Polar Swirling Sanity Punch/Vortex

This might be my weirdest post ever. It's definitely the weirdest TToT but it's winter, it's Super Winter, Mega-bigboxstore-WINTER and if you live in a place that doesn't have nipple-sword cold, snowy winters, you can't really know about all the angles of things like seasonal depression.

"No TV and no beer make Homer something something!"
The Simpsons "The Shinning" parody of The Shining

Also, if you don't have winter do you have a spare bedroom? 

I've lived here all my long life but this winter, with it's Polar Vortex, Polar Punch (I did not make that up) it's sub-sub-sub-zero temperatures, can suck whatever we may or may not have determined "it" is. 

I don't KNOW what this has to do with anything.
from demotivation.us

What's after cold?

What's beyond FRIGGID?

20-50 below ZERO. Five-O.

FIFTY DEGREES BELOW the number of not-having-any-numbers of ZERO, with the windchill in Chicagoland is serious bullshitsiness. 

We know about Cold here, every winter the temperature gets colder than brass underwear on Superman's home planet. You walk outside and feel the strange tingly feeling of the boogers and moisture inside your noseholes immediately freezing. 

Putting gas in your car becomes a painful chore, you break down and leave the nozzle and wait inside your car. You wait it out because in a few months it will be so hot and humid outside you'll feel like you're walking inside of a bread bowl full of hot soup. 

However.

This evil winter, Moms Nature is having her revenge on the makers and drivers of the SUV. It is clear she hates humans. Her bitter cold shoulder has been a game changer. 

Schools and businesses just CLOSED for 2 days because of this cold. We all just collectively looked outside and said: "Nuh-uh." 

Kids and adults alike, we all agreed not to out-"Chicagah" each other for once, and just stay inside. 

from weknowmemes.com

We didn't try to look tough. We didn't give a shit about make-up-days in the Summer, we all just lost our ability to Can. 

We shut down the whole damn Midwest and most wished they had stocked up on more liquor. (We were good here in Comfytown, not my 1st winter with little kids.) 

I didn't go outside for a good 5 days, so my "feels like" temperature remained at a steady 70 degrees.

However. 

Combine these temps with a 2 yr old that WILL NOT keep gloves, hat, even jacket ON her body, and all this INSIDE our little Comfytown house, I have really learned the most learns about Cabin Fever. 

It is real, yo. Have you seen The Shining? 

ComfyTown is maybe a week or 2 away from becoming The Overlook Hotel.

This picture makes me so much happy. from bloodydisgusting.com

I know. Everyone else posted that horrific picture of him at the end of the movie. I went a different way. 

This is the time when I need to DIG DEEP to find Ten Things of Thankful. I might need to do a little rule-bending to get through. 

I originally put these first items at the end, but eeer'body loves a happy ending, so I moved these things to first.

These first things are things that are getting REAL FRIGGIN HARD to stay thankful for. (I'm counting it. You SHOW ME on the doll, I mean in the offish Book o' Rules where I can't do this.)

1. It's getting harder and harder to be thankful for winter. Why are you such a bully? No one is liking you this year, so take the hint and lighten up.

2. And snow. I used to love sledding and skiing, and I really hope I do again some day. 
This year? I'm all: 
"Take it back. Take it away. We're losing real estate and valuable parking spaces to mountains of snow."

ENOUGH FREAKING SNOW. 

from lolwall.co

This is not the House of Stark. 

My back is under enough pressure carting around these waste of space meat bag mammaries, now it's about to break from all the freaking shoveling.

Looks like I'm not the only one according to that Power-Tool-decorated Snowman. 

Yiiiikes.

8. Reality TV. We're avoiding all things out-of-doors and I've had to have the TV more than I like lately. 

Of all the hates of television I hate, I HATE Reality TV with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns. 

from twicsy.com

This should not count as entertainment. Every reality TV show should have to either make giant donations to educational funding, or at the very least offset the brain cells they murder, with some kind of facts or teaching people how to DO something, anything, before the commercial breaks. 

This crap sullies the good name of crap TV. It takes takes no effort, it brings out the worst in humans and then tries to make it okay. It makes all of us dumb ourselves down and lower our expectations even further. No sir, no ma'am. No thank you. No, no, just all the NO's that ever nay'ed. Give writers JOBS and let them write good stuff again. Can we start a petition? Occupy Television? Reality TV and all of the producers responsible should all join hands and walk into the nearest fire and die a fiery death already. Oh, the Victory S'mores we could roast over that nasty trash fire.

AHahahahahhahahahaha! *cough cough*  from gifbin.com

9. Cloudy clouds s-blocking our source of Vitamin D. This is making us all cookoo pants. Especially me, obvy.

If you're still reading this for some reason, you see I HAVE IT BAD.
from roosevelttorch.com

But how do you kill a cloud? All the clouds. I'm ready to take one for all the team. 

from duckduckgrayduck.com

These blogs talkin' bout Vitamin D supplements and "winter lights" to fight off the winter blues. Psscht. Puh-lease. My brain's pleasure center has stopped mock-laughing at this weak sauce weeks ago.

Okay, out with the bad in with the good(ish). I will now attempt to look at things in a way to find some Thankful.

Link up at Considerings blog to join the fun.

1. Thankful for the mini heart attacks my kids have been causing, they are less "cardio" and more of a "cardiac episode" but they're the only workout I'm getting lately.

My 2 yr old has started climbing EVERYTHING, including out of her crib. She LOVES doing it, so she no longer makes  a peep when she's awake, I just hear a THUD and hey, there she is suddenly in the kitchen, very suddenly moving a kitchen chair to see what's cooking on the stove. Yikes.

2. Thankful for the invention of the crock pot. I have a small one, but it turns a cheap, otherwise barely edible piece of meat into a tender, delicious masterpiece with little effort on my part. We're eating well.

from thefunnyblog.org

3. Almond milk. Told you I was going to have to dig deep. My Lola won't drink milk and as an asthmatic, the less dairy the better. Plus have you SEEN the ingredients list on most coffee creamer? *shudder* Bailey's is too expensive for every day, so almond milk it is.

4. The Magic Bullet. As in the mini food processor, not the adult toy of the same name. Let's just leave it at that. 

Vodka doesn't kill Vitamins. Right?

The mini food processor allows me to quickly drink an entire day's worth of fruit (probably) and spinache, and pulverize almonds to add to everything. 

If you don't want to spend all day EATING superfoods, drink em.

5. This week I had Wednesday as a day "off" (meaning only my OWN 3 kids all day...plus housework.) Anyway, it allowed me to get started on this post, otherwise it won't happen. Lately on the weekends, literally every time I sit down and open my laptop, my husband almost freaks out and starts suggesting weird activities. Which is NOT the lazycomfy man I married. 

Which is also odd because HE bought me this laptop, and HE bought the domain name for the blog, and now he seems to hate every time I try to actually blog. It's WINTER, can't you and the kids just watch TV?? Whatever, slipping away from thankful again.

5. The teenager has a job interview today. At a fast-food place but hey, it's a start. After last semester's whatever kind of disaster that was, that I'm not ready to think about much less write about, it's a victory if I can manage to keep him AWAKE during the day. Long story short, he's not transitioning from high school into "real" life well. He's never transitioned well, at anything, and this is THE BIG ONE. 

From ugo.com

And it's all but causing me to have the ole Redd Foxx BIG ONE. 

"I'm comin, Elizabeth!"

(From the old TV show "Sanford & Son" yeah, I was raised by TV.)


10. Taking my TToT mulligan and being Thankful to be at Ten. I mean, aren't we all depressed enough after this whacked out, crappy post?

I know the numbers are messed up. But they're there. In no particular order.

Mayhaps I shouldn't have moved those other things to first, I liked the "KILL IT WITH FIRE" .gif as the Big Finish.