havocandmayhem.com

I found this pattern on someone's blog on Ravelry. It's in German but a friend who crochets & speaks German helped me figure it out.

Last year, when Havoc started K3, I bribed him to go the first few weeks. I said if he went to school all 3 days without fussing or crying we'd go to McD's on the last day. It became a habit. Every Thursday, we went to McD's. It continued into this year, though I was able some weeks to 'forget' to go. I'm not terribly concerned that their health will be ruined by eating 4 mcnuggets and some apples once a week & the $9ish it was costing me (with cookies for dessert, more if I get something too) was not the end of the world financially either.  I just wasn't happy that it was now expected.  I wasn't so unhappy i was just going to cut it off & endure the wailing & gnashing of teeth that would ensue.  But I did want to go back to being a reward, not a right. I'd been reinforcing that in January with much wailing & gnashing of teeth (often my own). Then we got the Wii.  There is a video rental place just up from the McD's. You can re

Feb 18 - The Island of Sodor today, a more rural part Feb 19 - Bowling in the house Feb 20 - Someone is hiding in the 'fort' Feb 21 - Teaching brother to play tennis Feb 22 - Terrance the 'bullzidder" Feb 23 - We had friends over for a picnic Feb 24 - Teddy bear sleep over

A friend of mine is expecting her 3rd child in a couple of months. I decided I'd make some little crocheted animals & put loops on them so they can be hung to baby carriers and things.  I found a cool looking shark pattern but it's in German.  My friend Bettina helped me with some translating and I went back & rewrote it into English.  So now I am working on that.  Then I am going to to make a turtle & then an octopus. I haven't worked from an established pattern in ages. We'll see how it goes.  So far the shark is going along. I'm used to crocheting a bit more loosely than you need to for these stuffed things, and sometimes I feel like I am going to snap my hook in two from exerting so much pressure to pull it back out of the loops when I single crochet. There is a treasure hunt going on in the digi scrap world. It looks like a lot of fun, almost 50 designers are involved. I started out on it, but a lot of the prizes require store registration to down

I'm Stacey42,  because I am soooooo creative with my user names. I've spent the day so far uploading photos of my projects, finding groups to join, searching out people, listing my hooks (OMG! I had no idea I had so many crochet hooks) and looking for things to add to my queue. Ravelry is a dangerous place, not just from the possible crochet project ideas, the new people to talk to, and the cool yarn. But because Ravelry gave me a link to The Library Thing , an online personal booklist. You can slurp up you amazon purchases & add them all at one go to your Library. If you have a bar code scanner you can scan your books & upload that file. (DH is getting me a bar code scanner. He's getting it to test for something at his job & if it works for what he has in mind for them he'll buy another one for them & give me this one.  How geeky is it that not only does he think I might want a bar code scanner to catalog my books, but that I am actually excited to

I like to crochet while I watch TV. We have a Netflix membership, but we don't rent many movies with them. We get TV shows. The last movie we rented with them was Ocean's Thirteen. I loved all 3 Ocean's movies, plus Beyond the Sunset with Pierce Brosnan & Woody Harrelson, which is the same sort of plot. When I am alone during the morning I have been re-watching classic Mel Brooks movies that I own - Blazing Saddles, History of the World Part 1, Young Frankenstein. Mostly though I am watching the Netflix TV shows that we either didn't see all of, or haven't seen in ages. Right now we are watching season 1 of Eureka (we've caught season 2 on Sci Fi), then I have The Tudors from HBO (which we don't get) coming, followed by Firefly (only saw 3 episodes of it on tv) and then Babylon 5, my all time favorite sci fi series, which hasn't been on TV since Havoc was an infant. I watched reruns on SciFi while nursing at 2am. :) Needless to say all this view

Feb 11 - Sodor today Feb 12 -Gordon delivery goldfish crackers for snacktime Feb 13 - a two story car house Feb 14 - Sodor today Feb 15 - a rescue mission Feb 16 - new playground equipment at the park Feb 17 - a beautiful day for bike riding

I'd been keeping all my yarn in this big bin and the crocheted rounds in zip lock bags, but it was a pain in the butt to drag out every time I wanted to crochet.  Taking out a skein or two made me lose rounds & left the skeins vulnerable to small boys.  Plus the more rounds I created, the more space they took up, so I had bags all over the place. I went to Michael's & JoAnn Fabrics looking for a craft bag of some sort, maybe with wheels, that could hold everything compactly.  They had some nice scrapbooking storage bags & some nice cross stitch & embroidery storage bags and some nice yarn storage bags for knitting & crochet projects. But my goodness, the price!  Even without wheels. Then I went to Wal Mart to see what I could find.  This is what I came up with. The bag itself was $8 and the little bins were 97 cents each. I've got 3 of them. I can keep a variety of yarn in the bag, which makes it easier to get the 'random' look in the s

Ah, Valentine's Day, the first true opportunity of the year to retain my Lame Mom crown. Sure Mayhem's birthday is in January, but the fact that I did absolutely nothing for it in his class can be excused by the fact that his birthday was on a Saturday & his class only meets Tues-Thurs. Valentine's Day though is on a Thursday, so I get 2 chances to utterly fail to meet the expectations of others. I know there are moms out there that genuinely enjoy making elaborate V-day cards & goodie bags for their kids' classmates. They get a great sense of creative satisfaction from cutting, gluing, glittering & stuffing their creations.  They don't care what others are doing, they are enjoying themselves.  On the opposite end there are the moms who are too busy to bother. They buy the 99 cents pack of 25 cards at Target and write names on them, end of story. They don't care what others are doing & are too busy to find out anyway.  Then there are those of u

Also known as 'Hookers Wrist" :) (I can only imagine the hits I'll be getting from that phrase) All the crocheting I have been doing lately has caused my wrist & forearm to be really sore. It actually hurt to drive today. I had to keep changing how I hold the steering wheel. I used to have one of those braces that held your hand & wrist in the proper position & helped prevent the problem. But I can't find it. So I am taking a break for a few days. I do have about 8 three round sets done & have gone through two more colors of yarn, which added 8 single round sets and 6 doubles, but I haven't sat & counted them out in a few days. I did make myself my own craft bag for this project. I bought a $8 duffel bag at WalMart and 3 plastic snap top bins for 97 cents each. The bins hold the sets sorted in their various stages of completion. The bag interior holds the 3 bins plus 6 full skeins of yarn (and many more half used ones), one deep outside pock

Feb 4 - the Island of Sodor, today Feb 5 - Rain & melted snow left lots of puddles in the yard Feb 6 - Apparently the Island of Sodor was recently invaded by some pirates & a small dragon Feb 7 - We got a Wii! Target happened to have them in stock while I was there today Feb 8 - Business as usual on Sodor Feb 9 - Early morning train pile up outside of Tidmouth Sheds. Dangerous place, Sodor. Feb 10 - We rented Cars for the Wii. Havoc has been very busy racing

Today I received the 2004 photos I ordered and the 8x8 prints of my layouts that I ordered. Why can't Wal Mart print photos in order? My prints were divided into 3 envelopes & appear to be loosely alphabetical, ignoring those numbers I put in the front of the titles. So 03mar004 comes after 07jul008 and then at random I'll find a photo from December in the middle of the ones from June.  So I will have to go through all 223 of them and sort them out by month before I can start putting them in the album. We bought a Wii a couple days ago. I happened to be in Target when they had 5 in stock so I grabbed one. Havoc has been very into it. We rented a couple Cars games from the video store & he's been playing them. He doesn't fully understand the story games, where you have to find things & solve puzzles, but he loves racing in the arcade. I found the cheat codes online to activate the whole arcade. He's never going to complete the main game to unlock all th

I know I said a few months ago that we would pass on the Wii. But we changed our minds after borrowing it again. We checked out games in Blockbuster & last month we decided that if we could find one & we had any money left from our tax refund, we would get one. I signed up for Wii alerts. Last week we got a letter in the mail asking if we wanted this particular company to reissue $242 in checks that we had not cashed back in 2003. Of course we want the checks reissued! Yesterday I was at Target. I got a text from wii alerts. It doesn't tell you where the wiis are, it tells you to check their site. I'm over half an hour from my computer & have never figured out how to web surf from my phone. On a whim I wander over to the electronics section and lo and behold - there are 5 Wiis there.  We just got an unexpected $242. I got a Wii alert that prompted me to check out Target's wii status (Which I would never have done, I was there for a photo album). Target had W

Jan 28 - and these are not all the Lightening McQueens we own Jan 29 - Disney must have heard we were giving all our money to HiT Entertainment, so they have come up with these much smaller Cars we now must own Jan 30 - we gave the boys a Playstation for Xmas. The original Playstation-from 1998 Jan 31 - we found the steering wheel control for Grand Tourismo. Feb 1 - Nearly every toy we own is in this photo. Apparently it was a birthday party for all the trains. The other toys were the food and gifts. The blankets were for the sleep over they were having after the party Feb 2 - the Island of Sodor - today Feb 3 - the Island of Sodor - today. I spend a lot of time coming up with track configurations

Libby at the Sweet Shoppe blog wants to know how we spend our days. I am a SAHM currently and my days have a similar routine. I get up at 7, put a load of laundry in the wash, get the kids ready for school and drive them there. Then I go to the gym and/or run any errands that need done. If I am home early enough I rotate the wash, check my email & do a little scrapping. I pick the kids up at noon. We have lunch and then they play. Depending on what they are doing I play with them or get on the computer or do some housework, usually all of them. I clean one room per day. The boys usually help me. Around 3 we have snack time & quiet time. We generally watch TV then. Then more play and computer time, and there is generally some reading in there. About 5:30 I start dinner. We eat shortly after 6. From dinner until bedtime is Daddy time & I go read in the bedroom after folding laundry. Sometimes I work on a layout. Then bath time, story time & bedtime for the kids. DH &am

Which is setting the bar a bit high actually, given eating dinner at all is an uphill battle with boys. But what the hell, why not shoot for the moon? My sons get most of their daily fruit & veg intake from vFrusion juice right now. Oh they eat bananas, grapes, apples & raisins at random points throughout the week, but not regularly. 75% of the meals I make involve spinach in some way because that is the only vegetable they will willing eat. I spent last year offering more fruits & veggies to them and limiting their other options but I've seen no real change in their eating habits. I've come the reluctant conclusion that I may be the problem. I'm not a fan of veggies, can't stand most of them actually, but I do try to serve a variety & make a point of not letting my dislike show. I'm not a big fruit eater either, though I actually like most fruit. It's just that given a choice between snacking on an apple and snacking on pretzels (or not snac