I decided to get a little off topic this week as I just have not been myself lately and thought a good rant may be entertaining.  At this time of year I hear almost daily how tired people are of winter and how they just want the snow to be gone.  This does not include everyone as there are a number of people who love ice fishing, riding snow mobiles, skiing, and several other cold weather activities. Early springtime weather can provide some of the best days with warmer temperatures and more daylight hours.  In addition, as the weather warms up, nature also becomes more active with the animals out enjoying the warmth as they search for tidbits to eat, play, and look for their summers home.  Myself… I’m more of a summer type of person and I think all this cold and snow has finally gotten to me. 

It all started about two weeks ago.  I lost all interest in participating in many of the activities that I usually enjoy, including this website.  There are many hours spent each week on the computer writing posts, maintaining and upgrading MonopolyTraveler.com, reading other travel websites, participating in social media, ect…  In addition, there are numerous activities during the week when you have younger children as any parent can attest to.  Surprisingly there was one item on my daily list that still held some interest and that was feeding the fish in our aquariums and maintaining those aquariums.  Knowing this could help determine the cause of my lack of interest in most other activities. What does a person do when they lose all interest in daily and weekly activities?

Well, for me apparently I become obsessed with orchids.  It didn’t matter what kind of orchid.  All I wanted to do was learn about and acquire orchids.  Tropical orchids… hardy orchids… native orchids…  (Did you know there are orchids native to the coldest parts of the United States?) It didn’t matter because orchids became my passion and every free minute I wanted to spend researching them or acquiring them and still could not satisfy my desire and alleviate a lack of interest in other things.  In all fairness, I am a horticulturalist so working with plants is not that big of a leap. Also, I did go through a little orchid craze a number of years ago in college but it was definitely not as consuming as this one was/is. It certainly did not help to have an orchid specialist about five minutes away that breeds and collects unique orchids and then grows them up for sale. 

Oh ya, there was another part to this craziness.  All I wanted to eat and drink was candy and colas.  Not sure where the sugar frenzy came from.  I resisted this as much as I could and tried to consume healthier foods but my success rate was fairly low for a few days. 

I like to learn, experience new things, and create new challenges so wanting to learn more about orchids and accept the challenge to grow them and flower them would be normal for me.  Becoming absolutely obsessed is a bit extreme. After about 10 days, I tried to understand what the cause could be.  I came up with a few possibilities.  Winter has grown very long and has been unusually cold with a lot of snow so seeing flowers could be a way to deal with that. Although at work I see flowers every day so not sure this makes sense.  A mid-life crisis may be brewing. This obsession has seemed to be tamed with the purchase of a few specific orchids and I wouldn’t expect that to compensate for a mid-life crises.  This could however explain the sugar frenzy. Can a mid-life crisis occur and end over a two week span? Maybe I just needed to add to my list of hobbies.  NOT LIKELY! 

I believe the most likely scenario is the long winter explanation.  The fact that I still enjoyed our aquariums which include fish and plants leads me to believe that I’m feeling confined inside and ready to get outside with a nice green landscape. Orchids just happen to have my attention and present a challenge at this time that I believe I can achieve. Still not sure about the sugar frenzy and how that fits in. 

What’s your solution to a long, cold, and snowy winter? (By the way, it is snowing again while I write this  🙁