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The Winter Doldrums


heidiiiii

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What things do you do to make sure the drabness of winter does not drag you down?

I have a stack of books as high as Perla`s eye. I love to read under the covers this time of year.

I like to do some house hold project that I have been putting off

Working on a dollhouse or a new mini project can always make the dark hours go by faster!

Looking at gardening catalogs and dreaming..maybe even filling out the sale form.

What do you do to forget that it is cold, dark, and wintery outside??

I also dream about Spring!!

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Get outside if the sun is out-that always cheers me up, even if it's cold. I crave sunlight in the winter.

Light the fire in the fireplace, get in my jammies, and enjoy being cozy and safe.

Work on almost any project (not chores, projects).

Cook something that simmers all day and makes the house smell good.

Sleep!

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I grab all those seed catalogs and begin to dream. I love planning my little flower gardens and this year I am planning on expanding one of them. I can't wait. Today would have been a fab day here in SC to get an early start, but I had to work. Hmmm...perhaps I should check the forecast for tomorrow. :)

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I like to read. It doesn't take much work, just grab a book, crawl under the covers and read away. I get so down sometimes in the winter that it is hard for me to really get into anything. I'll get everything set up for some mini project. Get the paint out, sand paper, glue, or what ever than I just don't have the heart to do anything. So I just love crawling into bed with a good book.

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Ha! Chocolate is on my list too,along with a new supply of books-am drooling over the mini books I got for Christmas,(the Chicago Art Museum Book and a grand book from the Lodders,plus 3 mystery books concerning dollhouses) I haven't started any new project yet. Am trying to fix this site on my computer

and it seems to be taking much of my time. Of course it helps that our weather is back up to the 50's and 60's again!!

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I find winter very depressing. I have a small space at the top of our stairs where I have my house plants. I have a flourescent light hanging there and a small desk top fountain. I sit on the top step, with a cup of tea, turn the fountain on and play a cd with birds chirping and day dream away. I try to learn a new skill each winter. This year it is learning to knit with double pointed needles and learning to weave. I do my ind epth house cleaning too. take on a big cleaning project or going thru papers and cleaning out files. I have to keep my days very structured and busy or I would just hide under the quilt with a big bag of snacks until spring. Now I am looking at seed catalogs and deciding what I should grow for this years farmer's market.

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I have pretty bad seasonal affective disorder, so this can be rough....I have been trying to spend time on my minis and when I start making progress, it makes me so excited, I don't feel like sleeping all day long,lol (I've got a light, but it's a smaller one, and it's hard to sit in one place long enough for it to do any good, I feel)

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hibernate til spring...

fantasize about moving somewhere where its warm and sunny almost all the time...

eat chocolate while sitting under my sunlamp (those 10, 000 lux kind used to simulate real sunlight)...

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I clean and organize. This is NOT a normal activity for me...only in January. I love the after-holiday quiet and simplicity. I get the urge to tackle closets and bins. I veg with books/knitting/drawing projects. We get the houseplants in shape and fertilized for Spring. We sleep later on the weekends and enjoy lounging in pjs with coffee and felines.

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I stay in the house more or less except to go for groceries or to pick up library books I ordered. I have to go to the mall to return something I bought by mistake a couple of weeks before Christmas, but it's still sitting in a bag in the dining room. I'll have to go sooner or later, I guess, but I hate to leave the house in winter.

Actually, days aren't so bad, as we got lots of sunshine here, but I hate afternoons after 3:00. It gets dark so early, and the sun comes up late. I've been really tired and run down since early November. I often want to go to sleep by 8PM.

Otherwise I don't get a lot of time to sit around, unless I'm just too tired to do anything else.

I usually start to perk up a little in early February, though.

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Sounds like you could suffer from SAD (seasonal affect disorder..? is that it?) They have lights you can buy that actually help perk you up.

I am just dealing with Barometer Syndrome. Whenever a storm is rolling in, my body tells me beforehand and during.

Today is one of those days. Ugh!

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You should live here Heidi. Even the cats have cabin fever - this morning they had a huge ruckus on the stairs..... The dog upchucked on the carpet. Doug has the flu/cold again. We haven't left the house in two days now. I get rid of the doldrums by doing minis - sometimes all day. Sometimes all night. When the wild winds blow around the windows and the panes crack and snap from the cold, when the snow hits the windows like rocks.....I mini. Or I read about doing minis. Or I come here. Or go there. Or explore the internet looking for ideas for minis. But when I really get depressed, I go down in the basement, open the door and fling myself out into the snow bank down there. It helps.......it cools you off - especially when the hot flashes hit.

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Trying to picture a Wolf flinging herself in a snowbank...sounds like fun!

I so want to do minis right now. I just cannot sit long enough to do anything substantial yet. I did take apart the pieces to one of the 24th scale houses that I have in the box. I am going to slowly work on it.

It is progress! I have not been able to really sit down and do anything since the summer.

I think I will do each of the six houses (from what i remember it is a village kit..greenleaf or corona concepts..cant remember).

I am not depressed at all. I am itchy, that is for sure. I am getting out because I have to work on my back.

I just wish for Spring. Enjoy the warmer days that make me think of March, and I have been cleaning. Deep under the couch (not literally..LOL) cleaning.

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We spend the weekends in an on site caravan and annex in a place here called Daylesford. Its a beautiful little town and the park we stay in has a lake and is surrounded by natural bushland. Sitting back in a cosy chair beside a fire with marshmellows and hot choloclate, :cocktail: waiting for the snow to come is how I spent last winter. Ive never actually seen snow so even thoe I wasn't there on the days it snowed it was still nice to know that I will inevidably get to see it one of these years.

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Hmmmm, throwing yourself into a snowbank - Now, isn't that how you're supposed to finish up after a sauna? Of course, with a good hot flash on top of central heating turned up a little too high, it can feel like a sauna!! :lush: Which is one reason I keep alternating between having the heat on (forced air and very hard on the skin and nose), and having the door open when I start gasping.... :cocktail:

I do tend to have more lights burning during the winter, even during the day, and even so take a LOT of naps - probably need to get out and walk around in the fresh air more. I need a kick in the rear to get me to go out when it's snowing or raining though, and can't count on Koko to do that for me. And yes, lots more chocolate - but that works year-round! :stereo:

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I fear the hot flashes to come in my future. I already am a hot tamale so it is going to be torture. I love the cold (not extreme cold) but I can live with a nip in the air. The kids are shivering (big ole babies) and I am in a t-shirt and sweats. Just perfect.

Talking to a couple of my friends online, I am not the only one that seems to be feeling kind of extra itchy and leathery this winter. I use lotion. Just for some reason this year..I am oh so itchy!

I have a Dr appt beginning of next month, maybe I will ask him if he has any samples of some good lotion I can try. I like to try it first because I can break out easily.

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It's because it''s been so much colder than usual around most of the country, and that's tough on skin. Being a transplant from The Great Rainy (Seattle) to a much dryer climate, my skin really has felt the difference - I use much more lotion than I used to. Even worse is how the inside of my nose is; first winter here was just awful, then I think I got used to the greatly reduced humidity. But this winter it's been horrid, and really, really painful. Hoping it heals up in the spring....maybe I SHOULD go hunt up a sauna, just for all that lovely steam!

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To digress just a bit: hot flashes ... I had one. Yes, one! One day my sis complained of hot flashes. She's two years younger than I. It occurred to me that I hadn't had any hot flashes nor had even thought about the problem. Later that day, I had a doozy of a hot flash -- pouring sweat, the vapors, the whole works. And that was IT. I chalk it up to the power of suggestion and the fact that I'm an incredibly lucky person. :cocktail:

I, too, have dry skin and have been suffering in the dry air of winter, even when running a cool mist humidifier. I swear by Gold Bond Ultimate Healing lotion. It's thicker than the more watery hand lotions -- more like gel toothpaste, comes in a tube -- so it coats and stays in place to do its job. Try it -- you'll like it! :stereo:

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This winter I'm getting very dry ichy skin directly under my eyes. Along my lower lashs. This has never happened to me before and it's driving me nuts. I'm trying olay age defying revitalizing eye gel and switched to almay one coat nourishing mascara. But so far they are not working. I usually experience a little dry skin in the Winters but this is something new. If it doesn't start getting better soon I'm going to have to go to the doctors and I really don't have the money for that.

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