What's on your Monday Menu?

I like late spring / summer weather in Long Island and winter weather in Florida which is basically the same - sunny but not torrid breezy days and lots of flowers showing themselves off to enjoy . Conversely I think I?d be bored without the occasional deep but beautiful snow-day ... perfect for a fire, a cross- country ski.....

It?s not a happy hip day - maybe I overdid it at IKEA or just slept wrong ....grrr. I?m SO ready to have this injury done and over with.

yesterdays dinner was Ikea child?s meal - Mac n cheese n two Swedish meatballs , lingonberry soda and a veggie dog .

snacked after returning home late - plate of cold cuts ( corned beef roast beef pastrami spiced turkey breast ) a bit of French bread , ff Mayo/ horseradish mustard combo chamomile tea w ff milk

b- chai tea latte and swim with ? rents ( 70 minute swim full strength 10 min hot tub )

walk w sponsor one hour

l- ff sf straw blue and raspberry Greek n Siggis yogurt n seltzer smoothie

1 cu*****leberries

fat free garlic bread ( roasted garlic cloves in oven spread on bread sprinkle w butter buds and a bit of everything spice ) ( variation includes ff cream cheese)

s - slices of 75% ff cheddar

fat free green bean bake - Polish mushroom soup mix w ff half n half over green beans ( w Greek seasoning) almond slices n water chestnuts. Bake , add toasted onions to top if fat calories allow . Yum!

d- dk

Cleanin cleaning cleaning so ?rents can visit for DAYS

Good morning and Happy Monday!

QOTD - I live in South Texas, so if I don't like the weather, just wait, it will change lol. My perfect weather day would be sunny, with fat puffy clouds (not too many), and start in the 50's, and end in the 70's. I am definitely someone affected by SAD, and I can feel it creeping in. Took me years to understand, but at least now I can work around it.

Breakfast - fasting so hot black coffee, water

Lunch - Soyrizo, tofu and kale scramble

Snack - Fruit smoothie, frozen fruit, oat milk, water, kale, turmeric, ginger and cayenne pepper

Snack - yogurt with chia seeds, apple and some pumpkin seeds

Dinner - Gardein fishless filets, mushy peas, and fried potatoes with malt vinegar.

Have a great day y'all!

Do you do any light therapy? Back in the early 90s, I did a ton of research into SAD as part of my college debate team competitions (my goal was to persuade people in winter states to use light therapy to offset SAD when it was still just becoming acknowledged as a thing). Having lived most of my life in very high sunlight locations, the impact of even a week of gloom is astonishing.

For years, I just kind of suffered with it. My dad had it pretty bad as well. I never understood why I couldn't just enjoy the holidays, or why I would wake up SO sad/mad. Now I work around it. Sad to say, I haven't ever used the light therapy, just kind of white knuckle through the sadness and try to focus my energy elsewhere. I live in south Texas so we have no shortage of sun but...yes, a few days of gloomy weather or even a shift in seasons and I'm just like BEW.

I went to college in upstate NY and the area was in some sort of weird weather depression that didn't allow it to ever get sunny there. It rained or snowed every single damn day. I hated it so much. I remember one time I was driving back from a waeekend away and it was a gorgeous day with bright blue skies and sun, and I saw a cloud in the distance, and just knew it was Oneonta... I was right. Some students had done a long term study on locals too, and found that permanent residents were more depressed on days when the sun actually came out because they knew it wouldn't last.

Long story short, if you have SAD--don't move to Oneonta NY.

Or Ithaca, NY! That's where I went to college and talk about depressing weather...

I have lived my whole life in NE Ohio. We have the most cloud cover in the country and probably a good shot at the most in the world. When the steel mills were working full force. So in addition to clouds, there was always a lot of smoke and soot in the air. I used to have to have my house painted every few years. It would start out white and develop a rusty color from the sulphur in the air.

I have heard of the light therapy and think I will try that this winter. There will be many gloomy days and not much opportunity to get out and do things. No gym, no swimming pools, no walking in the parks due to the ice and snow. I think there will be more depressed people here than ever.

Jen, If you don't mind, can you point me in the direction of where to start?

I have the small one from circadian optics for my basement office. I really like it. I also really like the Phillips sun rise alarm -- it does the brightening the room like daylight starting about 30 minutes before you wake up..an you can just turn it on too.

Definitley look for no flicker and UV blocking, those are the best, and the ability to change the angle so you get the light but not staring at it. They say it's best to be 15-30 minutes per day. Let me know if you try it and if it helps!

I see these three on Amazon. Which one should I get?

I have the square one because I plug it into my usb when I'm working before daylight. If I hadn't wanted that, I would have gone with the rectangle one but because i like the look of it and it's easy to move around.