Woke up early... and contemplated the holidays

So, it's 10:32am central time and it is one of the few times in the last month that I have woken up before noon.  Sleeping over half the daylight away is not something that I consider quality use of my time, but I believe that I owe my nocturnal life recently to the holiday season.  I cannot remember a christmas break where I crawled through the finish line so exhausted as this one.  The two weeks leading up to Christmas was the busiest part of the year at the bar for Ruby Tuesday.  My hours were set to noon to "till the resturant began to empty" shifts that ended up being about nine and a half hours every friday, saturday and sunday.  Constantly running around getting people their booze fix or feeding them in a mad frenzy so they can refuel and return to shopping ended up wearing on me in the long haul  (Not to mention my desire to dabble in the festivities myself after I finished a shift).  I was wondering how I was going to find a way to slow down and relax naturally once the new year was over, but oddly enough my body found a way to shut me down completey.  Over the last four days I have had a whirlwind of mouth trauma that left me with a wisdom tooth extraction followed up with a root canal - both done before I was scheduled to work.  Now I have had my share of dental work growing up, but these last four days has redifined my threshold for oral pain.  Not to mention my tolerance for pain medecation.  I don't plan on making a habit out of codiene but that crap does the job of eliminating pain for a several hours as well as make you feel that your riding a magic carpet wherever you go...  the only downside is that you can pass out into an intense drooling sleep nearly instantly once you sit down.  So, hopefully the restless nights of sleep dreaming of dancing, circling flowers with faces all laughing at me are over.

Now why am I sharing all of this owl, hallucinogenic coma-like sleep past.  Well, since I have had this abrupt halt in my recent routine I finally have a chance to reflect on the better side of the season.  It was very warming to see a lot of the family during the Christmastime.  It's nice to know that Grandpa and Grandma are still so strong.  Did anyone else see Grandma trucking herself around on missions to be a part of the whole party?  And I still think Grandpa is tough enough to kick the crap outta me...  Plus, I love to watch Uncle Matt (with his Im Stressed t-shirt on) and Aunt Zuly chasing around and rearing their growing family.  Then seeing uncle Dan and his family come down from Traverse City for even just a couple of days puts a huge damn smile on my face (I think Dan and Laura are gonna have their hands full with all the help Molly and Maggie are going to need beating young gentlemen off with a broom).  I guess after all the holiday craziness is over going to Hahn houses for something as simple as a Wayne's pizza nite and seeing family interact so well helps me to be confident that one day, if I'm fortunate, I will be able to raise a family as well.    

Sorry for all the wind and happy healthy toothful days to all yall,

Charlie