It’s winter. It’s cold. Since you can skip the store with Alice, it’s tempting to stay home with the television and oven baked fries from that bag in the freezer. But that just sinks you deeper into those gray hanging doldrums. So don’t do that.

Do This Instead

• Go on a hike. If it’s frosty, bundle up. The house will be warm and waiting when you’re done. So will the hot chocolate, hot chocolate that will taste so much better if you tramped through the snow for an hour first.
• Go to a knitting store. Buy your first roll of yarn and set of needles and ask the friendly store people to show you a stitch you can repeat over and over to make your first scarf. (They usually are quite friendly and obliging and thrilled to help first timers. You can also check for knitting classes, if you’re too shy to ask.)
• Arrange a clothing swap. Invite your girlfriends over for snacks and champagne and tell them to bring (clean) clothes they no longer wear to swap for new-to-them pieces. Good way to feng shui the closet and get some new goods, without paying through the nose.
• Make an epic pot of soup. Feed it to your clamoring baby birds or take it to a homeless shelter at mealtime.
• Go to the pound and rescue an animal. Especially if you’ve been wanting a pet. If you haven’t been wanting a pet, maybe jump to the next suggestion.
• Find something in your town that you’ve always wanted to do but never had the time. Make time.
• Go skiing. Go ice skating. Go to the beach. Go to the woods. Get out in nature, whatever nature your geographical location offers.
• Go to a movie in a genre you rarely try.
• Go to pinterest and make a board for your dream vacation. Now grab an envelope from your desk and label it Dream Vacation. Or Venice. Or Timbuktu. Or Omaha. Wherever you want to go – the more specific, the better. Now put ten dollars in the envelope. There. You’re two steps closer to whisking yourself away.
• Take a tango class.

Write your own list of adventures and put at least one of them in your calendar. Better yet, put down the list and walk out the door. Your winter blues will thank you.

Instead of being stuck inside, what do you wish you could be doing?