top ten list

... of things that are annoying the living daylights out of me right now. You might want to skip over this whiny self-indulgence and come back in a few days. If I don't get these things out of me right now, however, I might just explode in a million little pieces all over the newly-painted walls.

10. The painters. They are doing a very good job and working at a good pace, but I have decided that I am a pretty introverted person, and I need my personal space. Plus if they insist ONE MORE TIME that a high gloss finish on the natural colored woodwork is "more better" than the satin finish we have chosen, I will not be responsible for my actions.

9. Living at sixes and sevens. The tsunami of displaced junk in my house is threatening to drown me.

8. My teenage son, who is at his snarky, nastiest worst right now as those hormones rage.

7. The constant litany of "what ifs" with respect to the lamb we lost on Thursday night. What if we had gotten there 10 minutes earlier? What if we had realized she was in labor? What if I had gone out to turn off the heat lamp at 7 pm as I meant to? This list is crazy-making.

6. Having to tutor smack in the middle of the day today, so that my teenage student can sleep in.

5. Finding out that the puppy badly mauled the bottom rung of one of our kitchen chairs, and even worse, knowing it was all my fault because I was the one who gave him the run of the kitchen, not having learned my lesson from the previous maulings of the kitchen cabinet corners.

4. The color of the paint in the hallway. I hate painting because I hate picking out paint colors. Invariably we end up with a color that looks nothing like the paint chip, and I spend months obsessing about how much I hate it. Last time, we picked out the exact color of drywall, but lived with it for seven years. This year we picked out a color that, while warm and inviting, manages to clash with just about every other room in our house in a horrendous tangerine orange sort of way. It is even worse knowing it is all my fault because I stupidly failed to just hold the paint chip up to the walls in the various rooms to see if it went.

3. The color of the paint in the hallway.

2. The color of the paint in the hallway. (I am not just using up slots on my list; it really is bugging me that much.)

And the number one thing that is annoying me right now:

1. My complete and total inability to cope in a gracious and zen-like manner with all of the above. Yep, that's right: I am annoying the crap out of myself.