How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Winter or Expand Your Wardrobe For Free!

This post will probably be a let down after that long winded title, but onwards anyway!

So as stated, I have indeed learned to love winter. You know how people say they learned to love winter by taking up winter activities like skiing, snowshoeing, snowboarding and the like? Yeah, that's not the case with me. I mean, I do like being outdoors in the winter. I enjoy hiking and snowshoeing and I try to get fresh air and exercise most days. But winter for me is really about indulging my inner lazy bones and tendency to enjoy deep rest and relaxation. I love taking the time to slow down and stay in, all cosy under blankets and being a real homebody.

I know that as soon as the days begin to warm up and things start growing, I'll be spending most of my free time outdoors, and on those impossibly long summer days, that can sometimes mean being outside until near 10pm. By the time I come in from a day like that, I'm ready for bed.

So in winter I like to work on all the projects and tasks that are well suited to the indoors. I organise paperwork and clean (slightly) more regularly. It's a good time for continuing education too and this winter I'm working my way through an online botany course and I'm starting an online anatomy course next month. I love reading all year long, but it's in winter that I really settle in and go through one book after another, reading in great chunks of time rather than catching a few minutes here or there. Handwork is another pleasurable activity that I do much more of in the winter.

And this, my dears, is the secret to expanding your wardrobe for free. I pulled out all my mending that had piled up over the last year and started in on it. For a few pleasant hours of easy work while watching episodes of the Victorian Kitchen Garden, I put back into action 3 tank tops, 2 pairs of pyjama bottoms, 1 3/4 length tee, 1 short sleeve, button up blouse and I turned a pair of beyond repair knee socks into elbow length fingerless gloves. And the best part about it is: I can watch 'my programs' online guilt free and not feel like a couch potato, because I'm being productive at the same time.

Then again, sometimes on the dreariest, coldest, darkest of days I say screw productivity, screw 'educational' online viewing. I'm not doing anything except watching back to back episodes of Shameless and Happy Endings until I pass out and start to drool. 'Cause that's what winter's for and I love it! Spring and its To Do list will be here soon enough. I'm happy to wait.