havocandmayhem.com

March 24 - the Pirates of Radiator Springs March 25 - Mayhem loves to vacuum March 26 - Car racing outside March 27 - the Island of Sodor today March 28 - my laptop is under attack! March 29 - The trains get in a little light reading March 30 - Bubble fun

I've been busy at The Library Thing this past week. I've been adding books to my library & checking out groups. I have about 400 of my 2000+ books added so far. I no longer own that many books, but that is how many are in my booklist, which covers the books I owned in 1990 and that I have read or owned from then until 2003. Then there are the books I have owned or read since 2003, when the demands of small children made it difficult to buy books and impossible to keep track of them. My husband bought me a CueCat bar code scanner for the books I own. I've been scanning them in like crazy & have completed the shelves in our bedroom & the living room. I still have the ones in the office, which are the bulk of the books and the ones in the bathrooms to scan. Then I have to go through the booklist & see what is missing and add them, plus try & figure out what I have borrowed from the library in the past couple years. I love the CueCat. It's my new f

And that is all it was too, not a career, just a job & that was all I wanted, so it never bothered me at the time. Have you seen the show Secret Life of a Soccer Mom? They take SAHMs who gave up a career when the kids were born, give them back that career for a week & then usually offer them that job at the end of the week. I haven't seen all the episodes so I can't say for sure that they always do it, but they have for every one I have seen. This has been a hot topic at playgroup. Would you go back to your career? I never say anything because I don't have a career to go back to. Other mom's in the group had careers. They were in Social Services, Broadcast Journalism, Nursing, Teaching, Underwriting, Law - specialized things you study for & then spend 30 or so years doing. I, on the other hand, had a job. Lots of jobs actually. I have 2 degrees.  A BS in Journalism and an MA in Early Modern History.  I could have a had a career with those, but I didn'

"what's that mean Mama?" asks Mayhem. "No clue kid, where did you hear it?" "On TV." Knowing from experience that a direct question like "Who said it?" would not be answered I resorted to 20 questions. "Was it a movie or Sprout?" movie "Was it a cartoon or real?" real "Did you pick the movie or Havoc?" me "Was it Thomas or Wallace & Grommit?" Thomas (Mayhem's notion of 'real' is a flexible) "What was Thomas doing?" chuga-ing "What had he been doing?" chuga-ing "Were any other trains around?" Diesel 10 and Lady At last! A clue! "Did Mister Conductor or Thomas say to beware?" Mr Conductor "What happened later?" Diesel 10 fell in the river oh, ok, now I know what happened. "Honey, he said 'Beware of the viaduct', which is a sort of bridge. VIA - duct, with a T, not a K. A bridge, not an animal. '

March 17 - Construction in the gravel pit March 18 - Percy busy shunting trucks March 19 - The trains have taken to piracy March 20 - Building a big big tower March 21 - Gathering black walnuts from the yard March 22 - Clearing small trees March 23 - Pruning branches

It might have taken 5 years, but it is now time to decide whether or not my stance on certain vaccines is a firm principle or just an idea I like to adhere too. It is about to cost me something, or more specifically it is about to cost Mayhem something. State policy says you can opt out of vaccines with a waiver & your child can still attend school. This policy affects the required attendance grades of K-12. It does not affect the optional Pre-K program that our county offers. There are only 40 spots and over 150 kids apply. They have various criteria for elimination & selection - including developmental assessment, whether the child has been in a pre-k for 3 year olds or other learning environment, transportation needs and vax status. If you are not fully vaxed they don't have to take you, assuming you don't have a strong developmental need. Mayhem doesn't have one. He is also not fully vax'd, so that drops him down on the list. Havoc was dropped down for hav

In the scrapping sense, someday I will own a hybrid vehicle.  There are 2 main reasons why I won't be making any hybrid projects anytime in the near future. 1. You have to cut things out.  My issues with scissors go back to preschool. If it is a straight line, even with the help of a cutting tool & guide, there is only a 75% chance I will get it right. I'm better with fabric than I am with paper, it seems to slip less. If it is not a straight line there is a 75% chance that I will screw it up. If there is some sort of die cutting machine involved the odds go to 50%. That is why I am a digi scrapper. I can undo my mistakes without a waste of paper, ink & money 2. No one in my family would have any idea what to do with my little gift projects. We aren't 'photo gift' people. The gift would be honestly appreciated at the time & looked at then. But then it would be set on a shelf or in a drawer & become the worst type of dust collector. The worst type

Mayhem is obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine. OBSESSED. Not a day goes by where the Take Along trains are not played with. Nearly every day he requests I set up a track for him, each day having different requirements - one day a curvey track, the next with bridges, the next a 'big big track'. We have, depending on the stock at the libraries on any given week, 8-12 Thomas videos in the house & we watch about one of them a day at quiet time. I think that he has made 4 non-Thomas video requests since the first of the year - Over the Hedge, Cars (a former obsession), Madagascar and Barnyard.  It does make him easy to shop for on holidays & birthdays. I send my family an updated list of movies we own and trains we do not and they have no problem finding him something.  He's getting Max & Monty and a new DVD in his Easter basket from my folks. At around $5 a train the Take Alongs make easy rewards for the chore chart, which explains why we have so many.... He

I've been making these the last few days The white one looks like an egg, but the others...I'm not so sure. I think without context, like a bowl or basket, people will probably wonder what the hell they are. I have 6 of them completed, but the boys like to kick them around & 2 have gone missing.  I found the pattern in my "The World of Amigurumi" book. It also has half eggs, with chicks, but the boys preferred just decorated whole eggs. I'm hoping to have a dozen to put in the basket by Sunday. Then I am going to work on mushrooms

I am making one of my Irish grandfather's favorite meals. Muller's spaghetti with Ragu sauce. Yeah, my family has never been much into 'cultural identity'. Pap, born in 1912, was the child of Irish immigrants & his job was to assimilate, which he did & never looked back. He married the granddaughter of German immigrants & together they went through the Depression & alone she went through WWII rationing & together they went into the canned & frozen food nirvana of the 50's. Nan's opinion was that she'd made enough food from scratch in her life, meals in boxes were a wonder to be enjoyed!  Oh cabbage appeared (though not corned beef) and shephard's pie, with mutton & turnips, and of course lots and lots of potatoes, but Pap's favorite meals were packaged versions of Italian food & if I am supposed to be honoring my Irishness, well.... Ragu & spaghetti it is! I admit I am delighted to have the excuse to avoid

March 10 - Some kids only have a sandbox. Ours have a 14'x14' gravel pit March 11 - Diggers at work March 12 - Off roading with your 4x4 March 13 - This backhoe has a lot of work ahead of it March 14 - Train parade March 15 - The Island of Sodor today (you didn't think we'd manage a whole week without it did you?) March 16 - We colored eggs for Ostara. These are the ones that didn't crack too much.

I crocheted a market bag, from a Lion Brand pattern (must be logged into Lion Brand to see pattern). Somewhere along the line I screwed up. Somewhere between round 9 & 14 I duplicated a round & then early on in round 15-28 I added a couple more stitches. This ended up a full 18 stitches per round wider at the widest part. Which explains why I had insufficient yarn to finish it. I didn't discover I was off by 18 stitches until I was on round 29 & decreasing and I wasn't going to unravel back 20 rows to figure it out. Not when there were only 4 rounds left. So this is my market bag. Not the most attractive thing I have ever done. I also changed the straps. I need 2 short straps for groceries, over the shoulder doesn't work for me. On the plus side this thing can hold 4 gallons of milk at once! I'm making it again. This time in ecru & I'm checking the stitch count more often.

DH took the morning off & accompanied us to school registration. They were registering kindergarten & preschool at the same time, in the same room and there was no way I could fill out 2 sets of forms, stand in 3 different lines and keep track of 2 small boys, who might be taken off for evaluation at any moment. DH had to be there. He did Havoc's paperwork and I handled Mayhem's and we were out in a hour. Havoc was assessed for 25 minutes. The woman that did it then went over everything with us. She showed us the picture of himself that he drew (including an exact replica of the stripe pattern on his shirt, but minus any hand), the answers he gave to various questions "what is a window made of" (Havoc said metal, but we have sliding glass doors & no windows & have been having issues with the metal frames so it was understandable), his ability to follow 2 step instructions, to cut out shapes, to count (He only counted to 11 but he can count to 100 &am

Specifically, is my vague unsubstantiated worry about putting my 5 year old on a bus with 16 year olds, worth at least $250 a month? That is how much gas would cost me to drive him to school & pick him up every day. It is 22 miles one way, in a car that gets 20 miles to the gallon, with gas at $3.15 a gallon. And this is in addition to my regular gas costs. Our county is rural, we just got our first grocery store 2 years ago & its a small crappy store. Our 'downtown' is full of small restaurants & junk-tique stores. If I want to buy some decent produce, or fill a prescription or need some socks, I have to drive another 30 miles from the school in order to do so (though due to the way the roads are laid out, I can to these places in 20 miles from my house). Apart from gas & the occasional old movie rental, there is very little I can buy "on the way" to or from school. I'm already driving the kid to preschool, so this is not speculation on my part. I

March 3 - "Big Paints!" March 4 - sickness keeps everyone home and getting lots of rest while watching movies March 5 - even the loader isn't feeling up to working March 6 - a day spend reading books - over and over again March 7 - Sodor is back in business   March 8 - reading a new Thomas book   March 9 - gale force winds cause trouble on Sodor

or "Why you should put things back where they belong when you are finished with them." I have a Bob the Builder DVD.  Actually I currently have 7 Bob the Builder DVD's. I am certain I own 3 of them, two we have had for over a year and the other still has it's case (I take them out of their cases & put them in a binder, but I'm not always prompt at tossing the case). I am certain that I have borrowed one from one library & two others from the local movie rental place. I know this because their cases are clearly labeled with their owner's names & the the due dates.  The seventh one though, I'm at a loss to explain. I might have bought it recently at the second hand store & tossed the case. I bought several kid vids there for $3 a DVD & I do remember tossing a couple cases. (I resell them on half.com if the kids are not into them)  I might have borrowed it from the local video store, or even Blockbuster. Or I might have checked it out of

I made this guy this week He is from a Lion Brand pattern & all told took me about 3 hours to make. Those 3 hours were spread out over 4 days because the kids have been sick & I haven't had much time to just sit & crochet. In scrapping news I did manage to get a layout done. It was for the Sweet Shoppe inspiration challenge; the theme being to redo an old layout. This is one of my earliest layouts, donei n my first month of digi scrapping. Everything was my own creation This is the redone layout. Credit can be found in my DST gallery, link in the sidebar.

Clean up the yard. Seriously. If I take 10 minutes & put all the outdoor toys away where they belong - sandbox stuff in the sandbox, balls in the bin, construction toys on their shelves & park the bike & red car in their places, when the boys come home from school, they immediately want to play outside. It doesn't matter if it is warm, cold, raining or a driving hailstorm; they simply *must* play outside.  They've barely looked out a window for the 2 previous days when there were balls, loaders & buckets strewn across the lawn. But now that their stuff is put away, they must go out & put it back. Perhaps they are marking their territory? That would make sense, if we had neighbors. But the cows really don't care & there is a barbed wire fence to keep them out even if they did care.. The boys have shown real improvement about picking up in the house. They seem to now understand that the blocks have to be put away before the train tracks come out an

The boys have had a cough or runny nose for weeks now. Weeks. Monday it grew into something else. Havoc woke up saying the front of his head hurt, so I gave him some sinus meds & sent him to school. He apparently had the chills at school, but was himself when I picked him up at noon. He was feverish & asleep on the sofa by 3pm. Mayhem was burning up about 6pm but I couldn't find the rectal thermometer & he doesn't really get how to hold one in his mouth. Then Havoc begins shaking with cold in his sleep about 7pm (he's been asleep since 3) and when I wake him his fever is 103.3.  Ibuprofen all around.  Mayhem's fever went down fairly quickly but Havoc's lingered & I think he was scared of what he was feeling. After being in bed about an hour, he came out & lay on the sofa with us & fell asleep there. Mayhem came in our room about 2:30am, his fever returned. DH ended up sleeping in the guest room.  Havoc appeared in our room about 5:30 complain

Feb 25 - Henry delivers yogurt raisins for snacktime Feb 26 - The trains are having an off track adventure Feb 27 - Monster truck racing track Feb 28 - Havoc playing the punching game Feb 29 - The Island of Sodor today Mar 1 - Soft block tower building Mar 2 - New homes on Sodor