DBSKKMBAS Strikes Again

I have an affliction. It comes in a 12 oz cup. It doesn't strike very often (due in large part to budgetary restraints) but when it does, it strikes with a vengeance.

I like to call it Dutch Bros Skinny Kicker Keeps My Butt Awake Syndrome.

Aka DBSKKMBAS.

Ok, maybe that's a little unwieldy, but we dispatchers work in acronyms all the time and it's kind of a hard habit to break.

Speaking of dispatchers, I recently rescued my favorite mug from my 'lost my job and had to clean out my drawer' box and it is currently holding the Sweet Dreams tea that I am using to combat the DBSKKMBAS. It was a present from one of my fellow dispatchers in Baker (thanks Jill!) and had been retired from public life due to the fact that my boss would probably not appreciate the sentiment printed on it:

9-1-1: Trained to save your ass, not kiss it.

Heh heh, it still gets me every time.

But on to other thoughts. Like the following...

...is anyone else ridiculously relieved that the holidays are over? My relief mostly stems from the fact that I now have no "excuse" to eat like a pig anymore. There's no more 'but it's the holidays' creeping in the back of my head. On to more weight loss, starting with a (very scary) weigh-in tomorrow - I mean THIS - morning.

I'm also relieved to be done with all the planning and list-making that is involved when you are making most of your Christmas presents. While making said presents is incredibly fulfilling and much easier on the pocketbook, it also takes a LOT longer. That being said, I'm totally going to do it again.

Christmas was relatively relaxing (yes, I'm just NOW getting around to posting about Christmas) considering how many people were at our house. I had to work on Christmas Eve, while Nathan and the boys enjoyed dinner with my parents and grandparents here at our place. I did, however, get Christmas Day off, so we all slept in on Christmas morning and got to spend a little bit of time with just the four of us until my parents and grandparents arrived around 10. We did the whole stocking thing (stockings are a big deal in my family), had breakfast, and then proceeded to rip apart our presents while the boys took a VERY LONG nap. Their presents got piled under and around the coffee table...yes, there were THAT many presents for them.

At around 4, Nathan's dad joined us and got to watch the boys open their presents. Both Asher and Levi actually helped with the opening of some of their presents, until they got distracted by the toys coming out of them. What a huge difference from their first Christmas! Then we had an amazing dinner of prime rib, mashed potatoes, and Lawry's original recipe cream corn. Wow. Ask me to tell you about eating at the Lawry's The Prime Rib mansion in Chicago some time. I'll start to salivate and then eventually get around to telling you the story. Again, despite having a full house, the evening was very laid back and we were even graced with my father in law playing the guitar and singing for us while we made dinner. It doesn't get much better than that.

New Year's was more of the same. I had to work New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, both of which were remarkably quiet despite being a notoriously rowdy holiday. I got home at 11 on New Year's Eve, early enough to ring in 2010 with Nathan and his sister and her husband, who had joined us for the night. Nathan had uploaded all the short videos we had taken of the boys since they were born onto his new PS3 that he got for Christmas, and we watched a couple of them. I had forgotten just how tiny and helpless they use to be, my goodness! It literally brought tears to my eyes and caused me to demand that my sister in law gestate faster...

...speaking of which, I don't think I've written about this on here yet, at first because it wasn't public yet and then because of the holiday whirlwind, but I'M GOING TO BE AN AUNTIE! Kate and Eliot are expecting their first little one in June and I simply can't wait to have a newborn in my arms again...with the proviso that I get to give this newborn back to its parents when it starts to squall. No, baby fever has not hit me and I don't see it hitting any time in the foreseeable future, so don't ask. Not happenin'. Two is enough, thank you very much.

Oh, and did I mention that we got snow here on Tuesday? According to the weatherman that morning, we were only suppose to get a couple wet flakes transitioning into rain. Instead, we got about three or four inches worth...which THEN transitioned into rain. Pretty much all traces of it are now gone, but not before a snowman 'magically' appeared on the patio at work, complete with broccoli eyes, a celery mouth, a carrot nose, and a fireman jacket. I love working with people who have such an awesome sense of humor! Unfortunately, by the time we got back to work the next day, Mr. Snowman was reduced to a couple small piles of snow surrounded by vegetables. At least I can say I got one snow-fall in this winter!

Ok, I have to get up in about 4 1/2 hours, so I should probably call this good. Sorry there aren't any Christmas photos to post, but we didn't take our camera out all day (bad photographers!) and I have yet to nab any photos from my parents, grandparents, or Nathan's dad. We'll get them eventually...and a goal for this year is to get our online family photo album updated. Yeah. Bear with me on that one.

Night!