Male Watcher’s Day
National English Toffee Day
Show and Tell Day at Work
National Joy Germ Day
I’m Not Going To Take It Anymore Day.

1835 - The U-S national debt was $0 for the first and only time. (ahh..those were the times!)
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From the Old Farmer’s Almanac:
It may be January, but it’s not too early to start planning your garden!
-Make a diagram drawn to scale before placing your spring order. (Remember this rule of thumb for planning perenntial gardens: The width of the garden should be about twice the height of the tallest plant growing in it.)

-Organize, clean, oil, and sharpen your garden tools. A splash of bright paint on tool handles will make them easier to spot out in the yard.

-Examine your land in the stark winter days, looking for places where an evergreen might go nicely.

-Visit a greenhouse or nursery near you and talk with experts about your growing problems. Ask them about shrub varieties best for your conditions.

-Cozy up to the fire with a good seed catalog, and dream of that day when you can dig in the dirt again!
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The Huffington Post has some tips on how to beat the winter blues.

Watch the sugar: Depressives and addicts need to be especially careful with sweets because the addiction to sugar and white-flour products is very real and physiological, affecting the same biochemical systems in your body as other drugs like heroin. According to Kathleen DesMaisons, author of “Potatoes Not Prozac”: Your relationship to sweet things is operating on a cellular level.

Give back: Ghandi once wrote that “the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” Positive psychologists like University of Pennsylvania’s Martin Seligman and Dan Baker, Ph.D., director of the Life Enhancement Program at Canyon Ranch, believe that a sense of purpose–committing oneself to a noble mission–and acts of altruism are strong antidotes to depression.

Join the gym: Don’t let the cold weather be an excuse not to sweat. We have centers today called “gyms” where people exercise inside!

Use a light lamp: Bright-light therapy — involving sitting in front of a fluorescent light box that delivers an intensity of 10,000 lux — can be as effect as antidepressant medication for mild and moderate depression and can yield substantial relief for Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Wear bright colors: It’s in line with “faking it ’til you make it,” desperate attempts to trick your brain into thinking that it’s sunny and beautiful outside — time to celebrate Spring! — even though it’s a blizzard with sleet causing some major traffic jams.

Force yourself outside: Even on cloudy and overcast days, your mood can benefit from exposure to sunlight. Midday light, especially, provides Vitamin D to help boost your limbic system, the emotional center of the brain. And there is something so healing about connecting with nature, even if it’s covered in snow.

Hang out with friends: This seems like an obvious depression buster. Of course you get together with your buddies when your mood starts to go south. But that’s exactly when many of us tend to isolate. People need to be validated and encouraged and inspired by persons on the same journey.

My personal tip - Learn Something..now is the perfect time to take a class..Jen’s knitting. Expand your mind! Take that class you’ve always wanted to take. It’s a good distraction till spring.
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Cash strapped Alpine farmers are raking in a fortune harvesting snow and selling it to desperate ski slopes. Despite a freezing winter, snowfall levels at lower altitudes are down and Austrian resorts have had to buy in trailerloads of the stuff from higher up the mountains. Across the country, thousands of tons of snow have been dug up from high Alpine ski fields and shipped to keep ski resorts open.
In Austria the biggest “snow harvesters” are the owners of a 40-mile stretch of road 8,200 feet above ski level which is Europe’s highest Alpine crossing.
Spokesman Dietmar Schondorfer said: “Even if it doesn’t snow, every day we have tons of snow dumped on the road by the wind, all we have to do is drive back and forward to scoop it up.
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The karaoke machine has been named in a government survey as the most irritating invention. A poll of more than 2,500 adults found that that nearly 25% of Brits wish it had never been invented. Other annoying creations included 24-hour sports channels, computer games consoles, mobile phones and alarm clocks.
Invented in 1971 by a Japanese musician called Inoue Daisuke, karaoke, which means “empty orchestra”,  it became popular in Asia before being introduced to the rest of the world in the 1980s. Daisuke never patented his invention, which he made by combining a car stereo, a coin box and an amplifier, a mistake which has cost him an estimated £100 million.
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