havocandmayhem.com

I'm a data geek and I like to keep lists so rather than attempt to dredge up details from my faulty memory & do one of the neat year end wrap up questionnaires I have seen, I'll throw out some statistics instead. I planned 267 dinners.  52 of them were pizza-various and 52 others were pasta-various I made approximately 220 of those planned meals. I joined Library Thing and cataloged my library along with my booklist, which is a list of nearly every book I have read in the past 20 years. There are 2176 books in my Library Thing library. 68 of them were read by me this year. 576 of them are tagged 'mystery'. This far outstrips the next closest tags 'history' (244), fantasy (219) and romance (197) I acquired 49 audiobooks through audible or borrowed from the library. I listened to about 34 of them - at the gym & driving to & from the kids school 2 hours a day 5 days a week for the first 5 months of the year. I crocheted 12 things, most

I'd like to do a year in retrospect type of post but I'm a bit deep into just recording December and what with my memory being what it is, I'd have to reread the whole year's worth of blog posts to be able to give any sort of honest and coherent account of the year and I'm not up for that. I have a blog because my memory for day to day stuff sucks. Off the top of my head 2008 featured: 2 trips to Great Wolf Lodge one trip to the National History Museum one trip to Florida Mayhem getting into pre-k despite being 6th on the wait list Havoc going to kindergarten one of the boys went to the ER I think....or was that last year? Mayhem having his tonsils out seeing DH's family for the first time in years we got a Wii a large amount of money was spent repairing my car bunk beds and painting lots of swimming some impressive gas prices That's all that is coming to me right now, besides random muffin memories. One of the reasons I do Jo

and lots of stuff to do. We're having a NYE party in 2 days Havoc and I are going to get hair cuts & then go grocery shopping while DH & Mayhem clean up outside & get the bonfire pile started with the various dead trees he cut down last month. We have wrap the gift for the kids coming to the party & assemble the gift bags for the adults for our gift exchanges. We took over 500 photos over vacation! I need to go through those. I also scanned over 200 photos from my parents albums & those need to be dealt with.  I did manage to scrap a few layouts while in FL. I need to get them uploaded & linked & then figure out just where I am with my Journal Your Christmas album. Plus the 365 Project is nearing the end & I need to sort out the past 10 days worth of photos & retouch them. I think I will probably end up putting all that off until the kids are back in school next week The boys are playing Lego Star Wars (which honestly, is a bit beyond May

We're kicking back & relaxing from a 5:45am wake up call.

We love coming to visit my folks. Its a break from the cold weather, there are other adults to watch the kids and we are surrounded by numerous shrines to consumerism only minutes from the house (seriously!! 3 different bookstores within 8 minutes of the house!!! When you have to drive at least an hour to shop somewhere other than Target or WalMart this is almost surreal) While my mom would be perfectly happy to make dinner all week, we like to help out. This is where the trials come in. I've mentioned before about all my foremothers fervently embracing agribusiness as soon as it was available, so what DH & I consider to be staples - flour, sugar, onions, eggs, baking soda, lemon juice, etc, do not exist in my parents' kitchen. Mom isn't going to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch when Toll House has premade & preformed ones in the refrigerator case. In fact, why not just buy Chips Ahoy & save the dirty tray? Mom doesn't bake.  DH is making Chicken

We left for vacation Friday, with a stack of suitcases And of course, these guys We got lost in Virginia, as usual . Isn't Florida south? Many movies were watched. This was somewhere in North Carolina We stayed overnight in Orangeburg South Carolina Waffle House in the pre-dawn hours (they were up at 4:30am!) Stopped for a break in Georgia Restaurant around Jacksonville Traffic outside Orlando It was pitch black out when we got lost AGAIN, this time around Immokolee, so no photos of that. Swimming in the pool at 9am at Grandmas Be sure to visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom for more Weekly Winners      

In a couple hours we will begin the long, arduous drive to my parents' house. Soon we will load the car with a week's worth of clothes, xmas presents, a DVD player, toys, 2 boys hyped up on sugar from their school holiday parties, one overworked & stressed out adult male, and my slightly claustrophobic, pessimistic self, dragging along a Zen loaded with audiobooks and a scarf I am crocheting. 16-19 hours in the car (depending on whether you believe AAA or Google) plus numerous potty breaks, snack stops, stretch our leg stints and a night in a random hotel. There will be DVDs for the boys and as I mentioned, plenty of audiobooks for DH & I. We're listening to SPQR I: The King's Gambit, today and The Story of English tomorrow (or maybe Holy Disorders, depends on our mood) Plus some obligatory Douglas Adams. We've been making this drive every year for 12 years now. Some Douglas Adams is a requirement either coming or going. Last year was Starship Titanic. T

Mayhem..... There are no words.... except maybe 'beat him with a stick' Havoc had is kindergarten Christmas program last night. We all went to the school auditorium, sat around with about 70 other families (many with kids younger than Mayhem), waited for the show to start & then watched the 45 minute show. Except Mayhem. He climbed around on me & DH & on his seat. He crawled under the seat They were flip up seats so he played with that incessantly. He talked almost non stop. He jumped, he wandered back in forth (we had him in a seat between us).  In short he did everything he possibly could to make sure we were looking at him, rather than the stage. Because it can't not be about Mayhem. It was mortifying. Other kids his age & younger were sitting in their seats just fine. Only one child was removed by parent. What the hell is with my child?  (We didn't remove him because he didn't actually appear to be disturbing anyone but us, not be

I hate this part. This sitting around waiting before you can do anything part. We leave in about 48 hours for Florida. There are a lot of things that need done, but none of them can really be done now. I've talked to our house sitter & given her the keys, shown her how our entertainment system remote control works (it's one of those all in one jobs that you need a PhD to program). Changed the sheets on the guest bed, cleaned out the fridge & am doing laundry. I still need to clean the house, pack the clothes, clean the car, pack the snacks, charge the electronics, pack the electronics, load the car, add the freon to the car a/c system, load up the DVD case with movies for the trip, and gate off and shut up all the rooms of the house I don't want the cats getting into while we are gone. That's a lot of stuff to do, but none of it can be done today. Some of it can be done tomorrow and some will have to wait until right before we leave. I can't pack the

make bookmarks for Dad assemble teacher gift bags back up HD to EHD find templates for bookmarks take buy.com return to UPS buy cider begin charging traveling electronics load audiobooks on Zen return library books buy car a/c coolant drop key off for house sitter find yarn & pattern for dino to work in in FL clean out car clean out fridge call hospital & insurance about unexplained bill make pizza dough make list for tomorrow

No really. I do. United Parcel Service is my most favorite company in all the world. I call the UPS truck The Big Brown Truck of Joy because it's arrival never ever disappoints me. Has anyone every really been less than happy to see a UPS truck arrive at your driveway? Unlike USPS they don't deliver junk mail & bills. I don't approach a UPS truck wondering what crap they are about to hand me now. I don't ignore the box on my porch because I know it's just bills & spurious 'you have already been approved' offers to refi my house. Anything legal that I'd rather not deal with but must be done immediately (like say, forms for last minute home owner's insurance renewal) comes by FedEx. UPS only brings me things I *want* or surprises me with things I didn't know I was going get. It's the same thrill as getting birthday gifts even. It's the same feeling when UPS arrives unexpectedly bearing boxes addressed to me I know nothing abou

What do you get when you mix this With this? This! I don't know if these guys are in awe or just hungry Visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom for more Weekly Winners   

In which I am even farther behind than I had been. Today is of course Day 13. I have done layouts this week for days 5, 6 & 8.  I had every intention of getting 9 & 10 done Thursday and Friday evenings but was felled by the head cold from hell. You know the one. It's where you are fairly certain your cheekbones & nose are about to explode right off your face because of the pressure behind them. Add to that chest congestion, which has settled into a nasty cough, and a mysterious pain in my side where my appendix would be if I still had an appendix and you end up with me spending 36 hours miserably in bed. Today I just have the cough & side pain so I am up and scrapping while I can. The boys have occupied themselves outside 'trimming bushes Mama' so I have some peace & quiet. Now you may be wondering why I am not more concerned that my 4 & 6 year old are wandering outside unsupervised doing god knows what to god knows which plants used god knows wh

The only gifts I need to get are for the boys' teachers and their helpers. I have cards for them and the bus drivers. But I need to get the gifts. I'd like to be the sort of person that gives meaningful handmade whatsits all done up in pretty bags with elaborate bows. The gift that says "she put a lot of thought & effort into this" But I'm the sort of person who drops a gift card in a plain white envelope & maybe adds a small Whitman's sampler. The gift that says "oh she stopped at Wal Mart on her way here" I don't mind being that person really. I think a gift card is appreciated by nearly everyone &  I know plenty of people who find meaningful handmade whatsits to be a bit of a burden (especially if they are not really to their taste. You have to keep them, they are handmade, but you don't really want them so you feel guilty) Food used to be easy to give but now everyone is on a diet or allergic or only eating organic &

But not 'get me valium and an epidural' painful, so that is something. First there was the "you are going to feel a pinch"part. It was a pinch, if you consider something like getting a tetnus shot in your eye a pinch, for comparison purposes. Only unlike the shot, this pinch lasted for a bit longer than 5 minutes. Then there was "you are going to feel a cramp" and I most certainly DID feel the cramp (while the pinch was still going on) & had to breathe slowly during it, because it was that sort of cramp. Last there was "you are going to feel a bigger cramp" and that was no lie either (and the pinch was still there). That part really hurt, but only for about 60 seconds. Once the pinch was done I had a few cramps but they went away. There were occasional twinges in the evening. I took an Advil last night, had some cramps this morning but it seems to be over now. The actual procedure was painful. But the cramping agony I was expecting af

This is TMI but I am going to the OB/GYN for a IUD today. They said to take 3 Advil an hour before my appointment. This worries me a GREAT deal. In my not at all limited experience with medical practitioners, they tend to downplay just how much pain you will be in. "Just a slight pinch" "You might feel some momentary discomfort" "There might be some tenderness" I'm not sure how they define 'pinch', 'discomfort' and 'tenderness' but in no way do their definitions match up with mine. It always ends up with me in agony doing my damnedest not to start shrieking and frightening off the other patients. I know they no doubt have very good reasons for minimizing the amount of pain you might be in. After all, the injection or probe or whatever they are about to do to you, needs to be done. It will be done, and a worried patient is a tense patient, which makes the injection or the probe harder to do. So they say "a qu

I'm a week into my prompts and I wanted to share my progress Journal Your Christmas is a class taught by Shimelle Lane & it runs for 37 days, from Dec 1 to Jan 6. You create a scrapbook page a day based on the prompts she sends out and in the end you have a memory book of your Christmas.  I did this last year and loved it (the cost of the class includes free enrollment every year after that). The nice thing about this class is that while you get a prompt every day, there is no requirement to actually DO the prompt that day.  You can do it daily if you want, or if you just aren't feeling it that day, do a couple at once another day, or wait until the weekend to get caught up. I'm a few days behind at the moment, which I expected. I cannot scrap daily, but I do take 10 minutes every day to think about the prompt and how I want to scrap it. I have finished days 1-4 and I have photos & notes for days 5 and 7 and hope to get at least one of them done today but I curre

It's starting to look like Christmas around here. Decorations Frosty mornings Deliveries These photos edited with the help of my nearly constant companion this week Technosaurus Please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom for more Weekly Winners 

I've done days 1-3 for Journal Your Christmas so far

at Body Pump after a 2 week absence that is the problem. Oh, it is uncomfortable. You feel a bit wussy because your really working to lift what you were doing just fine 2 weeks ago & how slack are you anyway? You've been doing the machines during this time, not just sitting around stuffing your face with pie. you *thought* you were working hard on the machines. You thought you were keeping your strength up, but NO. Loser. Can't even make yourself make the effort to maintain your level, because it *hurts* with the extra weight on the leg press. Whimp! You finally get your butt back to class and lift that bar, do those squats, nearly collapse during the lunges and think "I'll be feeling that tomorrow." Well, think again. The first day back is NOTHING compared to the SECOND day back. All those things you thought you would feel tomorrow? Your still feeling them today - 2 days later. Only today you HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN! Use those achy muscles to lift

I took a day off yesterday for the first time in 31 days. Did you miss me? Today I am starting a betting pool.  The subject of the betting pool is this: That is the toilet from our main bathroom. It has been leaking since since mid 2007 and was finally replaced last night. (and the new one is leaking in the exact same spot, so the problem has just become exponentially more difficult and expensive. This one here has an actual tank leak, which apparently confused the issue of the floor level leak) The betting pool is for How Long Will Stacey's Old Toilet Remain On Her Porch? Will it be gone this weekend? By Christmas? By Spring? Or will this toilet be on my porch so long that it in fact replaces the dinosaurs as a regular feature in my Weekly Winners throughout the summer ? Some things to keep in mind when choosing your dates: 1. The toilet had been leaking for OVER A YEAR before it was replaced. 2. Our dump is open from 9-3 M-F but accepts only commercial waste

These are the Christmas cards I haven't mailed. I'm sure most of you are thinking "So what? It's the 3rd of December, just go to the post office tomorrow & it'll be fine" Those of you who know me in real life might be wondering about the fact that it is only December 3rd and I yet I have cards in envelopes..... you are probably thinking to yourselves "Wait a minute! I'll bet those are LAST YEAR's cards that you never got in the mail!" Well, you would be wrong. They are cards from 2005. Yes, that is right. I am now entering my 4th year of card mailing procrastination. These are the cards I bought in 2006 but never got around to putting in envelopes. These are the cards I bought in 2007 but never even opened the box. This year I'm not even going to bother buying the cards in the first place. The problem is one of stamps. I never have any, or if I do they are 4 cents less than current stamps, so I'd have to

I finished the calendar today, uploaded it and ordered it from Cafe Press. I like their design better. It's day 2 of Journal Your Christmas. It was a weather related prompt so I was out bright & early taking photos of the frost. I also spend about an hour taking pictures of the ornaments that don't fit on our tree, the paper, boxes and bags I use to wrap gifts and a stack of the gifts that I wrapped today. I guessing they will be a topic down the road & I will be out of town for 10 days at the end of the month so I'm taking tons of photos of things now in anticipation. If there is not wrapping related prompt I'll just add an additional page. Now that I have started the project again this year I can see where I may end up with a few extra pages because of including the travel, the Solstice and photos I have taken of things that didn't end up as a prompt. Here are the last calendar pages I made these pages with Kim Hill's Storyboard set and her Com