havocandmayhem.com

Since my internet connection is cooperating I am tryingto get caught up. Please excuse the typos I am trying to get this done before the wind changes. I belong to the gym. I love it. It is the best use of $60 a month (includes unlimited childcare) I could have. Sure sometimes my sole motivation for going is to take a shower uninterrupted by small children, but hey, it gets me there and once there I feel morally obligated to do at least 20 minutes on one of the cardio machines. Other days my motivation is an hour away from the kids & if the price for that is 2 20 minute cardio sessions & and some ab & thigh machine work, then it is worth it. Unlimited childcare is a wonderful thing. Pity you can't leave the building... I try to go 3x a week. I usually do 15-20 minutes on a cardio machine, there are about 7 styles available, I use all but the bikes. Then I do a round of weight machines, getting arms, back, abs, legs & butt worked (or some variation, I don't

was probably while watching Who's Line Is It Anyway? reruns before bed. It has become a habit from back when Mayhem was born. I'd get into bed with him about 10pm and watch Who's Line while nursing him until we both fell asleep. I still watch it nearly every weeknight. The sketches that make me laugh the hardest are ones that involve Colin & Ryan having to do accents. Neither of them is very good at it in the long term. They can manage one sentence in a Russian accent but not a second sentence. So the accents are all over the map. My favorite skit is one I just saw recently with Kathy Greenwood, Wayne Bradey & Ryan & Colin. Colin was the mad director & he had this weird middle European accent going on & told them to do the scene "In the doork. ..no light..it's doork" which for some reasons just cracks me up. Plus they were doing Zorro and everyone was supposed to have a Spanish accent but Ryan's character had apparently spent

if I had to leave the house in a hurry? I do think about this from time to time. Given the layout of my house, if there is a fire, I won't be in a position to grab anything but the boys and my bathrobe. My house is built into a hillside, not near a fault line or flowing water and is over reinforced. I can't really think of any sort of weather that might cause us to evacuate, but if the nuclear power plant had a meltdown I'd be moving fast, even though I live outside the evacuation area. I would grab my laptop, all my photos, music & audio books are on it. I'd stuff the giant suitcase with whatever clothes I could grab for everyone, everyone's bed pillows and the boys loveys. Plus my purse. The pillow may seem a strange choice but think about being in a strange place, with nothing of your own. Laying in a strange bed, after a traumatic event, stressed out about everything. But right there under your head is something that is familiar to all of your senses;

I am so screwed. You know how I hate my sofa adn would like nothing more than to have to buy a new one? You know how I just spent nearly as much on a laptop as I would on a new sofa? You see where this is heading? One of our cats has PEED on the sofa. And not just on a cushion than can be taken to the laundromat, but in the corner, so it is on the nailed into the frame upholstry. That can't be washed and no amount of Febreeze is going to eradicate the smell. The cat will do it again. The cats are 13 years old & have been peeing on all sorts of things since the boys were born..mostly the boys toys, but also in the bathrooms. Cats are not disposeable to me so I can't just dump them at the shelter and I can't see placing an ad that reads "wanted good home for cat that pees on everything." So I don't know what to do. Odds are they will pee on a new sofa too. If we were in a position to buy a new sofa, which we aren't because we just bought the la

and I better work fast because I only have 13 months to do them in 1. BUY A NEW SOFA! (won't happen but it's nice to hope) 2. take ballroom dance classes with DH 3. clean out & reorganize my junk/sewing room (it will take me a year to do this) 4. lose the last 15lbs of baby weight (the baby is 2.5 years old) 5. brew mead 6. get another tattoo 7. think of 4 more things to do :)

There have been times in the past 3 days where I wished I was a complete newbieto computers. That I could just turn on a new one and be like "WOW This is so great". But I've been doing this a long time. And I have had my curent CPU for 3 years. It's been modified, tweeked and souped up. Slowly and over time. Now I am faced with making all those changes at once to my new computer & that is fairly overwhelming. Just the vast number of progams is daunting, never mind basics like what color my window bar is. Somthings I changed so long ago I forgot they had been changed. "Why is it telling me this?" "Why didn't it tell me this?" So I broke it down into manageable tasks Tuesday - Make It Your Own delete all the 'helpful' crap it comes with - google & yahoo toolbars, easy internet connection set up, free trials of earthlink, AOL, norton; plus most of the dozens of games. Strip it to basic, connect it to the network & tran

1. I am prompt & meet deadlines 2. I am a good listener 3. I am decisive when necessary. I have a new laptop! It's still in the box. DH & I decided to spend the extra and get the good laptop. He got a bonus this paycheck and it was just about the difference in cost so it seemes fate. The PC is now just humming along as if it never had a problem a day in it's life; itmust know it is being replaced. That is fine by me because to save money I went with am 80GB HD. My PC has 2 HDs, the main is 100GB and the secondary one (my scrapping one) is 120GB. In a month or so I'll buy one of those boxes they make to turn an internal HD into an external one, but until then I'd be happy to be able to use the PC as a networked giant external HD. Hopefully I'll get to open the box soon. but I can't do that with small boys underfoot and no one shows any signs of napping today. Maybe I'll put Madagascar on & lock myself in the bathroom......

my primary HD appears to have overheated & caught fire. There is a burn mark onthe bottom of the floppy drive slot and a smoke trail running up it, to my DVD RW drive, and that is just on the outside of the computer. I'm afraid to look inside it. The HD will boot occasionally for a few minutes & I am using that time to copy over to the secondary drive what things are still on it that I really really want - My Documents mostly & export databases from my Life Journal & Outlook & then go through the software & see what to copy over if just to avoid endless updating on a new computer. Fortunately my PSPX and all my photos & scrapbook stuff are on the seconday drive already. I am sooooo not happy about this. DH wants to gt a laptop for me. I appreciate it but I'm reluctant to put anything on credit right now. I have $500. The laptops I am looking at are $800-$900. I was really hoping to get 6 more months out of the PC

Havoc would not have gone to vacation bible school. He cried a bit when I dropped him off but he did let me leave and he told me after that he had a good time, though he isn't too sure about going back tomorrow. It was his very first ever 'school' day. I wouldn't have gone to the gym. This would be bad for my morale & my waistline. I would not have gotten the photocopies done that I need for a project I am working on and today was the only time I could get them. I wouldn't have gone to the library and therefor would have no new reading material until I had the time to try again. I've been trying to get to the library for over a week but the boys just can't remain calm long enough for me to browse. Lastly, if i had remained home today I would have spent even more time in a house with a broken computer & feeling incredibly frustrated because of it. My computer is DEAD, officially & irretriveably dead, as of 12:45pm today. Though had I been h

Since we were just writing about our teen years my first thought was a frat party! Good looking guys (for the most part), beer, drinking games, a band (or great DJ) and a theme that gets everyone to dress up in some goofy way. I was in a sorority in college (in an attempt to overcome my anti-socialness). We were the #1 party sorority at the #1 party college in the nation. If there was a party going on the AOII girls were there in force! TGIF parties started at noon on Fridays. When the weather was nice all the houses on frat hill would have cookouts and we'd hop from house to house and then nap in the early evening, get up and go to the evening parties. Football Saturdays were one long party, starting with a Wake Up (screwdrivers, bloody mary's or regular OJ & donuts), then the tailgate, the game, a nap & meal then the evening bar hoping (the whole strip was one big party if we won). Just remembering it makes me happy! I had SUCH a good time the first 3 years

I was anti-social. I liked to stay in my room & read, write stories, or watch TV. I was not into organized sports. I was shy & I really did not like going to 'events' unless it was a carnival or fair. Meeting new people was agony to me. I had a small circle of friends & kept to myself. I did not put a lot of effort into my appearance (when you wear a uniform all day & have your hair, makeup, jewlery & shoes stictly limited, there just isn't much motivation IMO. I made up for it in college) My parents are VERY social, so I was a big problem to them, though I might not have been to less socially active parents. I was not really a rebellious child. I didn't stay out past curfew or sneak liquor or cigs. I didn't mouth off. My parents were well known in my home town. No matter how sneaky I thought I was being, someone would see me & tell my folks. EVERY TIME! I learned that lesson very quickly when I was still in grade school. As a t

I have a 3.5 yo and a 2yo, peace can be a rare commodity in my house, especially if you follow it with "and quiet". I've gotten better about finding it more often in the past 6 months - getting more sleep really helps the mental equilibrium. I've also adopted some Buddhist thoughts that help. Mostly about letting go and accepting that things are as they are. Soem things are just not going to change soon, if at all & I have to work with reality, not with what I wish. Toddlers can be whiny at dinner and little whirlwinds in stores and messy in general. That is toddler nature. Getting all bent out of shape about it may provide a temporary relief to stress, but it is not a constructive way of dealing (She says during a quiet naptime that her children went down for without a fuss - for once) It's easy to say that & believe that when things are going well but in the midst of a meltdown screaming fit by 2 little boys in the checkout line at Safeway, it

As long as we are talking about 'remember when', let me tell you something I am reliving right now. My teeth hurt. My teeth hurt in that special way teeth hurt right after you get your braces tightened. Why do they hurt this way? Because I got braces today - 25 years to the month after having them removed. I had braces from 6th-8th grade. They tell you to wear your retainer. They don't tell you you have to KEEP wearing it for the rest of your life (and it gets expensive to keep with it). My teeth have been shifting for about 10 years now. Within the past year my front teeth stopped meeting when I bit into things and my back teeth have shifted so much it can be painful to chew sometimes. I have no guarantee this isn't due to degeneration of my jaw muscles but only time will tell and my teeth are crooked even if it is. So a couple months back I plopped down $6000, had impressions done and today received my first set of OrthoClear aligners. I'd been willing

How did you get started using computers? When did you first get "online". Do you predate the Internet being available to the public or was it always here for you? Oh the memories this brought back! My first computer was an Atari that my parents bought sometime in the early 80s. 1982 at a guess. They never used it. My brother played games on it. I played games but I wrote programs too. There was an Atari magazine that had games in it, but it was just the code. You had to type the code into the computer, complete with line numbers, and hope you made no errors & you would get to play a text based came if you got it right. I don't think I ever got one right but while entering the code I began to figure out just what command combinations produced what results. My very first ever computer program was for a school schedule. You entered your grade & depending on it you could choose classes for 2-4 of your 8 class periods. Then it would generate random schedules,

I am celebrating 15 years of online life this month. In 1991 I became a member of Prodigy & joined my first message boards (about Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Dragonlance & David Eddings). Over a 3 year period I got to know many people on those boards, my first internet family. I would spend the next 10 years trying to find the same thing in other places. I found it again the first time on a fertility board called www.ovusoft.com, in a now defunct buddy group called the Freaks. Most of us are still together on another private board. I've been friends with these women for over 3 years now and I was so thrilled to meet some of them last year in person. I stopped posting very often at Ovusoft a year ago & now only visit a few times a week at most. My next experience of internet friendship came on DSP, where I am still an active member. It is possibly the most supportive & friendly place I have been on since those long ago days of Prodigy. I spend a good p

I found the MON CHERI and the MINT dark chocolate Dagoba bars at Whole Foods last week and have been slowly nibbling at them every since. I don't like the MINT, despite my best attempts at trying too. They put rosemary in it. The rosemary is rather strong. It overwhelms the mint. The MON CHERI is good. Not outstanding, but good. The cherry was strong but not overpowering, with perhaps just a touch too much vanilla for my taste. However I would buy it again. I also bought the WHOLE MILK, milk chocolate bar. I'm giving up on their milk chocolate bars. Too creamy. Hershey's is better. Whole Foods had the XOCOLATL, but I decided 3 new bars were enough for one visit. They did not have the LIME. No place that I find Dagoba bars ever has the LIME, so I'll just have to keep looking.

Are you where you thought you would be in life, when you graduated from high school? Are there dreams you had then that you still have now? If you had told me, when I was 18, that in 20 years time I would be a SAHM to 2 toddlers, I would have laughed so hard I probably would have hyperventilated. Had you told me this 10 years ago I would have had the same reaction. Children were not in my plans. Which is not to say I actually *had* plans - I didn't really. I just knew I didn't want kids. I wanted to go to college & get a nice 9-5 office job, something interesting, possibly to do with creative writing/journalism, but I had no specific job in mind. I had an idea of being able to go away by myself, maybe teach English in Japan for awhile between finishing college & getting a real job. But nothing really concrete. I wanted to be comfortable, happy, have friends & enjoy my life. From that perspective I am where I thought I would be. It just never occured to me

The prompt is to write about your favorite teacher or the one who influenced you most. I had a lot of nuns teaching me when I was in school. Plus a number of lay teachers. None of them really influenced me in a positive way, though there were some negative ones....There was Mrs Szymanski in 5th grade who said I was at fault for letting the boys pick on me, but then punished me if I stood up for myself. There was Mr Stein in the 7th grade who seemed to really dislike me for some reason & I can only assume it was because I was the only girl in class not in love with him. He was a bully & went out of his way to point out my faults when we played sports, mocked me when I got answers wrong in class & in one memorable incident made me sit in a row all by myself, not in the front seat mind you, but in the second seat back, for almost a month. (there were 21 kids in my class & 25 desks). My parents took his side when this stuff began & yes in the beginning my behavio

What books did I love as a child & did I pass them on to my children? The first books that come to mind are Little Women & the Little House on the Prairie series. I have not shared them with my sons because they are not old enough to read them & I suspect my boys will not be that interested. However there is still the Narnia series and the Dragonlance series (though that one will have to wait until they are 10-12) and my beloved Douglas Adams books (i was teen for those, not a child) and David Eddings Belgariad series. When they get a bit older I will start reading them chapters of these books at night. Right now though I am enjoying rediscovering the Dr Seuss Early Reader books with them (most books are not Dr Seuss). I loved "A Fish Out of Water", "Put Me in the Zoo" adn "Oh the Thinks You Can Think" when I was learning to read and really love reading them with the boys.

Tilapia in foil lasagna rollups mini meatloaf veggie soup & sandwiches chicken & rice stir fry steak & spinich salad spaghetti with spinich pesto veggie fritters slow cooker BBQ chicken or pork sandwiches potato frittata BBQ pizza orzo with squash The goal is not to run the oven more than absolutely necessary. The tilapia & steak cook on the grill. The pizza could too if I felt like experimenting. The lasagna may be replaced by burgers, depending on the heat.

Bethy asked about the lack of toys in my family room (See the DSU198 gallery for the photos). This is where a lot of the toys are kept. I just toss everything in there when I want to take pictures :) Most of them are in the playroom/spare bedroom, but a selection of them stay here, in what was our former entryway. When we redid the kitchen 4 years ago we had French doors put in to replace the sliding glass door & now we use them as our main entrance. On the ratehr long to do list of house improvements, the wall on the right will be knocked out, along with the top part over the door frame & that area will be incorporated into the rest of the house. The door will be replaced with a window of some sort. The gate is there to keep cats out when we are not around. One of them (I suspect Buddah) has been using the area as a litter box off & on ever since we started keeping toys there. I think he has psychological issues.

Before you forward the latest email warning about flashing lights, date rape drugs, online petitions and pepsi cans PLEASE check out www.snopes.com. Your would be recipients will thank you. Actually they won't because if you check these things out you will find that 95% of them are hoaxes. So you probably won't forward them, so your would be recipients will never recieve them, sothey won't know to thankyou for not forwarding the hoax to them. If that makes sense. My personal mission in life seems to be exposing internet email hoaxes & doing my best to spread the idea these things should be checked out before forwarding. Just because you received it in an email does NOT make it true. I mention this now because my mom & my SIL, whom I love dearly, are big forwarders. They go through spurts where they forward stuff to me & I respond with snopes links about how it is a hoax. Then after a bit things get quiet & then it starts up again. Recently it has star

If you could go back to school (and time, money, other commitments are not an issue), what would you study and why? This is an actual possibility for me in a couple of years, once both the boys are in school full time, so I have been giving it a good deal of thought lately. I would go for my Doctorate in Early Modern history, at least I think that is what they are calling the Tudor era now. It was Medieval/Renaisannce in 1989 but I heard they changed it. I have my MA in it. Initially I had planned to be a professor (I want to teach adults who, mostly, want to be in the class), but after 7 years of college I was just burnt out on learning. So I went into the business world as an admin assistant & worked my way into the telecom field & any idea of going back to school left my head. But now I am going to have a chance to start over. If I could just go to school for the heck of it, I would still get my PhD. I just would be more relaxed, knowing I don't have to use it for

5 things in my fridge: I just cleaned it out so I know this without going to check Miracle Whip Hornesby Hard Cider leftover home made chicken tenders Welch's grape, blueberry, kiwi juice spinich 5 items in my closet: dirty laundry lots of shoes lots of purses/bags a new dress bathrobe 5 items in my purse: I don't carry a purse but this is what is in my current stuff bag iPod wallet diaper & wipes "My First Truck" book notepad 5 items in my car: iGo charger carseats unopened Sprite empty take out coffee cup solar veil baby sling 5 people to tag:hmmm....I'll have to check & see who has been tagged already but I'm probably safe naming my friends Jenny, Porn & Critter on Live Journal.

I was in the store the other day, facing the giant "Wall of Feminine Hygine Products", scanning the boxes, when I noticed how desperate their makers actually are to make themselves stand out in the crowd. A quarter of a century ago, when I first faced the Wall, it was not a Wall. Your choices were small. Stayfree, Kotex or Tampex. The pads that stuck to your underwear & did not require a belt were a new innovation. Then one day there were "wings" on the Stayfree and Always joined the brands. Then the pads got thin. Then they started coming in assorted absorbancies and thus a Wall was born. For the majority of those 25 years I stuck with Tampex & failed to really notice just how many different types of pads there are. Tampons themselves were straining my decision making abilities as it was (scented? cardboard applicator, plastic applicator or no applicator? light, heavy, medium or multi pack?). The whole idea of choosing a pad was just too much & so I alw