Januweary

Day 9/366: This Block Protected by a Laughing Hot Dog
Originally uploaded by Rozanne.

Grayness + rain + more than usually inflated spare tire around my middle = the mid-January slump. Fuzzy math, I know, but I'm feeling a bit out of sorts. I'm sure if I were to look back through my archives I'd find that I write a blog entry about the January blahs every January—probably at just about this time—but I am feeling too lazy to go back and check.

Root Causes

1. Eating fudge, chocolate espresso beans, ice cream, cheese, and cookies, cookies, cookies with an utter lack of restraint during the month of December.

2. Spending long hours sitting on my duff hunched over knitting projects instead of tackling not-fun projects that need be done (ranging from painting a cabinet to making a will to researching roofing companies [our house needs to be reroofed--a tear-off job. Yoikes]). While there's nothing wrong with doing a bit of knitting, I can see that I'm using it as mode of procrastination.

3. Being somewhat in limbo with current work projects. This isn't anything major, but I'm spending way too much time obsessing over what may or may not happen.

4. Worrying about the future of society, the economy, and the environment. I can't seem to convince myself that it can be anything other than frighteningly bleak. Can you?

***

I don't enjoy feeling like this, and I wouldn't say that I'm even depressed or anything, just focusing on obsessing about the wrong things.

At the moment, things are fine. Really. I have a great life. I'm in good health. I have a job I like. None of my friends or loved ones is ill or dying. I'm under very little stress, so I'd better enjoy life to the fullest (while I can), right? It's just that it's been hard to motivate myself to do stuff. I need to stir up some energy, so here's what I've prescribed for myself:

• Do a three-hour yoga workshop this Sunday (billed as "antidepressant yoga").
• Take a snowshoeing trip next weekend.
• Walk every day. (This is helping—even though I've sometimes had to dress from stem to stern in waterproof clothing.)
• Keep doing Project 365/366--I am getting way more enjoyment out of this than I ever anticipated. I highly recommend it for anyone who owns a camera.
• Avoid as much as possible all the hoo-ha over the primaries. I'll wait to get involved in political work until after the candidates have been nominated, and I know who the heck we're dealing with. (Will the DNC please stop calling me and sending me a shiteload of mail until then?)
• Plan a vacation to Yellowstone National Park. How is it that we've never been there? And how is it that we didn't even go on a vacation last year?
  
• Limit myself to one slice of bread a day and one beer a week. This is going to be tough!
  
• Eat lots more root vegetables!
• Make sure I do one fun/rewarding thing for myself every day while at the same time getting one onerous task (from my long list of onerous tasks that I've been putting off forever) out of the way.

Wish me luck!