ME...

Before my math final...I was burned out with school, I always get like this towards the end of the semester. oh well...

But I can't tell you how glad I am this is all over! Last semester I decided that if I didn't do well this semester I would change my major.

Calculus is kicking my ass! Although I have NO idea what happened there. I used to be good at math...but I guess 10+yrs between High School/college, a couple of kids, and a shitload of partying will kill a few brain cells, LOL. So here I go again, next semester brings yet another calculus class into my life(yes I have actually been passing)I am so tired of math. I wonder who is ever gonna ask us if we know the x intercepts of a polynomial function but oh well, what the hell do I know?

A couple of my fav signs...

 

because they won't get in the way themselves... LMAO!!

 

Just like Chicken...Only chicker!

Precious...

 
This is Goliath's daughter Precious. She was born the year Avery went to Korea, about 2 wks after on Oct 21, 2002. She's a great dog. She loves everyone and just wants attention. Unfortunately, because she is a Rottweiler she is now suffering from dysphasia. We have managed to bring her weight down some in the past 6 months, but we are afraid it might be too little too late.
This is the only downfall to owning pets...we outlive most of them...

The Great Immigration Debate

I just love this... couldn't have put it any better myself...

People...

While sitting in the hall of the Liberal Arts building today, I found myself wondering many things.
When you see people walking past you in a hideous outfit, do you ever wonder- How in the world they put that shit on this morning, looked in the mirror and actually thought it was a good idea? Then proceed to actually walk out the door wearing that and go to school.

Have you?

Ever wondered that??

I have, several times today as a matter of fact, and on a daily basis at school. I love to sit back and watch people, I also catch lil snip bits of conversations. Some are interesting, some are just pathetic.

Today, while waiting for a mini pizza at Pizza Hut, a couple argued in line behind me. She wanted to go out with friends Friday night and he, being so fucking insecure, could not see how she could want to spend time with her friends, after all, HE was her boyfriend!?!? She said she was with him almost 24/7, school, then they apparently live together now, cause she mentioned not being able to spread out in her own bed anymore. He told her she was gonna have to choose, her friends or him.

She changed her mind and decided to stay home with him Friday night....This one definitely fell in the pathetic pile!

Yes, the line was LONG! LOL First of all, he was ugly, she was pretty, WTF was she thinking?? I guess she was the one with the insecurity problems, I don't know. Young girls confuse me...but then again, so do older ones, so it's no use in trying to understand people.

I also listened to a couple of military wives while enjoying the pizza later. One's husband is deploying, while the other is moving at the end of the school year. Both hate the fact and complained so much I got sick of it and ended up leaving! I didn't say shit, first of all they don't know me, they weren't talking to me, but they had to have known I could hear them!Both had been married into the military for over 5 years, so I'm sure they know what to expect when your husband's job comes before anyone and anything else. Avery was in the military for 12 years and we NEVER fought about him working long hrs, being deployed, field problems, NONE of that. I know Avery, and I KNOW he would have preferred to be home, but it wasn't up to him and definitely NOT up to me. So he went away, a lot, he went here and there and I stayed home alone with the kids. First it was lil Avery and me, then in Killeen, Jasmyne joined us. It was crazy! Specially when I started working and Avery was gone. But guess what? I did it! and no I didn't send for my mom, or my sister, or run home, I stayed and I did it by myself with my kids.

Until the moment my kids were old enough to go to school, I went to school. That's when I came home, so that I could go to school. Jasmyne was 4 and Avery was 6 so it wasn't that hard anymore.

But you know what? That's life!! People fascinate me, everyone has a story to tell, although stupid people still annoy the hell out of me. LMAO!!!

Legal Alien

**I had originally added this to my MySpace page, but I thought I should add it here as well.**

This reminds me so much of me and every other Mexican-American I come across on day to day basis, at school and everywhere else...(of course, those of us that are bi-lingual)

Legal Alien

Pat Mora

Bi-lingual, Bi-cultural,
able to slip from "How's life?"
to "Me'stan volviendo loca,"
able to sit in a paneled office
drafting memos in smooth English,
able to order in fluent Spanish
at a Mexican restaurant,
American but hyphenated,
viewed by Anglos as perhaps exotic,
perhaps inferior, definitely different,
viewed by Mexicans as alien
(their eyes say, "You may speak
Spanish but you're not like me"),
an American to Mexicans
a Mexican to Americans
a handy token
sliding back and forth
between the fringes of both worlds
by smiling
by masking the discomfort
of being pre-judged
Bi-laterally.




Pat Mora, a leading figure in contemporary Hispanic poetry, was born on January 19, 1942 in El Paso, Texas. She received a BA from Texas Western College in 1963 and an MA from the University of Texas, El Paso in 1967. In addition to writing poetry, nonfiction, and children's books, Mora has taught at the University of New Mexico where she held the position of Distinguished Visiting Professor. She has also worked as a museum director and as a consultant on U.S.-Mexico youth exchanges. Her recent books include My Own True Name: New and Selected Poems for Young Adults, 1984-1999 (Arte Publico Press, 2000), Aunt Carmen's Book of Practical Saints (1997), and Agua Santa: Holy Water (1995). Her numerous awards and fellowships include the Kellogg National Leadership Fellowship, fellowships in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, four Southwest Book awards and the Premio Aztlán Literature Award. In addition to her books of poetry, Mora is the author of numerous children's books, including A Birthday Basket for Tia (1992) and a memoir. She resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Cincinnati, Ohio.

Going down...

Gas prices, I'm talking about gas prices.... LOL

$3.53 at the local Sam's here, the cheap one of course, but nonetheless, damn gas is finally coming down.

Think we will ever be down under $3 again???

You like it?

 

Every semester UTEP's Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center displays a different work of art. Sometimes inside the Center (it's a damn Art Museum, not a "center") right as you walk in, it will be the first thing in your face. Other times outside. This was the Art of the Semester my first time at UTEP. In Spring it was some weird looking metal thing outside that kept falling over and making a mess throughout the semester.

For some reason this one caught my attention, so I took a picture of it. I'm so glad I did because to my disappointment a couple of weeks later, as I was running into the bathroom, it was gone! For some strange reason...I like it!!

A few of my favorite...

 

This one, specially right now with the high ass gas prices...

I'm glad to say that the price has been going down slowly here. Today at Sam's it was $3.68 & $3.88.

 

 

 

I def need this one for my car!!! LOL

Speaking of...

Jasmyne.

Check her out. I tell you, she's gonna be a model.

 

She was a whole 4 years old right here. First year of school, she was going to Pre-Kinder half a day.

 

AND she was going in the afternoon cause Ms. Thang likes to sleep in.

 

Getting her up for school now sucks because she needs to be up at 6:30 A.M. She'll be the first one up, out of everyone in the house, she's the only one that needs to be that early this year. LOL

Jasmyne...

 

This is Jasmyne, during our vacation last year to California. This picture was taken at Six Flags Magic Mountain. The reason why it's up here is because it has taken me a long time to finally fix this picture. Today it was done purely by accident. LOL

Almost over...

2 wks left. God it seems the summer zoomed by. I have no idea where it went and what we did.

Sleep...I did a lot of sleeping! I would say I'm all caught up on my sleep and hopefully won't suffer any sleep depravation this coming semester, but I know that will NEVER be the case. I can't seem to sleep enough.

I have most of the kids school supplies. I need the stuff like the Kleenex and paper towels, zip lock bags, you know all the "extra" stuff teachers ask for. And a backpack for Ms Jasmyne. I swear, this child is in some kind of contest to see who can go through the most backpacks during her school years. Avery used the same one for about 3 years, finally this year he decided he wanted a new one.

Jasmyne...oh my God, Jasmyne is always a different story. Jasmyne will go through about 3 or 4 backpacks in ONE school year. I can't explain it, I don't know why but that is Jasmyne. So she told me she wanted a pink backpack. I had just bought one for Avery at Sam's and it looks pretty heavy duty and like it'll last. I decide to buy one like that one for Jasmyne.

I just bought that one for Avery earlier in the week, I go back today and there are NONE, It's amazing how fast the stuff at the local Sam's here disappear! We have about 3 in the city. No, that is not a lot, specially for a growing city, but damn!!
I hope they do get more in soon. They were extremely cheap AND very well made. Avery got a black one, I was hoping to snatch a pink one for Jasmyne.

I bought me a Swiss Army one last year and this is the 2nd time I can honestly say a backpack was worth it. The first one I bought at school when I started here at EPCC (El Paso Community College). I would still be using it, if a stupid dog hadn't torn it (nope, not one of mine!!).

So the kids got new shoes, 3 khaki pants and shirts for Avery and skorts for Jasmyne. I need to see if Jasmyne still has some uniform shirts and find 3 more pairs of navy blue pants for Avery. His uniform changes this year since he's going into Middle School.

Of course, I still need a couple of books for my classes. I wish the instructors would email us the list of books so that we can look for them. I'm glad we will be using the same calculus book for awhile, specially since it was about $150!!

HOT!!!

After a cloudy week last week, we are now baking in the sun. I mean literally, it has been HOT! Which is a reason why I'm hiding out in my room. The AC is blasting and here I sit trying to get some scrapbooking done and actually not doing much of anything.

I've realized that when I die I want to be reincarnated as a dog, more specifically a pampered dog. I would say Pixie, but then she wouldn't belong to me, right? Since I'm dead already. Not sure how that would work out but that would be nice. Pixie does nothing all day but play, eat, and sleep. If the kids are watching her she gets about 4 cookies extra and can tear up anything she wants to as long as she is there with them. She has gone from my bed, to her bed, to my lap, to the couch just in a matter of an hour or so. Yesterday she kept bugging to go outside, I knew she didn't have to go cause she goes right after waking up once then later at night. But I let her out and this is what she did...



YUP!! She literally went outside to get some sun, before this picture she was laying with her stomach flat against the cement. I burned my fingers opening the sliding door to let her out and she goes outside to do this?!?! WTF? I understand the dog is white, but do dogs have a need for a certain amount of sun every day? She goes to the park for a walk almost every morning, I just don't get it, she left a perfectly cooled room to go outside and do that....

OWIE!!!

I haven't been feeling well for a couple of days now, I have NO idea what it is, but it's driving me crazy!!! I can't seem to concentrate on anything, but oh well...

*I hacked into my phone, now I got all kinds of cool games and stuff, BUT some
some of them need to be fixed...
*Jasmyne is driving me up the fucking wall with her mess....
*I'm starving and neither one of my cooks are home..this sucks!
*Avery is on his way to Dallas, I wonder if he is coming home right after that??
Sometimes I miss him like crazy and other times it seems as if I blink and he's
back.
*My sister and neice moved out...they rented a house with my BIL and nephew, good
thing, bitches have a way of driving me up the wall and these 2 ain't no
different.
*I ordered some of my books for school, someone made a mistake on the price of
my history book and that shit ended up costing me a whooping $.25!! woo hoo!
can't beat that price for a college text book!!
*I've been doing alot of hanging out on YouTube and I have to admit, some people
have absolutely WAY too much time on their hands...what is the point of taking
video of your ass shaking?? Makes me wonder sometimes.
*I'm still hungry.


**UPDATE: My Dash games are fixed!!!**

Ready or not!!!

Ok, so here we go again, in a lil over a month Fall semester will begin. I need to step up my game a bit and take more classes so this semester I will have a full load plus 1 more class, for a total of 5.

I'm not sure how this will work out, specially since Ms. Thang (aka Jasmyne) has decided she will be joining the chearleading squad for my nephew's football team the T-Birds. She is also joining a tumbling class that will help her with her cheerleading and with gymnastics's floor exercises (2x a week).

Now the only thing I need during next semester's full schedule is for my car to break down. Yup, you know how that shit works, right when you need something it decides to kick the fucking bucket!

On another note, while looking for that pic up there of UTEP's Sun Bowl, I came across this picture of Jasmyne:
This picture was taken in San Diego last summer during a family dinner with Avery's family. It was a really nice restaurant, hell if I remember the name of it but it was on a boat. Anyway, the reason I'm pointing this pic out is because that shawl Jasmyne is wearing was handmade by my mom's cousin, nice huh?!?!? LOL

Say What?!?

He swears he hates small dogs.....



He couldn't stand my mom's Bubbles for the longest time. Bubbles still, to this day, sees him coming and runs the other way.



He wasn't really mean to her, just would make her do stuff she really didn't enjoy. Like walking on her front legs while holding on to her back legs. You know, sort of like those races we would play as kids.. LOL, but with a dog.



He makes Pixie fly.... LOL. Literally, he sends this tiny dog flying across the room.



She does land in the bed, but still, it took Pixie a couple of tries before she landed perfectly. I figured she had to get over her fear for him since we all live together, we all share a room. Granted, Avery is not here 24/7, truck driving is his thing and well he's gone a lot. But we are used to that! 14 years in the military will most definitely get you used to them being gone....a lot!

But in the end, LOL, he has grown to love her...



he even shares the bed during nap time.... LMAO!!

13 years later...

Next month is our 13th Anniversary. Yesterday around 3:45 in the morning, Avery came home. I was so tired when he called me to pick him up (haven't had time to get his car fixed). After picking him up, chatting for an hr or two and all that "fun" stuff, LOL, we finally settled down to sleep. He started snoring about 10 seconds later (I hate the way he can do that) I, on the other hand, couldn't sleep! I just starred at him, the sun was starting to rise and there was a light coming in from the window, I could barely see his face, but I could definitely hear him.

I started whispering nonsense to him, asking him if he remembered different things that had happened in the last 13 years of our marriage. For the most part he snored through most of them, he would wake up every once in awhile to answer a question or giggle with me about something stupid I had just reminded him of. We did this for a while till he finally really fell asleep, then it was just me. So many thoughts when through my head....I can't believe I have loved this man for over half my life. I remember when we were teenagers, everything was new, I knew I loved him, but I just wasn't ready to open up myself to the hurt that sometimes comes with relationships, I wasn't ready to completely hand over my heart to him. So we just dated for awhile. I remember when he got orders to Cuba, I wasn't down with a long distance relationship so before he left, we talked and agreed it was best not to pursue a relationship and if our paths crossed again, and we both wanted to start over, we would.

I remembered that Valentine's day in 1994 when he returned from Cuba and called me, the butterflies he gave me when I heard his voice on the phone, he still does that you know, give me butterflies.

Almost 13 years ago I gave my heart to him with his sole promise to take care of it. I'm glad to say that it wasn't a mistake. Don't get me wrong, we have had our downs, some times I want to kick him in the balls and poke his eyes out... LOL But, he has also shown me that he is more than willing to make this work and that he truly has love for me and for our kids. No matter what it has been, I know that if I really want it, he will provide it, even if he hates it, he will provide, my Pixie "Chiquilla" girl is proof of that, LMAO!

Jasmyne @ the park...

Here is Jasmyne, my nephew had a football game at a local park here. We had a cookout and just relaxed all day. It was nice, not a lot of people, so the park wasn't crowded. My sister and her friend cooked up a good variety of food, so we had plenty to eat all day while we did NOTHING! It was a good day... LOL
My nephew's team ended up winning!!

My Pixie...again, LOL

I took a picture with my Pixie girl one day before I headed out to school, even thou I hate the way she came out...I decided to share it. LOL
















And here is another one...this one she actually did look at the camera, but I don't like it that much....

School has been hectic lately...and life in general.
As far as Avery's job, it has improved, a lot. I thought we were gonna end up hating life for a bit longer, but thank god, it's got better fast. I've even managed to get our savings account back to where it was before shit hit the fan, LOL


The kids are also doing good. Jasmyne is getting ready for her first TAKS test. All is looking good. Hopefully when the time comes she won't freeze up.
Avery is also taking the TAKS this year, and it's his first time doing the Science part, but he loves Science, so I see no problems with that.


Calculus has me wishing I could go back in time, at least 15 years...but of course, since that's not possible, here I am, here I find myself...struggling with it.

I don't even know why I'm blogging with all the shit I gotta do, but here I sit...with my damn calculus half done and tired as hell. Avery has been snoring his ass off behind me for at least a couple of hrs already...damn I wish I could fall asleep like that in a matter of seconds...it must be a man thing.

This year is our 13th Anniversary..it is supposed to be bad luck this year? Well if it is, thank god it's almost over, our anniversary is July 7. Even though at times I have felt like killing him, I do still love the butt head. I couldn't imagine my life with someone else...

America's Next Top Model?

LoL, Jasmyne, posing as usual. We were at the Water Park here under a red shade, it gave Jasmyne this sort of red glow that I decided to remove.

Deep in thought...

My 7 year old Rottie,Goliath, thinking about life on top of his dog house.... LOL

Jasmyne...

This is Jasmyne, about 3 years ago, in 2005. We were horseback riding with some "friends" lol....



The background sucked, so I added a little effect while leaving Jasmyne in a black and white scale..

& More! LOL Pictures, that is!

These are all a collection of pictures that I've taken of family members...I've been snapping pictures since I can remember. Some of the only pictures we have of some family members were taken by me. I remember carrying a camera with me all the time. So as you can imagine I am LOVING the digital camera and the ability to transfer pictures to my computer for "enhancing" almost immediately after taking them.

My Pixie, once again

but with a new picture effect this time... I like taking and messing with pics! LOL

LIFE...

I've been frustrated for a long time and even thou I'm not sure this is the correct outlet, what the hell? Not many people know me in the blog world and by what I've read, many people don't bother to really get to know anyone on here. Well we sort of do, don't we? But it's like front. Sort of like our MySpace page..you only put there what you want people to see and unless they know you personally, NO ONE knows the real you.
So anyway, my husband got out the military a lil over a year ago. It's been a roller coaster of emotions. We had our days, but thank god the good days outweighed the bad ones. Even thou at times going back in was an option, I'm glad to say it's behind us. Financially we are doing better, but we hit a hard time and unfortunately it happened during the holidays. Which meant, no Christmas presents. It frustrated me like never before, and thank god, at the last minute (Dec 24) my husband got paid, it wasn't much, but we did manage to get the kids one present each.
Now we gotta deal with paying property taxes, my car needs a new windshield and maintenance. Some days I want to scream. I keep telling my husband I'm done with this lifestyle, I'm done living paycheck to paycheck and I'm done putting up with ungrateful motherfuckers.
I also had a fight with my brother Christmas eve. He has great timing doesn't he? LOL I basically told him and my dad where to go (my dad was sort of the instigator in all this). I told them not to count on me for anything and haven't said more than 2 words to either one of them since. I'm also fed up with both of them and not sure if we are ever gonna return to normal, they have burned this bridge.
I got school starting up on January 14 and I think this will be my hardest semester and the deciding semester. I get to decide if I'm gonna switch majors or stay with my current one. Yes, after all this time, I'm not even sure anymore. LOL
My In-Laws have been calling me, which is weird..what do I say to them? They have had NO relationship with me or the kids since I married their son. My FIL called me on Christmas to tell me the kids presents were downstairs and he would mail them the following week...then calls me again New Year's Day to tell me that he needs the kids info cause he got them a Credit Card for Christmas so that he can add money to it during the year for birthday's and special occasions...WTF? 2 voicemail's from the same asshole with conflicting information. Ok Whatever...I'm not even going there with him anymore. Then my MIL calls MY phone ( I don't think she realized it was my phone till it was too late) then proceeded to leave my husband a voicemail....on my phone. Sometimes I wonder why they even bother. Just leave us alone, or at least me and the kids. They are about to turn 9 and 11 years old and have seen them both ONCE and this was within the last 3 years.
Then, just when I think I want to explode, one of my friend's is having some kind of ordeal that is about 10x worse then any of mine put together and I feel like I'm just being a bitch... GREAT!!!

My Pixie Girl

Pixie turned 1 on Dec 29, 2007.....
She is a Diva in the making...check this out, My Pixie Girl.