Do you believe? This may sound a little melodramatic, but I honestly don’t know what I would do without good coffee. I’m not even talking fancy coffee, or complicated espresso drinks – I just mean good, tasty coffee. Regular cream and sugar. Dark Roast. Or my fingerless gloves. Or soft hoodies.

This time of year I spend so much of time and energy just being cold that the warm and cozy things in my life become lifesavers. It’s not like I’m actually in danger of freezing to death – I live in South Carolina, on the beach, after all. But in the words of my mother, I have “no natural insulation” at roughly 95 pounds soaking wet, so natural warmth isn’t something I can count on, especially as the temperatures drop outside (and in my store, thanks aluminum building). I come to work nearly every day bundled up to the nines, sitting in front of my pathetic little (but oh so loved and cherished!) space heater (seriously, my bosses/coworkers are rockstars for finding this thing in the warehouse last year and letting me just claim it). Some people think I’m nuts for it – we’re in South Carolina, as in the South, the coldest it gets is maybe 30° in the middle of the night when I’m already cozy and warm in bed. But man, the rare 40° day we get chills me to my bones and I can’t shake it for days. You’d think I’d grown up in a mild climate to feel this way about relatively mild winter conditions.

Nope! I grew up in freezing New England. Maine. The Canada of the USA. Where it’s not unheard of to be well below 0° on the regular, especially when standing outside waiting for the bus at 6:30 in the morning in February. I even skied! I loved skiing! I went every Sunday from 6th through 12th grade! But I froze every second of every day until July and August and then started all over again! I immediately moved south (ish, DC counts when you’re from Maine!) for college at 18, and haven’t really looked back (with the exception of five years in Boston, which, yup, froze me to my core).

Anyway, all of this is to say I am very grateful for modern luxuries like space heaters and fingerless gloves and a job that doesn’t mind if I show up bundled into fuzzy pajama pants and three layered hoodies every so often ♡

How do you make it through the cold months?