I Love School Like a Nerd Loves Fractions

First week back at school and I am SO TIRED but it is that very satisfied tired and I am okay with that. I got an EXCELLENT compliment in my 3-D Design class today - I was helping the students at my table with our assignment and one lady piped up, "YOU should be teaching this class - you're really good. You really know this stuff."

YES.

Since my ultimate goal is to be a college art teacher, this was good reinforcement. It's nice to be on the right track with satisfying goals and I have SO MUCH FUN in my art classes, I would be beside myself to be PAID to teach them.



First art assignment is fun... more papercutting, but it has to be 3-D shizzle, not unlike Peter Callesen. It's fun. I will photograph it later...



I'm now going to scare the piss outta myself watching "The First 48" on A&E and then go nighty-night.

Say Cheese.

Just For Your Information:



This cheese from Trader Joe's is the closest thing to the best most delicious Mature British Cheddars I had in England. It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn close. I've been tasting cheeses high and low here in the States, and the English Coastal Cheddar is the best, by far.


If you are in the UK, stop by Waitrose and get some Extra Mature Davidstow Cheddar (pre-packaged) and some Mull of Kintyre Cheddar from their Cheese Counter. The ladies at the cheese counter are always lovely and they will let you pretty much sample every cheese they have while you stand there, grinning and chomping away happily.


No one need wonder why I'm NOT skinny as a rail...

A Half-Block From Home

I love my house, because you can walk a mere half-block down the road, and you see this:



Those naughty boys might not always be seen there, but the view is.



I'm close to the City, I'm close to Nature, I'm Happy.



They spent months clearing all of the non-native species out of the Bosque a couple of years ago, and it has ALL RETURNED, worse than ever. Russian Olive is apparently a real bitch. Whomever thought it was a great idea to cart a couple o' bastard seeds from Russia to New Mexico ought to be shot, if they weren't already long dead. Good one.


I just finished writing 4 pages of answers to Philisophical Thought questions, due Wednesday, but I wanted to do them NOW in case something random comes up... I also finished 3 pages of Algebra shizzle, due Monday, but it's so satisfying to finish EARLY.



Blogger is still being arsey with my photos, so I slapped them on Photobucket, dammit.



Tomorrow my Art class starts - 3-D Design. I also have Early Music Appreciation. Which class might I enjoy more? Hmmmmm....

Netflix Whore

Okay, I'm totally sold on Netflix, mostly because I am really really behind in watching movies - COOL thing is that you can add "friends" to your account if they also have netflix and you can see what is in their queue and what they rated as good or bad and you can even make little notes about movies for your friends to see... VERY RAD thanks Mr. Netflix.

SO if you have Netflix and want to share movie info, leave your email address in the comments, or email it to me. Since only 2 1/2 people read my blog, I'm only expexcting ZERO people to do this... but you never know...

I think I'm going to get my sister Kippy Netflix for her 40th birthday next month. I gave my father-in-law a subscription for Father's Day and I need to call him and see if he likes it or if he is even using it. He was a good candidate because A) He likes movies and B) I think he thinks driving back and forth to the video store sucks as much as I think it sucks.

I dropped The Ex and Confetti in the mailbox today - we'll see how long it takes for the next two movies to come! I wonder which ones they are going to be, since now I think I have over 300 movies in my queue. I'm officially a movie whore...

Here Is What I Think

"The Ex" was pretty good - BUT the weird thing was that I had read the spoiler for it on The Movie Spoiler when it was in theaters and it was totally different on the DVD - then I realized that they had a BUNCH of different "alternate endings" and even one "alternate beginning" - that is just a little MUCH. Whatever.

I just finished Confetti, too. Good. Along the lines of "A Mighty Wind" or "Waiting For Guffman" genre-type, but British. Three couples in a wedding competition. Meh.

I brought my camera to dinner last night but I had NO BALLS they shrivelled up and I took NO PICTURES. I really didn't know the people there all that well - so I didn't want to whip out my camera and snap snap snap - they were all very sweet nice ladies. Ah, well.

We ate at Zea Grill which is YUM and I had Balsamic Salmon with Thai Snap Green Beans and Sweet Potatooooooes. Excellent. AND we had the BEST conversation that I would consider ten times better than the TV show "Army Wives," which I LOVE but I would like to become a writer for "Air Force Wives" if they ever make that show because I have real-life stories that you WOULDN'T BELIEVE but they are totally true. Anyone wanna hire me?

Netflix Has Arrived!

Yeay! That was pretty impressively fast - now let's see how impressively fast I can watch these badboys!!

Here is what arrived today:




Woooohooo now I have weekend entertainment... AND now I'm kind of bummed I'm going out to dinner cuz I want to spend quality time with my new leetle freeends! Yes, my name is Valency and I am a NERD.

Friday. It's Not Over Yet.

Stone had a shrink appointment FIRST THING this morning. I suffered through traffic at 7:30 am for an 8:30 am appointment. I really like his doctor, though. She is very mellow and nice...

THEN I went and picked up Atticus' girlfriend, E, who is getting ready for a 4-month trip to Russia. She is such a badass - and she is funny and nice and so we went and saw a matinee of "Superbad" which is an EXCELLENT movie! Three Thumbs Up.

Before the movie we had lunch at Cafe Miche which was YUM and then I went and bought 2 big Yankee Candles. Now I am home, but I will leave in 2 minutes to pick up a Friday Night pizza for the boys. THEN I will go to a squadron spouse's group meeting at one of the BEST restaurants in ABQ. I will tell you about it later. I wonder if I will have the balls to take my sneaky camera.



The HOT will not go away in New Mexico. The worst part today is that it is HUMID outside so once again, the swamp cooler just isn't cutting it, dammit. WHO KNEW the desert was so friggin hot??

Foreignly Homesick.

I have been surfing around on Youtube, as one does when they are BORED. Or avoiding housework. Whatever.

I won't post the videos I'm watching on my blog - you can find my channel and check out My Favorites if you are resourceful and MORE BORED THAN I. But I must say that you have to watch Ricky Gervais talking about Gay Animals before you die. FUCKING GENIUSFUNNY!!

I had watched 'Extras' on DVD because I am a HUGE fan of 'The Office' British version (I love the US one as well, but I am faithful to the original...) WHICH then lead me to the 'Ricky Gervais' search on Youtube, which then lead to watching loads of Brit-shit.

I found a user named 'Stentionhouse' who seems to have uploaded ALL of the seasons of the UK Big Brother... OH I am in complete BLISS!

Big Brother UK is so FAB. The first ever series started RIGHT after I got to the UK in 2000... and I was hooked for all 4 years I lived there.

Watching it makes me miss England SO MUCH. I completely immersed myself in all things British. I didn't live on the AF base like a wuss - we lived smack-dab in the heart of Newmarket, which is about 10-15 minute drive from Cambridge. When we returned to the US, my kids had thick british accents and Stone's favorite snack was Beans on Toast and Walker's crisps...

I MISS TESCO - Tesco Sharp Silverskin Pickled Onions YUMRAAAARRRRRRGrrrrrr.


I miss the cheese counter at Waitrose. NO ONE can beat British Cheddar... and you could ask for unlimited samples which I did every time I went shopping...



OOH this is the ACTUAL Cambridge Marks and Spencer - sob sniff sniffle - I miss you, friend...



OH here is a picture that is from Newmarket's actual high street - I had many a pint of cider at the Waggon and Horses and the HUGE mirror above my fireplace mantle is from Kitchens n Things -



I am DYING for some Bangers 'n Mash now... delicious Powter's Newmarket sausage, fluffily mashed creamy white potatoes, chopped spring onion, grated white cheddar cheese AAAAAAAArrrrrggggh.



There is a cricket somewhere in my bathtub drain. He won't shut up. I am beyond tortured right now...

Puppy?

Henry is almost two years old, but I think he still looks like a puppy.

He is as dippy as he looks...

But I still love him!










I finally joined Netflix last night... four hours later, I have over 200 movies in my queue. YIKES.

OUTSIDE is the way to go.

Taking picture outside is THE WAY TO GO. If it just wasn't SO HOT out right now, I could spend hours taking the outdoorsy shots -




Tully is easy to photograph. He holds still WELL.

Blogger is being arsy and won't let me upload dog pics right now. Whatever. I put them on Flickr but I don't know how to transfer them from Flickr to my blog. Still learning.

I do need to get a new treat bag for the dogs - I was looking all over for it so I could do some dog training. Ibis went to dog classes and he is pretty well trained - Henry has the classic 'second child syndrome' and has NOT been to classes and has NOT had training and it is obvious. Henry is a VERY NAUGHTY dog but he is sweet.

I JUST remembered today that Shane had used the treat bag a while ago and left it on the floor, closed, with treats in it.

SURPRISE! The dogs chewed it up.

I ran errands today but I forgot to go to Petsmart or Petco to get a new one. Dangit.

Me. On the spiderweb:


I sweated off all of my makeup and my hair is far too flippy. It looks short, too, because the short layers are out and the long parts are hidden on my back. Whatever.

The Elusive Ones

You know, the cats aren't that much easier to photograph than the dogs...



Mouse kind of looks like a bobble-head.

Mouse and Biscuit live in Tully's room. They rarely leave Tully's room, to the point that I had to put food and water dishes and a catbox in his room. They don't like the other animals in the hose. So now the bedroom belongs to Mouse and Bisc and Tully is merely a tolerated interloper.

MOUSE...








That's about it for her.

BISCUIT...









Aaaaand that will be all for the cat portion of my photography right now. I need to photograph the turtles, the guinea pig, try for better dog pictures, and then OH YEAH my kids. They are the elusive-est of all...

Dawgs

Taking adequate pictures of my dogs is FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE.



Uhh, what's tha blur?



OH it's you, Henry!




I think I'll take them to the park tomorrow morning and try for some lovely outdoor action shots. I'll take my camera manual so I can ATTEMPT to use correct speeds etc.

I adore Henry's ears. I really, really do. Just dericious. When we got him, he had 2 floppy ears... I told Shane that Henry was jealous of Ibis' bat-ears so he tried reeeeeally hard to make his ears stand up but only one of the ears cooperated.



(Ibis is actually doing his meek-poser-flat-ears in this pic - no batwing glory -)

I could probably mess with these with my fake-Photoshop (I only have Microsoft Digital Image Pro - NOT the same as Photoshop...) but alas I don't feel like it. Blah.

Online Shopping

I bought some shirts at threadless this morning... a couple were running low (they email you when shirts in your cart are running out - NICE) so I had to ACT NOW.

I wanted this one for a WHILE - it's a reprint. It's called 'Nice Boobies.'



Another one I've wanted for awhile - I'm all about Being Kind To Animals, but sometimes, I loves me a good steak. I think dooce owns this one...



This one is a little newer, but I am such a closet Nintendo fan - anyone who truly knows me knows that I have been obsessed with video games since I was a wee babe - I could tell you the story about when my Grandpa wanted to buy me an Atari and my damn hippie mom said NO. You can almost hear the violins playing...



I think it is the best Magritte homage EVER.

This one was just candy for my eyeballs:



And the last shirt I bought is for Stone - it's a new one, and when I showed it to him, he screamed "ORDER IT!" He loves cows. And chickens. Oh, and elephants, but that doesn't really apply here.



I would actually buy it for ME but I have to at least TRY to use a wee bit of self-control...

More Email Goodness

Shane has been telling us about the sheep that live on the base in Iraq - there is a 'flock' that wanders around munching, so they don't have to mow the grass or whatever.

He sent this picture to the boys, to their personal email:



Along with this message:
"The herd of sheep had a new baby sometime in the last couple of weeks. Attached is the addition to sheep that live by where I work I call the new sheep"

This is 10-year-old Tully's reply email - Shane forwarded it to me because it was so damn sugary sweet fabulous:

"Nice sheep! A pretty cute lamb, I'll say"

I am going to go eat my kid for breakfast.

Communicating With The Male Species

Excerpt from Shane's email to me:

"Well I hope everything is going well for you- I will talk to you later. I love and miss you and can't wait to see you guys next year."

Excerpt from my reply:

"I miss you - It sounds like forever when you say 'See you next year,' but I just figured out that Christmas is only 4 months away! ACK!"

Excerpt from Shane's reply:

"What does ACK mean? I can't figure it out. Neither can TNT - but I just had Barb decipher the message and she said it meant Ackkkk- like it is coming up pretty fast (dealing with Christmas and all). Well I thought it was a acronym but it was not. Hve a good one."

TNT is a (male) pilot Shane flies with. Thank god that there are some women in the military to help out - thanks, Barb, whoever you are...

Clearing the Pipes

Aaaah, Monday. Kids are safely on the schoolbus. List of housecleaning chores is ready. It is SO much easier to clean the house when nobody is home...

I had been asking Shane to figure out why the kids' shower drain had been getting slower and slower - probably since January. It was just not high on his priority list - I guess shower drain repair was trumped by the need to find adequate body armour. Yeah, whatever.

Eight months later, the drain is coming close to a standstill. Stone was getting pretty annoyed at the deepening water as he showered, so I went and dug around in Shane's tools and got to work.



I gripped and twisted and yanked, but at first it wouldn't budge... then I took the Robogrips and I whacked the drain a few times and BINGO it loosened up.

What have we here?



Okay, this is NOT a job for women.It might be women's hair that causes these clogs, but I'm sorry NO WAY GROSS ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

After about 5 minutes of digging with my fingers and a flat-head screwdriver, I had the drain-hairball rescued from the depths of disgustingness.



I took a close-up picture of the drain-vomit, but I didn't post it here. But it's on my flickr account - not many photos on there yet, but I'm getting used to it. I like the little badge on the side of the blog with the latest photos. Neat.

Sexiest damn plumber on the block, I am.

I Forgot To Turn Off The Alarm.

It rang at 6:45 am which is the time I've been waking up all week. With the kids back in school, I'm back into the robotic housewife-mom-Stepford routine of getting straight out of bed and heading into the kids' rooms to wake them up... Luckily, halfway down the hall I woke up enough to think to myself "WHAT day IS it??" and I stopped, pondered, and after a full groggy 30 seconds, I realized that it was SATURDAY. At least the boys got to sleep in.

I'm working on the pet photography still. NOT as easy as it seems. Here are my attempts at capturing Lucky, the one male cat we own:





AAAAAW so frigging melty-yum-sweet.
But then I try to get artsy. LE FEETS:



This last one is almost cat porn. Almost. Not quite. Thank god.




I know, I KNOW - cats pics on the blog are ghey ghey ghey... but at least these have purpose.

I went to Dianne's house today and hung out for a bit, before dragging her 5-day-post-surgery-ass to my other friend's house for a PAMPERED CHEF PARTY. More Stepford-ness, but I am just lame like that. I do like this shizzle. I like drinking strawberry-lime punch and chatting about the best way to peel bananas and melt chocolate and general pleasant fluff like that.

How cute is Madame Pampered Cheffy? She is righteously chef-worthy.



(This was my public picture of the day. Baby steps, baby steps...)

She almost looks like she could go crazy ape-shit POSTAL and whack someone in the face with that frying pan. HA.

I took the boys out for dinner at Red Robin tonight. They were sweet and we talked about Legos and video games, mostly. I miss my husband and adult dinner conversation, mostly.

Stone just came in to report that the drain in their shower is clogged. Mostly. I'm off to put on my flannel shirt and ass-crack jeans and take a look. Go-go Plumber Valency!

Shane Knows.

I think he can read my mind, even in the land of far, far away. Shane has requested a little photo-book of Home to show to his Iraqi pilots - they have been sharing pictures of their homes and wives and kids and Shane tells them about our 'mini-farm' and the Iraqis think that it is hilarious and they wanna see...

Shane asked for pictures of each and every animal, the kids, me, the house, and the mountain. SO I have a little purpose and motivation sprinkled on me. I've started out with the 2 animals that are in my room. This fish lives on the back of the toilet in the master bathroom:





His tank displaces my handtowels but I don't have anywhere else to hang them, so they are just squished there by the fish.

My master bath is decorated with Greek shizzle from when Shane went and ran the Athens marathon in Greece. So when this fish ended up in our bathroom (he was originally in Stone's room), I gave him little Greek decor as well. He's been around for about 2 years but he has no name... sad. It would have to be something Greek - like Gyro or Tzatziki or Demetrius.

Next, I attempted to photograph Bijou, who is ALWAYS in my room unless she is eating, poop/peeing, or when I kick her out at night. I can't sleep with her in my room. She usually decides to run across my face at about 5 a.m. and, um, Bij, that is just NOT COOL.




I am trying to play with the settings on the camera and I haven't got it just right yet... it would be a lot easier if Bijou would just hold still.



This one isn't bad. It'll do.



I made a crapload of roasted garlic today - I'm going to mix some with my hummus, make a vinaigrette with some, and eat the rest plain om my toasted whole wheat pita bread.

I'm off to photograph everything else...

Why Can't I Camera More?

I just get SO lame retarded self-conscious anxiety when I take out my camera or even THINK about taking it out. I have NO CLUE why. I have extra batteries and a nice big memory-card and I even just bought a Gorillapod for it but I still have some lame brickwall and I am always disappointed about the meager amount of pictures I take. Could someone please give me a kick in the ass?? MORE PICTURES PLEASE, VALENCY!

Pictures would make me blog more, too, since I'd have something to stimulate my writing.



My choice of places to get the kids out of the house this weekend was The Folk Art Museum in Santa Fe. My friends Roger and Diane came too.




The kids weren't thrilled about the prospect, but in the end, they were very well behaved and had a nice-ish time.

We then went to the Plaza and met up with my other friends Atticus and Elise and had lunch at the San Francisco Street Bar and Grill - YES, most people would be eating Mexican/New Mexican food in Santa Fe, but sometimes you just need good 'ole American food. But I actually ended up eating a Asian Sesame Chicken Salad. Retarded. I know. But it was yummy. But of course I took no pictures of the deliciousness. Damn.

I am actually reading my camera instruction book/novel right now, so I can improve my picture-taking abilities. Good job, Valency.

I am also reading "Skinny Bitch", which is pretty funny and informative, but I didn't realize that these authors were vegan-nazi-animal rights people - I am down with eating healthy and being kind to animals - I like free-range and organic shit, but I don't think I could EVER go vegan. I like fish and chicken A LOT, and I definately have an occasional craving for a nice bloody hunk of steak.

I spent most of the weekend doing lonely yardwork. I sunburned the back of my neck and got a spider-bite on the tip of my left hand-middle finger (I took off my gardening gloves because they had gotten wet. NOT a good idea.).

I'm going to be a good girl and go finish my yardwork now. It's supposed to be 95 degrees in Albuquerque today. Hopefully I'll sweat off 20 pounds or so...

Fabulous Theo

My nephew, Theo, loves to dance. He is six years old, and he is obsessed with the likes of The Cheetah Girls and Hannah Montana. He choreographs his own dances...



My sister sent me his latest dance. Sorry, it's a little (okay a lot) grainy -

Mom's Movie Night

I feel so BLAH. Not going to school for the first time in almost two years (I took the summer off) has made me feel like my brain has turned to mush. Add that to my husband being gone, and my new-found anti-social-ness and WOW I am an all-round bite of oatmeal.

I escaped the house alone for a few hours today. It felt GOOD. And there were no emergencies while I was out so PHEW.

I rented myself two movies that I have REALLY wanted to see.

This one:



and this one:



A movie about an manic artsy housewife/mom (I can relate!) and a movie about a murderous scent-capturer (um, I can't relate?) BUT 'Perfume' was one of Kurt Cobain's favorite books... He wrote the song 'Scentless Apprentice' from the album 'In Utero' about it...



I'm a Seattle girl, so anything Nirvana still rings my bell.

I'm watching 'Perfume' now, tonight, but I'm more excited for 'Fur'. Just look at these Diane Arbus pictures:







FAB-u-LOUS.

And some of her lists she wrote -



I can relate. I write lists constantly. I am the Queen of Lists.

So far, the Perfume movie is good. Alan Rickman just appeared. I adore him.