Benajamin Franklin

Benjamin is the most helpful cat in the world. He loves helping his mom and dad around the house.

First, he helped dad fix the water heater. Well, he surpervised.


Then he helped me do the laundry.


He also helped me unpack some of our Christmas presents...


After all that work, Benjamin needed a nap.

Our Christmas

Well, Mike and I knew that our christmas would be rushed because we spend time with both families. So we wanted to do something special, just the 2 of us for Christmas Eve. We watched Ratatouille again, and made our own ornaments for our tree. It was a lot of fun. We're going to make ornaments every year now... On Christmas morning we opened gifts. My wonderful hubby spoiled me this year and got me the ipod I wanted. He also made our wedding album (2 years later) using Shutterfly. It is so perfect! We went to his parents house in the morning/ early afternoon and had yummy steaks. Then we went to Viv's house to celebrate with my family. We had the traditional meal. It was really good too. I ate way too much. Then we came home, uloaded the car, walked the dog, and went back to Mike's parents house for a few more hours, where I ate shrimp and cookies and way too much!
I enjoyed everything, even though running around can be a bit stressful. But my favorite part was that Mike and I have started our new family traditions. From now on, Christmas Eve will be just for us.

Irony of Christmas

How come when you're a kid, if feel like Christmas can't get here fast enough. And now that I'm grown up, it feels like Christmas gets here too fast?? I can't believe we're 3 days away from Christmas. I guess the older you get, the less exciting it is. Although, my husband has this great surprise present for me and I am anxious to find out what it is... Anyways, it's just ironic to me that as I get older, Christmas kind of just pops up suddenly. I feel I didn't even have enough time to enjoy the Christmas season and shopping. I was running around the whole time trying to figure out what to get everyone, and I'm still not done. Ah, the joys of being a kid and just worrying about wether or not I'm going to get coal for Christmas..


Mike and I

Twins!

Our Christmas Tree

Life with a cat...

... is never dull. Today Mike and I went Christmas shopping and I put all of our bags on the bed while I made dinner. Then Mike and I watched a movie, so I kinda forgot all about it. Then I went into our bedroom and what did I find?! Half of my bags were on the floor, and my big bag from Belk (with my dad's present and Mike's dad's present) was completely torn. Benjamin tore it up! Thankfully my dad's present was ok, but the Jaguar's shirt we bought for my father in law has a whole in it. So Mike is keeping it for himself, and I'll buy a new one tomorrow for his dad. Benjamin was doing so well with all of the presents, it surprises me that he did this.

For other news, I got my haircut today. I told her I didn't want the length cut off, but she had to cut some of it cause I hadn't had my hair cut in almost a year. The ends were dead and ugly. So now my hair feels shorter and I'm sad. I think I lost about 1-1 1/2 inches or so... But it's still upsetting. Even more upsetting is that I keep finding grey hairs...

What am I?

Ok, so ever since I've lived in America, I've gotten the occasional "Are you Hispanic" question. I hate that question, but people do ask. I've even gotten the occasional "Are you Indian?" question, where I look at them with a confused look and say no... I've also gotten many "What are you?" questions, where I give them a dumb look and say "uh, a person?!?!" But today I was asked the oddest question. This Asian girl was my cashier at Publix. She was ringing me up and this is our convo:

girl- "Are you Japanese?"
me- "um, no"
girl- "Chinese?"
me (very confused)- "nope"
girl- "Vietnamese?"

Ok so at this point I decide that although I hate admitting it, I'd tell her I'm Brazilian.
me- "I'm Brazilian."
girl- "Oh what was I thinking..."

So here's my question to you guys, I LOOK ASIAN?!?!?!

water heater

I am so proud of my hubby! Today he fixed our water heater leak. He figure out the problem, went to Home Depot and figured out everything he needed. Then he fixed it! Now we have hot water again! Good job honey!!!

Praise God!

So our house has a gas water heater and stove. For the past few days, Mike and I have been smelling gas from the water heater, but we couldn't figure out why. We shut it off every night for the past few days, for fear of our safety. Well, 2 days ago, Mike shut it off and we haven't turned it back on because the smell had been so strong. Today I stayed home from work to wait for the gas company to show up. He just came and found the problem. We had been worried that we were going to have to replace the water heater, and we are tired of spending money, seeing as how we just replace the entire septic tank system. So within ten minutes, the guy found the problem. It is the ball valve. Apparently the house has one for water, not for gas. He gave me a valve and told me how to change it. Pretty simple stuff! Thank God we don't have to replace the water heater, yet! Then he wanted me to pay him $89 for service charge. I looked at him and said "$89 for ten minutes..." The very nice guy then only charged me $25. :o) Isn't God good? He took care of us by keeping us safe from the gas, and the guy was nice enough to not overcharge me for 10 minutes of work.

The crazy dog

Ok, so it's Sunday afternoon, my hubby and I are on the couch eating lunch while watching the Jaguars game. Our cat, Benjamin Franklin in sleeping on the Christmas Tree skirt (his favorite spot). All of a sudden, I hear "ssshhhhh" sound, I look at the tree, and my dog, Riley has his leg up and is peeing all over the skirt. I screamed "NO!" and he stopped. I spanked him and Mike took him outside to finish his business. Poor Benjamin is looking confused and scared (he's usually the one in trouble). So I picked him up to console him, and lo and behold, the poor cat has been peed on as well as the tree skirt. So now my skirt is in the wash, and I had to bathe the poor cat... What a crazy dog! He's only peed in the house once because I forgot to take him out, but how dare he do it in front of us... This is when I start to wish I never had pets!

Shopping

Today I went Christmas shopping with my mom and it was crazy! I didn't buy as much as I wanted, but I did buy several things. I'm now done shopping for several members of my family. I need to wrap the presents, but I have no more energy today. When I got home, Mike and I watched Pirates 3, and I'm still deciding on whether or not I liked it. I'm not sure I liked how it ended...

Not much else happened. I broke a wine glass at Pier 1. Man those things are sensitive. The employees were really nice though. They were more concerned with me than the broken glass. I did not get hurt.

While my mom and I were at the mall, I received a call from my husband telling me that someone had rear ended his car, then just drove off... Thankfully Mike was ok, and the car was not damaged. He said it was an old man that did it, and probably didn't even realize what had happened.. This is when I agree with the "Grey Dawn" episode of South Park, but we wont' go there... I'm just glad everything was ok, and I hope the man gets some better glasses or something.

I suppose the most exciting news for today is that there's only 7 more days of school til Christmas break. Then, I'll have 5 months of school left. Oh brother..

Long week

Today was the end of a long week. I've been having a really hard time with one of my students, but today he was so great. I didn't have to yell at him once, and he was very sweet and helpful to our wonderful lunch lady. I had another student who really tried my patience today. I guess there's always one in a class. He is so smart, but lacks common sense. He likes to tell me how to do my job. It gets annoying after a while. But it was an ok day. We drew names for secret santa in class, I doubt my students will be able to keep a secret for a week. We'll see. The most trying thing lately is that they expect me to be "perfect" like last's year teacher. They are constanly comparing me to her, and it really upsets me. The difference between me and her, and there are many, but the main one is that she wants to be a teacher. She loves it. I tolerate it, but I don't like it. I enjoy parts of it, but I am not a teacher. People keep asking me why I do it. I love kids. But the truth is, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with my life. And unfortunatelly, you don't get paid to sit at home and think about what you want to be, so I gotta work in a job I can somewhat tolerate. Most days... I am hoping this will be my last year teaching. But I say that every year. Those kids are wearing me out. I have no energy left. They suck the life out of you.. What's up with that?!?!

My New Blog

I finally had a chance to sit and start our new blog.
Enjoy!