by Jennifer Farlin | Sep 30, 2015 | Happiness at Home
The days being shorter, colder temperatures, less (or no) sunlight and you have the recipe for what many experience as the blahs, seasonal funk, winter blues, or seasonal affective disorder (SAD). SAD is a type of depression that’s related to changes in seasons — SAD begins and ends at about the same times every year. If you’re like most people with SAD, your symptoms start in the fall and continue into the winter months, sapping your energy and making you feel moody.
Take steps to keep your mood and motivation steady throughout the year–despite the lack of sunlight with these tips:
1. A Light Box. Light therapy is thought to affect brain chemicals linked to mood, easing SAD symptoms. Using a light therapy box may also help with other types of depression, sleep disorders and other conditions. A light box mimics outdoor light. Researchers believe this type of light causes a chemical change in the brain that lifts your mood and eases other symptoms of SAD. Most people use light boxes for a minimum of 30 minutes each morning. Light therapy is also known as bright light therapy or phototherapy. Improves mood and energy. (The Mayo Clinic)
2. Open Your Blinds. If and when the sun does decide to shine–make sure you don’t miss it!
3. Color. Color psychologist Angela Wright says shades of blue stimulate clear thought, yellow boosts creativity and lifts spirits, red physiologically affects the body and elevates one’s pulse, and green creates a sense of calming balance. Highly saturated, bright colors will stimulate while softer, muted colors will relax and soothe.
4. Aromatherapy. It is believed that natural plant oils may stimulate regions in the brain, including those controlling endocrine, immune, and limbic (emotional centre) functions. Scientific studies have shown essential oils to produce consistently different patterns in EEG tests on the brain, and that aromas may also have a subliminal or unconscious effect on mental states. Several studies demonstrate the beneficial effects on mood and depression. (www.theAromablog.com) Try diffusing essential oils with an essential oil diffuser in your home. Bergamot is calming and restores wellness and energy. Citrusy scents energize, rejuvenate and uplift. Grapefruit is well-known for its natural anti depressive properties. Clary Sage induces feelings of euphoria and inner peace. Jasmine spreads cheer and freshness. (www.positivehealth.com)
5. Greenery. Plants brighten a space, purify the air, and increase oxygen. We all know that spending time in nature is linked to reduced stress levels and tension relief. Plants are an easy way to make this happen inside your home.
6. Declutter Your Main Entryway. It’s just good sense. You want your house to rise up and greet you when you walk through the door, not squash you like a bug because of mountains of piles and clutter. Extend that to the rest of your home. You want to have breathing room; focus on quality.
7. Make Your Bed. Don’t laugh! According to Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit making your bed every morning is correlated with better productivity and stronger skills at sticking with a budget. It has also been suggested that making your bed boosts happiness. Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project concurs. It’s an easy thing to do and when we commit to it we feel a sense of satisfaction. It makes your bedroom a more peaceful environment too.
When we are in a supportive, comfortable space we feel better. And when we feel good we can make our lives even better, despite the lack of sun:)
If you liked this post check out:
What Door Do You Use?, One Door’s Journey, Plants Make It Pretty
by Jennifer Farlin | Sep 28, 2015 | Inspired Style
Dusty cobblestone, heather dusk, almond toast, golden bear, lion mane, pismo dunes, honey moth…
What do all these words have in common?
Incomprehensible paint colors names. I have no idea what color pismo dunes represents. None.
But how about Greige? Beige and grey. That I can figure out, almost. And apparently, it’s been trending. While the term “greige” is a perfect blend of grey and beige, the word also gets its meaning from the old French and Italian words meaning “raw silk,” (Wiktionary) which sounds very chic to me.
Remodelista
Hypen Interiors via Pinterest
I found this glowing review about Thunder (AF-685) by Benjamin Moore—the color above on Pinterest via Hypen Interiors–-I chose this for a client at a recent colour consultation expecting it to be a greige. Once the painter was finished I realized that this is probably the perfect, elusive gray that we are all looking for. There are no obvious undertones that take over as there normally are with gray. It’s deceiving on the chip though because it looks more greige than gray.
If you try it you’ll have to let me know if this color lives up to its review. Which brings up a good point–a color will look one way on the swatch in the store, different when it goes on your wall, and different, still, as soon as the light changes in the room. I wrote a post about it called How to Not Screw Up Paint Colors that you can read here. The bottom-line is ALWAYS test the color on the walls before you commit.
www.decorpad.com
SOURCE: WABISABI-STYLE.BLOGSPOT.FR
I don’t know if I really think that picture above is a greige but it’s fabulous.
www.southshoredecoratingblog.com
Happy Monday Gentle Reader,
Jen
If you liked this post you will LOVE Blue Ribbon Rooms…Or, Decorating with Blue, An Ode to Kermit, and Pantone Color of the Year, Marsala, and even, Ralph Lauren Paint Colors.
by Jennifer Farlin | Aug 11, 2015 | Fun Style
by Jennifer Farlin | Aug 4, 2015 | Life Reflections
While my husband was at the U.S. Army War College I attended FLAGS–Facilitating, Leadership and Group Skills. It’s a one-week workshop for milispouses to refine skills in leading, guiding, and supporting work in groups utilizing our strengths. It was also known as the week where Mom went to work and Dad had to get the kids everywhere and take care of everything.
While I was there we were told that we, metaphorically speaking, get 10 pennies each day to use how we wish. How we spend them is up to us. When the pennies are spent we are operating at a deficit–read We should leave mom alone right now.
Pennies are to patience what calories are to food.
These all cost at least one penny:
Don’t eat that off of the floor!
Where are all the couch cushions?
Don’t lock your brother in the garage!
Look where you are peeing!
You can have a favorite shirt but not a favorite pair of underwear!
Leave his butt alone!
Please don’t carry the dog on your head!
Go find your shoes!
Go find your goggles!
I don’t know where your shoes are!
I don’t know where your goggles are!
If I get up and make beds, tidy the house, make breakfast, clean up the kitchen, walk the dog, start a load of laundry, and clean the pee from all the toilets, while yelling all the things above plus the obvious hygiene related ones–it is then lunch time. So then I make lunch, clean up the kitchen, walk the dog, yell some more, and it is time to get them out of the house. Then we come home and I make dinner, I yell more about random things concerning goggles, forks, and lost shoes, walk the dog, and clean up the house–and now, maybe, I have 2 pennies left. One? None?
I’m exhausted so I think I am operating on a deficit. Summer equals little boys all day equals inflation for pennies.
I think the value of each of my pennies is dependent upon outside forces similar to the dollar and the global markets and inflation and all that–so my pennies are looking like a hay penny, or a half penny, or a plastic fake penny.
I’ve been sick for about a week. I don’t know to equate the exhaustion to just that though–summer marathon vacation, children, coughing propped up on pillows with 12 cough drops shoved in my cheeks, children, non stop activities, bad attitudes, outnumbered by boys, life complexities–and by that I mean what happened to all of our forks? children, and/or how is the kitchen trashed again–all could be contributing to the decline in the penny.
In a good market, or school day, I could probably get that above paragraph done in about 6 pennies leaving pennies left over for me. Today, during summer, it’s probably 17 pennies. Lately, though, I’m wondering what a normal day is? Go! Go! Go! Hurry! Go! Go! Stop trying to tape your brother to the wall! Hurry! Go! Where are all the forks!???!!
The lesson in the pennies is that we need to guard them, not waste them. Saying yes, when we want to say no, and unrealistic expectations are two of the biggest spenders that come to mind. Why do I think the house and the boys will effortlessly take care of themselves? And why does my 7 year old have to yell when he is 2 inches from me? Totally unrelated, but a question I still have.
Short of looking under the couch cushions for more pennies I’m thinking I’m just in debt, of course the couch cushions are currently missing so there’s that.
Similar Posts:
My Dog Has Fleas, Puke Is My Kryptonite, I’m Sorry You Are Not A Military Family So Put That In Your Pipe And Smoke It
by Jennifer Farlin | Jul 23, 2015 | Happiness at Home
Our homes are part of our self-definition. If you are in a decorating rut I am sure this is not good news. I can almost hear the snarky comments you are making about yourself and how that explains a lot about your current situation.
I am a super impatient person. I always say in interview speak “I am results oriented”. I need everything done yesterday and if it isn’t I feel practically hopeless. There is an African fable that stays with me about a tribesman who had never seen modern Western life and the entirety of his life was in the now. He was trapped in a large cave where he could only see the sky. The man could not understand the temporariness of his situation and thought his life would always be like this so he promptly died. He fully lived in the present and had no concept of waiting for tomorrow.
Normally, I’m all for living in the now, but if you don’t have the money for decorating fixes, you, like the tribesman in the story, feel like you will be trapped forever, thus, enveloped in the cave of the decorating rut.
Now this sounds pretty trivial as I write it. Decorating rut? It’s that trending #firstworldproblems thing. I really hate mentioning to people that I actually write about decorating. It sounds pointless, silly, superfluous, Desperate-Housewives-Beverly Hills-like. But that’s not what this is.
My mission statement says:
I Style Houses. And, no that is not going to save the world but I believe that happiness starts at Home. Good style is beauty at its best if it is authentic to the individual. Own your skin. Love your house. Create joy in your home (and pass it on).
And what that means is that if you aren’t happy, then you frown, complain, take it out on your kids, your family, your friends. You drive places in your car impatiently, cutting off others, honking, and yelling. You scowl at work. You scowl at the store. You say things you don’t mean. And all of that is contagious. It is so very contagious. So now everyone around you is touching your negativity, and they are passing it on, and so on. Think about bosses at work. Are they jerks? Are the people under them jerks? Is everyone afraid, stressed, snippy, and cut-throat? Unhappiness breeds negativity which breeds all the offshoots: dishonesty, jealousy, contempt, etc…
OMG I can’t take it. Stop the madness! Seriously. I can’t change the world but I can change myself. I can’t stop sickness, death, unfairness, injustice and intolerance but I can build a better toolbox to handle the inevitably of what it means to be alive. So my first tool is understanding the importance of how our environment can make it easier to experience happiness. We can promote ways–tools–that give us an advantage.
And that’s where my blog comes in. It’s about tools to make you happier. And if you are happier then everyone around you is happier…and that my gentle reader is NOT trivial–it’s important.
So your motivation to get out of your decorating rut is world happiness. And if that doesn’t motivate you I give up.
Kicking the Decorating Rut Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
