Indoor Garb - Winter

Blessings Darlings!

I'm sitting here in front of my computer, all cozy.  It's about 57 here in the basement, if I believe the thermometer on top if the CD stands. 

The thermostat - one floor above me - is set at 60 most of the day.  It's set warmer for 3 hours in the morning (showering/dressing time) and for 4 hours in the evening (dinner and family social time).  Yet, for the most part, we're comfortable.  How do we do this?

We dress appropriately for the weather.

You expected some more elaborate secret? Some spellcraft? Some magic potion?  Okay, we do drink some hot coffee and tea during the day, and have hot soup as part of lunch.

But mostly we just have layers of well-chosen clothes.

Chubby Hubby - undershorts and short-sleeved t-shirt.  Black crew socks, sometimes with wool socks over them, shoes.  Dockers or jeans most days, jeans lines with flannel in really cold weather.  Long sleeved button-down shirt, topped with sweater vest, topped with a light jacket. Colder weather and he can wear a thicker light jacket. The final touch - fingerless gloves.

Me - panties, bra, t-shirt.  Wool mix socks, shoes.  Jeans. Sweat shirt over the t-shirt, big Shaker-shawl cardigan over the sweat shirt.  Wish I had fingerless gloves that fit, but hoping to get those for Yule.

If we didn't have our offices in the basement, I'd have the heat set cooler.  Probably at 55.  One year, when we lived in the house with the adequate wood stove, we only ran the heat at all at night, at 55. 

Of course we're all middle age to young adults here.  No infants. No elderly.  My mother and my mother in law keep their places blazing hot - upper 70's to 80 degrees.  I bring shorts and nice t-shirts to wear in their houses summer and winter. 

Frondly, Fern

Kotatsu Heating

Blessings Darlings!

Winter has finally arrived here on the east coast of the US. It's 31 degrees F as I type, and not due to get much warmed today.  A second round of freezing rain is due tonight/early tomorrow morning.  Nothing particularly out of the ordinary.

Being broke, cheap, and green, I keep the heat here turned low.  The house is set for 60 F right now.  Spawn has a tiny space heater he occasionally runs in his bedroom, Chubby Hubby has a larger space heater in his lab. My areas - the kitchen and my office - have no space heaters.  I feel the cold less than they do, for one thing.  Second, when I'm in the kitchen I'm cooking and otherwise moving.

But in my office I'm sitting at my desk all day. And my office is in the basement. With the heat vent closed. What I do to keep warm on days like today is, well, first line of defense is dressing warmly, but what I'm typing about today is a modification on the Japanese Kotatsu heating system.

Kotatsu heating is having a small heating element under the table you are working at.  Houses in Japan aren't the Tyvak'd air-tight things we aim for here in the US - they allow air in, so here weren't problems with carbon monoxide poisoning!  So you'd have the tiny smoldering fire under the table, a light table cloths, and you'd be kept warm in a cold room.

Now they use electric heaters.

Me, I've got another system going. I have one light tea light candle, in a glass jar.  My desk has a partition (so my legs don't show if you were sitting across from me) so that side holds in the heat, and it has sides on the left and right.  My legs go into the cubby hole ... and I have attached a curtain (using Velcro) to that opening.  This keeps the heat in.

It really makes a HUGE difference in my comfort level on cold days.  I'm not saying my upper back is very warm, it's not (I might put on a sweater on colder days), but my legs are VERY happy and my hands are very happy (I can put them under the curtain for warmth, but they don't seem to need that with my legs warm.).

And tea candles are cheap!  Craft stores have them for about a dime each on sale, and I get the for way less at garage sales. 

One candle. An unused piece of material. Hours of warmth for a nickle.

I'm a happy Fern.

Frondly, Fern