havocandmayhem.com

After 3 years of trying to take steady photos I finally bought a tripod And was at  long last able to take a photo of my nails without creating an elaborate book & pillow stack to hold my camera at just the right angle Note to self – no more home French manicures I was able to get this shot of my afternoon snack And this of Asoka & the Red Queen squabbling over just who owns the throne. We had the Pinewood Derby this past weekend Havoc’s car, a Clone luge And Mayhem’s Jones mobile For more Weekly Winners please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom Thanks for stopping by!

One of my New Year’s goals for about 4  years running, not including this year when I finally just gave up, was to cook and eat more veggies. I’ve failed at it every time. I’ve had excuses, mostly that I am just not a fan of veggies, especially cooked veggies, plus there are the texture issues – mine & the boys, but it’s been since I surrendered on the whole topic that I have finally seen the actual problem. Despite being able to multitask in every other area of my life (I can crochet and read at the same time) , I am a cooking unitasker. So if my attention is focused on prepping, browning & stewing chicken in a skillet, it cannot be on the cauliflower gratin. Which is why we either have raw veggies or slow roasted veggies or veggies in stir fry. I made the Pioneer Woman’s chicken fried steak the other night. OMG y’all! this is excellent! (where has this southern accent suddenly come from anyway? I grew up outside of Pittsburgh. We say y’unz. Though OMG y’u...

Well Mister Scissors, we meet again! I decided, for reasons best known to the voices in my head, to sew an apron this past weekend. Why? I have no idea why. I saw a picture of one on the internet and then another (pinterest.com, it’s of the devil y’all) and that voice in my head that thinks I am Martha Stewart suddenly woke up. (you know, the one that convinced me to buy table clothes of actual cloth & matching napkins, the one that forgets just whose life I am actually living) The voice was fascinated by the aprons, especially the retro ones and had visions of me (taller, thinner) wearing an apron over my (adorable designer) clothing while cooking in my (much larger with nicer appliances) kitchen or standing out near the (in ground) pool serving drinks to friends on our (landscaped) lawn. Yeah. This voice has such a nice fantasy life going and I really hate having to bring it down to earth by pointing out the obvious flaws. Not the least of which is – I have...

My baby boy. The sleeping baby, the VBAC, the one who nursed for a year. The 9lb 2oz surprise that made my OB wonder how I had hid such a big baby from him those last few weeks, when he was expected to be similar to his brother’s 7lbs 7oz at birth. The one who’s infancy I remember only in disjointed moments due to rampant insomnia and 10 months of battling chronic bronchitis.  I was so very tired when he was a baby. So very glad this one slept more & cried less than the other, making it easier to care for both of them & not feel I was neglecting anyone. The one who has more than made up for those easy months by developing a stubbornness that is astounding in one so young and a tendency to solve problems with violence that we are still struggling with almost daily. The one who shrieks and wails and sobs when things don’t go the way he wants in a game, but who absolutely refuses to give up until he succeeds. Even if he cries the whole way through. The one who’s le...

Today I haven’t even got it together enough to ramble. So I am treating you all to thoughts from my notepad, where I jot down stuff as it occurs to me during the day. Sometimes those thoughts become blog posts. These didn’t quite make the cut. ~ Maybe cats stare because we change colors. Think about it. Your grey striped cat does not wake up one morning & decide to be an orange spotted cat. Yet you put on a green shirt one day and a red shirt the next. That has to be confusing to them. ~ McD’s stops serving breakfast at 10:30. On the dot. (here anyway) Have you ever wanted a Big Mac at 10:35 am? My mind is still on Egg McMuffins & those pancake sandwiches until well after 11am. But they only serve breakfast until 11am on weekends, when I am never in town. I need to find out when Burger King stops serving breakfast since apparently they are now serving the exact same food. ~ My car battery doesn’t like the cold & refuses to start the car, randomly, when it gets below...

Some random photos this week Potential in a basket Homemade deep dish pizza The Legos have a secret fort For more Weekly Winners please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom Thanks for stopping by!

*sigh* My ISP called me yesterday and said they would be downgrading my blight on the landscape. You remember the blight that brings me my internet signal, right? A 75ft mini tower that, in Sept 2009, replaced this 50ft mono pole eyesore. because the mono pole had a tendency to do this and this in high winds or after heavy rains, before it finally did this and resulted in the mini tower It was  a regular feature throughout 2009. The ISP says the mini tower ‘can be better utilized elsewhere’ Nice. So obviously someone else is now more important to them than I am. Apparently enough time has passed they have forgotten just how annoying I can make myself when my internet signal has problems. I’m like a crack addict desperate for a fix. I will CUT YOU if you don’t fix my signal! I know where you are! I have nothing better to do than call you eleventy billion times a day. Of course if my signal was working I’d have LOADS of other things to do. But sinc...

Yesterday I was in the bedroom getting dressed after a shower. It was close on noon & I’d just come back from the gym & running errands. (paying the electric bill in person while reeking of Body Pump sweat is my passive aggressive way of protesting the high cost of electricity). The bedroom is right off the kitchen. The kitchen has slate tiles. I have 4 cats who have claws. They can make a racket on a slate floor when they get chasing each other. The bedroom door was shut. I get self conscious when the cats see me naked. They stare. Fascinated. Unblinking. It’s very disconcerting when you are naked. What ARE they thinking? Are they amused? Horrified? Worried I might be cold with so little fur? Anyway, while getting dressed I heard this rattling in the kitchen & because my mind was fully taken up with which one of the various shades of purple shirts I own I was going to wear, I vaguely though ‘oh cats’ and then went back to contemplating the purples. Eggplant? Li...

This is one of the 6 photos I have so far managed to take for my project. But I have a system in place now & a spreadsheet. I feel much better now that I have a spreadsheet. This is Thor, who is HUGE in real life. Seriously huge. He fully takes up and actually overhangs the seat of a kitchen chair when he lays on it. Here, he is on my bed, reading my Kindle. I had set it aside to listen to Mayhem reading “The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog” in various funny voices and the screen saver kicked in after a couple minutes. It a random screen saver. This time it happened to be birds. Thor, who had been laying next to me, shifted his bulk so he could look at the birds. If you have cats you have probably seen them watching birds through a window. If so you have probably heard that strange semi-chirping noise cats sometimes make while watching birds through a window. I’ve always assumed it was a “Wish I could chase & eat those birds” sort of running commentary. Thor started making those...

I decided against P365 2011 because I don’t want the pressure. Just do something easy I said. Just make a list of things you enjoyed taking photos of last year I said. Just take photos when you feel like it I said. It’ll be relaxing and fun I said. Here is the problem. I forgot who I was talking about. I sort of need structure to function. Free form, do it as you go, let the spirit move you is all very well & good in theory but in  practice it ends with me sitting around doing nothing. It always has. As many of my former professors & employers can tell you. The flesh is unwilling and the spirit is hopeless. The spirit thinks it should maybe surf a few more web pages & then go find a snack & think about the project later. I don’t even have a spreadsheet set up yet to track what photos I have & haven’t taken. And if you know me, you know that means I’ve pretty much forgotten I was supposed to take photos in the first place. We’re halfway in...

I am a digital scrap booker. My digital ‘home’ is www.sweetshoppedesigns.com . They run a series of challenges every month. A new one this year is 12 on the 12th, where you take 12 photos on the 12th of the month & then scrap them. This works well with my own 12x12 2011 Project. These are some of the photos I took on the 12th. I have coffee & Cheerios for breakfast 98% of the time. I prefer to think of it as regularity of breakfast instead of monotony of breakfast My cross stitch project is finally nearing completion There was laundry Havoc & I played mancala And Mayhem helped the Lego battle fleet invade my desk For more Weekly Winners please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom . Thanks for stopping by!

Stunning, descriptive, emotive post title isn’t it? Well, if you were here a year ago you know it actually is indicative of a thrilling post, chock full of suspense, mystery & really outdated food products. An example of bad housekeeping so shocking you can only shake your head in disbelief and revel in your own smug cleaning superiority. Plus you can use me as a comparison when your own cleaning shortcomings are revealed to neighbors or parents. You can thank me later. First, for my mom, a disclaimer: I *was* raised better than this. These sorts of goings on would never have been tolerated in my mother’s house, where food, lined up neatly by category, in rows, in cabinets in the basement, was rotated religiously with each & every trip to the grocery store. In the ‘nature vs nurture’ debate, I make the case for ‘nature’. This is the pantry is question: “pantry” sounds better than ‘glorified closet’. That broom handle is there because, while the door never st...