winter survival

This week is going to be cold. Here are some tips on staying warm. Depending on how warm your house is, you can choose ones you like. Regardless, it is always a good idea to insulate your house and save energy.
1. If you have older, wooden windows, insulate them with special tape you can stick to the outside of the windows
2. Put blankets on chairs and couches—you’ll have them handy when you sit down and feel colder.
3. Invest into a down blanket, ‘’Dutch house’’ has nice ones. Down blankets are fluffy, light and retain warmth very well.
4. Wear socks to bed. Why torture yourself at night, sticking your feet into frozen sheets?
5. Pour hot water into a glass bottle (but put a spoon or knife in it first or it might crack. plastic bottles deform from hot water). Important--Make sure that the cap is screwed on tightly. Go to bed with warm bottle—will fall asleep comfortably.
6. Warm your bed with a hair drier—be careful, don’t overheat the device (don’t use it over half a minute if you cover it). My bedroom is pretty warm, but I still warm my bed with a hair drier, cause getting into a bed that is warmer than the room is very soothing. Alternatively, you can iron the sheets and pillowcase (not the down blanket!)
7. Get a living, warm-blooded creature into your bed: a cat, a husband, etc. you will have a symbiotic relationship, giving heat to each other.
8. Take a hot shower, before you get into a warmed-up bed.
9. Warm up PJ’s by ironing them or by hanging them by a heating device
10. Eat spicy food, stews
11. Drink hot tea in bed
12. Boost your immune system with tea with honey and lemon; eat mandarins and oranges—the citrus season is here!
13. Take vitamins
14. If your house is very cold, put on a bathing robe over clothes. It is like a coat, thick and insulating, but you avoid wearing a coat in the house—cause that’s depressing,
15. Wear leggings under pants
Most of this is common sense, but for some reason I keep forgetting to put socks on, and if I do put them on, I wake up with one sock lost somewhere in the debris of the bed. I will ruin my hair drier by the end of the winter, cause it is extremely relaxing to get into a warmed-up bed, I do it every night.
All in all, staying warm is easier then cooling down in the hot summer. Last summer, in Batumi, I could not sleep because of the heat plus humidity. I tossed and tossed and then I thought—if I can get bottle of hot water with me in the winter, I should do the same in the heat, with cold water. There was a 24 hour populi by my hotel, so I got up, bought cold water and hugged it. Unfortunately, it got warm in 30 minutes, and then I remembered how solids retain temperature longer than the liquids, so I got up again and bought two packs of frozen margarine in the middle of the night. I put one by my wrist and one by my temple—close to the blood circulation spot. I did wrap the packs in several plastic bags—I did not want to wake up covered in smashed margarine. Anyway, it did help, so next night I bought more frozen margarine.
Sorry for the random association. What I was trying to say is that at least when it’s cold, you can layer up. So find a cat, hug hot water in a tightly-screwed bottle and iron your nighties. Good luck
p.s.this is my cat getting warm in a blancket.