Bright lights, bright mornings…?

I’m not going to lie.  I get really crabby in the winter.  My family quietly urges me to seek sunlight, drink joyous teas, meditate, sing, eat, dance, and everything else possible so I don’t morph into the grouchiest grouch who ever got out of bed.  On the wrong side.  Everyday.  

Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD as it is so appropriately called, is the real deal.  And I’m not self-diagnosing, but the winter blues is not something that we made up because we were crabby and couldn’t go outside and play.  It’s caused by a decrease in sunlight, drop in chemical levels in the body, and, although not technically documented, also by being trapped in your house with your children asking you to play Candyland and feed them snacks for hours on end until they request to watch TV and then use every single sheet and blanket you have to build a fort which covers two-thirds of your living space and you have to just about crawl through a window to get to your bathroom and they never, ever clean it up no matter how kindly you ask.

But I digress.

I was talking about being cranky in the winter, right?

My husband is convinced that my body gets angry when it doesn’t see the sun, so he brought me home a new alarm clock.  It’s one of those fancy kinds that uses light to wake you up gradually that is supposed to prepare your body to wake up and face the day with a smile.  For thirty minutes, it simulates a sunrise so that by the end of it, you’ve got a grin-inducing non-UV light in your face.  If that doesn’t work, you can set it to the radio or even a chorus of birds chirping in the early morning fake light that glows in your bedroom.

It’s actually pretty cool, and I am grateful for my fancy present.  The problem is that having this new alarm clock means getting rid of my old one, which I have had since I’ve been thirteen years old.  (That’s over twenty years, people.  They just don’t make appliances like they used to.)  This old clock has been with me forever.  Its buttons have been memorized by my fingers in such a way that I can set it in the dark with my eyes closed.  That clock and I have woken up at every hour of the day.  It has seen me through dozens of afternoon power naps and held strong even in my grumpiest mornings.  Its faint ANT ANT ANT ANT ANT ANT ANT has become music to my ears.  

And now, some new fangled extravagant happiness-producing bird-chirping hunk of light on my nightstand is replacing my old friend.  I’m not sure how I feel about all of this.  Saying goodbye to that oversized and outdated appliance is making me feel…wait for it…kind of sad.  

So it follows that getting my new alarm clock, which should make me happy, and saying goodbye to my old one, which makes me sad, should in fact cancel each other out and I’ll keep on keeping on with my regular self.

Until spring finally springs.

A final note: Seasonal Affective Disorder is indeed more than just your kids driving you bonkers.  You can do yourself a favor during these winter months by making sure you eat healthy, exercise, get plenty of sleep, by getting outside more, and by doing things that you know make you happy.  Call me crazy, but these seem to be good tips for every season of the year, no matter which side of the bed you get up on.

Enough room for love

Of all of the misused and overused words in the world, one of the biggest culprits is the word that is on everyone’s mind this time of the year.  Love.

Think of how many times a day we use it, and what we use it for.  I know how many times I day I tell my children or my husband that I love them, but I also say things like, “I love Chinese food!” and “I love it when I do a few loads of laundry and don’t have any mismatched socks!”  I talk to my mom nearly every day on the phone and end it with “love you.”  I end every email with my husband “love, Karrie.”  I sometimes tell my children that I love them so much, I could squeeze them until their heads pop off.

We love songs and television shows.  We love movie stars and seasons of the year, restaurants, cars, and fashion.   Toby Keith sang about how much he loves a bar, and Ray Charles sang that he can’t stop loving you, and the Beatles are well known for preaching that, above all else, all you need is love.

It all seems like a lot of love.  Almost too much for one word to handle, and if Love knew what it had to go through every day, it’d probably be fairly stressed out.  How can one simple four-letter word (that doesn’t follow simple grammatical rules, by the way) have to cover everything from socks to pop music to the Indian restaurant about an hour away?

The answer, I think, came to me during my first job in the real world.  My boss was a very wise man, as down to earth as they come and his knowledge continues to resonate in my head.  The father of many children, one dark early morning before they had even turned on the overhead florescent lights, we sat drinking coffee by lamplight and discussing our work for the day and like we did so often, we got off topic.  There in that office, he shared something so special with me that I carry it with me and see the truth in it in so many facets of life.

“When I got married, I thought I loved my wife more than all the world.  And then when we were about to have our first child, I got really scared.  I thought to myself, I love my wife so much, how can I ever have enough love for a child, too?”

A newly married woman, I sat in awe and listened.

“And when the child was born, I realized that I had enough.  I loved that child like I loved my wife.  The three of us were in so much love with each other, it was beautiful.  I thought I had maxed out on love, so when a few years later we found out we were expecting another child, I got scared once again.  How could I possibly have enough love to share with my wife, my daughter, and now another kid?”

Knowing this bearded boss of mine had a mind and heart of infinite wisdom, I waited for his answer.

“And you know what?  I did.  I had enough for that child, too.  And the next, and the next, and the next, and the next.   And enough for my wife, and God and all things that are good in the world.”

So whenever I feel like the word “love” is overused, I go back to that sunrise conversation because I learned that love is not something that can be measured, defined, calculated, or even described.  We can love everything, with enough room to go around, and that’s what makes this world such a special place.  Maybe John, Paul, George, and Ringo were right, and it’s really all we need.  (I just love the Beatles.)

Finding your true age

This morning I reached into my oversized purse and fished through in search of my keys, which ended up being in my coat pocket, but that’s beside the point.  The point is that I found the following items floating around down there: wallet, checkbook, pack of tissues, deck of playing cards, and cough drops.  And if I was a betting woman, I would guess that the contents of my nearly 90-year-old grandmother’s purse would be exactly the same thing.

I laughed, and then felt like I should maybe qualify for the senior citizen discount because the wisdom of true necessity is not usually reached by someone as young as I.

This whole scenario played out the morning after my children and I went out for dinner at 4:00.  And while I know most of you are thinking early-bird special, I will tell you that as we sat in that nearly empty restaurant, we all felt our youth and it was not based on the time or the few other clientele at the nearby tables.  It was based on our absolute immaturity.  (At this time I’d like to apologize to those lovely people around us.)

We laughed to the point of snorting.  There was a catapult designed that sent a butter container sailing.  We even tried to play a practical joke on my daughter but the couple at the next table over may have actually believed we left her there on purpose because they didn’t see us hiding behind the next row of booths and kind of blew it.

For the record, I have also rigged a toy in our home bathroom that makes a random flatulent noise whenever someone turns on the light.

But I should also add that in my constant quest to find a pinochle game, I have much more luck with a crowd of retirees.  

So if you asked me how old I really, truly am, I wouldn’t at all know the answer.  My mother would answer “ten.”  My children would answer “80.”  The internet, however, is designed for just these situations.

According to quick health-based test, I am 31 years old.

According to a quick maturity test, I’m 40.

I think these are bogus numbers, so like any person intelligent beyond her years who proudly carries cough drops, I thought I’d make my own test based on zero scientific study and that barely makes any sense.

Test A:

Do you marvel at the first flowers of spring?  

Do you like riding your bike super fast?

Do you think fireworks are really, really cool?

If you came to my house and had to use the bathroom, would you tumble out in hysterics because of the sound of turning on the light?

If you answered “yes” to any of these, you are ten years old.  Welcome to the club.

Test B:

Do you enjoy décor and buy matching throw pillows?

Do you read business newspapers?

Do you follow the latest diet trend even if it means you can’t have donuts which are, quite frankly, a ball of fried deliciousness?

Do you wear trouser socks or panty hose?

If you answered “yes” to these, you’ve got to be about 40.  Sorry.

Test C:

Do you like to play pinochle?

Do you always have a tissue handy?

If you answered “yes” to these questions, you’re just plain fabulous.

How to stay healthy during cold and flu season

When it comes to keeping my family healthy, I will do just about anything.  All I need to do is ask my children how many kids were absent in their classes, and my palms start to sweat and I consider putting hand sanitizer up my nose, although I do not ever in a million years actually do it wouldn’t recommended it.  (Dangerous, actually.)  But the thought crosses my mind because in my family, if someone goes down, we all go down.  Life as we know it ceases, and every parent out there reading this is nodding their heads simultaneously because they know exactly what I’m talking about.

Therefore, I proudly admit that I subscribe to any crazy home remedy, old wives tale, or even email forward that proclaims that it can keep us from getting sick.

Literally, if someone told me that holding a barbeque pork rind between my toes on my left foot while drinking a glass of water with dog food in it, I would do it.  I get that crazy during cold and flu season, and even crazier when I hear things like,“Mom, we had eight kids out today!” Or, “Mom, our teacher left early because she was barfing!”

My head starts to spin, and in a zombie-like trance, I head straight for the pork rinds, because the thought of rescheduling a halted life due to a fever or a few hours hovering the toilet is too much to handle.

The internet, bless it, is full of as many wacky remedies as all of your great aunts and uncles gathered in a room, sharing their wisdom.  And because I care about each and ever reader out there, I thought I would share a few of the oddities that may or may not keep us healthy…

Place an onion cut in half in every room.  From countless emails, this little dandy is supposed to absorb all of the viruses floating around your house, and somebody’s hairdresser in Arizona just swears by it.  Does it work?  Not sure.  Does it make me have a taste for onion rings?  Probably.

Chew a piece of raw garlic every three to four hours.  It’s no surprise that garlic is the flavor of choice, as we’ve heard this many times especially in the form of Grandma’s Chicken Soup.  My grandma, however, doesn’t put garlic in her soup because she doesn’t like it.  My family loves it, but not enough to actually munch on a raw clove.  My breath stinks just thinking about it.

Don’t let your feet get cold.  I generally dislike being cold, so this tactic I kind of like.  The theory goes that chilly tootsies make your nose more susceptible to germs.  I’m not going to try to understand—I’ll just put on some slippers and call it a day.

Other great ideas during my research:  Some people actually consume non-food items to stay healthy or get healthy.  I think it’s not the best idea.  Especially since I also read that something like drinking hot coffee can help keep you from getting sick by washing nasty germs into your stomach which doesn’t matter much to me because all I heard was a good reason to drink coffee.

Another couple of tips:  Open restroom doors with a paper towel instead of your hand.  Read menus by holding them by the top instead of the more popular bottom.  Take deep breaths every day.  Keep your fingernails short.  Kiss on the lips.  Eat your boogers (I am not making this up, and beg of you to not try this at home.)

But mostly, wash your hands.  Stay home if you’re hacking and sneezing all over the place.  And stock up on pork rinds.

Endnote: I realize I have completely jinxed my family in the writing of this article.

First door on the left

Ask most people if they are right or left handed and they’ll answer in a heartbeat.  Ask about their eye dominance, and marksmen will respond quickly.  Ask about their feet and most will stare blankly at you.  Continue reading this potentially important information, and you’ll never walk into a public restroom the same way again.

I have been lucky enough to take a few mini courses in tracking.  I can identify a cat from a dog from a coyote and on a good day can tell you if the deer that walked through the mud was a male or female.  Animal tracking gives you a strong connection to the natural world.  You begin to walk with the animal, feel its thirst and quest for water, its attempt to eat or consequence of being eaten.  A good tracker will look at tracks and be able to piece together an entire story about that animal, because animals follow patterns and instincts.

We have to remember, though, that when it comes down to it, we are animals, too.  And just like the critters of the wild, we follow patterns and instincts.  Once we figure out how to use our feet and legs, we follow them where they take us.  Obviously our brains tell us where to go, but our bodies tend to tweak the way we do it.  Consider the way you reach for a cup of coffee or a toothbrush.  Which hand do you use?  If someone is whispering to you, don’t you lean in with a certain ear?  Sidedness happens all over our bodies, not just in which hand we use to sign our names. 

Unbeknownst to most people, our feet and legs have a dominance almost as important as our hands.  Soccer players and skate or snowboarders might be more familiar with this concept, but think of which foot you use to walk up the first stair? Or with which foot you might smash a man-eating spider?  Chances are it’s all the same side.  Which leads me straight (or semi-straight?) to the bathroom.

According to my tracking instructor, humans right or left foot dominance will make both conscious and subconscious decisions in their lives.  For example, if a person wanders off into a field or the woods, the dominant foot will tend to pull the person in that direction.  (We actually tested this, blindfolded in a field.  If I’m ever lost, please check to the right.)  

Approximately 81% of us out there are right-footed, which means that when given the opportunity, 81% of our bodies will generally take us to the right.  That’s a lot of people going to the right.  Which is why we are finally, yes, finally, getting to the bathroom.

Upon entering a public restroom with stalls lining both sides, we as humans are forced to choose.  Granted, we all look for potties with a supply a toilet paper, clean seats, and clear water, but still, what if they were all like that?

Tracking science shows us that 81% of us will tend to the right, and one might argue that the toilets on the left are only used 19% of the time, therefore making them just the slightest bit cleaner or at least less used.  And I don’t know about all of you, but I’m pretty sure I’d rather go into a stall that has had fewer visitors than the ones on the other side of the hallway.  It’s a fight against the instinct in my feet, but that’s the bonus of being human—my brain reminding me that nearly times as many people have been on the other side.

Now think of which hand you use to flush.