Arctic Temperatures

... do nothing to chill my cabin fever. It feels like years since I've been outside for more than three minutes. That is the sad sum total time I give my poor dogs to relieve themselves in the yard while while I'm standing outside in single digit temperatures (and with the windchills, those single digits have a minus sign in front of them) in baby-barf-stained Tshirt, sweatpants, and sneakers without socks, one frozen hand clutching the baby monitor to one frozen ear, straining to hear if Mikro makes even the slightest peep. (And yes, this is what I do every day-- I just never think about putting on a coat until I've already been out there two minutes, and by then, the dogs are almost done, so why bother?)

I am agoraphobic, to a mild degree. I generally would rather be home than anywhere else, because here my baseline level of anxiety is not as overwhelming as elsewhere... but even for hermit me, there comes a time when claustrophobia and agoraphobia have a fistfight, and claustrophobia wins...

I need to get out of here, at least for an hour or so, before I actually start to believe the walls are closing in on me ala trash compactor in Star Wars...

But it's too damn cold to take the baby out. Catch 22. I am about to start climbing the walls...