we are in a fight.

yup, all of you are now on my shit list. don't pretend that you don't know why... you know what you did... if you don't know, i'm not telling you...

ok fine. take a look at my last post. go ahead. i'll wait.










see that word in the last paragraph? yeah, it's not so much "right" as "write". and i was not so much "right" as "completely fucking retarded". why the hell did no one tell me i did that?! for fuck sake! you'd think you were just reading my blog for entertainment and not picking it over for grammatical errors.

by the way, don't you hate it when you buy a bag of salad and forget about it until a month later and it's all gross and slimy in the bottom of your so-called "crisper" drawer?

yeah, me too.

gift giving tip

you guys know how i hate to judge or complain, but here i go.

the holiday season is the time of giving, as we all know. and when you don't know someone too well, you tend to give them the catch-all. yes, i'm talking about the Gift Card.

this gift is fine and dandy, especially between not-so-close friends or colleagues. but, to coin a cheech phrase, here's my issue with that.

if you are going to give the GC there is absolutely NO SHAME in writing, somewhere on or around it, the amount the GC is for! i received four GCs this year and not one of them indicated the amount the GC was worth. for pete's sake people! i don't want to look like a greedy bitch and be all "hey, not-so-close friend or colleague, exactly how much am i entitled to spend with this lovely GC?" would it hurt so much to put the freaking amount on the fricking GC? heck no! so, i have to go online and check the balances so i don't get up to the register at the GC store and look like a dumbass when my purchase far exceeds the GC amount. and then the ditsy cashier has to be all "ummm, the total is eleventy seven $$" and i have to be all "here's a GC of unknown amount i would like to apply toward my purchase" and she runs the damned thing and is all "ok, now it's like, totally only eleventy $$. how wud u lick 2 pay 4 that?" (and she says it misspelled like that because she's so dumb) i hate that stupid bitch. with her barcode scanner and nametag. she thinks she's so much better than me, but she's not!

all of this because some well-wisher couldn't right the god damn amount on the frickety fracking GC.

/end judgmental complaint/

picture pages with pete

i decided it was time for another installment of drawing fun with pete.

my parents have a lovely, xeriscape, backyard, complete with indigenous desert plants and even a fountain. of course, it's not as lovely as it was before my kids and i lived there for 7 months, but i digress. one of the indigenous plants to the lower sonoran desert is the yucca plant, which my son has drawn for us below:

and just in case you don't know what a yucca is and this graphic representation isn't sufficient, here is an actual yucca:

there is a hole at the base of the yucca in my parents' backyard, graciously dug by their cairn terrier. christian was not buying this story though, and the picture above is his story of what is actually in that hole.

it is, in fact, a demon rabbit hole. said demon rabbit must be killed with rocks that christian will fill the hole up with. if the rabbit is not killed, it will be flushed out by the rocks and then killed by the crazy monster, as a back up plan.

seriously folks. i have no idea where he gets these ideas from. definitely not me. it must be his dad's warped dna that gives him these ideas.


not. mine.

my family, the boy band

i don't know if i've ever told you this before, but i come from a large-ish all girl family. i have 4 sisters: 2 older, 2 younger. 5 siblings in our family... 5 members of N*sync... coincidence? i think not!

let me break it down for you something, yo.

i present N*sync




yuck, huh? personally, i hate them, but the picture is necessary to illustrate my point. we have justin, JC, chris, lance and joey. my sisters and i take on the roles of the boys in this band (and any other boy band for that matter) as follows:

justin: that'd be veryvaried, one of my older sisters. she's "the cute one" who always stood out and took charge (when we let her).

that, and she has permed, frost-tipped hair. hehehe


JC: that'd be oh-so-talented baby sister/member. she's also along the lines of "the cute one," but tends to be the wind beneath our wings. (if you just went "aw, how precious!", i have to say that is so funny because i am so non-sentimental. it was meant as a joke. gotcha!) she doesn't enjoy the spotlight as much as the lead singer, but is cute and talented in her own right.


chris: that's me. i'm the ok-looking, kind of talented sister/member who cracks a joke to bring attention away from the fact that i'm not as cool as the others.


lance: that's my other younger sister. she's the not-completely-with-it sister/member who everyone just nods their head at and smiles with her. and she's in space.


joey: and to our last sister/member, the oldest. seriously, i had no idea what this guy's name was, so i had to google it. that pretty much explains my oldest sister/member. she's way older than the other sister/members and doesn't really fit in the group, but we keep her around because she signed the contract.

there once was a man from nantucket...

i couldn't come up with any catchy title for this completely random posting, so that's what you get. they can't all be funny.

so, i've totally thought about blogging and i've actually got different ideas for posts rattling around in my head. and i've even meant to write them out for your reading pleasure. it just hasn't come to fruition. (don't you just love that word?!) it's the thought that counts anyway, don't you think? yeah, me too.

oh! did i tell you guys that i was soooooo sick the first two weeks of work? like, sicker than i've ever been ever in my entire life? well. maybe not ever ever, but close to it. yeah. it sucked.

despite that, i'm really loving my job. for instance, today, i found a form that we give to people who are going to donate, listing the medications that you can't be on in order to donate. except for it was an old version, and the newer version had an additional medication listed. you can imagine what that meant. you guessed it. a total recall of blood products collected in the time since the new version had come out. scary, huh? but it turned out ok, because this problem had already been resolved by national headquarters and no recall was required. phew! it was so exciting! the suspense was overwhelming! quite the nail-biting day.



you wish you were me...


shut up. you do too!

anywho, i promise to blog more often. i won't promise everyday... or even every week... probably not even every other week... but definitely more often.

and i am even cooler today!

ok, i'm not completely sure that anyone even looks at this anymore since it's been eleventy-seven decades since i last posted. i'm such a loser... but only on the blog-front! on every other front it is divide and conquer! i so completely rule. i'm the coolest person you know right now.

ok, ok, ok, since our last installment of "as valerie turns" - i've moved into my new place, kids have started school and daycare and i got a completely different (by different, i mean entirely better, and by entirely better, i mean pays substantially more) job then the one i moved up here for! yahoo for me! i am now working for the american red cross blood services doing what i do best - looking at other people's work and telling them what they did wrong! my favorite!

oh, and you remember my wunnerful son pete? he's a gemius. yup, gemius. his teacher here thinks he's sooooo smart that she wants to have him tested for the smart kid class.

and the girl is my beautiful, 3 year old cinderelly. she's going to her new daycare and is getting to the point of actually liking it. who knew she'd actually have a hard time without older brother around? go figure.

and did i mention i have my own stuff back? all of my towels and pans and books and cds and everything! it makes me happy to be a woman.

so, that's my excuse for being a lazy-ass blogger. for anyone who still looks over here anyway. and if you are, thanks for checking in on me!

i am so cool right now

yay for me! everyone celebrate because as of today, i am officially employed! this weekend i'm moving out of my parents house and going to live in my own house with my own stuff and sleep in my own bed. YIPEE YAHOO!!!

excuse me because now i have to go do the happy happy joy joy dance.

oh, sidenote before i leave. thanks to those of you reading this who went out on a limb and gave me a reference when you weren't supposed to. if you lose your jobs, you can come live with me in my tiny house because i'll be employed!

my family's rite of passage

yesterday, pete and the girl were introduced to the beloved and often misunderstood, peanut butter and pickle sammich. yes, regular smooth peanut butter and dill pickles. i will say this once and once only!

- don't knock it till you try it! -

they are super nummy tasty goodness and if you have never eaten one, you most definitely should before you leave this earth.

you may be saying "ew! no one in their right minds would eat something so disgusting!" and i would say to you "nay. google it." that's right. 89,000 entries. we can't all be wrong, now can we?

needless to say, pete ate his all gone, loving every bite and the girl... well, first let me say the girl doesn't eat much of anything (as we've seen photographic proof of in this blog). but at least she picked out the pickles and ate them, which is a start. she's not completely lost.

now go and make yourself a tasty snack!



and a reminder to send good thoughts tomorrow at 3:30 MST. yes that's mountain standard time. AZ doesn't subscribe to this hokey "day light savings" business.

send good thoughts...

i have an interview tomorrow! i'm really, really tired of being unemployed, so i am hoping that this job comes through for me. it's with the southern arizona aids foundation which is a great cause to work for, don't you think?

so, i'm begging you please, keep your fingers crossed, say a prayer to whomever you believe in, eat a chip and think of me, but for god's sake, do something! i need all the help i can get!

happy happy and all that

yeah, it's my birthday. the last one i plan on ever having.

in honor of my birthday, (and also my mom, who, if you go to her blog, can't keep a secret) i am divulging my real name to the few of those who read this who don't know it.

it's la-fawn-duh. ha ha! i wish!

nope. it's valerie. i hope you don't feel betrayed and lied to. if you do, i'm sure you'll get over it soon. just let it pass.

and because my sis decided to try to get me back for posting a not-so-flattering picture of her on her birthday, i'll go one better than her and post my own not-so-flattering picture of myself here. because i can't be outdone.

and now you know why my kids are scared of me.

prepare to have your world turned upside down

so, i have this nifty little extension for firefox called StumbleUpon and by clicking a little button on the toolbar it takes me to random sites on the net. it's a pretty cool (by cool, i actually mean addicting) little button.

anywho, i was stumbling the other night and i came across this website where an octopus eats a shark. i know, mind blowing, isn't it?

the kids watched it with me and had to watch a second time just to make sure that they saw what they thought they saw.

awhile after it was over, i found the girl wandering around the room, mumbling to herself, "the octopus, the shark, he eat him. really? really? the octopus eat the shark? really?"

i'm sure many of you will have the same reaction.

my comment on this website is that discovery channel will now have to change "shark week" to "octopus week."

a child's imagination

i am constantly amazed at how my kids' imaginations work. pete is always making up stories or drawing crazy pictures. the girl loves to sing, so she's always humming something to herself, making up words as she goes.


this piece of artwork is one of pete's favorites and i tried to label it as best i could remember.

he's so fricking smart and cute! i know i'm just a gushing mom at this point, but i don't care. you don't like it, read another blog! :P



just kidding, please don't leave me. i like feeling somewhat popular to the few people who actually read this. and if you have anything you'd like to hear from me, just ask and i'll try to meet your requests.

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.

the secret world of women

granted, i'm not the girliest girl you'll ever meet. i don't wear make up very much, i don't do my hair, i wear jeans and a t-shirt everyday. but there are female grooming habits that must be upheld by all women. here is a list of a few. this is not an exhaustive list, mind you, seeing as how i'm not all that girlie. maybe there's stuff out there i don't even know about.

1. facial hair

yes, women get it and we are as disgusted by it as you are. why do you think they make all those creams, bleaches and waxes? every single woman i've ever known has to deal with it. and not just a mustache either. nope, we get whiskers. usually just one or two, but they grow and we get rid of them! hopefully, anyway. there are some women who choose to ignore it and i'm hoping they'll read this. another instance of facial hair is the eyebrows. i have been plucking mine since i was 13. and a word to the men reading this, there is absolutely no shame in plucking your uni-brow. that's all i'll say.

2. toe hair

i know, it's something you guys don't think about, but we women do! when we have pretty painted toenails, the last thing we want is for you to be distracted by a forest of wild toe hair. so we shave it. maybe more ambitious women wax it, but personally, i shave.

3. *ahem* the bikini line

i really don't want to say anymore about this one because i had a recent experience with some wax and it still hurts me to think about it. but i will say that we do try to keep it neatly trimmed down there, not so much for aesthetics, but cleanliness. and i'm not going to get into "that time of the month". we all know that it happens and believe me, there's a good reason why we get so crabby, ok?

i think that's all i'll get into today. i may have crossed the line already. i realize it was all about hair because that's where most of my angst comes from. and i think lots of women would agree with me on that one. feel free to fill in anything i may have missed, girls.

monty python makes me giggle

Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who!


What Monty Python Character are you?
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