I’m grumpy. Yesterday I was all cozy and happy and warm and today I’m bite-your-head-off grouchy. Frailty, thy name is woman! Bah.

A lot of it has to do with one child who refuses to stop with the snarky. She spews venom, calls names, and doesn’t do any of the things she’s supposed to do. After coming downstairs from one of my many attempts at reasoning with her, I picked up a stool and heaved it across the kitchen.

But only in my mind.

Instead I slapped together more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the masses and made a speech about how rest time would be extra long because I was going to lose my mind if I didn’t get some peace and quiet.

But enough about that. I’m sick of wallowing. So … how about I tell you about my latest money making adventure fail?

Saying “latest” in relation to making money is kind of slap-your-knee hilarious because I NEVER embark on money-making adventures. I am so not entrepreneurial. But a friend of mine, a couple actually, told me about how they made all this money donating their plasma, so I decided to try it.

It wasn’t a quick or easy decision. The donation center is 25 minutes from our house, and two trips a week would make a noticeable wrinkle in our calm (GROUCHY) home routines. I talked to a number of people about it, called the center several times, scrutinized the calendar, and then went for it.

The first time I showed up at the place, I didn’t even get passed the preliminary sign-in because I had brought the wrong ID. (I took “original social security card” to mean The Original Social Security Card. But apparently there’s the little problem of a name change?)

The second time I went in (with a large white envelope stuffed with every scrap of identification I could find, from several copies of our marriage certificate [in case the paper wasn’t the right thickness or something] to insurance cards to passports), I made it passed the identification station only to get hung up at the finger prick place. My hemoglobin was 36 percent when it needed to be 38 or higher.

On the way home I stopped at a pharmacy for some iron supplements, and over the course of the next two weeks I popped pills, suffered upset stomach and constipation, and contemplated the wisdom of this new endeavor.

The third time I went to the center I made it passed the blood prick place (39 percent hemoglobin, yay!), got to enter my name in a drawing for an ipod touch, made it through the 30 minute computerized questionnaire in which I signed my life away, passed my physical (and got a bag of fish crackers and a bottle of water), and finally, finally made it onto the donation table.

The nurse hooked up the bags and wires and slapped my identification stickers all over the blood draw tubes before telling me to make a fist so she could check my veins. She poked about for a minute before saying, “Let me see the other arm.” She poked that one for just a minute, and then, “I think I need someone a little more experienced.”

Someone A Little More Experienced came over and poked my arms for just a second before excusing herself. I could see her conferring with someone out in the hall. Then she came back and chirped brightly, “We’re going to have to let you go today. Your veins are too small.”

She must have mistaken my confused What The—? look for disappointment because she said encouragingly, “What I suggest you do is go home and do some exercises to enlarge your veins. You can do things like squeeze a ball while you watch TV—that should help. And then come back and try again in a couple weeks.”

I thanked her and calmly gathered my stuff, but inside I was busting up all over the place. My veins were too small? Vein enlarging activities? Good grief, and yeah right, whatever! I stick my neck out, try to make a little money, and bam, I get told my veins are too small. Ha!

So I’m out ten bucks for the iron constipation pills, another ten or fifteen for gas, several hours for time, and I have nothing to show for it except a bag of orange fish crackers that I already ate. And the new self-awareness that I have small (does this mean they’re sexy?) veins.

Of course, there is the off-chance I’ll win that ipod touch…

This same time, years previous: the donut party, part one

It’s blustery and cold, but I’m sitting on the floor in front of the fire, warmed from top to bottom and inside and out by:

1. Coffee
2. Chocolate
3. A nap
4. The fire
5. My fuzzy blue hoodie
6. A quiet house because my husband just left to do The Kid Shuffle—dropping off kids that are not ours and picking up the ones that are, the end result of which will be our whole family, back home, for a movie and popcorn, and maybe some Hamlet, too.
7. The release and relief that comes from completing my obligations. Which, in this case, were:

a. church (I managed to wear matching boots!)
b. a potluck (I referred to my list and it was a headache free event, yay!)
c. a drama (my life is a drama, yes, but this was a staged drama)

Our church’s worship committee sent out a group email to some of us asking if we’d be willing to do some Biblical storytelling (which is a fancy way of saying telling the story instead of reading it). I was studying the email one morning, debating whether or not I wanted to go through the ordeal of getting up in front of the church and attempting to not embarrass myself, when I became aware that two boys, my son and his friend, were sitting at the table behind me slurping up their breakfast cereal. “Hey boys,” I said. “How would you like to do a drama for church some Sunday?”

“Yeah!” they shouted, fearless boy creatures that they are.

And so one afternoon during rest time I read through a couple different versions of the plagues and jotted down a sketch. The first time I read it through with my son, his whole face lit up. “You wrote this?” he said. “Wow! You’re good!”

His amazement startled me—it was just a rough little sketch, nothing fancy about it. But then I realized that he was seeing and understanding, perhaps for the first time, the act of composing, up close and personal. He’s read and listened to lots of stories, and he’s seen me type for hours at the computer, but never before (really? can this be true?) has he seen a story dreamed up, jotted down, and then brought to life with voices and facial expressions and movement—a story just for him and his friend. It was a light bulb moment for him. (That he thought I was endowed with magical powers just made it that much better.)

On the car ride to church this morning, just the two of us because we had to get there an hour early for another practice, I asked him if he was nervous.

“Not really,” he said. “I’m just excited. I wish I could do this every Sunday!” Seriously? Whose child was this? My husband has not one drop of actor blood in him, and I was up since five this morning, mulling over all the bad grammar and storyline inconsistencies and trying to dream up more ways to bring the sketch to life. How in the world did a child of mine escape the stage fright curse?

The boys pulled the drama off without a hitch. (There were a few cases of word garblage, but I don’t count those as “hitches.” They are 11-year-old boys, after all.) The mics worked, neither of them choked on the pita they were chewing, and they didn’t get a wild case of the giggles or mess up the order of the plagues. Oh, and neither of them fell down. So that was good.

Now the little adventure is over and I can bask in the stress-free calm. In fact, the feeling of relief and relaxation is so deep and marvelous that I think it might be worth it to stress myself out just so I can have this peaceful little Sunday afternoon buzz I’m tripping out on.

This same time, years previous: pulled braised beef, serious parenting

What do you look like when you’re reading about the history of artillery and dreaming up ways to improve the monstrous crossbow that you parked on your mother’s porch?