Hmmm: 03/01/2004 - 04/01/2004

Wednesday, March 31, 2004

Ups & Downs

The day started pretty well. I got a surprise call from a friend (:X :X :X :X :X ). He had said he'd call last night once he got home but I waited and waited AND waited ALLLL night long but no call (hehe. Just messing with ya. ^_~ I went to bed at midnight as always). So I figured something came up and such. Well, whoa surprise! He gives me a call in the morning in my cel. ^_^

SP (I wouldn't want anyone reading this to suddenly be stalking him!) and I have known each other for over 2 years now, but only online (yes, I am a big geek. Call me a Webbie) and it feels great to finally add the voice (and a very nice voice at that) to the face and mind.

*sigh* But days that start happy don't always finish happy happy. Another one of my friends who was quite excited about recent news had a miscarriage. Never having been pregnant myself (and since even the slightest scare about it drives chills down my spine) I cannot know how she possibly feels. However, I do know that she is a young, smart lady and that the next time, she will not be just 'nicely surprised' and that she will plan from day one so that she is extremely healthy and ready, for the coming of the new life. Keep strong my friend, things happen for a reason and although these were unfortunate news, you and your husband's strength at this time will be rewarded more than double in the future.

Tuesday, March 30, 2004

Have you ever had that feeling?

The guilt feeling? I know, I know, there are just so many different guilty feelings. Well here goes: One of my friends was going through some rough moments; everyday things as they appear to me, but since I am not the one living them I am not overly stressed about it, of course. Well, in the couple of years that we've talked to each other I know he has a quick temper. He gets stressed, he begins to cuss and get angry, and most of the time (as it happens to many of us) he lets it all out on whoever he is talking to - lately it has been me. *shrugs*

But things go by quickly. He gets serious, I get serious. He gets upset, I keep on being my unattached self (heck, he's my friend, I shouldn't get tremendously pissed at him, right?). He begins to cuss and threatening to leave our conversation, I tell him to go ahead and good night. One or two days later, things are back to normal; the happy happy people that we are. But then... he or I say something that we would generally consider a stupid, non-funny joke (but a joke nonetheless) and the skies turn dark and the machines overload and there we are… tense at each other once more.

It used to happen once in a blue moon... but now it is every single time we get on line and talk to one another. >_<

Why do I feel guilty even though he is the one to start the fault? (It is hardly ever my fault. I am just so great. Riiight.) I guess... it's just... that he is a friend. And perhaps I should be a little more lenient with friends, a little more sensitive even. That, plus I get the feeling that he may not be coming online to at least talk because he may still be upset at anything. Of course it could be that he simply has not had the time but...

It makes one wonder...

Monday, March 29, 2004

Caldo de Camaron (Shrimp Soup)

1 lb of shrimp (with or without tails, that's up to you)
2 cans of tomato sauce (8 oz each)
4-5 cups of water
1/2 onion, chopped
1 carrot (or 2 :D) sliced
2 medium potatoes chopped into cubes
2 tablespoons of oregano (separated, 1 tbsp, 1 tbsp)
1 tablespoon of garlic powder
1 tablespoon of olive oil
*Chipotle sauce (optional, but if you use it it will really give it a nice kick)
No salt necessary, but if you like it, go ahead.

*You find Chipotle sauce in the foreign food section of your supermarket. I use Del Monte. FYI: Generally, Chipotle sauce (blended chipotle) is less hot than whole Chipotle chile 'in' sauce.

Heat the olive oil. While the oil is getting ready, wash the shrimp.
Throw one small bit of onion into the oil. Just one. If the onion sizzels then it means the oil is hot enough to cook the onion. Put all the onion in, careful not to splash (or you may burn yourself). Cook onion until it is glazed (becomes transparent) but not brownish. If it starts to get brownish from the edges (burnt), lower the heat and make sure you move around the onion with a cooking spoon.
When onion is ready, add in the 2 cans of tomato sauce followed by 4-5 cups of water. Add the chipotle chili (this one is hot, so make sure you can handle it), if you feel it may need more you can ad it in later, you do’t want to throw in a can of hot sauce because then it may end up being too hot to taste. Stir the tomato sauce, water and chile and then sprinkle 1 tablespoon of oregano and the 1 tablespoon of garlic powder over the broth. Cover the pot and let it simmer.
Once the broth begins to boil throw in the shrimp. Cover once more and let it begin to boil. Check on it from time to time while you chop the potatoes and carrots. You may add more water if you feel the soup is getting too thick, but that depends on how you like your soups – thick or watery. ^_~
Again, when the soup begins to boil, add in the carrots and five minutes later add the potatoes. Sprinkle the last remaining oregano over the soup. You can taste the soup and if it is not spicy enough you can add more chipotle.
The soup will be ready when you are able to easily split a piece of potato with the spoon. Turn off the burners and let it cool down slightly.

Serve warm with a side of Spanish rice (or white, whichever) and a slice of bread.

Mmmmmm-mmmmm!

Sunday, March 28, 2004

Neato weekend

Went bowling Saturday with my hubby and invited my parents. We got beat both times but it's alright. hehe. However, I made the highest score ever! I made a nice 122, which is not bad at all for me.

Went shopping for the usual stuff and ate pizza afterwards. Oklahoma State Vs erm... some school. Oklahoma won and that was my husband's college so he was, well... happy about it. ^_~

Today has been lazy as usual. We did some laundry, watched TV, and took a nice 3 hour nap. Made some shrimp soup and that's what we just had for dinner. Yum yum. Recipe tomorrow!

Saturday, March 27, 2004

The Goose

My dog (the one at my parents') was getting out of the property and going to the neighbor's yard to steal goose eggs. In one of those, my sister picked up from her one of these eggs and after checking it for a while against the light (these things are HUGE! Like 2 tennis balls put together) she noticed a little dark circle inside. She browsed the net and researched on the development cycle of the geese and decided to give a try at hatching the egg. This was about 5 weeks ago.

Yesterday morning she gave my mom and I a call and said that the egg was cracking and that something that looked like a little foot was beginning to stick out. We were pretty excited but she said that it was early. Apparently a goose egg needs 6 weeks to hatch... So we thought that perhaps the mother goose had been hatching the egg for 1 or 2 weeks before our dog stole it. Well we were all happy and my sis went out to buy some chicken food (goose, chicken... What's the difference right?) and said she'd be close by just in case the thingy needed help getting out.

Later at night, around 8 pm, she gave me a call because she couldn't find mom. I noticed a little accent in her tone. She said that while she was doing stuff around the house she heard a crack in the kitchen. She ran inside because she thought it was about time and the goose was trying to get out, but she was met by this ugly, rotten smell! She checked the egg and noticed a long crack and something whitish coming out from it. She wasn't sure if that was normal or not... Babies come out all dirty so... maybe birds do too. Well, since it was already cracked she tried to open it up a bit and more liquid (this time grayish yellow) came out. She said it smelled really bad and that she saw a little red something in it. After fully opening the egg she could see the goose, but it just wasn't complete. She seemed sad and asked if perhaps she should have left it crack alone. That maybe she had killed it when she opened it... :(

I told her not to worry. That her baby had probably died a while back. It is like those dogs one finds along the road after a couple of days of being hit - they get bloated with gases. So probably the goose had died a while back and the shell could no longer contain the fumes that had formed in there. She ended up agreeing with me, but still was sad about it since she had spent so much time taking care of it. She bought the lamp; measured the temperature; turned it as the notes online said; even had a calendar of what the goose was supposed to look like each day... I wonder what went wrong.

*sigh* She was so excited about it... but it just wasn't meant to be.

Friday, March 26, 2004

Argh!

Some clients just do not appreciate the work that I do. If they have a problem with my work then perhaps they should stop asking me to help them out. One of these clients claims that "Nobody down here knows how to type! Not even you." Excuse me?

A while back I typed some document for him and yes, although I proofread, sometimes I miss things - that is why I ask all of my clients to read and reread and reread their work before getting stuff printed. Well, this was one letter and he made one measly copy of it (and it wasn't like a 50-page report either, it was about 2 pages only... he just doesn't know how to use a computer). Well, he sat down with me, read it and said "okay make me a copy."

I did not make any typos, except that I wrote down something for other. A swap of letters. Well, I do not claim to be the best typer in the world... nor am I great at spelling or grammar, but that's why a client is responsible for checking their things. If they find anything amiss, I gladly change it. No problemo - my mistake. Well, we are talking 20 cents for the fricken copy and then my typing time (made him a favor and did not charge him a full hour even though he kept me busy for almost a whole one because the man isn't even capable of scrolling a page), so it was a total of like $3.20 (I should have charged 12.20, how nice am I?). The next day he came back and told me about the swapped letters. No problem, I pulled out the saved document and made him another print - no charge (20 cents, no biggie right?).

Well... it has been about 2 months since that incident and he had never brought it up until today. I was like.. WTF! Well here comes the why:

I made a small site for him. Nothing big, he went for the basics because he did not want to pay much. That was my mistake... I should not come to compromises with anyone regarding my work. If they can't pay then I should not give them my time. But *sighs* business is starting and we aren't doing that great so I said... why not? A few extra bucks are better than none at all. His site had been up and operational since last December. He is usually out of town and he had come on the 24 near closing time and asked me to please, please hurry and put 'something' because he wanted to have his site up and running that same day. So I spoiled my Xmas working on his project. It is March now... the End of March now so free updates have pretty much expired - I give 1 to 3 months of updates on pages depending on what type of site I make; his qualified for a month.

A week ago he walked into the store and asked me if I could give him a few minutes to make some changes to his site. I said I could not on that day because I was very, very busy, but if he came another day (preferably scheduled) that it would be no problem. He said it was nothing big just wanted to give me what to do, etc. Apparently he needed it done 'pronto.' I said, "Alright, but it still cannot be done today. But whenever we do sit down to talk about it then I can go ahead and take down all information and pass you the bill. Or you can just write it down and I will get to it as soon as I finish what I am doing at the moment." Well, he got stuck on the word 'bill.' Asked how much it would be and I simply said $75. His eyes popped out. "$75 dollars?! It is just a little change!"

"Well, yes. That is my monthly fee for updates on existing pages."

"But I just need you to take stuff out and add some small paragraphs. $75 dollars for that?!"

"It is a monthly fee, not a fee per change."

"it's too much."

"I do not think you appreciate what I am doing here, Sir. I spent 6 years in schools for this." That's right... Bachelors and a Master degree. This guy is a truck driver, he gets paid $1000 a month for just sitting on his butt driving the thing. I know this because he told me. And he's crying for $75 a month?! That's about 2.50 a day! HELLOOOOO!

"No, no. forget it. Leave things as they are." and he left.

That was then. Today he walks in at around noon and asks if I could give him a few minutes at around 3:30 - he needed to talk about the site. I said, "3:30, sure. I should be done with this machine by then." I was troubleshooting a machine at the time.

He did not show until 5:54... We close at 6 p.m. So I took my notebook and stepped out to check his site and take notes on changes. He said he needed some changes, minor ones, and that if I could give him credit and he'd pay me later because he couldn't pay right now for the change. "No problem. Like I explained last week, this fee is monthly."

"Oh, you are going to charge me every month?"

"No, just when you need it. If you don't make any changes in three months then no problem."

"Ohhh! Okay then." so he gave me all changes, etc., etc. and then asked, "Can I trust that you will make this changes correctly?"

Hmmm... what? I looked down at my notebook and began to read my notes to him, while scrolled through pages to pinpoint where those changes were to occur.

"No, no. I mean, can I trust that you won't make mistakes?"

"Well I will do what you told me. If it is not written here then I will not do it. Make sure you give me everything you need done."

"Well, I am saying because last time you did that typo on that letter, remember?"

"Oh. Ohhhh! Okay, yes I remember. Well, I always do ask that you proof read everything."

"But I am leaving today so I won't be able to do it." heh... last time he didn't do it either and he wasn't leaving town just yet. "Nobody down here knows how to type! Not even you."

O_o

I laughed, "Everyone makes mistakes."

"Well yes you are right. I guess you are one of the best down here but you aren't perfect."

That's right. I am not... I've never claimed to be; therefore my policy, which I give to all my clients before they ask me to do anything for them. We are not responsible for misprints. We make proofs before printing or going on the web. A client is responsible for checking them. If they approve it, we run it. That time with the letter, he pinpointed the typo and I corrected it. Like I said, we had not run like 200 copies of it, we only made 1... which was replaced with the corrected one immediately.

"Are you going to work on this right now?"

I looked at the system clock - 6:13 p.m. "Not likely. I need to backup computers and close the store." Perhaps if he had actually shown up to the appointment at THREE-THIRTY as we had agreed I would have been nice enough to do as much as possible during the remainder of the day... but he did not. Plus my dad does the accounting for the day as soon as he gets there (generally at 5:30) and he uses my office for that.

"This weekend then?"

"I do not come on the weekends." I was going to say unless I have something unfinished... but he would have said his stuff was unfinished. But there is no way I would go to the office just to work on his site. He isn't even paying me right now plus I have other sites... projects that have scheduled before his. "I will do it as soon as I finish other things in my schedule."

"When then?"

"Don't worry. It will be done next week."

"But when? Monday?" his tone was getting loud.

Geessssh. "As soon as I can get to it, but won't go over next week."

"Make it quick. I sent several letters out the other day and they will be arriving soon so I don't want people to see the site info as it is now." Well hello! Maybe he should have given me the notes Before he sent out those letters. "Now remember, I have priority here. I was your first client!"

I was upset now. "Um... no you were not."

"Yes I was."

"No. You were not. I have had clients with me for years already. Your changes will be done when I can squeeze them in." Even if he had been my first client, right now he is not my Only client. Others have given me work to do on their sites before this so this one has to wait its turn.

"Oh, okay." I guess he finally got the fact that the world does not revolve around him and that I am not just sitting, waiting to see what gets stuck up his butt. He got up, got some packages he had waiting for him and left.

...I am not talking to him about projects unless he makes appointments and keeps them.

Monday, March 22, 2004

Sabor A Mi

Tanto tiempo disfrutamos de este amor
nuestras almas se acercaron tanto asi
que yo guardo tu sabor
pero tu llevas tambien
sabor a mi.

Si negaras mi presencia en tu vivir
bastaria con abrazarte y conversar
tanta vida yo te di
que por fuerza tienes ya
sabor a mi.

No pretendo ser tu dueno
no soy nada yo no tengo vanidad
de mi vida doy lo bueno
soy tan pobre, que otra cosa puedo dar.

Pasaran mas de mil años, muchos mas
yo no se si tenga amor la eternidad
pero alla, tal como aquí
en la boca llevaras
sabor a mi

Alvaro Carrillo

Sunday, March 21, 2004

Nice Weekend - Sunday

Didn't go out. Browsed the web, chatted, posted under some threads... Found my phone and noticed that i had several missed calls and about 4 voice messages - Ooops. Several of our friends were having a barbecue at their parents' and wanted us to go over to share some cabrito (goat). That was for Saturday... oops again. Since we spent the entire day out on Saturday, the husband told me to leave the purse inside the car, under the seat so no calls for me that day. I felt really bad... I hope our friends don't think we just didn't want to return their calls. I did give them a call as soon as I heard the messages... but still can't help but feel guilty.

We mostly finished 'cleaning' the house and then watched a couple of movie rentals, Body Count (so-so) and Hard Rain (pretty good! Kept me into it the whole hours). My parents stopped by and gave the hubby a set of drums. Woo-hoo neighbor complaints here they come! My dad taught me some basics to reading guitar music while my hubby set up the drums and played around with them a bit.

Overall it was a lazy Sunday, as it usually is. We made kitchuri (a combination of rice and lentils) which resulted in my burning of the left hand. Silly me, I should have known to pull out the oven rack before sticking my hand in to take out the pot. Now I have my wrist and the area where the thumb joins the hand all burnt and puffy.

*sigh* I miss my Mutt. My pretty, wonderful, young, little one. He is a teen friend from New Zealand whom I just love dearly. I don't plan on having children of my own, but if the hubby ever convinces me, I sure would hope they turned out to be like this little boy. We were so close for over a year... and then I started doing volunteer work at a local elementary and our times just wouldn't be coordinated anymore. I was not able to talk to him as much as I would and now that I have my new job with my mom, which allows me to be online for the entire day, he just... doesn't say hi anymore.

I have talked to him in occassions but it just isn't the same anymore. The talks just seem to be dry and then they hang to the point that he just leaves without even saying goodbye, something he just would never do before. There was never enough rushing going on in his or my end. There was always just enough time for him to say, 'I love you, Aunty.' I guess there is no more time now.

Nice Weekend - Saturday

Woke up rather early for a Saturday - 6 am. It probably had to do with the fact that I kept waking up in the middle of the night to puke because of what I ate Friday night. I just had waaay too much pop corn and then the food at the restaurant was a little heavy for 10:30 at night - Shrimp kaboob, grilled salmon, and spicy crab cakes with cole slaw, etc, etc. Yes, it was the over eating... we've agreed that the test came out Negative (although, I am still waiting for final proof *crosses fingers*).

My hubby can't keep asleep unless I am next to him so he followed me to the living room and setup the dial up on the laptop (he'd reformatted and re-installed everything while I was reading the previous night) and I started checking posts at my favorite group. Not much had been going on so I started doing the laundry while hubby vacuumed. Then I washed some dishes that had been in the sink since last monday (nothing ecky, just glasses and plates with cake crumbs... we don't do much cooking in this house) while hubby mopped. ^_^ We have a nice system. He does one thing, I do another. Then we both sit down and watch TV. We feel hungry we both get up - one does the chopping while the other cooks - neat neat neat.

I started getting ready at about noon and then we drove to Harlingen (city about 30 mins away) to have some breakfast at the Jerusalem Cafe. Had ourselves a couple of Gyros baskets... not really Israeli food (I think it's Greek), but good nonetheless; they are thin pita bread with lamb slices and vegetables on them that you can roll up to a nice thick burrito ^_^.

Then we went to play some pool and a couple of games of bowling. Hubby whooped my butt. *Mumble-mumble* darn cricket players and their accuracy. By this time it was close to 5 pm and we made our way to my mom and dad's home to feed the pup. They went out for the weekend so when they do that we are left with the task of feeding our dog. Yes Our doggie. We got her from the pound several months back but since we moved to our new home (and still can't afford a fence) we can't keep her - strict leash laws.... heh... So anyway, we walked and played a little and came across this neighbor's lamb. Funny lamb. It was tied up and when we would pass by the area the lamb would start baaa-ah-ah-ahhhhing. My husband and Leche (her name is spanish for milk) would get close to the fence and the lamb would run away. Then they would turn their backs and the lamb would come back and be all tough, then they would turn to see it again and the lamb would run and hide once more. hehehe. They did this for about 8 rounds. I was like... Don't temp the hubby little lamb... we just had one of your friends for breakfast. HAHAHAH

Ahhhh. Okay. Then shopping for the week's food (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA As IF we'll be cooking!). That's right, we got our bottle of grapefruit, bag of chips, 6 bottles of mineral water (we eat out so much that trust me, you want to have that and some anti-acid always handy) and um... shampoo. Then drove out to find a beauty salon - we badly needed haircuts. Husband changed his look and I got an appointment for Tuesday. Then we went back to shopping.

Got him a nice little electric guitar with it's amp. I expect no more complains about the price of my lipsticks for a while. heh heh heh. ^_~

Nice weekend - Friday

Yes. Friday went alright. Work slow, did nothing but bum around browsing sites and chatting to online buddies. I should have been working on a project but... I just didn't feel like it.

The hubby took me to the movies and we watched Master and Commander. Kinda late, eh? Well you see, we rate our movies the following way:

I'll defenitely pay 10 bucks to see that one on premier night!
Yeah, it will be worth 6 bucks for the matinee show!
I can't wait for it to get to the dollar movies!
We can wait for it to come out on pay-per view
Hmmm, I'll rent it some day.
Maybe when it's on the regular movie channel
I'll probably change the channel when it gets to public TV

Master and Commander fell under the #3 category. Those are the movies that we feel are going to be entertaining but not to the point that we will spend 20 bucks to see it, nor 12 bucks for the matinee show at the 'new' theater. So we wait for it to come out at the dollar movies ($1.50 all day and $2.00 weekend nights). Most movies are at the expensive theater (the one inside the mall) for about 1 or 2 weeks and then they are sent to the dollar movies. The more popular ones (ex., LOTR, Matrix, Harry Potter, etc etc) can stay at the big movies for up to 6 months sometimes, so we just wait and watch all others that Do make it there after a week ^_^.

Alright, so then we made our way to have some dinner at Benningams (the movie wasn't too great... got a little slow in the middle for my taste, but 3 bucks well spent.) and paid for overpriced food that was excused dut to the nice environment - live band made it kinda difficult to hear what we were saying but, hey, it's cool.

Got home... mhmhmhmmhmmmmm read a little, watched TV and that's that.

Thursday, March 18, 2004

Close one?

I haven't been feeling all that well. Started early this week. I've been getting nausea and I don't really feel like eating much. Sounds like a pregnancy, but it would be rather weird if it truly was one. Anyway, I waited for a couple of days - nearing my 'days' - but nothing so I finally decided to just start by buying a home pregnancy test.

The test says you need two lines to assume a woman is pregnant, and this is visible after 1 minute of performing the test. Non pregnant is 1 line and this is accurate (99.9%) after 3 minutes. Dang, I gotta tell you... I cried! After waiting for like half a minute I looked at the test's windows and they were like pinkish, both of them. I felt tears just about to burst, and not from happiness.

Don't get me wrong, children are wonderful and I have a nice marriage and comfortable life but I am just not ready. I've never really seen myself as mom material... may explain more about this some other time, maybe someone will help me troubleshoot that. Anyway, I know what some of you are thinking 'Why didn't you take precautions?' Well we do. We are careful and clean too. But things are never 100% sure.

Soooooo... 3 mins after, 1 line and another pinkish square. The husband and I checked and rechecked - I should add he was all excited, although we are not planning for kids for a while... must be every man's dream or something, to pass on the genes. Seems like the pinkish is normal on the windows, so just one line. *crosses fingers*

I will just wait for the monthly and then I'll schedule my regular appt with a doc (a new one since we've moved and my Women's Clinic is too far now) to make sure.

Hmmm