Life Lately | March 2022

Okay, I'll just be candid and tell you that this opening paragraph was once a woe-is-me diatribe about March and the weather and the fact that my backyard is once again covered in snow. But nobody cares, right? We're all suffering, so let us move on to how I distracted myself. Mostly by buying stuff, my favorite emotional bandaid. 

In general, we were home a lot. Briefly, the weather is still very much "stay indoors" and worse than just being cold - it's very wet, so all of our adventures seem to include darting from the car to a building which is kind of cumbersome with a 5 year old who is too large to carry now, but still requires me to hold his hand and practically drag him through a parking lot. Not that he is slow or distracted. He just thinks it's hilarious to make himself dead weight, hanging onto my arm and literally force me to drag him along. This is a stage, I whisper to myself repeatedly. 

Anyway, I have been forcing myself to keep one obligatory "fun" activity on my weekend calendar. If I don't, I can easily spend the entire weekend on my couch letting the minutes tick by unnoticed until I wake up on Monday morning wondering where the days went. It's helpful, but I'm not as ambitious as I thought I would be when I created the rule. In that moment, I imagined myself checking into a hotel, playing in the pool with Duke all weekend, or perhaps roaming around a museum while Duke would yell "MOM! Look at dat!". As it turns out, driving 2.5 hrs to Grand Rapids is not particularly attractive on Friday evening. 

One day I did drive over to Frankfort for a little sunset cruise. I try to be mindful that in a few months, the overlook here will be packed every night and the sunset is just as pretty in the winter, so I'm enjoying it now. 

Anyway, most of my "obligatory fun" could be classified as "also simple." One Sunday, we made a cake. No birthday, nothing to celebrate. Just seemed like a nice day to have a small batch strawberry cake with real buttercream frosting. 

Last weekend, I guess we were particularly desperate. Ryan and I discussed doing something - anything - on Saturday night. We couldn't find a movie to see that was appropriate and interesting for all of us (such a hard combination to meet, honestly) and push was coming right to shove. We decided we would venture to Traverse City just to get Chik Fil A. You guys, a 45 minute drive to get fast food, but none of us had been there, it's new to town and always very busy, and we had literally nothing better to do, so we went. 

They were out of chicken strips, if you can believe it, but the waffle fries made up for it. The place was packed, so we took our bags of booty and ate it in the Blain's parking lot. Not glamorous, I guess, but it did give us a Saturday evening activity.

I did make my way to Grand Rapids for an afternoon to visit my sister. We have a lovely Friday evening activity of breaking out the FaceTime and enjoying a virtual after-work cocktail together. It's nice. Anyway, all it took was 2 seltzers one night for me to suggest coming over the next day within earshot of Duke, who asks constantly to play with his cousins. I mean, there are worse commitments to make with a slight buzz, so no regrets, but that turkey woke up the next morning at 6am reminding me of what I'd said. We were out the door by 8am to make a day of it and you know, it was a perfect distraction from the sucky stupid weather. 

One perk to our lack of spring-like weather is that I'm still completing house tasks that I would otherwise neglect if I could be outside. I painted our guest bathroom and finished the trim upstairs. I did some touch up on our stairwell that was much needed, but easily overlooked, so I'm particularly happy to have that completed. I got a new rug for the bathroom downstairs and finally purchased a curtain rod. Now I just have to decide on a curtain and finally buy some light switch covers and I think I'll be done for the season. That said, I have a backup plan if the weather remains shit: the master bedroom is next up. I have the stamina to start a new painting project, but I am still hopeful that the sun will be out soon and woo me away from being inside all the time. 

Other than all that, we filled our time with playing games and cooking cozy meals. I'm still making a roast chicken most Sundays which is very much a cold weather dinner routine here

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We have some fun coming up in April that I'm hopeful will make this month feel like cruising in the left lane on the highway straight to summer. I've optimistically stocked my cabinet with everything I need to make a pitcher of margaritas, so anytime now Spring!