The last 2 weeks.....

If you would like to read how the last 2 weeks transpired, then scroll down to the entry titled My Baby Turns 1 and read up.

A beautiful wedding- SUNDAY

Today my cousin E got married at the Tempe Art Center. She looked awesome and everything about the wedding was perfect, including the 2 plates of food I devoured. I love weddings and am always very moved at the love that people feel for each other. The judge who married them was the same one that married Mr. B and I over 5 years ago. Hearing his voice took me back to the day that Mr. B and I were standing in my backyard exchanging our vowes and remembering how he looked at me as we stared in each other's eyes promising forever. Mr. B gets a lot of bad press in my blogs, but he really is an amazing man and it was nice to be able to take a moment and think back to that very special day for us. After such an emotional, tragic and overwhelming 2 weeks it was refreshing to end it with a new life for 2 people and most importantly, love.

A week of funerals - TUESDAY AND FRIDAY

We later learned that our renter died of natural causes. Baby Maria did not.

Tuesday was the services for the baby, something that I pray I never have to go to again. The church was full of police officers from both agencies, family and 2 parents that just lost their baby. There is really not a way to describe to absolute sadness and pain you feel for the parents as you cannot even imagine what they are going through. What do you say? It just makes no sense. Pink balloons were released at the cemetery as we all said good bye to a life that only arrived 17 days prior.

Friday was the service for Mr. P. Of course, I felt sadness for the family and the 3 children he left behind, but at least with Mr. P there could also be some peace knowing that he lived a full life and was now able to rest.

Heartbreaking News- THURSDAY

I woke up Thursday to a text from my mom asking if Mr. B knew the female police officer who lost her baby to a dog attack the night prior. In her text she said that the news said that she was married to a police officer from a different agency. Mr. B was still in bed, so I woke him up to ask him. He immediately knew who the news was talking about and after calling in to work, he confirmed that the unimaginable news was true. A friend and a co-worker who he graduated from the academy with, had just lost her 2 week old baby after the family dog attacked her. Mr. B spent the day in tears as his heart pained for her, her husband and their family. How could this happen?

Our Renter WEDNESDAY

So the day prior I was laid off. Bummer, but thankfully real estate has picked up a bit with the first time home buyer credit that is being offered. I needed to pick up the rent check for our rental property, something that I do at the beginning of each month, but had an appointment to show houses that afternoon. That left Mr. B to stop and pick it up from our renter Mr. P. I called and left a message for Mr. P, letting him know that Mr. B would be picking it up this month, just to make him aware that it would not be me. When Mr. B arrived, he realized really quickly that something was very wrong. The check was not under the mat, the yard was very over grown, mail was piling up in the box, the trash had not been thrown and no one was answering the door. ALL very unlike our very responsible renter that we had come to know over the last year. An older man, he moved here to take care of his handicap brother. He was the perfect renter.

The previous month, when I picked up the check he had mentioned that he had been sick. So when Mr. B called to tell me that he was not answering and that things did not look right I told him to call 911. Mr. B called back a bit later to tell me that the police found Mr. P dead in his bed. Oh my gosh. So sad. We had no idea how long he had been there and I will spare you the details.

The next several days were spent trying to find his family and trying to figure out what we were supposed to do. We finally learned that his daughter was serving in the Air Force in Afghanistan and it would take several days for her to get here. So sad.

Your Fired! TUESDAY

For the last 2 years, I have had a part time job with a local newspaper. The job came about by accident and it ended up being one of the greatest jobs ever. At times, it was difficult to juggle with doing real estate full time and popping out a baby each passing year, but one that I really loved. On behalf of the paper, I traveled to close to 100 different schools each year around town and did a 1 hour writing activity with the students from grades k -12. Each week from my home office, I took the material that the students worked on and formatted it on the computer, scan in the art work and emailed it to our office. Every Thursday, one page of the weekly paper published the work of the students that I had visited. It was an awesome program that the teachers and students loved and I loved being able to meet so many students around the valley and reading what they had to say.

The only time I had to go into our main office was to pick up papers to take out to the students when I did the workshop, so I should have been concerned when I received an email saying that there was a mandatory meeting on Tuesday. I was really more annoyed than anything, because that meant that I would have to get up super early, iron my fancy work shirt and ugly maternity dress, fight with my panty hose (dress code requirement) and drive in rush hour traffic to get to this mandatory meeting. Imagine how shocked I was to sit all cute with 16 of my co workers, only to find out that I got all dressed up to get laid off along with everyone else in the room. They did not just lay us all off, but they closed down the entire paper all together. I have never been laid off before, and once I realized it was not a joke, my body went numb. I sat there and looked around the table as silent tears feel down the faces of several of the employees. No one had a clue about it. When I first took the job, it was extra income, but as real estate slowed down last year, it became necessary income and I started to panic. Mr. B's over time had been recently been cut and baby number4 was on the way.

I spent the day in a fog but little did I know that the bad news had only just begun.....It is true when they say bad things happen in 3's.

My baby turns 1! SUNDAY

Not sure when to celebrate my Leap Year baby's birthday and seeking a few peoples thoughts about it, I decided to celebrate Ms. O's birthday on March 1st and not February 28th. The consensus was that since her birth fell on February 29th the 28th would be a day early. In my attempt to keep things as simple as possible, we ordered pizza and Mr. B made the cupcakes. Unfortunately, Miss O had a horrible double ear infection and really could have cared less about any of it. She got to wear the same I'M 1 hat that my other girls wore for their 1st birthdays. I wonder if I could get away with using it for our baby boy's 1st birthday. I'd hate to have to buy a new hat, just because he is a boy. Boys can wear pink, right?

Lowrider

This morning Mr. B got a wild hair and decided that today was the day to start his fruit business. So off we went to Home Depot for a variety of fruit trees. He has sweet memories of climbing mango trees as a child in the Dominican Republic and stuffing himself silly with juicy mangos, so his first pick were mango trees. Tangerine, lemon, plum and nectarines will go nicely with the apple, apricot and peach that we planted last season. It came time to fill the holes and where was Mr. B? At a work meeting of course, so off I go to Home Depot with my loyal helper Senor M (Mr. B's brother). 6 bags of super heavy mulch is what we needed. Senor M loaded 4 of them in the trunk of the car and put 2 in the back seat. As I pulled out onto the road I heard this horrible sound of something dragging and grinding. It did not take long to realize the weight of the stinky mulch was weighing down the back of the car. I had to think fast as cars were all around. I was worried that sparks were shooting out the back of the car, so I told Senor M to lean forward hoping that it would shift just enough weight forward...that did not work. Not wanting to start the car on fire, I pulled over and asked Senor M to pull one bag out of the trunk and put it on the hood. He refused, stating something about that being illegal and unsafe. Something about it will block my view....Not sure what to do and unable to lift it myself I started screaming that we have no other option (I am gonna pull a hormonal pregnancy card on this situation) And like any smart man who has a screaming pregnant woman yelling at them in the middle of a busy road, he complied. All I could do was pray that I did not get pulled over for the stupid idea that I had. Well, I am happy to say that not only did we not get pulled over, but it was just enough weight difference to stop the dragging sound. I am so smart. Now, lets hope the crazy combination of trees that we planted grow so that he can sell them on the corner in 5 years.