Crisis!

I found this when I looked

in Sophie's doll house, thats a chicken in the pot on the stove and appears to be a child in the oven. Also her nursery rhyme score slipped on her non-report card. We are of course looking into therapy. Valerie

giraffe mural

Sophie added the elephant to the mural. Her first mural. I am so proud.

I painted a new mural on Sophie's

new years resolutions

Yeah, yeah I know, they never work but this is different. This year my friend Maggie talked me into a different kind of resolution. Each month we pick a resolution and work on it. January is NO t.v. month. The idea is to make better use of your time. I know you are thinking what could be more important than Law and Order, I don't know either, Maggie can be very persuasive, if you know her be careful not to look into her eyes when she is coming up with some new scheme. February is be more social month. for Maggie that means phone calls letters and emails for me that means having people over to my house. More frightening than you know as i am about 3 magazines shy of a guest stint on hoarders. We are also doing a month of clearing out clutter and a month of being more creative. Email me back if you would like to join the challenge. I know it seems very cliche but cliche's come about because often they are true. Maggie has a whole list of good resolutions but true to form i only memorized February as it was coming up soonest. January's resolution taught me two things first i am a cheater and second that i really do rush things with Sophie in order to see the opening of law and order. what a waste. She will be off at reform school before I know it and law and order will still be on. Oh and third my husband is a rat bastard. He keeps threatening to turn me into Maggie for cheating. But I would like to expand this list. Today on the today show, for those of you with real lives involving people over the age of four I will fill you in on what went on today. They had these four living Bratz boy dolls on talking about their bucket list . They were only 12 so predictably their list was longer than mine. But I still wanted to make a list, even at the risk of being trendy, of ten things that I would like to do before I die. and I would really like to see your bucket lists so Victoria, Marina, Cassie, Maggie, Dierdra, Sandy, Connie, Jennifer, Kat, Rachel and Laurie please send your bucket lists. I do not include bob in this because I am afraid that his list might contain things like never have to wade through a sea of laundry in the bathroom again, have something more exciting than a bologne sandwich for dinner, and never be told what I am thinking again. So here is my list. Not very exciting and very predictable but here are the ten things i would like to do before I die.

1. Write a children's book.

2. Visit Verenna Italy again,

3. lose 40 pounds

4. be a good mother to Sophie and a nicer wife to Bob

5 be braver about approaching people

6. visit Yellowstone

7. Drive cross country in my van

8 fix my van

9. participate in an art show.

10. Go on a mission trip with Cassie to help people.