It will surprise no one who’s read this blog over the years to hear that winters are hard for me. Combine early sunsets, a night owl personality, a 9-5 job, and a below-ground apartment, and you’ve got a recipe for someone who’s struggling with Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Over the years, I developed a number of coping techniques that would take me from the post-holiday blues through the end of February. But I’ll admit that since COVID, a lot of those have gone out the window. I no longer leave the house for work, which means I’m not walking or riding my bike at Mach-1 first thing in the morning trying to get to the office on time. I used to have a couple nights of playing volleyball each week, but I scaled it back to just one for safety reasons and haven’t added a second night back in. All indoor activities are back to being potential super spreader events, which means if it’s too cold to sit outside (which it has been this week), I just don’t bother stopping at cafes or restaurants.

The good news is that as of this evening, the sun is back to setting after 5:30. And it will just get later and later. And after years of living with this, I know that if I’m just patient and wait it out, there will come a day that doesn’t seem bleak and exhausting.

In the meantime, I do have a variety of lights that are supposed to help with this time of year. None of them are currently plugged in, which probably feels like a step I could tackle this week. The Christmas tree should come down in the next couple days, but I could put some fairy lights up around the perimeter of the room to give it a pinky glow and replace the batteries on the ones that live in jars.

And tomorrow morning, we’re getting up a little early to go and see a taxidermied whistle pig prognosticate the state of our weather and political gridlock. It probably won’t cure the winter blues, but maybe he’ll offer the hope of an early spring.

Rudi’s mom died tonight. We were with her when she went, and we had some good days with her before the end, but it’s still a crushing blow for our family. I’ll be going dark here for a bit while we figure out how to move forward with her loss.

Hugs to you, my dear readers, and hugs to your loved ones, as well.

Someday, someone’s going to write on my gravestone, “Really liked sleeping on couches.”

I bought a shelf today.

Rudi has been saying for a while that he wants a tall shelf for the living room. We have too much stuff for the space we live in, which means the apartment is always a hot mess. Yes, we could purge things — and that would be how many people would handle it. But we are not those people.

A local shop is shuttering its business tomorrow and I stopped in today to see if they had any deals. Mostly they did not, but they were selling off some of their furniture, including a shelf that’s a little over six feet tall.

The shop disassembled it for me (it’s three boxes on four poles) and I walked it home in four trips (exercise plus furniture!). I have yet to reassemble it, but that’s a tomorrow problem, rather than a today problem.

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. My supervisor sent us all these lovely boxes of local-to-her chocolates for the holidays.

2. My dad cleared off the pool table this fall, so we got to play for the first time in several years. I lost every game.

3. Staying in Connecticut until Monday evening meant that our drive home was drama-free. Plus, I got to spend that much more time with my folks!

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?