Blankets. Not just for bed anymore.

Greetings from the frozen tundra of Florida! Yeah, I hate to complain about that when most of the country is in the teens or negative numbers this morning, but trust me when I say that Floridians, for the most part, are completely unprepared for more than 1 day of this kind of weather. We don't own that kind of clothing. I had to haul out my old wool coat back from when I was working - it looks kind of funky over my mom jeans, multiple sweatshirt layers and new Uggs, but I'm warm. The kids have ski jackets, but not really any suitable outdoor play clothes. Not that we're playing outdoors.

But let's take a moment of appreciation for our ancient boiler, the sole source of heat for our house:

It spends it's days in a dark utility closet. For 9 months out of the year we barely think of it, other than in an abstract, "gee, I hope THAT never breaks" kind of way. But on these cold days it's all we've got. Thankfully, it was converted from coal to oil to gas before we bought the house. It may not be quite as efficient as forced heat, but it does a fairly good job most winters. I say most because it's NOT so awesome during really cold weather.

Our lovely 85+ year old house was totally built for Florida. The downstairs retains cold pretty well. Which is great in August. Notsomuch when you're on your 4th day of not breaking out of the 50s. The master "sun"room and downstairs artroom both clocked in at 51 this morning. Which makes the 62 in the house feel pretty cozy. But what it really means is that we've taken to wearing our blankets around the house, since short of wearing outdoor gear, our clothes just aren't warm enough. Anders has a lime green down blanket; Dagny is the one in red plaid fleece. Very festive. I myself am sporting a eggplant-colored chenille throw and Mr. J is wearing an on-trend aqua blue and chocolate brown plaid wool blanket. It is especially convenient in the evening since, if you're wearing your blanket over your jammies, you really can just fall right into bed.