Being a night-owl is cold business...

How is everyone doing? Well I hope, things are going well here for us, the winter weather is beginning to turn, I can detect spring in the air, the days are getting longer and warmer, even the nights are not as frigid as they have been. I've been dealing with nights getting down into the mid 20s most nights, but on occasion getting down into the teens and even single digits for a couple of nights. Living off grid we don't have utilities that generate heat, meaning no gas heater, no electric heater either, instead we use wood to heat the SkyCastle. Anyone who relies exclusively on wood heat knows that you generally have to get up at least once in the night to stoke the fire to keep a consistent temperature going, welllll we don't do that, not regularly, unless it's going to be really REALLY cold. We tend to get a fire going then we nearly shut it down for the night. The outdoor temps drop seriously overnight, inside of the SkyCastle, especially in the bedroom, it might get down in the 30s and 40s, I remember one morning it was so cold in the bedroom that my tablet refused to charge because of the cold. So how do we stay warm overnight you ask?

This is something I have worked on and developed over the years, the first thing we did was to wear good sleeping clothing, lots of layers, I like having one or two layers of thermal underwear, the kind that has the waffle pattern, I can slip on a sweatshirt and pants if necessary. I wear socks, if it's really cold I'll add another pair of wool socks, I also have my "sleeping jacket", a lightweight zipper hoodie, I can pop on the hood if it's really cold. 

The blankets are an important part of keeping warm overnight, in the early years out here, I treated my bed like I was still living in the city with regular utilities, I would add more blankets as needed, but eventually I'd have a thick, heavy multi-layered monstrosity that really didn't keep me warm, especially my feet. That's when I discovered wool blankets. Those were a game changer, I would layer one or two wool blankets with my other fuzzy soft blankets and I was much warmer. But it still wasn't perfect, I would add one or two hot water bottles, those work really well, but they are a bit of a pain to get setup, it takes some time to boil all the water needed, but the payoff was worth it.

Last year, I got a 100% down king sized comforter and a couple of duvet covers. Now talk about a game changer, this is it! They are expensive, but honestly I've not had to add anything else to my bed this winter, that single down blanket keeps me toasty warm, I double it over and slip into it like it's a sleeping bag. It even keeps my feet warm, and it's, well, light as a feather... The blanket itself if quite thick, it's 3-4 inches thick and is loaded with down fluff.

So tonight, it's about 1:30am right now, I'm looking at the weather station and it says it's 50 degrees F outside and going up, it was a bit of a chilly day today and the temp did drop down into the mid 40s once it got dark, but it seems like it's moving up. Inside the living room area it's 63 degrees F and it's quite comfy. It's funny, last fall this temp would have felt cold, I guess it's all a matter of perspective. I do have a light blanket wrapped around my shoulders, mainly for my arms, PB has the woodstove going on a low burn, I know when he gets up later on he's going to comment on how warm it is.

Whatever the temp is in the morning when I get up to go to work, PB will warm up the main room which encompasses the living room and kitchen area, that's where I get ready for work, since it's reset season where I work as a merchandiser, I need to get up early to go to work because of the longer work days. 

That's how my winter has gone, there are many more exciting changes that are going on right now, I'll write about them soon, for now, I need to go to bed, I just wanted to pop in and give an update on things. Goodnight!

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Wretha,

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