Five things that feel like a freaking miracle, because December

If it's any indication, this post was originally titled "Five things that feel like a freaking (except I didn't use the word "freaking") miracle, because November." Because even putting up a post and finding and clicking on all the photos seemed too hard, like too much work, like I'm seven years old and someone has suggested that I cut up my own French toast. For example.

But I'm trying to push against the ennui of winter, the urge to just give up and not bother. I'm trying to do tiny things, like:

1. Gluing the knob back onto the butter dish. Frankly, it's a miracle that we actually have Krazy Glue. But we do have it, and we even have the "single use" kind that acknowledges the reality that you can use a tube of Krazy Glue only one time before it all goes to hell. But I did it: youI lifted the enormous weight of the broken knob off its semi-permanent home on the kitchen windowsill and glued that mo-fo ON. It will fall off again — it already has, once — but for right now I'm calling it a win.

2. Polishing my boots. Again, a minor miracle that we have the polish, and the rags, and really this is a process that takes approximately four minutes and is utterly satisfying: I mean, these boots still look like hell, but they look like a better kind of hell now. (And now I want to write a book called A Better Kind of Hell.)

3. Painting my toenails. I couldn't decide between orange or red, so both it was. And they smudged, and that will have to be good enough for now. I'm also going to count it as a minor miracle if and when I actually remove the polish rather than just letting it flake off from now until February. Baby steps.

4. Putting my stupid dumb vitamins in their stupid dumb case and then ACTUALLY TAKING THEM, EVERY DAY. I swear, there are days when I look at the vitamins, sitting in front of my computer monitor where I keep them as a life hack , and I think that it's too much work to actually swallow them with some water. Might as well cut up my own French toast, you know?

5. Buying, after several appointment's worth of my dentist telling me to, the other toothpaste for sensitive teeth. Actually using said toothpaste. Discovering that it does actually work and that I was wrong when I just assumed that the toothpaste was a crock and I would chew on one side of my mouth forever because life is hard and December. (That photo is blurry. At least I took it.)

I can do all kinds of big things: exercise regularly, journal, cook, bake, take out the recycling. But it's the tiny things, the extra steps, that sometimes feel more important, like what might just get me through until the thaw.