From the cheesy fully nude strip club in Van Nuys to Vegas...

Strip Club: The place you go after leaving the nighclub totally drunk. Not a place you take your husband to though.

I don't mind going but I prefer the topless ones over the nude. I decided to make a list of the top 10 songs that remind me of strip clubs. Being a stripper takes alot of courage and no shame. From the dirty girl who does it just for the hell of it, to the girl who does it to feed her babies, to the chick going to school to become a lawyer paying her tuition through strippin. They all have their story.  In the words of my BFF "wooooooo girl work it!!!" lol

Middle school all over again.

I'm 13 all over again listening to this.

Cause sometimes dreams just don't come true.

You have to learn to be ok with that. What you dreamed life would be 15 years ago is most likely not what you pictured in your dreams. Well tough shit learn to make the best of it. My husband keeps dreaming M. Shadows will come pick me up someday...lol.. Great dream but it's just a dream.

Quack, quack, said the mama duck

3 meals later and I'm tired. This morning I made breakfast from a recipe I found on Pinterest. Bacon inside a pancake with homemade whip cream. It was pretty yummy. All the kids seemed to enjoy it. Later on I made lunch and then dinner. I like to cook but I enjoy it more when my step son is here. He's not picky and eats more then the other kids and enjoys food. Things will be more busy this week. The step kids are here till the 28th. I'll have a little more laundry to do and a few more meals to make. My 2 are happy to have our extra 2 here and the extra 2 are happy to be here. Our 3 year old hugged her oldest brother (my stepson) and as she lay next to him hugging him she said "oh I'm so happy right now!" It was so cute. I'm use to a quite house 80%  of the time but it's nice to have it a little fuller and a bit warmer.

The Christmas, the gifts and the tattoo.

It's a odd numbered year boys and girls which according to court papers makes it our turn to have Zen & Wednesday ( my step kids). It's times like this I'm OK with not getting child support from my sons father and having a custody agreement because it means I don't have to worry about not spending a Christmas away from him. I probably wouldn't mind if his father was a little more responsible and didn't ask last minute. It's the time when my husband is at piece because he knows exactly were his kids are the whole time they are here. Anyways in total we are a family of 6 when the kids are here. It's a 11, 10, and 9 year old plus the 1 we share together who is 3. Our 3 yr old was easy to shop for this season. I finished her shopping on black Friday. The older ones not so easy. We finally decided to just get them each a 3DS. This way there is no complaining about he got more, I got less blah blah blah... everything is the same and we spent the same amount on all 3. The step kids usually fly back to Texas but this year I will be driving them to Cali since their mom will be out there then they will just drive back to Texas. I'm not excited to see them leave but I will being getting a tattoo that day while I'm out there. Last time I was tattooed was in February so it's long over due! I'm excited! I will be collecting my first piece from Mat Hurtado at Black Anchor Collective!!! I have some work from another Black Anchor Collective artist Carlos Rojas who I hope to get my right arm sleeved by some day when I have saved up enough for it. Is it December 28th yet?

We'll sneak out while they sleep

Last week I went to my 3rd Rise Against show....oh how I love them.. they make my heart happy. Hopefully the next time we go my stepson will be in town so he can go with us.

Strict?

My son was upset today. My nerdy love doesn't have much of a social life for a soon to be 11yr. I'm a little OK with it. Only because he has always been more of the loner since he was able to walk. It may be due to being a only child till he was 7 or he just may not care for the super social scene. Well today he wanted to go to a friends house. The kid gave him his address and told him to go over. Well I had to say no. 1. I can't take my kid to a house of a child who's parents I don't know. 2. He had no phone number for me to call to at least talk to the mom to check if it was OK. I explained to him I needed to speak to his friends mom or dad first before I could just take him. Of course he was very upset and totally didn't understand my reason for not taking him. Thanks to my big brother I will always be super paranoid and cautious of who's home my children go to.

When my 40 yr old big brother was in middle school he had a very good friend who's house he was suppose to go to on a Friday night. For one reason or another my parents didn't let him. When he went to school the following Monday his other friends asked him if he heard what happened to his friend who's house he was suppose to go spend the night at. My brother said no so they broke the news to him. The friend, and mother had been murdered by the boys father who kid himself as well that night. How would it have been if my brother would have been there? Odds are I may have never had the chance to meet him if he had been there since this was before I was born. There are millions of crazy things in this world. You can only hope and pray that every time your babies leave the house everything will be perfectly fine and they will return home safely.

Was I being to strict by not letting him go? Maybe. But I think I was right given that I don't know these people. I wouldn't even let my son walk down the street by himself or stay home alone which is bad in a way because I'm not giving him a little bit of Independence. As a mother it's hard to let your babies be out of your sight. I pretty much only trust him to be with FAMILY.  I still remember the first day he was born as soon as I held him I said "now I totally understand why my parents where so strict". My dear little man I have to learn to give him a little more independence.

The Religion

Now that I am much older I don't attend church like I did when I was younger . I think the last time I was at Mass was 2 years ago for Easter. I haven't Baptized my children either. But that mainly has to do with the picky Godparents rules the Catholic church has. I have never lost my faith in God, prayer or hope. I always pray before I go to sleep and sometimes in the morning. I am grateful for everything and everyone I have. I've learned that even though you don't make it to church every weekend you can still be a good, loving, caring imperfect human and I say imperfect because none of us will ever be near perfection and its really dam annoying when certain church attenders feel that they are.  Anyways 12 years ago today I played La Virgen De Guadalupe at the church I grew up going to in the valley. I remember hoping that I would not mess up my lines since the entire thing was in Spanish. I survived, nervous the whole way but I made it. Never would I have thought how many people would show up to something like that. I know the "what in the world was I thinking taking this part " came into my head while I stood in the center of the entire church. I sure can say life has changed so much in the past 12 years. I had actually forgotten I played this part till my sis reminded me since its "El dia de la Virgen".

The paper eater and the snow globe breaker..

My 3 year has a Mini Schnauzer (lily) this pretty lil $500 dog was given to her by our old neighbors. She was fully house trained and only a year old when we got her. The dog is great her only down fall is she eats paper and crayons. She doesn't so much eat the paper she more just turns it into tiny pieces. Lily seems to think she is the mother of my daughter. Anytime she sees somebody pick her up and make her laugh she goes crazy and starts trying to jump on that person and barks at them. She is also so dam house trained that she will not use our backyard as her toilet she must be walked ugh what a diva. Then we have the snow globe breaker Miss Mia Monroe. See before I was married I was a big Tinkerbell collector. I had Tinkerbell bed spreads,  pictures, snow globes, and my favorite of all my pixie dust jar I got at Disney world. Since I have been married of course the Tinkerbell bed spreads have been put away and almost all my breakable Tinkerbell items have been killed. My step daughter murdered my pixie dust jar during her first vacation stay with us. Now my daughter has followed in her foot steps. She has broken every other breakable Tinkerbell item I have. It's been small snow globes, candle holders in which Tinkerbell has been left armless or wingless. Only one globe has survived and that's because its to high for her to reach.

The Shooting Star

I've gotten awards at work before. But I've only been at my current job 6 months. I spent a little over 3 years at the 2 previous before this. At the last one i received a award once but it didn't really make me feel great sure it came with a $500 cash spiff but still it was just like here is who won next kinda thing. Today I received award and it was nice to here the little speech my boss wrote about me.

"From her very first day Vanessa has proven she is extremely dedicated, here to work hard and when given a goal she will strive to exceed it.  It only took her a few weeks to master our call flow and she was very quickly exceeding quality and stats goals and supporting  calls with efficiency and grace! She has had perfect attendance in the 6 months she has been on our team, always clocking in before her shift and right on time from breaks and lunch. Vanessa has the pleasure of sitting right outside my door. I hear her applying remarkable service and de-escalation skills call after call.  Vanessa supports Spanish calls and although I don’t understand Spanish it is very apparent by her tone she is empathizing and validating each of her customers concerns. Vanessa is truly a “SHOOTING STAR!”  We are so glad to have her on our team!!"

I'm very thankful I have a job I like and a boss and coworkers who are great. I'm fine being away from marketing, timeshare and commission based salary. It's nice to know that timeshare won't be the only thing that will ever been on my resume now.