The Anti Social

One of my little quirks is that I’m cold a whole bunch in the winter. I need my heat!

Alissa likes to keep the house cold and I like to keep it warm. Except not really because I’m cheap and all I hear when the furnace is running is the sound of my bank account emptying into the gas company’s accounts.

Cue black and white late night infomercial, there’s got to be a better way!

I’ve got a heated mattress pad, a heated blanket — a combination for my bed we call the waffle iron. I set both to max and it’s rarely warm enough for me but at least it’s a start.

A couple Christmases ago Alissa got me a shoulder heating pad. Great on the shoulders. Small enough I’ll keep it in my lap when I’m on a Zoom meeting to keep my hands warm without any of my coworkers any wiser.

The newest addition to my warmth family is a towel warmer. Did you know you can BUY a towel warmer? 🤯 I didn’t either, and drying off with a piping hot towel every day is HEAVENLY.

There’s a saying that you need to be really careful when dating or you might accidentally marry into a family that runs 5ks on Thanksgiving.

We were on a good streak of running 5ks for Thanksgiving but then Alissa’s parents moved away. And a pesky little pandemic happened.

So we haven’t done a lot of Thanksgiving 5ks lately. But another tradition in Alissa’s family is, instead of giving gifts, everyone participates in a fun activity around Christmastime.

Since marrying in, we’ve seen several plays, or gone out outings to places like the Botanic Gardens. But this year I had the idea to go dog sledding.

We found a place outside Leadville. And when Alissa’s parents came back to Colorado in January, we went. It was so fun. Each person got the chance to “drive” the sled which mostly involved standing and letting the dogs do everything. And after that, you got to ride in the sled which was the warmest part of the experience. And then the rest of us would ride a sleigh towed behind a snowmobile so we could watch the dog sled.

If I were one of the dogs I’d be pissed that people had the technology to ride around in the snow without me pulling them. But these dogs seemed to really love it.