Quick Note

We are leaving tomorrow to Japan! I hate eves. Christmas, New Years, Halloween, Adam & (joke!), Big Events, it always seems to get my stomach upset with anticipation. So much to do, so little time. We have decided not to sleep tonight to get things in order, and so we can sleep on the way there. I’m a little freaked out about the time difference, but I usually adapt well.

Our first plane leaves Austin at 7:10am on Monday, June 30th. We arrive Japan Time: Tuesday July 1st at 3:05pm (or in our time, July 1st, 1:05am). That is going to be a doozy. I’ve scoured all the TSA regulation on what I can bring on the airplane and I’m not too worried. Yes, I will be able to shave my legs and keep my eyebrows at bay. You have no clue how excited I was to hear about this. We fly out AA to LAX and then Korean Air to Tokyo. So out of curiosity I checked out their website, which I found to be very cute with tips on how to survive and international flight. Unfortunately we are not following many of the tips, one major one being GETTING SLEEP BEFORE THE FLIGHT.

But yes. I get to spend tonight packing (Hey I have like 10 hours to do whatever after work before needing to be at the airport). But then 2 hours of that will be spent going to see WallE with the “Posse”. Somehow, when I was 15, I didn’t imagine I would still be hanging out with the same people going into my early mid twenties.

So the moral of the story is: I will not be here for at least 2 1/2 weeks. Unless I randomly find a computer in Japan and spend time working on my blog.  Which, I hope is not the case.

Be back with a plethora of cute things!

RSS!

Sorry guys, dropped the ball on that one. I added an RSS feed so you can know every time I type a letter! Its that tacky awesome pink button on the bottom right for those of you who are RSS savvy. *smooches*

PICTURES!

Okay, so getting the pictures on the internet is a big ol’ pain in the ass, so after a few hours, I had to manually put them in because, apparently, a slide show won’t work in my blog. So here goes nothing with pictures and captions!

Since my mom gave me a box of photos, I thought it would be nice to share a few of them that I thought were neat.

So I thought I would start in the beginning. Here is a picture of my beautiful mother 4 months pregnant with me, or so says the back of the picture. I thought it interesting that at 25, she too wore hair flowers.

As for the next picture, I thought I would preface by saying, I WAS A REALLY FAT BABY. I was a uber fattie. Here is a picture of my adorable, very happy father and my mom.

And here are some more fattie baby picture. I do think I was a really cute baby though.

Here is a picture of my sister and I. It sums up alot.

Here I am around kindergarden. The first picture is of my grandparents, however I am missing a picture of my abuelito.

And here I am around 10 or 11 when I was performing for my folklorico dance group.

And because I had to, a VERY embarrassing picture of my 12th birthday party. But I get to be embarrassed with my dearest Jenelle, featured bottom left.<a

And finally, a weird picture of me freakishly skinny and Shaun with no facial hair. OH THE HORROR!

Yeah, and thats about it. Thought you guys would enjoy. I love old pictures, talk about uber nostalgia.

Ugh…

So, I got next to nothing done – which is no bueno.

So it looks like all my nights for the rest of the week will be doing the things that didn’t get done and whatever I forgot to place on the list. It is Thursday today and we leave on Monday. SCARY! I am starting to lose sleep over the excitement.

So much laundry to do!

Oh, and so Shaun and I are thinking that next year, after the lease is over, we are going to try an live in a foreign country for a few months. I have to ask some questions to the HR ladies at my work about being able to keep my job, but that is what we are shooting for. Now comes the VERY hard task of picking where to go! Are they going to speak English? Spanish? Am I going to have to get off my butt and learn a 3rd language? Its a bit scary, but I REALLY want to do this. We are thinking about taking our puppies too. I’m just not looking forward to them having to spend a week in quarantine.

So I went and visited my mom yesterday. Hung out with her for a few hours. Also received a crap ton of pictures from when I was little and some pictures of my mom when she was preggie with me. All I can say is that my mother, was a TOTAL Milf. I will be scanning a few pictures in a putting them up at some later date. Seeing as I have a bajillion things to do, I may go off course and upload some oldies but goodies. I was looking at some pictures of my abuelita in the 40s (in Mexico) and sweet Jesus the woman was classy. Head scarves, beautiful dresses. She looked like a movie star. She STILL is beautiful. Learned quite a bit of things. My mother used to be an amazing flamenco dancer. She loved dancing. She was trained by Rita Triana, wife of Antonio Triana (one of the most famous flamenco dancers). I remember Rita, she was amazing as well.

(Above is a picture of Antonio)

But yeah. When I find time, I will DEFINITELY post some old baby pictures. You can see how much of a fattie I was.

Ugh. Back to work. Just got back from lunch with my first experience of Persian food. YUMMERS.

STRESS!

Bah, I did it to myself again. Why am I such a chronic procrastinator. Actually, my mantra in college used to be, “I wait until last minute to do things, because that is when I put out my best work.” Which, in some cases, this was true, not in all.

We are one week away from leaving. Our plane leaves next Monday at 6:00am. Somehow at work mandatory over time got called. I was planning on getting stuff accomplished in 3 days and now it was to be scrunched into two… well, one being a whole day “celebrating” my bestfriend’s 21st birthday. So Tuesday is completely out. And Wednesday morning. TEEHEE.

So this is my laundry list of CRAP I somehow have to accomplish over the next week (Shaun and I work Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday getting off at 7pm):

1.) Motivate Shaun to mow the lawn. He is sick. I don’t care. Those weeds are getting nasty and Vladmir our turtle has not eaten them all.

2.) Clean my room. The daunting task that has been looking at me for weeks.

3.) CELEBRATE JOHN’S BIRTHDAY!

4.) Go to a Mandatory work meeting ALL THE WAY IN NORTH AUSTIN. Screw you, North Austin, Screw you.

5.) Go see my mom.

6.) Help my sister move. I have no clue how I got talked into this… oh yeah. The pouty face.

7.) Pick Joe up from the airport. I have no clue how I got talked into this… of yeah. The pouty face.

8.) Go to the bank and let them know we will be in Japan and grab some extra money while we are there (Shaun got “F’ed in the A” when he forgot to tell the bank when he went to London and they froze his account upon landing there and he had no cash).

9.) Pack for Japan. One backpack. Two and a half weeks. Hrmm….

I’m getting more and more anxious as the day of flight comes near. I LOVE TO TRAVEL. I am SOOOOOOO excited. Been talking to Michael for good ideas on what to bring over to Japan so we don’t go into it blindly. I am still trying to convince him to go to a sumo wrestling match and i know Shonen Knife is playing a few shows while we are there. *crosses fingers!*

So 90% (85% of all statistics are made up on the spot) of everything I need to do is on Wednesday. This will be fun. What can I say, I like a challenge? I think I’m going to die.

OH! AND BEFORE I FORGET! SOMEONE NEEDS TO LEND ME A BOOK TO READ.

I am so sick…

I am so sickened by how racially charged this election has gotten. I am disgusted how GOP Texas Southerners are representing “us” badly, like we were in the freaking Civil War still. Wake the fuck up people.

I am by no means republican, but I am still horrified that these were passed out at the Texas GOP Convention.

I’m sick of it. I can’t deal with it. I cry over this shit TOO MUCH. I still have nightmares of being called a “little spic” by a Black man. I would NEVER stoop that low to throw the N Bomb. Why? Because it will just perpetuate the issue. Shaun went out there and sorted it out. What would he have done if the man had hit my dogs with the plank of wood? What would I have done?

I am worried about my kids. I hated being brought up where I was too white to be Mexican and too Mexican to be white. Why did it matter? WHY. I thought this plight would be over. This election is going to bring the worst out in people. In the end, you just have to ask yourself, “Why does this matter?”

Art and Other things.

So a few very good friends of mine and I decided to catch Happy Hour one night last week after I got off of work. This was the first Happy Hour experience I have had, but it was a good one. One of the main conversations that stuck in my head was the subject of art. Being out of school and all, I feel as though I have been lacking outlets in which to express myself. I’ve finished the painting that I had been working on for a few years. Anyway, so I’ve decided to do a few things for my art.

I’ve started thinking about what painting I will be doing next. The fact that the possibilities are so endless is a little daunting, expecially when I knew exactly what I wanted this previous one. I DO know it will be red. So once I get back from Japan I will get to pick my canvas and go. Its almost like picking a puppy. OH THE POSSIBILITIES!

Here is the painting I did ALL FINISHED!

I am also going to start looking for drum lessons when we get back as well. I’m picking it up pretty fast, however I haven’t been able to devote as much time to it as my wrists have been hell. That and it’s always intimidating to start something new.

Me and my drums! I am so happy!

Also, Shaun will be starting school in the fall hopefully! Or, he says he wants to take classes. Hopefully I can start my intro to art classes at ACC so I can take the REAL art classes (aka painting, welding, etc.). Considering my entire major was basically some sort of art, I am appalled I have to take “here is a line” shit. However, doing to live nudes will be alot of fun. Maybe I will find another type of art I can semi do .:D

Shaun also may be getting a promotion… maybe.. at work. If he does his schedule will be him working 5 days a week with my 4. I am going to definitely take the day he isn’t at home and plop myself at Ruta Maya to enjoy a book, some coffee, and work on making my blog site look beautiful. All in all things are looking up.

I even did some early Japan packing. I AM SO STOKED! 2 weeks till we leave! Have my digital camera AND my 35 mm all packed and ready to go. Hopefully I’ll have some amazing pictures. It has been a while since I have messed with an SLR. My mother gave it to me. Once upon a time ago she was as motivated as me and LIKED art… then she changed somewhere and isn’t nearly as passionate. Its very disheartening and sad. I’m hoping to end up being the crazy cat lady (sans cats add dogs) with crazy art everywhere and awesome weird art things hanging from my tree. I know what my first hanging art will be….

It’s a tree!

I’m trying so hard to live to the fullest. I went to the gym today. I’m not 143 pounds. 2 pounds shaved off last year! WOOOO! I WANT to be that person that motivates people. I used to be. And then I got lazy. I want stories to tell and experiences to be had.

So enough with my boring talk of motivation.

My dog is my child.

You know, you always kinda chuckle to yourself when people claim that the reason they don’t have children is because they have dogs. I experienced that thought to myself last night.

Gizmo. My baby. My 20 pound standard dapple dachshund. His dad was a show dog and his mom is a sweetheart = WAY TOO MUCH PERSONALITY.

This week he has started driving me mad. To preface, my dog is known to have an iron stomach (which for a purebred is rare). Over the 8 years I have had him, he has passed: Foil, Rope, A giant bag of chocolate, Condoms, a PLETHORA pairs of underwear, and more things I am sure I have forgotten… and has lived to “talk” about it.

The most recent “notch in his belt” has been the devouring of a dead bird, complete with the beak flying off as he bit into the head. That was gross needless to say. He spent the night outside and had a VERY thorough bath and teethbrushing the next day. I am pink eye free and happy.

(Kinda like that but bird-y)

Yesterday Barrel and Giz got into a fight. It has been quite a while since their last one. Actually, now come to think of it, they both still had their testicles (which is why they are now missing). My dog, my beautiful god, now looks like tramp. Barrel always escapes unscathed and Gizmo always has a new scar. The most recent? A half inch rip in his ear. We were considering taking him to go and get stitches, but I think he will be fine. There was not much blood and we have had to take care of him through worse Barrel injuries than this one.

So to get back to the point. I find myself YELLING at my dog.

“You are such a waste of a purebred. Seriously. Like, your dad won prizes and all you can do is eat underwear and get scars. You look like Tramp now and now I am just going to LEAVE you with the scar so everyone sees how careless you are with yourself!”

(Kinda like this but waaaaaaaaaaaaaay less cute.)

And then I realized I was talking to my dog. And then I realized I was talking to Gizmo who knows DAMN WELL what I am saying and it drives me nuts that my dog has so much personality in such a small package. Am I ready for children? At this point, if I can’t keep my dog from eating a rotting carcass, I double think myself.

I will post a picture of his latest battle scar when I get home from work.

I AM HERE!

At last! I am here at last!

After a most enlightening dinner with a few friends of mine, I have decided to test the waters of serious blogging. I have wanted to keep an interest in something artistic, something where I could input my experiences into the cold, endless world of the internet.

I think the scariest thing about it is thinking that you always have to have something witty and interesting to say. Well, I think I will be blogging about my day to day life and my interesting perceptions and experiences in it. I have to say, although I may not have the most crazy, daring life, I am happy to say I do have an interesting one. Spawning from parents that were loving (yet boring) I have come a long way.

My husband and I will be leaving to Japan in 2 1/2 weeks. We are the only ones in our family to have the desire to see the world and leave the country at all. We have Barbados under our belt. NEXT, THE WORLD! So I will be posting some awesome pictures of our experiences. I will be bringing our regular craptacular digital camera and my SLR that my mother gave me (I guess he wasn’t that boring, but still). So here I am, in all my “glory”, attempting to start a lame blog and hope people will actually think I’m somewhat interesting and read it.

I will leave you with an interesting picture:

Hello world!

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