As a rule, I love winter. Really. I enjoy the crisp air, the plethora of soups that I make, cuddling under a warm blanket, and all the other really cliché ways of loving winter.
But, dear god, when it gets to this time of year, I am flat-out over it. I’m tired of wearing the same clothes (huge closet of clothes and I honestly wear the same 10 pieces over and over). I’m tired of wiping dirty dog feet every single day. And I am really tired of the way the house smells. After a long winter of closed doors, cooking, and five wet dogs, well, it’s just gross. I need open windows and sunshine!
But, where I live, mid-January means we can count on at least another six weeks or so of winter. At this time of the year, we all get antsy, grumpy and a just a little psycho. There’s not much to do except settle in and try to outlast winter and its misery.
Perhaps it’s the cabin fever, but I’ve resorted to looking for different ways to help carry me through the next couple of months. By focusing on things other than the weather, I am hoping that I’ll be able to remain a little closer to sane and bearable for my family. (Let’s not get their opinion on this that, o.k.?) At the very least, doing these things allows me to while away some of the very, very, very long days left of winter.
I’m sure you can come up with other creative activities, also. To jump start your thinking, I’m sharing some of the ones that I personally have tried.
Do a puzzle.
Heads up: find a place to do it that isn’t commonly used for other things (hint: avoid the dining room table). Pieces will go missing. And, if you’ve got pups or kids around, they will absolutely find those pieces for you. Sounds like good news, right? Nope. You’ll get them back with distinct tooth marks all around. I might be speaking from experience here.
Do a photo shoot of your pets.
I mean, you feed them, care for them, and basically pay their entire way, so it just seems fair that you should be able to use them for your own amusement every now and then, right? It’s most fun when you get pix when they’re being or looking goofy (which also doubles as payback for the puzzle debacle, after all). The catch is knowing when to stop. Some of us might be prone to overdoing it.
Learn how to do magic tricks.
No, you cannot use it to make your kids or pets or partner disappear. No, not even for just a minute. Well, o.k., maybe for just a minute. But I’m not responsible if you end up pulling off some sort of Outlander move.
Take up a new hobby.
There will never be a better time to turn on a Bob Ross video and start painting. Just grab some cheap inexpensive supplies online and take off. So a few hints. Some sort of easel helps. If you’re going to reconfigure your husband’s expensive light stands for the job, do it while he is not home and can’t catch you. Next, plastic on the rug in the family room is probably a good idea. Third, dogs and painting don’t mix well. Just saying. Finally, you likely won’t achieve perfection anyway, so you might as well uncork a bottle or two of your favorite red. It will help dull the ache when you realize that even Bob himself can’t make you into a painter.
Learn how to open a bottle of wine without a corkscrew.
This is a true life hack that will come in handy. Like when you are trying to drink wine while you paint and the cheap corkscrew breaks when you’re trying to open the second bottle. YouTube has tons of videos showing clever ways to get it out. If push comes to shove, just know that you can literally just dig it out. And remember that a little cork in your drink never hurt anyone (well, it didn’t hurt me, at least).
As I’m reading through this, I realize that, perhaps, doing these things are possibly the cause for my winter anxiety. Perhaps all of us will be better off just binge watching Grey’s Anatomy and resigning ourselves to weeks more of cold, damp weather.
If you have better activities that can help, I’d love for you to leave them below. If nothing else, you might be helping me add to things I am willing to try that will likely cause my family to laugh at me. There is value in that for all of us. 🙂