Cozy up, says Amanda. Find a warm spot or at least a warm blanket to cozy up in. Make yourself comfortable. It's that sort of weather.

The folks had an old gravity-feed coal furnace converted to gas. In chilly weather we would stand over one of the big heater vents in the floor and let the warmth envelope us. The vent in the kitchen was the favorite, though the one in the dining room was also perfectly fine. Sometimes we fired up the gas burner in the fireplace in the living room. The fireplace was shallow, designed for just such an insert. It put out a lot of heat.

When the mammoth octopus of the converted coal furnace finally died, the folks replaced it with a modern and much smaller gas furnace. It was probably more efficient, but it was not nearly as romantic or as much fun to draw faces on with chalk.

Cozying up is metaphorical, too. We wrap ourselves in warm fuzzy memories and the world feels a little less cold.