A Productive Day!

1. THE ROYERS ARE MOVING BACK TO TEXAS!!! Who are the Royers you ask? Why no one else but these wonderful people:

My Brother In Law Casey, my sister Christina and Mr. Jack!

[That's my mom on the far right, she's not moving back, she's already here! ;) ]

Casey will be the first one back since he is to start work in San Antonio late July!!! But at some point, within a  few months - they'll be nothing but a few hours drive away!!! I'm super excited! Can you tell?! lol.

I've really missed this little guy

2. Yesterday was a little bittersweet. We found out about my sister moving back and also informed about a high school teacher of mine that passed away. Ms. Rodriguez was the head band director at our rival middle school, and also taught flute at the high school. I wasn't as close to her as some of the other girls but I'd had lessons with her throughout my years there. My deepest sympathy and condolences go out to her family, and I pray that they receive the strength and support they'll need through this difficult time.

3. Early this week I asked for the day off since I knew Danny had today off and we thought we'd take advantage of it and head to Brownsville and continue our search for somewhere to live. At this point we'd already given up hope on houses for lease. There just isn't much in inventory there, so today we just focused on apartments. We looked at a total of about 5 complexes, and at the end of the day we picked one. It's a reasonable monthly rent and was quite inclusive. The only downside is that we can't take Bella! They have a weight restriction on the pets, and she's got to be at least 35 lbs - on her skinny days. And their one time non-refundable pet deposit is $400.00. Yeah, that's a little too much for me. Sorry Bella, I did try!

4. Ashley Furniture is having a special tomorrow for select customers, at least that's what they're telling me! I got a letter in the mail saying I was a preferred customer and that I should come in and take advantage of all the special savings. If it's not really for "preferred customers" I'm going to pretend that it is, it makes me feel special :) lol. SO tomorrow after work Danny and I are going by to see what we can find. We're gonna need some new furniture for our new apartment! Yay! Shopping!! I'm looking forward to it!
Back to the grind tomorrow! Oh joy. Lol. JK About 4 more weeks to go at my current job. Guess I better start looking for a new one :)

Miscellany Monday!

I can't believe another Monday has come and gone! Thank Goodness! lol.

But Monday's mean:

:-)

[1] I have a 4 day work week this week! I've got Wednesday off to go with the hubby and sister to go house/apartment hunting again. I really hope we find something reasonable ...

[2] So I failed at my WJR! Horrible I know. I'm on a mission to get back into it though. All hope is not lost!

[3] I'm really happy about Danny's work schedule this week - he opens all week so we get to carpool to work and spend out evenings together! I really don't like it when he closes.

[4] I'm super jealous that my little sister is going to Chicago this next Sunday for a whole month! We really wanted to go for the 4th of July weekend, but it doesn't look like we'll be able to. I mean we probably could, but that would interfere with our moving plans. I mean first she takes my iPhone, then she leaves me to babysit her pooches & cat for a month! lol. I'm just kidding Audrey! I hope you have a great time visiting Casey, Tina and Jack!!! :-) We'll miss you!

[5] I've been feeling really tired lately. I should be used to my sleeping routine by now, but for some reason I just haven't figured it out. I've been averaging 6-7 1/2 hours a night for about a month and a half now .. you would've thought I'd be used to it by now ... but no. lol.

[6] I made Chicken Flautas for Father's Day lunch with Danny's family yesterday ... and they were so good we decided to make them again for dinner tonight! [My SIL mentioned it on FB earlier, plus they're super cheap to make] They came out yummy today too!

Fresh limeade - Chicken Flautas with a side of Mexican Rice and lettuce with lime and salt. Jalapeno/Guac sauce for dipping. :-)

Pet's via Kindred Connection!

I saw this from Natalie's blog and thought it'd be fun to blog about my baby's too!

WARNING! PICTURE OVERLOAD! :-)

Questions:
1. What pets currently reside at your house?
(If you don't have any now, tell us what you grew up with)

Well since we're still at my dad's we've got a ton! Bella and Smokey are ours. Then there's my sisters: Pudge, Chiquita and Erin - plus Erin's 3 kittens! And my dad has Daisy!

Bella

Smokey

Pudge & Chiquita

Erin

(L-R) TJ, EJ, and MJ

Daisy

We're a big 'ol happy family! Did you count? That's 9 in total!


2. What is one really strange thing your pet(s) does?

Bella eats lying down.

Smokey likes to hang out outside on top of one of the AC units. That seems to be his favorite one.

3. Now fess up here: give us your nicknames for your pets (we KNOW you have them- and we KNOW they're good)!

Bella: Poochie ... Bella ... Baby ... My Bella ... Chiflada {spanish for spoiled, because lets face it, she is} Cochina {spanish for icky} ... Pooch ...

Smokey: Smokey ... Smokey-pants ... Smokey Okey ... Cat ... Canijo {curious little punk} --- and Danny and my dad like to call him Smokette, because he's fixed. lol. They're mean, I know!

4. Are your pets spoiled or not (grin)?
Yes. I'm not afraid to admit it. I love them to death and I treat them that way.

Bella on the couch with Danny

Smokey laying with me on the couch

5. Insert pet pics here :-)

Ready? lol.

Bella, the day I adopted her.

See. Spoiled.

Bath time!

I think she's trying to tell me something here! lol. That was Chiquita's bed.

Smokey, always wanting attention when I'm busy with something else.

He sleeps A LOT!

Where I'd like to be right now ...

... For at least 2 weeks. At least.

That is all.

Miscellany Monday!

Another Monday has come and gone! And the day is not over yet, which means I have time to participate in another Miscellany Monday with Carissa!

1. Erin - my sister's cat, had 3 kittens. Some days I want to keep them all because they're so gosh darn cute!

Unfortunately I can't, Danny and I already have Bella and Smokey. So right now we've been trying to look for permanent homes for them, until then we'll just continue to foster them for as long as we can.

2. I don't know what's been up with me lately, but I've been screwing up my rice! And by rice, I mean Mexican rice - the orangy, delicious one ;-) But anyway, the past couple of time's I've made it, it's come out ok. Here at my house we like our rice nice and fluffy, and dry. Somewhere in the browning process, I'm doing something wrong - or different. Last week it came out too dry, it was undercooked because I didn't have enough water in there for the rice, so I added more water and it came out fluffed but moist. A little too moist for our liking. And today I made another batch for my dad because he wanted mole leftovers for dinner. And this time I had too much water in there! Something's off ...

3. I've come to notice that I'm addicted to Tetris. I have the app on my phone. Not my iPhone, because I don't have that one anymore! :( Another post on that later. I can play that for hours! I started playing the one available on Facebook recently. Back in high school Danny and I had a portable handheld one. Similar to this:

 

4. Today I complete Day 2 of my new WJR [walking.jogging.running] routine that I've just started. lol. I wanna try and keep up with it. Recently I'd been feeling really down because I've gained weight, and I can see it. I can feel it. And I was just moping around about it and not doing a darn thing about it. But now, I feel good. And I almost gave in and didn't go to the park today after work because I was still really sore from yesterday. But it'll get easier. At least I hope it does :) I took Bella with me. That girl has got to learn to pace herself. The first mile she was walking me and the second mile I was dragging her! It was fun though, I'm glad she got to get out of the house for a bit.

Weekend Recap!

Yesterday was fairly busy - we all woke up insanely early for a Saturday. There were a couple of errands we wanted to get done, and some that had to be done morning/mid-morning: like go to the bank.

For breakfast I made the hubby oatmeal while he got ready for work, no big challenge there! lol. And for the first time ever, I poached eggs! I youtube'd it so I could see someone else do it and so that I could get an idea of what I needed to do. It was very easy and was pretty tasty. I had 2 with some wheat toast.

Then we were off!

Errands to accomplish:

1.Close my old bank account.

This didn't take long at all. The line was at the drive-thru banking. While we were waiting an elderly man who came in about 5 minutes after us just began to talk to us. Poor guy, he'd just lost his wife and had gotten a letter in the mail about $5,000 having been deposited into his account. He was there to see if it was true and how it came to be. I think it must've been recent, his wife's death - he was almost in tears talking about her. He said they'd had a great, long ride together. I thought it was so sweet the way he was talking about her.

2. Deliver Glee - Road to Sectionals to my cousin Victoria. 

Yes we have this on DVD already. We're hooked! I love the Acafellas' episode with Josh Groban. He was funny in the season finale too! But not my cousin Victoria finally got into it, she said the Gaga episode got her.  

3. Head to Best Buy to use a gift certificate we earned through their Reward Zone program.

Best Buy gave us Flyleaf's cd :)

4. Go to BB&B to exchange a coffee maker we bought and a pizza pan for some other things.

What I love about BB&B is if you use their 20% off coupon to purchase something, and then later you want to exchange it - they'll give you the full purchase price's worth in store credit! A couple of weeks ago we went to buy a coffee maker and a coffee bean grinder because Danny wanted them and we didn't recieve those as wedding presents .. and we had gift cards .. and coupons that were about to expire.  I'm not a big coffee drinker, I drink coffee occasionally. But anyway, just this past week we got a belated wedding gift from one of my dad's ex-coworkers. It was a really nice coffee maker. It totally kicked our little one's butt! So we kept it :) In exchange I got some kitchen storage containers, for like pasta and flour, etc. A fleece throw, because you just never know. And a nylon whisk :) Exciting stuff huh? lol.

5. LUNCH!

For the first time ever, my sister Audrey and I went to try McAllister's! It was delicious!

^^^ Our panini's :-)

And the sweet tea, AWESOME! lol. I'm pretty picky on the tea. I hate the instant stuff - it's gotta be brewed. And sometimes, someplaces overdo it on the sugar. I mean yeah, "sweet" tea but I don't like for it to taste like sugar. Gosh. lol.

6. Make a pit stop at Pier 1 on the way home.

It was right there on the way home, so how could we not just stop in and take a look around! :) ANd of course, we found lots of things  we wanted to bring home with us. I don't know why we torture ourselves like that ... we were then inspired to suddenly go on the search for a cookie jar. We looked there, but no such luck. So then we went by Hobby Lobby, which was on the opposite side of town ... and didn't buy a cookie jar, but instead I got some more scrapbooking supplies! I was lured in by their annoucement that they had a table with special discontinued pages - 10 for $1.00! How could I not pass that up! So I got some letter stickers, more glue, my special bargained pages, and a package of scraps. A blog on that [scrapbooking] coming soon.

7. Rent a movie!

Redbox is our go-to for this. It's fast, convenient and cheap! My sister and I rented Young Victoria. I really enjoyed it a lot, more than I initially thought I would.

Today is Sunday and I've been up since 6:45 AM! I went to the park with my sister where I walked/jogged/ran 2 miles. I know thats not a lot, but I'm just getting back into it. It was certainly hot enough, but luckily there was a bit of a breeze. I made us some breakfast and then bathed 3/4 of the dogs. Now I'm just gonna relax the rest of the day and enjoy what's left of my weekend.

Meatball hoagies for dinner :-)

Enough already!

It's been way too long! I didn't even intentionally leave my blog out to dry! What a huge fail! lol.

I don't even have a good reason for not posting, that's the worst part!

So I'll start getting back into this by updating on recent happenings. However, I don't have any pictures to share with this post :(

[A] We have a total of 9 pets in this house. Yes. 9. The hubby brought it up. And truthfully, only 2 are ours. The extra we gained were the 3 kittens my sister's cat Erin had. Yes I know, that means we had 6 pets before the kittens. And yes, I know - 6 is still a lot! lol. Unfortunately, things aren't going to great in the "Find homes for the kittens" department. It seems like every cat and their mother just had a litter of kittens. So we're gonna foster them as long as we can. They're just so darn cute though!

[B] This past weekend (6/5) we attempted to go out and house/apt. hunt! There we went all pumped up and excited to see what we'd find. It.was.awful! Brownsville is the target city, and it's huge - I mean it's a border city that has a university and 5 high schools. We drove around for about 4-5 hours and you know how many places we found? 2. One was a house and the other was part of a duplex. The duplex was fully upgraded and included just about everything AND already has a fenced backyard for Bella. We don't know anything about the house because the landlords didn't answer the phone when we tried calling for info. What it's going to come down to is the monthly rent payment. And after weighing just about every factor out, it looks like now we're going to focus on looking for an apartment - which means we'll have to pay a seperate deposit to keep our dog. Which also means, Smokey won't be joining us for awhile. He'll be fine, he's a low maintenance cat :)

[C] Danny has secured a job for himself at the Best Buy in Brownsville, so we'll have a pretty good transition once we move, which will be that last weekend in July. I've already committed to staying at my current job through July 30th to help with filing payroll reports.

[D] I'm really sad that Glee just had their season finale this past Tuesday! Every time it went to commercial, we'd look at the clock to see how much time was left over, lol. But it was a great episode! They're helping bring back the awesomeness of JOURNEY!

[E] I've realized I only occasionally use my Twitter account. More so to complain about the songs that play on the radio. Recently, that Miley Cyrus and David somethingorother duet. I mean, really! Do people really request that song be played once every hour? That or Gaga's Alejandro. I kid you not! Some days both songs are played once every hour! Ridiculous. And that's because the station is called MIX ###.# Why don't I just change the station you ask? Because on a good day - which is rare, they'll have a great variety playing. That and because I have the cheapest alarm clock radio in my office and I refuse to get up to search through and find one station without the static.

[F] Over the past couple of weeks I've only baked a handful of times. But now, I may or may not be baking at the Best Buy my hubby works at. Details are still to be figured out and discussed with their GM. So we'll see. That'd be pretty cool. If I do it, I'll probably just bake my chocolate chip cookies.

So those are the updates for now! Regular posting to resume back to normal! Hopefully. Don't quote me here. lol.