Chocolate

I live in Portland and I feel your pain. I’m going to try to grill some pineapple in the rain to see if I feel like I’m in Hawaii. Probably won’t work but it won’t give me a hangover like a mai tai would…

I feel your pain. OH how I feel your pain. I live in Minnesota and it is snowing RIGHT. NOW. I mean, really. That makes two of us screaming down the street naked with machetes.

No tips on the weather funk, but what’s the new project? Still a work in progress, or is this something we could check out on, say, an otherwise boring Friday evening with nothing else to do?

Ooh, Kelly’s got the right idea. Grilled pineapple DIPPED IN CHOCOLATE.

You could go see my husband’s awesome Americana rock band – they’re playing in Seattle tonight at the Tractor Tavern! Check out their website for deets, if you’re interested: hotbutteredrum.net. Although I know the chances getting childcare on a Friday night are right up there with winning the lottery …

I suggest chocolate, a bottle of wine and a good book. That makes me feel better :)

People here have literally lost their minds from the wind. Days and days of wind. My daughter said today that her complexion is better, (dermabrasion), and her teeth are whiter, (polishing), from all the sand blowing. You can’t see more than about a half mile for the dust in the air, and I would trade places with you in a second. Cold rain sounds like heaven. Not to mention it’s so staticky that every single thing you touch shocks you. The dogs are afraid to be petted, god forbid you are filling up your gas tank and touch anything.
Everything you touch is gritty and it is making me insane. You get in your car and it is baking hot, you open the window and you can’t breathe, turn on the a/c and get a blast of dust in your face, finally get comfortable, and you have to get out in the shit again. Right now, I’d welcome a zombie apocolypse, it’s how I feel already.

Rain coats. Scarves. :-)

I just blogged about this on my fashion blog (http://www.fashionbargainista.com/2011/04/april-showers-bringgrumpy-fashion.html) I am a native Washingtonian and it has never hit me as hard as this winter/spring. I’m taking vitamin D tabs everyday, but they don’t seem to help much. I’m just so irritable! So yeah, I’m no help…

Oh, and I forgot to mention how the noise keeps you up half the night because gusts of 70 mph hitting your house is LOUD!
Yes, I AM crabby mccraberson.

chocolate covered chocolate.
spring’s been teasing us in the Northeast, too. It was sunny today, but only 45*. Tomorrow there’s a chance of snow and rain.
Yes. Awesome.

When the kids are driving me crazy being stuck in the house I like to build a little fire in the fireplace and get out the roasting sticks and roast marshmallows and make s’mores. The kids love it and I get chocolate.

I…I can’t even go there anymore with this weather from hell (if hell is, indeed, frozen and wet, wet and frozen). I’m sure as hell coming back here to get suggestions!

No tips but I live in Portland so I could use some.

Ooh the s’mores in the fireplace sound like a winner!

We woke up to an inch of snow yesterday. SNOW. Im my post-partum distress-I cried.

In the Flint Hills of Kansas we have been doing the custodial burning of the tall grass and ranch lands this week. (It’s beneficial to the prairie.) Between the warm (read: hot) temps, the 30-40 mph winds, the smoke, the pollen and whatever else is out there in the atmosphere…

And tonight we find ourselves in near-freezing temps w/ a chance of snow flurries. Flurries: that sounds so happy, and gentle. Meanwhile, I hear the gales of April banging against our window panes.

I want one or the other: beautiful snow, or picturesque spring. One, or the other. Not mud, not wind.

I thought I was the only one who wanted to mainline McD’s diet coke. I’m pretty sure they add nutmeg or some other illicit substance to it, because the bottled junk I’ve bought has never tasted as good as the fountain stuff.

I made chocolate dipped strawberries yesterday, and admit that they gave me & the husband a deliciously juicy little boost.

Yeah, I’m with Sue here in MN. Effen SNOW!!! If I wake up in the morning and I can’t see the grass that just appeared after the 6 feet of winter snow melted, I don’t even know what might happen… It won’t be pretty.

Also in Minneapolis, and am trying not to acknowlede the accumulation of snow in the back yard. Such a long winter….sigh…….

oh gawd…I’m in Seattle too and I CAN’T take it anymore…I’m losing my marbles!

I use one of those light machines and must say they really help with the mood — but lately I’ve been turning to McD chocolate shakes. It’s freaking me out…

Hurgh. So. Sick. Of. Shit. Weather. I’ve been climbing into a tanning bed (I know, I know!) for about 10 minutes once a week. It helps a little.
Also, I’ve been indulging in beauty routines that are expensive-ish and pointless, but they make me feel better. I just got eyelash extensions, and don’t know how I’ve lived so long without them. Getting dressed in cute jeans and NOT sweats or track pants helps me too.
Good luck! If you find some fabulous technique for battling the crap weather, do share please?

@ Donna – Where in the world do you live? It sounds horrible!

I am from South Florida but live in a village in France now. We are in a valley and in the winter we have freezing fog, this little freezing swirly rain that goes straight up under your umbrella, grey days, rain, ice, snow. My kids come home for lunch so every day, 4 times a day, we walk back and forth in this crap. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.

I totally feel this way, too! And it is pouring rain today. Seriously?!

How about a pretend “beach” day, indoors? Crank up the heat until its hot in there, turn on all the lights, lay out a beach blanket open an umbrella, make some piña coladas or strawberry Daiquiris (with the fun ingredient added for the parent’s batch), play some summer tunes and use blocks to build your castles?

I, um, bought (cheap) plane tickets to FL and am yanking my daughters out of school for a day next week to go visit my parents. I couldn’t take the 42 and rainy any more, either.

AMEN. I don’t normally get all that bothered by the weather, but this year it is KILLING me. I don’t care if it warms up or dries out, but it has to do one of those things. Just one!

#1 tip: fresh strawberries slathered in nutella.
#2: on rainy days i love to bake – banana bread or cookies or bring out the cookbooks and try a new recipe for dinner.

Ice cream sandwiches made with these: http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/05/my-kingdom-for-a-glass-of-milk/

My suggestion would be a) chocolate (the n°1 go-to solution to most problems I can think of) and then b) come and live here. Like Tracy, I’m in France, but not where she is apparently: I live in Montpellier, down near the Mediterranean. This week we had a high of 32°C (which is HOT), though it’s now back down to about 20°C. And I don’t remember the last time we had rain (the city’s pathetic “river” is already dry). As for snow, well, people remember the specific days it snows here: 8 March 2010 was the last time here – and was the first time in about 8 years…
Sorry, don’t mean to make you hate me… If it’s any consolation, my allergies (damn cypress trees from mid-January to mid-March, then plane trees ever since) have been hellish this year!

Regarding the D Coke from McD’s: you are a chip off the ol’ aunt about this one. For the past two summers, the large has been just a buck!!!!!!!!!! I await it as eagerly as the trilliums and skunk cabbage.

I live in Sweden, so I have a lot of experience with suck-ass weather. I find it best to get on an airplane at regular intervals to basically anywhere else. Or at the very least drive to some other city. Even if the weather is still crappy, the change of scenery makes a big difference.

Good lord. That paragraph about running naked with a machete, completely losing your shit and screaming at the rain? Made my day.

The Northeast has been ridiculously terrible two, save two good days in the last month. Hang in there. It’s bound to improve soon…I hope…

too. not two. Good God.

Three years into living in rural ass New Hampshire fresh from Brooklyn and Coastal California (worst decision ever made by a single human that didn’t, like, involve genocide) a dear friend sat me down, firmly, and said, “in order to survive here you need a really good jacket, a really good car and a lifetime prescription of
prozac”.

Here’s to better living via pharmacueticals because lawd knows I was with you on the machete. Only here? It’s chainsaws.

Git er dun.

As a Florida girl (sorry…I kind of hate the heat and humidity) I have no advice on the weather just an echo of the “OMG WHAT DOES MCDONALDS *DO* TO THEIR DIET COKE?!?!” I mean, should Diet Coke be Diet Coke? And if one place has their mix set at a really special ratio, that could make one place be awesome…but ALL McD’s are consistent in their phenomenal Diet Coke. What the hell?? Why can’t it be that good.

Sounds like home from home for me (Scotland). However, I so appreciate when a Spring Has Sprung day like today happens along, not least because the locals start ripping their shirts off and jumping in the sea. And that’s when the temp hits the heady heights of 15 degrees…you can imagine the scene when it tops 20!

We go to Molbak’s. Even in the rain at this time of year there are blooming plants and all things garden and the acoutrements of happy outdoor times all over the place. There is the outdoor furniture, the blooming Hydrangeas and the fragrance of the orchid display and of the hanging jasmine plants, and lilies, and there are fun and pretty decorative touches, and fountains and statues and colorful pots. And if you can get something to eat from the cafe that replaced the old aviary, it’s even better. There’s a reason why Molbak’s has been a top tourist draw for decades. It lifts my mood just to be there and always has, and I’m sure all the extra Oxygen doesn’t hurt, either. Children like it, too! I think we took our kids to Molbak’s as many times as we took them to the zoo.

Might I recommend the large Diet Coke from McDonald’s, but in the Sweet Tea cup (styrofoam) – it’s colder then, and no condensation. The styrofoam will probably give you cancer or something, but you’ll die happy. TOTALLY WORTH IT. Here’s hoping for a real spring!

Homemade cookies. I love the smell of baked goods on a rainy day. Keeps the kiddo happy too. I’m also on board with the s’mores idea.

Put a bunch of towels in the dryer. Get them nice and hot. Then wrap up in them head to toe, lie down and close your eyes and imagine you are lying in the sun. Even better do this while sipping lemonade through a straw. :) Also, is there a botanical garden in town? In D.C., I used to go to the glassed in steamy jungle room during the winter and sit on a bench and read a book.

Move to California, we have plenty of chocolate to go around.

I woke up to snow in Chicago this morning and all I can recommend is a tropical vacation. If that’s not in the forecast then a trip to the botanic gardens (or heck, even a friend’s greenhouse) will help a ton. That pretty much got me through my first winter here.

Off topic but you guys are kinda making me curious now about the diet coke at McDonalds. We have Coke Zero here (France). Is that the same thing? Do I need to plan a trip on the pretext of visiting my family so I can try it?

That was a good point previously – maybe winter sucks so that when Spring arrives you are just that much happier and enjoy it that much more?

Am just going to read through your comments for any suggestions because this NW weather, damn it’s killing me. I hate the time between April and July 4 when summer finally decides to show itself (sometimes) in this region. Feel like am holding on to sanity with only my fingernails at this point.

Play Wii with the kids!

Screw chocolate and diet coke. Buy a plane ticket to Mexico and hop a ferry to Isla Mujeres, sistah.