{"id":123722,"date":"2016-06-03T09:06:00","date_gmt":"2016-06-03T07:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/germistoncitynews.co.za\/123722\/divas-ink-outsmart-the-cold\/"},"modified":"2016-06-03T09:03:28","modified_gmt":"2016-06-03T07:03:28","slug":"divas-ink-outsmart-the-cold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/opinion-edition\/2016\/06\/03\/divas-ink-outsmart-the-cold\/","title":{"rendered":"Diva\u2019s Ink- Outsmart the cold"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is that cold season again, winter, but I prefer calling it the &#8220;layer season&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>It is during this time that we put on layers of clothes in an effort to keep warm.<\/p><div class=\"stream-item stream-item-in-post stream-item-inline-post aligncenter\"><\/div>\n<p>Winter only starts on the first day of June and ends on the last day of August, but most of us could already feel the chill during the last month of autumn, May.<\/p>\n<p>While this season has fans, there are others, like myself, who can\u2019t wait for it to end even though it just begun.<\/p><div class=\"stream-item stream-item-in-post stream-item-inline-post aligncenter\"><\/div>\n<p>The one thing that we should try to avoid this winter besides catching a cold is load shedding.<\/p>\n<p>It is obvious that we consume more electricity during this period.<\/p>\n<p>Try and come up with ways to keep warm without consuming a lot of electricity or no electricity at all.<\/p>\n<p>It is amazing the ideas you might come up with when you unlock your creativity.<\/p>\n<p>Here are a few ideas of my own that might help you ease the load off the power grid and possibly save you a few Rand on your electricity bill:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This is an obvious one: wear warmer clothes.<\/li>\n<li>Switch on the heater, when you get home, for an hour to warm up the room and then switch it off. Put on a blanket for extra heat, and to keep the room warmer for longer close the door\/s.<\/li>\n<li>Close the windows earlier instead of keeping them open until late. Though this might not steam up the room, it makes a huge difference in preserving heat.<\/li>\n<li>Buy and use a good quality hot water bottle to warm up your bed a few minutes before your bedtime. Some people prefer sleeping with the hot water bottle still in the blankets but I prefer taking it out once the bed is warm.<\/li>\n<li>Plan your meals the night before and defrost food the old traditional way by taking it out the freezer in the morning before heading to work. This is not a \u201chow to keep warm tip\u201d but it will help you cook quicker without having to use the microwave to defrost before cooking in the evening.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These are just a few tips to try and keep warm while preserving electricity.<\/p>\n<p>Be creative and try to have a sick-free winter.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>You might also be interested in:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/germistoncitynews.co.za\/122270\/help-the-less-fortunate-this-winter\/\">Help the less fortunate this winter<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/germistoncitynews.co.za\/123583\/parents-most-at-risk-for-colds-and-flu\/\">Parents most at risk for colds and flu<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"stream-item stream-item-below-post-content\">\n<div class='tenancy_slot tenancy_slot_1 jannah_ad' style='display: none;' data-query-id='813dfb1368b06604598e72277f127cb2'><\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Find ways to keep warm this winter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":123723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"Puleng Sekabate","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8518,6],"tags":[1166,17,7531,1373,1106,979,969,11224,2749,11223],"class_list":["post-123722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-opinion-edition","tag-blog","tag-blogs","tag-divas-ink","tag-electricity","tag-gcn","tag-germiston","tag-germiston-city-news","tag-keeping-warm","tag-puleng-sekabate","tag-winter-tips"],"amp_enabled":true,"category_labels":{"Category":"Opinion","SubCategory":"Blogs"},"tag_labels":["blog","Blogs","Diva's Ink","electricity","GCN","germiston","germiston city news","keeping warm","Puleng Sekabate","Winter tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}