A Little Winter Whine

Gratitudes:

1. The wonders of email, instant messaging, Facebook, and other means of online communication that allow me to stay in touch with friends and family
2. Holiday themed movies that amuse and delight me year after year
3. My Pilates instructor, Jenny, who has amazing insight and an incredible ability to teach and connect with her clients.

If there was doubt before, this is no doubt now...it is winter. Last week we had bitter cold temperatures, which warmed up nicely over the weekend but are going to plunge again toward the end of the week. We also have snow. Lots of the fluffy white stuff. I'm not complainings as I am not the one who needs to clear the driveway and I have snowshoes to assist me if it happens to snow a lot just before a jaunt to the dog park.

What I'm not enjoying is the cold. It occured to me that I don't like extremes in temperature. I melt in humidity. I can't get warm in really cold weather. I told the husband that I want to move to Santa Barbara. It's close enough to mountains that we can get our snow fix and has seasons...I think. It's no the ocean, which would make me super happy. It's expensive so I think we would both need to sell the majority of our internal organs in order to afford the cost of living. Sigh. It's a dream. One I will hold close during the dark and frigid days of winter.

Gloomies Antidote - Adoration

Gratitudes:

1. Indoor heating in what is apparently the start of a new ice age
2. Roxanne St. Claire and her amazing Barefoot Bay romance/women's fiction series - I have much love for these books as not only great escapes but tenderly written stories that deal with some complex pieces of human nature
3. The delight and exuberance Velcro Dog displays whenever I return home from an absence of minutes to hours to days

I've been working long hours for the last four weeks. While this isn't a horrible thing, it does tend to throw life a little off balance. For example, it's the second week of December and I have exactly one Christmas present purchased. I hope everyone I exchange gifts with will be okay with the concept of Epiphany gifts.

We all need to put in our dues and there will be times I need to put in time at the office than I would like. I'm okay with this. However, the long hours mixed with this near apocalyptic cold snap we're having and the reduced hours of sunlight can make me want to stab something. A pleasure to be around, I'm not. So, I have started sequestering myself in the bedroom or the home office so I don't spread my gloom and doom to anyone else in my household, including the ever exuberant Velcro Dog.

Thankfully, his joy is boundless and even in my grumpiest of states, one look of his adoring eyes and the gloomies start to slip away. Having yourself a case of the gloomies or the grumpies? Take 5 minutes of unconditional adoration, rinse and repeat.