To be totally honest...
Spring up north sucks. Here's how I'm working through:
It’s sunny out today but the bike path, the sidewalks and the trails I sometimes walk are all a sheet of ice. The house is clean on paper, but I have that spring itch and the light has changed and it’s like all the sudden I can see every particle of dust everywhere.
I’m over scheduled for the next two weeks and will be working most evenings and weekends. If it were May, I’d be livid at myself for this. But it’s March. The places I’d like to walk in the sun are all ice or mud. The best thing I can do, I reason, is hammer out work while the weather is undesirable and tend to my plants.
Besides counting dust bunnies and wondering if I should mop again, here’s what all I’ve been up to…
Notes from some time at home…
I’ve started knitting/crocheting my wedding dress! Andy and I are getting married this fall, and I’m making my own dress. I’ll post some updates here in the nearish future :) This is very much inspired by Kutovakika’s self-knit and designed dress. I’ll be doing a V-neck, and I think maybe short, fluttery sleeves but I haven’t decided yet. I think I want the skirt to be lace-knit interlocking leaves.
I don’t usually watch reality TV, but I saw a soundbite of Chris and did end up watching Love is Blind Ohio. Even if you don’t watch the show, I recommend reading Love Is Blind Is Not a Dating Show It’s a Nature Documentary by Liz Plank.
I turn 30 next week! I bought myself two new little plants as an early birthday treat and spent an evening repotting a few of my smaller plants that had outgrown their homes. I’m also knitting myself my second sweater of the year! 2026 is shaping up to be a big year for doing things for myself, which feels a little strange and self-indulgent.
I’m super busy for the next few weeks, so I cooked in bulk and froze meals. I made a Ramen dumpling bake (easy, 8/10 on how much I liked it), Creamy Tomato Tortellini (a little more involved but 10/10), and Chicken Tikka Tacos (I loved them, Andy was kind of like “why not just make normal tacos at this point).
I worked from a coffee shop twice this week. I got dinner and went to see “Wuthering Heights” with a friend (10 Things I Hate About You is a more faithful adaptation of Taming of the Shrew than “Wuthering Heights” is of it’s source material and I am absolutely enraptured with the discourse surrounding it). I went on a very short walk, quickly foiled by the ice.
To be totally honest, this is my least favorite time of year
I’ll be honest, this is my least favorite time of year. I really struggle with the long gray days, and all of the parts of winter I love seem to disappear overnight — the skiing on our local trails is ice and above my skill level. Ice conditions on the Lakes and rivers have started to deteriorate, so ice hiking is out at best, sketchy going forward at worst.
The trail conditions themselves tend to be icy and/or muddy which can be remedied with microspikes, but to be honest I just am not feeling it lately. Instead, it’s cabin season, knitting season, clean out the house and get antsy for late spring, because it won’t be until mid-May that things truly start looking up out here.
Really though, it’s just that I get this antsy feeling that sets in in March and won’t leave until it starts looking green again that I never quite know what to do with.
Still though, there are early spring things to look forward to — the first barefoot walk on the beach as soon as the ice melts and it’s sunny out. There are the sunsets over the water creeping later and later into the evening, and walks in town to coffee shops. Already, all my houseplants have started pushing out new leaves at a quicker rate, like they know spring is right around the corner.
And of course, I won’t be here all spring. I have travel plans to break it up (honestly a spring break trip makes such a huge difference), and I’ll be headed home for a few weeks to visit with family at some point too.
spring trip ideas👀⤵️
Minnesota’s North Shore is gorgeous in any season, but I always really loved it in the early spring (even though I hate the early spring) for a few reasons. It’s truly dead up there this time of year, and finding a spot to sit by the lake when it’s like that gives you an “ends of the earth” feeling that’s hard to explain.
We got a LOT of snow this winter, which means by the end of April, the Northern Wisconsin Waterfalls will be out in full force. Cabin in the woods, last traces of snow, chilly bonfire at night, chasing waterfalls and diners with big breakfasts, what more could you want?
This time last year, I met up with my sisters in Frankfort, Michigan just south of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. It was classic northern spring weather — ice and sleet and no real snow, but we spent a few days on short hikes, the at coffee shops and bookstores, then watching the sunset over Lake Michigan. We went to breweries and ate big meals then had game night and decided maybe March isn’t so bad all the time.
Delightful
Happy Women’s Day