Not so SAD anymore!

I think I must have Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). And although it’s not technically contagious, I still think I caught it from the endless fucking snow and the temperatures that are firmly stuck in single digits. Enough already!

If you have the WINTER version of SAD, you might experience symptoms such as these:

* Depression
* Hopelessness
* Anxiety
* Loss of energy
* Social withdrawal
* Oversleeping
* Loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed
* Appetite changes, especially a craving for foods high in carbohydrates
* Weight gain
* Difficulty concentrating and processing information

Yikes. None of those sound too fun, do they? The symptoms of the SUMMER version of SAD (which I truly did not know even existed) sound much more less, well, depressing:

* Anxiety
* Insomnia
* Irritability
* Agitation
* Weight loss
* Poor appetite
* Increased sex drive

So how is winter-onset SAD treated? With light therapy. Light is good. But since I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in wearing one of those handy dandy light visors like the one pictured above - and armed with a generous Christmas bonus - I decided to self-medicate with a healthy dose of internet SHOPPING. It may have lessened some of the SAD symptoms, but I think it might have also awakened my long-dormant QVC addiction.

Want to know what I bought? Okay, but before I tell you, please keep in mind that I NEEDED all of these things. NEEDED. Not frivolous purchases. At all.

An 11-piece set of hard anondized non-stick cookware. I can’t tell you what a joy it is to scramble eggs that actually come out of the pan when you want to eat them. My old set of pans lost their non-stickiness sometime during the Clinton administration.

An enamel cast iron 11” square grill pan. And it’s RED. How fun! In this state, the weather is only suitable for outside grilling for about an hour and a half on the third Tuesday in July. I have wanted this for a long time. (Uh oh…just spotted some new bad reviews on this one…hope I saved the box.)

A 3-piece non-stick knife set (in black, not blue). Looks like plastic, but it’s not. They cut like buttah and I really needed a paring knife. Can’t beat the price.

Now this one will make you laugh, but I know it’s going to come in really handy in the summer: A stainless steel PROFESSIONAL pineapple slicer. Just cut the top off of the pineapple, insert this corkscrew-like device and it cores AND slices the pineapple. I love a gadget. Watch the video; you’ll want one, too.

And because I have terminally bad hair, this crap which had better work or it’s going right back.

Some Bare Escentuals foundation – from my favorite BE source on Ebay.

More emu oil – and this time I’m trying the peppermint, too. For my ugly feet, natch.

Three cookbooks from Amazon, courtesy of gift cards. I got this one, this one and this one. I admit it - I am a cookbook whore. Expect to see a lot of posts about whole grains in the future.

Let's see...what else? Oh, yeah. Because my eyeshadow doesn’t stay on beyond my first cup of coffee, the highly rated Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion – which I hope will fix that particular little problem.

So, I think that’s everything. While I must admit I feel a LITTLE better, I don’t feel completely cured yet - so I may have to give myself a few more doses.