My Favorite Holiday Flick

A Christmas Story: who doesn't love this movie? Turkey demolished by neighborhood dogs, celebrating Christmas dinner at a Chinese restaurant with a roasted duck & singing waiters, Ralphie having to dress in a pink bunny footie, "You'll shoot your eye out, kid", and mom breaking that sexy leg-lamp in the window for all to see... Awesome!

My Idea of a Perfect Sunday

Raiders vs. Ravens

My idea if a perfect Sunday routine would be to sleep-in until about 9 am, watch the football games, have french toast or buttery pancake breakfast, then BBQ at home (rain or shine) for the rest of the football games with ice cold beer. Yup, that's my idea of a perfect Sunday!

Many Firsts in 2010

I'm still trying to catch up on all my blogs I subscribe to from the last 12 months. I don't want to miss out on any of your lives :P

Since this lovely economy has afforded me the freedom of, well, freedom from a hectic work schedule, I decided early on to embrace it and start doing things "I've always wanted to do." One of those "things" was to participate in the Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco. The race is about 7 miles, and starts near the Embarcadero (the Bay), throught the streets of SF, and then through Golden Gate Park ending at Ocean Beach (the Break = Breakers). I registered our family (Francisco, the 3 kids and myself) for the event a couple days before, so we could LEGALLY participate. Two-hundred plus buckaroos later, we were in.

This race, along with its serious runners, is more like a Bay Area tradition of a costumed parade/party. Not wanting to get heckled by the crowd or "runners", we decided to go in costume... we went as Sports Fans. Yeah, boring, but we couldn't all agree on a group costume, and I was the only one interested in dressing up in REAL costumes. Majority rules.

It took us forever to finish the race. Mainly because we stuck with the partiers, not knowing we should have been with the regular joggers/walkers, but also because we had the baby in a stroller and Francisco had to keep making bathroom stops. Although I had fun, the rest of my family was not amused. Needless to say, I will be doing Bay to Breakers alone next year. Haha!

SERIOUS update

Wow. I cannot believe so much time has passed since posting an update. Thank you DANNI for posting a comment, which in turn reminded me to post. I'm somewhat of an O.C.D. person, wanting to catch up on all the blogs I subscribe to BEFORE I post, but, here it goes.

My little one is now 9 months old. It was a hard adjustment for my 2 teenagers to accept I was having another child. I knew it would not be a good idea to FORCE FEED my pregnancy on my kids, so I went along with my days as though nothing was changing. Of course my belly was growing, but I did not make a huge deal about my pregnancy in front of my teenagers (they took they news as if the world was ending). If they asked my any questions about whether or not I could feel the baby moving, or to see the sonogram photos, I obliged, otherwise we went about our day as normal.

I worked up until the very last day of my pregancy. It was Sept 23rd, and I was driving home from work on my way to pick up the kids from high school. Halfway there my water broke. This was the first time this had happened to me. I wasn't sure what was going on, mainly in part because I expected it to be like in the movies. Far from it. It was slow and uneventful for many hours. Our bundle of joy FINALLY decided to grace us with his presence at 4 am the next day. OH JOY - haha!

He was the textbook baby for 2 or 3 weeks - asleep for 2 hours, wake up for feeding, repeat. Then for some reason he decided the world was a much more interesting place, and Mr. A.D.D. came out - LOL! The kids now ADORE this child! My son, who was my baby before, would avoid anything and everything that had to do with the baby before. It broke my heart. He would stay in his room and even move as close to the walls as possible to avoid contact with me and the baby in the hallway. Fast-forward to today: the kids can't stop playing with the baby.

The New Demi Moore?

I can't believe I haven't caught up with all the blogs in a few months! I've been missing out on so much :(

Well, I have 2 more weeks until the baby is born. We've taken preggo pics, thrown baby showers (conservative and party-animal status) and are still trying to get everything ready for a new life to be born.

Since I'm at work I'll be making this post very brief and boring, but I'll leave you with one of our preggo pics and post a better entry later.

:)

Back and Forth

So basically my day today was a shitty one. Emails were going back and forth between all parties to this real estate transaction. Quick scenario is I am representing the
Buyer. Another agent is representing the Seller who technically is a bank (IndyMac). We are SUPPOSED to close tomorrow.

Except... well, except that the Senior Asset Manager acting as Seller has been holding up our escrow since yesterday morning. He's trying to short my client $330 in a credit that was and always has been agreed to be paid by the Seller. Yes, I know, it's only $300 but I refuse to cave in. It's in writing, signed by all parties, on 2 different contracts since 45+ days ago.

I would have let the whole thing slide and picked up the $330 and thought nothing of is, except for a snide little remark he made to the Escrow Officer (neutral 3rd party to the sale) saying, "a rose is still a rose."

Now I'm heated. I'M FUMING at this point. I'm so pissed off at his stupid little remark that my hands are trembling as I'm typing my response email to him. In short I tell him that all involved are not idiots and a contract is a contract; he signed it AND rewrote it stating the same, therefore he needs to honor it since it's a legal and binding agreement. I also happened to end it with YOU NEED TO SPEAK TO YOUR REAL ESTATE ATTORNEY SINCE YOU OBVIOUSLY DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS CONTRACT. Yeah, I know, bad Virg **slaps hand**

More back and forth between me and the other real estate agent who is basically telling me that I am acting like a child throwing a tantrum and I am looking silly in front of my client. EXCUSE ME, but I am PROTECTING my client and their "measley $300," as you so kindly put it and, please correct me if I'm wrong, but STICKING TO THE CONTRACT. I tell him that I am sorry that he feels like I am throwing a tantrum, but that I will stand up for what is right, and that people like dick-head above get away with these kinds of things because people like him do not stop them.

In the end, dick-head wrote me in an email, "I do not think you are stupid. I DO think you are sneaky and crooked. You wrote the contract in this in hopes that we would not catch it. I hope you are happy. Your client will receive their ill gotten gain."

FUCK YOU very much! I hope that this one little person here that doesn't hold a prestigous title, such as yourself, has finally been the one to stand up to your smug ass. For the record, I am not sneaky or crooked, nor did I intend for him to interpret my specific wording in a contract. I am knowledgeable and experienced today in my career because of all the past mistakes and having to pay for them monetarily. I've learned to cross all my Ts and dot all my i's. I guess holding a corporate title doesn't automatically make a person wiser.

My Heart Just Breaks

I love catching up on my Hollywood gossip from PerezHilton.com. The tone is almost always humorous. However, every once in a while he also posts really serious events. I am SERIOUSLY behind on my Perez Hilton blogs! Today I just read another sad story.

The blog entry is about this 11 year old boy who hung himself at home after being bullied at school for possibly being gay. Perez comments on his blog that the news stated the little boy went to school officials (teachers, counselors, principal) to let them know what was going on. And yet the bullying and harassment continued.

Apparently there was another suicide by hanging from another little boy in Massachusetts for the same thing. What the hell is going on in this world?! Do people not teach their children acceptance and respect anymore??? We sit here and sterilize cats and dogs... I think it's about time we do the same to these idiots that don't know how to raise kids to become better human beings so the world can be a better place for EVERYONE.

I have always taught my kids NOT to be cruel to other kids; to be respectful of other people and their property and to STAND UP FOR OTHERS WHEN THEY ARE TREATED UNFAIRLY. I am sure that my kids act totally different at school away from me, but I know for damn sure that I ingrained in their brains that certain things are just not right.

Little kids killing themselves for being harassed at school for being gay??? ARE YOU FREAKIN KIDDING ME?!?!! Too, too sad!