I went up to meet & talk to them during their break & found out that they live right down the road from me. Purty cool.  Overall it was a pretty amazing night.  Got some $ from granny & my other granny that came later.  Mom got me a snake skin bag filled with goodies. 

Of course I felt no pain & I we were leaving the restaurant, I was wishing I could go back & do it all over again.  When we got home, Stephen and the kids had a little scavenger hunt for me. (0ur tradition when it comes to gifts)  They were a little more difficult than usual but I totally blame that on the a…a…a…a…a…alcohol.   Twas a great nite with great memories.  I wished I would’ve gotten some pics at Guada.  Those would have been a sight.  Got lots more pics of me dancing a jig & such on my Wix site if you dare to check those out.

*warning* I am still working on this site so a lot of links don’t work as of yet. 

Oh, So Healthy

Since I re-booted my healthy kick, I thought I’d post what I had for breakfast, lunch & dinner today. I didn’t get to take pics of my breakfast but I don’t think a picture of an apple & 2 cups of coffee would be entertaining to look at nor did I take pics of my dinner.

So,
Breakfast: My morning routine consists of a small glass tea-cup filled with coffee which totals 1 cup in all. I have 2 of these every morning without fail.
Lunch: Here is what I had for the past 2 days now. Today I altered it a bit with different flavorings.

1 can of tuna packed in water. (“Is it chicken or fish?” “I still don’t know if  it’s Chicken of the Sea? Under the Sea? or In the Sea?” haha.  Just had to mention a throwback from Jessica S. from years past.)

Drained it & mixed with this.

A tsp. or so of dill weed.

A tsp. or more of black pepper. I would’ve used my pepper grinder but I ran out of peppercorns the other day.  No biggie.

Great Value has got the goods on this little condiment right here. I haven’t found anything like it in any other brand. Which is fine because I have no problem getting Wal-mart brand for certain things. Try it though, it’s really good. I used exactly 2 teaspoons. It was perfect.

Mix it all together & spread on a Wasa cracker. These taste a lot like cardboard but of course you don’t eat them by themselves unless, that flavor does it for you. Although I have never eaten cardboard but I think I might have licked it before.  I don’t remember.

Next…these.  I really love these so much.  I usually have them with salads, sandwiches and pizza but I can eat them all by themselves. 

Top with the tuna mixture & pepperoncinis.

Then some sliced grape tomatoes. I love these. They are so sweet & juicy.

Last I added the spinach leaves on.  For some reason I am loving all the Marketside products lately.  Everything I’ve gotten from them just tastes so dang fresh. 

After I made this I realized I should’ve put the spinach under the tuna to keep it from falling off.

I added a cute little plum to finish it off and a goblet of water to make it even more exciting because I have to drink a boat load of water everyday.  Might as well make it fun. 

Dinner:

I  do have a tiny pic of  my meal tonite although, I was actually taking a picture of the new pot I got. (for a different blog post) And my sauce was cooking in it.  Don’t know why I didn’t think to take a pic of the yummy stuff.  Anyways, it was Barilla Whole Grain linguine wheat pasta with Muir Glen Organic Fire Roasted Tomatoes.  Oh, I got muchos good things to say about Muir Glen but that will have to wait. It was a nice light dinner and I foresee lots of wheat pasta & Muir Glen in my future. 

I think I should’ve had a snack tonite.  My stomach is growling now.  Maybe we have a few slices of leftover pizza I can warm up & guzzle it down with an ice cold coke. 

Just kidding.  I’m off to find some healthy chocolate stuff.  Wish my luck.

Man, Hold Up!

Earlier Jayde came up to me & told me about this cute little site where you can make your own “Keep Calm” poster.  She came up with a good one.  Me & her have these little sayings that are “just between us” so hers was this.

Which coincides with this video that we both love. 

(sadly, there are some videos on Youtube that you can only watch on Youtube so….)

Gotta give up for Bun B on this one holding it down for Texas.  Anways, I also am using it as my weekly catchphrase seeing how I am turning 35 this Thursday & all I gotta say is “MAN, HOLD UP!  I am not ready for this.    I will NEVER be a grown-up.  You can’t make me. :p

By George I think he’s got it!

Since my dad’s birthday falls on April Fool’s Day, I wanted to do a gag gift but thought that probably wouldn’t go over well since he wouldn’t appreciate being the butt of any jokes. He already doesn’t like birthdays to begin with & the thought of opening presents makes him cringe. (though, I secretly think he enjoys it) I figured we could get him a present he could really use like a usb flash drive for his truck & I would load it with all his favorite songs. Oldies & newies. I called my mom & found out that he doesn’t even have an import for that so there went that plan!

I had absolutely no idea what to get him. We’ve already done the Harley stuff

 the John Deere theme..

 

What was left? Well, the other day, mom emailed me about George Lopez coming to Houston @ the Verizon Wireless Theatre. I read it & was thinking, yeah, it would be great to go but tickets were 50 bucks a pop! I knew it would be a 1 in a billion chance we would go but I went ahead & forwarded the msg. to my hubby. A couple of days went by & I was on the computer asking S what he thought we could get my dad. He was on his computer paying bills (or so that’s what I thought he was doing) and he would give me a few suggestions as I shot down practically every one. A few minutes later, after being exhausted searching online for something perfect for him, the hubby comes up behind me, puts 4 printed tickets in front of me & says, “How bout’ this?” I stared blankly at the paper, reading the words carefully outloud…”George Lopez June 10 Houston, Tx…” From there I started screamin’, hootin’ & hollerin’. It was great. I love how my honey surprises me like that. It was the perfect gift. How does this man do it? He’s amazing. So, at the birthday party, when we gave dad his gift he was a little tipsy…just a little…haha…so I don’t think he fully understood what was going on till the next morning. When he called us the next day, he was dumbfounded & shocked and asked why we (Stephen) would give him such an awesome gift. S replied, “uggh, because I love you” So, June…yeah, I can’t wait!

Quite Charming.

I recently made a statement necklace inspired by Teen Vogue. It isn’t as flashy or jumbled as theirs. I’ll be adding more charms and chains later. The more, the merrier.

First I started with the smallest chains. The smaller chain with the beads was a bracelet. I had to cut off connector and clipped on some new ones. I had no idea where I was going with this. I don’t have a lot of jewelry, so it’s kind of hard.

Next, I added a longer chain with err, I really have no idea what that is. It sure isn’t a charm. But it looks cool. Okay, on to the last part. This was a challenge.

I added a ballerina, cross, heart, and moon charm. It was a charm putting the moon on (pun intended.) The other three just couldn’t have a connector with an opening! They just had to be fully closed. So I broke off a part of the charm with my pliers. It wasn’t pretty. The metal was mangled looking and bent. As soon as I got the charm connected to the necklace I closed up the metal. Good as new? As long as you don’t look at it up close.

Okay, here’s a final pic. It looks good. Sort of. I added another charm a few days ago. It was a tinker bell necklace (which I would NEVER wear just by itself, but looks good as a charm.) Sorry for the somewhat lame post. I’m not into the writing mood today.

Well, see ya!
Jayde

Backyard Before

 okay, you don’t have to tell me that my backyard looks junky.  I already know this.  What’s great is that this year, I have actually gotten serious about beautifying it & getting it all outdoor-lovely.  These are only the befores.  I will be posting the afters in a couple of weeks.  I’ve been so busy these past few weeks doing all kind of spring-ish projects.  I can’t wait to post them.  So here is the ugly befores.

It has tons of potential but I’ve been lazy. 

 The time for change is NOW! Oh no, I just realized, I sounded like Barry Soetoro.

One of the best things that happened the end of last year is this amazing new fence my dad & my honey put up.  I love the privacy.

This is the left side of the house and the fence door goes out to the front.  I have high hopes of putting a stone path down all the way to the back and some pretty plants along the edge of the fence. We also need to get 2 more plastic lattice things to cover up the A/C & paint them to coordinate the house.

The right side of the house is hideous.  We’ve turned it into a junkyard slowly over time.  It first started with the truck.  There are double doors we use to drive it in back.  It is currently for sale.  Just  F.Y.I.

This area is where I have started to plant my herb garden.  It gets the sun that sets in the west so it will stay somewhat shady most of the day.   Still trying to figure out a way to conceal or blend the electrical box on the brick.  Should I paint it to look like bricks, paint it one color or leave it alone???

The back of the house has gotten so cluttered.  Old metal drawers that I plan on painting for one of the boy’s rooms, old rusty plant hangings, a plastic barrel for chunking our soda cans in, a shabby looking swing with a torn cover, metal chairs with no cushions.  The whole things screams…THROW ME AWAY!!!

My dad made me this bird house bench but only the Lord above knew what I was thinking 5 years ago when I painted it this boring, bland & way to dark color.  What should I do to cute-en it up?  Please disregard all those pots of dead plants.  My dad gave me about 100 plants to put in the ground and seriously I had no time to decide where these went & ooops…I forgot to water these while I decided.  I really am sad they died.  What a waste!

This area is beyond bad because it has this pole thing that I can’t do anything about.  It stays no matter what.  Once this tree is cut down, maybe I can put a pretty shrub in front of it or something.  Oh, and yes that’s a toilet to the left.  Its the old one from me & hubby’s bathroom.  How do you just throw away a toilet?  You can’t really just put it out by the curb, can you?  That would be kinda embarrassing.  haha.  

My hubby put up this little ghetto-fied clothesline for me.  You know, it’s so deceiving on the commercials when they show the woman hanging up her clothes on the line, wind blowing, sun shinin’ and her inhaling her clothes like they smell so fresh n so clean.  Shoot!  Not with mine.  For some reason mine are all hard and crunchy when I get em’ off and not at all fresh & clean smelling. 

Here’s our sad little fire pit.  Hey it works but it’s not very designer chic’.  I’m seriously thinking of moving the placement of the whole thing all together.  It doesn’t have to be the center of attention of the backyard. 

 This tree will eventually be cut down.  It’s leaning so far over that any kind of strong hurricane that blows down our way…it’s sure to fall on our neighbor’s roof and on our new fence.  And with this being the Texas Gulf Coast, that is more than likely to happen, like every year. So this is a major project that needs to be done.

The kids got new bikes this year so they still have their old ones propped up against the shed.  I can’t get them to let them go.  They say they need the old ones for jumping ramps.  Okay, okay…that’s better than messin’ up their new ones. Our poor 4-wheeler has been neglected too.  Hubby says it needs a new battery.  I say it needs to be in the shed and fixed asap.  I miss it.  It’s fun.

This is the back gate to our 2nd backyard which is the park we go jogging at. I love having the park behind our house. 

You can see the playground from here.

 The only thing I wish that wasn’t behind our house are these little side-by-side apt. buildings.  Some of the people that live there leave trash by our fence gate and they are pretty loud too.  Oh well, we can’t live in a perfect world now can we?  I still feel so blessed to have what we do . 

 Stay tuned for those after pics.