havocandmayhem.com

This is Mike. He is the former owner of the loathed sofa, the inadequate desk and the fairly nice dresser that we now own. I like Mike, which is a good thing because I would otherwise be cursing his name everytime I sat down on the sofa or at the desk. As it is, I often mumble unpleasantries about the person who accepted Mike's offer of the sofa & the desk....DH. Mike is one of his oldest friends & I actually met Mike months before I met DH. He'd been our roommate off & on in our early years in Virginia, but was living in his own place (with his own furniture) when he relocated to California.

This is my computer area. We have an L shaped family room. The computer is in the far corner of the short end of the L. The TV is in the corner where the 2 sides meet and our chairs, bookcase & the loathed sofa are in the long end of the L. The long end also has a sliding glass window on one side & a wood stove in the left top corner. If you go straight out the bottom of the L, you enter the kitchen. There is a gate around the area to keep the toddlers out. Havoc calls it "Mommy's office" though DH occasionally sets his laptop up on the dresser. Everything in the area is 'temporary' and 'will do for now'. Including the desk. The desk belonged to the same friend who gave us the sofa & my feelings for the desk are similar to my feelings for the sofa. It is inadequate to the task. The desk is from the late 1940's when people and chairs apparently were much narrower than they are today. No chair with arms, currently in existence, will

The weekend was ok. We went up to the mountains to some property some friends of ours own along a river. It's a very shallow river where they are, up to my waist at most 90% of the time, so it's great for the kids. It was their DD's 3rd b-day and they were having a weekend long camping party. We went up Saturday morning & came back Sunday night. The males camped out, I stayed in a Holiday Inn about 20 minutes away. DH owed me a night alone from when he went camping a month ago & I'm not much on camping, so it worked out well. The little boys had a blast. Havoc's first question was "when can we get in the river?' and spend the rest of the time in the river, complaining that he had to get out, & asking when he could get back in. He also went fishing with DH & caught a fish, though he didn't seem to realize this was a big deal. It was hot, though the water was chilly. It was fun hanging out with our friends but I didn't have

Is creating "beautiful art" more important than the process of creating. For me it is the process. Most of my hobbies are about the process, though I enjoy getting a beautiful result. I would not cross stitch, crochet or quilt otherwise. I love the process of them. The planning, the cutting, the stitching, watching something whole & formed grow out of scattered pieces. I feel the same way about digi scrapping. The process of making all the parts into a whole is what fascinates me. Sure I love it when the results are admired by others. But if I didn't find the process more important, the odds are I wouldn't do it. We're going up to WV to celebrate a the birthday of a friend's DD. They are having a weekend long camping party at some property they own in the mountains, along a river. Dh & the boys will be camping. I will be not camping. I have a room at a hotel about 20 minutes away. I don't like camping. But the hotel is mostly because

When I woke up, or when I got up? These are 2 different times separated by about 2.5 hours. Mayhem woke me up at shortly after 5am when he came in our room& climbed in our bed. My thought at the time was "Please God let him go back to sleep.", which is what I think every morning that he comes into our room before 6am. And as usual he did not go back to sleep. After about 30 minutes of him tossing around & playing & occasionally snuggling up to me, I told him to go watch TV and he did. So i went back to drowse while DH got up at 6 & got Mayhem breakfast. I actually got out of bed at 7:30am, when DH leaves for work. My first thought then was "I am going to the gym today & I mean it." I haven't been all week because of Havoc's recent separation anxiety. Its been growing on him slowly for a month or more but he's been downright hysterical about it this week. He tells me he is afraid he will miss me. So we have spent the last

I don't enjoy them but there have been few final good byes in my life. Apart from my mother in law, the people that I have lost to death, went when I was not there to say good bye. Saying good bye to MIL was very hard for me. I cried a lot. A few people have moved out of my life to a new job or a new place, but even then, it was a physical goodbye, we could still keep in touch & while I was sad they wouldn't be there to hang out with, knowing we can still chat on email made it easier. I try to remain upbeat about good byes, even the final ones, because while a door is closing for me, it is opening for someone else. And when I am the one moving on to a new job or a new location, the door is opening for me & new beginnings are a good thing. =================== An update on the chocolate bars. I left out the ECLIPSE dark chocolate bar, 87% cacao & entirely too bitter for my taste, though DH loves it. I think chopped fine, melted & mixed with milk & a t

I love Dagoba Organic dark chocolate bars. They are kinda pricy $3-4 a 2oz bar but they are so good & they are slow eating chocolate. They are not Hershey's that you can just eat without really thinking. The dark chocolate bars *demand* you sit & pay attention to them & 2 small pieces is really all you need at a sitting. They come in an assortment of flavors but I have to go out of my way to find them just in general, & I have not come across all the flavors yet. These are my favorites New Moon 75% cacao Roseberry and Lavender,which is not available individually on their website for some reason. It's a lavender essence with blueberries in it. Sounds weird but tastes good. I have not encountered the XOCOLATL, which has chilis, the MON CHERI or the LIME flavored ones. The plain DARK is ok, but I prefer a Hershey's Special Dark. I amnot fond of their milk chocolate flavors. I've tried the LATTE and the CHAI & was disappointed both times. Too swee

We had a few pets when I was growing up. They all arrived in the house when I was between 6-10 and I don't really recall which arrived first or if there was overlap.. We had a couple hamsters. Mine was named Princess. I can't remember what my brother named his. Princess had some babies at one point but they didn't live. We had a fish tank. We had that for a while. Lots of different fish in it at various points. I only remember Mr Cat, the catfish, though. We also had a dog. A minature schnauzer. Her name was Puppet. I was 7 or 8 when we got her. She was supposed to be the family dog, but she was really my mom's dog. That dog worshipped my mom. I remember dressing the dog up in baby doll clothes sometimes. Puppet died when I was in college. The first pet I ever had as an adult were hamsters again. I had them for a couple of years in college because even 'no pets' apartments would take hamsters (and they were cheaper than fish tanks).

The smell that reminds me most of childhood is a mix of the perfume Chanel No5 & this perfumed talc powder(but I don't know what the name of it was) . My mom wore it all the time. So did both my grandmothers. When I smell it now I can picture thier bedrooms in the mid-70's, the colors, the furniture, even all the bottles & brushes they had laid out on their dressing tables. They had dressing tables....They sat down at them & did their hair & make up every day. I cannot imagine doing that now. I do everythign standing the bathroom, usually in a rush. My parents are visiting this weekend & brought me a stack of photos from the 60's & 70's of them & me. Some of the photos smell like this mixture.

When I was little I loved playing with dolls or playing with Weebles or the lego people. I loved creating stories about them & acting those stories out, making them talk & walk around & do things. I would get together with a couple of friends & we would either play with dolls in someone's basement or we'd go outside with the Weebles & lego people and build a fort, house, boats, etc for them out of sand, rocks, dirt, legos & lincoln logs, then have a great adventure with them. I remember I had the Weeble treehouse & the Weeble cowboy set & my friend Alexis had a Weeble pirate island and some one else had a RV type set & we'd set them all up and have Weeble village. These were different Weebles than what they sell now, these were egg shaped, weighted on the bottom and had a piece of paper wrapped around them under a piece of clear plastic. The paper had their face & costume printed on it & if you got the Weebles wet, water woul

I wasn't sure which way to go with this - meaningful, fun, by sound...I love a lot of words for different reasons. But here are the 5 I came up with & why. 1. LUNCH - my philosophy of life revolves around lunch. It is the thing I miss most as a SAHM (apart from soft smooth hands). Douglas Adams, in " Life, the Universe & Everything " wrote about a group called The Holy Lunching Friars on Vondoon - The Holy Lunching Friars of Voondon claim that just as lunch is at the centre of a man's temporal day, and man's temporal day can be seen as an analogy for his spiritual life, so Lunch should (a) be seen as the centre of a man's spiritual life, and (b) be held in jolly nice restaurants This is what I believe as well. 2. NAPTIME - because that is when LUNCH is going to occur if I get one at all (but no jolly nice restaurant) 3. DEFENESTRATION - it means to throw someone out of the window & it has always struck me as funny (In both sense of the word) t

Homemade cookies or muffins. Meatloaf. Fried egg & bacon sandwiches. When I eat for comfort I reach for high fat food because there is no comfort in broccoli. I am eating one of my faves right now. Homemade chocolate chip cookies spread with a strawberry cream cheese & yogurt dip. It has yogurt in it therefore it is healthy right? It's a great dip for apple & pear slices, pineapple chunks (fresh) and strawberries. Havoc is eating it with apples at the moment. I am hoping that I can start a pattern that fruit is comfort for him Havoc is covered in poison ivy. The spots started appearing slowly Sunday & we were not sure if they were just bites. Then more Monday, started hydrocortison cream, yesterday he was one big rash. His arms, his face, his neck, his stomach, the backs of his legs, his private parts. He just healed up from it on his butt. The doc gave us some oral steroids to clear it up plus I have to put hydrocortison on it & anti-itch stuff. Po

I shout too much at the kids & I take DH for granted. I try to work on these things - keeping my voice calm, imagining I have a studio audience watching my deal with my kids, telling DH thank you often, commenting that I appreciate that he did whatever it was. But then after a few days I am back to shouting in irritation & ignoring DH's efforts. I live with 3 people who are absolutely incapable of cleaning up after themselves or finding a darn thing by themselves. Granted two of them 3 and 2 years old but when the shoe is right in front of him I should not have to come in from the kitchen, where I am attempting to cut veggies for dinner, pick it up and hand the shoe to the 2 year old who apparently cannot look down. This happens all day and is why I end up shouting & am not really appreciative that DH made cookies (because of the mess left behind him). But I am working on it. I resolve every morning that I won't raise my voice to my children in any form that I

in no particular order: broiled salmon salmon patties (with leftovers) deep dish pizza or calzone (toppings dependant on leftovers) hamburgers on the grill (Saturday) chicken with rice spaghetti london broil pork loin crock pot grilled chicken veggie soup & sandwiches baked ziti steak & spinich salad (leftover london broil) I think we will have the pasta tonight, since it is too late to start the pork. Tomorrow night is bunco at my house, so DH & the boys will go out to eat. I'll make a sandwich. I'm going to have veggies & dip, guacamole & chips and the Cafe's spinich & artichoke dip with bread, plus cookies, for bunco. My folks will be here Friday & we'll probably get Chinese take out. Saturday we'll do the burgers and one day the weekend after that I am owed a Mother's Day dinner. So technically I should have more plans than actual meals. we'll see.

Saturday I spread out the gravel for the pool area while DH was off on the tractor buying a backhoe attachment from a guy a mile or so away. Havoc was in ecstacy when DH came back with the backhoe on the tractor. We hadn't told him about it so he was really surprised. "My backhoe tractor!!! My backhoe tractor!! You got me my backhoe tractor that i've always wanted!! Fank you Daddy Fank you!!!!" Then it rained before DH was able to do more than make a couple test digs with Havoc on his lap. But it was enough. Later we went to a cookout that was hosted by the preschool Havoc will be attending in the fall. Havoc is in a shy & fearful phase right now, make worse by the fact that he has always been a bit shy & reluctant to try new things. So he stuck by us most of the time & wouldn't not go on any of the rides, but he did pet the animals & watched the (very LOUD) puppet show. The food was ok. Sunday I slept in until 9am. That was it for my Moth

I'd have a super memory. I'd be able to recall with clarity & detail what I wanted to recall (Havoc's first smile, the first time Mayhem said Mommy) and not recall very well the things I don't want to (the flame war I started over Mother's Day on an elist, the car accident on our way to FL). I have a very good memory, but a rather vague & fuzzy one as well. I don't trust myself to recall details well of some things (like some incidents on message boards, dates of the kings of France, people's birthdays, grocery lists) but I remember lots of other things (other incidents on message boards, dates of the kings of England, how much my first job paid me [$1.20 an hour], what I ordered at restaurants I visited in another state 5 years ago) There is no real rhyme or reason to what I remember. I have periods of having a great memory & periods of having a really bad memory & I never know which I am in until it's too late. So a super memory, wit

I'd sleep in. Then I would go to IHOP for breakfast - alone. Then I would go to the bookstore & browse as long as my heart desired. After that I would go try on pants, skirts & bras in a variety of stores (I really need bras). Followed by lunch, at Quiznos. Then I would come home to a preferably empty house (I'd have to travel at least 45 minutes to do any of the shopping & eating I mentioned) and digi scrap for a bit or maybe work on my cross stitch. I'd make myself some dinner without having to consider the likes & dislikes of the other 3 people in my life - cream of mushroom soup with toast covered in mushroom boloagnese sauce and a spring salad with goat cheese. (DH hates mushrooms & goat cheese. The toddlers only like breaded chicken strips or spinich salad.) Last I'd have a nice long soak (in a tub somebody else cleaned while I was out) and climb into bed to read a good book before falling asleep. Now, if DH had the day off tomorrow I&#

One of my favorite meals is a chicken & potato salad combo I've been making for a few years now. It is loosely based on a recipie in "Cooking for Two" by Suzi Smith (1996) called "Grilled Chicken Salad with sour cream dressing". I'll give the book version at the end, but first some commentary. 1. The original recipie has you mix the chicken, avocados, bacon & tomatoes together with the dressing & serve on a bed of spinich with potatoes on the side. I mix all of it together with the dressing at once. 2. I prefer to use sweet potatoes rather than white ones. They taste better. They add a nice flavor that you don't get with white potatoes. They are also more nutritious. It's still good with white potatoes but its better with sweet ones. Try the sweet potatoes. They are not just for pie & marshmellowy Thanksgiving side dishes. Really, they are wonderful in savory dishes. 3. Steam the potatoes, whichever you use, if at all p

My favorite color is purple - big surprise I am sure :). My blog is mostly purple, I am wearing something purple in my avis, 95% of the pages I do about me involve purple. I just really like purple. For some never adequately explained reason, this bothered the heck out of my family when I was a child. "Oh of course you chose the purple shirt." "Purple again?" "How about some other color than purple?". It's not like my wardrobe was all purple. I don't really recall have much of anything that was purple clothing-wise, because they always stopped me from getting it. My room was pink or peach (I never really had a say in what color it was) & I don't remember having many purple toys. So I am not certain where this idea of theirs came from. And I often wonder if they would have said it if my favorite color was pink or green? This "Oh why not choose something other than purple, you have so much purple already." mentality stuck w

I'm feeling good about a number of things. DH has the frame for the playset canopy built & it just needs to be bolted permanently together & installed on the playset. As it is taking up our entire 'yard' area I am feeling optimistic that he will finish this task by this weekend. He can hardly move it out of the way to begin something else. The part that got broken on the tractor 2 weeks ago has been replaced & I am feeling optimistic that I might actually be able to keep the place mowed this summer & we now have a weed trimmer too. I have come up with a way to keep track of kits/designers/fonts used on my layouts. I've been reading about people putting a hidden text layer in the layout itself so you can read it when you open it up in PSP/PS. Tried that. Doesn't work for me. For a while I was really good about putting everything in PSP's 'image information' area but again, I don't keep up with it. It came to me today how to keep

What music do I like? I admit to a partiality for 80's music - pop, metal, hair bands, alternative, but I was 13 in 1980 and 80's music is *my* music so I dont' apologize (though several friends thing I should :)) I also love Celtic music (clannad, gaelic storm) and medieval inspired music (Blackmore's Night & Loreena McKennit). I am not a fan of country music but everyone around here is. I have not kept up with mainstream music. I hear random songs that i like (on a radio station called SAM I pick up in the car) but I have no idea what Brittany Spears sings or Emminem's latest is called or who Puff Daddy is. I goto iTunes every so often & only ever recognize maybe one of the names on that are on the main page. I don't really care, eventually the boys will start listening to it & then I will too. I listen to my iPod at the gym, though mostly audiobooks because listening to a good murder mystery motivates me to stay on the elliptical machine mo

the horrid sofa with the old sofa cover I just replaced. There are a gagillion pillows on the sofa because the back & arms are basically just 2x4's covered with a thin padding & very uncomfortable. the horrid sofa with the new sofa cover & additional padding. I liek the cover & I like the sofa with all the padding. But, the padding consists of 2 old body pillows, a crib bumper, a half a dzoen old sheets, some quilt batting and some old table cloths. They are not going to stay in place & even 2 days into it have had to be reshifted back where they belong more times than I can count. But when they are in place they are comfy. This is the more or less what i want in a sofa, only with the padding stitched & attached into place. If it had a fold out bed that would be good too.

The prompt for the weekend is post your favorite joke & tell why it is your favorite. I LOVE puns! I love wordplay. I love something that makes you have to pause for a second & think. I love that they make you groan and giggle at the same time. These are a few of my current favorite puns ======================= A botanist was trying to research some details about a particular kind of fern, so he sent a request to all his collegues, asking them to send him any information they had about it. Unfortunately, he didn't word his request very well, and all the botanists he'd contacted thought he was looking for details about any ferns, rather than just the one species. So within just a few hours of sending it out, his fax machine was buzzing with piles of useless documents about all kinds of ferns - there were tree ferns and wood ferns, ostrich ferns and cinnamon ferns... but very few about the particular type he wanted. So he sent another message to everyone: If it ain

There haven't been many lately for me. But I am not really trying to accomplish anything much at the moment either. I finally mopped the kitchen floor last night. Even used Pine Sol instead of baking soad & soap so it smells clean too. I got some decent work in on my cross stitch project. I remembered to cancel DISH before they billed us for another year of service. Direct TV is coming today to install. I didn't lose my temper with the boys while they were running like little demons all around the stores when I was shopping yesterday. I did manage to get to the gym today. I have root canal part 2 in about 2 hours and I have managed to not freak out so far this week about it. Which has me worried. I spent the better part of 10 days stressed out & terrified about part 1 and it didn't hurt a bit, except for the shot. what if the pain you feel is inversly proportional to the fear you experience & because I am calm about it now I will be in agony during it? Lo

Really. I loathe the thing. Always have. We got it 3rd hand, for free. from a friend who was moving out of town 6 years ago. We'd been talking about needing a new sofa beacuse the one we had was falling apart & DH comes home & says "Sofa problem is solved! Mike is giving us his!" I so wanted to kill Mike right then. I didn't like the sofa when it was his. I really detest it now that it is mine & with every passing year I detest it more (if that is possible). It isn't comfortable. It is ugly. The staples from the recovering that was doen to it before Mike got it are coming loose. It is on my mind at the moment because I just bought my 3rd sofa cover for it today. It has a flat top & skinny flat arms. No sofa cover in the universe is made for this shape sofa. They all are made for sofas with high backs & puffy arms, so I end up tucking in yards of fabric (that never stays tucked) or suffing old pillows and blankets in the spaces to

There are 2 places I want to go that I am likely to actually go to: 1. Walt Disney World - and stay on Disney property, in a suite, with a jacuzzi. 2. LasVegas - and stay at the Venetian, Luxor or Excaliber, in a suite, with a jacuzzi. I also want to travel around Europe for a couple of months, touring and staying in nice hotels, with suites & jacuzzis wherever possible. :) The hotel is a good part of the experience for me. I don't enjoy trips as much if I am spending my nights at the local Bates motel. Where I am actually going this month - camping in WV - no suites, no jacuzzis, no plumbing whatsoever. I don't like camping. It doesn't fit my 'suites with jacuzzis' vacation ideals. I must admit however, that I have only very rarely actually stayed in suites or had a jacuzzi in a hotel room. Aside from getting lucky on a few business trips, I have only twice actually paid for such a room. But i would dearly love to do it more often. "Standard room, no

My first layout in over 2 weeks! It is a scraplift of 'Muches' by Lisa Swift from the CK top 10 new faces. It uses Amy Blesser's Daddy's Ties papers and I did it for the DET Boot Camp challenge. I've had it in mind to do this layout for awhile I just hadn't found the right photo.

Right now you should be doing ______ instead of being on the computer. My answer: NOTHING! For once I am on the computer during my regularly scheduled computer time. There are things that need doing, but now is not the time for doing them. The boys are napping & that means this is *my* time. No cleaning gets done during my time unless the Spirit moves me - it rarely does.:)

I don't think I really had any hobbies or interests I shared with my mom while I was growing up. We both read a lot, but that is about it. The main 'thing' I remember my mom being really into doing when I was a kid was puzzles. She still is. She puts together those 2 sided 1000 piece puzzles with no photo to go by. I've never been that into jigsaw puzzles. I don't remember her doing any 'crafty' hobbies. She didn't sew unless it was to hem something, never crocheted or knitted or cross stitched. She cooked because she had to, not because she particularly enjoyed it. She played bridge with the neighborhood women & she now plays tennis. Mom was always busy with things. She belonged to various organizations & was usually the treasurer or committee chairman. I think that was like a hobby to her. Ihave no interest in that. I learned to sew & crochet & cross stitch from my grandmothers. I learned to cook on my own. I hope to share