havocandmayhem.com

  One of my favorite baby photos of Havoc. He was 6 weeks old. My mother was very insistent that he needed sunglasses in the Florida sun

Thursday I bought 2 dressers from IKEA. Each dresser came packed flat in 2 boxes. Friday night we bought a new TV stand and added a new tv to stand on it. The flat box for the TV stand weighed 85lbs. The TV only weighed 55lbs. I spent 4.5 hours Saturday assembling dressers while DH took Havoc and planted trees with his scout troop. Mayhem played Wii Lego Indiana Jones the whole time. Parenting FAIL but it was a success from an uninterrupted assembly standpoint. First I opened Box 1.  There were drawers in Box 1 Do you know what is the last thing the instructions have you assemble is? DRAWERS! Do you know where the instructions are packed? Box 2, with all the stuff you need to assemble first. Why not name Box 2 Box1, since it is the one you need first? The dresser involves the fun lining up of multiple pegs onto one board And of course you can never get all the pegs into the holes without having to lift up some of the ones that did make it in so you can line up t

Some from my 365 Project this week. Mayhem was allowed to use the BB gun at long last. I had to keep telling DH to BACK UP so I could get a shot without him in it. He was hovering so much I swear he was in danger of having his own eye shot out. Sunset on the Equinox Blue glass prayer beads And my monthly self portrait For more Weekly Winners please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom . Thanks for stopping by!

I went to IKEA yesterday with my friend Mel. I wanted to get a dresser for the boys’ bedroom and she was looking for a desk for her daughter’s room. I ended up buying 2 dressers, each with 6 drawers (4 boxes) and she found a desk with attached side shelving units. (2 boxes) I have never appreciated the space in a mini van like I did yesterday. But of course you can’t just pick up the furniture you want & go. First you have to walk through the marketplace full of stuff to put on or in or next to the furniture you want to buy. Kitchenware, plates, picture frames, bins of assorted sized and materials, garden things, hooks and shelves, pillows and curtains. And lamps. Mel wanted to get a Chinese lantern lampshade while we were there and after pondering the various hanging lamps, that were basically a cord with a plug on one end and a light fixture on the other that you hang from a cup hook on your ceiling (no wiring required) I, finally, at long long last, replaced a standing pil

It census time here in the US and as every media outlet keeps reminding us, those forms were mailed out last week, we should have completed them & mailed them back by now. Except… The first question on the form wants to know how many people are living or staying in your house on April 1, 2010. How can I know that? It’s still March. I live in the country. I get almost no cell signal. I get semi decent internet signal. I get absolutely no crystal ball signal. I don’t know how many people will be living in my house on April 1. Sure, I can assume 4, since 4 are currently living here but in 2 weeks time things can change. My husband’s 20 something nephew could show up to live on our sofa for months. So could a number of single friends who have lost jobs & want to look for work in the area. We could have a foster child placed with us. My parents could come for an extended visit. We could ship Mayhem off to military boarding school. I just can’t know now for

I’m not sure what caused it. The time I spend on the computer, the crocheting, the cross stitch, the gravel shoveling, the gym… Probably some of all of them. My wrist and arm hurt. My hand is ok & my fingers but it hurts to move my wrist. Sometimes just turning a door knob is agony. Carpel tunnel. I’ve had it before, about 3 years ago and maybe 3-4 years before that as well. Not bad enough for surgery but for a brace and less time on the computer or crocheting or shoveling, etc. No bad enough for the good pain pills unfortunately. “Take some ibuprofen”  Typing a little doesn’t hurt, so I expect my blog posts will be fewer and resemble twitter updates and be heavy on photos for a week or so while I give my carpels a rest and work out a more ergonomic seat/typing arrangement than I currently have. I’m going to IKEA Thursday to find a dresser or two for the boys room & will be looking at desk chairs & things as well. The doc thinks 7-10 days of taking it easy &

The weather has been beautiful so I’ve been taking outdoor photos this week. The creek is running high from the rain & melting snow The moss is plentiful The irises are starting  to push up And the boys can’t wait to do some backyard camping For more weekly winners please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom . Thanks for stopping by!

I just took a stack of books back to the library and in a act that shocked the librarian, I checked no new books out, just renewed the 6 I still have out. Just the 6. I haven’t had less than 12 books out in over a year. The problem is I am in the mood for rereading books I already own right now. But let me tell you about some other things I have been reading'. Magic, Mensa & Mayhem Very entertaining read. I love Vern. He's the the best dragon ever. The Faerie characters are very well done. I love the puns, the sarcasm & the wit. The whole world of the Faerie & the Mundane and how they relate to one another is well thought out & hangs together. The plot did seem a little rushed at the end, almost as if there were so many threads running the author felt the need to grab one and pull to close it up, but it was still enjoyable. I want more Vern & Grace stories. There were so many references to past events & I want to

It was beautiful Tuesday! The sort of beautiful spring day that makes you think “Gosh I really ought to clean something!” Which really? Strikes me as an odd thing to think just because the day is nice. Yet, there I was, thinking it. I decided to clean the mini van out. It goes in to the dealership today for an oil change & whatever other maintenance is required and they vacuum out the car as part of the service. But only if you have all your crap up off the floors first. Probably they don’t want to get in trouble for vacuuming up stuff they thought was crap but you were keeping for some reason. And probably they don’t want to move balled up sweat socks & sticky toys to vacuum up the other stuff. I gathered up the napkins, receipts, food wrappers and other garbage and tossed it all. And I tossed all the stuff I was keeping for some reason into a basket This is the basket Let’s break it down shall we? First there were the food related items that have been rolli

After a 3 week hiatus I finally fell back in the scrapping groove & completed a few layouts over the past 10 days or so. These are all for challenges at Sweet Shoppe Designs It feels good to  be scrapping again, but despite all the 365 photos I take I seem to be short photos to scrap. I’ve been focusing more on things than people lately with it and don’t have as many pics of the boys as I have in the past.  I need to work on that.

I’ve been driving for 25 years, many of those years with junk cars over a decade old when I got them, plus a number of years with cars that were no longer new, even though I purchased them that way. I know a lot about what can go wrong with cars & am fairly good at diagnosing them. I know the difference in sounds between a car not turning over because the battery is dead and a car not turning over because there is a problem with the fuel pump. (correctly identifying this in DH’s truck last month as soon as at failed to start) I know that that horrible grinding noise you hear sporadically while driving is probably caused by your brakes. Either the pads have worn off or there is a problem with the rest of the braking system, probably the rotors. I know how to repair a problem with the radiator hose with a box cutter & duct tape. I know the terrible sinking feeling the engine makes as the transmission suddenly goes out on you while you are driving. (having experienced

Some photos from my 365 project for this week. I was experimenting with a DIY lightbox using a couple different pop up mesh baskets and some scarves under the track lighting in the kitchen While I was doing that I had left the craft glue on my desk in family room with the boys and this was the result. For more Weekly Winners please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom . To see Havoc’s winners please click here Thanks for stopping by!

(very photo heavy post) Saturday evening I took some photos in the kitchen and absentmindedly left the camera on the table. Sunday morning, around 8am, Havoc comes in the bedroom and informs me he’d been taking some pictures and the camera wasn’t working any more because it was full. I had taken maybe a dozen photos. The card holds 351. What did Havoc feel he needed to take over 300 photos of? Mostly he was perfecting his composition studies of “Cat with Bowl” First selecting the right angle for the shots Then getting in close Followed by some experimenting with the rule of thirds composition and centering There was also “Cat Wishing for a Bowl” “Cat Relaxing” And the popular “Cat Among the Stuff” series Cat photos accounted for more than 200 of the photos. Then there was “Clone Trooper Parking”   (everyone thinks I pose the toys in my 365 photos, but 95% of the time I just photograph what I find, though probably