With fabulous fall colors and bright clear skies, it’s hard to imagine that winter is just around the corner.  But, deep down inside, many of us dread those approaching long, dark days.  Even as we celebrate our harvest and prepare for Halloween and Thanksgiving, some folks suffer from a slow, sinking feeling that soon they will be trapped – trapped by deep snows and icy roads.  The thought can seriously affect a person’s mood.

The fact is, when this depressed mood hits, many people want nothing more than a high-carb snack.  They’re stressed, feeling low, feeling trapped, and depressed, and nothing sounds better than a bag of chips or donuts.  We may have felt energetic all summer long, walking, biking, and swimming, nibbling on our salads, carrots, and celery, but when winter hits, it’s a different story.

When winter comes creeping, our low mood demands those bags of salty potato chips, double-chocolate donuts, and fatty microwave popcorn.  And who can blame us?  Winters can be hard work!  For some folks just heating their home becomes a huge chore and an even bigger expense.  Getting in a car and driving to work during the winter months can be enough of a stress for some people that they invite a bag of potato chips along for the drive!

Lucky for us, I’ve found some real data that suggests that we CAN snack on carbohydrate-laden foods when we are feeling low.  Even better news is that we Should snack on high-carb foods when we start to feel down and depressed.  The catch?  The snack needs to be a healthy carbohydrate.

Science writer Carla Helfferich of the Geophysical Institute, has reported on a study done in cooperation with the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ research community.  The article entitled Darkness on the Brain–and on the Stomach reports that carbohydrates may be needed in some people who suffer from depression, low moods, and even SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder.

The culprit?  The manufacturing of serotonin, the “feel good” biochemical in your brain, has somehow slowed down. The solution?  Well, let me insert a portion of the study mentioned to explain how eating carbohydrates affects the manufacture of serotonin in your brain.

“This (serotonin) biochemical is synthesized in the brain from another chemical, trytophan. Put extremely simply, the more carbohydrates you eat, the more trytophan can get to the brain and the more serotonin will be made there. In normal human systems, a neurochemical feedback quickly signals that there’s enough serotonin for now–one cookie may suffice. With carbohydrate craving, you may be a dozen cookies along before the signal turns off the urge to consume.”

“Serotonin also affects mood and sleepiness. Typically, a high-carbohydrate lunch leads to a sluggish afternoon for office workers–unless they are carbohydrate cravers. Then the effect may be almost invigorating and cheering. Furthermore, trials in SAD patients of a drug that stimulates serotonin production showed that it eased their symptoms of depression and urge to snack on high-carbohydrate foods.”

So, if you are a “carbohydrate craver” when you get depressed or feel low, it sounds like satisfying your craving with carbohydrates is the right thing to do to get your serotonin manufacturing plant running.  That’s good news, right?  Now we can have our carbohydrates without guilt.

Except, how’s that diet going?  And, do you really want to be snacking on a dozen cookies to lift your mood?  I don’t think buying a bigger size pair of pants is going to do anything for my mood.  So, what do the experts suggest?

According to The Serotonin Power Diet authors Judith J. Wurtman, PhD and Nina T. Frusztajer, MD, you can go ahead and give your serotonin a boost with carbohydrates, just be aware of which carbs you should be eating, and when.  They suggest about half hour to an hour before a meal, that you munch on what they call “a serotonin soothing snack.”  This would include pretzels, popcorn, and even cherry licorice. They suggest it will lift your mood and energize you.  Then, at meal time, you’ll eat less and feel better about yourself.  Mood lifted!

Author Elizabeth Somer, R.D., who wrote The Food and Mood Cookbook, says that our real friend in the world of serotonin-producing-carbs is popcorn.  According to researchers, simply snacking on whole-grain, high-carb popcorn can boost our serotonin level by 85% , and unlike other carb-rich snacks, popcorn is low calorie, only about 30 calories in each cup.  Popcorn also contains more fiber than broccoli.  If you stick to air-popped popcorn and skip the butter, you can snack away to your hearts content without destroying your diet!

No matter what season it is, when you’re having one of those “lower than a snake’s belly” sort of days, and all you can think about is filling your face, go ahead and dive right in!  Just as long as it’s a big bowl of freshly air-popped popcorn.

Get your serotonin factory back to work with some good old healthy carbs and feel better without sacrificing your healthy diet.  Now, aren’t you feeling just a little better just knowing you have the “okay” to snack?  Enjoy your Fuzzy Wuzzy Wednesday!

p.s.  How about a simple way to make popcorn in your microwave without buying those fat-laden and expensive bags of microwave popcorn?  Click right here to see how easy it is to do!

It’s that time of year when you might be able to finally turn off the air conditioner.  And, in our hot and humid climate, when the air conditioner finally gets a break, so do our ceiling fans.

Typically, we run our ceiling fans all day, every day, throughout the summer months.  Because the air conditioner runs most of the time in our climate, we keep the ceiling fans running to help distribute the cool air.  Whether your house has open spaces with high ceilings or you have rooms with standard height ceilings, a little push from the ceiling fan blades can really help your air conditioner out a bit and keep the rooms more comfortable.

Some folks even swear by using their ceiling fans during the heating season to help move the warm air being sent through a forced air heating vent around the room a little more.  We actually do this also because, especially in the part of the house that has high ceilings, the warm air hovers around the ceiling.  Running the ceiling fans, even on the lowest setting, helps push that warm air down so we can enjoy it here on the floor!

So, in between the air conditioning season and the heating season, we have a few weeks where we can turn off our ceiling fans and clean them.  It appears that right now we’re enjoying a cooling spell, but it’s not cold enough yet to turn on the furnace.  Seems to be the perfect day to start wiping down the ceiling fans.

Cleaning your ceiling fans is very simple and doesn’t require much more than a good dust cloth, preferable something that will grab the dust and not just send it flying right into your face.  I like a coated dusting cloth or one of those nice microfiber dusting cloths.  Either one works great.

Before you grab your dusting cloth, be sure you’re prepared to do the job.  And, by that I mean get yourself a good, sturdy, and proper step stool or ladder.  There will be no standing on a chair to do this job!  Once you have a proper step stool, the kind with a handle to hold onto, or a proper ladder, all you probably need is your dusting cloth in your pocket.

For this writing, I’m assuming that you have ceiling fans that you can reach with a reasonable step stool or ladder.  For anything beyond that, you may need a professional with scaffolding or a serious ladder.  This project today is for ceiling fans that you can reach.

Turn off the fan, put your dusting cloth in your pocket, and up you go.  Just gently wipe your ceiling fan blades off, being careful not to push dust in your eyes.  Switch out your dusting cloth when you need to.

After you’ve dusted off the blades of your ceiling fan, run your hand over to see if the blades need to be washed off.  I have one ceiling fan near the kitchen so that one always needs a little extra attention to remove the cooking residue.

If you need to actually wash your ceiling fan blades, do so with a soft cloth, dampened slightly with a gentle cleanser.  A mixture of vinegar and water is usually sufficient to remove most greasy dirt.  Don’t soak your cloth.  You don’t want water running down your arms, or worse, running down the ceiling fan blades and into the lighting part of the fixture.

Now, move into the next room and repeat your dusting and wiping procedure with each ceiling fan that you can reach comfortably.

It’s always such a nice feeling when they’re all clean and ready to go for the next season.  I hope you can take some time in between seasons to freshen up your ceiling fans.  It’s a little thing, but even the little things make a difference, don’t you think?

If this project gets you in the mood for more cleaning ideas, be sure to check out our Spring Cleaning Tips For Mom and get your whole house ready for the new season.

I have some fun and exciting news for you today. I’m going to a blog tour … basically what this means is that I’ll be blogging on a few other great blogs over the next few weeks. It’ll be fun and I hope you’ll tag along.

First I’d like to thank the wonderful blog owners who were gracious enough to allow me to post on their blogs. Here’s what we have on the schedule so far:

Menu Planning Central September  28th – October 2nd

Show Mom The Money October 5th – 9th

Econobusters – Dates To Be Determined

The Dollar Stretcher 4 Articles throughout the month of October

They Call Me Wahmmy 4 blog posts throughout the month of October

Plus a few more stops stops (we’re still working out the details). I’ll update this post regularly as we’re adding more stops along the way.

I’ll also post a comment whenever a new post or article is up.

I hope you’ll follow me along and leave some comments on these other blogs as well. By the way, I’ll be giving away a few prizes here and there while I’m out blogging on those blogs.

Why am I doing this? Part of it is reaching more women who have not yet heard of the Hillbilly Housewife, but may need the recipes and tips found here. Another reason is that I was looking for something fun and interesting to do that would also benefit Breast Cancer Research. My grandmother is a breast cancer survivor and this is an issue that is near and dear to my heart. That’s why I decided to “tour” this October to spread the word about HillbillyHousewife.com and I will donate 20% of all profits from the ebooks and HBHW club memberships for October to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

Photo Credit http://mred-old-cars.blogspot.com/