Seasonal Affective Disorder

Seasonal Affective Disorder is generally a disorder that makes a person like me not motivated, eat more, and sleep more. Generally depressed because the sun isn’t shining especially in the late fall or winter. Regular sad is something that I seldom am. However, this business of no sunshine for 85 days and rain and wind for at least that long, makes a person depressed. I may have exaggerated a bit, but good grief I would like a day or two of Indian Summer. I can remember Indian Summer. The weather is warm, sunshiny, the mums and other fall flowers are gorgeous, and I am a happy camper. Even the scarecrows are happy and allow the crows to come and eat to their fill of the leftover crops in the farmer’s gardens.
Fran and I went to get some mums to plant yesterday. We waited as long as we could to get the best possible price. We got huge ones for $2.50 a piece. I was thrilled, Fran was less thrilled because he has to plant them in the cold, wet weather. Well the least I could do was to carry some of the plants to the car. When I picked up the first one it was so heavy and wet, I said, “Oh my goodness, you must have just watered these.” The owner and Fran both looked at me like I had lost my mind. It had been raining for days. No need for the owner to water, I laughed a sick little laugh and continued to load flowers.
Well, I still look out the window sometimes when I write stories. I see the huge timber across the road, the fall leaves falling so fast that Fran will never get them raked up. The acorns are making a carpet on the lawn. When I take Maggie out they crunch even in the wet weather. I can hear them fall on Fran’s mother’s roof. They sound like gun shots in the distance. The squirrels are busy gathering for the winter, and the raccoons and possums doing the same. The mice would like to get in where it is warm, but for some reason, this house is built so that they have to find somewhere else to live.
I looked up S.A.D. on the computer and it confirms what I had thought it was with one exception. I already do it, but it said that doctors say to turn on artificial lights to simulate the sunshine and you will feel better. My addition to this is to decorate with sunflowers and fall flowers in the house. I decorate with sunflowers in old crocks, on an old pitcher that has sunflowers on it, a spoon holder that is a big sunflower, and it goes on and on. A friend was here for dinner one evening and she asked me why I had so many sunflowers. I answered very simply, “Because they make me happy.”