Joyful Things Making Winter More Bearable

My daughter’s February break is next week and almost every day this week she’s asked me if we can go to Florida. She’s only 6, and even she’s had enough of winter. We are sadly not going anywhere warm, but she did reveal she’ll take an indoor pool and an arcade. It might be my personal hell, but it’s way cheaper than flying to Florida 😅 .

February might be the shortest month, but it sure does feel like the longest. This time of year is when my seasonal depression really starts to kick into high gear. Thankfully we have snow (and lately sun) which does help make things look pretty, but there’s the sneaky sense that we’ve got a long way to go creeping into my consciousness.

It’s in these last (4) weeks of winter that I really lean into anything that makes life feel a little more joyful. These days, it doesn’t take much!

The mere thought of a summer tomato thaws my frozen winter heart. It’s probably another month (or two) before we even begin to start seedlings indoors, but I’m enjoying thumbing through the Fedco Seed Catalog and gardening books. Now that we’re into the third year of our garden beds I think we have a slightly better handle on things.

As for flowers, most of our beds are filled with pollinator friendly perennials. We have a new garden bed Craig made last spring with a huge rock feature. We’re excited to come up with something new there. I’m also hoping to plant more chamomile, feverfew, black eyed susans, and pink coneflower. Next week I’m going to the library to borrow some books for inspiration. If you have any favorite gardening books please share!

I’ve explored more creative pursuits this winter than I have in decades. I find a class environment to be fun because the human interaction piece is soul nourishing, especially in the dark, cold days of winter. If you want to try something but aren’t sure where to start, search for art classes near you, often times you can take a single workshop if you’re not ready to commit to a full class schedule.

We also do lots of crafting at home. Marin is really into watercolors. Lately we’ve been doing still life, like painting a bowl of fruit or a bird on a tree branch. For an easy starting point, these watercolor workbooks are a lot of fun.

Knitting has been my favorite discovery as of late. I took a class to get started, but there are tons of online tutorials. The knitting community is very generous with their time in my experience. If there’s a knitting group near you, might be worth checking out. Most knitters are eager to help a newbie get started.