It's a Luxury.

I should be working out instead of blogging, but I couldn't help it. I haven't written in a while, so I will write a quick post.

Today was my first day at my new job. However, I have decided not to 'talk' too much about my job on my blog...just to remain professional. What happens at my workplace, stays at my workplace. :)

I will say though, that today being my first day and all (at my new full time job), I missed home. I missed getting home early, making myself a healthy lunch, facebook, blog, and pretty much have time for my stuff. Don't get me wrong, I was extremely excited about my first day at work. It was definitely the high light of my day. But I missed being home.

Several months ago, my sister told me that being a housewife or stay-home-mom is a luxury nowadays. Many people need jobs so the fact that a spouse can stay home and take care of the children is a luxury. I don't think I had thought about it too much, but today when my husband asked me about my first day at work, I told him "It was good, but I missed home" I was actually just kidding with him pretending to insinuate that I wanted to stay home. But his response was "Staying home is a luxury we can't afford right now"

Isn't that funny? He thinks it's a luxury as well! Well, in no way am I bashing any housewives. I am aware that mothers that stay home work more than 40 hours a week, raising children, cleaning, cooking, etc etc etc but overall it's a huge blessing.

So whether it's a blessing or luxury for you, I hope someday I also have the option of being a housewife... although I've gotta be honest, I love having a job. I am blessed to work in something I love to do and hopefully my hard work will eventually get me to where I want to be. But having the simple option of staying home or getting a job is nice. Don't you think?

If you are a beautiful and hardworking housewife, I hope you know you are super duper blessed! It's a complete luxury. The economy SUCKS so much right now that many households need 2 incomes. So if you are having a bad day with maybe too much laundry, or too many diapers to change, or too tired, just know above all of that, many women would want YOUR job. Many women would love to stay home for all the good reasons, but simply can't because like Gerson told me," it's a luxury we can't afford right now."

This one's for the women...

Last week, one morning, I woke up feeling extremely pessimistic. I no longer wanted to be the bread-winner of our household. I didn't feel like looking for a second job plus still have to cook, do laundry, work-out, and write (for my current job). My exact thought was "I did not sign up for this!"

My husband began his 3rd year of medical school a couple months ago. Third year is all about completing rotations at the hospital. For example, the next 5 weeks, he will be in the OBGYN field, which means his schedule begins at 4am til' 7-8pm, sometimes 10pm. Therefore, Gerson can't have a full-time job while he's in school. He sells 'stuff' on Ebay and does photography on the side, but it's not the same as having a full-time job. Money is not my main concern, but the time we spend with each other matters too. Gerson and I are very aware of our schedules, thus, we value very much the time we do get together. It's worth gold.

Well, that morning, I did not want to have this load of responsibilities on my shoulders. The good thing is that Gerson leaves way before I wake up so there was no way I could have vent with him (that only makes things worst). But what I really wanted was to wake up to my husband being the main household provider,so that I could do the things I enjoyed without any stress, and also of course have Gerson arrive around 6pm so we could actually sit and enjoy a dinner together like most families. Does that sound like too much to ask for? Maybe so, cause the truth of the matter is that those wants are far from me right now.

I have my days just like any other wife. We all 'wish' many things. I'm sure many housewives sometimes wish they had a job, or some free time from their children and some working wives dream of being able to stay home with their children and have the cleaning and cooking perfectly done for their husbands . I believe we all have our days!

The good thing is that my pessimism didn't go too far that morning. I decided to read my daily Proverb before starting the day that I was so not looking forward to and Proverbs 19 told me exactly this :

vs 8 Grow a wise heart—you'll do yourself a favor;
keep a clear head—you'll find a good life.

vs 13 ...a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping.

vs 14 House and land are handed down from parents,
but a congenial spouse comes straight from God.

vs 15 Laziness brings on deep sleep,
and the shiftless man goes hungry.

vs 21 We humans keep brainstorming options and plans,
but God's purpose prevails.


These proverbs made my day so much better... you have no idea!

I know that I must be wise in situations such as the one I had last week. I have an AMAZING husband, who loves me and does so much for me. The last thing he needs is a nagging (quarrelsome) wife, after a long, tiring day. The Word of God says that we (wives) come straight from Him. We're God's gift to our husbands.

Whether we're wives that have jobs or stay home, we should constantly be proactive and productive. Laziness gets us absolutely no where. There's actually another Proverb that says Do not love sleep or you will grow poor; stay awake and you will have food to spare. God knows our hearts. When we do our part, God does His. Our husbands, children, and complete lives are in His hands. His purpose always prevails!

Eat.Pray.Love.

I'm sure you have heard of Julia Roberts' new movie, EAT PRAY LOVE. Yes, I watched it this weekend with my sisters and mom thinking it would be the best chick-flick for a girls night out. But I would not recommend it. I'm no movie critic, so don't take my opinion too serious, but all four us became a tad bored after a while. Or maybe we were too silly that night for such a passive, somewhat melancholic storyline.

Well, although we didn't like the movie I felt that the title of the movie best described my weekend in Houston.

EAT: I enjoyed such great treats this weekend. I arrived to Houston early on Friday, met my sister, Ari, at the Galleria to shop. Since we were at Nordstroms, she insisted we buy a drink at their Ebar. She ordered a Mexican iced mocha and I a Mexican iced cocoa. It was yummy with enough calories and caffeine for the day. That night I met many of my girlfriends at La Madeline, and one of my friends bought a chocolate cake and cheesecake for everyone, so of course I had a slice!
The next day, I really wanted to take Gerson to Star Pizza. If you live in Houston, you better know what I'm talking about and if you plan on visiting H-town, you better stop for a slice, because it is the best pizza in Texas! I hate that I didn't take my camera this weekend, you would have been drooling over a simple picture. We ordered a chicken alfredo NY style pizza, and a salsa verde chicago style pizza. It was OMG so amazingly good!
After eating pizza, we stopped for another type of pie ... the sweet kind. I had always told Gerson about the Flying Saucer. It's the best pie shop in Houston. During Thanksgiving and Christmas the lines are so long, out the door and across the street. They even have cops guiding the parking and traffic, cause everybody wants the best pie for the holidays! But since we were all stuffed from pizza we took a coconut cream pie home to eat later. I was so excited! It had been YEARS since I had eaten a pie from Flying Saucer. My mom would laugh at me cause I would take a bite and say "I am so happy right now!" The pie was incredible!
Well, we finished this weekends food crawl with our usual pit stop to Risaralda Bakery. It's a Colombian bakery that's literally 5 minutes from my parents home. We actually have to drive by it in order to get I10, the highway we take to go back to San Antonio, which is why I refer to it as our pit stop. Gerson loves the empanadas or papas rellenas (stuffed potatoes) but I go strictly for their avena fria (cold oatmeal). It's a Colombian drink that's made out of oatmeal and it is so good!! I definitely splurged and spoiled myself this weekend.

PRAY: Although we didn't go to church and literally prayed, we did spend a weekend praying for one specific thing ... air conditioning. All of us spent the night at Analaura's house (She's my older sister). It was a big slumber party with my parents, two sisters, niece and nephew, brother-in-law, hubby and me all in one house. But her a/c stopped working on Saturday. It just kept on getting warmer and warmer. We would move from room to room thinking that if we all sat in one room our body heat would make us hot. Completely mental, I know! And although we could have left the house to somewhere fresh, we were so lazy and just wanted to bum around. We kept hoping and praying that someone would come fix it ASAP. And the prayers worked cause around 8pm a friend of the family finally came to check it out!

LOVE: Well, it's obvious that my family and I can't get enough of each other. We all love each other very much and enjoy the time we get together. I feel so blessed to have them in my life. ♥

The greatest love of all.

When Gerson and I started dating, we would constantly tell each other when we were "scoring points". For example, if I had cooked dinner for him one night, he would tell me "You just scored yourself 100 points!" The number fluctuated depending what we would do for each other. It's stupid, I know. We did it just to kid with one another, but sometimes it bugged me cause it made me feel as if I had a score board that would keep record of all my good and bad points with him. And the more good points I got, the bigger chance to get him to marry me someday. But since I knew it was just to play around, I never took it too serious. Besides, Gerson (and I) meant no harm at all. We've always loved each other no matter the "points" we accumulated.

Well, this afternoon I couldn't help but think of the greatest love of all... God's love. I was taking in, breathing and feeling God's love for me. I don't think no one on this planet could love me like He does!

It doesn't matter what you do or don't do, He will always love you. He's compassionate and loves us more than you could ever imagine. Even when we have fail or forgotten Him, He's there with His continuous love. There's absolutely no score board with God. It is truly the greatest love you could ever know... an unfailing, unconditional, and promising love.

Isn't that comforting? The security in knowing that no matter what happens in this lifetime, He will always be there for you...


And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God. Romans 8:38-39

GERSON PHOTOGRAPHY

Part of having a blog means putting my PR skills to work and promote any business that I think is worth sharing. Well, today I've got for you a very handsome photographer.... drum roll please ... MY HUSBAND!

Gerson has enjoyed photography for several years, and now that he's in medical school full time, this is his part-time job. He is currently working on his website, which I will share as soon as it's up and running, but for now check out some of his photos.

If you would like to know more information and pricing, I would be more than happy to email it you. We will be in Houston next weekend, so if you're interested in updating your family portrait, please let me know. We would love for you to pick us for your next photo shoot. :)


Christy Sanchez



Lalo & Ari




Ismael & Keila



Mendez Family



Me

Gerson & Adri

On August 3rd, 2003 my love story with Gerson began.


Gerson and I had just come back from having lunch at a French restaurant with some friends. We were sitting in his 1997 Nissan Sentra at the parking lot of my apartment complex talking and laughing a lot. We spent about 45minutes in the car and the last 'conversation' I remember is me telling him that when he became a doctor I was going to make sure I referred everybody to him, when he then said "Ok Adri, let's get serious"
I wasn't sure if he really wanted me to stop talking or if he was just kidding (Gerson's constantly joking). But he continued to tell me that for the past months he had been getting to know me and was crazy about me. That he knew we were only friends, but not one single day would go by without him thinking about me. He went on and on about everything he felt and thought (very sweet). We always remember that he then grabbed some Altoids and offered me one and his hand was SHAKING!! He was so nervous! He later admitted that it was all unplanned. His original plan was to take me out to a nice restaurant with more of a romantic ambiance. But I guess he couldn't wait any longer. :)
My face hurt of smiling so much! I was so happy because I was crazy about him too. We had been friends for a year and although it wasn't love at first sight, we always had a special click ... chemistry (is what Gerson likes to call it).

I realize it wasn't the most romantic way to tell me. We were in a crappy car. I had jeans and a white shirt with crimpy ugly hair cause I had decided to experiment with some curly iron that day. But here we are, seven years later, more in love than we have ever been! And although we've had tons of romantic nights and dates, August 3rd will always be the one we remember the most.


In a word, there are three things
that last forever: faith, hope, and love;
but the greatest of them all is love. - 1 Corinthians 13:13