Winter sucks.  I’m sorry to those who are on speaking terms with winter, but in my mind, it’s like winter is wearing pink and it isn’t even Wednesday.  Colds, shoveling, ice, freezing temps.  There’s nothing good about it.

Except these five things.

Here are five things that make winter suck less for me and hopefully for you, too.

A good, warm beverage

I am all about a good cup of coffee.  In the wintertime, it’s even more important.  There is nothing more satisfying than wrapping chilly fingers around a steaming mug of deliciousness.

Tea is my thing right now.  I have a wicked cold that’s kicking my ass and tea is the only thing that warms, soothes, and doesn’t put my nerves on over-drive.

Candy Cane Lane tea from Celestial Seasonings tastes fantastic (the peppermint covers the blah green tea taste) and is decaf.  I love the Gingerbread Spice, too.  The flavors are outstanding.

Snacks

Dude, you best believe I hibernate in the winter.  I just ate ice cream and now I’m debating something crunchy.  Usually I go for chocolatey/sweet snacks, but you can’t beat guac and chips or good homemade hummus (why yes, yes I did make that delicious hummus pictured below).

I’m also digging these Fruit Vines from my Influenster #FrostyVoxBox.

I’m not a huge fan of made-mostly-of-gummy-sugar-stuff treats, but I love the sweet strawberry flavor and the chewiness.  Very satisfying.

A full Netflix queue or a stack of books

There are days when I just don’t want to do a damn thing.  Living with a parent requires me to look like I’m a contributing member of society, but when I lived alone, there were weekends when I didn’t eat anything with nutritional value and ripped through seasons of SATC in a day.

I can quote each episode and I still cry when Aidan leaves for the last time.  Since I discovering the miracle of Netflix, though, we’re no longer exclusive.

Books are also a necessity.  Anything that you get emotionally invested in or are hilariously entertaining.  Yes Please was done in a weekend.  Bonus points if you’ve already spilled food on the pages.

A low-commitment and high-guilt-removing workout

I have to start training for the Pittsburgh Half Marathon soon, but when I don’t want to drive out to the gym just to use the treadmill, I gotta have backup.  I feel better telling myself, “Well I didn’t run today, but I did do __ instead.”

Plus, you may want to add a little physical activity to get endorphins flowing and combat the winter blues.  Or something.

I’ve been getting into kettlebells lately.  It’s a low-impact strength workout that gets the heart rate up.  I also love 10 minute workouts from FitSugar because we can all suck it up for at least 10 minutes.  And Yoga With Adriene is a new obsession.  Since my doctor said yoga is an acceptable workout, I feel totally justified by subbing this in.*

*I’m not a doctor, so don’t take this as end-all-be-all health advice.  I just told you to pig out, remember?

A project

When you finally have drank, eaten, read, watched, and worked everything out and can’t stand it anymore, something to focus your energy is necessary.  I’ll clean, knit, write, organize, anything to get my mind off winter.

Bonus: you can binge-watch and scrapbook at the same time.

I love doing #30Lists.  It gives you something to do every day that’s easy to manage.  Plus, I got to make my own mini-notebook for it out of Project Life cards.

Or you can try a new hobby.  Book binding or photography, anyone?

When all else fails, have a stock of beer on hand!

What do you do to make winter suck less?

Disclaimer: I received the tea and Fruit Vines from Influenster for testing and review.  These are my authentic opinions and everything listed is what I actually recommend to make winter less awful.