You Pinspire Me
I am a lover of winter. The snow globe outside my windows. The tobogganing at dusk. The quiet in the streets. The skating on the bay. I love capturing those perfect days when the temperature is around 0C, flakes are floating gently in the skies, and the snow on the ground is just perfect for molding into bricks, bricks into walls, and walls into castles.
However, as a mom with two little ones to herd through the minutes and hours of the day, from house to van to store to activity, I must admit that my pure love of winter has started to curl up at the edges and reveal a slightly jilted lover. The -25 weather. The biting winds. The dead van batteries. The frozen feet. The chill in the house. The layers of outdoor gear for every member of the house. The lost mittens. The buckling and unbuckling of the car seats with ungloved hands. The frozen van doors. The dark mornings, the dark afternoons, the dark evenings. The cold bedrooms, the cold bed sheets.
It is precisely things like these that make me search for things that will ease the discomforts that accompany the pleasures. In the last few years, I have found several things that I believe every Canadian should have during a long, cold winter!
Sorel Winter Boots
Sorel boots were introduced by Kitchener Ontario company Kaufman Rubber Co. in 1962 and, until they went bankrupt in 2000, the boots were manufactured in Canada, as well. When the trademark was sold to Columbia Sportswear after the bankruptcy, manufacturing was moved to China, but the quality of the boot has not been compromised. My husband is on his 17th year of his made-in-Canada Sorels, and while my made-in-China Joan of Arctic Sorels are only on their 3rd winter, they keep my feet toasty warm, give me great grip in icy situations, and show absolutely no sign of wear.
As someone who has a hard time with the disposable nature of products today, I absolutely love the fact that you can buy replacement liners for Sorel boots years after you purchase the boots. The shell of the boots, made from rubber and leather, have outlasted every other piece of footwear in my husband’s possession (with the possible exception of the soccer cleats that have been gathering dust in our closet for the past 8 years, and presumably did the same in his bachelor pad for 10 years before that!). It may seem ridiculous to pay well above $100 for a pair of winter boots when you can pick up some really cute ones (or straight up Joan of Arctic knock-offs) at WalMart for $25, but you’ll probably get soakers, cold feet, and toss the boots in the garbage within 2 or 3 years. When you make an investment like this in boots, not only will your feet be happier but you’ll be saving up to 20 years of boots going into the garbage every 2-3 years! It’s an investment in your child’s world! (How’s that for guilt?)
Plus, they’re just gorgeous with skinny jeans!
Remote Car Starter
We drive a 2002 Honda Odyssey. It’s pretty much the best vehicle that we’ve owned so far, but it has its pitfalls. Way back in 2002, the basic model had a TAPE DECK (which is why you’ll see me picking up cassette tapes for $0.25 each at the local thrift stores…) and no remote key fobs. I pretty much never locked the doors, because who has time to stick the key into the lock when you’re herding a 1 & 2 year old while carrying 60lbs of groceries?
My husband got tired of the unlocked van situation and took it in to a local reputable car stereo & security store and found that it was only going to cost $50 more to install a key fob remote lock + remote starter than just the remote lock – so he jumped on it (and I’m thankful for his enthusiasm every day I have to drive in the winter!).
Last winter, in those oh-so-long weeks of -30 weather, I’d make the kids breakfast, stare out at the frigid world through the window, pick up my keys, and start the van. By the time we were all dressed & out the door, the van was defrosted & thoroughly toasty. A bonus was that the sliding doors were frozen shut far less often, meaning that my fingers were spared much abuse from trying to pry them open.
Seriously. If you ever have the extra money kicking around and this is a vehicle you think you’ll have for some time to come, make the investment! It’ll make you smile every time you avoid having to make the mad dash out to start the car.
Mattress Pad Heater
When we first got married, my husband and I lived in an apartment on the top 2 floors of the house. Our bedroom was the ‘finished’ attic that ran the length of the house and almost certainly lacked any sort of insulation. It was a beautiful room with large (though breezy) windows facing east, south, and west and a beautiful blond wood floor. We had a small space heater that we turned on 30 minutes before we went to bed, but it had little to offer when faced with the realities of frigid winter nights and what amounted to an enclosed rooftop patio. Slippers were necessary if you wanted to keep any feeling in your feet walking from the stairs to the bed, but there was nothing to save you from – and nothing to prepare you for – the temperature of the bed sheets. Holy Mother Father. We used a duvet and 3 heavy blankets to keep us warm once we got in to bed and sacrificed our own body heat for our surroundings, and often dreamed about getting an electric blanket. A great idea, we thought, would be putting the electric blanket UNDER our mattress pad and turning it on 30 minutes before bed! We suffered through two winters in the cold & never pursued that idea.
Last January I was wandering around Target scouting for clearance tags (as I so often do, but will soon no longer be able to), I came across a Sunbeam heated mattress pad on sale for $50. Given my experience with cold beds, I popped that baby in my card immediately. I installed it that day and preheated the bed that evening. While our current house is much better insulated than the last, it’s not uncommon for bedroom temperatures to hover around 16. Not cold, but definitely chilly. Climbing into the heated bed was like slicing into butter with a hot knife, although I suppose in this simile I’m the butter, because I just melted into the bed.
Unless the temperatures outside are colder than -10, I actually turn it off once I climb into bed, but every single night that we have the heater on our bed from October to April, I congratulate myself for making the right choice when I placed it in my cart. My only regret is that I didn’t grab twin heaters for the kids’ beds. If our mattress pad heater was destroyed somehow, I would go out the same day and buy a new one full price.
Recreation / Comfort Skates with BOA Lacing System
Remember those days in High School & University when you strapped on the roller blades & went out for hours on the trails by the bay? And how now, when you go skating with the kids, your fingers freeze as you tighten and re-tighten the skate laces (yours AND all the kids’) and then you thank your lucky stars when it’s time to get off the ice and back into your comfy boots? Don’t get me wrong – skating is FUN! I love it! But c’mmon… those skates are NOT comfortable! I wore figure skates for 25 years. I traded them in for hockey skates, hoping for a little more ankle support (which I got) and comfort (if it’s possible, hockey skates are less comfortable than figure skates), but I wasn’t thrilled with them. Then, my husband discovered that there’s a thing called “recreation” skates, which are shockingly hard to find in Canada, so he promptly ordered a pair from Amazon.com & had them shipped to his mom’s friend in Detroit. A week after his skates arrived, I found myself in Canadian tire purchasing a pair of not-quite-as-awesome-but-still-freaking-fantastic comfort skates (which just happened to be 30% off. Cha-ching).
Headphone Ear Muffs
I don’t belong to a gym, so I get my exercise where and when I can with the kids – usually loading them into the double stroller and pushing 80lbs around the neighbourhood. However, when the wind is blowing and kids are whining, 1o minutes feels like an hour and I end up heading back to the house far sooner than I ought. Last spring, I found these awesome headphone earmuffs on clearance at Shopper’s Drug Mart, and now I just hook them up to my phone, turn on one of the CBC online radio streams (or an audio book – that usually keeps me out longer), and head out.
In Conclusion (If you’re still with me)
Now, these things aren’t necessary to survive winter and I know that people have been dealing with harsh winters for forever without these extra luxuries – but they sure do make the especially cold & harsh days of winter a little cozier.
Being that we’re currently in the waning days of the Cold Season, it may seem a little odd for me to be posting about this very seasonal topic. However, right now is precisely when you should be going out to buy these things. They’ll still be on the shelves of most stores, and they’ll be accompanied by sweet end-of-season discounts. Go, shop, and put the stuff away for next year. (Just make sure you remember to pull it out next fall when the weather starts to turn!)
What do you use to make winter a little more bearable?
Jenn vanOosten
Latest posts by Jenn vanOosten (see all)
- How I Epically Failed the #RenewLife 30 Day Challenge… and Why that Failure is Helping Me Kick Off a Great 2018 - January 8, 2018
- What to Watch on Netflix: Jenn’s Top Picks from 2017 #StreamTeam - January 2, 2018
- I’ll take my Netflix To Go, Please! - December 5, 2017
I’ve been wearing the same awkward boots for years and I desperately need an upgrade! You’ve convinced me to go buy Sorels next year! Or maybe I can get them on sale right now…?
Headphone ear muffs? No way. THOSE BOOTS…? I AM IN LOVE WITH.