January Weekends

I’ve found these January weekends cold and tiresome. If I’m being honest, I’ve dreaded the onset of these unscheduled days, all of us at home and un-programmed for 48 hours. I do not thrive without a schedule. I like structure and busyness and activity. I find I slip into lethargy and laziness when I’m without events or plans, and that sends my grumpiness sky rocketing and my happiness spiraling.

Admittedly, in the summer or the warmer days of spring and fall, I welcome unplanned hours to tackle gardening, landscaping, and general outdoor maintenance. The kids can play in the sprinkler or on their swing set. We can pause for a walk with the dogs or a swim at the local pool. Our little house expands as the gardens and fields and yard become an extended living room and play yard.

In the winter, the clothing alone proves an exhausting obstacle, and that’s assuming that the temperatures are civilized enough where clothing can provide some semblance of warmth. It’s been too bitterly cold for much outdoor fun. Even the dogs stand in distress, picking at their paws and trembling from the wind.

I’ve scheduled exercise squarely into my day, the activity and resulting shower a guaranteed hour or two of respite. We’ve built fires. Read books. Watched movies. Practiced our instruments. Served Penelope hot chocolate. Done arts and crafts. Constructed puzzles. And yet, there are still moments where the kids start using the couch as a trampoline and every blanket and cushion within a 2 miles radius is loaded onto the living room floor and cymbals are clanged and screams are shouted merely for the sake of hearing the capacity of one’s lungs, and I feel like I want to yell and stomp in reply, or curl up in a ball and crawl deep inside myself and stay there until the snow thaws and I can push everyone outside and finally have room to breath once again.

It’s not their fault that they resort to these antics and revelries. They’re children. But our house is compact. My fuse short. And the lack of Vitamin D palpable. James bears the brunt of my wretchedness, and counters my dark cloud with homemade pancakes and tickle monsters and pillow forts. Right now, as I type this, I can gaze out the window and up the hill to our barn to see a snow ball taller than Courtland being rolled about by three pairs of hands while two frantic balls of black fur leap with joy.

The temperatures have elevated, and there’s no excuse not to take advantage of the wonder of the snow before it melts away. Yesterday, while the cold still hovered in the single digits, but the sun shone brilliantly, James bundled us all up and insisted that we spend some time outside, for however long our fingers and toes could stand it. Snow angels and snow glitter and magical photographs were captured in that 30 minutes. And it restored a piece of my sanity. Of myself. I laughed and smiled and felt a gratitude that was so easily lost over these weekends of cold and inactivity.

Winter can be so breathtakingly beautiful, but it is also the hardest time of year for me. I wish for snow and sunshine and 30 degree temperatures so that I can sled and ski and skate without discomfort, but January is not always so accommodating. I realize that that’s part of the magic and beauty when those days do present themselves, but it does not make my management of the interim any more graceful.

But even the process of writing through these feelings and this melancholy have cleared my head and lifted some of the oppressive fog. We’ve scheduled plans for dinner. And there’s baking to be done. And the endorphins from this morning’s run are kicking in. Assuming the weather stays warm (in winter terms), I’ll be taking Sunny for her inaugural ski lesson this week and I’ll get an afternoon to myself on the mountain. And how fortunate am I to live a life that allows for such experiences.

Thanks for listening, friends. Do any of you ever suffer from wintertime blues? How do you combat the darker days and colder temps? Especially with young children! What activities keep your children busy in the winter so that you don’t all go totally stir crazy? I’m all ears! xo Ash