Slankets

The woodstove door warping is being repaired even as I type this, so we haven't had a fire all day and it's blustery cold out there, the first nor'easter of the season. (Or at least that's how they're calling it in the news. I wonder if nor'easter should mean something more specific than it does.) So the house is pretty chilly, and ever since my MGB surgery I feel the cold a lot more.

Fortunately this autumn I bought some slankets. These seem very gimmicky, like the kind of ridiculous bad idea product you see in an infomercial trying to convince you you need it. A blanket with sleeves? But it's actually turned out very useful. Particularly for me since while I'm sitting around on the sofa I often want my hands free to do things on the computer, use the remote, etc. The slanket lets me keep my arms warm without sacrificing those things.

Sometimes I wish it would reach just a little bit around to behind me, and there's a flap of it above the sleeves that is way more than you need for your shoulders (partly because of my aversion to having anything around my neck, but even without that, there's too much to it). So it's not perfect.

But it's sure a big help in getting through a hard winter without keeping the heat so high that the cost of heating the house becomes any worse. I am pleasantly surprised. I was afraid it was going to be one of those infomercial dud products.