SAD and the frozen pipe blues.

I've been remiss in my postings of late, but I have a good excuse. Sort of. I've been doing some writing on the side in my "free" time at night and on weekends, trying to write this book that is unlikely to find itself in the annals of American literature, and might be just above fire kindling...but between that and work, I haven't had a lot of time for the minutiae of daily life that crops up. And believe me, not much is terribly exciting.

Mainly, this time of year for me usually manifests itself in general by "Just trying to get through," and Februrary might have been the worst winter month we've had in years. It has been bitter cold, (under freezing for three weeks straight, and most of it in the single digits). They told us we had windchills of -30 degrees.

And you know what's scary? I got used to it! I walked out last week and it was 28 degrees out, and I thought, wow, it's warming up. 28 degrees. (Not celsius.)

I also think I may have a mild case of Seasonal Affective Disorder (or SAD) although, in my case, I think I may actually carry most of these symptoms year-round.

Here they are, in case you are wondering about your own symptoms:
A change in appetite, especially a craving for sweet or starchy foods....check.
Weight gain...(probably due to sweet or starchy foods)...check.
A heavy feeling in the arms or legs....seems redundant with the weight gain., but check.
A drop in energy level...and inability to write blog....check.
Fatigue....zzzzzz.
A tendency to oversleep....Again, fatigue/tendency to oversleep seems to go hand in hand...who made this list?
Irritability...check.
Increased sensitivity to social rejection...okay, um, I have no idea what this has to do with anything, but sure...
Difficulty concentrating....What was I saying, oh...yes, check.
Avoidance of social situations...Yes. Although I do feel better when I am among my peeps.

So, yeah...Spring can't come fast enough. Not to mention the fact that we've had two cases of frozen pipes requiring separate plumbing visits...AND...another plumbing visit to fix a leak we didn't know we had, but discovered b/c we have to leave the water running at all times to keep lines from freezing. And plumbers? The aren't cheap.

Plus, one of the plumbers "solved" our problem in Michigan by suggesting we buy a bale of straw and put it in front of our crawlspace to insulate it from the wind. While this probably will work just fine, and we're going out there this weekend to see if they've "installed" the hay bale, it doesn' really give you a whole lot of confidence in the overall picture that this is the only solution anyone can come up with.