Cute n Casual

What I'm Wearing:

Collared striped top - Choice Plus 

Brown Ruched Sleeve Cardigan - Ross

Worn n Weathered Blue Jeans - Ross

Neutral Toned Flates - Ross

Makeup:

Groundwork PaintPot

MAC Eyeshadows in:

Bright Future, Magnetic Fields, Night Maneuvers, and Off the Page

Black Track Gel Eyeliner

Wet N Wild Creme Bronzer in Toasty

MicaBella Mineral Blush in Toffee

Coastal Scents Gel Eyeliner in Envious (Lower Lids)

Grand Entrance MAC Eyeshadow (Lower Lid)

Wet n' Wild Lipstick in 906D

False Eyelashes
Mary Kay Ultimate Mascara

I Remember

Today's post will be an excercise from the book Old Friend From Far Away by Natalie Goldberg called "I Remember." The excercise is simple, write for 10 minutes anything and everything you remember. No subjects, no restrictions. Just thoughts and memories as they come and flow thorugh your mind onto paper...or in this case, blog. You'd be surprised how much you get down in ten minutes. Let your mind flow, and dont be concerned about grammar or punctuation. Let it all out. Go.

I remember from the age of nine through 12 or 13 my family was very united. Today I sit here on this table celebrating the marriage of Tia Petra to her now husband Fernando.  I remember back in the day my mother and her other sister Rosario got along so well and today, at this celebration there continues to be tension between them that has caused a drift in both families.  I remember every weekend we’d go visit and how close all my cousins and I were. I remember my cousin asking me advice on how to treat a girl when I was only 11-13 years old. I didn’t know then, what I know today but I do remember telling him to treat her nice and hold her hand when he meant it, not just to get into her panties. I remember telling him to look her in the eyes and tell her how deeply he cared about her. I remember the first time I met my cousins. I remember Noemi was and still is a tiny skinny girl that was short with pin strait hair. I remember sharing a toothbrush with her because she didn’t have one. I remember not knowing you weren’t supposed to share your toothbrush. I remember what it was like living in a trailer I was embarrassed about at the time. I remember lying to my friends and saying I lived in a big house over the fence but it was being worked on so we stayed in the trailer in the meantime. I remember living all alone at the young age of 12. I remember my mother having to work nights and needing me to stay all alone during the evenings because my sister had married and my brother worked as well. I remember not being scared and rather enjoyed my solitude. I remember growing up very poor. I remember evenings when my mother and brother and I would stand outside the company she worked for and sell tamales with hot champurrado because we were so poor that selling tamales and champurrado was the only means we had to make money after my mom’s accident that led to her disability and disability insurance wasn’t enough. I remember how much my mother struggled and how much she overcame to raise us all on her own. I remember feeling so much hate towards my sister in law, to the point I ransacked her room and lied and said someone had came inside to steal things. I remember being sent away to live with my sister in 29 Palms for a few months in the 6^th Grade and how much I missed my boyfriend Tino. I remember a late night drive one night out in the desert and staring out into the night sky, every time I remembered kissing him, butterflies shook up the inside my tummy. It was our first, last and only kiss.  I remember how my first boyfriend Tino would always call me from a payphone and how we’d spend hours and hours on the phone and how he’d constantly tell me how much he loved me. I remember the day we broke up, how much it hurt me and how devastated I felt.  I remember riding the bus to school everyday, and going to the high school to swim during the summer. I remember the first time I fell off my big brothers bike I was a kid, maybe six or seven years. I fell over onto the black asphalt and remember scratching my toe over the rocky black asphalt. I remember looking down at my toe and seeing the red blood gush out like there was no tomorrow and instantly freaking out and cried home. I remember thinking it was the end of the world and that I was going to die. I remember trying to walk over a cable in school and hitting the asphalt so hard that the next time I remember waking up I was in the arms of someone carrying me to the nurse because I had passed out. I remember waking up once after the school bus had returned to school, I had fallen asleep on the bus and never got off on my stop. The bus driver couldn’t drop me off anywhere so she dropped me off at a house I knew my mom knew how to find me. I remember not knowing my own phone number to call her and have her pick me up. I remember not knowing how I got home that day, just being picked up from that house which was out in the middle of no where. I remember.

To Be Continued....

Book Haul

Saturday, was quite the busy day for me. I woke up around 8am and had breakfast with mom. She made some bomb ass spaghetti with salsa roja and had butter spread over toasted wheat bread.  It was delicious. Soon after I was done eating, I began sorting dirty clothes and had a load washed while I showered. I had it dry while I began getting ready for my dental appointment, which I had been avoiding for a good two months.  Today, the left side of my mouth is sore and my teeth feel weird. I find myself feeing the tooth that got filled with my tongue. I was supposed to go in for a cleaning and a follow up on my invisalign plan which I have not used in two months, but had mentioned one of my tooth's was bothering me, turns out I needed a filling.  Why? Procrastination, that's why.  I don't know when I became so damn lazy that I couldn't even pop in my invisalign tray.  Today I suffer from the consequences, and I have to go back a tray because it hurts when I pop in the tray I should be on.  My teeth have moved back slightly so therefore if I continue using the current tray, my mouth feels extremely sore and my teeth hurt immensely.

After my dental appointment, I decided I really wanted to buy a book on writing.  I made my way over to Barnes n Noble and sure enough, I walked away with more than what I had intended. My original intent was to buy a book on creative ideas to get my writing going. A book as in one only. I wanted to buy a book that offered writing exercises, subjects, topics, and random ideas to help eliminate writers block and allowed me to have more things to write about in this blog.  Like anything else, I ended up buying more than one book.  I love reading and writing and I found it difficult to just pick one book.

While at Barnes n Noble I met a really nice lady named Ven.  She is from Vietnam and we were both looking at the same section in books.  It's amazing how long I can be at Barnes n Noble and how I soon lose track of time. It's like a safe haven for me, a place I can go to relax, and become lost and distracted without a care in the world. Barnes n Noble to me is definitely a way of relieving stress. Books are such an amazing thing and I can be in there for hours and not realize how time has flown by.  There I was, standing in front of what to me was writing paradise. How to choose one book. I found myself skimming through books, browsing, and picking and choosing. Suddenly, a woman came to the very same section I was in. That same woman, Ven, ended up sitting down, browsing through books and I ended up kneeling down beside her as I was on a quest to find the "perfect" book.  Ven noticed I was leaning in her direction and then decided to move over a little so I can keep browsing books and that is how we began talking. I told her she was fine, she didn't have to move and the conversation began.  We shared a common interest; writing.  Ven asked me what kind of writing I liked and did. I responded by telling her I had a blog and I planned on writing a memoir on my mothers life. She then began to tell me how much she enjoyed writing and how she wanted to become a librarian because she loved books so much. She also mentioned she didn't write so much because her english and grammar was not great and because it was her second language.  I told Ven she shouldn't be concerned about her grammar or how great her English was or not, if her passion was to write, then she should let her mind go and write, write, write.  Ven was so pleased to hear this. She made me feel really great when she told me I had inspired her to continue writing. She told me she would begin to write and let her mind go. It was such a great pleasure sharing words with Ven. She told me a little about her father, and how she wanted to write a memoir on his life and her life as well.  I shared a picture of my mother and I when I was a toddler and a picture of my sister and my family the day of her wedding. I could tell she really enjoyed me sharing a piece of me with her. She mentioned I looked a lot like my  mother and thought I was very beautiful and I was very flattered when she told me I looked like something from out of a magazine, thank you Ven, that was very wonderful of you.

Ven and I exchanged emails and I gave her the address to my blog and we agreed we'd get together sometime in the future for some coffee at Barnes n Noble (B&N) and I look forward to it very much and I hope she does not get offended by the offensive language I sometimes transmit through my writing.

Now, onto my book haul.

Before leaving B&N I walked away with six books. Five of which relate to writing and one, an Erotic Romance by Maya Banks, one of my favorite "heat" writers.  I couldn't help pass up the deal, I purchased her book Temptation for only $3.99 (original $15.00).  I own a few books by Maya Banks, and I love how detailed and vividly she describes scenes and characters and of course the romantic, emotional yet erotic stories she writes.  Maya really has a way to get your creative imagination flowing and her books are an easy, enjoyable and hard to put down read. At this moment, I don't know if I'll blog about the story, or if I'll incorporate into my videos. I'll decide what to do, once I begin the story.

Old Friend from Far Away by Natalie Goldberg, is the book I began reading instantly. Already, I've followed through on the exercises she has as you read the book.  The first exercise was to write about what "I'm looking at", not necessarily a white wall or a dresser, but she suggested you be more detailed and informative. What kind of dresser, how many drawers, is it old or new, big or small.  The second exercise was to write about what "I'm thinking of." Each exercise was ten minutes and I found myself amazed at how fast those ten minutes went by and how freely I was able to write.  So far, I've only read the fist 5 pages and I've already fell in love with the creative process it is giving me.  I bought this book to help me write a memoir on the life of my mother and maybe even my own.  She explains a memoir isn't based on dates or a timeline but random memories and so far the writing exercises definitely help in bringing forth those memories we forget even existed.

The Daily Writer by Fred White is another great book I picked up. This book offers "366 meditations to cultivate a productive and meaningful writing life" (White).  The first thing I noticed was that the book has entries by date. For example, January 1st is "Uses of Allegory".  Now, I know for a fact I probably wont use this book by date, because the year is almost over, but I could hold off and begin the writing process this book offers at the beginning of the year. I then think why wait and therefore figure I should just write and just do it. The book offers "Try This" exercises in which you are given an assignment. For example, in "Uses of Allegory", you are given the ask to create an allegory and he gives you subjects and examples to lead by and follow through with. I can already tell you the first exercise on writing an allegory is already becoming a challenge but I'm excited and looking forward to taking on new challenges and see where this will lead me to and how it can help my creative process and improve my writing skills.

Lastly, I picked up two books on styling and sentence structure and another based on grammar.  I am considering returning the two books on styling and structure because they were $10 bucks a piece and I can easily find them on Amazon or ebay for much less. I know I can find all these books easily for half the price I paid for, but I really wanted something I can read now and not have to wait around a week for them to arrive. The Art of Styling Sentences by Ann Longknife and K.D. Sullivan offers 20 basic sentence patterns and how to write clear, coherent, eloquent sentences. By skimming through the book, there are examples given that demonstrate and clarify how and when you should use particular patterns and the grammar involved to make such distinct sentence structures. I feel as a writer, I am good but with practice comes perfection and although nothing or no one is perfect, practice makes better and that's my intention, perfect my writing skills, take them from good to better to best.  This book also offers ideas on how to express your thoughts in imaginative, figurative language which is something I truly enjoy doing and look forward to perfecting that skill as well. Finally, The Wrong Word Dictionary is just that, a dictionary of words that are most commonly confused.  I honestly picked it up because it was a "bargain", although Im sure I could have found it far cheaper online. In the end, it's a great reference to have and reach for when I find myself confused or when I need clarity on a particular word.

And now, it's Sunday afternoon and I must finish this blog post so I may begin to get ready for a dinner we are having this evening. My Tia Petra, sister to my mother got married and today is the celebration. I will come back with an outfit of the day and share my day with you.

xoxo
Mayra

Starstruck at a Mixer

11/10: Manuel & I at a Mixer for the Chamber of Commerce

Wednesday, November 10th, my good friend Manuel put a mixer together for his work and invited me to join him and show support.  I have to admit that when I was asked to join him, I was procrastinating about coming to the mixer. Sure, I wanted to show some support to my friend, but the thought of being around people I did not know really scared me.  I'm an over thinker. Instead of taking action and really just grabbing the bull by the horns and doing something, I can overthink something so much to the point I discourage myself from trying something new .

So many thoughts run through my mind that I become overwhelmed.  Manuel practically had to hound my ass to go to the Mixer lol. He kept harrassing me, threatening me to go or else! lol.  Anyway, I ended up going beacuse I really did want to show him support and because he always invites me to places and I always end up flaking, but he flakes on me too, so we just laugh it off because in the end, it works for both of us lol.

Manuel and I have this friendship where he can call me a "fuckn bitch" and I can call him "a fuckn asshole" or my personal favorite "You fuckn douche" and we're still good friends! When we hang out it's trouble and all laughs and I love that I can have a friend I can talk shit to and with and just have a healthy amicable friendship....but anyway...enough of the douchebag...

So I end up showing my support for Manuel by going to this Mixer he kept harrassing me about, and I have to admit I really enjoyed myself and am very glad I went.  I didn't mingle as much as I would have liked to, but I wasn't all quiet and timid as I was scared shitless I'd be.  I did, however, really enjoy spending time off to the side and observe everyone's chemistry and everyones interaction with each other. 

I had my eye on one person most of the time and that was Manuel. (No, not like that lol) I've always known Manuel as a social butterfly. He's a natural socialite. Socialism comes natural to him and it's so damn smooth. That bastard. I found myself admiring him for the first time. It was a really pretty picture, a beautiful sight to see as corny as that sounds. He was so natural at striking conversations, coming off smooth and charismatic. He was cool, calm and collected. Greeting all the folks that arrived, chit chatting, mingling and easily carrying conversations.

When it was time for introductions, a few people spoke so highly of him.  Don't get me wrong, as I've mentioned before I've known him for a few years and I've known he's very smart and a career oriented professional, but today I saw this whole other side of Manuel and was almost starstruck.  So many poeple had so many wonderful things to say about him that were truly amazing and I see him in a differnt light now. He's still a douche, will always be in my eyes but he's one amazing douchebag, and I admire him, or at least did so this night...haha. Anyway, enough about the douche (yeah Manuel, you can wipe that smirk off your face now, I'm done talking about you lol). 

I also saw one of my teachers, who came out to show support for Manuel too. I hadn't seen him in 8 years and it was nice to see him. His name is Mr. Peterson. He gave me a few words of encouragement and really encouraged me to continue my education and pursue my dreams. That was awesome.

Later that evening, the Douche and I had a drink at Chilis where my Parole Officer happened to be at the same time, but you can read more about that here.

& It wasn't meant to be...



I dont know where to begin with this one. It was around 9pm and my friend Manuel called me and asked me to join him for a drink at Chillis. He picked me up around 9:45.  We got to chillis around 10pm. I remember thinking on my way to Chillis "what if". What if I meet him there, you know the parole officer. Then I said "psh, yea right, he's probably passed out by now". Anyway...those were the thoughts that ran through my mind. Next thing I know, we arrive, we walk in and get a table on the  bar side of Chillis.

So there we were, chit chatting as I tweeted and continued the conversation. There was a very loud group off to my right, Manuel was in front of me and my back was towards the main entrance. I remember chit chatting about how well the Mixer turned out and how much I admired Manuel that night. I don't normally say nice things to him, we're always bullshitting and talking shit to each other but it's always a bunch of laughs when we hang out. Anyway, I remember being distracted by one of the games as well, or they were running highlights, point is...lots of things were going on.

Manuel and I ended up leaving Chilis around 11:15pm. I remember telling him we were the last people inside, and before we left I remember a group of poeople leaving the restaurants main entrance and I also remember looking out the window and seeing some guy in a white jacket being picked up by another guy that was wearing a Giants jacket or something alike, I remember telling Manuel they were drunk or stumbling all over the place lol.

Anyway, this morning, I'm talking to my PO as I normally do.  I mentioned I had a headhache and he began to say if I had a headache for drinking too much at the Mixer.  He then began to tell me, he didn't plan on doing so, but went out with his cousins and some buddies to chill and have some drinks. I asked him where. He responded with saying Chillis. I was like OMG! I began questioning what time he was there, obviously because of the crazy randome thoughts that ran though my mind the night before and because I was curious to know if we were there at the same time. Well...turns out he left at 11pm. I left the place at 11:15! He was amongst the last group of people to leave!!! Aint' that about a bitch. We were in the same room at the same time and didn't even know it. I remember texting him saying good night around 8:30. He sleeps early because he has a 1.5 hour drive each morning around 5-6 am so therefore the old fart has to call it quits earlier in the evening. I remember texting him and I didn't get a response so I figured he was out cold. Turns out, he sent me a text saying he was at Chillis. A text I never received.

What a bitch! I felt so many things when he said he was there, in the same room at the same time! Specially because of the random thoughts that crossed my mind right before we got there. I swear I said what are the chances of us meeting here! Well the chances were def not good, but dang we were in the same building and we didn't even know it!! I have so many emotions right now that i dont even know how to put into words in order to describe. I was on the barside of Chillis and he was on the far right off of the main entrance and I was off to the left of the main entrance! There were a few instances where I wanted to get up and use the restroom and stupidly decided to hold it in! Had I gotten up to use the restroom, without a doubt we would have spotted each other!! Ai dios mio!! But again, what's meant to be will always find it's way, and it wasn't meant to be last night.

I keep telling myself it wasn't meant to be. And it's true. It wasn't meant to happen like this and I accept that. But just the thought of being in the same place at the same time kills me! He was so close to me, yet so far. Aint that a fuckn bitch! OMG. I just can't beleive it. I'm in awe.

I feel as though each day that passes we become closer and closer and the chances of meeting become more and more likely. I really want nature to take it's course and I want things to naturally fall into place the way god intends them to, but God please hurry! I'm anxious to meet him. 

Just a few weeks ago, we were in the same location as well. He was at a Sports Authority, and I was next door at Barnes&Noble. A few weeks before that, I was at Office Max, right after he had left!! And just last night, we were in the same location at the same time. and how I "magically" appeared before him on Twitter, which he doesn't even know how to use and lead him to my Blog and videos! C'mon now! As he likes to say "I was at the right place at the right time". And it's true... And just today, he says to me that he's going to be in So-Cal for Thanksgiving and guess who's gonna be in So-Cal for thanksgiving too! Yup. You guessed it. Your's Truly. Me. I told him, he should spend tiime with his family as I would do the same, and that he should take me out to one of the many places he said he'd love to take me to in So-Cal, he responded with I'll let you know if it's for sure. I guess it's not set in stone, weather he's going to visit his grandparents in So-Cal or if his Grandparents are coming up north. But the way life goes, I wouldn't be surprised if his abuelos came up North.

I know I'm not tripping out. It really seems as though things are slowly taking their course and I feel like we're a seed that's been planted, our stems have grown, and we're at the peak of blooming. Slowly things are coming together, and what's meant to be will always find it's way .I really can't wait to meet him. It's driving me crazy, but I feel as though it's almost here and I'm trying really hard to be patient because I know this is going to be special :)