Spring, is the time of rebirth;
Summer, is its celebration.
If you live in a northern climate like we do, when winter hits with its storms, clouds, and generally ookie weather, it’s easy to develop serious doldrums. However, there is good news; you can create your own sunshine environment and experience spring and summer any time of year.
In the spring, the trees and shrubs are turning green, flowers are promising to bloom, birds are gathering twigs and moss to build nests and there is long overdue warmth in the sun when it shines. Everywhere around you an abundance new life is being created. The air begins to fill with all the scents, sounds you associate with spring and summer. Soon the daffodils will adorn store fronts and folks everywhere seem to be caught up in the beauty and promise of the season.
That time can be hard to imagine when the cloudy, rainy, cold permeates every crack and crevice of your being. Fortunately, with a little imagination, it’s fixable. You do this by touching your senses with the aroma, melody, sights, taste and feel of spring and summer. Why not pretend it’s summer and have a picnic? You can make it a totally fun experience and one that brings joy by awakening the sense of spring and summer in you and your family.
Ways you can appeal to the sense of spring and summer with a summer picnic on a cold winter day.
1. Set the stage with the scent of fragrances you associate with spring and summer. You can use a potpourri, mister or diffuser to send the right scent messages. For instance, you could choose jasmine, rose, chamomile, lavender or other floral scents. Use whatever scents you associate with a sunny warm day.
2. Play a CD with the sounds of summer. This can be with or without music. There’s some awesome free downloads of spring sounds on http://www.freesound.org/. You can also buy CDs that have wonderful spring and summer soundtracks.
3. If it’s cloudy outside, draw the curtains to make the gloom go away. Make sure there is plenty of light in your “picnic area.” If you have your picnic in an area with fluorescent lights, you can replace the bulbs with full spectrum light bulbs. These are the bulbs used to treat people with SADD (seasonal affective depression disorder). Post pictures of joyful summer scenes around your picnic room.
4. Plan your picnic meal with dishes such as potato salad, fruit salad, hot dogs, hamburgers, baked beans, steaks or whatever other dishes you associate with summer. Pretend you’re going to a park in July to have a picnic, plan your meal like that. Eat off paper plates and with plastic silverware. Spread a picnic tablecloth on the floor. No watching TV while you eat. You wouldn’t be watching TV if you were having a picnic in the park (at least most of you wouldn’t) so don’t spoil the moment by turning it on during your picnic at home.
5. Summer games indoors are easy. There are indoor golf games, ring games, basketball games and the bean bag balance beam game. The balance bean game is played by laying a 2X4 on the floor. The player places a bean bag on his or her head and must walk the beam 5 (or more) times without falling off or losing the bean bag. Whatever you choose, make it lots of fun for everyone.
Maybe you noticed in the five suggestions above you are stimulating all five senses with the feeling of spring and summer. The object is to experience the season through your senses, all five of them if possible.
Now go have fun and relax.
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