When I wake up melancholy

It doesn't happen often, I suppose, but I'm sure it happens to all of us. When you wake up in the morning, you sometimes wake up tired, you sometimes wake up dreading work, you sometimes wake up looking forward to the day, or pleased that it's the weekend.

And sometimes you wake up sad.

Yeah, it's probably just hormones, but nonetheless you've got to live with it. You can give in to it, and mope about all day, being unproductive and making everyone else miserable, too. You end up asleep on the couch for half the day, then wake up angry with yourself for having wasted a whole day. Or you can declare war on it, go out with friends or go shopping, do something aggressively "fun" to derail the sad start of your day, and attempt to end the day happy, or at least sort of manically and hilariously unbalanced.

Or you can take advantage of the fact that you are feeling low and address all those mundane tasks that are wasted on happiness anyway.

I brewed a large pot of coffee.

I lit the candles in the house. For some reason, candles always make me content.

I then set to work covering up the last of the yellow in the kitchen and the hallway to the bathroom and stairs. I was surprised at how relieved I felt when it was finally erased. I started some laundry, stripped my bed, and wandered around the kitchen with a paint brush, looking for thin spots.

The sun came pouring in around noon. Bear was in and out. We did the "mouse dance" at the door more than once.



I picked away at work email.

It was tempting to just stay inside and continue to drudge away at indoor tasks but the bird feeders were empty again and the recycling needed to go out. Also, we all know the best thing to do when you are down-and-out, although sometimes it takes a boot in the ass to get a going.

A walk. Poor Molly has been neglected.



It wasn't a long walk. The snow and ice is melting, so it was pretty slippery going. At least Molly got to bounce around and stick her head in the snow. I got to feel the sun and listen to the creeks roar. When you are feeling out-of-sorts, unpleasant tasks sort of roll right off you, so I grabbed the shovel and took care of the "when the snow melts it becomes apparent you own a dog" issue near the porch.



Sadness is also best treated with tea (mint) and the newspaper (delivered daily). And creativity. In celebration of the working fan (and it does move the air perfectly! It's 76 degrees in her now instead of 68), I grabbed my last piece of FIMO clay and made a pull-chain kitty.



I then went through my cupboards and the refrigerator for all those leftover Christmas cooking items (nuts, dried fruit, etc.) that had or were about to go bad, or at least become stale. I scattered dates, cranberries, and walnuts around for the deer. I took the remaining pecans and attempted to make maple sugar pecans in the oven, but they were still too stale, so the deer got those, too.

I took care of the cats in the cat facility (sunshine! it sure cheers the place up!), hauled wood, and broke open an old paint can to paint a section of wainscoting near the bathroom that somehow has been missed for almost ten years.

It's amazing what we tolerate in the name of "I'll do it someday." Well, it's done.

Basically I pushed the day away one hour at a time (even scattering ashes on the driveway well after dark just to have one more thing done).

If you are going to be bummed, it should at least serve some purpose.

And here it is, after a night's sleep, the next day, and I did NOT wake up sad.

There you go. Just one day at a time.

Do you have any tricks for dealing with a case of the blahs?