The Times from Munster, Indiana • D11

THE TIMES SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2020 D11 00 1 LIFESTYLE ANNIKA PEICK BHG.com As temperatures outside drop, time to bring some warmth back into your home. Making your home a cozy refuge can be a fun, easy seasonal task that keeps you feeling warmer and brighter all winter long. 1 Focus on the hearth As temperatures dip lower, bring your focus inward by rearranging your furniture. If you have a replace, pull pieces in toward the center of the room and face them to- ward the hearth to create a cozy gathering spot for winter entertaining. Extra pillows and throws add warmth even without a roaring re.

2 Color me happy Avoid the winter blues by infusing your spaces with pops of cheery color. A bright throw or a boldly patterned pillow will do the trick and will ensure your neutral spaces look stark and cold like the space outside your windows. Brightly colored elements can also last into the spring and summer, so get more bang for your decorating bucks. 3 all available light Hanging a large mirror on a blank stretch of wall or above a man- tel display will ect light and maximize daylight hours during the win- tertime. Turn the mirror into a dec- orative display by painting the frame an eye-catching color.

4 Brighten up your kitchen Even kitchens need a little TLC during the winter months. Adding bold window treatments to your kitchen windows, like bright red or sunshiny yellow curtains, will keep your workspace feeling cheery and bright. Create your own by purchasing a yard of fabric in the color or pattern of your choice, hemming the raw edges and using clip-style curtain rings over rods. 5 Be seated in style Winter decorating is all about layering on the fab- rics. Cover your dining room chairs with simple slipcov- ers to add warmth and style.

(Bonus: If they get spilled on during a family meal, you can always take them to clean.) 6 Layer up in the bedroom Give your bedroom a quick style update and prepare it for the season by layering in textured bedding, throws and pillows. A luxurious cashmere or wool throw and soft velvet bed pillows can turn your bedroom into a cozy ref- uge from those harsh winter winds. 7 Add sheepskin for warmthFor warmer transitions from bed to oor, place a sheepskin rug beside your bed, creating a cozy greeting to feet on brisk winter mornings. Or toss one over an ot- toman or a chaise to provide a toasty spot to tuck chilly toes while reading or relaxing. 8 Dress up your hardwood Although wood oors create a sophisticated style statement year-round, need to cozy them up for the cold winter months.

A area rug can set a living main seating area and add warmth and texture un- derfoot. For a unique style statement, layer one rug on top of another to add more visual interest. If it damage the rug material, consider placing hook-and-loop squares on a couple of points on the smaller rug to help it stay in place and prevent tripping. 9 Pile up the throw pillows Playful patterns and bold hues give a room color and personality. Choose accent pillows in colors and pat- terns that match your existing decor to ensure you have to make any more decor adjustments.

If you have a window seat, bulk it up with seat cushions. If space permits, use under-seat storage to house blankets for the season. 10 Block drafts with layered window treatments Add thick draperies to Roman shades for a pretty, cozy look. You can replace the thick curtains with sheer drap- eries during warmer months, or simply remove the extra treatments altogether until temperatures plunge again. 11 Give your a facelift As temperatures dip lower, your focus will natu- rally shift toward the hearth.

Give your replace a quick makeover to ensure ready for all that extra attention. If you plan to use it to burn wood, have a chimney sweep clean it once yearly. 12 Highlight scents of the season Although decor and accessories can go a long way toward cozying up your home, important to ll it with the smells of the season, too. A fra- grant bowl of potpourri in a wintry scent such as cinnamon, pine needles or evergreen can do the trick and will ll your home with seasonal cheer. Display the arrangement prominently on a mantel or in a casual dining room tablescape.

SEASONAL DESIGN Comfort and joy Cozy ideas for winter decorating GETTY IMAGES Making your home a cozy refuge can be a fun, easy seasonal task that keeps you feeling warmer and brighter all winter long. In a recent column, I dis-cussed how marketers use to track every- thing from shopping habits to spending patterns. This kind of data-tracking is extremely dif- cult to escape, as the amount of data available to marketers is simply stagger- ing. My readers have noticed intru- sive data-mining and exploitative practices in their own lives. Here are some of their stories: Jill, A magazine article suggested buying gift cards or one-use credit cards to purchase gas in order to protect your bank ac- count.

I think if one is wanting to hide purchases and data, this will also work for internet shop- ping to an extent if you have opted out of cookies and other search history mechanisms. If you do buy a gift card or one- use card, it might be safe to or- der from public Wi-Fi to protect against cookies and surprise gift spoiling. RaeLynn Jill, I read your article about a resort sending marketing info to you that included your own school calendar as a reminder when you could travel. We stayed at a lakeside resort for our anniversary one year, and ever since then, we have received ers to our at not only this resort but many others. Appar- ently, they sold our anniversary information to other resorts that also happen to be near bod- ies of water.

not ensively invasive as we enjoy staying at those sorts of places, but it is eye-opening that my wife and I must now be in a database that says we like to stay in lakeside cabins every August! Charles Jill, I want to share what hap- pened to me over the last year. My husband passed away from natural causes. Shortly after his death, I got a letter from my in- surance company urging me to purchase life insurance from my insurance carrier. I have auto insurance with this company, but not life. I called my carrier and ex- pressed my extreme disap- pointment that they would use my death as an excuse to try to sell me more insurance.

I had not yet told my insurance carrier about his death. They just knew. Emilia story may seem incredible, but I can unequivo- cally attest to the fact that this kind of marketing happens. The past year was di cult for my family, as we lost two close family members. Within a week of each death, I received a letter from our insur- ance company trying to sell me more life insurance.

Each letter began, a loved one is lost, we want to help families deal with grief in- stead of worrying about nan- cial burdens. why nal expense life insurance was in- Both letters continue to discuss how I can purchase this from my insurance agent. I was so angered by these letters. The rst time I received one, I called my agent and told them that this was very inva- sive marketing. My local agent said it came from the corporate ce, and they did not have control of when it was sent.

Perhaps it was a coincidence, they said. Just last month, I lost another family member. And, less than a week later, I received another identical letter from the same insurance company, again opening with a loved one is which again asked me to buy more insurance! These letters are such a turn- that I have trouble believing that this is actually an ective sales strategy. Our family was still making funeral arrange- ments when this letter was sent. It is proof to me that somewhere in a database, my name was agged as having lost another close family member, and that data became available as a mar- keting opportunity.

There is a ne line between presenting customers with of- fers that may be attractive to them and ending them to the point that they actively resist spending their money with a particular service or establish- ment. Email your own couponing victories and questions to SUPER-COUPONING revisited: Readers sound If I told you that a grawlix in-festation is inevitable, probably respond with some- thing to the ect of, the are you talking I think I speak for all of us when I say ready to kick the aming, heaping pile of garbage called 2020 to the curb. Between a once-in-a- century global pandemic, mur- der hornets and everything else in between, strung together quite the creative list of profane words when cursing se- ries of unfortunate events. The polite way to express these words on a page is through the graphical bleeping of swear words called a probably seen this in the comics section of the news- paper. Picture Cathy, with her eyes so close together that they touch.

She had her cof- fee yet, and just su ce. You see, she has just attempted to dye her hair, and it turned out the same green shade as a pickle. Instead of in this situation, Cathy lays down a or maybe even a Those are examples of grawlixes (or are correct plural forms of grawlix). When you employ a grawlix into your comic strip, text mes- sage or email, replacing actual curse words with keyboard characters that convey the words without having to spell them out. It allows the reader to ll in the blank with their own profani- ty-laced Mad Libs interjection.

I have responded to most of 2020 with a series of grawlixes. For instance, when I learned that had more than 26 hurri- canes, so the hurricane-naming people move to the Greek alpha- bet to start naming hurricanes, I said, got to be kiddcing The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo were post- poned until 2021, which cause my synchronized swimming team to collectively cry, Now we have to change our The year 2020 has been so monumentally full of bad news, I barely remember the Australian res that burned 47 million acres, killed at least 34 people, displaced thousands more and killed, harmed or displaced 3 billion animals. Oh, I mean, the res did start in late 2019, so easy to forget that we rang in the new year with this terrible event. So, based on the one-after-an- other calamities that have bom- barded us this year, ready to declare 2020 year of the while we bid it good riddance. hoping 2021 brings much happier hap- penings.

Curtis Honeycutt is a syndicated humor columnist. He is the author of Good Grammar is the Life of the Party: Tips for a Wildly Successful Life. Find more at curtishoneycutt. com. GRAMMAR GUY Saying goodbye to the year of the grawlix JILL CATALDO CURTIS HONEYCUTT.