The winter has been reasonably tolerable so far. We’ve hardly had any snow, the temperatures have been mild-ish and I am noticing that the days are already getting longer. I have been vigilant with my light box and so far I haven’t sunk too far into winter melancholy. I was getting cocky, believing that perhaps this would be the year that I would conquer the winter blues.

Alas, I have started to notice a rising note of hysteria in my voice as I merrily chirp that I am okay and that winter is half over. My words ring hollow and false. I hear the manic undertones and I am sure there is a giant thought bubble looming over my head with nothing in it but a black cloud. I yearn to hide from the world until spring, shuffling in my bathrobe with kleenex boxes on my feet. I am starting to feel broken.

I believe that when you are down a pick me up is in order, especially in the winter. I am determined to treat myself to all things happy until spring arrives. Good-bye shopping hiatus and resolutions to be less self indulgent.

First order of business, I treated myself to an adorable fox locket I found on Lanyapi on Etsy. It will go perfectly with my fox bracelet from Fey Handmade, although I don’t think I will wear them together and be all fox matchy matchy. It would be too much, akin to the unfortunate look of sporting jeans with a jean jacket so that it looks like you are wearing a denim suit.

I also happily picked up Neil Diamond’s greatest hits at the library. If a sweaty guy with sideburns and silky shirts singing his heart out doesn’t lift my spirits, even temporarily, I need to book a beach vacation immediately.

And speaking of denim suits here is my sure thing for dumb laughs, Will Ferrell doing a Neil Diamond impersonation.

The no sugar resolution is also off. The temperature has dropped and so has my resolve. I have visions of being in a canoe made of bread paddling through swirling eddies of hot fudge. There will be a bake-off this weekend and I will not be stopped. Sugar, and lots of it, is the answer. The same goes for bread and all things carb related. There will be croissants in my hands. Soon.

Winter may get the best of me yet. There are still 50 days left until spring officially arrives, then another couple of months until it really feels warm and pastoral, but I will fight the good fight, one giant brownie, trinket, and warbling singalong at a time.

Okay autumn. Perhaps I’ve been unduly harsh. I’ve complained about you a lot. I think I’ve even said I hate you on occasion. Maybe that was a little strong. You’ll never be my favourite season, let’s be clear on that. How could you be when summer is so fun and frolicsome. Spring is pretty amazing too. What makes spring even better is that it is followed by summer, whereas you are followed by winter, a fatal strike if ever there was one. If you were followed by summer maybe you’d stand a chance and I’d feel differently. Maybe.

Nonetheless, I have had to rethink my harsh stance against you. The past couple of weeks have been pleasant and I am trying to be open to your special charms. The fall colours have been spectacular. Lots of burnt orange and gold and that dried up smoky leaf smell that makes me think of an old steam train.

Halloween was nice. The Sweetie carved a great pumpkin and I enjoyed roasting the seeds with lots of salt and cayenne pepper.

I have been making giant batches of soup. That’s a cozy autumnal thing to do. Big bubbling pots of soup on the stove aren’t appealing in the summer. One point for autumn.

I found a fabulous pair of mint condition boots at my favourite vintage shop (The Refinery on Markham Street, the best shop ever). Autumn lovers always seem to comment on how happy they are to wear cute boots again, as if that makes all the cold dreariness okay. I rarely find vintage boots in my big girl size. These fit like a dream and they are a gorgeous burnt orange, a perfect fall colour. It was your offering to me, wasn’t it? A little gift in autumnal hues to try and win me over.

So far the season has not been filled with the endless misery I had expected. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so hard on you. Well played autumn, well played.

I am a walking contradiction. I am aware that declaring myself a declutterer and taking a Zen Buddhist meditation course conflicts with shopping online and amassing more stuff. One would think that I’d be slightly ashamed and cool it just a little, but I am weak. So far, I’ve only attended two meditation classes so I still have a way to go on my path to enlightenment. My Peter Walsh decluttering book is buried somewhere on my night table beneath magazines, a couple of books and piles of torn out recipes. I have lost a little of the decluttering fever.

A woman gets tempted every now and then. Especially when faced with this foxy fox bracelet from Fey Handmade.

I couldn’t resist. I found the site the other day on Bliss when I was procrastinating rather than decluttering. I saw the fox bracelet and became obsessed. There it was in my mind’s eye, haunting me. How could I resist such a delightful woodland creature? I thought about it while at my mediation course and felt extra guilty. How could I be thinking of jewellery at a Zen Buddhist temple of all places? I thought about it even though I had decided that as a woman reaching some semblance of maturity I should quit it with the animal motifs and become a little more sophisticated. I thought about it while I gathered up my piles of clutter. I couldn’t stop thinking of that little fox with his sprightly tail.

Perhaps I will never find freedom and enlightenment. Perhaps I will never be clutter free. Perhaps I am a shallow person with a strange obsession with animals who is a bit too introverted and prefers animals over people most of the time. Perhaps I am impulsive and indulgent and a spendthrift. Perhaps it is all of these things, but the lovely fox bracelet will be mine. Oh yes. It will be mine.

I know I am supposed to be on a brand new path of righteous minimalism but Bake It Pretty’s items are too adorable to resist, even for an aspiring declutterer. I convinced myself that the right decorative touches were my ticket to domestic glory. Putting my minimalist dreams aside, I ordered some crucial items and I am now prepared to dazzle and amaze my loved ones.

For example:

• I can adorn Christmas cupcakes with whimsical, delightful toppers. What party guest wouldn’t be charmed and amazed by a winter woodland scene?
• I can make my own terrarium, complete with a mossy forest and industrious gnomes. Surely even a minimalist should be celebrating a bit of magic.
• I can share my love of pickles and send lucky guests home with their own pickle party favour in a festive pickle loot bag.

It is indisputable. Even for a born-again minimalist who should be shunning all frivolous and non essential items, there are some things that are still a necessity.

As penance I will get rid of my plastic chicken egg poacher. Obviously a plastic chicken egg poacher is unnecessary. I bought it for 25 cents at an antique show from a little old man who gave me such an enthusiastic spiel that I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I am not a big fan of poached eggs. My new decluttering self will not be swayed by charming old men or make emotional purchases. From now on I will only make rational choices.

Now that I am an oldie oldster forty year old I would so love love love to wear this fabulous necklace with pride and let my forty flag fly (first seen on Oh Joy).

By the Etsy seller TheBeSide.

As part of Birthday Month a girlfriend and I went to the fabulously atmospheric Southern Accent on Markham Street for a birthday dinner. I love the Cajun voodoo vibe and am a huge fan of their bourbon sours and bourbon bread pudding.

I was excited to treat myself to a fifteen minute psychic reading offered at the restaurant. I hoped to gain a little insight into my new year and decade ahead and perhaps have a supernatural epiphany of sorts. I wasn’t expecting a life altering experience, it’s a fifteen minute reading at a restaurant after all. Basically, it is the equivalent of a palm reading from a scarf wearing fortune teller at a makeshift card table at a carnival. I didn’t think it would magically set me on a new path but I expected a fun little psychic nugget to entertain my boozy bourbon evening.

The alarm bells should have sounded when I saw the psychic sitting on the patio wearing a tablecloth around her shoulders. After setting her timer for fifteen minutes she explained that she was wearing the tablecloth as protection from minuscule green bugs that were falling from the trees onto her shoulder. She told me about a David Suzuki lecture she had attended about the disappearance of bees but assured me that “the higher creator made all of this, the higher creator will fix it, so it is all good and we don’t have to worry, blessings all around.”

She looked at a row of cards and promptly declared that this was the year I would meet my soul mate, marry and have two kids. At this time I probably should have packed it in and gone back to the drink waiting for me at my table. I explained that I have already married my soul mate and the only additions to the family will be a dog.

“I see,” she nodded knowingly and reshuffled her cards.

After a moment she announced,”You will be getting a divorce.”

I tried not to roll my eyes.

“You will want to get back to your roots and return to the ocean, does that make sense to you?

It didn’t. Unless the hydro fields and strip malls of my suburban Scarborough childhood were concealing a beach unbeknown to me.

“Hmmm, well, I see you near water. You will be spending time near the lake at your cottage meditating.”

I don’t have a cottage, nor do any of my friends, nor does anyone I know for that matter so my only hope for meditating by the lake at a cottage was now pinned on my new soul mate/husband who would be impregnating me with twins this year.

She asked if I was a teacher, if I wanted to reconnect with someone from my past, if I was dealing with legal issues.

No, no and no.

She announced that I had important things to do and people to meet and, “Life is going to change and all that kind of stuff.”

All that kind of stuff? Now I really felt cheated. Surely she could try an little harder than a breezy all that kind of stuff?!

Luckily the timer buzzed and my psychic enlightenment was complete. We sat in awkward silence for a few moments and I briefly worried that if she had any small smattering of psychic ability she would realize that I thought she was the laziest charlatan ever. She adjusted her tablecloth around her shoulders, spread her arms expansively and declared “blessings all around!”

I returned to my dinner companion and bourbon sour, thirty dollars poorer, unenlightened and uninspired. It looks as though I will have to create my own destiny this decade.