We're getting closer to spring, but it sure doesn't feel like it

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I cannot stress enough how important it is to be good to yourself in February.

Handle yourself with extreme care, indulge your fanciful whims, because this winter is a beast, and it’s just revving up. As of this issue date, Feb. 5, 46 days have passed since the shortest day, Dec. 21, and we have 43 days to go until spring. If there is a spring.

Go ahead, laugh, although your face may crack in the bitter cold. Through the frosted prism of February, May flowers seem like a dream, unlikely to burst from this frozen ground. It’s easy to feel disheartened by the cold, dark days; even the occasional brittle sunshine seems to mock the real thing we enjoy in summer.

We can’t all jump on airplanes and head south. But there are many ways to make the journey from February to March 20 a bit easier. Not that the end of March is always so gorgeous, but at least it’s the end of winter. Here in February, we’re just at the end of the beginning.

January felt like a month of Mondays, hard to get through. There was that wicked snowfall, and all those days of sub-freezing temps. We’re just past midway through, but it seems as if we’ve paid all our dues, with wind chills dropping through the floor day after day, week after week.

Punxsutawney Phil be damned. I don’t care what that overgrown rat says. Spring seems over the rainbow.

But enough complaining. It’s time to grab winter by its grizzly beard and shake up our lives.

If you’re tired of sunset at zero dark thirty; if you’re fed up with the company (CNN, Fox and MSNBC); if you’re sick of hearing about politicians who will or won’t run and inquiries into who deflated the footballs; if you’re bored with hearings over presidential appointments, and you never want to hear from John Boehner again; take pro-active steps to regain your center, light up your frozen core and bust loose.

I offer a five-part cold-weather remediation program.

First, indulge yourself with delicious hot food. The cooking of a winter soup is a semi-religious ritual that, when executed properly, can feed all the senses, drive away the blues and leave you feeling satisfied and happy to be alive. You think I exaggerate? Listen to me.

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