My Four Lovely Days Off Are Over.

Damn.

The days absolutely flew, filled with shopping and cooking and eating too much, and last night I sat down on the couch for a minute while waiting for a load of clothes to dry, and woke up with an aching back at 4 a.m. Tomorrow it's back to work, and the days will be long. Still no winning lottery ticket, dammit. So unfair.


My mostly pre-prepped genius dinner plan still somehow involved spending a lot of time in the kitchen and doing a ton of cleanup, and by the end of the evening I swore the only thing I'd make next year is reservations. I sent the leftovers home with Delaney & Co. I'm back on the whole food plant based wagon starting now. I have potatoes baking in the crock pot (Where has this idea been all my life?) and a freshly stocked fridge full of fruits and vegetables. I'm about to take the pita bread I just pulled from the freezer and turn it into nearly no fat pita chips. I love pita chips, but even the baked ones are greasy and caloric. I'm on the healthy wagon again, and in the nick of time I think. I've been awfully lax about eating right and exercising, and I'm feeling it.

Not a million Christmas photos this year, but I did have to share just this one:

That's Delaney, unwrapping her newest Barbies. I got her these two: Game Developer Barbie (I LOVE HER SO MUCH!!! I showed her to one of my co-workers and she immediately ordered one for her niece) and a nurse. I am very much over people who are all sanctimonious about things like Barbies and Disney Princesses not being good feminist role models; their opinions are decades out of date. To further emphasize this point: When Delaney unwrapped the "nurse" she looked at her scrubs and stethoscope and announced excitedly: "She's a doctor!"

You bet your ass she is honey. She's a doctor if she wants to be. My daughter looked at me and said we don't have to worry about Delaney's generation. A woman in scrubs is as likely to be a doctor as a nurse, and these girls are growing up with Disney Princesses who don't wait around for a prince to rescue them. They'll be fine, if we don't allow the educational system to be destroyed.

I love the way the house looks when decorated for Christmas, but damn, at this point I wish I could wave a wand and make it all go back into its boxes and down to the garage. I envy Mrs. Weasley.

It's not even 5 o'clock but it feels much later. That's what waking up at FOUR FREAKIN' AM does to your day.