WINTER GLOOM

TEN WAYS TO BATTLE IT:

1. Leave small lamps on all day, in each room, so that when you move throughout the house you don't have any dark corners (don't get all energy saving on me, these little babies don't use that much electricity, and this time of year my sanity does not have a price tag).

2. Use screen savers depicting tropical settings.

3. Read novels set in warm climates, that ooze heat. "Secret Life of Bees" would work perfectly.

4. Light lots of candles. As my sooty walls will attest, it is better to spend the extra money and buy ones made of soy or beeswax. If they smell like coconuts or freesia, all the better.

5. Pull the grill out of the garage and have hamburgers, and get frozen cobs of corn, and slice up some hydroponic tomatoes and pretend you are swatting flies.

6. My favorite place to be in St. Paul to battle the winter blahs is the Conservatory at Como Park. And if you don't live here, it is worth a visit. Or take the kids to the tropical part of the Minnesota Zoo. You will get warm, and shed your coats, and revel in it.

7. Start planning your window boxes and planters. Get a gardening magazine for fresh ideas, or go on-line and look at flowers and pretend you can smell them.

8. Buy some green plants. I like to buy English Ivy this time of year, and put little pots of it in every room. Then when it finally warms up, it transplants really well to those window boxes and planters that you already have planned!

9. Rent a movie that will warm you up. "Dead Calm" with Nicole Kidman will heat things up, and scare the pants off of you at the same time.

10. Put some music on your Ipod that sounds like you are on a warm vacation. I love Bebel Gilberto, her album "Momento" will chase the grays away.

Good luck keeping cabin fever at bay!