Part I of II. Ah, wintergreen, my favorite mint. Put a space between the words and you have the best way to weather the season's cold: stay green and warm at the same time.

1. Stop the draft. My old hippie self couldn't resist. Of course I mean drafts. Stop your shivering, run on over to the hardware store and get those adhesive-backed foam strips for your windows and doors. They work. So do those plastic window kits. So do blankets over windows in rooms you don't use much. So, even, does bubble wrap.
2. Stop the drafts some more. Block inside drafts with "door snakes" or door dogs or whatever animal strikes your fancy. You can easily make your own. Here are directions for a door dog
   

   Your mama was right: wear your hat.

   and here for a seal-sock.
3. Have a dinner party. First, you'll be cooking. Hello! BTUs! Second, invite human beings, each of whom pumps out 900 BTUs. Third, friends warm your heart and take your mind off the cold. Fourth, if you're lucky and invite the right human beings, you'll laugh a lot.
4. Hot potatoes! While you're cooking dinner, throw in a couple taters to bake at the same time. Wrap them in foil, which you can recycle later, and stuff them in your pockets as hand-warmers. Plus, high-carb snack! Warm, warm, and warm.
5. Close off parts of your home that you don't use. Got a foyer with a door? Sure, keeping it closed may shut out some precious winter light, but it also insulates the parts where living takes place. And if you close off the vents in those unused parts, you'll get more heat in the parts you do use. A friend closes all the vents in her home but her and her son's bedrooms. They use afghans in the living room and are toasty in the boudoirs.
6. "Take a Hottie to bed." OK, that one's gonna clog the spam filter, but what I mean is warm up your bed with an old-fangled hot water bottle, now called a "Hottie" in some parts of the world. Cheaper and greener than an electric blanket, it's less trouble than a lot of bed-mates, and you can use the water in the morning for the plants. If you make a cover for the Hottie, you can warm your tootsies right on top of it--and it stays warm longer. You can also make a rice or wheat bag, microwave it, and use it instead of the Hottie.
7. Wear a hat. You lose 25 percent of your body heat through your head so, for heaven's sake, keep it covered. Or you could do what Sandi does and let the cats sleep on your head. OK, not true, but they sure do try!