The Loneliness of the Midwinter Blogger

I'm feeling sorry for myself.

• I just got over the stomach flu. It wiped us out for about a week, and my stomach is still uneasy. I'm cooking based on how easy it is to get dinner done, not how excited I am about eating.

• The grill is covered with snow. On a deck covered with snow, that I don't want to shovel.

• The sun sets at 5PM, making all my blog pictures look awful, because I need to use artificial light. And that's on the one day a week when I get to see the sun, and it's not gray and overcast.

• Seasonal affective disorder is setting in. The excitement of the holidays, and a white Christmas - it's gone. Now it's just cold and dark.

• My new cookbook isn't flowing. I'm way behind schedule. It's a grilling cookbook, and the grill covered with snow is holding my recipe testing back…but not as much as my own procrastination. I'm supposed to get up at 5:30AM every morning, so I can get my writing in. I keep turning off the alarm clock, rolling over, and going back to sleep.

• I'm trying to lose weight, and the diet is boring me already. I want starch, potatoes, fatty food, even though I know I shouldn't. (Though this is the only good part of the stomach flu - losing weight was easy for a couple of days.)

I'm overwhelmed. I want to crawl under the covers and hibernate until spring. And I feel guilty about feeling sorry for myself, so it is a cycle that feeds on itself.

I know these are all first world problems. I appreciate all of you, reading what I write, leaving comments, sending me email. It keeps me going.

But, man, I hate this time of year.

How about you? How are you surviving the winter? Talk about it in the comments, below.

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