I’ve been all kinds of grumpy the past few days.

A bunch of dumb stuff is driving me crazy and making me edgy and irritable.

Tonight when I looked at this mess of dishes, I literally wanted to throw them all out the side door and call it a day.

This KitchenAid mixer box has been sitting in the dining room for days.  I should move it to the basement where I’ll hold onto it for a couple months “just in case there’s an issue with the mixer.”

Seeing this box sitting there makes me all kinds of cranky, but apparently not enough to get me to haul it downstairs.

Dumb, I know.

Then there’s my half finished and wholly botched dining room table project.  The plan was to strip the paint off the top, sand it down and stain it a nice dark walnut color.  I figured a wood finish would be more forgiving and easier to maintain than the chipping and worn black paint finish was.

It probably would be except that I rushed the process and ended up with a blotchy finish that I tried to re-strip but ended up with this eyesore instead.

So, here the table sits.  Taunting me to finish what I started.  Every single day.

But, I can hardly stay awake during Grace’s nap time each day so I generally end up taking a long nap instead of doing anything productive.

These long naps?

They make me grumpy.

You’re shocked, I know.

You know what else makes me grumpy?

The overall state of my house.  The floors are dirty, the surfaces are dusty, the sinks filmy and the mirrors are spotty.  The corners are cluttered and the closets are a hazard.

Looking around at the mess every day and feeling zero energy to tackle it makes me crabby.

I’m starting to see a pattern here….

Just typing this all out is making me realize that I just need to push through, skip a nap or two and take care of business!

Why does that seem so impossible?

Housekeeping issues aside, Grace has been going through an emotional phase the past week or so.  She’ll cry at the drop of a hat and put up a fight over so many things that used to just be part of our routine.

I mentioned the diaper discomfort that has become a regular part of our day and the same kind of fit happens when her socks aren’t on right or I lift her into bed instead of letting her climb, or I cut her banana instead of leaving it whole or I don’t adjust her coat fast enough after buckling her into her car seat.

Normally I’m pretty patient with this kind of stuff because I’m particular about little things too, but lately I find myself biting my tongue so I don’t lash out at her.

Then there’s the loud neighbors across the street who put me over the edge.  I talked before about how annoying their car stereos are and how it drives me crazy when my walls shake from their music, but the other night, the loud booming music wasn’t coming from their cars.

It was coming from their house!  Mind you none of their windows or doors were open and neither were any of mine.  But my house was still shaking!

At 10pm on a Sunday night.

This is not that kind of neighborhood, and I wanted to make sure they knew it so I did what any other grumpy homebody would do.

I called the cops.

In about 10 minutes an officer came out and told them to keep it down.  I was of course crouching by my window watching the whole thing and probably deriving more pleasure from it than I should have.

But the music stopped.

Aaahhhh.

UNTIL a few minutes later when they got into their cars, blared the stereos louder than I’ve ever heard, and took off.

It felt like a snub to whoever called the cops, but it got them to take their noise elsewhere, so MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

And just tonight at our local library, I had another run-in with Mrs. Nasty (aka me).  Grace and I had a nice time playing in the kids area and doing almost all of their wooden puzzles again.

Things were going great until she started throwing a fit about not being able to take the stuffed kangaroo home.  Mind you this was a crying fit in a library that’s supposed to be quiet.

And, I thought we were over the kangaroo drama since she nicely kissed and hugged it and put it back in the toy box without an issue the last time we were there.

Not tonight.  Tonight she could hardly be reasoned with and I was totally irritated that we were making a scene in the otherwise quiet library.

To top that off, I was told during checkout that I had a $2.25 fine on my account.  I haven’t returned any books late, so I was baffled (and crabby) at hearing the news.  Turns out they don’t have a record of one of my books ever being returned.

What?!

I always return all my books.  It’s part of our regular routine and I’m pretty organized about it.

The librarian (who is always grumpy) tried to appease me by doing a “shelf check” to see if it had somehow gotten re-shelved without being entered into the system.

It had not.

So the implication was that I somehow still had the book.

Which I was sure I did not!

She told me that I’d have to pay $35 for the book + a $5 re-shelving fee if I was not able to produce the book.

I could probably order this book for $15 on Amazon!

So, I huffed and puffed and gathered Grace, her blankie, her puppy and our new stack of books and walked out telling the librarian that I’d figure out how I wanted to handle the situation.

Once we got to the car, I used the light from my cell phone to search underneath the seats in case it had somehow gotten lost in the car (unlikely).

Sure enough…no book.

All the way home I muttered under my breath about the situation.  Feeling trapped into having to buy a book I was sure that I returned.

I was totally irritated by the grumpy librarian and the missing book and all the other stuff that I just droned on about above.

As soon as we got home I made Grace a plate of dinner and stormed upstairs to my bedroom to look for the book.

You know, the one that was sitting on the bottom shelf of my nightstand.

Oy.