Yay - Back to Business as Usual!

My sister and I were talking on the way to the hardware store to pick up some shelving today, about how we are seeing people lamenting the end of the holidays on the various social networking sites. It almost makes me feel guilty. Not quite, but almost. We've been there. In times past, I've worked the shift work, the holidays, and the 13 twelves followed by a single day off for months on end. It's not that I don't appreciate how precious those days off can be. It's just that these days I love my work more. Jerusalem artichoke seedheads still on the stalk.

We are with family every day, so holidays are no different for us in that department. We did take a few days off during the last week or so, but not completely, and not necessarily by choice. There have been 4 days without mail service in the last 9, so that kind of made it necessary.

Over the holidays, we eat too much (although *I* was pretty good this year...), watch too much blather on tv, and just generally feel somewhat restrained waiting for the year to end and get the heck over with already. The kids (hah - 19 and 24) are getting restless, and that's never a good omen because they usually come up with things for *us* to do. Vitex berries that the birds are saving for a colder day.

The bottom line is that we love what we do. We wake up every morning chomping at the bit to see what work awaits, what orders need to be prepared, what might be showing outside, and what new project we can get into. So while it seems that everyone else is dragging their feet wishing that this week would never end, it can't be over soon enough for us.
We thank our lucky stars almost daily that we have chiseled out this life for ourselves. It's really hard to call it work.