Preparing Your Home for Winter

Things are cooling off around here some days. Not all of them; it’s about 91 degrees F out today. But then we’ve had nights down into the 30s, so I think I can definitely say winter is coming to our area.

This is a bigger home than I’ve had to deal with in years past, but it’s also better insulated. That’s a big help. There are still things that should be done to homes to get ready for winter.

Check for Drafts

If you can feel air coming in, or see an opening, you have a place for the cold to come in. At our old home, there were visible openings as well as windows that just weren’t tight enough to keep the cold out. This home is much newer, so there’s less of a problem.

If you find an opening, caulk or weatherstripping may help, depending on the kind of opening you’re dealing with.

Have Your Heater Checked

Having a professional check your heating system is a very good idea. They can confirm everything is working correctly. You may also want to check filters and replace as necessary. This will help keep air flowing efficiently.

Clean the Gutters

Gutters along the roof are much prone to becoming filled with leaves and other dirt. Clean them out so that water flows through them easily. This gives you more control over how water flows off your house.

Have Your Chimney Inspected

This is very important, doubly so if you enjoy having a fire in the fireplace.

Check Detector Batteries

You should have several smoke detectors in your home, and check the batteries regularly. Many of you have hopefully done this with the time change over the weekend, but if not do so now.

A carbon monoxide detector can also be a good idea. Have one on each level of the house at least, and near or in bedrooms is also a good idea. Some plug into your regular power outlets and do not need batteries.

Both smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors have test buttons. Use it to make sure their alarms really do work.

Install Storm Windows or Insulate Windows

If you have storm windows, this is the time of year to put them up. If you don’t and you need more insulation on your windows you have a few options.

In our house last year we put bubble wrap up in one window that was not well sealed. This kept the room significantly cooler in summer and helped in winter as well. It creates a layer of air, so that it’s harder for the cold outside to come in.

Blankets or heavy curtains can also help some.

Insulate Water Pipes

If you’re likely to get freezing weather, know which pipes need extra insulation at this time of year. I had frozen pipes one year at the old house, highly unusual for the area, and I am quite grateful that nothing burst. But waiting for the ice to melt so that toilets could be flushed and showers taken was kind of a pain.

Dress Warm Rather Than Heat the House

Just remember that heating the house is not the only way to stay warm in cold weather. Within reason, you can just put on a sweater, thick socks and warm shoes to keep warm. It’s much cheaper over time to heat your body than to heat your home, so long as you aren’t risking overdoing it.

Find the right balance for your family and you can really cut your heating bills.

Phew! Thought I Killed My Blender!

It’s still aliiiiiive!

I’ve been working on introducing meats to Selene. Making baby food cubes is a bit harder with meat than with fruits and vegetables. Not only do you have to be very thorough with your cooking, it’s harder on the blender.

Even when it’s just ground beef. Amazing how hard that stuff is to puree.

My first round with it the blender caused it to quit. Now this is a really good blender, a 15 year old (or thereabouts, my husband has had it since well before we married) VitaMix. That thing blends just about anything. But if you make it work too hard it will quit rather than burn out the motor.

I tried it again in the morning. It took some work to get the beef out, as it had become a rather firm, kind of gelatinous mass. Blender couldn’t do a thing with it.

But a bit of heating in the microwave on the stuff I pulled out, plus a good bit of water, and it blended up nicely.

I’m quite relieved to have not killed my blender. It’s a good machine. My husband campaigns for a newer VitaMix here and there, but while this one works I’m not spending the money. It still does everything we need it to do quite well.

Homemade Baby Food and Smoothies?

I’ve been keeping really busy making homemade baby food. I was thinking of it as something just for the baby, but it’s turning out to be good for the rest of the family too.

My son likes to snack on the frozen cubes of fruit. Can’t complain about that. But I was pretty surprised when my husband started throwing cubes of baby food into smoothies.

But it made sense really quickly. They’re kind of the same thing.

Homemade baby food is a really easy way to add some vegetables into a smoothie. Green beans hardly change the taste of the smoothie at all. We’ve always tended to throw a carrot into smoothies. We’re thinking squash should work well too.

It just nice being able to throw the fruit and some veggies into the blender and come up with something healthy to drink or make into popsicles. Using the baby food means that vegetables are just that much easier to add, since they don’t need more preparation.

Sugary Cereals are Deceptively Labeled? You’re Kidding!

I’m rather pleased to see that the FDA is looking at food labels again. This ABC News article focuses on how cereals such as Froot Loops and other types of food are marketed and labeled to appear healthier than they really are.

The focus is on the Smart Choice label, which is supposed to be on nutritious food choices. While they may be fortified with however many vitamins, Froot Loops and other such cereals that focus on appealing to the sweet tooth scarcely qualify as healthy last time I checked.

Must be some new definition of healthy I’m not familiar with.

Admittedly, many healthier cereals may not be so good for you either once you’re done preparing them. I don’t know if the habit is common anymore, but I remember always having a spoonful of sugar spread over my cereal as a kid any time it wasn’t one of the sugary sorts. Wouldn’t eat them any other way back then. Thank goodness my kids haven’t heard of that habit.

My mother told me a while back that when a study was done comparing different kinds of cereals and the way they were really eaten, sometimes the sugary ones would come out ahead in nutritional value just due to how much sugar people would add at home to less sweet cereals. Now this may well have been done when different sweeteners were used, I don’t know, but it’s an interesting tidbit to consider if you still add sugar to your own cereal.

Better yet and potentially cheaper can be to buy oatmeal and have that for breakfast. No worry about artificial colors. You may have the sugar issue going again, depending on your sweet tooth, but you can easily add naturally sweet things such as raisins to make it a bit better. My kids love oatmeal, although they do want more brown sugar or honey in it than I really like to give.

There’s a good side to this kind of labeling, however. It’s a great teaching point for parents about advertising and how you really can’t trust everything you see on a box or on television. It’s a way to teach kids to be more cautious consumers.

October 24, 2009 – Can You Join the International Day of Climate Action?

On Saturday, October 24, 2009 there will be events around the world aimed at building awareness of the need for an international climate treaty to try to bring CO2 levels in our atmosphere down to 350, which is believed to be the highest safe level. Yes, we’re beyond it now.

You can find events in your area with this map. It’s just one more way for you to learn what you can do and show politicians that there is support for fighting climate change.