My Happy Light

I'm trying something new this year--light therapy. I'm always skeptical about these sorts of things, so if it does work, I can confidently say it won't be due to a placebo effect.

Last winter's endless drizzly gray nearly drowned me--summer didn't reach Seattle until late June. While dropping over $100 on a surprisingly small, disco-esque light was painful (after all, going out and blowing $100 on stuff could cheer me up, right?), I hope that all the hype around these lights is true.

Of course, as soon as the light arrived, I noticed we're forecast to have a record-breaking full week of sunny skies next week. "Maybe I should return the light," I said to The Beloved.

"Winter has just begun," he replied flatly.

I'll post periodically about how it's going with the light.

A fistful of ham

I've been dying to use that as a title... a fistful of ham.

That's exactly how I was greeted one day last week, returning home from errands. Chica met me at the door, clutching a fistful of ham, and asked, "Would you like some ham, Mom?"

The kids seemed happy to head back to school today, and I was happy to get back to writing. I even managed to stay super-focused all day long, not once playing with my new toy -- the Eyeclops Bionicam.

It is officially mine, though I share it with the kids. And it's the coolest thing in the world.

Here are some pictures.

The bottom of our dog Jack's paw











Flannel sheets











DJ's softshell jacket












Lego detail













Wet snow (did I mention that it snowed again last night?)

We finally made it to my parents' place (and out of our tiny house!) despite the snow. Yep, it snowed again today--big pillowy flakes--even as the 'warm' front moved through.

However, I was more circumspect about the white stuff as we headed, quite literally, over the lake (Lake WA) and through the woods (Sammamish plateau) to my parents'. It's not so much the snow that I hated, but the reality of being snowed in. I hate, hate, hate being stuck. Both literally and figuratively speaking.

And that's how I'm feeling at the end of 2008. Still halfway stuck in a deep rut, spinning wildly yet going nowhere. Deep down, I know the year's end is just an arbitrary thing. The sun I'll wake up to on Jan 1 is the same one that I saw (or not, given Seattle's ubiquitous winter gray) the day before.

But I want it to be different. I want to be out of this spot I've been in for way too long. Somewhere I lost my passion, my joie de vivre.

It's not so much a resolution in that hokey New Year's way, but resolution as resoluteness to find my way out of this funk.

Merry Christmas

One benefit of being snowed in, I guess, is that I have loads of time to attend to my blog.

It snowed another 3+ inches today (our front yard pictured on left), making it the snowiest Christmas this region has seen since...well, the last time hell froze over or something, from what the reporters are saying. Seriously, I think Lewis and Clark were still stomping around here the last time it snowed so much in Seattle.

We didn't make it to the grandparents on the Eastside, much to our chagrin. They got gifts, a fridge full of Coca-Cola and much better food than us!

We'll try again tomorrow, when supposedly the daily snow routine is going to break.

Fortunately, the kids liked their gifts, and the afternoon cleared up. DJ and I walked a half mile to go sledding / snowboarding at a local high school. I feel sorry for him sometimes, that he has such snow-adverse parents, because he really loves snowboarding.