Confusion cloaks my body when I'm struggling with SAD (and it's exactly what it sounds like ssssaaaaddd).  I wander around the house in circles, picking up and putting down the same kitchen towel, moving it 3 inches everytime.  I walk in a circle around the house, pick up one item, put it away.  And then I'm back at the towel, picking it up and moving it just a bit.  The towel looks funny where it is but I walk back around the house and see something else that catches my interest or piques bother.  And so it goes.
Running errands can be just as bad.  Walking down an aisle, I stop at an item on my list, and I'm plagued with doubt.  When I'm getting enough sunlight and greeness in my life, I would just pick it up and move on.  But the clouds of winter muddy my mind and I stand staring at the pretzels.  "Is $2.89 too much to pay on pretzels?" (I've done it many, many times before without thought.)  "Would the kids like a different pretzel this time?  Why not just get the ones you usually get?"  I leave without any pretzels.  I glance down the cracker aisle.  I don't have the strength and walk on.  "They can eat oranges," I think.
Earlier this week I took decisive action and asked my doctor for a low dose of antidepressant.  I don't love taking medications.  I try to live in a way that I'm healthy enough not to need them.  But I realize sometimes I do need them.  And so I'll take a little white pill for the next 3 months.  I'll order that sun lamp I mean to buy each year and sit by it, soaking in the nourishing light.
Each week, I'll watch out my window in hopes that I will see new green shoots.  I'll watch the forecast. I will lace up my running shoes and run in the dark, dark cold morning.  I will watch each morning for the soft glowing outline of the eastern mountain peeks.

Sledding w/o Snow

There hasn't been any snow this season (no complaints from me) but the kids have been anxious to sled.  Here's our snowless version of sledding ...

Thoughts

What I want to know, is why The Lord of the Rings Trilogy hasn't been made into a Broadway musical yet.  I mean, come on!  Can't you just see Golem crooning a ballad about his Precious?

"PREEEcious!  Pressssus!  Precious, precious Precious."

This all came to mind as I considered DH's statement that he'd be happy with tickets to anything in his stocking.  Including this? I wondered.

Dali Dream/Life

Note:  I wrote this at midnight 2 days ago on my iPhone ...
I'm stuck in a room with a sick little girl who won't let me leave the room. So I guess that means I have to to pick out apost on my phone! This could interesting.

This afternoon I had a 2 1/2 hour nap that end at 6 this evening. I woke up to the sound of Honey banging on my door and I was completely disorientated. One glance at the clock told me it was 6, and judging by the complete darkness I was immediately convinced it was 6 am. Did I have dinner and not remember? Was it morning? Honey was the first one up, not so unusual I thought. Everything seemed upside down. I couldn't remember anything happening the night before. What did I do that I couldn't remember? After realizing it wasting Saturday I thought I probably just had my closet experience with a hangover that I'll ever have.

Last night was our church Christmas party. I actually avoided being ill (though it's here now ... Yay! I could use to lose a quick 5 lbs.). The party went smoothly, it was the pre-party that was bit rough. Little C has gotten really good at identifying the times when Mom's hands are full, so it's a great time to create chaos.

As I was trying to get the 3 hams out of the house and into the car, he whipped Honey into such a frenzy. They were tearing up and down the halls screaming as I'm trying to shout over them, "get into the car!" All of which was ignored by C, by Honey obliged. He got into the van, locked the doors and layed on the horn. Not a polite "toot, toot." but and unyielding continuous blare. I believe he learned it during our last trip to Utah, where we dubbed such a honk as a "Utah Honker" because we heard it more than once. Of course, the keys were nowhere to be found. I'm frantically searching and quietly swearing until they were found and the little honker removed. He did get a spank for that one.

We are laughing about it now. At the time I was laughing too. But man, that kid! I can't figure him out. His face looks like he was mugged. He ran away twice this week. Both times he was headed for the open road, once to go to the store and the second time to go to the church.

Guess what Santa might be bringing him? A GPS chip implant. I worry all the time that he'll get seriously injured or frozen outside because he slipped out of the house.

Any advice from moms who have had runners?

Bestill My Heart (put me out of my misery)

The Worst Movie I've Seen This Year?  If you guessed the harrowing Twilight film, you're right.  Harrowing?  In its acting, its special effects and its plot development, yes.  But at the same time, comical, when it didn't mean to be comical.  The score! And the labored dialogue!  It all made it seem too much like a bad Lifetime movie made in Chinese and dubbed in English.

I now see why Kristin Stewart's handlers made sure her new film was already in the can as this one start to play ... because she would have seen two deaths ... mortality and the death of her career when the first installment of Breaking Dawn hit the big screen.

I think the only thing that made the $10 ticket price worth it was getting sit next to a friend who thought it was just as horrible as I did.  If I had been surrounded by Twihards sighing and gasping at the overly dramatized dialogue, I might have tried to drive a straw through my heart.

Honey's Sweet Bday

Honey is 3!  Our birthday wishes for him are ...

1.  That he survives this next year.

2.  That Little C finds another rag doll to toss around.

3.  That he doesn't get any more ER visits.

And one to grow on ...

4.  That he doesn't actually try to fly off a roof, fence or other high object (because he thinks he can fly).

Pinning myself down

I've jumped on yet another time-sucking digital interest ... Pinterest.

I'm enjoying the fun of searching and putting the cute things I see in one place.  But in the few days I've been doing this there are few things that are bugging me.

1.  With all this searching I'm feeling really unhappy about what I have in my life.  I am after all looking a lot at what other people have and WANTING.  Isn't that one of the commandments?  Thou shalt not covet?  I know I already have a problem in this department.  Maybe it needs to be limited to like one day a week.

2.  Every time I find more craft projects or things to sew, I start to feel a bit stressed out.  Because my list of projects to finish is already longer than my arm, adding to it makes me feel like there's not enough money or time for anything.

3.  Which brings me to point 3, Where's reality on Pinterest?  Really, we all don't have $300 to spend on one great outfit.  Or $500,000 to remodel our houses into mansions.  Or even $50 to blow on a craigslist find we need to rebuild, repaint and reuse.  This has long bothered me about the blogdom.  Which has me thinking I need to add a board to my pins: "The Real World."  And there I will put pins of what my life is actually like (which means there will just be a lot of pictures of laundry piles and messy desks).

All that being said, it is fun to have that creative spark relit.  I just need to make sure that it doesn't fan into a forrest fire of the greed, anger and envy (deadly sins, anyone?).