Feliz Cumpleanos, Amorcito

This is (Carlos) Gabriel Sanchez (Manchinelly) who I love and am married to.

Today he is 34 years old.
He's done so much to make me happy in the 5 years that I've known him; Things like, he's really good looking and I like to look at him. Also things like he likes to go out to dinner and so do I so that's helpful. He wakes up super early every single day to go and win our loaf of bread and he never complains (except some Sundays) that he's really tired. He buys insurance policies for everything we own so that we're safe and taken care of. He puts the new registration sticker on my license plate a week after the other one expired because I would never have remembered it. He's cheerful and fun to be around and, while it's possible for us to fight about everything from Scrabble to piano moving to immigration laws, we're mostly happy because he is so great and not because life is so so easy for him or us.


He is inherently social and everyone likes him. I mean EVERYONE. It's a little ridiculous sometimes for me to think about but he also really likes himself (in one of those healthy ways). I guess that's what other people respond to. He's comfortable to be himself wherever he goes and talking on the phone doesn't scare him at all. Neither does the Statue of Liberty. As you can gather, that makes him perfect for me. He is stubborn and opinionated but so am I, and more than him so that also makes him wonderful...to be able to live with me and still want to keep living with me.

My family would vote unanimously that Gabriel saved me from certain aimless floating and failed relationships with poets and lead singers and introverted artists. I didn't really need saving in those ways or any way but Gabriel just IS what I am not. He is brown and I am not, he is a boy and I am not, he is disciplined,not me, extremely put together, takes a daily shower, nope, not me, hardworking, organized, productive, forgiving, nuh-uh, obedient, He's even a better mother than me if that's possible. I have him on imagination and bargain shopping, frivolity and overeating but other than that, the man changed the trajectory of who I might have become if left to my own devices. Basically I celebrate Gabriel today because it is the anniversary of his birth. I thank Maria Elena Manchinelly de Sanchez for putting him in the world. My whole daily life is a celebration of sorts that I get to be with him forever and, really, truly be so happy about that. Feliz cumpleanos, mi amor y que tengas mil anos mas, llenos de felicidad y besos y carne roja.


Te amo para siempre jamas.

3squared

My little baby is three years old. (incidentally, my big baby is also three years old until June but I just won't go there right now). On Friday the 25th of April we had Ruby Claire's birthday. She started out wearing what I wanted her to and then, mid-morning she insisted on putting her nightgown back on and putting a lacy, swirly DI dress over the top of her pajamas. So that is what she looked like the rest of the day...pajamas with a dress on top. There are so many things I care about more than this (relatively) unphotogenic aspect of her life so that's fine. you
Wear whatever you please, Ruby, you know you're going to whether anybody 'lets' you or not.
There isn't anything about life that I love more than my little Booby Claire Sanchez. There are, roughly, 50 minutes a day when she is so sparkly and funny and happy and sweet and somehow, in my mom-mindedness, that's enough. the rest of the time she's just confused about life and her place in it I think. Why nothing works like she thinks it should. Why she can't do things as fast as she wishes she could. Why I don't understand what she's saying when she's being so emphatically clear. Why she came here to these morons who are probably ruining her and her potential to be a top accountant with their focus on frivolity and songs and mental instability.

This was the cake I made after she said she wanted a flower cake. Kind of conceptual I'm afraid but it was colorful and had three little fires on top for a while so that was enough. We decorated the cake in the morning

This is Ruby doing her part to preserve the sanitary nature of the project.

Then my dad who was still in town took the girls on a walk down to his house to have a last look around before he left later that day. My children love my parents. All they have to do is say, 'oh, let's not cry' and they just don't! what is up with that? This was a kind and happy thing for him to do and, amazingly, 30 minutes by myself with music very loud was very therapeutic. I like to think of it as a preview of sorts to future quiet times with my parents down the street.


Then we took my dad to the airport and went to get Gabriel at work downtown on our way home. We took Ruby to eat 'macaronis' at Noodles and Company where they sell really good macaroni for small people and big people and then Ruby wanted the gum out of Gabriel's mouth. gross.



At home we put them down for a nap which they didn't take so we sang and ate cake and opened her gifts. My mom and dad got her a strawberry shortcake book with a little musical thing and a wooden tool box and a puzzle. Of course she loved these things. A lot. I got Ruby a lovely princess dress that was all long and floaty and sparkly and...she hated it. Didn't want to wear it, didn't want to touch it, didn't love it. Then I tried to see if Dellah wanted to wear it to get the jealousy thing going for Ruby so Dellah put it on and wanted it removed immediately. Tough crowd. Grandparents 100% Parents O...

It was a good day. Pretty relaxed. No party bags and kids and carpool. I'm not ready for that. Not until she asks for it.
I like remembering when Ruby came to join us. It feels like a really long time ago and not just 3 years because she has had such a slow evolution to be who she is now. The birth certificate says 2005 so I guess it's just 3 years.
Ruby has taught me what it means to be a mother. Dellah was first but Dellah was easy and I knew what to do somehow. All her problems were solvable. All her crying stopped eventually. like they say in a League of Their Own, "It's supposed to be hard...it's the hard that makes it good". So I thank you, Ruby Claire. Without you my life would be too easy to deserve my mansion in Heaven. You are a precious girl to us.
As I tucked them in to bed that night and stood in the doorway while Dellah told her usual 5 minute story about yellow dinosaurs with blue mountains on their backs and the 3 little pigs and huffing and puffing and blowing everything over, I was going to leave when Ruby said, "Mami, I wan to tewl yu sometin"....she was obviously thinking very hard for something meaningful or coherent and after a few seconds she said, "um, lolipops aw beaudifow". Yes they are, Ruby...And so are you sweet baby girl.

elementary school

My parents were in town this past weekend to bring a few of their belongings to their new house that I showed in the previous post. My dad drove with my brother in a moving truck because my brother is so nice that he flies to WA to drive with my dad and then stays the night he arrives here to UT and then leaves the next day to fly home to CA. I don't think, never mind, I know I'm not that nice.
My mom was all skeptical about her house like, oh, I don't know if it's big enough, I don't know if it's a mistake and then my brother shows up (whom she worships) and she's like all, "so, here's the house and here's the built in mantle and here's the metal balustrade and, I just think it's going to work great". My brother's in the building business so I guess she needed his approval which he wholeheartedly gave because her house is nice and doesn't suck. I apologize for the middle child angst.
I know it's there.
I'm self actualized.
I got it, okay?
So, anyway my parents brought some boxes unearthed from their current garage and in one of them were some of my personal papers (or stuff that I wrote when I was in elementary school. One of them was a story about some friends and a girl who has a crush on some boy and gets all nervous around him. Story of my life.
The other was a paper entitled "Twenty Four" only with just the numbers like "24"

I will now quote myself from my 4th grade delusions:

If I could be any age I wanted, I would be 24. One reason why I chose this age is because I would be out of college and then I could be what I have always dreamed of being, a dancer. I love my beautiful, talented dance teacher so much I want to be just like her. I think of all the fun it would be to teach people ballet. That is the career for me. The second reason why I would love to be 24 is so I could get married to a handsome man out of medical school that would take care of me and have a stable job so I would not have to work except to be a dancer. Having a checkbook and credit cards is my third reason. I have always dreamed of writing a check for the clothes I buy or saying to the lady at the counter in the Limited to 'Charge it'. I would absolutely love to be 24.

There are so many things wrong with that little paper I can't even begin to list them but I was just kind of struck by the fact that I must have thought 13 years in the future was just so far distant that all of those things would magically happen.
20 years in the future now at 31 I can safely look back and see that not even one of those things actually happened (except that I do have a checkbook that I use to pay my child's monthly tuition to a pre-school and tithing to my religion and I have a visa to take money from a checking account to buy food and the occasional frivolity). I think I finally passed math 97 and got my diploma when I was 29.
I broke my leg 8 years after that paper was written and pretty much sealed my dancing fate instantly. I was lumbering around the dirty streets of Honduras in a flowered dress from Costco when I was 24 speaking bad Spanish and hating my Guatemalan companion (I mean having many differences of opinion with her, of course not hatred right?) I did marry someone who has a good profession and provides well for the family. I guess that's the most important of all the things so it's not that bad but what a colossal DORK I was.
I love how I said "the Lady at the Limited" because to me she was a lady and not a girl because I was a girl...she was this old lady with a job and a checkbook...
amazing. the girls in stores are so young looking now.

I just spent the morning being the mom on Little House on the Prairie. She always had this basket of 'mending' to do whenever she sat down.
I had 2 princess dresses, a sweater and a little purse to fix while we watched the Swan Princess this morning.
A productive way to sit and do nothing while actually doing something.
Also my dad brought the piano that I played all growing up so I could have it in my house now. That made for a nice family home evening when I could play the piano to our standard fare 'as I have loved you' and 'twinkle, twinkle' and 'I am a Child of God'
I wish I had oreo cakesters.
or maybe I wish I had never tasted them at all...

a.m. woe

it is a scientific fact that blog posts with pictures sell more than those without. there are pictures in this post...wait for it...

I am very tired. I have what is commonly known as a child in morning preschool. It starts at 9 which isn't actually very early but then there is the 30 minutes to eat 1/2 cup of cereal with milk and the 20 minutes of picking out, putting on or not putting on and then crying about it of the shoes. Then, this morning the plastic juice bottle I make juice in fell on the floor and burst lemonade all over the floor. This means that for a 9am appointment, we have to be awake at LEAST by 7:30 to have it all go correctly...today I was awake at 8:10...this is why things didn't go correctly.

I love sales. I am no respector of sales. Every sale is beautiful in my eyes...a sale at Nordstrom, a sale at DI a sale at Smith's a sale at Family Dollar...well, maybe not Family Dollar...I've tried..it's just gross in there. But the word sale makes me very glad indeed. I saw in the Sandy City paper that there was going to be a women's and children's and maternity sale at the hilltop United Methodist Church to benefit women't charities in the area. Sure, ok, yeah, help people...SELL STUFF!. Anyway so I called these people because I am an equal opportunity multi-religional proponent of sales. I asked them if I could be a 'seller' at their sale and they said, "wait, let me get back to you" and then they said, "yes...you are seller number 387".
i am seller number three hundred and eighty seven out of 150 sellers. I don't know how the Methodists count but there has to be something more to it than numerical order. Anyway, this is so great and I will tell you why.
1. They only take really excellently preserved/almost new clothes which is all we have here since we have too many clothes and we only wear them a little bit and also I have been about 5 sizes in the last 3 years.
2. It is the 14th year of the sale and people come from everywhere to go to it and it has a reputation for being a nice, quality sale....hence, many of my stuffs will be sold because I have nice, quality stuffs.
3. The sellers get 70% and the needy people get 30%. enough said.
You can charge more than a yard sale and you're getting paid and helping people and cleaning closets and, well, let's just say, seller 387 IS READY TO GET PAID!
it is friday and saturday at the hilltop methodist church in Sandy if you want gently used stuff for folks in your life.

that's all about that.

Let's move on to the next thing. This is a picture of me and my (green aura'd) friend Cindy at my wedding. This is a fine picture and everything but I am obsessed with my arms...my arms were thin. Why is it that the arms must betray you so early in life? that and the neck...the neck is a 30 something nemesis too.


This is a picture of the house down the street from me where Sharon and Lewi are moving in a few months to be our candle on the water till every wave is warm and bright and so forth. We like to think that we will be some kind of flicker on the water for them too in some heretofore undiscovered way.


This is what Dellah looks like in the bathroom wearing a yellow feathery shirt which gets feathers all over everything. I don't have a real reason for posting this other than the reason I often use....I am so sick of her right now I'll just admire her all silent and cute in this photo. I'm not even joking...she's on my last nerve. I love Dellah but she makes me confront all my flaws on an hourly basis and it's just too much sometimes.

I have to go and give the little beggars Raisin bran which they won't eat and eat something myself like a cupcake maybe. Also I want to buy that Rosetta Stone language learning software to learn French...Gabriel doesn't quite understand this I don't think...I NEED TO LEARN FRENCH, PEOPLE! I just can't die without knowing it.
I am having tacos for dinner.
last night I had stroganoff.
tomorrow I will have chimichangas.
I'm working on domesticating myself. It hurts.

up and at'em

I always thought this was up and ADAM but I've recently noticed that it is up and at'em which makes a little more sense. There are a lot of things that I am realizing in this 31st year of my life that have given me clarity. Like the real words to some Journey songs and most people are just as scared of you as you are of them or sometimes even more so which is very enlightening indeed.

MOVIE UPDATE...
I am the last person to see Dan in Real Life on the planet but I loved it. Come on now, Steve Carrell...how does he do it? so endearing.

Martian Child...so cute I cried like 4 1/2 times. Anything where John AND Joan Cusack are cast together is automatically so good.

Note to the secret service...with our cable you have to call the place or go online to buy pay-per-view movies...except at our house where all you have to do is press the button that says 'buy' and you just get it for free...we've gotten a bill and the 3 movies we've pressed buy for haven't shown up...we called one time for a movie and that one showed up....people.
this is a beautiful thing.
when they stop showing We Own the Night and No Country for Old Men it will be even better.
Don't tell anyone we are accidentally stealing movies it just kind of happens.

Today was Dellah's un-birthday at her school because school ends June 3 and her b-day is the 4th. She doesn't understand in the least degree why today with all the singing and gift giving and cupcakes is not her actual birthday and I am totally tempted to go with it and just skip the June one but I have to stand amazed at the contentment level of the Sanchez 3 year olds. They spent 3 days carrying around these little Martha Stewart kids magazines picking out their perfect party colors and cupcake decorations and whatever and then, last night they went to sleep and I made some cupcakes with pink icing and a little lime green swirl in the center and Dellah woke up and was like, "YESSS, I am so happy I made these beautiful pink cupcakes and they are pink and pink is my favorite color and I love these cupcakes mom...mom you are the biggest princess mom ever. You are big and you are a princess." I just did whatever the heck I wanted and she thought she had made the whole thing up and it was perfect. I also needed that other comment, not the one about being big, the one about the princess thing because the other day, while combing her hair too hard, she said, "YOU ARE NOT A VERY GOOD MOMMY AND YOU ARE NOT A PRINCESS!" apparently to her, not being a princess is the worst dis you can throw at someone. She has no idea the tiara collection I had before she was any more than a glimmer in the world...me, not a princess...what a joke...i'm incognito presently..

This is she and Ruby playing musical chairs (or not) in Dellah's class today.


Monday I took my little tiny girl to her first day of real preschool in a real elementary school where she looked like a little key chain trinket among all those big tainted by the world, unwholesome 5 and 8 year olds.

I cried. I don't know why it's that cry thing whenever small people do something for the first time or the last time...
anyway, she's having her 30 day trial in the class to see if the teacher thinks she's 'special needs' enough to be in that special needs class. If not, I'm not sending her to preschool to be devoured by other kids and then pay $150/month for them to do it...we read a lot here in this house. She's bilingual...she's cute...her life won't be so bad if she just goes to kindergarten.

So, anyway, that's that for now.
up and at'em people, up and at'em.