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?
brought to you by Quizilla

from sleeping in to a nudist colony in less than 1 minute

i thought it was time for another installment of my crazy thought processes...

last night as i was falling asleep, i found myself hoping i could sleep in in the morning. then i thought about my helpful young son and how he would most likely get breakfast for his sister and himself so mommy could sleep a little longer. then my thoughts moved to other mundane tasks of the day, like taking a shower. then i started wondering if my 5 year old son would be scarred for life because he had seen me naked when i was getting ready to get in the shower that day. then i thought, "hey, it's a natural thing. people at nudist colonies think there's nothing wrong with it." then i started thinking about nudist colonies and what it must be like to live there, especially for the women. like, how do they deal with "that time of the month"? i mean, they'd have to wear tampons, but then everyone would know because they'd have the visual evidence, right? so then maybe they wear underwear at that time. but even then, everyone would still know because why else would they be wearing underwear? and what about men? what if they see some hot, naked, female nudist? there really isn't any way to play hard to get, if you know what i mean. which reminds me of one of my favorite jokes:

how do you tell the blind guy at a nudist colony?



it's not hard!

get it? it's a double entendre! because it's not difficult to detect which man may be blind because his penis wouldn't be erect, assuming he would be aroused by all of the naked women around him! get it? isn't that funny?

i do act my age!

You Are 28 Years Old

28 Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

This Dog Is Mental!

i laughed SO hard at this. you guys had better laugh too.

crap

i done been tagged. so here goes...

What I was doing 10 years ago:
i had just quit my first job at taco hell and found a new job working in the sears hardware department. that was an awesome job, i had lots of fun and learned A LOT! i was going to be starting my second year of college and was living with my asshole boyfriend (the one who works at k-mart). around this time i got my first tattoo. i partied a lot. your typical 19 year old.

5 years ago:
in march i had my first baby and in may i graduated from college with a b.s. in biology. i was questioning my marriage and the integrity of my now ex-husband. i started working at my first real job where i met some lifelong friends (blair and cheech), learned a lot about myself and about what i want to do.

1 year ago:
about a year ago i decided it was time to get into the dating scene which was pretty nonexistent where i was living at the time (northern utah - imagine napoleon dynamite, without all the funny one-liners). about that time i was toying with the decision of moving home to arizona so there would at least be the possibility of having a life. now i'm here and i still have no life, but at least the possibility's still there!

yesterday:
i'm actually gonna go with the day before yesterday because that was more exciting. i had a job interview in tucson with a company that manufactures catheters. isn't that awesome? it would be a good job, so i'm keeping my fingers crossed.

5 snacks i enjoy:
chips and salsa (hot!)
beef jerkey
peanut butter and pickle sandwiches (don't knock it till you try it!)
popcorn
peanut butter m&m's

5 songs i know all the words to:
(i know all the words to almost all of the songs on my hard drive (over 2500 now), so i'll pick 5 of my fav's)
"stuart" by the dead milkmen
"stranded" by heart
"bring on the rain" by jo dee messina
"separate ways" by journey
"the scientist" by coldplay

5 things i would do with $100 million:
pay off all of my and my family's debts
buy a new house
invest money for my kids' future
give to charity (i'd have to research which ones to give to)
and ummm... go out to eat or something.

5 locations i would like to run away to:
bari, italy
fiji or some other tropical type place
alaska
new york city (just for awhile to see what it was like)
puget sound

5 bad habits i have:
smoking
chewing on my nails and cuticles
sleeping too much
talking before i think
over-spending

5 things i like doing:
playing with my babies
spending time with stinky
reading
stumbling (it's a firefox plugin that takes you to random sites on the net. it's addicting.)
people watching

5 things i would never wear:
shirts that show my belly
bikinis
ultra low rise waist jeans
mini skirts (especially not jean ones)
daisy dukes

5 tv shows i like:
judge judy
people's court
american idol
law and order svu
cold case files

5 biggest joys of the moment:
my kids
my friends' kids
my stinky
thunderstorms
the hope of a better life

5 favorite toys:
my computer
my star wars kid's meals toys (yes, i got them)
my lighter (it lights up and has a green flame!)
my car (subaru outback)
my son's legos

5 people i tag:
Krista
Sister
'stafari
cheech
stinky

(i know some of you don't have blogs, so this is your invitation to start!)

further evidence that i am a geek

ya know what one of my favorite stores is?

staples.

do you want to know why?

because i love office supplies. yes, you heard me right. there is nothing better to me than a cool new pen and a clean sheet of paper. when i was in college, i loved taking notes because there was nothing better than filling up a piece of paper with words and then switching to the next clean sheet.

also, the kookier the office supplies, the better. i have all sorts of colored, glittery, themed, or nostalgic pens and pencils. and when i'm at work, i surround myself with the stuff. i hardly ever get anything done because i'm always playing with my things.

case in point: today i went to wal-mart to simply pick up some pull-ups for my daughter (potty training is a blast!). and somehow i was inexplicably drawn to the office supply aisles. it makes me happy to just be there, looking at the mechanical pencils, post-it notes and sharpies (all 3 are examples of things i carry around in my purse... seriously). and, people, they make mini-sharpies now! isn't that awesome?!

i really need to start working soon so that i don't have to rely on the office supply aisles at wal-mart for my daily fix.