Blah. Pffft. Ugh. Bleh.

That's about how I feel right now. A general malaise. Everything irritates me or annoys me or makes me mad, and then I feel bad about being grumpy. I have no energy, am sleepy all day long, but am not sleeping well at night. I want to drink coffee, but that just makes me grumpier. I've quit eating chocolate after 5 pm - doesn't matter. Still sleepless and bitchy.

I'm going to blame this all on the weather. Or at least the light. Yes, it is painfully beautiful and the grass has never looked greener (a feat at Chez Smith) and the sky is achingly blue on the days when there are no clouds. But that light that is so poetic and fancy looking in pictures does something to my psyche. I know it means winter is coming, and the leaves are falling and while brisk weather is great, cold damp weather just sucks. And this light means cold and damp are straight ahead. Ugh. I need to go back to Florida.

Instead, a much cheaper option, is borrowing The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder from the library. I checked it out intending to read it to the girls but have devoured it myself over three sleepless nights instead. I'm trying to take from it that at least we don't have 7 months of hard winter and nothing to eat but potatoes and home-ground hard wheat bread. Man, what a depressing book. I guess that's why it stuck with me though I only read it once. BLEAK. If I had been Ma Ingalls, I would have left that jerk years ago and headed back East to stay with family. Pa was a jerk, I don't care how nice Michael Landon made him seem.

Now I'm going to try to boost my mood by doing something fun with the kids. And then we'll take poor old Dr. Frank the Cat to the vet to find out why his fur is falling out. Poor old kitty.