Staying Warm when it’s Cold Outside

It is cold most days in Maryland this time of year - so all my strategies for staying warm are being applied.

Indoors

Our house is pretty well insulated and the windows are double paned….but we keep our thermostat adjusted for comfort assuming we are dressed for the season.

• Layers of clothing - My favorite clothes this time of year are pants with a long sleeved sweatshirt or tunic sweater….or a lighter weight top and a fleece vest/cardigan. I keep a cardigan in the coolest room of the house (first floor, vaulted ceiling, North West side of the house….it’s nippy in the early morning!).
• Socks or Slippers - I prefer not to wear shoes in the house so I wear thick socks…and sometimes Isotoner slippers. When my feet are comfortably warm, the rest of me feels warm too! (In the summer, I find that when I go barefoot so that my feet are cooler….I feel cooler overall…so it works both ways for me.)
• Hot tea or chocolate - Anything hot to drink is warming. My favorite I hot tea having never developed the taste for coffee and deciding that hot chocolate I too laden with calories to have more than a cup each day. I have a large mug that I take with me just about everywhere in the house on really cold days.
• Homemade Soup - Soup is the salad of winter. I make a homemade soup for at least one meal on every cold day. That means buying kale (I buy a large pre-washed bag of leaves and put it in the freezer, taking out just the amount I need for a meal. It tears very easily when it is frozen) instead of lettuce and getting creative about other ingredients from the produce section (onion, peppers, butternut squash, mushrooms, carrots), canned goods (beans, diced tomatoes) and frozen foods (cauliflower, broccoli, peas, corn). Sometimes I use bouillon and sometimes I simply stir in some water thinned roasted garlic hummus with stir fried veggies to make ‘chunky’ soup.
• Sunny windows - Take a lesson from cats - enjoy sitting in the sunshine coming through a window on a cold winter’s day. I have my favorite places to catch the sun and I have started opening drapery on sunny days to let the sun warm rooms. They become the warmest places in the house!
• Upper flours - The top floor of our house is always the warmest (warm air rises!) so I arrange my day to spend most of my day there - looking out from my office into the winter forest or in front of a sunny window.

Venturing outside

Getting outdoors when it is very cold is often unavoidable. The strategy is to dress appropriately and minimize the time exposed.

• Coat - I have two coats that I wear for different activities. One is large enough that I can put a heavy hooded fleece under it. I wear it for when I need to shovel the driveway. The other coat is longer - not as good for working but better for walking.
• Boots - My favorite shoes this winter have been my hiking boots. They have thick soles and lots of padding. They also are waterproof for those days when there is a cold rain or slush.
• Hat and scarf - Hats and scarves can give warmth and color. I tend to only wear them when I am not wearing my hooded fleece.
• Gloves  - Gloves are another story. I have a very warm pair of gloves, heavily padded, that I use or shoveling snow or other outside work. They are too cumbersome for driving so I have lined Isotoner gloves that I wear for errands. The challenge is to always take the time to put on gloves even when I am going to be out for a short period of time. It is surprising how fast the hands get cold and the skin becomes overly dry.

Here’s wishing you warmth on a winter’s day!

Before Frost

We’ve already had a few mornings with temperatures in the 30s at our house in Maryland and have completed the outdoor chores that prepare us for winter this past week: 

• Bringing in the hoses
• Turning off the and draining the water lines on the outside
• Removing the solar sunflower and glass butterfly stakes from the outdoor pots - they will last longer without being in the outdoors during the freezes and thaws of winter
• Cleaning the glass birdbath bowl and brining it indoors for the winter (it is turning into the centerpiece on the dining room table) 

Of course, we still have the raking of leaves left to do. The maple tree that is usually the one that makes the thickest carpet on our lawn still has most of its leaves!

March 2013 Snow

We got the best snow of the season yesterday in our area of Maryland. It clung to the trees until the little breezes and temperature caused it to plop to the ground or trickle away. One of the early pictures of the day was of the dense oak twigs piled high with snow (to the left). It looks like a black and white abstract drawing to me.

We went out for a drive to enjoy the beauty of the snow. I liked the way the snow clung to the dry grasses from last summer with the flocked spruce in the background. It was a shot from an open window - the car simply stopped in the middle of a country road.

When we got back from the outing, we made snow ice cream: fill a large bowl with snow, add milk (I used half-and-half that I had frozen from an early time when snow was forecast but didn’t materialize), 1 cup of sugar, and flavoring (I used 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and 1/2 teaspoon coconut). I add red food coloring so that I can tell when everything is thoroughly mixed. With an electric mixer it only takes a few minutes to create the treat.

By the afternoon the wind and melting had revealed red maple blooms and the hyacinth bed.

This was a year that the groundhog got it wrong….we are not having an early spring. With the snow scenes so beautiful and the streets cleared easily, I could simply celebrate the beauty of the day, take photos and remember that spring will be here soon.  

Warmer with a Scarf

This last cold snap has raised my awareness about scarves: they can indeed help you feel more comfortably warm. This is not about scarf paired with coats for outdoor wear (although that is a good idea too); it’s about a scarf worn inside over normal indoor clothing - as shown at left over a sweater.

I’m not sure why it took me so long to make the discovery. I wore scarves for years to compliment the ‘business casual’ attire I wore every day. But those were tied loosely. The scarf needs to be snuggled up to the neck for warmth.

When I hiked the Grand Canyon over 30 years ago - I discovered that having a wet bandana around my neck helped me feel cooler - but missed the opportunity to make the correlation that the neck temperature leads in perception of comfortable temperature (for me, the feet are first….and then the neck).

But - it is a welcome discovery while we are in the 20s outdoors in Maryland and trying to conserve energy by not keeping our house overly warm!