Ice and snow are beautiful. Here are some of my favorite wintertime products that keep you safe while out and about or while staying cozy inside:
Any version of: Ice Cleats; Snow Grips; Crampons; Yak Traks; whatever you call them, like the ones pictured here. These are what I use. Preventing falls on the ice or snow is easy with these inexpensive strap-ons. These are not good on hard floors or concrete so don’t wear them inside. Also, those smooth concrete garage floors are notorious for being slippery when wet, like when you come in from the rain, ice or snow. Putting some sort of anti-slip coating or non-slip carpeting where you walk in your garage is essential. Let it snow ... and slip on your crampons and take a walk!
While Arkansas maybe be quite humid outdoors, in the winter our homes can get very dry from heating the air. Get a HYGROMETER to measure indoor relative humidity.
These little gadgets are very inexpensive and although not extremely accurate, will get you close enough to know if you need to start up the humidifier, or not. See picture below:
The problem with dry air is that viruses stay suspended in the air longer because there are way fewer water molecules to attach to particles in the air, weighing them down. Do you like charts? If you answered yes, check out these two below. The graph right below shows the incidence of respiratory disease by month (the blue bars) with the average indoor humidity listed just to the right of each blue bar. Notice how the humidity plummets as winter progresses. The stats are from Madison, WI, so Arkansas would not be so drastic, but you get the idea:. The second graph shows the “OPTIMAL ZONE” for indoor humidity.
Bentonville AR is located in the 36˚ parallel, which makes it difficult to get much sunshine in the winter. And for Vitamin D production, that requires skin exposure - not too comfortable below 50 ℉ and the sun’s rays are at a pretty good slant so they are
passing thru a thicker layer of atmosphere. If you didn’t stock up on the sun’s rays in the warmer months, you may need to take a good dose of D3. Also, if you are pregnant or recently given birth, your baby may have further depleted your stores of this very important vitamin (actually it behaves more like a hormone).