Tonight I spent one hundred seventy nine dollars and one cent on twelve light bulbs and six reflective flood covers.

That’s not a typo or an exaggeration. Tonight I spent $179.01 for 12 light bulbs and 6 reflective flood covers.

We’re also going to spend EVEN MORE on what amounts to one light bulb … as soon as we’ve bugged everyone we know to find out if they have a Costco membership.

You may be asking yourself why I would do something that seems so insane. The answer can be found in my wife’s journal. I myself do not suffer from any kind of chemical depression, but Kathy does.

Kathy already takes an antidepressant medication every day, which from what she has described, works very very well – except for one season. Every year, as winter tightens its grip in January and February, she crashes deep into it. It is a classic case of seasonal affective disorder.

When this happens, Kathy will engage in what she calls “shopping therapy.” While out and about, she will buy things, in an attempt to find that one thing that will help her feel better. She doesn’t know what that might be, and her intellect knows it won’t help, but the more primal parts brought out by clinical depression are in control. Last winter, she bought me a new digital camera and suggested we make an impromptu trip to Disneyland, which I agreed to do. Those were nice surprises, but it used up our tax return that year.

The electrician who wired our house used pretty good components, but put in cheap bulbs that were not very bright and produced light with a very yellow character. I’ve replaced a lot of them with the bluish bulbs that create more natural light, similar to GE’s Reveal. I went with the cheaper Sylvania variety you can find at Lowes, because the Reveal bulbs are very expensive.

The bulbs I ordered tonight are a lot more expensive than even the GE bulbs, but will last a whole lot longer and use less power. Six of them will go in our family room, where we spend most of our time. The other six will go into the recessed fixtures in our kitchen, which is why I bought the flood covers. Our kitchen is a place of constant chaos. The light bulbs won’t provide the same kind of therapy as the light box, but it might be enough to make facing and conquering the chaos possible. I’m sure none of this will be a miracle cure, but any improvement will be welcome. At the very least, it’s light therapy and shopping therapy in one convenient package!