How I prepare for winter

There are lots of things you should be doing to get ready for winter (at least if you live in a place where you have an actual winter). These lists are all over the internet. They are full of tips like getting your furnace checked out by a professional, do an energy audit, and check for drafts.

Those things are essential, don’t get me wrong. But they are not on the list of things that I do to prepare myself for winter.

Many of these things are practical, some – not so much. But they are essential fall tasks to prepare me for the long Minnesota winters.

I stock up on tea and hot chocolate.

Specifically, I get the Traditional Medicals Echinacea and Gypsy Cold Care tea and any of the Sleepytime varieties. My hot chocolate of choice is the Swiss Miss in the packets. We spend my childhood drinking these, so the nostalgia factor is huge.

I dig out my boots, hats, and gloves.

I don’t have much as far as clothes go, so I don’t have to swap many things out as the seasons change, but winter gear is another story. I have a tote in the garage where I store our gloves, boots, and hats. I hang my coats on the hooks in the garage and swap out my gardening gloves for mittens.

I get the ice melt and snow shovel out of storage.

When I dig out my gloves and boots, I also dig out the snow shovel and ice melt. It is much easier to get these items before the freezing rain and heavy snows set in.

I get my car checked out.

I have my guy check out my tires and give her an ol’ once over. I also throw an old heavy sweatshirt, and an old pair of boots and some thick socks in my trunk. Just in case.

I stock up on cold and flu meds.

There is nothing worse than waking up feeling like shit and not having anything meds. I am partial to medications of the hippie variety: echinacea, elderberry, zinc, etc. I do keep the medicine cabinet stocked with the standard Night Quil variety too, for when things get bad.

I put plastic on the old windows.

As part of our remodel, we are swapping out all of our old crappy windows with new ones. We finished up the downstairs a couple of years ago, but the upstairs windows are still drafty AF. I keep those handy kits on hand and pull out my hair drier and get started.

You found out what I do to prepare for winter, but now it is your turn. What do you do to get ready for the colder months?

PS – Deliberate Unawareness for Self-Care