Thankfully, the end of winter is coming somewhat soon. There were no dragons or white walkers. That shouldn’t have made me sad to type, but it did. On that note, it does mean that the new, and last, season of Game of Thrones is just around the corner as well, which will be fun… hopefully. It hasn’t been a particularly difficult winter here. I am aware that could change at any moment, and now probably will, since I’ve said this. Bad or good, I don’t do particularly well during the winter, I never have. My whole being seems to want to go into hibernation in like the middle of November until it starts to get warm again (like I’m sure many people do). I won’t go so far as to say I have seasonal affective disorder (I might, but I also might not). I just don’t like winter.

It’s getting better though, the last two winters have been amazing compared to almost all my previous winters. I noticed that the better I feel, in general, the easier it is to handle the lower energy and general crappieness of gray, dismal, cold days, where it gets dark by 4 PM. I am, by no means saying I’m super healthy or energetic these last couple months, just better than I have been for the past 30 years or so. Back then, I used to just stay inside as much as possible and felt horrible whether it was because my back had seized up from the cold damp weather or my knee wouldn’t work and I worried constantly about falling on the ice and breaking something, anything, or just because it was shitty out and mentally I didn’t want to deal with it.

There is a point to all of this rambling, kind of. I was scrolling through Facebook earlier today and I saw that one of my friends was a bit annoyed that they had a list of things they had wanted to get accomplished this week but hadn’t gotten through it because the weather was crappy and they just didn’t have the motivation to finish the list. To their credit, they had accomplished some of it, which is more than I can say that I would have gotten done a few years ago. Anyway. they were disappointed but soldiered on. In the comment section below the post, a bunch of their friends had chimed in about how they too were having trouble staying motivated after a long few months of winter.

I’m sure there are people out there that aren’t adversely affected by the long winter months in some way or another, but I’m betting they’re far fewer than those that are. A lot of the time though it feels like it’s just us. like we’re failing somehow and everyone else is doing just great. They’re not. It was nice to see the comments on my friends post today, that so many had agreed and almost all had positive comments or helpful advice to keep pushing ahead and words of encouragement.

Which brings me to the point. In case you’re reading this and feeling the way I was talking about above. You’re not alone. A ton of people hate the long dark months. We’re almost to the other side. It’s already light out at 5 pm instead of 4. The winter is almost over and we’re all going to be feeling much better once the spring kicks in fully. Just hang in there, you’ve made it this far.

I’ve been trying to find the motivation to finish the third Strand book. I didn’t find it this week. I did manage to do almost everything on my list, which feels really good, but I purposely didn’t add writing new material for the book on the list because, well , I’m a realist. Updating my page here was on the list and it took me until Sunday night to do it, but it is done (or will be soon)! In the end, I made the list, I got done what I could and I’ll keep trying next week as well. It’s all progress and eventually, if you keep working at it, you’ll finish the list, or the project or the goal… just always keep pushing.

Don