Keeping Away the Gloom of Northwest Winter

by Mary on January 10, 2013

This view from my deck one day last week was worth celebrating. Worth photographing, worth taking a walk around the neighborhood, all of which I did. Ordinarily in winter the view from my deck at that time looks like this:

Yup, washed with gray like someone dredged my camera in sludge. That’s the natural light, or lack of it, no dinkering with the exposure there. This winter has been gloomier than ordinary.  Lots of fog and low-hanging clouds and measurable rain on every day of December save four.  On the 28th Puget Sound weather expert Cliff Mass called it “one of the most dismal periods of incessant clouds and rain in a long time.”

So the sun on January 2nd and 3rd was worth celebrating. But I hadn’t waited for it. No, I’d asked my husband to dig our light therapy box for SAD out of the corner of the garage. I hadn’t needed it for over a decade, since our new house has more light than our old one. But this winter was just too dark.

Since then I’ve been basking in a 10,000 lux glow every day at breakfast, whenever that may occur (pretty darned late on New Year’s Day). Love that thing, don’t want to break away from it, sometimes I set it near my work space later on in the day, too.

Just for jollies, here’s the sunrise and sunset schedule for Seattle, WA for December and January. It’s not Oslo, but still, I wait for those minutes of daylight to add up one by one in January until we hit that 5:00 sunset somewhere near the end of the month. Then I know it’s going to be OK.

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

Michelle January 12, 2013 at 11:56 am

Thanks for stopping by my blog and saying hello! So, I clicked over here, and what do I find?? A BEAUTIFUL picture that is the view from your deck?! Oh my. I’m so jealous! I absolutely adore the mountains. Did I read you live in Washington? I’ve never been, but my husband and I vacation in CO every summer–it’s my heaven on earth.

Have a great weekend!

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mary January 12, 2013 at 10:24 pm

Yup, Washington, those are the Olympics. You see several closer hills from my deck, too, but with the magic of a little zooming all you saw in that picture was the snowy Olympics, far away though they are. And…. (drum roll, please).. I see them today, and we are predicted to have lots of sun for the near future, wahoo! Colorado summer vacations do sound divine…. keep that up!
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msihua ( January 13, 2013 at 4:53 am

I’ve never experienced a snowy Christmas before 🙁 Missing out in life!
msihua ( recently posted..St Ali North @ Carlton North, VIC – Melbourne’s “Coffee King” Heads NorthMy Profile

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mary January 13, 2013 at 7:14 am

It’s mainly up in the mountains, not in the lowlands where we are, though we did get a dusting of snow the last couple of days. You’ll have to have a snowy Christmas vacation sometime!

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