where did the routine go?

I need to get back into routine. The winter weather and the plaque that befell the house really threw us all off, and I have yet to recover from it all.

I started this year with a gym schedule, a cleaning schedule, a life schedule...and now I have not been to the gym in roughly 2 weeks, the house is a mess and life is getting the best of me. The snow has been a huge factor in all of this. Our front yard has piles of the white stuff that are taller then me, the backyard is covered in snow that has a hard crust, and our neighbors seem to think its ok to blow all of their snow over to us. In theory I am ok with their snow living in our yard, but I am worried about what will happen when it all melts, and I draw the line at their shenanigans when I spend an hour digging out a pathway to the car and steps only to have it disappear under their snowblower's gifts.....And the roads up here are pretty ok, but I am not the best night driver and add in the possibility of black ice and you will find me huddled in a corner too scared to even start the car. Thus the gym seems soo very far away...

The sickness that hit us all, laid me out. I (and the kids) could not function on a basic human level, there was a lot of sleep and fluid involved, and not a lot of picking up the house, and now that we are better the house is still not getting picked up and I have no excuse for it. I am being LAZY there is no other way to describe it. And I know that cleaning the house and going to the Gym will help combat the winter blues.

The winter blues are something that I call Jan-term, even when they hit in Feburary. You see back in college we had a mid winter term that stretched from new years until like the first week of february. You could take classes, but really it was a time when there was a small number of folks on campus and we all drank and such to keep warm. For me it was about earning extra money as an intern (read RA), getting away from my family over the break, and staving off madness in many unhealthy ways. It was always bleak and snowy and depressing as hell. And yet I did it every year with gusto. And the memories of those 4 weeks stayed with me enough that I know I would go mad a la the Shining if left to my own devices mid winter, for an extended period of time. In college friends kept me sane (and insane) along with Twin Peaks marathons. This winter a steady stream of baking and Psych episodes are helping me stay sane. But the depression seeps in. Seeing pictures of campus covered in snow and slush remind me of how dark a time it really was, my hermitage reminds me of bad it can get if I let it.

So now even though Jan-term is technically over am reclaiming winter. I am going to turn the rest of this snowy, slushy misery around. I will be productive. I will craft with my children, I will paint the snow in a rainbow of color to stave off the madness.