Best husband

I just wanted to give a shout out to the best husband ever, Eddy! Okay, I whine and complain about him sometimes, but I can't imagine a better daddy which makes my job as a mommy much easier! A happy mommy really does make a happy family.

I've been on a hiatus but I'm back

I took a hiatus from blogging mostly because as Alex gets older, the amount of time I spend at the computer decreases in order to prevent any additional and unnecessary damage to our house. Also, the longer I spend at the computer, the longer Alex has to delete files from my hard drive by simply banging on my keyboard...strange how that happens!

Anywho, life is grand. I have a job lined up starting this August with a school district as a speech pathologist intern (I get paid and only a grand less than a fully certified speech pathologist so don't feel sorry for me...'intern' just a technical term.) I'll be a fully certified speech pathologist at the end of the school year in 2010 so I'm looking forward to that!

It's been almost a year since I graduated with my masters and have been staying home with Alex. I have absolutely enjoyed my time as a stay at home mom but I'm looking forward to finishing what I started and getting my CCC's. Once I start work, I'll be able to decide which is harder: being a working mommy or being a stay at home mommy. I think being a working mommy will be harder which is one of my biggest concerns with starting this summer.

So far, here's the biggest difference for me.

Stay at home mommy
Pros

• No commuter stress (this is huge being that I commuted 3 hours/day during rush hour to San Marcos and back for over 2 years)
• No guilt over leaving your child at a day care center or with another caregiver (also really huge for me)
• Saving money on clothes, eating out, gas
• Having time to do lots of fun things and bonding with your child...lots of time

Cons

• Always feeling the need to cook and maintain a clean house (I think this is self-inflicted guilt that I just can't let go)
• Always trying to pinch pennies again to avoid guilt over not working and not contributing financially to my house after having spent over $30k on my masters degree
• Never get to eat a meal in peace...this is a big one!!!

Working mommy
Pros

• Get to eat in peace
• Get to contribute to your family financially which equates to buying more non-essentials for everyone including me...YAY!
  
• Get to have a maid!!! YAY!!!

Cons

• Guilt & concern over leaving my child with another caregiver :-(
  
• Not enough time to cook what I would like as often
• Stress from work & commute (big yuck)
• Always on a time crunch (another yuck)
  

Only time will tell how this working mommy thing will work for me. Keep us in your prayers.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwaanza, & Happy Holiday

Hello friends! I've been trying to get better about blogging about fun stuff, but I figured a blog is a blog no matter what the topic.

Merry Christmas to all my friends and family & a big congratulations to my big bro on his engagement to Marissa. YAY them!

We've had a great and relaxing Christmas, relatively speaking. We went to Houston this past weekend, and everybody at the Saenz house came down with a cold/allergy attack, including Alex and me. We had to leave Houston early so that Alex could get his rest. We got to see Grandma & Grandpa, Gabriella, and Juan Carlos. Also, Alex met his Aunties Anesha and Anjenie, and Alex finally got to play with his buddy, Alec (Anjenie's son.) We also visited with Tia Nina & Tia Oscar, and I finally got to learn how to make tamales. YAYAYAYAY ME! Thank God for Tia Nina's toys. Alex had a blast while mommy perfected her masa-spreading skills. You'd never believe how hard those things are to make!!! GEEEZ!

Anyway, Alex is enjoying all his new toys. His sense of humor is crazy just like his father's. Today, he pretended to get his hand stuck in his new toy and scared everybody to death before cracking up for tricking us all. He is a comedian.

I hope to see everybody soon, and I'm looking forward to another great year of seeing Alex grow.

La Migra

Before I go off on my topic, let me just say that I love where we live. It's a great area of San Antonio with great schools, great shopping close by, and 7 minutes from Sea World and Fiesta, TX. It's a great place to raise children despite the horrendous traffic. We are happy!

However, we sometimes wish we could have interviewed our neighbors before moving in. We are one of three Hispanic families that live on our block...there's us, one family that lives 4 houses down and the other is our next door neighbor. My theory that the house next door is a halfway house filled with juvenile felons has yet to be discredited. When we first moved in back in March 2006, Eddy swears that he met a "parent-like" figure that owned the house, but we haven't seen this alleged adult rear his head since we moved in. There are literally 7-9 cars parked in the garage, driveway, and/or street at any given time after 2:30 p.m., none of which are new and all appear to be driven by teenagers. More cars end up on the street when one of the cars is being worked on on the driveway. The oldest person I have seen is approximately 23 years of age, and he has to be the most obnoxious one of the entire herd for blasting his tejano music (no offense intended to my people) from his teal low-rider truck. This is the elegant truck that is always in the driveway appearing to be having mechanical work done with music blasting. AHHHHH!

Yesterday, when my dad and stepmom arrived at our house, the truck was in the neighbor's driveway blasting the tejano music with nobody in sight, and my dad, being the former deportation officer that he is, yelled from the street in a joking manner, "What the hell is this? Call La Migra!" My face turned red, but my father did what no one else on this street has had the nerve to do for the past 2 1/2 years.

It was great, and we have yet to hear the music blasting today. It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't constantly committing neighborly fouls. If it's not the music, it's their dog getting in to our yard to anger the Bubs, late night (we're talking midnight here people) honks from visitors looking to pick up one of the many little pre-teens living in the house, parties with loud music, cars peeling out past 11 p.m., or stealing one of the trees from our neighborhood to replace a tree in their front yard that died. Fortunately, another neighbor busted them and called the cops on them, but they still had the nerve to try and put it up in their front yard. We're talking real winners here! How they manage to afford a home upwards of $200k is beyond me.

Christmas Spirit

Garden Ridge has been in spirit of the holidays since August, at least, which is always great, but their prices never seem to change with the season. They offer discounts periodically so that you believe you are getting a steal when in reality, you're paying normal prices...you just don't feel so bad about it because it's so "Christmas-y."

Anyway, Eddy and I decided that we were going to get Alex the Elmo Live doll for Christmas. We broke down and bought it for him already just for kicks, and he is so indifferent about it that it kills us knowing that spent 60 bucks on that thing. We are seriously thinking about returning it although we've considered keeping it assuming he might grow into it. Ahhh...who knows!?

My aunt recommended giving him a cardboard box, and I think we might just have to do that. I guess it's better than a lump of coal.

My Politics

I don't really use this blog to discuss my politics; I leave that to my myspace blog www.myspace.com/ronnieboo808 if you're interested. But, I must urge all my friends and family to get out there and vote on Tuesday if you didn't take advantage of early voting already.

I am a loyal Democrat and already voted for Barack Obama, the main man I have been rooting for since he declared his candidacy. Even if you are for John McCain, which I probably won't understand but I am willing to listen to your side of the story because I'm open-minded like that, I urge you to get out there and vote! Don't allow long lines or the fear of being called to jury duty sway your desire to get out there (if you registered, then you're already on the list...sorry.)

To persuade you to vote for my guy:

1) He's a charismatic, intelligent, open-minded being that is just pretty freakin awesome.
2) By "spreading the wealth," he means that he'll be making the big bad oil companies, insurance companies, drug companies, and billionaires start paying their fair share in taxes after the failure of 8 years of Bush's trickle down economic policies...you don't believe me? OPEN YOUR EYES...CHECK YOUR 401K...Republican economic policies don't work in your favor...even if you make $500k/year...the Republican's idea of "wealthy" is far more wealthy than what you and I can even imagine...we're talking billions of dollars here people
3) He's pro-choice...not pro-abortion. If a woman is raped or has been a victim of incest, she might not be able to have that child aborted under Sarah Palin's idea of women's rights. Senator Obama and other liberals don't think it's right for any person to use abortion as birth control...it's merely a choice for a woman to make with her doctor in the event that her health or the health of her baby is at risk. Why should government intervene with the choices we make with our bodies?
4) He's got some pretty awesome advisors at his side. He isn't using the same ol' political advisors Democrats have historically used. He's reaching out beyond the Democratic comfort zone and seeking advice of knowledgeble people, regardless of political affiliation. I truly feel that he will work beyond party lines to do what's best for this country.

Don't have you convinced yet? Let's talk about it. Unfortunately, too many people can't or won't open their minds. 25% of Texans polled this week think that Senator Obama is a Muslim. Stop perpetuating the hate!

Wasteful Picky Eater :-)

I wouldn't call myself a picky eater, per se, but I have a preference for certain foods over others. My theory is that because my mom, grandmothers, and all my aunts are/were great cooks, I was exposed only to the best dishes (mostly Mexican) growing up. Thus, I now only prefer to eat good food. Growing up, I wasn't exposed to an eclectic variety of food mostly because Asian and cultural foods weren't readily available in Laredo. When we moved to Houston, my parents were so use to our repertoire that we didn't really stray from our usual suspects: mole, tacos, roast, baked chicken, etc.

Now that I suffer from severe food allergies, venturing out to try new foods isn't really an option (doctor's orders.) So, I'm trying to be more adventurous with my cooking at home. My mother-in-law (shout out Mary) was over here this weekend, and she asked me, "What are you going to do with that pumpkin?" My immediate response was, "We're gonna carve it, duh." Mary said, "Oh, Henry would make me do something with it, make empanadas or something." That made me realize again, another way that I can stop being so wasteful. If there's one thing my father-in-law, Henry, isn't, it's wasteful. We can all take a thing or two from a page in Henry's book of life, and one of those things is STOP BEING WASTEFUL!

I was such a food snob growing up that I refused to eat leftovers. Now, I embrace leftovers, provided they reheat well. *Any Mexican knows that Mexican rice does not reheat well.* I don't consider myself a culinary artist, but I can cook up some pretty awesome Mexican dishes, thanks to my Tia Nina's cookbook and self expirimentation. I can't tell you how much money we've saved by eating home cooked meals 70% of the time.

In the spirit of Pumpkin season, check out Alex at the Pumpkin Patch in Medina, TX.