THIS IS THE FACE OF A KILLER.

So I see Henry out the kitchen window, laying in some grass and intently gnawing on something... I asked Shane "What is Henry chewing on?" Shane said it was just a bone... I wasn't so sure...

And then I saw that Henry was EATING A MOUSE!

Evil hound of hell!!


Can you see the evil pouring out of him??


Shane went outside & took the mouse away from him, and went to BURY IT in our backyard. The backyard that our dogs hang out in AND DIG HOLES IN.

I had to almost yell at my husband to throw the hantavirus vermin into the garbage can PLEASE!


Henry obsessively stalks the mice that live under the deck... we've stopped feeding the birds ever since we discovered the mice, and I REALLY don't want to attract any snakes into our yard, so... sorry little mices!!

They don't call my dogs rat terriers for nothing!

The No. 1 Ladies' Television Show

I was thinking about taking Sunday off from blogging, but it is just TOO EASY for me to fall into a rut and stop altogether so here is another non-exciting post...

These came in the mail last week:


The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books! I just got the first three... there are 10 altogether.


The first series just finished up on HBO... SO AMAZING!! They were produced by HBO (love HBO shows!) along with BBC (love BBC shows!!) so they had no choice but to be outstanding.


The shows are gorgeous to look at and the storylines are so entertaining.


I have to admit that now that I am reading the books, I read them with a Botswana accent like they use on the show... You never know when I'll get a movie role where I'll need to use a Botswana accent!

And they have the best, most artfully-made opening & ending credits...


The whole series was actually filmed in Botswana... it makes me want to visit there!


The hairdresser character cracks me up...


My favorite character on the show is a little boy named Wellington... I couldn't find any images of him on Google, dangit! Take my word for it, he is flipping adorable.

I was lucky enough yesterday to come across a sale on books 4-9 on HBO.com... I got them for $3.24 each!! They're all sold out now, though. I'll hold off on getting book 10 til I can find another amazing deal like that... It'll probably take me the whole summer to get through these, anyway!!

Chihuahua Overboard!!

I wanted to find some sort of infant-sized blow-up raft for Tallulah, but alas, with all of the safety regulations out there, I couldn't find one...

I did find a tiny blow-up infant pool at Walmart... It is a Fisher-Price pool and it was only $5... SWEET!

Here is Tallulah trying out the new 'boat':



I tried to find an image of the pool online... GIS didn't have it but look at this awesomeness:


My sisters and I have the house, complete with the beds that had a foam mattress and a mini-toilet. HOURS and HOURS of fun, I tell you! If we had the above pool for our house, it would have been unbearable.

I went to the Fisher-Price website to try and find a picture of it, but this was the closest I could find:


Nice rainbow! Mine is smaller, no rainbow, but I'm okay with that since this pool is $25 and mine was only $5 and it is to be used for a ridiculous reason.

While I was on the Fisher-Price website, I peepsed some of their 'modern' Little People sets and OH MY GOD HOW CAN I JUSTIFY THE PURCHASE OF THESE?? I need them NOW.


The above one is on sale for only 10 bucks!!
Are you kidding me?

"Grandma and Grandpa love to enjoy their favorite things—knitting and reading the paper!"
And they can only afford to check one piece of luggage when they come to visit you because it is so damn expensive! (They are only $6!)

This is the Fisher-Price version of The Mayflower:


Apparently, there was a plank on the Mayflower - you know, to make the bad crewmembers walk off it when they weren't behaving. Does anyone else see a problem with this??

The more traditional Thanksgiving scene:


Halloween with the CUTEST costumes:


A wedding scene! With the groom holding a giant diamond ring! To start your daughter's unreal expectations as early in life as possible!


I dig that they chose to include cat and dog figures instead of actual guests or a non-denominational priest. Most 3-yesr-olds would prefer a cat for a maid-of-honor anyway...

I may be able to justify the purchase of this little gem of a set:
Nerdy girl with glasses! And hiking gear! And a flask(?)! And a firepit! AND A MOTHERF*CKING HEDGEHOG!!

I definitely prefer the short, squatty figures to this:
They're doing some new, taller Little People which kind of defeats the purpose of calling them LITTLE People...

DON'T get me started on the Christmas sets...


The only Little People of Stone & Tully's childhood that I held onto was the Christmas sets...


I don't have these particular sets, though...


I have the original Nativity set, too... but they have EXPANDED GREATLY on the scene...


OH MAN! And the 3 Wise men now have their own tents!


And you can get stalls! For your animals! And a well! With water!


They've even pimped out The Little Drummer Boy!


This last set is the cherry on the sundae... I couldn't justify the purchase of it for myself but I STILL WANT IT so to calm myself I bought it for my sister Kippy a couple of years ago...


YES, yes, the Little People have Hanukkah, too! This set is no longer available on the Fisher-Price website, but it is available on Amazon.com...

Tallulah and Her Kitty...

A two-minute video of Tallulah the Wonder Chihuahua having an issue with Bijou...



Another video of Tallulah... she wants to go out on the deck and get one of the peanuts that we put out for the birds/squirrels... she has another cat spaz-out moment:



(Please ignore the ghey YouTube titles that I give my videos. I get really nerdy when I have to name shit. I don't know what's wrong with me.)

This is Shane's treat for the summer:


The old pool lasted 4 years, and we were pool-less last summer... This pool is smaller, but it is a lot deeper and WAY more durable!


New Mexico is already rocking some hot, high 80-degree weather, so we're already getting a lot of use out of it!


Shane thinks it would be a good idea to put the trampoline right next to the pool. Since I personally don't like visits to the emergency room, I say no way, jose.


I had some spicy tuna rolls from Trader Joe's leftover from the roadtrip - they were on ice/refrigerated the whole time, so I EATED THEM UP!


I also had a perfectly gorgeous ripe avocado to top them off - Avocado prices in New Mexico max out at about 50 cents - Are they this cheap in the rest of the world now?? I'm going to have to investigate when we go to Seattle next month...

Missing a "No Gas For 200 Miles" Sign.

This is what happens to Ariane when she sees a TV:


Her roommate/landlord doesn't like having cable/satellite TV in the house so poor Ari gets her fix when and where she can!

I know for a fact that I would wither away and die without the TeeeVees in my house.

When we left Denver, we filled up with gas and drove the 1 1/2 hours to visit my cousin in Colorado Springs. Our gas was still good, so I didn't fill up there. When we hit Raton, NM, (where we filled up on the way up) the readout said "168 MILES TO EMPTY." I thought to myself, 'Oh, We can drive another hour or so...'

In another hour or so, I started looking for a place to stop. UM, THERE WAS NOTHING. In Northern New Mexico, gas stations are NOT a priority.

Plus, we both needed to pee. But I wouldn't stop because I didn't want to waste any of our precious fumes!!!

At this point, we still saw NOTHING UP AHEAD:


I know that cars can drive beyong empty, but I had NO IDEA how far I'd have to push it...


See? NOTHING.

Oh, and as I was leaving my cousin's house in Colorado Springs, she had chastised me for not having a GPS/TomTom/Garmin thing in my car. Arggh!


We finally made it to Las Vegas, New Mexico with THREE miles to go til we had to gamble with our gas level.


Eeek.

I found out that in these small New Mexico towns, people don't flush their toilet paper, they THROW IT IN THE TINY GARBAGE CAN NEXT TO THE TOILET.


Really bad smells. Blech.

Ariane had mentioned the awesome vending machine in the bathroom - she was sad because she didn't have any quarters.


She really wanted to know what treats were awaiting in the Fantasy 6 Reloaded. With NEW ITEMS!


So I got her a treat... It was really difficult to get my 3 quarters shoved into the machine, but I eventually did it...


Cherry-flavored body paint! Mmmmmm delish!

Flight of the Conchords is my Grateful Dead

Got to Red Rocks and there were signs everywhere saying NO CAMERAS! NO RECORDING DEVICES!!


Since I am chicken shit, I left my camera in the car, along with my purse and everything else.

It doesn't help that I live in Albuquerque, and when you go to concerts here, you get your purse completely gone through and you have to empty ALL of your pockets along with being COMPLETELY PATTED DOWN police-style. So I am just paranoid.

Ariane said fuckit and brought her camera and giant purse.


It's GOOD that she did because I forgot that in normal cities like Denver, they barely peek in your purse at ALL and they don't pat you down or anything.

Here I am at the tippy top of Red Rocks:


It was a HIKE to the top, but there were only 2 t-shirt sales places and the one at the bottom where we came in had HUGE long lines. I normally don't want a concert shirt but this was different!

It was seriously a crazy hike up and I was so sweaty GROSS but then they had a free designated-driver soda booth and I got an ice cold bottle of Dr. Pepper so I felt instantly better.

After shirt purchases, we sat and took self portraits that just weren't really happening...


Not to mention I brought an Old Navy hoodie to wear that is an XXL so I look even more GIANT - it was a reject from Stone; he wore it to school once and I guess the kids at school made fun of it (he liked it, but I wasn't pushing the issue) so I went and got him a black hoodie at Target and took this one.


It is really comfortable, but I didn't realize how tent-like it made me look until I saw our picture.


Plus the whole vertical stripes thing - I KNOW! It's a NO NO!!


Anyway, back to the concert...

Blurry picture of Iron and Wine's Samuel Beam:


I really thought Iron & Wine was a full band and I guess sometimes it is, but we just got the singular acoustic bearded dude. He was good, although when you are there to see a parody folk rock group, it is hard to listen to serious romantic indie folk guitar music.

You can't really tell in this picture, but the place was PACKED. Apparently, there was almost 9000 people in the audience!


After Iron & Wine's set came Arj Barker, who plays Dave on Flight of the Conchords (the show).


He was so incredibly funny, my face hurt from laughing non-stop!! He Twittered about his set and put up Twitpics of the show - this is one of the audience from his perspective - I'm in there somewhere!

The Flight of the Conchords boys started out with the song "Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor" which is extra awesome because a) they were wearing their robot costumes, b) they had the mirror-ball 'codpieces' on, and c) Arj Barker came out and did his rapping part of the song. OMFG amazing.


Our seats were about 1/3 of the way up, but the guys looked pretty teeny.


Towards the end, I had a fuckit moment, and Ariane & I made it down to the 3rd row. MUCH better view!!


During the song Sugalumps they came out into the audience and it was AWESOME. Ariane tried to talk me into running up to them so she could take a picture but I just. couldn't. do. it.


But dear god I really wanted to!

If you somehow haven't watched Flight of the Conchords Season 1, RENT IT NOW! Season 2 is coming out on DVD at the beginning of August.

If they come touring through next summer, I AM GOING and I'm taking Shane with me.

On My Way to Red Rocks...

Really, really boring landsape on the drive from Albuquerque to Denver...


The dark clouds were a bit worrysome, too - we were going to an OUTDOOR concert. Ugh.


Stopped for gas in Raton, NM. Bleh.


Bathrooms were typically gross...


The tree air fresheners did nothing for the aromas...


Pretty much just decorative.


You're going to have to try harder, mister bathroom cleaner.

OMG:


WHAT?!? I did NOT buy these but I really wanted to. You could feel like 3 giant Cheeto pellets in the bag.

This is what Ariane wanted to buy:


She wanted a T-shirt version to wear to the concert... the Flight of the Conchords boys would have really appreciated it.


Six hours later, we made it to Denver!

Land of the floppy shotgun:


Driveway bridge:


We Mapquested our way straight to Plastic Chapel and bought some vinyl toys. Two shops down was a cereal & cupcake shop:


We got a peanut butter & chocolate cupcake and a lemon cupcake and split them... OH dear god they were SO GOOD!!


The shop was adorable and is open til 2 a.m. on Saturdays... AMAZING.




The girl working at Plastic Chapel came running out to us after we left to tell us about a shop down the street that we should hit... and we did! It had more vinyl and Re-Ment which I LOVE right now. Ariane & I want to make our own custom dollhouses... we'll see if we can start them this summer!!



Twist & Shout was the store - definite MUST go to when you visit Denver!

We were halfway to being broke right now so we went and got a hotel. Two hours later, we were primped and rested and off to Red Rocks to see Flight of the Conchords!!



More later...

Viva Ranchero!

I finally made it to Pro's Ranch Market with Ariane as my guide. We were pretty much the whitest white girls in the place!


It reminded me of the time that she & I went to a corner store in the South Valley, and the 2 guys behind the counter asked us if we were tourists... Ariane lives a block away from the store!

Ariane was super-excited to show me the cow head in the meat department... so excited, in fact, that she had to make out with it:


There was LOADS of amazing food - Ranchero Market is basically a Mexican grocery store transplanted to Albuquerque.

I was too self-conscious to take many pictures (seriously, we stuck out like a sore thumb) but I did snap Ariane attempting to buy a rice-pudding popsicle:


I totally guilted her out of the purchase. I'm trying to eat healthy, and you should too! (But I did buy fresh homemade string cheese YUM because we were starving...)

Taco Nite!

My good friend/ex-teacher/artista extraordinaire Lynn had TACO night at her house on Monday night. YUM!


The tacos were vegetarian and made with TVP (which I always want to call PYT) that really isn't bad at all. I just try not to think about it too much.


MELON. I've been eating a shitload of fruit lately. MMMMmmmmmm.

Ariane's eyes are always closed in pictures.


Even when I try to be sneaky!


Oh, hello Ariane! You're awake now!


And now your boyfriend Zach is here!


The colors in Lynn's house are positively DAY-GLO but fun.


The girl in the Obama shirt dressed like Sarah Palin for Halloween and I'm sure it ROCKED. I demanded pictures and she said she'd bring some next time! I cut her hair, but I forgot her name. Whoops.


Lynn's living room kind of looks like a bedroom. It doesn't help that she has a dresser in there and bed instead of a couch.


Ariane and I are looking extra whuped because we went to the UNM gym and worked out right before this. The gym was FULL of like 60 guys between the ages of 19-22 and there was maybe 2 or 3 other girls there.


I'm just going to have to get over feeling like a cougar all of the time... this is what happens when you wait until your late 30s to go to college, folks!


You have to prepare yourself for your classmates saying "OMG! You're the same age as my Mom!"

I can handle anything... I think.

My Nano-Puppy!

I don't usually ever like to have houseplants in my house - I'm an outdoor plants kind of girl! (I have enough responsibility with my 'mini-farm' of animals) But I am always always sucked in by the potted plants at Trader Joe's!

I bought a small Hibiscus plant last summer, and all fall and winter, it resided next to my kitchen sink. No blooms, just leaves... I'm pretty sure it survived only because it was in such close proximity to water all of the time!

Yesterday, I got this lovely surprise:


Fabulous tropical-ness!!



This makes me want more houseplants. But they must all make beautiful flowers!! Otherwise, what is the point???

I think Tallulah is part Fennic Fox... I mean, REALLY, just look at this adorable-ness!!


Here is her 'Sleeping Fennic Fox' pose:


Doesn't that look a heckuvalot like THIS?


Tallulah just turned 1 last month - she is still as teeny as heck - here she is with my iPod Nano for reference:


I went to Taco Night at my friend Lynn's house last night and ended up cutting 6 heads of hair... but I made $50!! It was spontaneous hairdressing... more about that later.

Dirt For Mother's Day AGAIN!

And I couldn't be happier!

Last year, Shane & the boys made me a raised planter for Mother's Day, and this year, I decided I needed a matching pair!


Tallulah does NOT like being on a leash at all. I guess attaching the leash to a rake didn't help matters...


Tully's idea of helping out is eating vanilla ice cream from the carton in the shade while Shane does all the real work. It has been pretty HOT all weekend... you can't tell, but Shane is rocking a serious farmer's tan.


Tah-daaaaah!!


I'm being much more cautious on my planting now... You never know what is going to actually survive the insanely intense UV radiation of New Mexico summers, and if they get past that, then they also have to survive the freezing winter that then comes along and gives them a good whallop.


The petunias grew REALLY WELL last year, and they're annuals anyway, so I don't have to worry about winter at all! I also transplanted a bunch of my asiatic lilies - I bought a couple of them 2 years ago and threw them in a outdoor container and they are absolutely THRIVING! They multiply like mad - The only care that they get from me besides water is to be cut down in the fall... in the spring, BLAM-O! Tons of them pop up, and I can separate them and spread them around.


There are about 30 or 40 of the lilies growing right now - they're not blooming yet, though!

There are pictures of them blooming last year at the end of this post - I am so pleased when my plants do well!

On a side note, I am doing REALLY WELL in the past week and a half since school ended, excercising, eating yummy healthy foods, and BLOGGING! Yeay! This is my favorite meal of the day:


Fresh strawberries, bananas, unsweetened coconut, a bit of honey, and
Trader Joe's Sesame Honey Almonds - I'll eventually wean myself on the added honey, but dear GOD I love those Trader Joe's almonds!!

This is better than ice cream, I swear... but I have been looking at frozen yogurt recipes that I can make at home - can you imagine this with a little fresh frozen yogurt mixed in??

Forty-Five Minutes of Eating Hair.

I got to FLY again today!

This time I chose to fly on an H-1 Huey (at my husband's urging - he said they were amazing!) The Air Force does like to spoil its spouses from time to time... makes up for the occasional hell we have to go through!

Here is the helicopter that I flew on:


Aaaaand here is stylin' Valency, ready for take-off. The flight suit is a necessity, as these helicopters can be downright dirty!


I accentuated today's flightsuit with my sparkly clamshell Adidas (of course) along with pink sunglasses:


IT WAS SUCH AN AMAZING RIDE! The side doors were WIDE OPEN and there was just a little seatbelt keeping you strapped it... such a rush!!

I did well remembering to bring a flightsuit to wear, but I FORGOT A HAIR BAND, so many of my pictures look like this:


Mmmmm, hair!

It was a gorgeous 88 degree day in Albuquerque, and it was a million-dollar ride...


I think this next picture looks a little like I was flying over Africa:



Clamshell Adidas: $79.99
Pink Sunglasses: $19.99
Earplugs: $1.00
Flying over Sandia Peak on a Gorgeous Sunny Day: PRICELESS!!

The Turtles are UP!

Shane had spotted singular turtles tromping around the outdoor turtle enclosure over the past week or so, and today I put bunch of yummy turtle food out for them to enjoy... I really hoped that I would see who was 'up' since Shane can't recognize who is who.

I waited about 10 minutes and then I went out and checked for any signs of life... All THREE were happily munching away in the sunshine!!

I ran and grabbed my camera, and when I got back, one of them had already hid from me! Argh!


You can see a turtle stationed at each 'plate' -


I suspected the 'missing' turtle was under the big log to the left, so I checked...


Peek-a-boo!


It was the youngest female turtle, Pat, who is notoriously shy!

To help my dear husband, I have labeled my little mini-dinosaurs...


-Digger is the oldest of the bunch - he used to belong to my little brother, and he's been in the family for about 25 years! He has a pretty shell, but it's hard to see right now because he's a bit dusty.
-Patrick came next - he/she used to be about half the size of Digger - she's grown a lot! Since she is a juvenile, the jury is still out on her sex - I'm thinking she's a female (we originally thought she was a male), but I need to check her out again this year to see if anything has changed...
-Cricket is the newest of the bunch; she is definately a big female and is very sweet! She has the least markings but is just a sweet old girl. She never came out of her shell when we first got her, but she is now a happy outgoing turtle :)

And here is a nerdy 1-minute video of them eating...

Hiding Behind My Mask

If you have any connection to my recent art class, or are on my facebook, then you may be tired of the MASKS. If not, then TAAAH-DAAAAAH!



Here is my artist statement - it is the first artist statement that I have ever created, and I think it is pretty damn good, if I do say so myself!

ARTIST STATEMENT – VALENCY GENIS, 2009

My mother was an overly-opinionated, strong-willed woman from the South who required all four of her daughters to wear lip gloss, mascara, and a light dusting of blush, instituted on their 10th birthday. If we wanted to accompany mother to the grocery store on a Saturday afternoon, the response was always, “You look sickly. Go put a little blush on and fix yourself up.”

This dedication to beauty culminated with rhinoplasty surgery at the age of sixteen; a horrible, painful experience, but one insisted upon by a mother who has had more plastic surgery than anyone I have ever known...

I confront my ongoing struggle with beauty and identity while creating my masks, combining my idiosyncratic sense of humor with quite literally my magnificent inner demons. Constantly questioning the definition of aesthetics, I give my fleshy masks personality and character with their grotesque features; I have now become the plastic surgeon, with a flair for creating these fantastic creatures, of whom my mother would experience as entirely unfortunate and inappropriate… they would never be allowed to accompany her to the grocery store on a Saturday afternoon.

Aaaand here is a close-up of all of the beasties:














I really love them all for their fleshy-grotesque-ness, but that they are also muppet-esqe creatures and almost loveable. At least they are to me!

Since This is the Week Before Mother's Day...

Since Walgreen's was giving away a free 8x10 photo print today, I chose to print this out:


(You can still order the free 8x10 online today only; use the code 'MOTHER' at checkout! No other purchase is necessary! And you can order it now and pick it up tomorrow if you don't have time today... just make sure to complete checkout today!)

Jen took the above picture of Stone while she was here - she is a very talented lady!

Stone made Tully take this lone picture of himself for his Myspace profile image:


He said he was standing on top of the shed in the backyard but it also looks a bit like he is standing on the roof of our house. Having sons will give you mini heart attacks sometimes...

Stone also tends to be a bit of a hypochondriac from time to time; Motrin is his best friend. A few months ago, when he complained to Shane & I that he had a headache and that his arm hurt, this is what we did:




You cannot live in our house and not have a sense of humor about things...

Ojo Love...

Shane and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary in April - I KNOW! That is a very, very long time. I'm quite proud of us...


My sister-wife Jen stayed with the kids, so Shane and I could go to Ojo Caliente for a little romantic weekend getaway...

Shane loved it. He had no problem hanging out in the super-soft robes that they provide...


We soaked in the Iron spring, the Soda spring, and the Arsenic spring... Shane drank some of the Lithia spring water, but I was too chicken-shit... I drank it when I came with Ariane last year and I'm still haunted by the flavor.

We also reserved a private pool, since we were going for the whole 'romantic theme.'


It was a gorgeous evening and the employees had a roaring fire prepared for us...


The hot spring pool was toasty and lovely.


Of course since we could freely take pictures because it was a private area, we freely did.


This is my homage to America's Next Top Model Cycle 11. You remember, don't you?


They had phenomenal eye make-up, though.


I did not have phenomenal eye make-up.


Shane was game for doing silly posing:


This is just one of the reasons why I love him.

Also because he suggested doing a photo that is 'front of an album cover'-style:


He told me to look serious and stare off in the opposite direction from him. I sort of listened... His eyes were closed anyway, so we tried again:


Here is my version:


And this is Shane's famous 'Blue Steel' pose:


SWEEEEET.

Here are Shane's artsy-steam shots of moi:



And speaking of steam, the steamroom at Ojo Caliente is about the best thing since sliced bread. We're not talking about a ghetto sauna here; it's the real, old-fashioned-steam-the-hell-out-of-you tiled wonderland.


Of couse you can't see the tiles because it was TOO STEAMY! You can barely breathe after a while... it is crazily awesome.

And here is someone who is also crazily awesome:



Love you tons, SMG!

Let's Say May is a Fresh Start!

I am taking the WHOLE SUMMER OFF from school. No working, either... yesterday was my last day for both!

Here is what I've been up to, according to some of the pictures pulled off my camera (and a couple from my Facebook):


Made my masks, put them in a show, had a BLAST!

Making the frames for them was a bear, though. We don't have a mitre saw or anything of the like, so I had to use one of those cheap yellow plastic mitre boxes and a hand saw. NOT FUN.

Here is a not great picture of my shizzle as it waits to be transported to the Harwood Art Center:


I signed up for a Ceramics I class at UNM in the Fall... I haven't had any proper ceramics training yet, so LOOK OUT. All bets are off when I really really really
learn to work with clay!

I was featured in a flyer that CNM made for the New Mexico State Legislature:


Now the whole world can know my full name, along with my AGE! I'm actually pretty cool with my age... I think I look pretty damn fabulous, and I've earned every damn year and every damn wrinkle. If they printed my weight, well, that would have been a whole other matter... and it would have been very strange for the legislature to have any concern about it, so WHATEVER.

I am tickled with their quote that I am "squeezing everything I can out of CNM" because I did, in fact, say that, and I do talk about squeezing things regularly (i.e., my kids, my dogs, cute babies, etc.)

Jen took some fantastic pictures of my art so I could start a proper digital portfolio:



Jen was my roommate/non-sexual-sister-wife for the past two months - I am extremely proud to report that we didn't get into a SINGLE fight or disagreement, contrary to my husband's fears that is wife can sometime be a bit of a snarky beyotch.

Jen is now off to (literally) greener pastures in Omaha, Nebraska. I'm thinking a road trip is in order next summer to harass her and keep her crazy.

Here is Jen's favorite spot in my house:


The brown couch has the BEST light and also the best TV. Jen was my partner for watching yummy TV such as the United States of Tara, Flight of the Conchords, The Real Housewives of Whereverthefuck, The No. 1 Womens' Detective Agency, Nip/Tuck, and Rescue Me.

Tallulah will miss her fantastic boobage.



Jen's cute little monkey, Cierra, also lived with us most of the time...


Tallulah will not miss Cierra as much, as Cierra did not allow Tallulah's feet to touch the floor when she was home. Cierra likes to channel her inner Elmira...


That would actually be a fantastic Halloween costume, but I don't know if the young 'uns would get the reference. Hmmm...

Speaking to the young 'uns, my big boy had a birthday...


He is definately taller than me now and that is WEIRD to me. And I'm 5'8". Ugh.


AND Stone is back to having long hair again and it is driving me insane.


But that is why kids do things, right?


He has agreed to let me foil it, though. I'm going to blonde him out... His hair is the exact same color my hair was as a teenager and it is such a terrible dishwater blonde. I used to go through gallons of Sun-In trying to rid myself of this color.


He still has baby-boy face, but his deep voice freaks me out. Sigh.


Tully is trying to have long hair, too. Argh. I do still adore him and his french horn...


Good news is that he still wants to play next year. I don't ever want to pressure him to do things that he doesn't enjoy, so I was worried that he'd get bored with it...


Shane likes to bond with the dogs outdoors - here he is with Henry:


And here is Ibis telling Shane to hurry up and quit driving like an old woman:


Tallulah is still his Number One, though, even though she doesn't like to hike in the mountains...


(She is the black lump between his legs - her favorite spot in the house.

What Happened to February?

Time flies when you're BUSY AS FUCK...

Plus, I've tried to post these pictures for almost 2 weeks, but Shane kept catching me in the act...


Reading the Sunday paper together.

How much more can I take??


SERIOUSLY.

My birthday is in TWO WEEKS and I don't know what I want Shane to get me. I DO know that I want to have a slumber party this year... I'm feeling nostalgic for my Junior High School days... not nostalgic for the awkwardness, but for the all-night girl-bonding silliness. I miss it!

I'm working on my 'piece' for our final student show (I'm 'graduating' at the end of April! Woot! Well, I'm officially getting my AA...) and I settled on making more clay masks because we have to have 10-12 related pieces, and that's what I felt like doing right now.

Tumblr Bug.

I know I'm kinda SLOW on the new, hip shizzle... Well, I did hear about Tumblr a while ago, but I never messed around with it until now and OMFG it is what was missing from my cyberlife.

I have my Blog (right here where you're reading!) to make my statements about my life...

I have my Twitter to make 140 character quickie-statements about bits & bobs...

And NOW I have my Tumblr, Absolute Valency!!

It's kind of piddly right now, but it should get better. I am always surfing surfing surfing and reading reading reading on the interwebs, and I can slap all of the random stuff that I find interesting right onto my Tumblr!

Read it if you like...

I really love the fact I can condense all that inspires me into one happy webpage. Swoon.

Oh, and here is an anonymous picture of a Certain Anonymous Man and a stolen dog in MY BATHTUB:



And to make it slightly more reDONK, the Certain Anonymous Man was watching American Idol on my TV:



Gotta go shine a flashlight down Stone's throat now. He's complaining and saying he's sick, and I'm PRAYING it's not Strep. Argh.

After ALL of THAT BUILD-UP...

The installer never showed up on Monday but I think it was partially (mostly?) my fault because our landline phone is positively JACKED UP - we use Vonage and it hasn't worked worth shit for a while and Shane has spent HOURS on the phone with their nice customer service reps in the Philippines trying to figure out what in the F*CK was wrong with the damn phone line and after about 4 hours HOORAY the phone worked!

And 5 days later, the phone was f*cked up again. DAMMIT.

Anyway, I think the Direct TV dude tried to call and I wasn't able to get the call and so I WILL HAVE TO RESCHEDULE for god-knows-when.

I have been bugging Shane to just switch back to Qwest but I think he is digging in his heels because he'd rather pay $24.99 for a phone that DOESN'T WORK than pay $39.99 for the same bells & whistles with Qwest THAT ACTUALLY WORKS.

Makes sense, no?



Tallulah is so depressed, she won't come out from under the TV stand. She really wanted to watch Big Love.

CHANNELS GALORE!

We bought a fancy-pants TV for Christmas this year (well, it was the husband's choice, since he had to spend last Christmas in Iraq and I felt sorry for him).

Here is a Christmas morning overview picture in which I realized that I had let my hair roots grow out a little too much...


You don't even need to squint to see the wretched dark evil hair consuming the top of my head.

And yes, I'm wearing my sushi jammies that Shane purchase for me last Christmas via the interwebs...


(Remind me to wake up an hour before the fam on future Xmas mornings and PUT SOME MAKE-UP ON.)

Anyway, THE POINT IS that we bought the TV from Costco and if you buy a TV from them and then sign up for DirectTV, you get $250 in free Costco giftcards.

This is GREATGREATGREAT for me because right now we have suckass Cable One and we are still somewhat stuck with it because I have so many freaking TVs in our house.

(YES I have a TV in my bathroom and I LOVE IT and YES I watch it both when I'm bathing and when I'm using the toilet. Don't knock it til you try it.)

But I am signing up for ONE precious TV to have Direct TV and the reason this is SO GREAT is because Cable One is MISSING these channels:
1. BRAVO
2. E!
3. Oxygen
4. We
5. Did I mention BRAVO?
6. BBC America
7. FIT TV
8. Fine Living
9. MTV2
10. Ummm... BRAVO? Hello?
11. truTV
12. The Biography Channel
13. National Geographic Channel
14. Style
15. And many, many more... (BRAVO?!?)

YES unbelieveably I have lived without these channels since about 2000, when we moved from Florida to England. I had no complaints from 2000-2004, since we has Sky TV in England and dear GAWD I love British television. But since moving back to the States in 2004, I have had SUCKNESS and I miss watching crap TV like what's on E! and I want to watch BBC America SO SO MUCH!!

So supposedly the DirectTV dude will be arriving sometime tommorrow morning between 8 and 12 - it IS a holiday, but I booked it online and January 19th was a choice and so I PICKED IT and the installer's happy ass better show up or I will be so SO annoyed!

OH yes and I get 3 free months of the whole Showtime/HBO/Cinemax shizz and OMG the new seasons of great shows like 'Big Love' and 'Flight of the Concords' are just starting now - YESSSSsssssSSSS!

I am such a TV nerd. It is my 'thing.' Some people smoke or drink or read trashy romance novels, and that's FINE but I just want my comfort shows on my happy TV.

Bored yet?

Well, here is one of the giant bones the dogs got for Christmas...


Ibis has been destroying them.

Oh yeah, apparently, rawhide gives Ibis really bad gas.

If you could add sound to this next photo, it would be Ibis growling as he chews:


And Henry & Tallulah are all "Whaaaat?"

Tallulah is hella excited about DirectTV, too...


Can't you tell?