Blue Monday

January is a rough time of year. With its yuletide debt, post holiday weight gain, and temperatures as comforting as a Scottish dungeon, people find January so bleak that the last Monday of the month has been dubbed Blue Monday. This year;s Blue Monday promises to be the quite literally the worst day ever, January 16, 2017.

If you're anxious to shake yourself out of this wintery slump, studies have shown that consciously practicing gratitude has a substantial impact on your mood, outlook, and overall happiness. Tallying the things that you're grateful for, no matter how big or small, can substantially raise your spirits during the bleakest of winters.

The hectic pace of D.C. can make it easy to overlook those tiny nuggets of happiness and good fortune in our lives, so in the spirit of appreciation, I took stock of 5 things that I'm grateful for:

Colored pencils;

Unlimited champagne when you get your nails done at Mimosa;

The Unicorn Commute: when the train arrives just as you get to the platform, no delays, and you get a seat with a fresh copy of the The Express under i,. Yahtzee;

15 years of running;

Maintaining gainful employment despite choosing English as my college major (with a minor in useless literature). Suckers...

Insomnia and Me: 5 Things I've learned before 5:00am - Part XIII

1) How common or rare is your birthday?
2) 4'33" is a composition by composer John Cage. The performer does not speak or play an instrument during the piece, creating four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence.
3) There are two fish in a tank. One turns to the other and asks ''Where'd you learn to drive this thing?''
4) When brain researcher Jill Bolte Taylor experienced a massive stroke, it was an opportunity to "study the brain from the inside out." 
5) My blood type, AB Positive, is known as the "Universal Recipient" because we can receive blood from every other blood type but can only donate to other AB Positives. Universal Recipient — I haven't been called that since college.