Baby it's cold outside

We've woken up the past few weeks with dried, itchy feeling noses and parched throats. With temperatures dangling in the low teens, our central heat has been going non-stop! Then it hit us: our atmosphere was too dry! We haven't had time to go to the store so the past few days, I've been boiling pots of water and making soup just to get water into the air. We also bring up a hot cup of water to place on our bed side tables. It serves two purposes: a tiny bit of steam and water within reach when we wake up gasping. After a few nights of that though, we were determined to just make time to get the humidifier. After some initial online research, wewere kind of horrified by things going wrong, burning, fires, and decided to place a tentative hold on it.

Instead, we decided to try an air purifier first. I suspected the itchy nose feeling to come from our tempurapedic bed. Also, it has this smell that was really strong when we first bought it but even after 4 months, it still lingers. Although the company claims it's not carcinogenic, I cannot help but be worried. So, to ease my mind, we got this Honeywell HEPA permanent air purifier for about $170 at the local home depot. We left it on for a few hours in our bedroom but we woke up the next day without itchy noses! Yay! It's supposed to help with smells too so I will have to try it out the next time I cook. Right now, it is going full blast in the living room. I like how light and portable it is. It's a huge unit but I can carry it easily and move it from room to room. We haven't been able to open any windows for weeks now so this really freshened up the house. The only con is that the noise is rather loud so I haven't tried using it as we sleep.



We still woke up with parched throats though so we decided to ask around for suggestions. We looked at several humidifiers but in the end, got a good ole' fashioned Vicks Vaporizer that SIL recommended. Hubby used it growing up and hey, at $15, we were willing to give it a try. The smell is kind of plasticky in the beginning but I expect it will dissipate over the next few uses. Maybe I should move the purifier back into the bedroom for the night.



The last thing we did was get a portable Brita water pitcher to keep upstairs. Our fridge downstairs has a built in filter. This way we'll always have clean filtered water within easy reach. So now, armed with our purifier, vaporizer, and water filter, we are ready to brave the coldest nights!