Take that Winter Blues!!!

I have had a little case of the winter blues. I seem to get them every winter ever since I left Southern California and actually have experienced winter, but it seems worse this year. The past two winters I have had a new baby to invest all my energy into and be excited about, but this year there isn't a major life altering event to distract me from the long long winterness that is January and February. However, I had a break through in my fight against the winter blues these past few days that I thought I should share in case someone out there is like me and needs a little pick-me-up. It has two parts to it.

Here it goes: So, I have decided to be a stay at home mom and that means I better be happy with what that means - - - It means I stay at home a lot! Novel, I know, but still this hit me as rather a break through. I shouldn't be hating and fighting the fact that I am at home quite a lot but rather just go with it, and except it. I have to give myself permission to not have to be dreaming up places to go to just so I can be going. And it has actually worked, I am glad I am at home right now and not racing about with tired hungry babies and deadlines and appointments but rather sitting at my computer typing away saving myself gas money.

The second part of my victory over winter is thus- I can pretend it is summer! I know that sounds so lame but it has been working for me. I knew that if I wasn't feeling happy I should change things in my life but for some reason thinking about changing my life seemed so hard and un-doable but thinking about pretending its summer seemed like a game that I could very easily do. It seemed so much easier, that all I had to do is simply brighten my wintery days. I have started to cook summerish foods. I have been turning on all the lights in my house. For inspiration I watched our home videos from this summer. I realized I seemed to wake up earlier, always have music going, go running a lot, do lots of play groups, swimming, and playing. I was surprised to find that it really is a laid back time like my winter seems to be just with a little jolt of sunshine. So I am starting a play group in my ward, we went swimming the other day for Bridger's birthday, the radio is currently on, and I have been crawling on the floor with the kids more this past week then I have since I was a baby. So if you need a little change to get through these last months of winter then maybe you can pop in your summer home videos, throw on your swim suit in the shower while you blast your favorite jams on your stereo and you'll be smiling all the way through February!