Happy New Year!
Wishing you all a happy new year’s eve. Hope it’s a good one and don’t drink and drive!
Goodbye 2006, you were good to me!
The Year in Pictures
Here’s my annual “Year of Pictures” thread. I tried not to put in TOO many pictures of Ben, but it was hard to choose my favorites!
Enjoy!
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The Woman on the Left
There’s a secret I’ve been hiding from you all for a while now. I’ve been wanting to talk about it, but in truth, it wasn’t my secret to tell. But let me tell you what happened on Christmas Eve at my dad’s house…
My dad doesn’t like throwing parties…especially after my mother passed away. She loved to have parties at the house, though we’d always get stressed out with all the preparation it would take to get the house ready. After she died, the house changed, and I know my dad didn’t want to have a lot of people over, and no one wanted to ask him to host any of the annual parties. The first party we had at the house was Claudine and Dan’s post wedding party, and that was three years after my mom.
So I’m sure people were surprised when my dad announced he was going to host the annual Christmas party. It’s been a LONG time since Christmas was hosted at our house! We all gathered there and my dad called everyone to come around the dinner table for prayer. Surprisingly, he led the prayer and afterwards he had a little something to say.
He looked to the woman standing next to him and introduced her to the room as his wife. Yes, my father is now a married man. I have a step mom.
Of course, many people in the room knew already, since my father had confided in a couple of them. Me and my sisters already knew - luckily he told us BEFORE he got married, months ago. Yes, months ago…it’s been several months he’s been married.
I looked around the room to see some expressions of surprise, and the smallest bit of tension in the room. Then, a voice exclaimed, with warmth and love, “Welcome to the family!” It was my Tita Ellen, my mom’s best friend. I cannot tell you how much this little gesture meant to me. It eased the tension in the room, and started the words of congratulations from everyone. My uncle then cried out, “Do we all get to kiss the bride?” and the laughing began…everything was back to normal again.
I know it meant a lot to my dad that his wife was accepted by the family. He knows that my mom was loved by everyone and that some people may have been reluctant to think that he could find a new wife. So it was a great relief to me that my aunts and uncles, my family, welcomed my new step-mom with open arms.
So how do I feel about all this? Well, I really don’t want to go into details about who she is, how my dad met her, how long they’ve been together, etc because that’s not my information to tell, but I admit, at first, it was pretty hard. My mom was everything to me, and it was pretty hard to see my father happy with someone else. But then I realized I was being selfish and that I would rather have my father happy than so sad without my mom. He’s in a good place now, the happiest I’ve seen him in a while, and I know that he’ll never forget my mom, that she’ll always have a place in his heart. My new step mom is really nice, though I admit that I don’t know her too well. But she’s a good person, and she adores Benjamin.
Those of you who were looking at my Christmas pictures might have been wondering who the woman on the left side of my family picture was…now you know!
So life this year has definitely changed! I mean, I now have two step-brothers!
Whoo…it’s nice to get that off my chest!
Favorite Posts of 2006
The end of the year is upon us, so I’ve decided to put up my favorite posts of the last year, since year-end countdowns are all over the place right now!
It’s been a great year!
Digginabox
I don’t think I’ve ever shared this story before, since it happened before I started blogging, uh, 4-5 years ago. It happened about 9 years ago, when I was still a newbie at X-Systems. Back then, it was a whole different group of people, a little older than the group that I’ve blogged about, but not much older.
There was a woman that I worked with, T, who I would sit and gossip with all day. She was really the only other female there and she was kind of like a big sister to me. We came from totally different backgrounds - I grew up on the northwest side, going to Catholic schools and still living at home. She grew up on the south side and before getting this job struggled to support her little girl. Even though we came from different places, we had a lot to talk about. We were both nosey gossips and loved to go to lunch together.
Anyway, one day, she came into the office and I could tell she was exploding with a story she wanted to share. She got us all together and said, “You guys have GOT to hear what happened to me yesterday!” She was all flustered as she started to tell her story…
What had happened was she was taking the el train home (she doesn’t ride the safest line) and the train was a little packed since it was rush hour. As people got off, the seat next to her opened up. A man took the seat next to her. She didn’t know if he had just gotten on or if he had been standing. She noticed that he was holding a giftwrapped box on his lap. He then started talking to her.
“Man, I’m so excited. I just got my baby a present and I can’t wait for her to open it!”
She looked at him, smiled, and looked away.
The thing about the train in Chicago is that you don’t want to make conversation. Especially with strange men you don’t know. There’s a lot of crazies out there! Believe me - I used to ride one of the nicer lines and even then there were some colorful and scary characters, like the lady who was stroking her stuffed cat and talking to it.
Although my friend gave the guy the unspoken message that she didn’t really feel like talking, he went on…
“I’m a little nervous, though…I mean, I hope she likes it. Hey, can you you check it out? If you’ll like it, I know my honey’s gonna love it.”
“No, that’s ok,” my friend replied.
“Please?!?! I really want my baby to love this present. I’m so excited to give it to her, and I want to make sure it’s something she would like.”
This persisted for a bit, and my friend was getting a little annoyed. The guy would just not let up. She looked at the giftbox and it was wrapped in pretty paper, with a huge pink bow on the top. Finally, just so he would stop, she relented and said she’d check out the present.
“Oh thank you!” he said, “Believe me, I know you’ll love it.”
He took the top off the gift, she looked inside…
…and she screamed.
…it was his penis inside!
He had cut a hole in the back of the box and stuck his penis inside. He must have been holding the present against him as he came inside the train and when he sat down.
She immediately got up and headed to the door, swearing and screaming at him telling him he was sick. Other people who had heard the exchange were also yelling at him. He was laughing the whole time. Luckily, they were coming to a station so she got off and waited for another train.
She was traumatized.
We laughed.
So for the rest of her time there, we’d always bring up “dickinabox” and break out into laughter. After some time she laughed about it, too, because it was so crazy. I mean, what kind of whacko would do such a thing?!?!
Well, I guess SNL has those whackos working for them.
Imaging my surprise and delight when I was watching SNL a couple weeks ago and saw this skit (watch your sound - there’s some profanity):
I laughed my ass off. I mean, is the whole dick in a box phenomenon something that happens often enough that SNL does a skit on it? I had thought it was a one time thing!
The other thing that’s so hilarious about the song is that I had no idea that the blonde guy was Justin Timberlake until afterwards. FYI - watch SNL when Justin hosts - he always has the best show because he doesn’t take himself seriously and he’s great at comedy.
Anyway…watch out for men with boxes. If at any time they want to give you a gift, tell them to put it down on the ground and walk away slowly!
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F#@&ing spammers!
Die spammers, die!
- FYI, comments are back up again.
Grr. Spammers. There’s a special place in he11 for you!
Ben’s First Christmas
It was an eventful Christmas this year! Ben and I have been pretty sick, so we’ve both been sneezing, coughing and feverish. But the show must go on, and we prepared for Christmas eve at my dad’s place. As always, we were running late because I had to cook and get Ben ready. We took a couple pics at the house when Dave’s parents came by and then headed out to my dad’s.
After looking at these pictures I realize that my #1 resolution this year is to get that baby weight off. I look like Shamu jumped into the pictures with Dave and Ben!
Anyway, Ben looks so cute in his little vest and tie! You can tell he’s sick because of his watery red eyes and flushed face.
At my dad’s place, we ate and ate and ate. We had a little violin concert, I kicked major ass at Mortal Kombat and then we took family pictures. We took pics of Ben, Kenzo and Jacob, but it was pretty tough since the little guys kept on looking in different place.
Once the pictures were done, the auncles and aunties did some karaoke, singing Christmas songs and songs that had nothing at all to do with Christmas. After all that, we headed out to midnight mass. I had only gotten an hour and a half of sleep the night before so I was exhausted. Fatima had to poke me several times to wake up. I love going to midnight mass at my dad’s church because I get a chance to see a lot of people who I grew up with, all adult with their own families.
After church, it was time to hand out the presents!
It’s always so much fun when the presents are handed out. Of course, we get a little jealous when all the kids get the presents - Kenzo had a million presents. It seemed like every 3rd or 4th present was for him. Ben also got his fair share of Christmas booty. However, he was already asleep since we had started handing the gifts out at around 2 in the morning.
After all the gifts were handed out, we all opened everything at once. The room is filled with “Wow!” “Thank you!” and “This is so cool!” and wrapping paper is flying everywhere.
I finally ended up going to sleep at around 4am. Fatima and the others went on even later than that. When I woke up in the morning (to Benjamin crawling all over me) we opened Ben’s gifts. He was overwhelmed by all the presents he got. He also had three outfit changes when we were opening his gifts - because he puked on himself three times. Poor little guy! But although he was a little grouchy off and on, he was happy most of the time.
Later that day we headed out to Dave’s family’s place for Christmas dinner. Some of Dave’s relatives were there so we exchanged presents.
Ben got even more, and even a personalized chair that he sat in when we took pictures.
We then passed out because we were so exhausted and came down from the sugar rush of leche flan and french silk pie. Each party produced a car load of presents, mostly for Ben. I spent most of yesterday putting together his toys. I never realized that just getting the darn things out the BOXES would be a challenge! The tie them in there real good! 
So I hope you all had a great holiday, and that you spent it surrounded by the warmth of the love of friends and family.
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas everyone! We had a long, fun night, and I have many pictures to post later. For now, here’s my serious kid and Santa Clause!
The Parking Gods Love Me
I thought I was only going to be gone for a couple hours, but my last-minute shopping turned into a 6 hour shopping fest.
…and yes, I went to the mall.
I really had no choice. My dad called and asked me to find him a last minute gift for someone and he was pretty specific. The only place I could get it was at the mall. So, being the dutiful daughter I always am (ha!) I got over my fear of the holiday mall craziness and went there, fearing the worst. But today, the light of the parking gods shone on me. I turned into an aisle just in time to catch a car coming out of its space a mere three spots in front of the mall.
Not only that, but pretty much EVERY place I went to I got lucky and was no more than 5 parking spots in front of the entrance, with two of them being right in front of the stores. To spread the “good parking” love, after shopping I made sure to find cars that were looking for spots and point them to my rock star parking spots. I even helped out a woman who got shafted on a spot when another car took the spot she had been waiting for - lucky for her, my spot was better than the spot she had her eye on!
So I’m thankful for this early Christmas present. I should have waited this long to buy presents, and I’m thankful that I haven’t been punished for it!
…of course, now that I’ve mentioned this, I’m NEVER going to find a parking spot again!
I Guess It Wasn’t the Lemon
So I took Ben to the doctor yesterday, because he had a high fever. I guess it wasn’t the lemons that made him throw up the other day, he was actually sick. He’d been coughing that day, but we had laughed it off because it sounded like a fake cough, asking him, “What is it, son, the black lung?”
But a couple days ago his cough actually sounded pretty phlegm-y, and he started getting a fever. Yesterday he was pretty grouchy and at times inconsolable, so I took his temp and called the doc.
The doc checked him out and told me it was just a pretty bad cold. He ran a blood test to make sure that every was ok and said that it would take a couple days to get over.
Ben’s had a cold before, but not one including a fever and nausea. He’s handling it like a trooper, though sometimes he’s a little grouchy. He’s actually eating more than normal and he’s still pretty active, so I’m not too worried.
But just to spoil him a bit while he’s sick we had a little campout in his room so he didn’t have to sleep alone…
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I hope you all are having a great holiday/Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus. I’ll be heading out to do some last minute shopping (but NOT at the mall!) and some preparing for tomorrow’s party. I do not have ONE present wrapped yet, but hopefully I’ll get them all done tonight!
