Activities make winter days pass faster

Here are the long cold days of winter and you are feeling on the down side.

After a build up of energy and activity beginning with Thanksgiving and continuing to the New Year’s celebration, you looked forward to a quiet period and slower pace or routine.

But you are finding too much time on your hands.

What you can do:

• Reread Christmas messages on your Christmas cards. Write notes to those you may have lost contact with or who wrote you about changes in their lives.

• Update your address book. In our mobile society, many of your friends and acquaintances changed residences during the year.

• Tackle your recipe file. Discard those you tried and didn’t like. Add those that delighted your family and friends.

• Exercise. If possible and if you physician approves, you may want to increase your exercise time.

• Work on family scrapbooks. Add this year’s holiday pictures.

Find some roots:

• Do a little genealogy digging. Treasure awaits those who find a lost family branch.

• Gather up books, magazines, videos, and cassettes. Share them with libraries, schools, and other institutions.

• Update your own skills. Read. Learn to use a computer. Take art lessons or a crafts class.

• Volunteer for Meals on Wheels. Join a hospital auxiliary. Adopt a family. Ask your church or synagogue for suggested names. Don’t forget the Salvation Army, Red Cross, Goodwill, or Caritas.

• Be good to yourself. A new look, a new hairstyle, a manicure, or a facial will lift your spirits. Go to your own favorite cosmetologist or call for an appointment with students at the local community college’s cosmetology school.

The hours they work means hours earned toward licensure.

• Call a local school. Volunteer to read to children or assist school personnel in some other way.

• Just as you are feeling let down, so are those in retirement centers, nursing home, half-way houses, institutions, hospitals, and schools.

Their activity calendars are no longer filled to the brim. Visitors, gifts of cheer and mail are welcomed all during the year, not just during the holiday season.

Helping others:

• Use whatever talent you have- sewing, painting, cooking, coaching, teaching- to help the unfortunate or underprivileged in the community. Helping others is a great self-esteem booster.

• Spring is just around the corner. And the winter doldrums can be a time to prepare for its pleasures.

Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D Copyright © 1994