Mindless Chatter - Sunday

I so hate Michigan.  I mean I hate it so much I sometimes have to fight back tears.  I realized while I was on vacation that I've done a great (not!) job of pushing DH away or just being totally closed off b/c I get so depressed during the winter.  Maybe I have that SAD thing, I dunno.  It's not so much the snow and the cold, but the constant gray and the lifelessness.  Yesterday I returned from Florida and in Kentucky they have grass, leaves, flowers on their trees....in Michigan it was snowing and I don't even see leaves beginning to bud.  I get so pissed off at the weather and even more pissed off that the weather has this effect on me, which affects my relationships in general.  This has been the worst winter, both for me personally and for this area of the state on record.  Most snowfall, most cloudy days (we have more cloudy days per year than Seattle), cold...enough is enough.

My mom says I have "grass is always greener" problem but I think she is wrong.  I have camped in the Florida Everglades (down south/west, Everglade City/Goodland area) during the height of the bug season and over the summer and I would take that ANY day.  On our vacation, I had my own little bedroom since I was the only "kid" along and I immediately shut off my AC vent and opened my window.  I cannot tell you how amazing it was to be lying in bed and feel HOT!  Last week was the first moment since early October that my nose and feet have not been cold.  My hair and my skin are thanking me.  They hate Michigan too.  It makes me itch over every inch of my body and my skin gets dry and peely.  I guess I just love being hot.  I have always loved Florida and the Gulf (been there over a dozen times for at least a week each) and was in east Africa during their summer and loved every second of it.

I can't wait to move....I won't even think about another winter here... 

Well, I did miss my dog a lot but I had a good vacation.  I didn't do nearly as much reading as I planned b/c my parent's friends are really into being out and about.  It wasn't always sunny, so we did some sight-seeing instead of being at the beach all day.  We went to Seaside where they filmed Truman Show, drove around to check out some new vacation areas, checked out some campgrounds, went to the mall, and did some hiking tours of Eden Gardens.  The guys caught lots of mackerel and got crabs in their crab traps.  My dad and his friend to paint jobs on the side when they need extra money and a long time ago they did a paint job in return for this big old fishing boat, so we pull that down each year.  They were going to take us ladies on a dolphin cruise on the last day, but the boat broke down so we spent the day at another beach instead.  I took a few hundred pics and will post some of them later on tonight.

The house was a mess when I got home.  DH had his sister, her fiance, and his mom over to play Wii and they totally rearragned my living room to accomodate the Wii playin!  I've been re-rearranging, vacuuming, doing dog laundry, and other chores all day.  I'm going to work out, shower, hit Target for a wedding gift, then hopefully have enough stamina to clean out our car (needs to be vacuumed and carpet clean the back seat) and take Kenya for a long walk if it doesn't start raining or snowing again.

Lies there definitely is something to SAD.  I was terribly affected by the gloomy miserable weather in Manchester, UK.  I didn't realize how badly it's impact was until we moved to NC.  I knew something was wrong because I just didn't have the vibrancy I normally have and was reluctant to do anything in the evenings.  It rained all the time and was gray constantly.  In the winter it was dark by 3pm, I never, ever wanted to go out after coming in from work.  I think the very worst was that there was no summer - ever.  So it was green and flowers came out but the first year I tried to grow tomatoes and not one ripened in an entire summer

Ah well I'm glad you got some sun and warmth.  i do not envy you in that climate.  My favorite climate was Charlottesville, VA.  It gets a bit too hot for too long here, for me, but I will take it over the misery of one bleak day after another.

Ouchies on the broken nose.  I thought Bugsy broke mine last year when we were playing and he hit it with his rock hard head.  But my nose is like steel  

 It is very much real.  I know many many people around here that HAVE to go south during the winter.  We get down to about 6-7 hours of daylight during the dead of winter and it really really does effect people.  I have my desk right in front of the window where I get the most sunlight during the day and sometimes that isn't enough.  I go through times in the winter where I'm in bed by 7 because I just don't want to be awake anymore.  A friend of mine works at a tanning salon and she says lots of people are told to go there during the winter by their doctors.  I'm not sure if that's true or not, certainly my doctor has never told me to go out and get a tan...but then i've never brought any of this to his attention either.

 I sooooooo used to feel exactly the same way. I mean, I could not stand to stay another winter. But somewhere along the way, I decided to just suck it up and deal with it because I didn't really want to move away from family and friends.  So, imo get out while you can. You can always come back.

I just make the best of it. I try to get out as much as possible, no matter the weather. When I start feeling REALLY bad (like you are now), I hit the tanning salon for some artificial light and heat. Not to get tan, but to get that sunlight. It really helps.

My ideal climate would be Hawaii. No lie. 70 degrees year round. That just sounds too good to be true.

Anyway, I just did some disc dogging with Neiko. I've been keeping his training sessions really short. Like 5 tosses and we're done so that he keeps wanting more. Today it really paid off. I'd toss 5 discs then go take a break, so on and on. He was really antsy! We played for 45 mins like this and he was working hard for those frisbees! It was awesome. 

Of course, this was after I got all the dogs a free bath at MSU. Neiko got another bath when we got home - poor guy. 

Liesje

in Kentucky they have grass, leaves, flowers on their trees....

Yes, but yesterday it was so cold here!! We have been hovering somewhere around 69-74 this whole week and it has been marvelous.

Liesje

We went to Seaside where they filmed Truman Show

I've been there, and i loved it! We stayed in a house there a few years ago. There's a beach close to it- Santa Rosa beach that i was so in love with!!

RidgebackGermansShep

Liesje

in Kentucky they have grass, leaves, flowers on their trees....

Yes, but yesterday it was so cold here!! We have been hovering somewhere around 69-74 this whole week and it has been marvelous.

Ah but it felt lovely to me!  It was snowing/sleeting when we got to Michigan.  The parts of TN and KY we drove through were sunny and pleasant.  We took a detour around Nashville and took a bunch of back roads through the country.  I've always loved TN and KY, it's just too far from a coast for me.  It wasn't warm per se, but nothing compared to Michigan and upper Indiana.  Our high for today is 40 and for once it IS sunny!

Yeah, i love Kentucky (besides the really cold winters). I hope you got to drive through the Lexington/Versailles/Frankfort area...it's beautiful. I have a thing for the white plank fences and million dollar thoroughbreds! I know what you're saying about being far away from the coast though. I've been lucky that i prefer lakes to the beach, because we have some awesome lakes!

I've had the brisket smoking for a while and probably let it go another 2 hours or so. It's looking good and the patio smells wonderful with that mesquite wood.

I had to get more weed killer, kitty litter, asparagus. Washed the car. took stuff to the compost bin. DW is having a crappy day. She was on the way to work but her stomach made other plans. She thinks it stress from work but she got sick on the way home and had to stop on the side of the freeway. She's resting right now, though. Her problem is that the stress of work gets to her and it's not helped by the lackluster performance of the younger people that they sometimes get working there. They've got inventory looming ahead.

RidgebackGermansShep

Yeah, i love Kentucky (besides the really cold winters). I hope you got to drive through the Lexington/Versailles/Frankfort area...it's beautiful. I have a thing for the white plank fences and million dollar thoroughbreds! I know what you're saying about being far away from the coast though. I've been lucky that i prefer lakes to the beach, because we have some awesome lakes!

I personally hate KY. But only because I want to live somewhere that is warm/hot all year round. I never meant to stay in Ky after I graduated high school. But I had met JJ and didnt want to leave him. I have been bugging him the past few months to move. Not working. He loves it here. I'm only a 1 1/2  hours away from Lexington. I wish I could at least get him to move closer there so I could enjoy the white plank fences and the beautiful thoroughbreds. I always begged my parents to drop me off at one of the horse farms when we happened to be up that way. But they didnt seem to love me enough to do that.

Today is offiially the last weekend of tax season!  Yipeee!!!  I had a great weekend in the office and am finished with all the returns I will work on most likely, unless I need to hold my boss' hand tomorrow to get them done.  I just have to pay bills for the office, file a couple of reports and file all of the extensions and then I get to go on vacation!  I plan to get as much of that done tomorrow as I possibly can and then maybe I can even work on some of the looming payroll reports on Tuesday....

I got to leave a little before 5 today so I went by the store and got some beautiful thick cut bone in pork chops that hubby will be going out to grill in the next 30 mins.  I am making green beans, baked beans and cornbread along with it.  Yum, those pork chops are calling my name!

Oh, and I almost forgot, I think tonight is a new Desperate Housewives!  Whoohooo!

WOOOO HOOOO.. congrats Sarah!!  Now you will have some time in the evenings with DH and the furkids again and can get back to exercising and also enjoying yard!

It is like 95 degrees here and I am sweltering in this heat the last couple days.  The dogs are miserable too.  This is why I hate living in Southern California. Not enough winter and the hot days of summer start and end way too early.

Haven’t done anything too fun this weekend except bang my head against a wall trying to print out wedding invitations and all the junk that goes with it. I don’t know what I was thinking trying to save so much money doing it myself.    We did go today though to lunch at the place we are contemplating having our rehearsal luncheon and we got to discuss a lot of our needs with the manager and it looks like it will work out for us.  So at least I get to cross that off my list of to do items.

Wow, everybody is really not doing to well.I'll take the hot weather any day.Personally, I'm sick of these cold winters and grey skies.  Geez, that sounds painful as far as your nose.Sure hope everything heals ok.      Sorry about you and your BF,Lauren.As I recall,didn't you end up moving to his house?   I don't know about guys nowadays, nobody wants to make a committment!  Well,better than marrying and having to go thru a divorce. Try not to get too depressed,if he does this to you, he's probably not worth it!   

kpwlee

Lies there definitely is something to SAD.  I was terribly affected by the gloomy miserable weather in Manchester, UK.  I didn't realize how badly it's impact was until we moved to NC.  I knew something was wrong because I just didn't have the vibrancy I normally have and was reluctant to do anything in the evenings.  It rained all the time and was gray constantly.  In the winter it was dark by 3pm, I never, ever wanted to go out after coming in from work.  I think the very worst was that there was no summer - ever.  So it was green and flowers came out but the first year I tried to grow tomatoes and not one ripened in an entire summer

Yeah all my friends rave about the UK and Ireland.  Sure I'd like to visit, but hell if I could ever live there!

My issue with this SAD thing is that it now seems to affect more than me personally b/c of the way I treat people (or rather, ignore them altogether).  I can handle being a little down in my head for a while, but it has gotten worse each year and now I often feel very resentful towards other people.  I don't lash out, maybe I should, but I keep everything bottled up and then never want to talk about it, or anything really.  I realized last night it was getting bad.  The entire 20 hour drive home I was thinking about sitting down w/ DH, showing him my pics, catching up, other fun things married people do....then I got home and it was dark, everything was soaking wet, it was snowing and freezing cold.  By the time I got my stuff put away I wanted to crawl in bed and die.  DH was asking me things here and there about the trip and I was just giving him one word answers with a flat tone of voice.  I know he could tell I was pissed/frustrated.  I just sit and stew but for no real reason, like I hate everything and everyone but they never did anything to me. 

Sounds to me like you should see a doctor. Could be your serotonin levels are down. It's amazing what an anti-depressant can do. You usually start on a low dose,if that doesn't do it, they raise it a bit. Sometimes it's trial and error, but in the end, it's worth it.

maizysmom

Sounds to me like you should see a doctor. Could be your serotonin levels are down. It's amazing what an anti-depressant can do. You usually start on a low dose,if that doesn't do it, they raise it a bit. Sometimes it's trial and error, but in the end, it's worth it.

I think next fall I will try tanning and see if that helps, if not I will ask the Dr.  Part of it could be some stress in general.  I work and DH is a student, so everything falls on me.  I make all the money, pay all the bills, manage the bank accounts, do all the chores, make sure all the animals are being fed and are healthy, etc.  But the flip side is that I'm a control freak and I'd rather do everything myself than let someone (DH) do it "wrong", hehe.  Also, I hate my job.  I work in a basement, literally, so not only am I dealing with how I already feel about winter, but I go to work in the dark, work in a basement with no windows all day, and come home in the dark.  It's not worth changing though b/c I get good benefits and DH is done in December.  Then, hopefully we will move so he can work and I will do something else or go back to school if I want.  We refer to it as "taking turns".  Right now it's his turn to be in school again.