Bead Therapy

You might remember that I posted about wanting to make hairbows a few weeks back. Well, I started making hairbows. And I won't say that I have a knack for it, but I will say that I don't suck. I do it well enough that I'm making all of Bug's hairbows. I've gotten some compliments. I'm good with that. I can deal with compliments.

My kids have had a five-day weekend, and tomorrow is the last day of that. It has been all that I can do to get them through this period alive. A friend of mine told me that she tells her kids "I love you all individually. Collectively, not so much." I. Can. Relate. My children are wonderful, beautiful, incredible human beings - on their own. But when you get them together, they're a pain in the ass that  a hemorrhoid the size of a grapefruit could not compete with. This is especially true with my boys. Any other combination of my kids is A-OK. But if you get my boys together, with or without Katie, it's mind-numbing in its repetitiveness of "stop hitting your brother. Stop smacking your brother. Stop taking things away from your brother. Leave your brother alone. Go play with something on the other side of the room. Leave him alone. Don't hit your brother." Over and over and over again. I lose brain cells on this. And really, I've lost enough on Doc McStuffins and Thomas the Train. I don't have any to spare on this bullcrap. Ain't nobody got time for this. I'm just looking forward to Wednesday and getting back on my schedule. And getting rid of the temptation to duct tape my children to the wall.

There are times, when I'm preparing for a show, that I burn myself out on headbands and barrettes. I will make so many in such a short time that my fingers crack and ache, and I get to the point where I'd rather french kiss a rattlesnake than make another stupid headband. So I'll put it down for a few weeks, just sick to death of it. After a few weeks, though, I'll find myself getting antsy, and I won't know why. I'll just have this vaguely dissatisfied, restless feeling that I can't put my finger on. It'll go on for a couple of weeks. All of the sudden, it will hit me, and I'll feel like the biggest dumbass on the planet...I need to create. So I'll pull out my beads and whip up a headband...and yeeeeeeah...that's what I needed. There's no feeling quite like looking at something pretty, something that you'd pick up at a craft show to admire, something that you would spend money on, something that you'd compliment on someone else....picking up that thing, holding it in your hand and knowing that you made it. It's a proud, heady feeling. I think, in crafting, it's second only to someone else finding your craft so desirable that they buy it from you. I still get a thrill from every sale I make.

Anyway, I'm coping with the kids being home by beading. I've made three barrettes today and have a headband strung, waiting to be beaded. I fully intend to semi-ignore the kids tonight after dinner, let them destroy the living room, and happily bead my headband. Yep. They can tear it up. Yep yep yep. I'm gonna do that. (No I'm not. I talk a big game, but I'll end up waiting til they go to bed and tearing my hair out until then.)

I attempted a semi-gourmet dinner tonight. As gourmet as one can be in the crockpot. Way more gourmet than usual for us, however. It's better than chicken nuggets, at any rate. Wish us luck. And shoot me a little courage to actually make something tonight instead of refereeing, would you?