Seasons

I feel like living in Phoenix has really skewed my idea of what months happen in which seasons.  This is how I think of the year:

November:  Fall
December - January:  Winter (and I use the term super loosely) a.k.a. late fall
February - March:  Spring
April:  Late Spring/Early Summer, depending on the weather that year
May - October:  Summer

That's right; to me, summer lasts a full six months out of the year.  Some people may disagree, but I feel like when it gets over 95 degrees it is safe to say that Summer has arrived.

Have I ever mentioned how much I loathe summer?  You can't do anything.  It's too hot!  I'm hot all the time as it is, but once it gets over 90 I start to really suffer.  I feel like I can never cool down.  I don't want to leave the house because at least when you're inside the air conditioning makes it bearable.  You could walk around in your underwear all day and it still wouldn't be cool enough.

I feel like I suffer from reverse seasonal affective disorder, and my doctor seems to agree.  Last summer my anxiety/depression was so bad that I gained thirty five pounds over that horrible six month period.  How much did I gain over the holidays?  NONE.

That's not normal.

Once again I picked a word for One Little Word.  This year my word is

I have spent so much of the past year and a half thinking to myself, "Oh, I really should do ____!" only to stay sitting on the couch and not doing anything at all.  I let my blog go, I didn't keep up on my scrapbooking, I cooked minimally, I spot cleaned my house and only when absolutely necessary, and I stopped taking care of myself, really.  Bless my husband, he's been so good and so patient with all my slacking off.  He cooks and he cleans and he is super involved with being a parent.  I'm very lucky.

I do realize that it needs to stop though.  That's where my word comes in.  When I catch myself saying, Oh, I really should do ____!" I'm going to try to actually do that thing if I can.  So, if I'm sitting around doing nothing and I think, oh, I should go work on my Project Life a bit, instead of sitting there and playing another round of Candy Crush or checking Instagram again, I'm going to get up and do it.  Instead of thinking, oh, I should start dinner soon, I need to get up and start chopping stuff instead of procrastinating for so long we end up getting a pizza.

I've been putting this into effect too.  I've cleaned more this month than I did in the last three.  I hand embroidered six dishtowels for a friend's bridal shower gift instead of slacking off and buying something lame at the last minute.  When I had fifteen minutes to kill between a trip to Target and school pickup, I stopped at home to grab some stuff out of the garage to take to Goodwill instead of just spending that time hanging out in the school parking lot and playing on my phone.

I really want to be more productive this year, and in order to do that I need to break some of the bad habits I've developed.  Hopefully I can get into some sort of routine before the weather gets too hot and that will combat the issues I have during that time of year.  Of course, it's like 80 degrees here already, so I'm racing against the clock.

Man, I hate summer.