Oh, and thin cotton socks under thick SmartWool socks.
Have to send a shout out about SmartWool socks, best I’ve ever had.
They are the best when it comes to the deep freeze, but the darn things keep pulling my socks down to my toes. Sometimes I wonder if there are boot fairies lying in wait in my boots, eager to tug off my socks.
When the snow is packed down, I’ve taken to wearing fuzzy slippers – warm, easy on / easy off, and they don’t pull my socks off. (But I still keep a big down sleeping bag and a pair of Sorels in the car, just in case.)
Are you two nuts? 
It’s been freaking FREEZING here lately. When you’re outside for part of the workday, you need layers.
Ginger, would you care to share with us the coldest temp you experienced before moving to the relative tropics?
(Folks, her name isn’t GingerOfTheNorth for nothing.)
The only quick way with that many layers (ie jeans, long underwear, underwear) is to just reach in and fix it, preferably when no ones looking, especially if you work in food service.
Hey, don’t go knocking the cinder blocks. They’re very college chic. I actually still have a cinder block shelf here in the computer room, mostly because available light hasn’t decided what else to replace it with yet. Plus, this is more my domain anyway.
Mine don’t do that at all. Maybe I shook my boot fairies out. 
On really freezing cold days I wear:
Usual girly undergarments
leggings
2 prs. of socks (I always wear 2 prs. no matter what)
jeans
Long sleeve shirt
sweatshirt
snow pants
boots
gloves
knit hat w/ear flaps
scarf
Today outside with my Boy Scout troop, I wore …
on bottom half:
panty hose
thermal long johns
pajama bottoms
knee socks
pants (old size 22 ones from when I used to be fat. I needed a loose pair to fit over all the layers)
knee-high insulated boots.
On the upper half:
thermal long sleeve shirt
hubby’s undershirt
cotton long sleeve turtleneck
big old size 22 thick wool turtleneck
parka
scarf
hat
ear muffs
silk glove liners
insulated gloves.
Yup! It’s that blasted wind. I think they make more money at Fisherman’s Wharf in July and August selling fleece jackets to shocked Kansans wearing shorts and tank tops than they do on all the other tchotchkes.
Since I don’t have to spend a lot of time outside, I don’t need to layer too heavily. Work clothes include jeans, socks, and sneaks, topped with a mock turtle or a T under a slightly more professional looking shirt. Over all this goes my red fleece jacket, my red fleece hat, and my red gloves. If there’s supposed to be significant white stuff on the ground (not yet this year) I’ve got boots. If I get a chill in the office (which I usually do) I have a jacket/sweater thing to put on in cubicle land.
But for my commute, unless I have to stop and fill up my car, I spend all of 2 minutes outside as I walk from the parking lot to the front door at work. And at home, I might be outside all of 5-10 minutes when I take the doggies out to tend to their business. If I was forced to linger in Mother Nature’s frosty embrace, I’ve got a leather coat and several scarves and even a cape if necessary. But being civilized and all (I am too civilized!!) I stay indoors when it’s cold.
I share the climate with Twickster but I walk to work, so I have fewer layers on the torso but probably more on the extremities. On the really cold days lately it’s gone like this:
Normal underwear
Thin liner socks
Long johns
Wooly socks (over the long johns)
Trousers
T-shirt
Turtleneck shirt
Light fleece jacket/sweater
Lightweight balaclava (remove before entering retail establishments)
Long fleece scarf wound twice
Extra-thick windblock fleece earband
Fleece hat
Big puffy coat
Knitted wristovers (sort of extra-long fingerless gloves)
Thin liner gloves
Fleece mittens
I’m a big fan of polyester fleece. I’m an even bigger fan of socks with Coolmax fiber blended in. My feet sweat quite a bit and I used to be plagued by clammy freezing feet in winter and just clammy feet in summer; Coolmax-blend light hiking socks (cotton or wool blend as appropriate) leave my feet dry and happy.
:eek: You too? It runs in the family, you might say. My grandfather was an activist and inventor as well, and ran for Parliament back in the fifties in Peterborough. My mother worked for the NDP campaign in the elections back in the seventies, knew Ed Broadbent, and once told me that she would have gone into politics if it weren’t for raising us kids (mostly me, by that point in the early eighties). Some of my closest friends are activists and radical solar-house designers.
And besides, environmental groups and allied political parties such as the NDP (and later, the Greens) have always had the smartest and most passionate (i. e., “best”) women. I really noticed this at all-candidates’ meetings. 
Back to the OP: I bought a beautiful hand-knitted sweater on the weekend to round out my layers. Now, with my hand-knitted ultra-socks and Sorels, my feet were toasty-warm and happy while I was lumbering around out in the Bancroft snow and sliding down the hill in the driveway with my Haitian frends and their kids this weekend. The only part that was cold was my legs, and that’s only because I hadn’t put on a second layer there.
I often don’t put two layers on my legs. I’m not sure why, but the cold doesn’t seem to bother them much.
Couldn’t help noticing you’re from Radford. That is my hometown. Are you from there, or perhaps attending the university? What is the temp today? How is Radford, anyway?