Ten Ways to Stay Warm on a Winter Day

The temperature here is falling fast now, and to my delight we actually have a blanket of snow. In past years this hasn’t happened until nearly the beginning of January, so it makes a wonderful surprise. The world has such a magical quality when everything is white and sparkling, and I love the way big snowflakes don’t fall straight down, but spiral and dart up and around like little fireflies dancing together. The only downside of this snow is that it is freezing cold, even inside our house with the fire blazing. Here are my strategies for dealing with cold weather.

1.     Wear thick wool socks to bed. Even if the floor is like ice in the morning, a pair of hand knitted socks will keep your toes warm.

2.     Stack your clothes on top of a heating vent or radiator for a couple minutes before you put them on. Make sure you keep an eye on them though, and move them quickly if they start to smoke.

3.     Layer a wool sweater on top of everything else, and put on wool fingerless gloves as well. That way you can keep your hands warm without limiting your typing ability.

4.     Stand right in front of a fire for several minutes until your clothes feel like they’ve just come out of the dryer. Then go sit down with your legs folded tightly under you to decrease the surface area of your body and lock in heat.

5.     Sit on a rug in front of a fire, because there will be a large dog there with warm fur to pet.

6.     Use a laptop. When it starts to heat up it will keep your lap toasty, and as a bonus it also has a built in computer. For full effect, hold your hands over the fan at the side to have warm air blown on them.

7.     This sounds counterintuitive, but when you get the chance, bundle up and go out in the snow. Bring the dog from the rug and chase her around for half an hour. You can come back inside when your face stings and your fingers and toes are numb. You will return with a new appreciation for how warm and cozy your house is.

8.     Make your meals as hot as possible, and hold the plate or bowl in both hands to warm your fingers until the food is cool enough to eat without burning yourself. It’s okay to have more food than usual, because you burn so many calories these days trying to maintain your body heat.

9.     Move your laptop into your bed an hour or so before you go to sleep. You can keep it company under the covers if you like. This way the bed will be deliciously warm for you to fall asleep in.

10. If all else fails, turn the furnace up a degree.

Brand New

I know I should resist, but I can’t. The urge to try something new, blogging in this instance, is irresistible. Never mind all the other pursuits I could be putting time into. Actually, it would be more honest to admit that those other pursuits are the precise reason the new and unexplored looks so tantalizing. Whenever I am writing a story, it hardly seems that I get the first five pages down before a new, brilliant idea gallops across my mind: you should write about a girl trying to save her mother from cancer! Or, you should go research the world’s oldest trees! Or, you should go start a blog! My writing time isn’t the only victim of my fickle mind. There are countless things I’ve begun, like my quest to become a gymnast or read every book in my house, that are simply ridiculous. Others, like become flexible enough to do the splits or read every book on one shelf, might be attainable if I tried for more than a week, and if a week weren’t such amble time for a new inclination to strike. By now, after being slapped by so many of those impulses, shouldn’t I have developed at least a sliver of immunity to them? I am constantly telling myself that I have to learn discipline and stamina and develop the willpower to resist all the sparkly things the world dangles before my eyes if I ever want to get anything done.

Resisting is so difficult, but isn’t that what makes something worthwhile? I won’t give up. I’m going to focus from now on. I’m going to work hard to achieve my goals. And at the end of the day, I’m going to give myself a half hour to chase the wildest pursuit that catches my fancy, just to see where I end up.