How Can I Get Any Rest Now?

Shirt: thrifted * Cardigan: H&M * Skirt: thrifted * Boots: thrifted * Belt: thrifted * Tights: Hue

I'm really happy with the combination of thrifted, vintage, and retail items that I picked for my 30 for 30. I rarely wear outfits that are entirely composed of new pieces, and as much as I love thrifted and vintage clothing, I usually need to add a bit of trendier sass to those pieces. So it's been easy and fun to combine something out of each group for most of my outfits for the 30 for 30 challenge so far. This outfit is a perfect example of that. The shirt and boots are both thrifted, but, from what I can tell, only about 10 years old. The skirt is definitely vintage (based on the tags, I think 70s or 80s, so I guess it depends a bit on how you define "vintage", but I won't get into that here), and the cardigan is new from H&M. I think it's one of my favorite challenge outfits so far, and I think that stems at least partly from the combination of pieces from so many different styles and eras.

Now I'm going to be really boring for a second and talk about the weather. It's cloudy. It's been cloudy for awhile now. We've gotten some rain, some snow, but very, very little sunshine. Now, I'm not trying to rag on the people who love them some clouds. I'm cool with clouds, but I grew up in a climate where even on the coldest, most wintry of days we'd get hours of sparkling blue skies. It's a big challenge for me to get through multiple days without sunshine. I thrive on it, and despite my best efforts, my mood is consistently affected by the amount of sunshine (or lack thereof) that we get in any given day or week.

During my first January in Chicago, there was not a single day in the entire month when the city got more than 30 minutes of consecutive sunshine. It was rough. It's insidious, too. I don't realize how much my mood is being affected until I'm already feeling lethargic, despondent, and constantly grumpy, and by then it's too late. And then the sun comes out, and I'm bathed in sparkling rays of shining sunlight, and my mood is lifted. For the most part, I really don't mind winter in Chicago. I can deal with the cold, and the ice and snow, because those are things that I'm used to. But the cloudy days that come with winter here are totally new to me, and I haven't quite figured out how to deal. 

Maybe I should invest in a tanning bed. Or up my daily vitamin D supplements. Or eat lots of carrots, so I turn kind of orange and fool myself that I'm actually "tan". Or quit whining about it and just get through the rest of February. Spring is around the corner, after all.

Do you guys get SAD in the wintertime? How do you cloudy-day lovers do it? Any tricks for a girl who comes from a land with 350 days of sunshine/year? Anyone want to loan me their tanning bed?

Title song: Matt Costa, "Sunshine"