Love…

Have you ever hated someone you cared about? Have you ever loved someone you cared about? Have you ever loved someone going through chemo? It’s a different kind of love, something I had never experienced before. 

Today was the start of the second round of chemo for the hubby. He is doing amazing! I call him Rocky now to pump him up and cheer him on. I played the theme song of Rocky when he got discharged from the hospital last time.

So, it being Valentines today, I thought about how today was a different Valentines than all the other Valentines. It was the first Valentines Winston and I don’t sleep next to each other, the first we don’t kiss at all, the first we don’t go out on a date, the first I didn’t get flowers or chocolates from him…(I did get cute fancy earrings from him tho)…

My thoughts then led me to how our love has evolved. How I’ve had so many different feelings for him for so long (25+ yrs). How I’ve both hated him, been irritated by him, been entertained by him, have had fun with him and now was in the middle of experiencing a whole different level of love for him. 

It’s difficult to explain but it’s a love that is growing while I am constantly masked around him, while our affection is limited to holding hands and brief hugs, while I patiently listen to everything he talks about tirelessly, while I  continuously care for him and stay on alert to limit his germ exposure, and while I give him his meds and tend to his every need. 

Burn out is real and I’ve taken a few breaks for my own sanity. God is real. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is real. Love is real also and I am so glad I made Christ and friendship the foundation of our relationship from the start before any displays of affection. We are still friends and we are learning how to listen and value our different opinions more than ever. 

You can’t force anyone to love you or treat you the way you want. Can you force anyone to hate you? Ultimately, the choice to love, hate, ignore, etc. lies in the power of each person’s agency. 

Goodnight, Winston.  Happy Valentine’s Day. I’m sleeping in your dress shirt tonight. Dream about us dancing tango and salsa while you’re in your hospital room 😘 

Con Amor, Tu Reina Dané💗

Resilience

My mama taught me to be resilient. She was a single mother with three little girls and pushed two jobs for a long time. And my faith in Jesus Christ and God my Father fuels my resilience.

I'm in the surgery waiting room right now. The hubby is in surgery. January 3rd at 10pm he left to go push some snow. He was so happy. He smiled as he left and walked away saying, "Te gusta que soy trabajador verda'??" Like always a big macho man, protector and provider. 

He called me a couple hours later at 12:16am while I was in bed and he said he was confused and didn't feel well and didn't know where he was. He repeated, he didn't feel well and then added his head hurt. I thought immediately-STROKE. I told him to wait there and that I'd call the ambulance. That night he was diagnosed in the ER with TGA Transient Global Amnesia. The MRI image also found three bright glowing dots diagnosed as three brain tumors. Not one. Not two. THREE! THREE TUMORS :(

It still sounds unreal and I haven't verbalized this with many people (it hurts more to verbalize it) but it's happening and it's real and here I am in the surgery waiting room now.

As I think about other emotional mountains I have climbed and about the power of faith that opens the conduit to heavenly miracles-I am comforted and I know He is in charge. 

In particular, the words and scriptures shared by President Russell M.Nelson from April 2021 General Conference talk has helped me, titled, Christ Is Risen; Faith in Him Will Move Mountains:

"The Lord does not require perfect faith for us to have access to His perfect power. But He does ask us to believe."

"Your mountains may be loneliness, doubt, illness, or other personal problems. Your mountains will vary, and yet the answer to each of your challenges is to increase your faith. That takes work...To do anything well requires effort." 

He continues by giving five suggestions to develop faith:

• Study scriptures-"the more you learn about the Savior, the easier it will be to trust in His mercy, His infinite love, and His strengthening, healing, and redeeming power. The Savior is never closer to you than when you are facing or climbing a mountain with faith"
• Choose to believe in Jesus Christ-"take 
• Act in faith
• Partake of sacred ordinances
• Ask Heavenly Father for help

....He's out of surgery...all went well...only a needle biopsy not an open biospy...

I know this road will be a long one but I will celebrate the moments I'm given. Amen!! God is Great!!!!

Transient

2:11am and wishing time would stop...just for a little longer. To let me spend more time with the family together, to watch another movie with the kids, to cuddle a little longer, to laugh, argue and laugh again.

My 19yr old leaves to college in the morning. In a land far far away called Rexburg, Idaho. I would normally go to the airport to wish her well, but not tomorrow. I will be leaving early to get tires rotated on the car the boys will be driving to Idaho. But mostly I am not going to the airport because I don’t want to risk seeing the man she is dating. I pray she develops the gift of discernment and sees clearly what we see, what God sees. He is not the best for her but she loves him dearly and wants to marry him. I mentioned she’s 19, right??

My two boys plan to leave early Monday morning before sunrise. I pray they behave, grow closer to the Lord and get good grades (and not play so much of that dang 2K or 8 ball and such). They will be caravanning with a close buddy and his dad all the way to Rexburg. May God’s angels be with them during the whole road trip. I love my babies dearly.

With three gone that will make for a pretty quiet house. It will be the hubby, the 14yr old and I until Christmas. May we all keep our sanity.

I end with the words of a sick veteran I once made rice and beans for. He told me of his life, of love, how he met his wife and of religion. Then he said a phrase that marked my mind and has come up on many occasions like tonight. He said, “Everything in life is transient you know. Everything is transient.” I looked that word up and pondered it repeatedly. While I do believe in eternal truths like love, family, education, ordinances-there is a lot of truth in the phrase with regard to other things. What does it mean to you??

Here’s to a fruitful and happy future for me and the family, even during the beginning of this new transient phase of life for me called “almost empty nesters”.

Night 💗

Bolivia 2009...finally

This weekend will be a week since I 've been back and what I have to say I miss the most is my grandma, Mama Alicia. I miss waking up and having breakfast with her; hot chocolate or mate with maraquetas, margarina, queso, y mermelada. I miss her stories and gossip she'd tell us at night while we laid on her bed before going to sleep. I miss her laugh, and her facial expressions. As I kissed her goodbye at her bedside last Friday at 4am, she just put her head down and quietly wimpered trying to not cry in front of me. I loved spending time with her. She is a beautiful women.

You live your life hearing about so many places and when you're actually there, it's incredible. My mom took my older sister and I to Bolivia when I was about 1-1/2 yrs old for my younger sister to be born there. I stayed until I was about 3. I don't remember anything. So I grew up in the states going to many boliviain parties, I learn the dances, I eat the food, I represent Bolivia in the D.C. parades, I participate in a bolivian pageant, I learn all about Bolivia and the day finally comes where I finally get to go as a grown up and experience all I can in two weeks. One of my favorite moments was traveling to Copacabana in a minivan, they call a minibus, and staring out the window while the driver played music from Los Kharkas. It was as if I was home. A home I had missed, and couldn't remember but the feeling of comfort and peace was unmistakable.

Getting off the plane I was hoping I'd be fine, y'know since I've got bolivian blood and all, but nope, the minute I got off the plane I was already feeling weary from the altitude. I began drinking my mate de coca right away at the airport, and kept on drinking. Didn't get high off of it or anything, but I kept drinking my coca and sorojchi pill for the altitude throught the next day. Soon enough I was all chipper and ready to explore.

I love water, so Lago Titicaca was my favorite tourist place. The Calvario is there, and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of that climb while Lili was hanging on my back pocket, at I don't know how many thousands of feet above sea level, up quite a steep hill, to finally reach the breathtaking view of the huge lake that looks like an ocean.

There was a big, all day parade held by a University and I got pulled into the parade twice to dance-that was fun. No D.C. copy cats-the real thing, live in La Paz, Bolivia.

The dogs looked so happy roaming streets and having buffets around piles of trash. They seemed to have an extra bounce to their walk.

Very polite people, even the thieves are so polite, they don't even let you know you got robbed.

We got to see the ruins of Tiwanaku, a tribe that lived before the Inca Empire. We saw altars where they sacrificed animals, we layed in some special, meditative, magnetic eneryg rock, and saw many symbols representing the condor, the snake, the puma, and fish. The tour was 3hrs long. After about 2hrs we kept asking what time it was.

We traveled to Cochabamba, another department eight hours away, to see more family. Cochabamba is a much warmer place than La Paz. We loved the weather. We were also warned by many about the crime there being worse than La Paz. The lady that ran the hotel was kind enough to tell us that she had gotten help up with a knife and that they had slashed her hand three times and hit her in her face, showing us her scars. Not comforting. One night when we were coming back from using the internet down the street, we arrive at our hotel, and we're walking through the open garden to get to our door. The walkway to our door was very poorly lit. We turn the corner very wearily and Lili is in front of me, and I've got her back-when all of a sudden this HUGE shadow appears in front of us. That freaked us out, but especially poor Lili. Well, the guy probably had gotten just as scared as us and we all start to laugh, except Lili was only barely laughing cuz she was pretty shooken up by this tall dude with a big hat. He made some kind of duende joke, meaning to watch out for the trolls.

Oh yeah, something Lili kept getting a good laugh at was how many times people made comments about my poor Bolivian accent. At Lago Titicaca, some argentinian ladies said I had a yankee accent. At church, a guy was leaning into my face asking wheather I understood him at all, another older man commented "pero se esta olvidando su espanol!", and Lili probably remembers more examples.

Okay, another big moment was my first visit at a tatoo parlor accompanied by whoelse, but my Tia Parmenia. The guy had hair down to his bottom and he was playing Bob Marley when we walked in. No, I didn't get a tatoo. Not even tempted, maybe in college a little tempted, but not now. I was so nervous. Sweaty hands, butterflies in my stomach, felt anxious, got second thoughts, but Mauricio was so gentle and patient, I was able to go through with it. You'll have to ask me or see me to find out what I got done, and very poorly done I must add, cuz when I got home a couple of days after getting it done, it mostly peeled off with my first hot shower I took. I didn't follow the post care instructions all the way either.

The food was good and I never got diarrhea, but boy did we get gas, big time, major gas.

Shopping was fun, and I did convince some cholitas to lower the price, but no where near as good as my Tia Parmenia. She knew how to laugh and joke with the cholitas, and she had that certain way of talking that bolivians use to ask for things. My Tia drove us around La Paz alot, on top of having to drive around for Papi Adalberto, grandpa, to dr appts, and driving around for school. She was awesome. When I was buying a CD with her, I had the kid pop the CD in for us and pump the volume up for my Tia Parmenia and I to sing to it. We were singing all loud on the side walk jamming to "Te Quiero" by Flex or Nigga while Lili pretended she wasn't with us.

And ofcourse, there was all the family I met that before was only a name of a family member people would talk about, but on my trip we got to eat, catch up and laugh together.

I've got an awesome family in Bolivia. And La Paz itself, I miss the huge mountains, like the snowy topped Illimani, the night lights, the differnet smells of yummy food as I walked by restaurants, the bread, the cholitas, the windy roads. The sweet manner in which the people speak. I miss it all.

I am so grateful I got to go. I'm only left with a greater desire to return, but this time with my kids so I can stay even longer. Maybe I'll actually pick up on the accent better next time. Ha!

I know this got long. If anyone read this, I hope you enjoyed it.
May we all be enriched by finding our roots and discovering the endless beauty of our heritage.

I'll end with a link to a Kharkas song called Munasquechay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GKSey7piXQ&feature=related

Mayhem in Myrtle Beach July 2009

The week at the beach flew by. It was an oceanfront condo with 4 bedrooms, 3 full baths and top of the line appliances I didn't even want to touch. There were 8 beds in the place, including sofa beds, and like the good latinos we are we filled it up with family. My family, my two sisters and their family, Mom and Jose (10 children in our party).

The 8 hr drive down wasn't bad with the kids. After situating ourselves, we went straight to the beach. Oh, the weather was nice. Oh so nice. The water warm, and that nice ocean breeze. The South Carolina people look similar to West Virginians. I guess the biggest difference was their southern accent. They were polite too.

Besides going to the beach, the pool, and eating out with a party of 14 we also got to see the fireworks...actually fireworks all week. They were thrown off the pier while many watched all along the beach on the 4th of July. It was my first time watching firecrackers at the beach. I still like D.C. better but it was nice. There was a firecracker in the shape of a smiley face. Then we celebrated Mom's birthday on the 7th and Winston and I took her to Senor Frog's Nightclub. It was pretty funny jamming with my mom and Jose to Jump Around by House of Pain, and even with Winston for that matter. It was a descent club, nobody disrespectful, and the DJ's even played a merengue for mom and wished her happy birthday.

Let's see we also went to Ripley's Aquarium-I love aquarium's-Ripley's Mirror Maze-a free outdoor show of Ripley's Believe It or Not-Gabriella kept asking me "Mom...did he eat the balloon...where's the balloon?...did he eat the balloon Mom?" This guy got on my nerves with his jokes.

The funnest for the kids was Family Kingdom. Cheaper than King's Dominion, smaller, less exhausting, and still packed with fun. I'd have to say the most fun I had was laughing so hard at the beach with my mom and sisters when we were recreating a pose we took years and years ago when we were at the beach with my mom as children. Together we were remembering the exact pose and who was beside who and I'm not sure if Mom knew what we were trying to do cuz she kep telling Elena "why do you have your hand up like that, put your hand down Elena, stop that"...and then I kept looking at the picture and laughing and looking at the picture again and laughing more til I couldn't breathe. So my plan is to have Elena scan the old picture and put the then a now shots together to give you all a good laugh.

The nicest place we ate at was Captain George's. I highly recommend it. Very yummy and worth every dollar.

No fights, none at all, EXCEPT for a small blow out on the very last day with Mom and Jose in the middle of a restaurant between Jose and I. I felt terrible. We made up and still ate together, but my lack of patience is a shame. It was 2pm and I don't think anybody had eaten an actual meal.

Other funny moments: Gabriella peed on the bed in the early morning, someone else had another accident on another bed, spills by the kids at the restaurants, jokes about the SC serial killer that was on the loose while we were there (he got caught), crying as we watched the MJ memorial together, following Caesar to get to church on time and then we figure out it's on a completely different road, following Alex to get to Aquarium and there went Alex and there we went down the wrong road, Mom and Jose following us to pick a place to eat and Elena and I couldn't decide where to eat and we kept going into parking lots, changing our minds giggling, and then leaving while Mom and Jose were dying to eat, sneaking into the lazy river the resort next to us had even with their big sign that said trespassers will be prosecuted...and other moments I'm probably forgetting-OH MY GOSH-Dimitri, I almost forgot Dimitri, our bulgarian waiter from Captain George's. When Jose was in the bathroom, he was all telling my mom the spanish words he knew like " eres bella, quieres casarte conmigo.."and mom ofcourse was lovin' it-then it was time to check out and so I make Elena (who was reapplying her lipstick after eating) kiss the receipt for Dimitri and I was going to put Lili's # but we didn't, and then there was a book where you could leave your name and comment so I put Elena's name and wrote " I loved Dimitri" and Elena put Lili's name and wrote "from a feel good place in MD" and we're hovering over this book giggling like little mischievous girls.....yes the three of us over 30 and loving the childish play.

And to finish it off, it's one in the morning and we're driving back home when Winston and I decide to switch places, so I'm behind the wheel now, and I'm awake, feeling fine when all of a sudden the car in front of me swerves out of the way abruptly only to leave in front of me this HUGE dead deer-it was HUGE, HUGE. I looked at my mirrors in the split second that I had and didn't have any choice but to hold on to that steering wheel and pray nothing worse would happen-BUH- BOOM-BOOM BOOM-BOOM went my car as it hit the carcass. It was terrible. There was a trailor behind me and another beside that trailor, and as I kept repeating the scene in my mind, all I could think of was those trailors and had I lost control and hit those trailors-no more Peralta Zepeda family or a maimed one. God still wants us alive though. The worst that happened was the bumper partially coming off and a shot alignment. So we get home fine and as we get out of the car the smell of dead deer is so potent I refused to park it in the garage. The next morning we see blood on the tires, on other parts of the car and deer hair under the car. Yuck!

Would I do it again? In a heart beat. (except for that deer accident).

Life is good....even with its ups and downs...life is good.

The Blog World and future events

After all the blogs I've read of others I am finally deciding to create my own blog. Not because I think many will read it or have requested it, but more because I haven't kept up with my journals anymore and seems easier to check email and then just type in something here. My thoughts, concerns, trials, triumphs, testimony...

So here is my first blog. Blog, blog, blog, blog,blog...who made up that word anyway.

I''m using my spankin' brand new laptop. I'll need it for online courses I'm planning on taking come September. This Friday the family leaves to North Myrtle Beach, SC. I'm excited. I love getting together with my mom and sisters. The hubbies and kids will be coming too. It should be jam packed with noise, stress, laughs, complaints, and more laughs. We'll be there Jul 3-11. My mom and sisters leave the 7th though.

Then Jul 12 is my 3rd child's baptism. I'm looking forward to that too. Still got to plan it and invite friends and extended family to come.

Then Jul 19-31 Lili and I will be in Bolivia. I'm mostly excited about that trip. Haven't been there since I was 2yrs old. I'll be staying with my grandma and sounds like our Tia Parmenia will be showing us around. Need to read up on the effects the altitude will do on me. Kinda worried about that and getting diarrhea. I'll be talking like a true boliviana when I get back.

Stay posted for blog on the Myrtle Beach Fiasco.