TV Fever about to be kicked out the door

Most people say they have cabin fever this time of year because they've been cooped up all winter. But I feel like I have TV fever, because I've been spending too much time watching TV. It's been cold, or dark, or cold and dark, and I just can't make myself get up and go...anywhere.

With Daylight Savings Time starting next weekend, I'll now have an extra hour of daylight in the evenings and I can hardly wait. I know some people hate the time change, especially when you have to get up earlier in the spring when you Spring Forward vs. getting to sleep in an hour when you Fall Back. But since I'm at work at 6:30 on the morning, it's dark for more of the year than it is light in the morning. I need that sun in the evenings to convince me I still have enough time to do things outdoors. I need plants to start turning green (even if most of them ARE weeds). I love hearing the birds starting to sing again (although that means a Parliament of Magpies in the tree outside my bedroom starting up at the crack of dawn on weekends, too).

I've been dieting (again) and the lack of movement in the right direction on the scale has increased my winter depression. I can't (or won't) walk or ride my bike if I have to bundle up, which is a personal choice, I know, but I just don't like being cold any more. I used to do fine with it when I was younger. Maybe because back then I had kids in the house and I was willing to put up with all kinds of discomfort if it meant I didn't have to be cooped up with them all day long on weekends in our tiny house. At least when we went outside to play, the fights stopped (or maybe were just enough farther away not to bother me?). Or I might have just been tougher.

But I'm excited about having yard word to do, and the daylight and warmth to do it in. About being able to load up and go camping, or at the very least take a day trip for a picnic and a hike with the dog. I'd rather pull weeds any day than have to watch one more re-run of a movie I've seen half a dozen times, or consider the options of the (to me) totally insipid "reality shows" or millennial-focused sit-coms or cartoons.

And before long, I will need to escape into the great outdoors to avoid the mind-numbing and blood-pressure-raising political ads which will be starting any day now, since it's only almost two years away!

So how are you doing with the long winter? Ready for spring?