Must... Get... OUT...

Shane is getting ready for the desert right now:



I am being driven CRAZY by the frantic-ness that is my husband right now. It is NOT FUN. I do not react well to people who are super-stressy so I am hiding out in the bedroom right now. Hellooooo escapism!

My latest favorite purchase is this:


I got a Magnetic Knife Holder-Thingy and I LOVE IT!

We had a ginsu-like knife block/set that we had gotten as a wedding present FIFTEEN years ago. It was OLD and not attractive and so I set about looking for new knife-blocks on Amazon (I LOVE AMAZON) and this little beauty popped up in my search.

Mag-NEATO!

I LOVE getting things OFF the counter and now I can just get the fabulous knives that I want/need at my own leisure. My knives SUCK so don't judge me... baby steps. I'll get nice ones eventually... it took 15 years to get the damn magnet on the wall.

Escher-esque Valency

This was the positive/negative Escher-type project that I did... we had set themes that we could choose from (clouds, whipped cream, ice cream, steam, ghosts) so I obviously chose ghosts...

We had to do 4 thumbnail studies and then pick one to blow up... it was 'sposed to be a play on which color was the background and which color was the forefront... Escher shit is pretty complicated, and I don't have the time OR skills, so my stuff is pretty simplified... plus we had to cut the black parts out from silhouette paper and that is TIME CONSUMING.

I got 100 %, and THAT'S what it's all about. At least for now. At least in MY world.

Feeding My Meter

Shane called me this afternoon to say he has to leave pretty much immediately to go do some rambo-training for 3 weeks, then he comes home for 2 days, and leaves again for more training. Bleh. He spent all of this evening getting together his G.I. Joe shit and I took pictures, but I will post them LATER.

This means he will miss my birthday, which is on March 12th, if anyone cares... AND I have tickets for us to see the play "Tuesdays With Morrie" this Saturday, and now I have nobody to go with. Suck. I HAVE to go for my theater class... Anyone out there wanna go with me? It's a depressing play... I know... fuck.

I had SICK kiddos all weekend, so I only tackled 3 squares of my 20 square project, and they are not up to my perfectionist standards yet. So I will post them later. I did get my first 5 art projects back today with grades, and I got 100 % on all of 'em! Yeay me!

I am getting tired of all the 'pity looks' that I get from people when I tell them that my husband is going to 'Raq for a year... Most people give me this sympathetic look like I have cancer or something. It's not THAT bad. And contrary to what the media wants you to believe, MOST troops come home ALIVE.

I really want a CHIHUAHUA. Really really I do. I want a teeny girl baby chihuahua that I'll name Miss Tallulah Bankhead and she'll keep me company and she'll curb my baby cravings and I'll take her EVERYWHERE with me...

Shane's in BIG trouble ;)

Karmic Retribution

Watching "The Prestige" tonight, and I am VERY jealous over the assistant costumes that Scarlett Johansson gets to wear. They are FAB.

So karma bit me in the ass today.

My classmate who I thought was a bit odd was driven to my house today by her mother. Her mother was kinda hippy-looking, quiet, pretty normal in general. I made chit-chat small talk with her, and she complimented my home decor...



This led to me saying that it's decorated with all of the stuff from the places we've gone, movin' around with the Air Force. She says, "Oh, my husband was in the Air Force for 24 years."



I said "What did your husband do?"



She says "He flew helicopters."



I am taken aback as I say "Which ones?"



She tells me. Its the EXACT one my husband flies, the one my husband has been flying for the past 12 years...



I ask "What is your husband's name?"



She tells me... "Blankity Blank (name omitted)."



FUCK. It's the man who died at my husband's squadron from a heart attack, just a few months ago. He died AT MY HUSBAND'S WORK. He was USING THE BATHROOM. AND HE DIED.



(Very a la Elvis).



So now I am sad for this girl.



I make an effort to pick her brain. She has been homeschooled for practically her whole life... I don't know why. I honestly think that she only leaves the house to go to college classes, and that's it. Homeschool is EVIL, I tell you. People don't think social skills are as important as book-knowledge, BUT THEY ARE. Even more-so.



I gave her a ride home, and she did honestly have a hard time knowing the streets, and how to get to her house, which she's lived in for the past 12 YEARS. She is a very, very sheltered individual. I feel like I should rescue her, but I don't think she needs rescuing. She's happy, I think.



Who the fuck am I to judge?

Welcome To My Masturbatorium

We're watching Running With Scissors as I blog and the Doc just gave them a tour of his masturbatorium... and that word is SO FUNNY TO ME! I told Shane that I will create him a masturbatorium... complete with lotion and a box o' kleenex and sexy pictures of Uma and Angelina and ME.

I'm having my 'small group' from my theater class over to my house tomorrow to work on our DIORAMA assignment. Geeeezus Keeerickey, you think you're done with the world of shoe-box dioramas but then NO your suck theater teacher ressurects the fine fucking art. Bleh.

There are FOUR of us in the small group. One guy who is very funny and does hilarious imitations of the teacher whenever the teacher leaves the room to get the I.T. people to help him with the computer, with which he is hopeless. THEN there is this petite super cute girl who looks like a china doll who is very sweet. THE LAST PERSON in our group is possibly the WIERDEST GIRL I HAVE EVER MET.

She is a major oddball which is FINE with me because it takes all types to make the world go round and I can usually fine entertainment value in every human being that I meet. But holy cow THIS GIRL takes the cake.

She dresses like an 8-year-old but not in a hip way and she is actually like 19 or twenty. She carries a vinyl Pocahontas lunchbox and always wears a fabric headband and I don't think she brushes her hair. But she is NOT retarded, I swear-to-god, she is just ODD.

So in class today, I gave my small group people Mapquest directions to my house... Now, strange girl already told me that we'd have to meet when her mom was available to drive her, since apparently she doesn't have a driver's license. When I handed her the directions, she got all mumbly and said something about 'driving' and 'mother' and 'time' and 'pick-up' and I said "Oh, just have your mom drop you off and I'll drive you home."

Her eyes widen and she says to me, "Oh, I don't think you'll know how to get to my house." In a perfectly coherent tone, mind you.

I said, "Well, YOU'LL be in the car with me when I drive you home so I shouldn't have a problem finding your house."

She stares at me blankly, and says "It's difficult, getting to my house."

I say "You... um, you don't know how to get to your house?"

Blank stare from the girl.


"Ummm, WHATTHEFUCK?" I wanted to scream, but I didn't. I said "Just have your mom call me." Fuck. I have no clue what is going on with her. She seems outgoing, yet SUPER sheltered, but... Fuck. I think the teacher assigned her to MY small group because I am always popping off to him... now I am being punished.

My mouth gets me in these situations A LOT.

Seattle Is In My Blood!

I grew up in Seattle... we moved there when I was 3, about a year after my dad died from cancer. (He was a dentist, he got a brain tumor, and died 3 months after it was discovered. He was 33 years old, which feels weird since I'm 34 now). I went to school on Capitol Hill, and my husband grew up in Kirkland... The Air Force just makes us move around a lot.

Above is the view from my Mom's house in Seattle. She sent me this picture for Valentine's Day... I scanned it in so it kinda looks shitty. But this is a plain old film picture, NO photoshopping or anything... pretty badass, no? Her house is on the south slope of Queen Anne Hill, right near Kerry Park, which is where most skyline pictures of Seattle are taken. 'Specially by tourists... the tourbusses stop off there all day long...

She really has a million-dollar view. I miss it, but I have a pretty good view from my house, too -this is the view from my master bedroom:

A couple of the postcards I bought at the O'Keeffe museum were of the New Mexico mountain near where she lived and she loved to paint it... And I love how she interpreted them/painted them. Here's one, called "Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico, 1930":
Georgia was a goddess. They had a bunch of quotes from her, painted around the museum... Here's one on another postcard...


SO that 20-Square fish art project below involves slicing up a big blown-up picture of the fish into square 'tiles' and addressing each one separately... She wants us to do 3x3" squares, but I'm going to do almost 4" squares. Because bigger is better.

Yeay! Yeay! It's Art Class Today!

I haven't been to class since LAST MONDAY since last Wednesday was a stupid snow day and Monday was a stupid holiday. We get to start working on a "20-Square" project, in which we split up a big picture into 20 'tiles,' and each one is made with a different technique (charcoal, graphite, watercolor, sgraffito, pointalism, ETC.) I am TOTALLY STOKED to work on this.

We have to use a leaf or an animal with some sort of patterning - I'm going to use this fish picture above. Reminds me of home... Pike Place Market.

Oh, and I watched 'My Super Ex-Girlfriend' last night because Shane rented it because he has dirty thought about Uma Thurman... I had VERY LOW EXPECTATIONS about it because everyone said it was SUCH a stupid movie.

So I kinda liked it. It wasn't bad. It's always good to keep your expectations low...

Mothers and Sons, Fathers and Daughters

Tuesdays are NOT fun because I have Theater class. Boring suck suck horrible teacher STILL.

I was totally bored this weekend and going through Art class withdrawls so I went a little bit over-the-top in helping Tully with his "famous person" poster. But we had a lot of fun doing it... good ol' mother/son bonding session:

He is a Lego-obsessed child so he did his report on the guy who invented Legos, Ole Kirk Christiansen.

My sister sent me new pictures of my niece Vivi - she dressed her up for the annual Father/Daughter Dance:

Dear Vivian, you are the cutest little girl EVER. But it looks like you have wooden antlers growing out of the sides of your head.

And since Tuesday is so lame and boring, here is a picture of the Frye boots that I bought last month... I don't have a picture of me wearing them because, well, I just don't yet.


So now I can be a pirate AND Laura Ingalls Fucking Wilder. Love me, love my boots.

FatValency Loses Weight

It feels so GOOD to blog... ahhh...

So back to the FatValency saga.
This is FatValency in Ireland... January 2001-ish.

I was VERY TIRED of being Fat Valency.

I started going to good old Step Aerobics 3 times a week in the fall of 2001. I ended up losing about 30 pounds doing this... I didn't change my diet a lot, I just tried to eat less crap in general. But I still occasionally ate crap. I totally subscribe to 'Baby Steps'... I knew that if I tried to take on too much, I'd fail.

Here is StartingToSlimDown Valency, at Aerobics class:

I ended up hitting the dreaded 'plateau' at this point... I was still Flabby Valency and I knew I wanted to lose more weight, and the Step Aerobics wasn't cutting it anymore, so I swapped over to the DARK SIDE, a.k.a. the Weight Room.

The Weight Room is men's territory, but I knew that it was what I needed. I knew that I needed more muscle in order to burn some more fat off. I started following the 'Body For Life' workout, which is very easy to follow and is an EXCELLENT and fairly easy way to shape up.

I also started regularly getting my body fat caliper-checked about every 2 weeks. VERY IMPORTANT!!

I saved 2 of my Fat Reports, and I keep them in my workout bag. Notice that I barely lost 3 pounds over a 6-month period, but my Body Fat went from almost 33 percent down to 27 percent. Sometimes it's NOT GOOD to watch the scale!! (You can click on the picture to make it bigger, if you wanna).

Here is the visual result... This picture was from May 2003:

FatValency can go to hell.

Overheard In Our Car, Driving Home...

Shane: Well, at least I know it's a woman now.

Me: Who?

Shane: That O-whatever lady.

Me: O'Keeffe? GEORGIA O'Keeffe?

Shane: Yeah.

Me: YOU THOUGHT GEORGIA O'KEEFFE WAS A MAN?

Shane: Yeah.

Me: sigh.

Loverly Day In Santa Fe

Santa Fe was PERFECT. Mostly.

You can't take pictures IN the Georgia O'Keeffe museum, so Shane took a couple OUTSIDE the museum.

It was a really fabulous museum. Not HUGE but not tiny (about 7 large rooms of exhibits) and it was well worth the $4 that they charged for NM residents ($8 for you outsiders).

I bought a few postcards from the giftshop. It really was AMAZING to see her actual work up close... You could see all of her brushstrokes in her oil painting, and her pastels were EDIBLE... the colors... OH the COLORS! The woman knew color.

They had a bunch of big abstract watercolors she did, too, and a whole room with Alfred Stieglitz photographs... really scrumcious.

Foodwise, I wasn't really hungry, and there was a street vendor guy who was selling fajitas and they smelled amazing and Shane kept commenting about how great they smelled so HE HAD A FAJITA! I had a bite. It was great.


I looked around for something that floated my boat but nothing did...


so I got a snack wrap at McDonald's on the drive home... very sophisticated, no?

We also stopped off at Artisan Santa Fe to look at lovely overpriced art supplies. I drooled but bought nothing. Then we went to Michael's which has affordable shit and I bought a couple of Canson pads (canvas and watercolor).

In other news, these boots are coming in the mail FOR ME and should be here by Friday, courtesy of my ex-stepdad, who sends a Nordstrom's giftcard every Valentine's Day to alleviate guilt about past poor parenting:

I love boots. I LOVE BOOTS! I'm gonna look like a fucking pirate but I LOVE BOOTS.

O'Keeffe Day

Shane and I are going to the O'Keeffe museum in Santa Fe today. The kids have school today for a snow make-up day, even though it's a holiday. The teachers are trying to knock out all of the snow days without messing with their summer vacations.

I hope the museum isn't closed for the lame-ass holiday... I checked their website and it doesn't say anything about it.

I tried to look up a yum place to eat lunch... I think I've decided on Cafe Pasqual's but we shall see how it goes...

Meet FatValency

No excuse. I was just feeling like a hermit.

It snowed last Tuesday night which means my Mon-Wed art class was cancelled and then it's a holiday tomorrow so no art class tomorrow and that BUMS ME OUT.

PLUS the husband and kids got a snow day on Wednesday so they were UP MY ASS and driving me nuts.

Speaking of driving me nuts, My husband now has 'new work hours' because they have no more students who are flying days... so Shane either works 12-8 pm or flies at night. WHICH MEANS my precious morning ZENtime after the kids and husband go to school/work is NO MORE. The couple of hours I have before I go to school consists of my husband following me around the house and driving me INSANE.

Like last Monday, I got the kids ready and out the door while he decided to go running. Then he gets home (right as the last kid leaves the house) and I have decided to watch my TiVoed 'Desperate Housewives' and Shane decides to SIT NEXT TO ME and he seriously has Tourette Syndrome when it comes to this show and he COMMENTATES the whole damn thing and OH YEAH YOU FORGOT TO TAKE A SHOWER YET AND YOU STINK LIKE SWEAT AND LAST NIGHT'S SEX.

But I can't say that to him or he will get all seriously offended and then once again VALENCY is a BITCH. Fuckoffbitemewhatever.

I'm just irritated by a lot right now. GET OVER IT, ME!!


Sooooooooo, onto fun-er shit.

I scanned in some pictures of Fat Valency.

I was motivated to do so by Carrie because I feel EXACTLY like she does about food and I think about it a lot and I stress about it and I LOVE it and I HATE it and I could SO EASILY be one of those SUPER-MORBIDLY-OBESE people but I have a little bit of self-control...

Right after we moved to England, I was pretty depressed because moving is HARD and I had no friends and I was introverted because of the miserable time I had had in Florida and, well, the bread and cheese from Waitrose was just fucking delicious. They had some great, high-calorie, creamy-delicious foodie-foods that make my mouth water just thinking about them. Marks & Spencer had these little pots of trifle that were TINY but had like 30 grams of fat in like 1/2 cup of deliciousness. I might as well have been eating sticks of butter.

When I first got to England, I probably weighed about 175 lbs. This is NOT skinny, but I'm 5'8" and I have a decent-sized frame... dare I say it, but YES I am "big-boned." Fuckoff. When I was a cheerleader in highschool and I was slim, I still weighed about 150 lbs. So I know that I will never be waifish. Sigh. But I never thought that THIS would happen...

Here is me after the fine diet of British foods:



Yes, I was getting pretty fucking FAT. I had never worn over a size 14 jean, even when pregnant, and I had made it into a size 18. But no one could say I was anorexic or bulimic. Ha.

Here we are at a TGIFriday's near Stratford-Upon-Avon. Go-go-FatVal.

This is a good one: FatValency and Rudy from the original 'Survivor.' You know, the one with naked Richard Hatch? This was the old Navy Seal guy. He was at the Commissary on RAF Lakenheath.


So I eventually ended up hitting over 210 lbs. OH FUCK. I couldn't believe that I was over 200 pounds. Such a slap in the face. I was SO DEPRESSED.



But I had an epiphany... and I fixed it ALL BY MYSELF.
I'll explain it later... I swear. I need to now go and read all of my peeps blogs that I have been neglecting for the last week and a half.

And can I say that I LOVE YOU GUYS! You do make me feel good... you make me feel needed, lol...

Death Of A Saleswoman

My husband texted me in the middle of my Theater class about Anna Nicole... how fucking bizarre. Right in the middle of watching Dustin Hoffman getting ready to kill himself in DOAS. Fuh-king bizarre. That's all I gotta say about that. And I don't think that this will be the end of the bizarre-ness.

Here is the last of the 3 collages. I HATE this one the MOST. But I had to do it. It's potraying DEPTH... Flat, Shallow, Deep, and Infinite:
Thursday night has become good TV night again. That is a GOOD thing. My Tivo can hardly keep up. This pleases me.

It's creeping closer to when my husband has to leave to go away for a long long time to Iraq. And it's making me EXTRA nervous since he will be involved with flying helicopters... Have you been listening to the news about HELICOPTERS+IRAQ= imminent death. Ugh.

DIRTY HOUSES!!! YEEEAAAAY!!

(This is NOT my house!) I have to preface this post with the fact that my house is VERY CLEAN.

I gotta post again really quick - Oprah has messy houses on her show today!! MY FAVORITE!

I love watching shows where people are disorganized and just have SHIT and JUNK laying around and someone comes in and cleans it all up. I FIND THESE SHOWS SOOOO SATISFYING!

The shows on TLC and HGTV like 'Mission:Organization' or 'Clean Sweep' can be excellent, depending on the level of messiness, but the show that TAKES THE CAKE was a show I used to watch in England called 'A Life of Grime'.

The Gross Level was HIGH. The show followed a group of city workers in England who were assigned to clean up houses that had become public health hazards. The houses were like this:




SO NASTY but I could hardly wait for it to come on each week and watch people in hazard-gear gag and retch at the smells. Stinky cat people, urine/feces collector people, etc etc etc. This is good TV, in my world.

Maybe it's because I have a fear of becoming the Crazy Cat Lady. But I swear too god, 4 cats is enough for me.

Okay. That's it for now. I'm off to watch Oprah. And do homework.

Techno Technologie Collage Numma Two

Here is the next collage-y thing we did... well, I didn't really collage this one. It is 'sposed to be TECHNOLOGY - Picture 1 is Representational, Picture 2 is Abstract, and Picture 3 is Symbolic. Pretty dull and we didn't have a lot of room for creativity, but OH WELL. This class emphasizes DESIGN a lot more than I thought it would, but OH WELL.

More later. If I'm in the mood. I'm gettin' jiggy wit some black boxes right now. And reminding myself that I want to learn art FROM THE GROUND UP!

College Collage Numma One

Here is one of three collages I completed for class tomorrow:



It is SUPPOSED to represent "Naturalism vs. Mechanism".

THIS is Naturalism, in Valency's World:



AAAAaaand this is Mechanism, a la Valencia:



I ended up having to skip a very fun Super Bowl party in order to get these frigging things done. So I'd better get an 'A'. So sad. I just had a very busy weekend. But doesn't everyone?

How Bored Are You Right Now?

It is/was Binsk's dog's birthday, and her post reminded me of my ana-mule's Dogster/Catster pages.

Here is Ibis

Here is Henry

Here is Lucky

Here is Mouse

Here is Biscuit

Here is Bijou

I am a NERD. I was very bored when I did this. And you have to be VERY BORED to click on these links!!

Photo Regurgitation

I am tired and it is my husband's PAYDAY today which is usually a good day for me but I was stuck in SCHOOL all day and then boy stuff/basketball practice all afternoon and so I had no time to spend money. Dammit.

I installed a cat door in Stoney's bedroom door today because he likes to sleep with the door closed but fatass Lucky likes to sleep in his room but NOT ALL NIGHT sometimes, as he is a certified fatty and he needs snacks all night long. But then after snacks/litterbox break he wants back INTO Stone's room. We'll see if this is successful...

It has been piddly snowing again and I am TIRED of it so I will post regurgitated pictures of a lovely summer day hanging out at the botanical gardens:



Look at that amazing strength. Giant garden hoses are no match for me!



Ahhhh.... giant termite mound. How I miss thee...

We also went to the aquarium on this day:



I can't wait to be tan again. Tan fat is WAY better looking than pale fat.



My poor sons. Their mother is SUCH a douche. Stone looks pissed as always...



But I DO try and educate them on the Ways of the Underwater World...

Shane pooped in the tub??

Latest Google Searches In Which People Landed On My Blog:

"Shane pooped in the tub"

"Rio Bar Farms Rat Terriers"

"Panty Sniffer"

"What is a Bifurcated Uvula"

"Horatio Sanz Christmas"

"spanx for men"

"bathroom tile"

This is what made me laugh out loud this morning. This is what I'm all about. I'm off to school now.