havocandmayhem.com

DS2 spent most of the afternoon pantless. He had several false starts, saying he needed to pee and then standing there or sitting there, swapping positions, saying "It not pwaytime!" when his brother came near (which is what I say when he stops paying attention) but finally after 2.5 hours he did actually pee in the potty. I of course was in another room & had regarded his "I have to pee" statement as yet another false alarm. Then I heard him doing & rushed in to find he was standing up & mostly getting it in the potty. When he was done he smiles, looks at me and announces matter of factly "I big now." Barely pauses long enough for me to cheer and hug him & asks for cookie & then goes on with his day. It was funny the way he said "I big now". It had a tone like "Well, that's it for the diapers. I'm just going to use the potty now. " If only it could be that easy. He did use the potty later as well, s...

Right now DS1 is 'reading' to DS2. They are both sitting in my recliner with a big book of Thomas Stories & DS1 is telling DS2 who the trains are & what they are doing. DS2 & I checked out some Thomas DVDs from the library earlier & he had to take them with us to pick up DS1 from school. "I show him." he kept saying. "I show my brother." And when DS1 got in the car he started waving them around "WOOK!!! WOOK!!! Thomas VDs!"

case to convert former PC 80GB hard drive to EHD - $40 new 120GB for additional back up - $99 multi USB hub - $25 saving 98% of your data when your system crashes - priceless Outlook's archive function - useless

Where has the time gone? Three years ago right now I was semi-conscious from blood loss, laying in my hospital bed, trying to nurse and wondering what this kid's name would be. He wouldn't have a name for 48 hours. but despite being unable to raise my head without getting dizzy & being sore as hell in the nether regions, I was feeling pretty triumphant. I had had my unmedicated VBAC just like I had planned. DS1s birth went out of my control a week before he was born. I'd thought I'd been fairly laid back about my birthing plans with DS1 so I was surprised at how vehement I was about have the VBAC and not using meds. But I did it. I also managed to nurse him for a year. Physical problems had forced me to supplement DS1 at a month old & by 4 months he had weaned. He was such a solid little thing. 9lbs, 2ozs. Almost 2lbs heavier than his brother a birth. Due to the physical problems DS1 wouldn't weigh 9lbs until he was 8 weeks old. He was quite the...

This Moment: exasperated (with the boys) Your Shoes: slippers Craving: silence The State of Your Home: cleanish Annoyed By: sons Noise In the Background: sons Really Want To: organize Thinking about: shopping Smelling: coffee Favorite Product In Office Supply Aisle: notebooks Don't Ever Want To: camp Your Eye Color: greenish The Weather: cold Have Never Tried: bungee-ing Think Everyone Should Try: sushi Last Vacation Destination: Flordia The Last Thing You Had to Drink: coffee Your Bad Habit: coffee What You're Going To Do Now: laundry

I really thought that by now the stores would have restocked the Cars die cast cars. But no place around here has anything but Mater & Ramone & stock. WM is totally bare of cars stuff. I tried calling my folks to see if they could check around their part of FL for some of the ones I am looking for. They are still on their cruise. So I called my brother & he's going to check around his area for the King & Chick Hicks. We have/had a Chick Hicks. It's gone missing and DS1 still wants his own so I may as well look for it at the same time. DS2 just wants Cars for his b-day. It's Friday. I ended up out on eBay but as much as I want to make the kid happy I am NOT paying $19.99 plus $6 shipping for a King car. Not happening. I did find a few resonably priced ones from the same seller so I was able to get a shipping discount. I got the set of Luigi, Guido & a tractor (DS2 *loves* Guido) and I got the set of Filmore & Sarge and a Leak-less, all fo...

This morning the boys decided to go on a 'fan-teek misry' which I believe, given the song DS1 was attempting to sing is actually an 'antique mystery', like in the movie El Dorado. They found a map (the torn cover of a giant coloring book) & then began working out which way to go. Apparently the signs pointed outside. DS1 put his shoes on & then tried to put DS2s shoes on, which was the sweetest thing I have seen them do in a long time. We all bundled up in coats because 'it bery breezy outside' (meaning both cold and windy) and DS1 led us off on the fanteek misry. This involved roaming all over the yard, into the tall grass, over by the truck trailer and then in the maze of pines, all the while singing the first 2 lines of the song from El Dorado. :) After wandering in the pines for a bit it was decided that it was 'too winny' and we should have the misry inside with some hot chocolate. DS2 insisted he get cold hot chocolate and a jelly ...

It's never been a good idea, but it is slowly becoming more common as I expand my repetoir. Generally speaking, in this house, if the recipe calls for more than a tablespoon or so of oil in the pan, the recipe does not get made. This is not for reasons of health but for reasons of fear - fear of burns, fear of fire, fear of smoke alarms, fear of the greasy spattered mess to clean. But today I once again ventured into the fry arena. This time it was Rachel Ray's chicken tenders. i won, but it was a struggle. The problem again was equipment. To bread the chicken you need a plate of flour, a plate with eggs and a plate of breadcrumbs. 3 plates. and since the breading takes a bit of time for me I need a cooling rack to let them rest while I get 6 of them ready for the skillet. I lack contiguous counter space of suffient size. (say that 3 times fast) So here is my problem. There is no way to be food safe & bread chicken at the same time. You don't want to be spreading raw ch...

On the downside...overdrafts worth $450 were posted. DHs employer had some glitch or something with their payroll people & the direct deposits didn't go through so they had to cut everyone checks. The 15th was MKL day so the banks were closed. DH was out somewhere all day on the 16th, so it was the 17th before the check was deposited. After 2pm. GGGRRRR...On the 17th his truck payment, our auto insurance & the electric bill were all auto debited. And they posted before the check. Fortunately the overdraft protection just removed the money from savings with no fees but it's still irritating. On the upside...my new EHD arrived. It's so *tiny*. Its a Western Digital Passport drive. 120GBs, USB powered. I can so easily take it & my laptop over to my recliner in the evenings. Woohoo!! even better news, my monitor shipped back to me today!!!! It'll probably be the end of next week before it gets here but it is fixed and on its way back!!!! I'm wor...

Tomorrow is Bunco night. The theme is the 80's. I can do the 80's. I am in fact embarrassed by the sheer number of clothing items I own that can be assembled for an 80's look. (and the thing is I purge my closet regularly, where do these wide belts come from and just *where* were those stirrup pants hiding anyway?). I have a few looks to choose from but I am thinking that the Flashdance thing is what I want to go for - leggings, a tank, scrunched up socks & a cut up, off the shoulder sweatshirt. I even have a sorority letter sweatshirt from 1987 to use. Then it happened. I became my mother. I got out the scissors, picked up the sweatshirt and said, out loud to myself, "Why are you ruining a perfectly good sweatshirt, cutting it up like that?" Which is exactly what my mom said 20+ years ago when I was getting ready to cut up a high school logo sweatshirt. Suddenly I was 18, in our kitchen, listening to Duran Duran, using my mom's "good scisso...

[i]"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." Martin Luther King, Jr.[/i] I have faith in the existence of the Divine. A higher power does exist & its the same being no matter what you call him/her. I have faith that the majority of the people you meet are good & decent people just trying to get through their day as best they can - just like you. I have faith in myself, that in the end I can find some way to cope. These things keep me going every day. =================== In other news I saved up $150 toward the Red Dwarf DVD collection that I want. It is anywhere from $180-250 depending on where you buy it. but I'm also saving toward a new EHD. I want a USB powered 2.5" one. Something little I can take with me into the bedroom. My current EHD must be plugged into the wall & is a big heavy sucker. I was thinking of getting a 250gb drive, so I'm looking at $200-250 for that. There have a been a lot of thr...

You know those commercials for facial cleanser on tv? The ones where the woman with the perfect complexion is in a perfectly white terry cloth robe, in her perfectly clean bathroom, with her hair perfectly held back from her face in a perfect knot or perfectly smoothed back by a headband, no random hairs sticking up in little tufts making her look like a guest alien on Star Trek. She has one of those beautiful bowl sinks that look gorgeous but takes up all your available counter space. It's perfectly clean, no water spots or toothpaste smears, & is on a smooth equally perfectly clean counter top. She gets the tube for cleanser from some unspecified location (can't tell where but there is no counter space for it so there must be a hanging shelf somewhere), washes her face and leans forward, cups her hands full of water & in one perfect motion, splashes the cleaners off of her face. No water splashes on the counter or gets in her hair or dribbles down her arms, soak...

After we took DS1 to preschool yesterday morning, DS2 and I headed to the big city to do a little shopping. Specifically I was looking for a potty for DS2 that had a big enough opening to contain all his parts at once. i don't know if he just has chubby legs & a chubby butt or if DS1 is skinny in those areas but if DS2 sits on the potty no shield guard in the world is going to stop the spray. So we stopped at Target, Wal-Mart & Toys R Us. I found a potty that fits the bill but DS2 pitched such a fit at the very idea of buying that I left it there. He's really adamant right now that he will NOT be using the potty. He'll be 3 in 2 weeks and has only once managed to use it (and sprayed everywhere which is why I was shopping). I also casually checked out the Cars situation in each of the stores. None had been restocked since Dec 26 apparently. I did find a Fabulous Hudson Hornet, Boost, Snot Rod and Chick Hicks. I only came across one of each (but had I wanted...

My monitor is still under warranty!!!! I swung by DH's office & got a box for it. Now it is swathed in bubble wrap and packed in those air bag thingys Amazon has been using lately. I have several dozen of them. They are ALL in the box. No one is going to accuse me of shoddy packing! I'll ship it UPS tomorrow. They said if they cannot fix it then they will send me a new one. Given that the screen is all black with occasional green flashed (very Christmas light effect) I'm thinking I'll be getting a new one.

My resolutions for 2007...out here for the whole world to see & reply when I screw up on them:) 1. Serve better & more interesting side dishes. I have a whole post around here somewhere about my food resolutions, but the side dish thing is the one I am really focused on. 2. Lose 20lbs. This involves exercising more & eating less & better. I already go to the gym 3x a week, but I am going to up the strength training & weights & increase cardio. I'm also going to try to get a 4th day in whenever possible (even if that means going on a weekend). eat less is pretty self explanitory. 3. Journal more - online, in my layouts, in the boys' books and in my 5 year journal. I was really good about that journal in 2004 & 2005, but 2006 has been very sporadic. I blame getting more sleep. I started it when I was sleepless & forgetful, now I am sleeping & remembering more events so I'm less inclined to write them down. 4. Stick to the budget. ...