i am enraged...

... and you should be too. i have always been a big fan of the excedrine migraine. i love it. when i have a headache, any headache, i take a couple of those and *wham-o* - headache's gone! love it! (imagine that in a sing-songy voice)

so i'm at the wally world the other day, and i'm looking at the excedrine migraine (because i ran out because the girl ate all of mine - don't ask, i'm not getting into that yet) and money's tight lately, so i'm comparing it to the generic, equate brand, which is non-migraine, but still excedrine-esque. so, i'm looking at the excedrine migraine, and i note that it contains 250 mg acetimenophen, 250 mg aspirin and 65 mg caffiene. remember that because that info will come in handy right now. i look at the equate excedrine and guess what dear friends? -exact. same. amount. of. everything.- so i look at the regular excedrine and guess what else? yup, you guessed it. exact same amount! i shit you not. we have been duped. all of us. i was thinking of starting a letter writing campaign to excedrine so we could all voice our disgust at their marketing ploy, but then i remembered that i'd have to write something and that's just too much like work.

moral of the story - i've done the research so you don't have to. just go with the equate. it's great. yes, equate is great. you can thank me later.

nudist colonies in utah

oh my god! i was just checking my stat counter and someone (sorry if this is you, but it's too funny, so i had to share) came to my site by searching for "nudist colonies in utah!" mine is one of the first 5 sites that comes up under that search! i don't use this term often, but ROFL!

i gotta be more careful what i write about.

it's sister's birthday!

30 years ago today, veryvaried was brought to life in virginia. she's beautiful (always been "the pretty one"), smart, generous, caring, loving, and everything else a girl could want in a sister. i love you lots heifer and i miss you.

so, help me out and stop by her blog and say "happy birthday old lady! you're still 13 months older than tina!"

pete's in school!

this post is late and awhile in the making. pete's been in school for two whole weeks now and i haven't even mentioned it. *sigh* i'm such a horrible mother. eh, i'll get over it.

would you just look at him?! he's so grown up! *flick a tear*


he's such a big boy, he rode the school bus all by himself. this is him at the bus stop.

of course, mom followed the bus to school to make sure the bus driver knew what he was doing and that pete would actually get off of it when it got to school. yes, i am an overprotective mother and proud of it.

this is him and his teacher in the background, just waiting for school to start. yes, i'm still there. separation is hard for me!

here's a nice picture of pete's teacher's bum, but that's not what i was taking a picture of! see my big boy sitting at his table in the background there? *sniff, sniff* he's so big.

i stayed there all day, just watching him through the window. the teacher had to ask me to leave a dozen times, so i just hid better. just kidding, i'm not that bad. i left (rather begrudgingly) after they stood and said the pledge. and i'm glad to report he made it home on the bus that day and has everyday since. but i won't tell you about the day i was a minute late to pick him up from the bus stop and i was severely chastised. ("mommy, you'd better never do that again!") the bus was early! leave me alone.

so now the girl and mommy have lots of time together. time spent eating excedrine migraine and calling poison control. i'll tell the rest of that story later.

the aunt who wouldn't die

let me preface this post by saying that i love my family, all of them, in one way or another. they are where we come from and they have all influenced me in one way or another.

i come from a long line of hicks and mountain men. literally. remember about 10 years ago when there was that mountain man stand off up in montana? yeah. i had a relative or two there.

anywho, i have a particular aunt - we'll call her aunt crackhead for the purposes of this post - who has, shall we say, made some bad choices in her life. as the chosen name would suggest, she's been addicted to drugs and alcohol for god knows how long, she's had a string of wifebeating husbands and boyfriends, and is morbidly obese. all of this has not been so good for her health. she is consistently on death's door and has actually been resuscitated a number of times. everyone is constantly in a dither, rushing to her aid or to stand vigil at her bedside to wait for her to die. for years.

i have heard many times "oh, poor aunt crackhead. what has she ever done to deserve this?"

ummmm... i'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it may have been the lifetime of destroying her body. i know, seems unlikely. call me kookie.

so, you've probably guessed that i am less than concerned about her health after years of crying wolf. she'll probably outlive the rest of us; she has enough chemicals and preservatives in her body to do it. that doesn't stop everyone else in the family from keeping me up to date on her latest illnesses. case in point, this weekend my mother told me about a recent phone conversation with aunt crackhead - "i would ask her questions and she wouldn't answer me for the longest time and when she did she was very slow and her speech was slurred. i'm so worried about her." this is the point where i keep myself from asking "isn't she dead yet?" because that's just insensitive. and i am anything but insensitive. just ask me. so, instead i ask what's being done to help her. then i get told a story about how my grandma bought a friend of aunt crackhead's a car so she could go out there daily and lend a helping hand. turns out this "friend" ran off with said car and hasn't been heard from again. go figure. the friend of a known druggy stole from her family.

with a gene pool like this, is it any wonder i'm so screwed up?




let me reiterate - i love my aunt. she is a good person who has been through a lot of hurt that i wouldn't wish on anyone. this is just how i deal with bad situations. i make light of them.

5 questions from jill

i got these questions from jillybeans. i asked her to write these questions for me (because i'm kind of at a loss. weird, huh?) and if you want to do the same activity, leave a comment and i'll write some torturous questions for you. then i'll post the questions and you let me know when you're done answering them on your blog. got it? ok, here goes.

1. I have a silly saying "You can't be blue if you wear pink." What silly saying do you live by?

"when you point one finger at me, you're pointing three back at yourself. and one at god. blame god." that's just a silly saying of course. i don't believe in god.

2. Celine Dion gives me hives, whose music do you have to turn off?

believe it or not, celine dion also. yucky, icky, no, no, wrong.

3. If you woke up one day and had a different life what would it look like?

on the bad side, if i had made different choices - i would most likely have a 9 year old child and be stuck in a loveless, abusive marriage with no way out because i never got an education and am dependent on my mean husband for support.
on the good side, if i was living a dream - i'd be skinny and beautiful, live in a nice house, have a good job and a good husband. just living the american dream.

4. Name 5 great things that make you TINA.

a. i'm mildly amusing
b. i can steer a car like it's nobody's business
c. i don't pick my nose and eat it
d. i try to be a good mom/person in general
e. i don't like cats

5. When you die who is the first person you want to see in heaven and why?

i'm never good with these "dead people" questions, but i'll give it a try. i'm sitting here trying to think of any of my dead relatives, but none pop out... then i think maybe a famous person, but i can't pin just one down. and what it comes down to is that i'd just like to meet a new person, to make a new friend. learn about their life experiences and share mine. is that silly? yeah, pretty much. but that's my answer, so deal.