Your view for the next 8 months.
Well folks, it's here. There is no delaying it and certainly no denying it, life for the next 8 months is going to be wet and cold and we all had better just get used to it. While there are a great many perks to living in the PNW the rain is not among them. It is cute for a week and then it murders your soul with an unending assault of dreariness and seasonal affective disorder. It won't just mold your personality it will mold your house, literally. Like, mold will grow on stuff.
If only that was the worst of it. Jokes aside, Fall/Winter/Spring can be an incredibly depressing time and here in the PNW it is also a long time. I came from Lewiston, an Idaho town of about 30,000 people bathed in almost 300 days of sunshine a year. If I wanted to go do something fun I could count on the weather to party with me. Here you can count on the weather to ruin your party like your drunk uncle did at that wedding last year (C'MON LOU! Get your life in order!). While the turn of seasons and all that comes with it is inevitable, hope is not lost. Today, I will give you some tools to fight the S.A.D.ness. I will guide you through the murky haze and into the light. Take my hand.
First thing you need to learn to survive this nonsense is the ability to make the most of it and that means using the rain to your advantage. An example might be heading out to your favorite hiking spots and enjoying the uncrowded trails. All the weaklings will abandon the trails and spectacular waterfalls (even more spectacular during the rainy season) for the comfort of their homes and bars and that means less Californians on your favorite trails (just kidding, all our California transplants). Forest Park is a good choice because with all the tree cover you can actually stay relatively dry. The softer ground also means better trail running, if you're into that sort of thing.
Remember how I mentioned the weaklings retreating from the hills and trails to the dryness of their homes and bars? Well, you can't hike every day and sometimes a cozy bar is just the thing to chase the blues away. With all the beers and breweries in the area a fun and responsible pub-crawl is an excellent way to burn a rainy day. Old gold beats new blues every time. On that note, have you taken the time to check out one of the areas many living room theatres? It's a theatre but you get to sit somewhere comfortable and drink beer and eat pizza. Win-Win-Win.
Speaking of food, have you had pho yet? No? I don't know what you are waiting for, it's basically chicken soup but for adults. There is a downside, once you have pho you will never eat Campbell's again. It's trash food and you shouldn't let it near your family. Pho is amazing in every way and if you are a big baby you can get it without tripe and tendons but you aren't a baby, are you?
Since you are not a big baby but are, in fact, a sophisticated, cosmopolitan adult you probably love a good book. Powell's City of Books is your next destination. It is a massive, inviting, labyrinthine building chocked full of the greatest thoughts and stories compiled throughout the ages. Once you pick a book this is what you will need: that big fuzzy blanket, a bowl of take-out pho, tea, and hours of uninterrupted solitude. Kick your SO out of the house and disown your noisy children for a few hours and go check out Middle Earth or WWII era Europe (Middle Earth is more fun, TBH).
While a distraction from the gloom helps, nothing can replace the sweet, sweet, cancer-causing rays of our sun and so the last item on the list involves leaving. That's right, running away to central Oregon or Washington. Those people living in the other side of the mountains are hoarding our sunshine and I recommend you take your family over to Smith Rock State Park and get some of it back. Many places in Easter Washington and Oregon get nearly 300 days of sunshine and places like Smith Rock or Brooks Memorial State park are great places to enjoy them.
Other than that I suppose you could always try eating right and exercising regularly but let's not kid ourselves.