It’s the winter that refuses to end! There is a sort of mocking sun out now, and the temperature is just above freezing, giving us a slight illusion that things might go differently soon. There is ice that has been around so long I swear I can smell it. It smells like boiled cauliflower in places, and in others, unmentionable.

Still, you’d have to be an unrepentant curmudgeon to not believe things will get better soon. To that end I bought some new clothes last week, after a particularly bad fashion day at work where I looked and probably felt like a lumberjack. I’m not expected to dress super professionally but that day, I think I went too far in the other direction.

I’d been having a moratorium on clothes purchasing while I tried to return to some semblance of the weight I believe I should be. Bouncing around between “emaciated” and “overstuffed” has been rough. I don’t think I’m alone in my cancer-associated weight gain (which in my case is pretty much just emotional eating, unless it’s the steroids continuing to exert some evil influence). But that doesn’t make it any easier to accept or be okay with.  The matter of having small children who enjoy sweets without guilt (and in much more moderation than I could ever manage), and being married to to a man whose metabolism has thus far escaped the ravages of time does not make things any easier.

I had to order everything online, because my new working mom lifestyle does not lend itself to shopping trips. It was a revelation to find a pair of jeans that fit well, and even a skirt that doesn’t look too bad (but is simply too lightweight to wear until perhaps a month from now). After setting a particularly bad fashion precedent for myself in my new workplace, I am poised for a comeback. It couldn’t possibly get much worse, after all…

Exercise, like clothes shopping in a store, is another elusive notion. I did manage to go to two classes at the gym last week, but this week doesn’t seem very promising for that sort of thing. I have access to a free and not half bad gym at work, and even walked over to take a look at it last week, but this morning was so crazy, I couldn’t get my thoughts together, let alone my gym clothes and a combination lock. I’m hoping to manage it tomorrow  (even if it means doing something truly crazy, like preparing my gym things tonight!).

But this week also brings Purim, which carries with it delicious indulgences, like hamantaschen and alcohol. I’m making my own hamantaschen this year, which will be quite an enterprise and result in perhaps too many cookies “sampled.” I have a brand new jar of Nutella in my house, ostensibly bought to fill the hamantaschen, but I spread some on toast this morning and called it breakfast.

That took me back to my worst year ever in school, 8th grade. I would bring a Nutella sandwich to school pretty much every day. I don’t think eating that for lunch made my day better, but I am pretty sure it kept my day from getting worse.

And honestly, what more can one ask for?