havocandmayhem.com

My kids are currently attending their second VBS of the summer, with at least one, possibly 3 more to go.  I get some grief from other pagans and some Christians for sending the boys to VBS.  Obviously, in their eyes, I have no business doing such a thing. The pagans think I should be running my own little homeschool summer mythology camp, not letting others fill my kids minds with the narrow precepts of the Christian religion. The Christians don't know what to think but they know I shouldn't be doing it. VBS is for lapsed Christians' kids, not for people firmly non-Christian.  I must say these are a small minority of Christians, generally of the 'lapsed' variety themselves.  The actual regular church going ones who are volunteering their time don't much care. If anything they are happy about it. VBS is outreach. "Converting the heathen" is one of those things they preach in church but most people rarely get the chance to do because it usually involves...

Nobody delivers to here. Nobody has ever delivered to here and if they weren't delivering when gas was under $2 a gallon there is no way anyone is suddenly going to decide to deliver out here. OK I take that back. The General Store did, briefly deliver out here & they did deliver everything in the store from pizza to milk to cat food to beer, but their mark up is outrageous and then they tack not only a $5 delivery fee but a mileage fee onto the order. We live 7.4 miles away, the deliver within 9 miles and charge by the mile.  Even DH's truck gets better mileage than we would be paying the delivery guy. And the milk was $4.25 a gallon when it was $3.50 everywhere else.  A large pizza & a gallon of milk ended up costing almost $30, for which we could drive into town, get Papa John's to go and get milk from the Food Lion in the same plaza for less. Then they stopped doing it because of gas prices. I'd like chinese food delivered, or pizza or subs or any damn thing...

I just blew through 13 of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books. I read 3,4,5 and 7 over the weekend and 8-13, plus the 2 novellas, between 11am Monday morning and 10pm Thursday evening - totally ignoring my children for 3 solid afternoons.  I have no idea what they were doing from 1pm to 6pm Mon, Wed & Thurs. Sometimes they came in the room with dinosaurs, occasionally I heard them in the playroom.  I did get them snacks, but apart from that I was in Stephanie's life, not my own. Obviously they are light reads, 3 hard back books in one day is a bit much even for me. But it has been ages since I was so fully taken into a series, especially one that made me laugh so hard I wasn't able to see the words through the tears.  I think Jasper Fford's Thursday Next series was the last time I neglected my children in favor of books in any serious, solid reading time, way. I read all the time, but most of the time it is for 30 minute segments and I am aware of what the boys...

I've been alone in the house for 48 hours.  The males went camping Wednesday morning & came back around dinner time today. What did I do with all this time alone? First I scrubbed the kitchen cabinets, counters & appliances thoroughly. The way things can only be cleaned if you are guaranteed not to be interrupted during the process. Second I completed the last pages of my hybrid album & began to print them out. Third I completed a layout for my new CT position. :) Fourth I read all of Face Down Below the Banqueting House. Eh.. I've read nearly all the books in this series and while I liked the first 3-4, I'm not loving the more recent ones. Some of the recurring characters are getting a bit annoying. Fifth I scrubbed, mopped and wiped down the kitchen floor. I have deep sympathy for 19th century scullery maids. My floor is natural slate with all the natural unevenness that comes with it. So while mopping is a useful stopgap, at least 2x a year I have...

The boys are very into dinosaurs at the moment so I made a point of finding dinosaur related books this trip. Dinotopia (not really read aloud material but they like looking at the pictures) Here Comes T Rex Cottontail T. Rex Trick or Treats Pterosaurs: Rulers of the Sky They Lived With Dinosaurs Dinosaur Babies Dinosaurs! Dinosaurs Before Dark (bookmooch) plus some non dino books Wind in the Willows (bookmooch) Frog & Toad Together (bookmooch) Tack & the Winter Games Lyle at the Office Lyle at Christmas I'm mooching the longer books from my read aloud recommendation lists, that way I am under no pressure to return them to the library by a certain date.  We breeze through the 30 page books pretty quickly, reading 3-5 in one sitting sometimes, but they are not always willing to sit still for the longer ones.

They've gone camping.  All the males in the house are now out in the woods, by the river, doing male things....peeing on trees, I suppose.. It is so quiet. The TV isn't on. I'm not hearing the Mario Kart theme music over the shouts of boys stomping their dinosaurs around the kitchen.  No one has screamed "I'm not playing with you anymore" for 5 hours now. Nothing has been dropped from a great height onto the wood floor, nothing has been knocked over, nothing has been spilled and nobody has asked me if it is snack time yet.  I have not heard a single "no" in 5 hours. It's eerie. I was able to clean the kitchen cabinets, countertops and appliances without considering where to put things to keep them out of kids' reach or worrying about them accidentally getting the chemicals from the cleaner on their hands and possibly eating something. I've got a bleach gel paste covering all my counter grout lines & I am not even in the same roo...

This month I read 14 new books and re read 2 other books. 6 were non-fiction and 10 were fiction. I created 13 layouts, participated in 20 challenges and earned 28 points at Sweet Shoppe - giving me a 40% discount in June. I was a guest CT member for Bree Clarkson and was turned down for 2 other CTs. I paid $2200 to get my car repaired. We went to Day Out with Thomas and to Great Wolf Lodge. I crocheted over half a dinosaur. I set up the swimming pool. The boys finished K4 and K3. We watched all of Firefly through Netflix.

Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman Tacky the Penguin Tackylocks and the 3 Bears Tacky and the Emperor Max & Ruby Play School Something Might Happen A Porcupine Named Fluffy When Sofie Gets Angry - Really Really Angry Sheep in a Jeep Harold & the Purple Crayon How My Parents Learned to Eat A Pizza the Size of the Sun The Toll Bridge Troll