Persnickety.

So, the title says it all.  Today I am feeling rather persnickety.  Ornery.  Irritable.  Grumpy.  Yes, you could even call me crotchety.  In fact, my facebook updates from today are the very definition of persnickety:

Super early this morning, I queried: "Is there anyone in your life that you love dearly, but still find yourself wanting to punch in the face on a regular basis?  Oh, right...um...yeaaaah...me neither."

Yes, I had a specific person in mind when I typed that update.  And, yes, I definitely wanted to punch this person in the face.  I know, I know...why so violent??  I have no excuse.  Punching people in the face is just my immediate thought when people annoy me.  Unless I've been watching Phineas and Ferb with the boys, in which case, my initial response to any irritation is to mutter under my breath, "Curse you, <insert name of irritant here> the Platypus!" followed quickly by the inevitable thought, "man, I wish I could punch you in the face."

My next facebook update was around 11:00 a.m., and had a visual aid:

Update:  "If you work at McDonalds and I order a small chocolate peppermint milkshake, and you bring me a chocolate milkshake with a shot of peppermint syrup in a separate cup, please expect this look from me right before I ask you to go back and mix them together. Seriously?"

Again, persnickety.  My apologies to the hapless Mickey-D's worker who incurred the wrath of my persnickety-ness this morning.  But, come on...are you serious right now, lady?  I know you're not working at Burger King, so "have it your way" isn't your official mantra, but I really don't feel like it's asking too much to have the peppermint infused into my milkshake before it's handed to me through the drive thru window.  You wouldn't hand me two all beef patties in one container and put the special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, and sesame seed buns in another, now would you?  Ok, then.

Most recently, I've had another little bout of persnickety-ness that also requires a picture for you to get the full effect.  Take a look at this:

Said the night wind to the little lamb, DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE??? Or maybe I should say, said the night wind to the little Billy Goat. Yes, you're seeing this correctly...my goat of a son ATE THE LEATHER OFF OF HIS SHOE!!  WHO DOES THAT??!!  Are you for real?  Did this really just happen?  Yes, it's true.  My son, whose stupid baby shoes cost more than mine do, ruined his nice church boots by chewing the leather off of them like a freaking goat.  Unbelievable.

Ok.  Deep breath.  Relax.

I was going to add some pictures of some of the new pieces of jewelry I've been working on, but I decided that this entry is not one that I wish to associate with my jewelry, for obvious reasons.  So, instead, let's turn that frown upside down and focus on the positives here:

GOD'S UGLY OLD BLANKET-WRAPPED GIFTS VOLUME 2 (see earlier post for clarification if you're completely lost right now):

Gift: being surrounded by loved ones

Wrapper: said loved ones doing annoying things for which a good punch in the face seems the practical solution

Gift: a new McDonalds opened up within walking distance of my house

Wrapper: incompetent workers who bring out my earlier violent tendencies and make me want to punch them in the face

Gift: a super cute one year old son who is getting new teeth

Wrapper: the Billy Goat, and, you guessed it, an unnatural desire to punch my own child in the face.

Sleep Deprivation, Babies, Babies, Babies, and a Little Bit of Good Jewelry News

Well, here I am.  I should definitely be sleeping.  But, sadly, I think I've gone from tired to exhausted to delirious, and now I'm in a semi-vegetative state where I'm so super tired I can't even get to sleep.  So, here I am...blogging away the few precious minutes where all three babies are sleeping.  Eh, what can ya do? 

Last night the twins were TERRIBLE!  Well, maybe not TERRIBLE...they weren't really screamy or super loud, but they were wide awake and looking to be entertained.  I didn't even have to hold them or stand up or anything, but they were a captive audience and insisted that I sing or talk to them.  So, we had a very eclectic impromptu concert last night consisting of mostly folk ballads, 80s variety, and 90s country.  I've gotta say, I really out did myself last night: Dan Fogelberg, Garth Brooks, Faith Hill, Chicago, Jim Croce, Journey, Simon and Garfunkel, Jo Dee Messina, the Judds, Don McClean, and I even threw in a little Madonna and Queen for good measure.  At any rate, my concert served to keep them quiet, but did nothing in the way of getting them to close their little eyes and let me rest.  And by the time they finally got to sleep somewhere around the crack of dawn, it was less than an hour before I had to get Ilaiasi up to get ready for school.  And then, of course, there's my early bird Ovaka who woke up just as I was finally drifting off after getting Ilaiasi out the door to the bus stop...you get the idea.  So, here I am at 11:31 on Friday morning, running on approximately an hour and a half of sleep.  But enough with the complaining.  The good news is, I did get some really cute pictures of the runts last night and this morning:

My bed at approximately 12:45 last night: two bright-eyed, bushy-tailed girlies, and one sleeping monkey boy

Good boy Ovaka sleeping soundly to the melodious tone of my croaking...er, I mean SINGING...at 2 a.m.

Naughty girls, wide awake and watching me expectantly: "Perform, slave, or suffer our wrath!"

This picture cracks me up: "What are you looking at? You're looking a little on the fluffy side yourself!" Hahaha

8:30 this morning: Ovaka chillin sucking his thumb, twins FINALLY knocked out

This is what utter exhaustion looks like: 11:30 a.m...three soundly sleeping babies and a mom who's too tired to fall asleep!

In other unrelated, but hopefully more exciting news, I'm back on the jewelry wagon and things are looking up!  Had a little booth at the craft fair at my mom's office last week, and it was pretty successful.  Something REALLY exciting came of this craft fair, though.  One of the ladies at my mom's work bought some of my earrings.  She wore them when she went to a salon to get her hair cut, the owner of the salon saw my earrings and liked them, and asked if I'd be interested in selling my jewelry in the salon!  So, I'm pretty excited about that.  I have to come up with a way to display my jewelry while it's inside baggies...the owner thinks the chemicals from the hair products might cause my wire to tarnish, so she asked that I bag all of the jewelry prior to bringing it in...but once I come up with a display idea, I'm going to set up shop and see how it goes!  Anyone have any good ideas for displaying jewelry that's already in clear plastic bags?  I was thinking of maybe just getting a platter and laying everything out on it...I don't know.  Anywhoo, your ideas would be most appreciated!  Ok...Ovaka's up and hungry, so I guess I'd better get going.  Happy Friday everyone!!

A little quality time...

So...don't call the truant officer on me or anything, but yesterday I picked Ilaiasi up 45 minutes early from school and took my gaggle of goofballs to Chick-fil-A for a late lunch so that Ilaiasi and Ovaka could have some fun on their indoor playground.  Ilaiasi's been struggling a lot lately...too many changes, too much stress, too little of Mom to go around...and it's taken a toll on my sweet eldest son.  He's been acting out a little bit -- nothing major, but my normally obedient boy has been talking back, pouting, being sneaky, and basically just doing things that are very out of character for him.  So, I wanted to do something fun with all the kids, but specifically, I wanted Ilaiasi to feel special.  I just finished the book The 5 Love Languages...have you read it?  It's a really remarkable book, and I would highly recommend it if you're looking to improve your relationships with others.  It's directed towards the marital relationship, but the lessons learned can be applied to any relationship you have.  It basically says that there are 5 "love languages," or ways that people feel love.  Ilaiasi's "love language" is Quality Time.  In other words, spending time with him is the thing that makes him feel most loved, and even if you do lots of other things to show your love for him, if you don't spend quality time with him he will not feel like you truly love him.  As you can probably guess, my three little runts have made spending quality time with Ilaiasi somewhat difficult lately, and I really believe his acting out can be directly attributed to my inability to focus my attention on him like I used to.  So, even though he can't be the sole center of my universe anymore, we spent a little quality time together yesterday, and I hope Ilaiasi went away from the experience feeling special and knowing that his mom loves him more than anything in the world.

No, really, I SWEAR they had fun at the playground today!

Brothers at play

Ilaiasi being a good big brother and playing with Ovaka