This winter sucks, you guys.  SUCKS.  I don’t think I can handle another week of subzero temperatures and slip ‘n slide roads, let alone another couple months of that, without stripping down to nothing but my birthday suit and running amok in my neighborhood, sucking on my son’s old pacifier and lifting my leg to pee on thoughtfully pruned shrubbery, my sanity having evaporated from my person like dry ice upon attempting to stick my head in the oven to make it stop alfuckingready.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

Instead, let’s partake in some of these ways to get over the winter blues by pretending it’s summer right in the comfort of our own homes, shall we?

Turn the heat up to 98 and sit around bitching to one another about how damn hot it is.  Guaranteed to make you think summer. Plus, we could all use the practice before July.

Fill the Super Soakers and water balloons and stage a WW3 battle field in your living room.  Bonus points to the team who can commandeer the “nice” room nobody’s allowed to sit in, eat in, or think about walking through as their base.

Gather all the mirrors in the house and fashion them so the sun reflects off them just right, producing a UVA vortex of skin cancer and retina damage.  Change into your skimpiest swimwear, position your beach towel  in the center, and wait for lobster burn to reach hospital-worthy levels.

Sprinkle salt all over your floor, couch, bed sheets, and bathroom and pretend it’s sand someone’s trekked in from the beach.  Walk around asking each other who forgot to dry off outside and take a shower before climbing on the furniture, making enough faulty accusations and wild claims that someone finally caves and breaks out the vacuum cleaner.

Build a fire in the fireplace and roast marshmallows on sticks.  Invite over the guy who always tries to get it going by dumping lighter fluid or gas on the campfire.  Comment on each other’s fire-building ineptitude, inserting the right amount of personal attacks to send somebody stomping off to bed early.

Create a speed boat out of old moving and diaper boxes and set it up in your kitchen.  Place milk crates inside for seats and buckets of water outside for the lake.  Record your family making “vroom” noises, then play it on a loop while you each take turns splashing the water onto one another when somebody decides you’ve hit a big wave.  For added fun, tie a mattress to the back and have one or two kids pretend to tube, screaming and flailing and falling off every so often.

Head to an exotic pet store and pick up a crap ton of insects labeled as reptile food.  Release them in your house and sit around together, screeching when one buzzes by or bites and complaining about how damn bad the bugs are this year.

Fill the jacuzzi and dump in a bunch of those goldfish on sale at the supermarket.  Give the kids fishing poles and let them take turns hooking themselves and everyone around them as they attempt to catch as many fish as possible before giving up and luring the fish into a net with food.

Turn the breakfast nook into a neighborhood park.  Sit around gossiping about the other PTO parents while the kids play on the makeshift playground, narrowly escaping broken arms and eating mystery Cheetos off the floor.

Fill the bathtub with water, dress the fam in their swimsuits, fashion a palm tree out of wine corks and green cellophane, slather sunscreen in everyone’s eyes, and encourage them to take turns cannon-balling into the tiny aquatic escape.  Don’t forget to argue about reapplying the sunscreen each time one of your kids gets out for another cannon ball and to shout the appropriate number of “DON’T SPLASH YOUR SISTER IN THE GODDAMN EYES! IF I HAVE TO TELL YOU AGAIN!”s.

What other ideas do you have for escaping the winter blues?  Seriously.  I’m open to any suggestions at this point.