I have been feeling a little down, not really down, just a little down. Julia and I have so much on the go it is easy to recognize contributors, but also hard to know what are the greatest contributors.
Does the weather contribute?
Although I knew that fall and winter can be depressing, I did not know these blues had an official name Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). USA Today has an artilcle from January 2005 titled Shed light on SAD to ease winter blues which suggests SAD affects 15 million American and suggests successful treatment for most sufferers with daily exposure of 30 minutes to bright light from “light boxes”. Other research seems to disagree, but a lot of people feel SAD affects them.
Julia introduced me to this information, and found a Verilux HappyLite Deluxe Sunshine Simulator for me to borrow. I will see if it helps and then have to find where I can buy one in Victoria, BC, Canada or have to move back to California 
Bananas seem to be SADists friends.
It seems what is most important is a healthy diet and regular exercise.
I 100% agree it is the weather. The last two weeks have just sucked. I combated it by taking the past few days off of work, taking a break from blogging, and spending time with friends/family. Feeling much more “normal.” But that could also be because we finally had a day with sunshine yesterday.
Check this out. The dilbertblog is a great daily read:
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2006/10/optimist_cures_.html
engtech, that Halloween party looks awesome.
I do enjoy the occasion Dilbert blog post. He does try too hard sometimes to be funny though. That post is great for the 1st 2/3 but then he looses me when he started going on about speed.
“Sometimes you think you’re tired but you’re really thirsty.”
“carbs make you sleepy”
Sometimes you think you’re unhappy, but you’re really tired.
Energy = happy
I moved to Finland five years ago, and it gets damn dark and cold here in winter, believe me. I was feeling weirdly low (usually I’m the cheerful sort) and a friend suggested a sun lamp–I didn’t think it would do much, but bizarrely, it worked. Just make sure you have it on in the mornings only, don’t use it as a nightlight or you’ll never get to sleep. I put mine on a timer and had it wake me up every morning like an artificial sun, to fight the fact that it was dark outside until 10am…