Battling the Blues

The winter blues… Do you get them?  I do and it always strikes right after Christmas.  The holiday cheer has all but dried up, school is back in session and the weather just stinks. 

I’ve been lucky this year that Denver has only had a dusting of snow thus far but the forecast is predicting 4-8 to start falling tomorrow. 

I’m a California girl.  Flip flops rule my closet and I feel like I’m wearing a strait jacket when I have to put on my winter coat.  The thought of shoveling puts me in a bad mood.  It’s too cold to work in the garage and spray paint isn’t conducive to indoor use.

The kids are bored and so my house starts to look like this…

Which makes me want to do this …

The walls slowly start closing in on me.

Do you feel like this?  There is a name for it I hear.  It’s actually called “SAD” disorder!  Go figure lol.  Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), also know as winter depression or the winter blues.  It’s a mood disorder in which people who have normal mental health throughout most of the year, experience depressive symptoms in the winter year after year.

Of course I don’t know if this is the case for me specifically.  I do a lot of ‘GOOGLE diagnostics’ lol.

So this year I’m determined to BEAT THE BLUES.  Through design and creativity I hope to keep them at bay.  I already felt a little down while putting away the Christmas decor so I decided to keep out some of the wintery themed items that could serve as day to day decor. 

The branch I plucked from the back yard that sat in my cream container with ornamental balls hanging from it now rests above the cabinets in the kitchen.  I also brought out some of my white platters to stick up there behind my darker sculptures to highlight them.

I also kept some of the fillers from my tree out since they are winter whites and silvers and used them around the house.

I kept the pine cones I frosted from the back yard and put them in some glass displays.

And I divided up the poinsettias and put them in the urns by the front door.

Maybe someday I’ll learn to like winter but for now I’m hoping that incorporating some of it into my home decor will help us get along. 

What do you do to keep the winter blues at bay?  Maybe a give away will help you to beat your blues!  I’m going to have one starting January 1st to kick off the New Year and to celebrate my blog reaching and exceeding 100 followers!  So come back and check in Saturday!

~Sommer