Fighting the wintertime blues

January has always been a dreary month for me.  There are too many days that are dark and cold, often combined with rain, mist or fog and I usually get a bit down in the dumps during this time of year no matter what else is going on in my life.  This year I was already feeling depressed after Rob's death and even though I survived the holidays relatively well, the winter blahs have now arrived in full force.  This depression is frustrating, but I also know it is perfectly normal and it will pass over time.  I just have to figure out the best way to muddle through the next few months.  It's not easy for me to find any sort of motivation when I'm depressed, but I have managed to attempt a few things.

My office at work is a dark, windowless cave which is a plus during the hot summer months, but a total drag in the winter.  Right now it's dark when I go to work, dark when I come home and I never see any daylight until the weekend.  That's certainly not helping things so I've decided to work from home one day a week with my desk strategically positioned between two windows that will give me the maximum amount of daylight.  Today is the first day I've tried it and it's a nice change of pace. 

I've spent the last couple of weeks packing up Rob-stuff to go through later.  The packing up part has been difficult and hasn't done much to improve my mood, but looking at it all the time didn't help either.  If I have no immediate use for it, such as beading supplies, or it's something that will probably never bring me joy, like that really ugly skull shaped wooden thing hanging on the wall, then it goes in a box or a closet and I'll make the decision to keep it or get rid of it later when I'm in a better frame of mind.  The house is still 90% Rob, just pared down a little.  

I also got rid of the couches.  He died on one of them and there wasn't any way to keep them and not be constantly reminded of that day.   With that space freed-up, I moved the band equipment from the upstairs bonus room downstairs to the old living room and turned the dining room into my new living room.  We never used it as a dining room since it's by the front door rather than by the kitchen and the dining table just became a place to plop stuff down when you walked in the door.  It's too small of a space for a couch, but a love seat and a few chairs will fit and that's really all I need.  It will be a while before I have saved enough money for new furniture, but in the meantime, I have my camping lounge chairs and camping rocking chair.  They are actually quite comfortable despite looking a bit odd as indoor furniture. 

The junk car in the driveway is gone.  Rob insisted he was going to fix it some day, but he's certainly not ever going to get that done now so I donated it to my local public radio station. 

Cooking and baking are things that I used to really enjoy doing so this weekend I made five different quiches, chopped them up into individual portions, vacuum-sealed them and threw them in the freezer.  

Is any of this helping?  I can't say for sure, but at least it's more productive than just staying in bed under the covers, binge-watching Netflix which about all I really want to do.