I love my name. Honestly, I don’t think my parents could have picked a better name. I look at people who hate their names for whatever reason, and I just can’t relate.
According to several baby name generators, Valerie means “strong” (though I grew up with my parents telling me that it meant “leader”). It was [...]

When I was 15, I was working at the local grocery store to earn a little cash. I really didn’t care for that job much. So, when I saw a sign in the window of a newish downtown restaurant (a second location of a local favorite) for a waitress, I went in to apply. The [...]

So, if you’ve looked around this site, you may have guessed that I like ladybugs. My mom would say, “Valerie, you have a ladybug problem.” She likes to say that when I own too much of something. When she helped me pack up my apartment last summer, she informed I had a sheet problem, a [...]