Category Archives: Life Experiences

Hope

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Hello everybody!  I hope you guys are well.  Today is Election Day in the USA and my vote has been counted, now I’m crossing my fingers in hopes that my pick wins.

Unfortunately, a Nor’easter is heading to places still reeling after Hurricane Sandy.  I wish I knew how to help or what to say, but I haven’t a clue.  I’ve never experienced losing someone close to me, though I’ve come very close.  I’ve never lost all of my possessions, so I can’t say that I know what it’s like.  I just feel generally heartbroken that people have to go through this.  I just hope communities that were hard hit are able to band together and help one another.  I hope officials are able to help all of those in need.  I hope people DON’T GIVE UP.  I hope donations of all kind keep piling in.  I hope with time everything can heal and communities can build back up.  All I can do right now is hope.

Stay alert, stay alive.

Until next time…

donating toys!

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Hello everybody!  I hope you guys are well.  This is the time of the year where the two biggest holidays, in my opinion, start approaching full speed ahead.  As soon as that happens, I start making mental notes on how we’re going to take our Christmas picture early, because Santa Claus is already at the mall mid-November, and I start the Christmas list. Also, there are several birthdays before Christmas so I have to buy those gifts well in advance.  But we all know what happens.  Yeah, that’s right.  I leave everything for the last minute driving myself completely insane and frustrated with the holidays.  Some days I really WISH I could be that type of person that is completely relaxed.  You know those people.  They’re so chill with everything.  Nothing bothers them, at all.  That would be nice, but then I wouldn’t be me and I think through my neurotic persona I’m able to accomplish stuff that makes me and my family happy.  At least, I hope.

In a previous post, I mentioned how last year I had my daughter go through her stuff toys and take out the ones that she didn’t really play with in order to donate them.  A few days ago, we did the same thing.  I took the bin where the toys are usually stored in and explained to my daughter that it was the “keep” bin.  Then I placed a big shopping bag next to the bin and told her that was the “gift” bag.  I asked her to go through her toys and see which ones she wanted to keep and which ones she wanted to donate as a gift.  My little girl did a great job!

These gently used toys are going to be donated and I hope we can find some more to give before the new ones come in.

Stay alert, stay alive.  Until next time…

My sane and healthy approach to school lunches

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Hello everybody!  I hope you guys are well and safe.  The trains and buses are semi running here in New York City.  It’s great to see everyone working hard and together to get this city back on track.  All the best to those currently working outside, safe travels to and from your destinations and may you all recover swiftly.

Before my daughter started Kindergarten, my husband and I decided to take her to eat lunch a few days at her future school.  They offered free lunch to children during the summer.  I wanted her to get acquainted with the cafeteria and I also wanted to see if she liked the food that they served.  Some days, she ate well (hamburgers and sandwiches were a hit), but the day she was given pasta and meat sauce separately, she took a small sampling of the meat and left it completely.  She did it eat some of the pasta, and I tried to convince her to eat more of the sauce, but she wasn’t having it.  Of course, she had no complaints with the desserts they offered.  Neither with the plain or chocolate milk and fruits, but the main dishes and even the vegetables were mostly a miss.  I knew then that I would be making her lunches for school.  At first, I was nervous because I wasn’t sure what to pack in her lunch.  I’ve never done this before so I searched online for ideas.  I saw so many wonderful pictures of lunches packed by fabulous parents!  They were educational and inspiring.  Also, her school has implemented a healthy eating program.  It was one of her first projects.  They wanted her to draw or cut out pictures of healthy food and glue them onto a piece of paper resembling a plate like this:

Go to www.choosemyplate.gov for more great information

We all learned a lot with this project!  Now, I consult this clip art, which I made into a mini poster and placed it on my kitchen wall,  in order to send my daughter with a healthy portion from each group.  I went to Wal-Mart and bought small food containers and I place everything into my daughter’s lunch bag sort of like a bento box.  Also, in order to remember what she ate Monday through Friday, my husband placed a big dry/erase white board, which he found outside a while back, in the kitchen for me to jot down all the foods per day and keep a list of foods to pick from.

This is what keeps me sane!  I’m a visual person so this helps me out a lot.  FYI: If you spy the word KRAVE under Monday’s menu this is Kellogg’s new cereal that we’re totally addicted to.  It’s so delicious.  It doesn’t last two days in the house, because of me! 🙂

The board looks different this week because I’ve written “school closed” for the whole week and at the bottom there’s a short hand version of her lunch for each day.  It’s the norm now so I just keep it up.  Many thanks to all those moms and dads who post pictures of their children’s lunches.

Stay alert, stay alive.  Until next time…

Happy Halloween 2012!

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Hello everybody! I hope you guys are well and safe.  Happy Halloween!  Unfortunately, there are many people still dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and we hope they are safe and able to recover.

This past Sunday, the 28th, we had an early Halloween party for the kids and my husband’s judo pals.  It was a small gathering and we had a lot of fun.

My daughter decided that she wanted to be…

…Merida, from Disney’s Brave movie.

We bought the costume and bow and arrow set from Target.  That’s a wig on her head that she left on for the picture.  She took it off immediately because she didn’t like having it on, but before that we tried to change her hair with color hair spray so it could resemble Merida’s red hair.

This was the result and she liked it, but couldn’t stand the smell of the spray.  In fact, she wouldn’t stop complaining about it so I washed her hair and the spray came off easily.   If you’d like to know, we used a brand called bright color Hair Spray and we got it at Target.

Olivia as Merida with her natural, beautiful brown hair!

As for my youngest, she simply didn’t want a costume so I put together a cute little outfit.  I bought the short sleeve t-shirt (Gwen Stefani’s Harajuku for Target) and combo skirt/leggings from Target.  I already had the pink long sleeve onesie, the red socks, and red glittery shoes.  I crossed my fingers and put the outfit on.  She didn’t fight the outfit, but I had to stalk her around the apartment in order to get a picture of her dressed up.

Got her in the kitchen! 🙂  My Harajuku Vampire diva!

My sweet, little girls, dressed up for Halloween 2012.  Look at the diva’s face, HILARIOUS!!

My husband, Angel, went as a HAMBURGER and his friend, Tyson, was a chicken.

TYSON CHICKEN!  GET IT? 🙂

As for myself, I was indeed the party pooper.  I wore a regular outfit, shirt, skirt, leggings, black booties, and a headband with a little witch’s hat on it.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2012 FROM THE MERCADO FAMILY!

Stay alert, stay alive.  Until next time…

Taking advantage of this warm weather

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Hello everybody!  I hope you guys are well.

Sophia and I decided to take advantage of this warm weather so off to the playground we went again.  She even met a little friend there and they proceeded to scream, laugh, run, swing, slide and simply have a lot of fun together.  It was adorable!

      

Chalk is always fun and educational.  I kept telling her to do a circle.  I think she has the idea! 🙂

Daredevil Sophia swinging from the top bar above the big swirly slide.  Making my heart race!

Take good care all.  Until next time…

Let the gushing begin!

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Hello everybody!  I hope you guys are well.  Yesterday, when my daughter came home from school and I checked her folder, I found a letter informing us that Olivia was chosen to be the September 2012 “Student of the Month” for her class.  It stated that she was given this honor for showing great effort in class work and homework, attending school regularly and on time, and showing kindness to others.  Needless to say, I was gushing and my sweet, innocent little girl didn’t quite understand her accomplishment.  I explained to her that she was going to get a certificate of achievement and a star student pencil the following morning.  She simply replied, “Ok.”  🙂  So subdued and adorable.  Love it!

Even though it was gloomy outside this morning, inside the school we (my husband, Sophia, myself and a family friend) were beaming with pride.  We smiled and clapped when they read Olivia’s name and handed her her first certificate.  May she receive many more and I will do my part in helping and encouraging her to greater success.

Congrats Olivia!

Take care all.  Until next time…

Warm day = playground memories

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Hello everybody!  I hope you guys are well.  Since my oldest daughter started Kindergarten and the weather has been a bit chilly, I haven’t had the chance to go to the playground with my youngest until yesterday and today.  It’s been a while since I’ve gone to the playground with just one child.  It’s definitely less hectic, but my Sophia still keeps me on my toes.  In the past, I would constantly battle with her because she wanted to climb the bigger play areas.  Since she’s climbing better now, it’s not so much of a battle, but she is easily distracted by other kids so I have to remind her to pay attention to what she’s doing.  My husband calls her a social butterfly and that’s great, but the ouchies, not so much.  She bumped her forehead today against the metal rail and I swear I saw her skin dent in.  It was a quick tap, but obviously that bar is hard so that scared me and I thought she was going to start crying, but she didn’t.  I reacted more than she did.  It’s a overprotective mom thing that I can’t shake.  Anyway, we had fun and I look forward to making memories and spending time one on one with my Sophia.

A warm hello from my Sophia (2 years old)!

Take care all.  Until next time…

Too many toys

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Hello everybody!  I hope you guys are well.  So today I starting cleaning toys because it’s been a while and there’s a lot to clean.  There’s about three toy bins, a doll house, a pretend kitchen, bookcase with electronic toys, and a big playhouse full of stuff animals.  Yes, my apartment sounds and looks like a day care center.  I can’t wait until I can claim my living room again. 🙂  Oh, I almost forgot, and believe me I try,  we also have a folding slide, a small basketball hoop stand, and a small bench table.  All this for two little girls and of course the second I start cleaning, for example a toy bin, they want to start playing with all the toys inside.  It never fails.  That was the pattern today with my youngest, Sophia.  I started cleaning the play kitchen, she decided it was cooking time.  I went to the doll house next.  Here comes Sophia wanting to play house and by the way I tried to play with her and she didn’t let me. 😦  Oh well, back to cleaning.  Lucky me.  I emptied out the first toy bin, and yup Sophia was there, sorted and cleaned the keepers and without her noticing, of course, tossed a few broken toys into the garbage.  I’ve learned from the past when you throw away toys, make sure they’re not visible or else meltdown city will occur even if the toy is broken.

I’m very grateful that my kids have such items, especially since many of these toys were gifts, but sometimes you simply have to say we have too many toys.  That’s why I’m teaching my oldest to consider donating some of her toys to kids less fortunate.  We did it last year.  We went through her stuff toys and I asked her which toys she wanted to keep and which toys she wanted to give to other little kids.  She did very well.  There were absolutely no tears, and when her father came home, she told him all about it with a smile on her face.  Since she’s a year older and smarter, I hope she’ll donate more because Christmas is just around the corner, sorry but it is, and more toys are coming into this household.  I can’t put a stop to it because the grandparents are big spoilers!!

Take care all.  Until next time…

No monster-in-law here!

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Hello everybody!  I hope you guys are well.  You know the old saying, “When you marry someone, you marry their whole family as well.”  Sometimes that’s a complicated notion for people to understand and accept.  It can be tricky at times, especially if one doesn’t get along with their mother-in-law.  That’s one relationship, where stress levels can exceed the maximum if there’s animosity.  I’m very happy and lucky to say that I don’t have that problem.  There’s no monster-in-law in my life.  In fact, I get along with all my in-laws and it’s a pretty extended family because my husband’s parents aren’t together and his dad remarried.

At my mother-in-law’s (Lucy) house, I feel comfortable because she makes you feel at home.  She’s also a superb chef, and if there’s a gene for that, I believe my husband got it from her! 🙂 I’ve had a long time now to get to know Lucy.  19 years to be exact.  Sometimes I joke with my husband by telling him that I believe I know his mother better than he does.  We often call each other and talk about the kids.  My first daughter was her first grandchild.  I will never forget her reaction when I broke the news.  She made it priceless and I knew she would.  What I appreciate the most about Lucy nowadays is how she shares things about her life with me.  That inclusion means the world to me.  She accepts me, with all my flaws into her life.  She accepts me as the woman who married her son.  She accepts me as her daughter-in-law.  That acceptance is so peaceful.  There’s no animosity.  I wish many could feel the same way.

We recently went to visit Lucy in Pennsylvania where she lives.  She is currently taking extracurricular courses and she told us that she was very nervous when she took her first exam.  She called me last week to share the news that she passed.  I was very happy for her, proud as well and very thankful for the call.

I’m not going to say that our relationship has always been perfectly smooth, because there were hiccups, but nothing too severe, thankfully.  Every relationship is a work in progress.  The thing is, you have to put in the work if it’s worthwhile.

Take care all.  Until next time…

Picture Day

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Hello everybody!  I hope you guys are well.  Yesterday, my daughter had a rough day at school.  Poor little thing threw up during lunch.  I got the call and I raced to her school with a change of clothing and to bring her home.  She was REALLY SAD because she didn’t want to leave!  In fact, she wanted to go back to school because her class was going to do an art project and she didn’t want to miss it.  My sweet, little artist.  It broke my heart, but I knew she needed to relax a bit at home.  She has a cough and we have been trying to spit and blow out the germs completely.  She told me the coughing made her throw up.  I advised her for the future, if she ever felt that she was going to throw up again, to try to find the nearest bathroom or simply throw up on the floor instead of on her clothes.  I did my best in explaining things in a funny way to cheer her up and hopefully have my advice stay floating around in her memory bank.  Plus, I told her that she needed to rest because the following day was Picture Day.  That sealed the deal and made her happy.

As for myself, I’m filled with so much anticipation.  I can’t wait to see her first school pictures.  Her portrait and her class picture.  I remember during the first parent/teacher night when her teacher said that school pictures were becoming obsolete due to technology being so advanced nowadays.  I thought, “What?  Obsolete?  No way, I can’t wait to purchase her first package of school pictures, especially Kindergarten.”  My husband was able to take her to school today (Jury Duty calls), which is a treat for my daughter because I always take her.  I kissed her goodbye and said see you later.  With her special, dressy headband on her head, I reminded her to smile really big when the photographer told her to.  I can’t wait to see the results and let the school memories start forming.

Take good care all.  Until next time…