havocandmayhem.com

I decided to bite the bullet & try an online storage & backup plan this past week. I have 200GBs of stuff to upload.  After 5 days 16GBs have been uploaded. That means it’ll only be a mere… um…5 goes into 16 3 and some times, so 3ish GBs a day…into 200GBs…. um…let me get the calculator… 62 days give or take, and I have a 15 day free trial so… I’ll never be able to tell for free if it works. I have to pay for 2 months before I even get the darn stuff uploaded. Oh, and my ISP? has a 6BG a month up/down limit at our pricing tier (no unlimited tier at all) & you incur MASSIVE overage charges if you go over it. Which I have done already. But they are cutting me some slack on the overages charges on account of I am a MASSIVE pain in the butt about my signal strength, towers vs poles & that guy down the road who is tying up all the bandwidth downloading po.rn ( which I know because I got a new tech support guy on the phone one time & he was talking to hims...

I had some happy news last week. I got a spot on Penny Springman’s creative team!  She sells at Sweet Shoppe Designs & her own store My Digital Stash .  I’ll be doing tutorial posts for PSP & Lightroom on her blog starting in June. I also get to play with her stuff. I did this for an SSD challenge using Penny’s new kit Smile, Sunshine . I did a bunch of layouts this weekend as well, while waiting for the Rapture to come so I could go loot Target’s camera area. Looting & pillaging are on my Bucket List you see. But Jesus never showed up so I didn’t get a new Nikon. Guess I’ll continue saving my pennies.  It’ll give me more time to dither over which model I want, rather than just grabbing whatever was in stock. I was going to grab a bunch of books too because I have NOTHING to read.  Do you ever get like that? There is a stack of new books from the library on your nightstand & while they seemed interesting when you chose them, you now...

The chickens are still with us. Yep. A whole WEEK and they are still alive. The boys have gotten up every morning, let them out of the coop & fed them. Well, Havoc has. Mayhem sometimes helps, sometimes not. Havoc has become possessive of the chickens. DH mentioned, while they were loose in the larger fenced area, that they might be able to flap up on to the smaller area & then onto the coop and then get loose. Ever since then Havoc herds them back into the smaller area when DH isn’t around because he doesn’t want them to get loose where the dog could get them. Odds of those chickens reaching the top of the smaller run are very slim but there is no telling Havoc that. He was also “shush”ing his friends when they came over to see the chickens & warning them how to behave so they wouldn’t alarm the chickens any. In non chicken news I’ve decided the ‘workout at 10pm’ thing just isn’t…um…working out. First off I cannot be relied on to make myself all exhausted & s...

Spring Break began at 4pm Friday. We celebrated by going to IHOP for dinner. Kids eat dinner free all month at IHOP. I don’t recall what we did on Saturday. No, really. I have no recollection of Saturday at all. DH worked on the roof, I’m guessing, since he was working on it Sunday & Monday too. The boys did…  while I …. I got nothing. I’m fairly sure we didn’t all just sit around staring off into space but I’d be hard pressed to prove that from my own memory. Oh wait! Dr Who was on that night! So that’s something anyway. Moving on to Sunday, aka Easter, DH did more work on the roof. The back soffits of the house were never entirely sealed properly (rolls eyes) & there has been a persistent drip appearing on a ceiling tile in the boys room for years. At first we thought it was the result of condensation on a pipe over the spot, but it turns out it was actual water coming in down the pipe (which is a vent). This was discovered when DH decided to rearr...

Havoc is over his  illness. This was confirmed at his doc appt on Friday. No suggestions were made as to what the illness might have been. Only that “it’s going around”. We got a notice from school that some federal program or other has picked our little county for a study involving getting free sealers on the teeth of second graders (with select ones being monitored over time & will get new sealers & some other stuff if needed) & if we want this we just fill out this form & send it back. The letter was dated March 11. It was sent home March 30. I sent it back April 1 and the substitute teacher gave it back to Havoc saying she didn’t think she should have it. So I am sending it back today & assuming that the deadline for acceptance was around March 20 & we’ll be rejected. I hope not. It’s $150 to get that kid’s teeth sealed at the dentist. Mayhem has another cavity, which is also $150, so anything that saves  us a $150 dental payment is ok by ...

DH went camping this weekend. This usually leads to Plans to Make Stacey Happy Sleeping in the Woods. But Stacey has ISSUES with that whole Sleeping in the Woods thing. And while not actually liking that I am so high maintenance about my sleeping arrangements, I generally cannot overcome my ISSUES, no matter the suggestions. (honest to God it drives me freaking nuts that I can’t just lay down in a tent and sleep like normal people can. It drives me freaking nuts that very often I can’t lay down in my own damn bed and sleep like normal people either) But this time he had a gem of an idea involving the mini van and an old queen sized futon we own. It has possibilities worth exploring. The man thinks he can get me actual internet signal as part of it. More on that as the situation develops. While he was camping, the boys and I visited with some friends up in WV as well. We spent the day hanging out there along with another friend & her kids. (These are the normal peopl...

Ok, back from the BookWorld at last. About a week or so ago I mentioned vaguely some family problems. Here’s the detail I left out then. DH’s older brother went to the ER with what he thought was a gall bladder attack and about two hours later was having open heart surgery to replace a faulty valve. He’s much better now, but those first few days were very hard on the family because he had some serious memory & motor function issues & there were concerns they might be permanent. A 4 hour operation took almost 8 & he almost died twice because he has thin ‘skin’ on his heart. I know there is a term for it, I’ve even been told it but scary things tend to vanish from my mind until critically needed. What happened was every time they tried to stich him closed his heart tore a little more. They didn’t know his heart was like that when they started.  My MIL died from the same complication during the same surgery on Dec 24, 2001. My FIL died 16 years earlier of congest...

The tower? Still up, but preparations for the replacement pole installation have begun. I’m considering sabotaging it during the night. I think God is inspiring me to do so. Friday I had to make a trip to Target to get the boys more underwear & socks. They wear the same size socks & underwear. I don’t mind them pulling socks from a pile at random but the idea of interchangeable underwear bothers me. So I made an executive decision without consulting the minions. As of now & for as long as I am responsible for the purchasing & washing of their underwear - Havoc wears briefs and Mayhem wears boxer briefs. Their wives and/or girlfriends can make whatever changes they wish once they take over those responsibilities. Saturday we received a state refund check for $258! Yay! Sunday the water heater died and will cost $252 to replace Booooo! Also Saturday we made a trip to a local salvage/junk yard. Some photos are on my previous post. We’re building a mud...

**primary news** DH & I discussed our various options for Spring Break. It turns out the train idea has some merit. Not all the way to Florida, but the idea of going somewhere by train in general. We had discussed that this year, for the winter holidays, we might, just might , take the train to NYC for a few days. I think it would be fun to spend a few days there when all the tourist spots are decorated & the boys would love the train ride. Applying that  idea to April we are thinking of taking the train to DC for a day. It’s a 90 minute train ride & it’s be $90 for the 4 of us round trip. Sure we could drive it, save the $90. But there is gas & parking & metro fees, since we won’t drive into the city. Plus the non-monetary costs of sitting in traffic, driving around parking garages that are actually totally full but failed to say so and the associated costs of whatever shops are in whatever strip mall we stop at for supper. The train gets us into DC a...

Havoc got sick with a stomach bug Tuesday evening, threw up until midnight & missed school Wedneday to sleep. Thursday there was almost an ENTIRE INCH of snow on the ground so naturally, school was closed. (ok, not naturally, the county was actually doing rather well about not freaking on the snow thing until this). And Mayhem came down with his brother’s  stomach bug. Which was no end of a bummer to him because it totally blew the snow day & since it hit him at around 11am, he was fine to go to school on Friday. Thursday was also supposed to be the day the tower came down. But due to the snow & winds they put it off until Saturday. Saturday morning I got hit with the stomach bug, but just stabbing agonizing cramps. No ‘activity’ as it were. So I spend the day in bed with my heating pad wishing whatever was tearing around in my insides would just pick an exit and LEAVE already; in between bouts of dizzyness, aches, pains & lightheadedness. (DH practically ...

I did well with my photo project last month. I had 16 topics to start with and ended up not taking a macro shot, but I added menu planning & gas prices so had 17 photos at the end of the month. We’ll see how I keep up this month. This is the menu board from last week. Sunday to be precise Still left to make this week on the list is everything from lasagna-rolled on down. A rare example of me following the order of the list. I still have no idea what to cook in the crock pot. I’m thinking beefy lentil soup. I made marinated steak bites for snacking during the game last night & have plenty left for soup. But I do need to run out & get some root veggies to add to it. But I think a crock pot is sort of unnecessary. It’s not like I am not home from 11am every day. I can easily watch a pot on the stove & you don’t get that ‘watery’ taste everything I cook in the crock seems to get. I managed a decent self portrait this month & had fun playing with it in Lightroo...

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...

It was a quiet weekend here at Casa de Demons. There was football on tv Sat & Sun.  DH and Mayhem bonded while watching hours of it in the living room. Havoc and I watched random stuff on Discovery in the bedroom. Things about haunted places, underground places, hidden places and a Dirty Jobs episode that must hold the record for most swear words ever. Havoc amused himself by trying to guess the words. Idiot? Stupid? Wicked? Nope, kid. Those are all words you can say on TV. Then there were the explanations about why such and such a person killed themselves & is now haunting the lighthouse. And what’s a prostitute? And what is prohibition & how can I be drinking a beer now if alcohol was made illegal? And why did that guy build a castle in 1890 when castles were built in the middle ages? And what spirits was that lady so afraid of & how were those weird rooms supposed to make them happy? Makes me long for one of those WWII in Color shows. I worked o...