Are you a recent Montana transplant? Do you find yourself wondering how to survive months of snow and cold weather? There are only so many days you can go skiing and all-too- quickly the challenge becomes transforming Winter into a season you look forward to.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Take up snowshoeing. You will get more bang-for- the-buck than any other outdoor snow activity while burning between 420 to 1000 calories an hour. Snowshoeing is low impact, cardiovascular, and tones your butt. For an investment of $70 to $150, you’ll be set. Go to Bob Wards, REI, or your local sporting goods store and get properly outfitted. Snowshoes are customized according to use (type of terrain you intend to cover), your weight, and the type of bindings you prefer. Today’s snowshoes are light weight, easy to get in and out of wearing normal hiking boots, and fun. You can even get a pair for trail running in the snow.
 

2. Form a Book Club. Invite people you want to get better acquainted with and come up with a structure. Log onto www.realsimple.com/work-life/start-book-club-checklist for the essential list of considerations. These include whether you want a theme to your book club, such as biographies, Montana authors, etc. Also how to figure out the location and frequencies of meetings, how to choose the right people, etc. There are many established book clubs in Montana—we are a well read state. There are even on-line book clubs.
 

3. Start doing jigsaw puzzles, another inexpensive and time consuming hobby. You will need a work surface that can be left undisturbed. The dining room table is a good option unless you frequently entertain. Jigsaw puzzles are terrific brain exercises and hone your visual/spatial skills. A great source for jigsaw puzzles online is www.seriouspuzzles.com

4. Volunteer in one of Montana’s many non-profits. Pick an organization that is working in an area that is of interest to you—the environment, arts, health, education, animals to name a few. Log onto www.volunteermatch.org/search to gain information on organizations close to you in need of volunteers. Take time to do a proper investigation before you jump in to determine it is a good match for you from the culture of the organization, their mission statement, their effectiveness, and the utilization of volunteers.
 

5. De-clutter your life. At SU Platinum Properties at PureWest Christie’s, we advise our high-end clients selling their luxury properties that they need to de-clutter their property. People are emotionally drawn to clean, tidy, easy-to- see and understand spaces. There’s no reason to wait until your home is listed to get your life organized. Winter is the time to go through cupboards, drawers, closets, pantries. If you haven’t worn something in the past 18 months maybe it is time to take it to the Goodwill. Throw out food items with expired shelf life, take used books to the library or nursing homes, get your life organized and liberated. No one wants to imagine their own demise but take these months to really look at your “stuff” and imagine your children or other family and friends having to deal with it all should something happen to you.

6. Tie your own flies. It won’t take up much space, requires investing in an initial kit, and is sure to up your fishing pleasure. Fisher men and women will tell you the awesome sense of satisfaction derived from hooking a picture-worthy trout on a fly they personally tied. There are more books, magazine articles, and videos on tying flies than any other aspect of fly fishing. One of the best sources to get you started is from Montana Troutfitters: www.troutfitters.com/blog/post/how-to-get-started-tying-your-own-flies
 

7. Plan your Spring garden. Montana has a short but mighty growing season with a variety of fruits and vegetables that thrive in our soil and climate. There is an excellent website that explores Montana gardening in-depth www.Montanahomesteader.com. For those really wishing to join a near-cult group of Montana gardeners, consider becoming a Master Gardener through MSU Extension program. They offer 3 levels of certification. Level 1 and 2 require 16 hours of class time each, while level 3 is a 3-day, hands on intensified gardening at the Bozeman MSU garden www.mtmastergardener.org.
 

8. Form a dinner club with however many other couples can be entertained in each others’ homes. There are many formats to dinner clubs, and to get yourself started in thinking what suits you, check out www.midlifeboulevard.com/start-supper-club-with-friend.
 

9. Throw yourself into a completely new hobby or study. Focus on something you have always imagined doing but never got around to. Painting is a good choice, as is voice lessons, or finally writing the book that is stuck in your head. My husband recently began playing the saxophone. He is a terrific piano player but had never ventured into any wind instruments. I admit the first couple of months reminded me of having a grammar school kid back at home practicing for the school band, but now Dearest is becoming quite good. Practice makes perfect, but first you have to practice.
 

10. Reconnect with yourself, your family, your friends. Montana’s Big Skies are ideal for meditation and reflection. It’s always good to re-think priorities. Winter months are times to snuggle in, both figuratively and spiritually. The weather offers opportunity and time to email or call friends who have disappeared from radar, to look inward, to repair fences, to decide on your future goals, and to concentrate on your health and happiness. Winter is precious.

 Sally Uhlmann is a real estate agent and co-owner of SU Platinum Real Estate residing in Bozeman, Montana. Since 2003, my family and I have enjoyed life in Montana. Throughout my life, there are constants: loving my family, friends, and community, enjoying trekking to remote places in the world, being involved in non-profits, gardening, and always cooking. Most of my clients end up at my house, enjoying fine wine and dining on organic vegetables straight from the garden, eggs from our chickens, and sunsets that rival any in the world. In my opinion, there is no place better than Bozeman, Montana. 

December is my birthday month so it creates a kind of bookmark of memory every year, invites me to review and re-evaluate, and to reframe my experience. Without that, I have a tendency to dwell on a particular perspective, like the health challenges my daughter has had, my Dad’s Parkinson’s.  
 

In any given moment each of us sees our surroundings differently than we ever will again. Me in the hospital with my daughter hooked up to oxygen, or me outside the window, waving in so she can see our dog. My Dad when he arrives at Thanksgiving with an empty suitcase, my Dad when he is sharp and funny and familiar.
 

In any given moment what any of us sees is only a small percentage of what’s in front of us. And perspective is everything. When you can change the way you see, you open a doorway for you to be different in the world — and for your world to be different. 

In that endeavor, photography becomes a tremendous mentor. Let your eyes be your guide and use technology to suit your eyes. Lenses become the perfect tool. Prefer your iPhone? The cameras on your iPhone and your iPad rely on your fingers, or your distance from a subject, to choose focus but the same concepts apply.
 

First, try this exercise about framing the horizon. Stand outside, maybe where you have a long view of the Bridger Mountains. Begin by making a half-inch circle of open space between your two hands curled together in front of your eyes. Look through that and it becomes a tiny, hyper-focused lens. Breathe. Then move your hands apart to make the opening just a bit larger. Breathe and look, open the space further. What you see changes until you pull your hands apart and breathe in a series of peaks, an entire landscape. You start with not seeing the grandeur of what is right in front of you -- and then gradually, you do. 
 

That same thing happens with lens choices. Here’s some basics. 
 

A macro lens allows you to go after small details in anything from the leaf on a plant to the embroidery on a shirt to an aspect of the presentation of a holiday meal. Maybe like that tightly curled hand lens, though with a macro lens you can tighten your focus so that you see detail you would not see with your unaided eye. 
 

With a portrait lens there’s no variable zoom. Its fixed focus blurs the background, helping to separate the subject from the background, making the focus more about the subject/person. It offers a very narrow depth of field, so that an eyelash could be in focus and the rest not. Pretty fun at a holiday gathering in helping change how you see someone.
 

A telephoto invites you to look far afield, makes people and objects appear closer to you. When you zoom in from a distance, you don’t have to be right in the action, you can interact in a situation without intruding. A telephoto is a must-have for wildlife photography but can also come in handy photographing Aunt Betsy huddled with your mom & oldest sister, or a particular outcropping of rock on a mountainside.
 

A wide angle lens brings more into the shot, from side to side — it’s about getting the grand view. You feel like you are in the picture. An observer’s eye would travel through the photograph allowing a sense of the expanse, and a broad sense of place. It allows you to breathe in an entire landscape. 
 

Don’t like the result of your effort? The joy of digital photography is that you can just delete what doesn’t work. Not sure? Save it to view later on your computer; or a kiosk in a photography store like F-11 Photo in Bozeman that allows you to view images, then select your favorites for editing and printing.
 

Set a group of photographers loose on the same photographic opportunity and they'll capture several images that are similar, and a slew that are unexpected and distinct to the person who took them.
 

The true gift we each offer to the art and craft of photography, to our community our world, this moment in time, is our particular lens in to reality, our own expression and experience of that.

Jenna Caplette migrated from California to Montana in the early 1970s, first living on the Crow Indian reservation. A Healing Arts Practitioner, she owns Bozeman BodyTalk & Integrative Healthcare. For relaxation, she reads novels and walks the trails around Bozeman with her four legged companion. Oh, and sometimes she manages to sit down and write.