This picture is of my van buried in front of the garage/barn.
It is Maine and there is a lot of snow up north. The days are short, though getting a little longer. The snow is starting to melt, gradually. However, there is still a few feet of snow still on the ground. The skies are a melancholy gray color and sometimes a stark white. The clouds hang heavy over all whispering to us that there is probably many more storms left for us bear. Life is harder, though at a slower pace up here it seems than the rest of the planet. Here in Cheddahville, you can stop at the "Chesterville Mall" (name for the corner store) and order subs and red hot dogs to go-after a long day at work to take home. This is my highlight for the week. I love to cook, but sometimes-usually by the end of the week it is time for someone else to cook. I work on Saturday's from 10-6 and am tired when I finish, so I head for the Cheddaville Mall down to the bottom of the hill that I live on.
I walk in the door while the sky is now dark and enter the only room of the store. The store has new owners who have left their mark on the store. It is small and tidy with well stocked shelves. The hardwood floors gleam newly waxed. There is a small deli area for local meat cuts and eggs fresh from a local farm. You can also find pickled eggs in jars, beef jerky, and fresh chowder and stew-from local game brewing in a crock pot. Coffee is always percolating and adds a rich smell to the air crisp from entering the warm cozy environ-as you shed off the choppy mountain air that you trail inside. You can leave your car parked out in the lot with the engine running out here and have no fear of anything-other than a car not being warmed up enough. Snow mobiles are most often parked out front from riding on the local trails. There are advertisements for people who can shovel off roofs and local fund raisers and for a missing St Bernard that is missed by his three year old owner taped on the freshly painted wall. Once in while someone meanders in to get his 6 pack of Pabst or Schlitz Beer (didn't think they made it anymore!) and beef jerky to ward off the winter chill at home! Grizzly beards vary by owner-necessary for the most mart to keep the wind chill off. That and flannels and big clunky boots. Always a smile and an "Ayuh, cant wait for Spring ta arrive! Door yahd's too full a snow!" A smile and a nod tippin' the baseball hat and back out the door. The bells note the exit.
They know it is me-since they recognize my order by now and smile-I usually call on the cell on my way down-planning it before the other side when I lose the signal and hit one of the many dead spots around here. Outside the sky is dark-the stars are not visible due to the ominous cloud cover that blocks out all hope of stars. One of the town's three street lights illuminate the stoop outside. One other person is in there, besides those working-watching the television waiting for her order.
On the television is a report on the latest stimulus package and we both smile and wonder what is ahead for us silently and wait for our orders. She mentioned that she heard of a judge some where "away" (anywhere outside of Maine is "away") who prevented a lot of forclosures by making the lender showing up in person and ordering to not leave until matters were settled-she mentioned that by doing this the judge saved 700 people alone from losing their homes! She smiled and mentioned that it was because the judge was a woman! I smiled genuinely back.
The phone rings and my co-worker's husband calls in to order two pizza's. I know it is Malcolm-since I saw his wife Darlene at work and she was happy that it was her night for poker with the girls. Out side we all turn to the loud noise, some snowmobiles roar by on their way home from the trails nearby and leave us to wait in the cozy country store. Me, wishing I had a snowmobile of my own and some time to ride one and who knows about the other woman in the store-maybe she was happy that she had the house to herself since her husband was out on one? The order is up and I collect it and then gather all of the food along with a bottle of orange soda and milk and head home-I smile and they know I will return next week. I am thinking of days when the wind chill is not so harsh, that I can walk down there with my youngest daughter Tiffany-as we did before. It is too cold and dark this time of night. I hear the heavy sound of the water fall in the river nearby trying to close out the dark winter night surrounding me, suffocating any possible hope for stars in the sky. I brace myself and head out to the car and close myself in the warm interior and drive to the top of the hill where I live. As I turn onto the road in my car I notice the forms of Malcolm and Darlene's kids coming round the bend up the hill to get the pizza-I smiled at them and headed home.
My life is very simple and this is how I like it. I work during the week selling insurance for High Point to people in New Jersey and when I come home I cook a meal for the girls and work on my wool from the sheep. I am way behind-but I choose the pace since I am home with the girls and they know I am here for them when they need an extra hug and reassurance.
This time of year it is a much slower pace than normal for Maine-due to the weather. Up here there are forces of nature that you really need to be weary of. We spend the Spring, Summer and Fall preparing for the Winters ahead, so powerful they can be. This is also the time for reflection and planning. The winter is long and dreary for the most part. People up here know about it and try to plan ahead for it. With the shorter and darker days, it is easy to get the blues or doldrums. There are many stories of people going crazy over the winter and killing themselves and families in the colonial past and I can see some of this. I planned ahead this year and made sure that I would not fall into the trap as well. Not that it would ever become that drastic. But I can see how easily people can fall into depressions with lack of sunlight and the constant cold. More things seem to break down when it is cold and hope seems to fall easily away with it.
Hopefully, if it was planned well, the barns are all stocked for the animals, the wood is well stocked to last all winter and everything else is in order well before the first snow fall. If not-the doldrums can easily catch you and hang on.
I really had to idea how serious it could be until I moved up here. You literally can get trapped under several feet of snow-if you have no plans for shovelling out or plowing. That is very real and scary. It is easy to fall into a peaceful oblivion and some people resort to drinking and other means of escape. There is the escape geographically-where we are more shut off from the world than normal. The only people who come up here this time of year-is in passing through to the ski resorts and on the trails for snow mobiles. Just passing through. My friends and family and most other people are afraid to venture out here this time of year-leaving us shut out. I try not to do this. People also escape by clothing in covering themselves from head to toe-literally. You need to in order to escape the frigid temperatures and it also almost guarantees that no one will recognize you. There is also the escape through men growing heavy beards and women dying their hair various colors to add something else the their very shut in days up here. And then there are the people who literally hole themselves in their own homes in the winter only coming out for food and necessities until the snow melts. And of course there is the local herb grown here. I am not that much of a fan of it, though most of the population around here seems to be. Another means of escape from the burden of winter up here. Understandable-all of it I suppose....
As I mentioned the color of the skies are gloomy and the ground is covered in many feet of snow packing you in to where ever you are. It is easy to feel closed in. The snowbanks-during partial melt- become muddy and just plain look ugly-until the next snowfall-usually days after the last. the cars become muddy and covered in salt rendering them all the same dismal color of bleck! By the end of the winter, your clothes are well worn from the elements and have taken a battering. I am usually sewing the snow pants and socks of the girls by now-I already have a pile from the clothes just purchased this fall. They have already lost the three sleds that we have under the last snowfall-so they are out of luck for sledding to the end of the driveway-until we find them in the Spring-usually in June here!
It is wise to have a game plan to survive the season. This year I made sure that I went back on the Internet. I have been off line for a few years. Since we moved up here-I found out that we could only have dial up Internet-there was no hope for high speed (unless one gets it by Satellite). I had high speed Internet in Southeastern Mass since it became available there in the mid nineties! Radical change for me and I had a rough time going back with the old-fashioned dial up. Thus, I removed it for a few years out of pure frustration! Well, this year I had to go back online and reconnect with the world. It was really becoming way to isolated and I missed my connection to the modern times. Don't get me wrong-I love the simple life and all-though some things I find hard to part with. One of them is technology-I miss high speed Internet and my ability to keep in pace with the rest of the world and another connection to my friends who live far away! I needed to reconnect with them.. My telephone is local only and very basic. My oldest daughter, Alex ran up the telephone bill by connecting online through Augusta (she thought it was local!) It was not, nothing is local to Cheddahville! I still owe several hundred dollars on that bill! I had to get a cell phone just to call long distance and for my sales of wool products from my farm. So this was the first step this winter-getting back online-after three years without Internet at all-I decided to suffer through dial up-just for the sake of returning to the rest of the world. Now I am hopelessly addicted and am finding a way to get a Satellite hook up! While waiting for pages to upload I add more wood to the wood stove or take the dogs out for a walk. I always make good use of my time.
Connection with people in any form is key over the winter. Understandable, sometimes- you cannot literally due to the weather and loss of power, etc.. though now I have my cell phone and Internet. I also make sure that I keep in touch with my friends-I have a tendency to hibernate over the winter-this has grown dangerously more intense after moving up here. Geographically at first-since all I knew were in other states. Now I know quite a few people from town and work. Now if I get the blues-I just walk into the local Wal-Mart and always I bump into at least three people I know. There or Hannaford's. It is comforting to know people nearby. There is such a small population up here and very few places to go that it is a given that I will now know someone-each place that I seem to go to now a days. This makes the Winters much more passable than before when I did not know anyone at all. With my close friend- I made a pact that we would keep in contact to make sure that the other does not get to far into the doldrums. You cannot avoid it, it is everywhere. You just try to stay afloat.
Another way to beat it is by comfort. I love my simple life and am constantly trying to make it more effortless. For example, I hang up the clothes in the middle room of the house-this provides the much needed humidity and dries them as well without paying a cent on the electric bill. I also made sure that I had a gas stove-so that I would not go without cooking during the power outages we tend to have during the many snow storms up here. I can provide the comfort of food when we are literally trapped in our houses. I make sure we have enough warm and clean clothes to weather any chills that might escape through the windows. I also did not put plastic up on the windows this year. The other years I had to since we had oil heat (the wood furnace always died and each time almost blew up the house in January when we needed it most!) I put a stop to that and bought a wood stove for the living room of my house-in the center of it all. The house has since been warm and the windows have actually provided the necessary breeze to keep the house from being too warm. When the plastic is on the windows-it is often way too bleak and easy to fall into the doldrums. Just by not seeing outside! I have surrounded my home with local products and those from the farm as well. Since the local and organic food is more expensive-I buy less of it-but the meals are rich and my tummy is happy that I have provided well. I feel proud in supporting the local farmers and in growing enough to last all winter. In the winter it is easy to gain weight. Your body needs more body fat to combat the extreme temperatures and whispers to feed it constantly-the wrong kinds of food seem to call out this time of year in response. I have learned well to fight it. I spend the budget on healthy foods and have none left over for the naughty foods. My meals are filling and leave the tummy happy and content. I have plenty of warm blankets to curl up in with my daughters and make sure that I have as many people over as possible! My friends know they are always welcome over here and the coffee will be brewing for them as well as the Coffee Brandy!
The next step to saving yourself from the Blues is by your thinking patterns. I have easily been lured into gray thoughts to easily match the snow clouds always looming overhead. I tend to dwell on issues that have bummed me out in the past and that is very bad. So, this year, I made sure to also get TIVO (some little luxuries are necessary) This enables me to tape comedies and sitcoms that would play while I was working or cooking-and help to cheer me back up to normal when I start slipping. I also use this to bribe the girls into doing their farm chores and house chores. They can no longer put off chores because their favorite show is on-they can TIVO it! When I come home from selling insurance I start my work on the wool. I card the wool, wash it, dry it and then spin it and then crochet it into the finished product that I sell. The Llama wool (another story) I am keeping and have just finished spinning the last of it. I am making hats and scarves for me and the girls and am not selling them. I have been working on a scarf lately and cherish the memories of the Llamas that it came from.
I am further blessed that I can work on my crocheting during work when it is slow. We are also now allowed to wear jeans. I suppose due to the moral lately. Due to the economy they had huge layoff's and the break room is now almost void of people when it used to always be full. The building used to be teaming with people and they were always hiring and training people. Now it is a ghost town with so many familiar faces, now gone. We all hang on and are happy each day when we arrive that our badges still work and the dreaded Staples box is not on our seats filled with our personal items. So they have tried in vain to boast our morale by letting us have some simple pleasures that were in the past denied. We are now able to read, and work on crossword puzzles at our desk during slow times. We can also bring in knitting and crocheting. This has helped me a great deal since my own work on the farm has fallen way behind due to me returning to work full time. We also had to dress in business casual before and now it is jeans and neat dress shirts to help cheer us. This has helped me a great deal-simple though it is. I used to have my own business and work more efficiently in jeans. I still have to wear thermals under them this time of year-but it is still easier and I get to catch up on my wool. I am still thinking of a way to bring in my spinning work, though have not come up with a way to bring in my beautiful spinning wheel and to still be efficient in selling insurance. Oh well!
The mind set does help in the survival of the blues. I have to stop when I find myself dwelling on something that is not too pleasant and try to put in a comedy to watch, or cook something fun (like anything where I have to make the girls eat with chopsticks!) or to call a friend.
This year I made sure that I was well prepared to fight the doldrums and feel that it has worked for the most part. I can still smile genuinely when I see someone and I feel content with my life and what I have done so far. I see so many others slipping into the blues and I feel better that I am strong enough to help them this time around. I may not have much in material things-but I do have a lot to be thankful for that I have to stop to remind myself of this sometimes when the snow is piling up outside and my car is running slow due to frozen tires. I am noticing small rays of the sun glimmer through the clouds. Maybe-this is really the truth shinning through to me once again. I have a warm and safe home with peace and comfort. I have good friends and wonderful daughters. I am blessed to have a loving family. They are far away geographically this time of year, but I make sure to keep in contact with them. My parents in Florida make sure to lovingly give me the forecast their of exotic temperatures-hoping I would move down there too. Alas, that would never happen. Though they may be far away-I know they will return when the snow melts and be only a yell away-rather than a lost distance phone call! Maine has a way of drawing people back here when the grass appears again.
This year, I have weathered the blues more efficiently and I am thankful for this. I have learned a lot from past winters and am glad that I am able to help others who need me as they have helped me. These are just a few ways to survive the winters up here and I am glad to be so well armed. Now that I can see brief signs that Spring is on the way! Well, the only sign I really notice is the longer days-it is a start though!
I walk in the door while the sky is now dark and enter the only room of the store. The store has new owners who have left their mark on the store. It is small and tidy with well stocked shelves. The hardwood floors gleam newly waxed. There is a small deli area for local meat cuts and eggs fresh from a local farm. You can also find pickled eggs in jars, beef jerky, and fresh chowder and stew-from local game brewing in a crock pot. Coffee is always percolating and adds a rich smell to the air crisp from entering the warm cozy environ-as you shed off the choppy mountain air that you trail inside. You can leave your car parked out in the lot with the engine running out here and have no fear of anything-other than a car not being warmed up enough. Snow mobiles are most often parked out front from riding on the local trails. There are advertisements for people who can shovel off roofs and local fund raisers and for a missing St Bernard that is missed by his three year old owner taped on the freshly painted wall. Once in while someone meanders in to get his 6 pack of Pabst or Schlitz Beer (didn't think they made it anymore!) and beef jerky to ward off the winter chill at home! Grizzly beards vary by owner-necessary for the most mart to keep the wind chill off. That and flannels and big clunky boots. Always a smile and an "Ayuh, cant wait for Spring ta arrive! Door yahd's too full a snow!" A smile and a nod tippin' the baseball hat and back out the door. The bells note the exit.
They know it is me-since they recognize my order by now and smile-I usually call on the cell on my way down-planning it before the other side when I lose the signal and hit one of the many dead spots around here. Outside the sky is dark-the stars are not visible due to the ominous cloud cover that blocks out all hope of stars. One of the town's three street lights illuminate the stoop outside. One other person is in there, besides those working-watching the television waiting for her order.
On the television is a report on the latest stimulus package and we both smile and wonder what is ahead for us silently and wait for our orders. She mentioned that she heard of a judge some where "away" (anywhere outside of Maine is "away") who prevented a lot of forclosures by making the lender showing up in person and ordering to not leave until matters were settled-she mentioned that by doing this the judge saved 700 people alone from losing their homes! She smiled and mentioned that it was because the judge was a woman! I smiled genuinely back.
The phone rings and my co-worker's husband calls in to order two pizza's. I know it is Malcolm-since I saw his wife Darlene at work and she was happy that it was her night for poker with the girls. Out side we all turn to the loud noise, some snowmobiles roar by on their way home from the trails nearby and leave us to wait in the cozy country store. Me, wishing I had a snowmobile of my own and some time to ride one and who knows about the other woman in the store-maybe she was happy that she had the house to herself since her husband was out on one? The order is up and I collect it and then gather all of the food along with a bottle of orange soda and milk and head home-I smile and they know I will return next week. I am thinking of days when the wind chill is not so harsh, that I can walk down there with my youngest daughter Tiffany-as we did before. It is too cold and dark this time of night. I hear the heavy sound of the water fall in the river nearby trying to close out the dark winter night surrounding me, suffocating any possible hope for stars in the sky. I brace myself and head out to the car and close myself in the warm interior and drive to the top of the hill where I live. As I turn onto the road in my car I notice the forms of Malcolm and Darlene's kids coming round the bend up the hill to get the pizza-I smiled at them and headed home.
My life is very simple and this is how I like it. I work during the week selling insurance for High Point to people in New Jersey and when I come home I cook a meal for the girls and work on my wool from the sheep. I am way behind-but I choose the pace since I am home with the girls and they know I am here for them when they need an extra hug and reassurance.
This time of year it is a much slower pace than normal for Maine-due to the weather. Up here there are forces of nature that you really need to be weary of. We spend the Spring, Summer and Fall preparing for the Winters ahead, so powerful they can be. This is also the time for reflection and planning. The winter is long and dreary for the most part. People up here know about it and try to plan ahead for it. With the shorter and darker days, it is easy to get the blues or doldrums. There are many stories of people going crazy over the winter and killing themselves and families in the colonial past and I can see some of this. I planned ahead this year and made sure that I would not fall into the trap as well. Not that it would ever become that drastic. But I can see how easily people can fall into depressions with lack of sunlight and the constant cold. More things seem to break down when it is cold and hope seems to fall easily away with it.
Hopefully, if it was planned well, the barns are all stocked for the animals, the wood is well stocked to last all winter and everything else is in order well before the first snow fall. If not-the doldrums can easily catch you and hang on.
I really had to idea how serious it could be until I moved up here. You literally can get trapped under several feet of snow-if you have no plans for shovelling out or plowing. That is very real and scary. It is easy to fall into a peaceful oblivion and some people resort to drinking and other means of escape. There is the escape geographically-where we are more shut off from the world than normal. The only people who come up here this time of year-is in passing through to the ski resorts and on the trails for snow mobiles. Just passing through. My friends and family and most other people are afraid to venture out here this time of year-leaving us shut out. I try not to do this. People also escape by clothing in covering themselves from head to toe-literally. You need to in order to escape the frigid temperatures and it also almost guarantees that no one will recognize you. There is also the escape through men growing heavy beards and women dying their hair various colors to add something else the their very shut in days up here. And then there are the people who literally hole themselves in their own homes in the winter only coming out for food and necessities until the snow melts. And of course there is the local herb grown here. I am not that much of a fan of it, though most of the population around here seems to be. Another means of escape from the burden of winter up here. Understandable-all of it I suppose....
As I mentioned the color of the skies are gloomy and the ground is covered in many feet of snow packing you in to where ever you are. It is easy to feel closed in. The snowbanks-during partial melt- become muddy and just plain look ugly-until the next snowfall-usually days after the last. the cars become muddy and covered in salt rendering them all the same dismal color of bleck! By the end of the winter, your clothes are well worn from the elements and have taken a battering. I am usually sewing the snow pants and socks of the girls by now-I already have a pile from the clothes just purchased this fall. They have already lost the three sleds that we have under the last snowfall-so they are out of luck for sledding to the end of the driveway-until we find them in the Spring-usually in June here!
It is wise to have a game plan to survive the season. This year I made sure that I went back on the Internet. I have been off line for a few years. Since we moved up here-I found out that we could only have dial up Internet-there was no hope for high speed (unless one gets it by Satellite). I had high speed Internet in Southeastern Mass since it became available there in the mid nineties! Radical change for me and I had a rough time going back with the old-fashioned dial up. Thus, I removed it for a few years out of pure frustration! Well, this year I had to go back online and reconnect with the world. It was really becoming way to isolated and I missed my connection to the modern times. Don't get me wrong-I love the simple life and all-though some things I find hard to part with. One of them is technology-I miss high speed Internet and my ability to keep in pace with the rest of the world and another connection to my friends who live far away! I needed to reconnect with them.. My telephone is local only and very basic. My oldest daughter, Alex ran up the telephone bill by connecting online through Augusta (she thought it was local!) It was not, nothing is local to Cheddahville! I still owe several hundred dollars on that bill! I had to get a cell phone just to call long distance and for my sales of wool products from my farm. So this was the first step this winter-getting back online-after three years without Internet at all-I decided to suffer through dial up-just for the sake of returning to the rest of the world. Now I am hopelessly addicted and am finding a way to get a Satellite hook up! While waiting for pages to upload I add more wood to the wood stove or take the dogs out for a walk. I always make good use of my time.
Connection with people in any form is key over the winter. Understandable, sometimes- you cannot literally due to the weather and loss of power, etc.. though now I have my cell phone and Internet. I also make sure that I keep in touch with my friends-I have a tendency to hibernate over the winter-this has grown dangerously more intense after moving up here. Geographically at first-since all I knew were in other states. Now I know quite a few people from town and work. Now if I get the blues-I just walk into the local Wal-Mart and always I bump into at least three people I know. There or Hannaford's. It is comforting to know people nearby. There is such a small population up here and very few places to go that it is a given that I will now know someone-each place that I seem to go to now a days. This makes the Winters much more passable than before when I did not know anyone at all. With my close friend- I made a pact that we would keep in contact to make sure that the other does not get to far into the doldrums. You cannot avoid it, it is everywhere. You just try to stay afloat.
Another way to beat it is by comfort. I love my simple life and am constantly trying to make it more effortless. For example, I hang up the clothes in the middle room of the house-this provides the much needed humidity and dries them as well without paying a cent on the electric bill. I also made sure that I had a gas stove-so that I would not go without cooking during the power outages we tend to have during the many snow storms up here. I can provide the comfort of food when we are literally trapped in our houses. I make sure we have enough warm and clean clothes to weather any chills that might escape through the windows. I also did not put plastic up on the windows this year. The other years I had to since we had oil heat (the wood furnace always died and each time almost blew up the house in January when we needed it most!) I put a stop to that and bought a wood stove for the living room of my house-in the center of it all. The house has since been warm and the windows have actually provided the necessary breeze to keep the house from being too warm. When the plastic is on the windows-it is often way too bleak and easy to fall into the doldrums. Just by not seeing outside! I have surrounded my home with local products and those from the farm as well. Since the local and organic food is more expensive-I buy less of it-but the meals are rich and my tummy is happy that I have provided well. I feel proud in supporting the local farmers and in growing enough to last all winter. In the winter it is easy to gain weight. Your body needs more body fat to combat the extreme temperatures and whispers to feed it constantly-the wrong kinds of food seem to call out this time of year in response. I have learned well to fight it. I spend the budget on healthy foods and have none left over for the naughty foods. My meals are filling and leave the tummy happy and content. I have plenty of warm blankets to curl up in with my daughters and make sure that I have as many people over as possible! My friends know they are always welcome over here and the coffee will be brewing for them as well as the Coffee Brandy!
The next step to saving yourself from the Blues is by your thinking patterns. I have easily been lured into gray thoughts to easily match the snow clouds always looming overhead. I tend to dwell on issues that have bummed me out in the past and that is very bad. So, this year, I made sure to also get TIVO (some little luxuries are necessary) This enables me to tape comedies and sitcoms that would play while I was working or cooking-and help to cheer me back up to normal when I start slipping. I also use this to bribe the girls into doing their farm chores and house chores. They can no longer put off chores because their favorite show is on-they can TIVO it! When I come home from selling insurance I start my work on the wool. I card the wool, wash it, dry it and then spin it and then crochet it into the finished product that I sell. The Llama wool (another story) I am keeping and have just finished spinning the last of it. I am making hats and scarves for me and the girls and am not selling them. I have been working on a scarf lately and cherish the memories of the Llamas that it came from.
I am further blessed that I can work on my crocheting during work when it is slow. We are also now allowed to wear jeans. I suppose due to the moral lately. Due to the economy they had huge layoff's and the break room is now almost void of people when it used to always be full. The building used to be teaming with people and they were always hiring and training people. Now it is a ghost town with so many familiar faces, now gone. We all hang on and are happy each day when we arrive that our badges still work and the dreaded Staples box is not on our seats filled with our personal items. So they have tried in vain to boast our morale by letting us have some simple pleasures that were in the past denied. We are now able to read, and work on crossword puzzles at our desk during slow times. We can also bring in knitting and crocheting. This has helped me a great deal since my own work on the farm has fallen way behind due to me returning to work full time. We also had to dress in business casual before and now it is jeans and neat dress shirts to help cheer us. This has helped me a great deal-simple though it is. I used to have my own business and work more efficiently in jeans. I still have to wear thermals under them this time of year-but it is still easier and I get to catch up on my wool. I am still thinking of a way to bring in my spinning work, though have not come up with a way to bring in my beautiful spinning wheel and to still be efficient in selling insurance. Oh well!
The mind set does help in the survival of the blues. I have to stop when I find myself dwelling on something that is not too pleasant and try to put in a comedy to watch, or cook something fun (like anything where I have to make the girls eat with chopsticks!) or to call a friend.
This year I made sure that I was well prepared to fight the doldrums and feel that it has worked for the most part. I can still smile genuinely when I see someone and I feel content with my life and what I have done so far. I see so many others slipping into the blues and I feel better that I am strong enough to help them this time around. I may not have much in material things-but I do have a lot to be thankful for that I have to stop to remind myself of this sometimes when the snow is piling up outside and my car is running slow due to frozen tires. I am noticing small rays of the sun glimmer through the clouds. Maybe-this is really the truth shinning through to me once again. I have a warm and safe home with peace and comfort. I have good friends and wonderful daughters. I am blessed to have a loving family. They are far away geographically this time of year, but I make sure to keep in contact with them. My parents in Florida make sure to lovingly give me the forecast their of exotic temperatures-hoping I would move down there too. Alas, that would never happen. Though they may be far away-I know they will return when the snow melts and be only a yell away-rather than a lost distance phone call! Maine has a way of drawing people back here when the grass appears again.
This year, I have weathered the blues more efficiently and I am thankful for this. I have learned a lot from past winters and am glad that I am able to help others who need me as they have helped me. These are just a few ways to survive the winters up here and I am glad to be so well armed. Now that I can see brief signs that Spring is on the way! Well, the only sign I really notice is the longer days-it is a start though!
No comments:
Post a Comment