When we moved across the country from Maine to Washington I had thought that the weather would be similar... I mean both states are kind of located way up there in the tippy-top corners of the US. But no, Washington (at least where we live) is much more mild with little shifts in the temperature, but huge shifts with the amount of sunlight we get - in comparison to Maine. We get a bad rep for being rainy, but really it's just super drizzly starting about now (September) through to the spring. Once we hit November there will be days when the sky seems to go dark by 4:00P.
Now that I've properly depressed everyone, I'm desperately trying to figure out how I'm going to keep my energy level up this year while the weather encourages everyone to walk around in comfy sweat pants and never quite crawl out of bed.
I'm stocked up on Vitamin D... popping my 2000 IU's daily since there's zero chance my skin will be making any with the sun not making appearances for weeks at a time.
I even started taking it earlier this year, ordered up my first bottle about 3 weeks ago now. I feel better... maybe it's all in my head... but who cares if I feel like I have more energy then I'm all for it. I snag mine off Amazon. Have you ever used their Subscribe & Save thing? So you go on their website, you look around for stuff you would normally grab at the grocery store or a Walmart/Target store, stick it in your cart and then decide how frequently you need to get more (it ships as frequently as once a month). I love it for a couple of reasons.
- It's cheaper! Hello! I hate giving away my money when I don't have to. So I just make sure I've got 5 or 6 items coming each month and I save an extra 15% off the price... and BTW the price is already cheaper than Walmart's prices, so double bonus!
- I don't have to think about it. I am notorious for getting to snag the paper towels or toilet paper when I'm grocery shopping. And let me tell you, it's horrible to be the one who finds out you've used the last square and there's no backup supply.
- My shopping trips are super quick now... and that is an incredibly great thing especially when you're a military wife (whose husband is constantly deployed) who is having to make trips to the grocery store with a pair of insatiable elementary school-age boys! Grah! At this point I really just have to hit up the chicken, meat and dairy sections of the store and I can head home - because I have our toiletry products being delivered by Amazon, and I get a weekly produce delivery from a local organic farm - genius!
Wow, I totally went off on a tangent there... back to the task at hand - figuring out how to keep energy levels up while the dark season creeps in. A couple years ago I had some nursing aid at my doctor's office tell me I should put in daylight light bulbs.
To preserve your sanity, please don't do this! Maybe this would work well for a desk lamp, or for the occasional light bulb here and there, but my kitchen has approximately 12 recessed lights and replacing all of these with daylight flood bulbs was not only a little expensive for an experiment, but also created the worst lighting ever! It was bright, that's for sure. But bright in a sterile, operating room, going to perform brain surgery... and then later make dinner... kind of way. It was super irritating. It reminded me of being in a Walmart. Do those lights make you feel pissed off and angry too? So lesson learned. Won't be doing that again.
Exercise seems like a good way to keep the energy levels up, so I'll be making a point of getting in the habit of heading over to the gym - as outdoor exercise becomes infrequent.
Anyone have any other ideas or things they resort to when the days get super short?
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