Forecast: looking up

The end of one year and the beginning of another are normally not a good time for me.  As the year ends, and as I accumulate Christmas gifts, I always get so overwhelmed by all the things I haven't done.  The books I haven't read, the dvds I haven't watched, the places I haven't gone, the food I haven't cooked.  I can't ever seem to focus on the accomplishments of an outgoing year.  Adding new Christmas books and dvds and food appliances only adds to this stress.  (But let's be clear: I love getting gifts so please don't stop giving them!)  I start every new year feeling such pressure not to let this year get away from me, too.

Add to my stress this year the fact that work is very intense right now.  And we got an actual blizzard on Christmas Eve/day.  While I would ordinarily have enjoyed a big snow fall, this one is very un-Kansas-like.  A week later, the snow is all still here.  And the forecast still doesn't project us to get above 25 degrees until next weekend.  So the snow and all its accompanying inconveniences are not going anywhere.  It's enough to make any normally-exuberant creature curl up in a ball.  Maddie has become a very clingy lapdog instead of her usual playful self.  I think she's in hibernation-mode.  I know I have been. 

Of course, when I lived in Minnesota and Wisconsin, we had snow cover almost continuously from November to March.  And I remember a famous stretch when the temperature did not get above 0 for 3 solid weeks.  I am not exaggerating.  So it's not like I can't handle this stuff.  But it's not supposed to be like that in Kansas.  Here we get snow, and it melts within 4 days.  I've gotten rather used to that.  Combined with my usual end-of-the-year funk, the weather has made me grumpy and frustrated and sad.  And very reluctant to go anywhere or do anything.

But then last night, SO and I were straightening up the living room before a friend came over.  He found a piece of junk mail I had somehow overlooked.  It was a coupon from my beloved Noodles & Company.  For a free bowl.  No ifs, ands, or buts.  No strings attached.  How had I missed that? 

So I hatched a plan to force myself out of the house and maybe get over the hump of my funk.  I decided to treat myself to The Gap and Noodles.  At The Gap, I got the sweater I wanted for $16.99 and two pair of jeans.  But one of those jeans was entirely free!  (On their buy 3, get one free plan.  Apparently, I had already bought two pair of jeans in the last year.  Perhaps I buy too many jeans.)  And the sweater rang up at only $11.99!  And my impulse buy of a very cute hand-knit sweater wasn't really its marked sale price of $54.99, but was $32! 

Mood much improved, I headed to Noodles for my free lunch.  I had to find a free parking space, though, as I had absolutely no change on me or in my car so I couldn't plug a meter.  There's one little free lot right by Noodles, but it is usually packed.  I tried it, anyway, and came upon a car that was pulling out just as I pulled in.  Whoo-hoo!

So to recap.  I've been in a major, depressive funk.  Spending $100 at The Gap to get a free pair of jeans, a free bowl of noodles, and rock star free parking seems to be all it took to make me feel better.  I must be a more shallow, materialistic person than I realized.  Or maybe I just wasn't as depressed as I was acting.