Climbing Out Of The Ashes of Depression

It is morning and a nice balmy -3 C this morning. I love mornings. I have done my routine of taking the dogs out and feeding them. It is always a mixed blessing in the morning taking them out because they demand it right now. Not when I wake up but as soon as I open my eyes and sit up. Which generally means that I don't have adequate clothing on when I take them out. Just slippers ,t-shirt, and sweats. I have a great pair of slippers so I don't have to put on my snow boots . After, I'm done , I can enjoy the dogs. It is like saying good morning to them. Then I have coffee and my vitamins in the morning.
I have seen a big difference in my mood by taking a Multi-Vitamin, B-Complex, chewable Vitamin C, and sub lingual B-12. I have had more energy and for that , I'm grateful. When I feel better , I'm more productive and take care of myself better. It is hard to get out of the depression rut but possible. Some of it is just time and the other part of it is taking small steps to improve it .
I was right in the fact when I became more active physically , the domestic side would follow. I have been cooking and started cleaning again. I have been inspired to do more with food than just make boring pot roast. The other day I marinaded a roast and it was absolutely delicious. I have a ton of roast since I bought a front of a cow and have to get a little more adventurous with different things. Today, I'm finally going to make Red Beans and Rice. I have the chicken stock ready for it and all I have to do is put it on today as I soaked my beans over night. I love themes and have some zydeco music that will go nicely with it. Tomorrow, I'm going to cook some glazed beef short ribs to go along with the red beans and rice. I bought a nice bottle of red wine to go with it and a nice baguette.
I love it when I feel domestic as I come up with different things to cook and get inspired to tackle this house and organize it better. Sometimes , it is so difficult to even get a bowl of cereal much less cook something with multiple ingredients.
One thing, I have been doing to kick this rut is to get cleaned up every day no matter whether I go out or not. It is so easy to stay in my house clothes and not get cleaned up. I once read this thing called the Fly Lady that getting cleaned from head to toe was the only way to get productive in the morning. She even recommend to get your shoes on. For the longest time I thought she was full of it. I thought that I got more done looking like crap and having old clothes on. What it made me learn is I felt better about myself. Getting cleaned up just to clean made me feel better if that makes any sense. I have took it a step farther with doing things like exfoliating and little extras like more cream on my face. I have looked at some of the people faces in this town and they look all weathered from the elements and like they don't take care of there skin. I have since stepped up my skin care for the winter as in the spring I don't wear lotion as I would get ate up by blackflies and mosquitoes. I don't wear anything except ivory soap during spring and early summer. I have a very bad reaction to the assortment of biting insects. So I save my beauty routine for winter and the rest of the year. I refuse to look like a lizard or some tanned leather. It is so easy to forget about appearance when your depressed.
I have started to get more in a routine and manage my time a little better. It does seem overwhelming with all that I have neglected the past couple of months though. I have learned though the thing that I neglected the most was myself and my well being. I have found it very nice to take care of myself and get with living life. I'm finally up to the adventure of life.

Christmas

It is official Christmas day. It is much like any other day for me except that I cook more. I'm still not in the hoop la of the Holiday season. Neither did I put my shopping off till the last minute. I did put my grocery shopping off until the last minute but that is just me and had nothing to do with Christmas. It amazes me , when I see people still shopping for presents at the last minute. I find this time of year most stores are picked over. I can't imagine finding the perfect gift but more of an last minute gift of that will do. On the news , they showed mostly men doing last minute shopping. I guess men fit the stereo-type of not liking to shop and being disorganized. I have known a lot of men that like to shop and that are very organized.
I wondered if the real reason for last minute shopping is because people live from pay cheque to pay cheque. I also wondered if the grocery stores are busier because everything is closed until after Boxing Day . If you run out your just screwed and with that mentality people end up stocking up more. I don't know, I can only speak about myself. I made sure I was extra stocked up for the long holiday and possible bad weather. I know it got real bad over the holiday season last year and my partner has lived in this area for almost 36 years said that the weather gets real bad over the holiday season. The weather hasn't changed much yet and has been so sunny but cold. I love all the sun and the brightness against the snow. I still want more snow to cover up the ugliness of the plowing and slush that cars and people make. It looks like a winter wonderland out where I live, compared to what it looks like in town.
I have been preparing for the long holiday closures and being home bound. I started cooking yesterday. I made some pasta salad , potato salad, and ham. I sliced the ham up for sandwiches. The pasta salad looks very pretty with all the different colours of peppers and different veggies. I made a red potato salad which I found a homemade pickle relish to put in it. Very tasty and a balance between sweet and bitter. I'm making deviled eggs this morning. I don't like turkey very much so I'm cooking my partner a thigh as she likes dark meat. I'm going to make a roast today instead with the traditonal meal fair of Xmas. I also have all the condiments like pickles and peppers to go with it. Cheese platter of bleu cheese, cambert, and sharp. A very nice salami and pepperoni as I cant find summer sausage here . I also have buffalo wings, jalapeno poppers, spring- rolls , potsickers. I bought some smoked prosciutto to wrap around some asparagus to grill in the kitchen. I have enough food to feed probably 6-8 people and I'm just feeding two. We will be pigging out until the new year. Then , I'm going to watch what I eat for awhile and get back to the gym after being sedentary and watching movies. I plan on playing the Wii over this period also. It is perfect exercise without leaving the house and putting on a million clothes and heavy snow boots.
The only thing the holiday season has accomplished is putting me in a homey nesting mood with cooking and cleaning. I needed a big kick in the butt to get me back on track again. It also helped getting a very whimsical apron for Christmas. I love it. It has a tex-mex theme on it with peppers, Tabasco sauce, tacos and tequila on it. I love aprons and collect them. I like wearing them because I'm such a slob in the kitchen and end up wearing what I'm cooking if I don't wear one. I also got a itunes card. I was in heaven with it as I can blow through it in about 5-10 minutes. I actually got my fill with a hundred dollars worth of music. I could probably down load music all day if I could. I'm up to 13gb on my ipod now. I still have about 135 gbs to feel it up. I'm working at it. If I ever get my storage cleared out I have a lot of stuff to transfer to it. I just love music and it never gets old for me. I love every genre of music even though I'm not that wild with some country. I do like some of it. My ipod is very eclectic and a person could find about anything on it.
I also got a snuggie. It really isn't as cheesy as they advertise it as on the chimerical. The sleeve part does get in my way a little bit but generally the only time I wear it is watching tv and it does fine. I wouldn't use it to work on my computer as the sleeves sort of gets in the way and tends to be bulky for me. It is nice and warm and the plus for me is it is in leopard that tends to hide dog hair. Patterns are wonderful for pet hair. I was thinking stains also. I don't eat with it on so it isn't a problem. We also got the whole series of ab fab and I love it. Nothing like women with sharp tongues . I also like my cafe mug I received filled with biscotti. How can you go wrong with that. My final gift I recieved was money. I purchased two seasons of The jetsons with that. I love old cartoons. I also put my own money with it and ordered Saturday cartoons of the 60's. I can't wait to get them. I ended up buying my partner a Nintendo Ds as they have phased out gameboys for awhile. She loved it and the plus side she can use her gameboy games on it. I also got her games and a book. I combined her Christmas and birthday, since they are so close together. The book is called Pegahmagabow- Life-long Warrior. It is about a man that was a WW1 solider and an Indian Chief. I think she will enjoy it as she was excited to get it because she loves local history, Native North American culture, and anything about war history. It truly combines all of those elements together.
Most of all I'm thank-full to be in a better mood and not so depressed. Unlike, most people ,I'm blessed not to have all the stress most people have during the holiday season.

Therapy through cooking

I feel a little better today even though my mood hasn't passed . Just the way that I look at things in my life. I noticed to make a mood tolerable I have to ignore the negative self talk which I'm not always good at doing but after years I have started trying to re frame my thinking and just not worry so much and accept the moment. One of the things that helped me was staying distracted. I went on to cook for part of the day. I made stuffed green peppers and a roast. I made three huge stuffed peppers and was able to eat a half of one sliced for lunch with garlic roasted potatoes and corn. The left overs are for lunch today. The roast I did with a Cajun rub, onions and baby bella mushrooms. I had some for dinner and will make BBQ- beef sandwich's out of it today for tonight's dinner. The thing is I didn't feel like cooking but sometimes a healthy escape as doing what we need to do is great therapy and great to eat. It also makes me not have to think about fixing food for today. I also do know that three healthy meals a day are essential to me and will make a bad mood tolerable and a bad mood not tolerable if I don't eat healthy.