M thinks the reason I spent last weekend yelling at both him and the children was because I was suffering from lack of sunlight.
So he came home with this:

A light box. He installed it in the dining room, where we eat breakfast, and it shines on us for the first 30 minutes of the day.
“That should do the trick,” he said proudly.
“Or, we could just move to Southern California,” I muttered. (I didn’t want to tell him the real reason I was part-harpy, part-shrew last weekend; PMS stopped being cute in Junior High.)
When I first saw this giant box of sunshine (which really gives off what seems to me like voluminous amounts of ugly office-cubicle-esque fluorescent light), I had the same thought I’d had when he came home with the laminator he bought for $10: HOW ARE WE GOING TO MOVE WITH THIS? The laminator comes out once a year, maybe twice, but each time he gets to drag it up from the storage room, M giddily announces: “Well, this beauty just paid for herself.”
Honestly, I try hard to think of all the $$ we’re saving in laminating costs, but I can’t because I’m too focused on the garage sale we’re going to have to organize when we move to Paris. (Where, yes, the weather is equally as shitty, I know.)
So now we bathe daily in rays of faux sunlight. The kids love it. Fiona wanted to know if this meant she could wear her bikini to breakfast. On his way out the door this morning, M turned to me and said:
“You know, I can get you a smaller version for your office.”
Awesome.