If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.
Did you find any reasonable SAD lights? Everything that I've looked at is hideously expensive. I have several lights set to turn on with timers before daylight, but nothing that truly mimics sunlight.
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It was the cost of the fixtures that put me off. I hadn't thought of the cost of replacement. :-(
Are you saying that you use full spectrum bulbs in regular fixtures?
I'll give them a try, then. I have a couple of full spectrum reading lamps, but nothing in room lighting.
>>With the days growing shorter, and the weather pretty bleak, we can use all the help we can get. <s> <<
You can say that again! And the sun's angle is so low that even at mid-day, I feel disoriented. I remember reading a science fiction short story years ago that recounted how the space travelers found themselves disoriented after landing on a planet where the sun was always low in the sky. I feel like they must have when it's this time of year. I know in my brain that it will be better by March, but I hate it anyway. The only good thing is that the ornamental grasses are prettily backlit.
So, get out the camera! <g> I just remembered to put my camera in my purse after missing a great chance while on my way to the grocery store this week. There was a whole bank of ornamental grasses, not only backlit, but heavy with dew.
I suspect that the author also had the same problem. I've asked dozens of people and most don't even notice it, though some experience "flicker vertigo" while driving along a tree- lined road with the tree shadows crossing it.
I remember when I was a teenager and got straight A's in September, then as the year progressed, my grades dropped to B's and even some C's. I was accused of slacking, but I couldn't help it. By March, the grades were going back up, and in April and May, straight A's again. My parents, the teacher and the guidance counselor were convinced that it was their threatening that made my grades go up, but I just couldn't help it in the winter. There were days when I could barely get out of bed and get to school, let alone study. It sounds like you experienced much the same thing. There wasn't any such thing as S.A.D. back then, at least not anything that I heard.
One of the things that might help, if the gloom gets to you, is increasing the number of "daylight" hours by having lights on timers that go on early in the morning or stay on later at night. You may not need them where you are, but here, sunrise isn't until 7:53, though on a clear morning, it starts to get light at a little after 7:30. We're losing almost 2 seconds of daylight every day.
I haven't heard any mice yet, but with 4 indoor cats and one outside feral that we're trying to tame, perhaps they've gotten the "no vacancy" idea.
I'm all too familiar with old houses. We used to live in a duplex that had been converted from a 150+ year old barn and blacksmith shop. If that building is still standing, it's about 200 years old. There were so many ways to get behind a wall or into a ceiling it wasn't funny. It had a rock foundation and every year, we'd chink the spaces between the stones to keep it together. Not too many months after we moved, the owner had to do major foundation repairs. He didn't believe us (or didn't want to bother since he had us to do it) when we'd tell him what was falling apart each week. He just left it to us to fix it.
Chipmunks are a real nuisance, aren't they, the way they store food? And in your boots, too! I haven't seen any signs in our attic, but only because I haven't been up there. When my parents were moving, we found that they had somehow gotten into their finished basement (into the well-used storage and shop area) and stored a few pounds of seed in rolls of carpet. Can you bait them with peanut better and carry them away someplace?
What I do with the lights is to have them go on at intervals starting down the hall so that the light increases gradually, like natural sunlight. I can't imagine having a full spectrum light shining on me without warning.
Our old place had tree trunks for beams, too. I think that the landlord had to replace them with beams after we left, and before shoring up the walls.
You need a pretty small hav-a-hart trap for chipmunks. Otherwise they panic and shove their heads through the holes and can't get back out.
It wasn't too bad yesterday morning for me, either, but it was awfully miserable when it was dark so early. This morning was cloudy, so back to the old grind. :-(
