Here's some of the suggestions from readers about how to have a great winter. I'm looking to make some of the suggestions more specific (see the questions parentheses), and to add to the list. Can we get to 100?
Put your additions in the comments or email me: jomalley@adn.com

1. Walk the dog, even when it's really cold (Where's the best place for a walk?)

2. Eat seasonal fruit: oranges, pomagranate, kiwi, persimmon

3. String colored lights around your door

4. Take a sauna

5. Plant an amaryllis

6. Get a HappyLite

7. Go to Hawaii. In February.

8. Play broom ball

4:50 a.m. Jessica Daw, Debbie Steele, and Ruth Watts at Target.- More photos from my Black Friday experience

Black Friday, 3:45 a.m.: I walk into the bathroom and flip on the lights. The face in the mirror is pale and strange.

I sprinted through the terminal at Ted Stevens International Airport on Saturday morning, breathing hard, late for my flight. I swung into the gate. There was Dad, my stepmother Elizabeth and Aunt Barbara. They were eating Egg McMuffins on a bench. Dad waved like a castaway who'd just caught sight of a helicopter. Relief poured over me. O'Malley Thanksgiving-stravaganza had begun.

Last drive: Alfredo "Fred" Agron turns 100 on Christmas Eve. While his driver's license does not expire until 2014, his age is prompting his insurer to drop coverage, ending his long, safe driving career. (ERIK HILL / Anchorage Daily News)

Perhaps it was a little bit on purpose a few weeks ago that a big group of women I know decided to meet for drinks at the Hotel Captain Cook. Perhaps we were hoping that maybe we would encounter a little glamour there, that maybe we'd catch a glimpse of one of the actors filming "Everybody Love Whales." I'm sure none of you have done this.

VICTIM: Joyua Stovall testifies in Anchorage Superior Court Nov. 10, 2010, during the second-degree murder trial of Lori Phillips. Stovall's fiance, Louis Clement, was killed in a head-on crash near Potter Marsh on Nov. 5, 2009. (BILL ROTH / Anchorage Daily News)

COMING SOON: Screen grab of trailer for "Sarah Palin's Alaska" eight-week series on TLC.

TLC's reality show "Sarah Palin's Alaska" premiers next Sunday, Nov. 14. But the first episode, entitled "Mama Grizzly" appeared briefly online Thursday. It was apparently posted by mistake (or by public relations people trying to generate buzz) and was soon removed. While it was up, I happened to click the link.

(MARC LESTER / Anchorage Daily News) Deanna Brenner instructs a Zumba dance fitness class at Alaska Club West on Wednesday. Brenner teaches eight classes a week.

Want to know a nerdy secret? I'm the one who requests the "Electric Slide" at weddings. I'm a sucker for group dance numbers. Bollywood crowd scenes thrill me. I'm religious about "Glee." Which is what led me to try out a dance workout craze that's taking over gyms across our city. It's called Zumba.

Ruh Roh

Just in time for Halloween: one Mystery Machine looking for a home.

This groovy van was painted by an Anchorage barber named Dar Jenkins. Why? To entertain her kids, she said. It took her a couple of months a few summers back.

"I think everybody on earth knows who Scooby Doo is," she told me.

LOOKING FOR A DOCTOR: Dawnia Clements called 63 primary care doctors looking for just one who would be willing to accept a new patient on Medicare. (BILL ROTH / Anchorage Daily News)

On Thursday, I noticed an invitation in Senate candidate Joe Miller's Twitter feed: "Meet & Greet #Joe #Miller OCT 21st 5:30 - 8:30pm 607 W. Northern Lights BLVD Right after Vahalla Shopping Center Come out and bring friends."

I'd been looking for a way to get a closer look at the Miller campaign and to talk to some Miller supporters. I wanted to have some conversations, to get to know where Miller voters were coming from.This seemed like a good opportunity, so I got my notebook and headed over.

FAMILY IN CUBA: Since he defected from Cuba, Yeniel Bermudez said, his family has become a target. His stepfather and brother were detained and jailed almost a year ago. Police called them "traitors," Bermudez said. (BOB HALLINEN / Anchorage Daily News)

When I told readers on Facebook and Twitter I was going to have lunch Friday with a psychic, a message appeared in my inbox. It was an invitation to a meeting of "Alaskans For the Advancement of Critical Thinking," a group of self-described "skeptics."

When Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin were in town a couple weeks ago, I walked over to the Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center to take in the scene. People with tickets to the show stood in a line that wrapped around the building. An industrious kid wove through the crowd, selling little American flags

A 14-year-old boy stood at a bus stop in Muldoon at 5:45 a.m. Monday, waiting on the Number 3. He shivered in his hooded sweatshirt, staring down the block. The bus ride is part of a secret, something his friends in his honors classes at West High don't know, something his teachers may not know either.

The boy is homeless.

He lives with his mother and three siblings -- including a sister with cerebral palsy -- in a small room at Safe Harbor Inn, a shelter for families in Muldoon. They have been waiting for a government housing voucher since July 2009.

See more homeless portraits

This week I talked with photographer Clark James Mishler about his part of the show, “Shelter: Contemplating Homelessness in Alaska,” that features portraits of the homeless. It opens tonight at 5:30 p.m. at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art, 427 D Street.

Five places tested for bacteria.

Here's my germ-management system: I wash my hands. Not excessively -- I'm not germaphobic -- but enough to feel like they are generally clean. For most of my life, that plan served me just fine. But last year as the weather got cold, I got a cold. And another cold. And another cold. I didn't stop hauling Kleenex around until spring. It was pure misery.

Beard styles

Voters like a clean shave, or at least that's how the conventional wisdom goes. The country hasn't had a presidential candidate with stubble since the '50s (Thomas Dewey, who had a moustache, was the last). In some places, political pollsters can predict just how many points a beard will cost a politicians.

But -- no surprise-- Alaska doesn't follow the conventional political wisdom.

After this morning's shoe column, I heard from a couple of male readers this morning who told me they also love high-end shoes, though theirs are heavy on practicality and a little short on glamour.

One of them writes:

"I bought a pair of custom work boots from a company called Whites boots. made in spokane washington...$ 375...not bad....I have a high arch and a wide foot and cankles."

From another:

SPENDY CHIC: A Spanish designer named Chie Mihara created this $478 pair of shoes. Her Tern held a sale preview party Sept. 16, 2010, for its best customers -- those who really like high end shoes. (ANNE RAUP / Anchorage Daily News)

(Read some Alaska men responding to this column with their own (not so glam) shoe stories.)