Chill Out!

The other day as I settled down to work in my living room dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, slippers, a sweatshirt, the warm hat JJ knitted, my parka with the hood pulled up, and a fleece blanket wrapped around my legs, I thought to myself: Self, perhaps it's time to winterize the house.

Actually, my first thought was that I should buy myself a pair of fingerless gloves, but then I thought about winterizing the house.

People who live in horrible places with real weather have big lists of things they need to do, from putting up storm windows to checking the insulation around the doors. My list is a little more basic than that:

• Close the sliding glass door that opens onto the screened-in cat porch. Check.

• Close the kitchen window. Check.

• Close the bedroom window. I ran into some trouble there because in the months since I last closed the window (some time in Spring), the jasmine has meandered up that wall and around the window, and now I can't get the window shut. But I shut it most of the way and added another thing to my list...

• Cut back the jasmine that is growing up the side of the house.

• Close the bathroom window. Again, I haven't touched it in the last six months (which gives you some idea of how secure my house is) and the casement arm had rusted in the open position. I put some oil on it, and I'll try again this weekend.

• Convince the dogs to sleep on the bed. Working on it...

• Change the filter in the heater so when I finally cave in and turn on the central heat the house doesn't smell like burning dust.

See the hardships I have to endure!