Doldrummy.

I’m not sure why it surprises me. This happens every year, sometimes a few times, but typically sometime in January/February. Life is on top of me right now. My house is a wreck, I can’t keep my temper for shit, I spend an embarrassing amount of time watching crappy shows on Netflix and playing mind-numbingly dumb games on my phone. It’s… uhhhh, it’s not good, you guys. And of course it all kind of builds on itself; I feel like crap because I am not doing anything productive, but I’m not doing anything productive because I feel like crap. Rinse and repeat. (And yes, that includes running. I’ve had a few different people tell me that I have inspired them and it makes me feel even worse because WHY?!?!? I have not run in well over a month, and I feel like a lazy slug pretty much all the time.)

I also tend to never pick up my camera when I’m feeling less than.  And then I get all “I’m the worst because I have so many pictures of the girls when they’re this age and now Mikey’s going to hate me because all I have of him are some blurry iPhone snaps and I’m the worrrrrrrrrst” And then that’s so depressing, that I can’t be bothered to pick up my camera.

It’s a vicious cycle, yo! And I tend to just keep digging in and digging in until something brings it to a head, usually a day that’s particularly horrendous. I may have, for example, screamed at everyone in the car to “be quieeeeeeeeeeeeeet” so loudly that all four started to cry, and then promptly started crying myself because I felt like such a monster. Allegedly.

So. What to do- create an action plan. A plan to make it out of winter not only alive but happy. Step one, as always, was to start having people over for coffee and what have you. It not only gives me that oft-overlooked adult interaction, but it forces me to clean the house AND put on real pants. These may sound like trivial things, but I assure you, they’re not. I’d be lying if I said I’d never looked down at myself and realized that oh hell. I’ve been wearing this pair of leggings for 4 days straight, and no. I have not showered in that time frame. And it shows. I don’t enjoy the level of apathy I have to be at to let those sorts of things happen.

My next steps involve more sleep and more (read: any) exercise. Then we’ll move on to structure- meal plans, chore charts (for the kids and for me), etc. This is nothing groundbreaking, but my hope is that by putting it out there, I’ll have a better chance at being held accountable? I hope.

I also deleted candy crush from my phone. I know it’s old news, but I only got into it this month. There’s a damn good reason I held off on getting into it. That is some entertaining mind crack bullshit right there. I cannot stop myself from playing. And so, baleeted.

Hopefully now that I’m not wasting hours of my day (yes, hours. It’s horrendously sad and pathetic, I’M AWARE OF THAT) I will actually be able to accomplish things. Like laundry. And showering. And eating breakfasts that don’t consist solely of coffee and mini marshmallows. You know, the very basics of human existence.

Operation GMST has begun. (I’ll leave it to you to figure out my acronym. I feel it’s pretty self-explanatory, and also I’ve been told that maybe I should cut back a bit with the cussing?)

Because I owe it to myself, but also because I owe it to these little buggers I spend my days with. They deserve more than what I’ve been bringing to the proverbial table this month.