Wintery Optimism

It's November! And you know what that means! It's Christmas time again!

Even though it's a month and a half away, all the stores are getting their Christmas on in a big way. My favourite place to go over the Holiday season: Starbucks! They've changed all of the signage and displays to that wonderful red colour and start promoting my personal favourite drink, the peppermint mocha. And this year, they have a great little Advent Calendar that I've just been convinced to buy.

Winter can be such a depressing time with the cold weather and the departure of the sun for long periods of time, but there's always that shining light of hope to hold onto when you know Christmas is coming. Of course, after that you're screwed if you live here in the North, 'cause you've still got four more months of winter to make it through. But hey, there are worse things right? (...right?)

The other thing I'm looking forward to this winter is potentially learning to snowboard! I've never given it a shot, but I think this is the year to get it done. The last bunch of years involved a lot of waiting around for a certain jerk to actually want to do something with me. This year, I'm single, so if friends want to do something, I'm in!

See? I've managed to convince myself that winter is a great time! At least until the next big dump of snow...

Now onto a little bit of bad news: I failed. I set myself a goal to go to the gym, and I didn't go. I had every intention of going, but video games won out. So now I'll reset my goal and try again. This time next week: gym time will have happened. Or there will be some sort of consequence. I'm not sure what that will be yet. Maybe no Starbucks for a week? That would be pretty sad... Aaanyway, I'm gonna leave it here, with a picture of my morning coffee! That's fun right?

Winter Is Coming

The last few days here in the north have been pretty depressing. The sun has left us, clouds have swooped in, and I have been forced to layer. LAYER. It's August, and I am wearing two shirts and a hoodie. To say the least, I am displeased.

I'm hoping we still have a bit of good weather on the way, but we have had a pretty good summer so I can't complain too much. I was just hoping I'd have a chance to try to even out my tan. I've definitely got three different skin tones going on.

The one benefit to the cooler weather is that I'm more inclined to enjoy my nerdy hobbies. When it's sunny and beautiful out, I just can't justify sitting inside watching TV or playing video games. But if it's colder out, it's like a free pass to get my nerd on.

I have so much geeky stuff to catch up on too. I have I don't know how many video games to get through, plus I recently added two new ones to the list, Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance and New Super Mario Bros. 2, both for the Nintendo 3DS. I've got a nice big list of books to read, and I just ordered two more online. And I have so many shows on DVD and iTunes to catch up on.

I took the ugly-weather-opportunity over the last couple days to watch a few episodes of Eureka (I'm on the second of five seasons, I've got my work cut out for me), and my fantastic roomie and I started a marathon of Glee season 3 yesterday. I picked it up on bluray the other day, and we managed to get through the first 7 episodes last night.

I'm hoping that this fall/winter I can catch up on a few other shows I've been meaning to watch. Game of Thrones. Breaking Bad. Torchwood. The Walking Dead. Just to name a few. However, there are definitely a few non-nerdy things I want to do this winter as well. I need to pick up my training for Tough Mudder next year, so I need to get to the gym more ofte this fall/winter. And I want to learn to snowboard this winter! I've been wanting to for years, and never gotten around to it. This is my year!

So even if the sun is leaving, it isn't the end of the world! There's plenty to look forward to! ...Are you convinced? I don't think I've convinced myself either. But good effort? What are you looking forward to this fall/winter? Any benefits to summer coming to a close? Leave me a comment below!