This cold dry weather is driving me nuts...

[becky]

this is my second winter season in Sonoma County and its driving me nuts, even more so being pregnant. The skin on my hands starting to dry up terribly (this hasn't happened to me since i was in high school and walking a mile to school every morning). I'm in doors most of the day so its pretty cold if the skin is drying up.

To top off my misery, the cold weather is killing my nose. I know its normal to have nasal issues being pregnant but i swear the cold combined with having the heater on is irritating me. Its just so dry that i actually miss the humitity of So Cal. At night i hide under the covers to try and find balance but the worst of it all is when i'm up around 12-2am.

I have tried setting the thermostat on the heater so that we have a constant temp in the house of 68 but that is so not working since we have a 2-story house. I swear sometimes there is a 20 degree difference between upstairs and down stairs. You can literally feel the cold as you go down the steps. When Victor is home on his days off we will run the gas fireplace all day long just to find balance but for the most part its hopeless. When we get downstairs comfortable, we are hot upstairs. I have even gone as far as keeping the office window cracked which works fine most of the time, well at least until midnight...then i'm cold and will have my sweater and slippers on.

Maybe i can get used to this weather in a couple years :fingerscrossed In the meantime i'm miserble. I feel like such a wuse who cant handle the cold but i would rather take the cold anyday over heat. Want to hear me complain...summer heat will do it everytime :tongue

Okay enough of my complaining. It could be the late night talking but this is driving me nuts. Is there any hope out there?

[Kellie_MO5]

Well, I can't offer up any hope, my sinuses have been killing me for a few weeks now from the dryness.. I LOVED when the rain came! my nose stopped buggin me, but now it's so dry again... hate it! (and I didn't have any sinus problems during pregnancy, so this is all new to me) ugh! so I'm there with ya!

[becky]

i'm glad i'm not the only one with issues...you are right about the rain...i felt so much better for the few days it lasted. Last week was actually good for me since i was in LA Co for thanksgiving and then came back home to rain :)

[Lynette]

This weather has been unusual, it normally doesn't get this cold until later like Jan or Feb but then it is the rainy season so there are a couple days of frost and then a bunch of rain. I can't remember when we have had like a week of ice on the windows in the mornings. Have you tried a humidifier? I have one if you want to borrow it :)

I hear you on the two story, it used to be the same way at our old house. Upstairs you could wear a t-shirt and shorts and then when Brian would come down stairs he would crank the heater so upstairs was a freaking oven. Even in our new house the back with the bedrooms is warmer because there are less windows, it has carpet, and that is where the thermostat is but the front livingroom is the opposite so colder. I sure wish there weren't little micro-climates in your own house...

[alowe]

My sinuses are killing me too. I have had two sinus colds in the last month, which is unusual for me. Way too dry lately.

[LMS]

part of me hates this weather (I'm TOTALLY more of a "110 degrees outside" kinda girl) but part of me in hopefull that if it stays cold maybe it'll snow a little around christmas?

[alowe]

I always wish that too Jackie, but no luck so far. I have seen it snow a few times here though.

[meeg124]

You might want to try a saline rinse for your nose. I use those when I'm having severe allergies or a dry nose and they work great. Then one I've used looks like a can of mousse :)

I hate winter skin too! I'm lazy about putting on lotion everywhere, so my legs are always dry and itchy. I woke up last night, scratching my legs!

[Kellie_MO5]

See, I love the cold weather (hot too, but don't hate the cold) but I can't stand this dryness...
I remember a couple years ago I was driving through napa to here at about midnight and it started snowing like crazy! Would have been fun if I wasn't so freaked out about driving through it..LOL.. got pretty deep, too. I'll have to keep my ears open this year, it's sure cold enough to snow there again!

[StacyK]

I have a lot of issues with my hands during the winter too. In fact my hands are in pain this morning because they are starting to crack.
What I do is buy a couple of things of thick hand lotion (trader joes has a good one that's a nice size, a pump, and pretty inexpensive) and keep it in places where I wash my hands (the bathroom and the kitchen.) If I make sure to throw on a little a couple times a day and then before I go to bed, I usually do okay.

[KaisaG]

Yuck I hate the cold weather (don't ask me how I ever lived in Alaska!). I'm so sick of wearing my wool PJ pants around the house- and I don't even want to see what our PG&E bill is going to be the way that we have been running our heater! It's been so dry that my poor baby has gotten 2 nose bleeds in the past week :( I used to get them when the weather dried out too...

[Lynette]

It snowed here enough to stick about 4 years ago. Brian works nights so he called me about 2am yelling into the phone about it so I got Salina, looked out the window, and went back to bed. In the AM it was covering everything but only a couple of inches so we waited for Brian to come home and Salina and I played hookey for a couple of hours from school and work to go up on Sonoma Mountain and play in the snow with saucers and stuff. It was pretty fun :) Around here though the rain usually warms things up so it doesn't happen very often.

[KaisaG]

I remember that- they cancelled school over 2 inches of snow that had melted by like 10am :lol

[Kellie_MO5]

That's nor cal for you! lol...

[daisydoc]

We have micro climates in our house too! It's bad b/c the one wall of our kicthen/dining room is pretty much all windows so it's colder in here while I'm on the computer. The thermostat is in the "hallway" so the living room always feels warmer than the rest of the house. Jazper's room gets the coldest for some reason (probably b/c it has two outside walls) so we have to run a little heater in his room at night to keep him warm. And then after working outside all day James is freezing and kicks the temp up to like 74! and leaves it there when we go to! I try to rememebr to turn it down but sometimes I forget. On those nights I forget he ends up sleeping without the covers! RIDICULOUS!

He has sinus problems too so he hasn't been a happy camper. Sevannah just gets the worst chapped lips no matter how many times I put chapstick on her. Ohhh... the joys of winter! But Lynette's right... we usually don't have weather like this until Jan/Feb so this isn't "typical".

[colleen&Kail]

im with you becky i hate the cold! it makes me feel so sad i want the sun back!

[Lynette]

In our house Alaina's is the oven because it has the smallest window, is closest to the furnace in the garage, and the thermostat is right outside her door which is really dumb but I guess they figure it is better to have it by the bedrooms at night time?

Ours has a timer so I can set it and not have to fiddle but I didn't do it right so I have to check it again because I think it is on 70 right now...

[becky]

kayla's room is the warmest so i think after the baby comes i'm going to swtich her room with the office. Her room jsut gets rediculously hot but if i can manage to get teh baby to take naps in her own room (office) then i think it would work out to switch rooms.

our heater has a timer too but i still havent figured out the right formlua to get the heater to turn on at the right time so we are not freeing when we go to bed and then burning up when we wake up. The temp is always set at 68 but since its down stairs it really doesnt help.

[MARIBEL]

I hear you Becky. You know how much i hate the cold weather. I've been living in Sonoma county for over 2 yrs and I still can't get use to this weather I so hate it. I miss San Diego weather so bad. My lips are so dry and the sinuses are killing me. And not only that, is going to start raining again so that makes it worse. :thumbsdown