Category Archives: pure michigan

dispatch from a northern weekend

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Seeking the snow last weekend, our first stop was my mom’s house – almost 4 hours north, on the west side of the state. Snow was knee-high (conservative estimate). Brandon and I woke up Saturday morning to run the Betsie Bay Frozen 5k, which is one of my favorite events. It hasn’t been run since 2020, before the world shut down. In the olden days I would have posted a full separate race recap with my time but in today’s world, post-50 years old, having survived a pandemic, menopause, teenage kid years, the Orange Menace and his Nazi cohorts attempting to ruin democracy as we know it, and various other life events, just getting out there and running it is enough.

We then drove 2 hours further north, to the village of Walloon Lake, which is most famous for being young Hemingway’s Michigan playground. We found a historical marker, and there’s a statue of him somewhere around, but the wind was blowing fine snow into whiteout conditions everywhere so we gave up looking. Instead, we skied at Boyne Mountain (the kid snowboarded) and enjoyed our perfect little Vrbo. As we get older, my ability to stay in a hotel has decreased significantly. I hate being cheek to jowl with mass humanity, having to either pay for every meal and snack or rely on hotel coffee and crumpled snack bags. Give me an AirBnB or a Vrbo every time. I know they’re wreaking havoc on small communities but selfishly I want exactly what we had this weekend. Which was a cozy cottage on a private lot with a fireplace, hot tub, separate bedrooms for us and the kid, a beautiful living space and kitchen, fully appointed. We cooked, we had good coffee, we had a fire, we watched movies, read books, I knitted, and we had privacy. I threw caution to the wind and ate what I wanted to eat, drank Horny Monk from the Petoskey Brewing Company, and made a fool out of myself on the slopes. (I fell. A lot.) The snow was almost claustrophobic – piled higher than street signs and just continually sifting down. The drifts outside the Vrbo were up to the windows with paths cut into them to access doors and the driveway – if you don’t have a snowplow or a snowblower running constantly, you would have big trouble.

All in all, it was a perfect swift getaway with my two favorite people. The world is hard right now and being away for a bit is a luxury. We don’t have a lot of travel planned for the year, so the times we do have together will be all the more important.

friday faves

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Snowmageddon was overhyped as usual. I think our area got about 5 inches, which is nice for the winter sports buffs but probably should not have ground everything to a halt. This is Michigan, after all. Kiddo got a couple of days off school but otherwise it felt like a bit of a bust after all the trumpeting of a “biggest storm in seven years”.

Without further ado – Friday Faves.

1. Righteous Gemstones on HBO. My brother recommended this – I’m a bit late to the party. It took me awhile to get into Danny McBride’s humor. And there’s a lot of exposed wang in it. But by the time Walton Goggins (whom I loved in Justified) showed up, Brandon and I were bought in.

2. Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series. Another recommendation from my brother…Sort of a snarky sci-fi fantasy epic. The blurb on the cover of the first in the series, Gideon the Ninth, sort of says it all – “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space! Decadent nobles vie to serve the deathless emperor! Skeletons!” Muir takes a bit of a tonal detour in the second novel, Harrow the Ninth, and I’ll confess that it was pretty dense and difficult to follow. I was lost but enjoyably so and I am eagerly awaiting the release of the third later this year.

3. Painting my damn nails. I finally found a dark green that I love. This is Essie Off-Tropic.

trying the nail polish influencer pose

4. Small comforts – Sherpa sheets, my humidifier for sleeping, my flickering battery-operated candles for my mantle, shelves, and table, my SAD happy lamp for my desk, Shoyeido incense. Also, scented lotions – some of my current seasonal slathering favorites are Shea Body Butter from Body Shop, Pansy from Lush, and Japanese Cherry Blossom from Bath & Body Works.

5. Bedroom refresh. Brandon has made a lot of gradual changes to our sleeping space since he moved in – a new bed frame, paint and duvet. He kicked into high gear around the holidays. He had the blackout drapes hemmed and bought matching nightstands (he keeps his much neater than I keep mine). We added matching lamps and sometimes I’m still surprised at how adult the room looks.

It’s been a long week and I am looking forward to takeout tonight and catching up on rest this weekend. I hope you are all well and safe. xo

post-solstice

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Miss L and I are finishing up a week of vacation with my mom in northern Michigan. It’s been raining quite steadily for the last day or so, so the beach plans were scotched. We happily pivoted to retail therapy in Glen Arbor, Leland, and Traverse City. I was planning on a long run this morning but the heavy rain has pretty much dispensed with that idea (I’m dedicated but not THAT dedicated).

The three of us are fully vaccinated but it was still a bit of a shock to see the tourist crowds, mostly unmasked, thronging the shops and restaurants. It will take awhile for us to feel fully comfortable and remind ourselves that it’s okay for us to take our masks off and get a bit of normalcy.

I’m still working from home but we will be reverting back to a hybrid schedule in early July. I’m not sure how many days a week I’ll be in the office but I think I’m going to start with 2 and see how that goes. Luckily, my team is small, and my boss is very flexible – she trusts me to make my own decisions for whatever works best for me, my family, and my workload.

I’ve been ramping up my running miles but am still way behind my typical YTD. I’ve also been knitting and cross-stitching, reading and watching lots of vlogs but those all deserve their own separate posts, I think.

Until next time, I hope you are well and safe and returning to a bit of normalcy wherever you are, and have access to vaccines if you want them. It’s still raining here in northern Michigan but we will make the best of it!

the last one of 2020

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We spent the end of the year quite pleasurably up north with my parents. I got out for a trail run and the Michigan lakeshore was like an alien landscape, empty, with high waves and wind and a low, pale sun.

“There are such a lot of things that have no place in summer and autumn and spring. Everything that’s a little shy and a little rum. Some kinds of night animals and people that don’t fit in with others and that nobody really believes in. They keep out of the way all the year. And then when everything’s quiet and white and the nights are long and most people are asleep—then they appear.”
Tove Jansson, Moominland Midwinter

I got dug into a dense book from my dad’s bookshelf and we played a lot of poker.

My parents are wonderful and we love spending time with them. They are gentle, intelligent, funny, and generous. I have so much gratitude for their continued strong presence in our lives, their good health and safety.

However, their cats hate us – they’re rescue cats and they are accustomed to having a very quiet existence with my folks. I’m making inroads, though.

We left for home on a snowy morning that quickly turned to rain, and now we are home, in front of the fire with many blankets and food and wine, to ring in the New Year.

I love some statistics so here’s my 2020 Year in Books.

https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2020/15419153

And my Top Nine of 2020!

Thank you all for reading and following and sharing my ups and downs. There’s nothing else I can say about this year that hasn’t already been said, and said well. So I will end with deep gratitude for what I have and hope for the future. I truly value the connections I’ve made via this blog. Happy New Year to you all and we look forward to a blessed and better 2021.

this is michigan

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“the furnace is broken AND we have no wood left for the woodstove. someone here isn’t prepared, karen”

I think most folks in the northern hemisphere would see the date on my post and think, hey, April is springtime! Warmer weather and sunshine and buttercups coming up! But (sad trombone) we live in Michigan and this is not the case. It’s been barely pushing mid-40’s F during the day and well below freezing at night and I came back from my walk yesterday covered in snow and soaking wet after being caught in a freezing squall. This is not helping the overall filthy mood of Michigan during the pandemic.

SO, fate being what it is, this is the time that my furnace decided to give up the ghost. It’s not unexpected. It’s from 1994 and honestly, I haven’t done a lick of maintenance on it since I moved in. I’ve barely remembered to replace the filter on any kind of normal basis and when I do so, there’s usually enough cat hair in there to spontaneously regenerate a fourth feline. Yes I feel guilty. But I’m paying the price now as my heat went out. For 24 hours it was 51 in my house. We used a space heater during the day, went to bed last night with hot-water bottles and pissed off (but warm) cats. The repair person came (decked out in full PPE and carrying disinfectant to wipe down everything he touched) and as he pointed out the leak (“HERE”), the condensation damage (“HERE”) and the almost-entirely-rusted-out-bolt-holding-something-together (“HERE”), the look in his eyes over his face mask was reproachful. He got it going, and I’m now luxuriating in blissful warmth, but when the blower motor started up he actually flinched.

“It’s not going to last the summer,” he said.

“It doesn’t NEED TO – it will be SUMMER,” I said, quite reasonably I thought.

“Yes but this is MICHIGAN,” he pointed out, as, on cue, a gentle sleet began to tap against the windowpane.

(The upside of wearing a mask, I’ve found, is that I can stick my tongue out at people and they don’t know I’m doing it. And yes – I am extremely fortunate that I can afford repairs and replacements, I am still working, and that this didn’t happen in say, January when getting by without heat would not have been possible without severe discomfort and possibly frozen pipes. He also consoled me with the fact that there are some really good specials running now. But let me have my moment of childish spite.)

So next week I will have another cadre of PPE-swathed repair people in to replace my furnace and take several thousand of my dollars in exchange for living in Michigan where you need a furnace in frigging July.

How’s your week going?

dark and bright

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I had to get off Facebook last week because I am so angry at some of my fellow Michiganders who felt that they needed to exercise their pique. While we are in the middle of a pandemic, surrounded by families who have loved ones in the hospital, who have passed away, or are working on the front lines, many decided to storm Lansing to protest “government overreach” and what they consider to be overly restrictive stay at home orders. They blocked a driveway at a level-1 trauma center and despite doctors begging them to move their cars to allow ambulances access, they laughed and maintained they were “exercising their rights”. What a selfish, ignorant, uneducated and disrespectful slap in the face to so many working so hard to keep us safe. I’m disgusted and sad. I fully understand people who have lost their jobs or businesses, who are worried and upset about loss of income and loss of security. But clogging streets, waving Confederate flags and wearing MAGA hats instead of masks, and keeping essential workers and healthcare vehicles from accomplishing their tasks is not the way to safely or constructively express this.

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Anyway. Deep breath and move on. I can only control myself, my own priorities and my own actions, not those of others.

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And I can note and take comfort in the fact that spring is here and there is brightness everywhere – in flowers, sky, a red-haired girl, and in the reflection of sun on water.

Be well and take care of yourself and, if you can, others.

solstice celebrations

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We’ve been up north for a few days celebrating the solstice with my folks. We’ll be home for Christmas but in the meantime we’ve been enjoying the unseasonably mild temperatures and doing some last minute shopping and adventuring.

We hit Glen Arbor to visit Cherry Republic and loaded ourselves down with free samples. The big joke in my family re. Cherry Republic is that when Miss L was a tiny thing, we were driving home from an expedition there and I heard her in the backseat munching on free samples she’d stowed in her pockets.

We also visited the exceptionally wonderful Cottage Books, where they gave us a bag full of graphic novels that they’d gotten as complimentary copies. Of course we HAD to buy books as well so we were laden.

And we had our traditional winter solstice hike. The sun did its valiant best but by 3PM was hanging low in the sky, its strength spent. No matter- we’ve turned the corner now. Brighter every day ahead.

My mom and I took a short road trip to a yarn shop in Cedar that I’d seen on several blogs and ‘grams and vlogs. Wool and Honey is so beautiful and the owner is just a lovely, warm soul. We were instantly charmed and comfortable and spent a long time looking at their yarns and notions and extensive selection of patterns. Their Sleeping Bear Yarn club has some exquisite colorways that truly embody the natural beauty of this part of the state combined with artisan fiber craftsmanship. I was so happy to be able to visit and buy a couple of skeins of different types of wool for gifts for my own self.

We love this part of the world and always feel like our buckets are filled after a few days here.

That being said, we will also be happy to be back downstate tomorrow for our Christmas Eve and Christmas celebrations, and reunited with Brandon, Emmett, Sarge, and Pot Roast.

I hope you all have a very happy holiday week no matter what you celebrate.

My warmest wishes to you and yours! xoxo

leaf peepers

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Miss L and I blew this downstate pop stand and headed up north on Thursday night. My folks live up there and we love visiting them at any time of year, but fall is especially magical. On Friday, while my mom worked her gig at a local historical museum, my dad took us into Traverse City for an emergency yarn run (mitts for Miss L) and shopping at one of our favorite bookstores, Horizon Books on Front Street. I picked up the new Philip Pullman (wait for it – Show Us Your Books!). It felt very conspiratorial as the streets were still bustling with folks in Friday work mode while we played hooky; but there was the indisputable growing excitement of TGIF and the inevitable WEEKEND right around the corner.

Saturday was one of those spectacular autumn days with a cerulean blue sky, and you don’t know how to dress because it’s so warm in the sun, but chilly in the shade, or on the lakeshore with the wind. We went to Arcadia and walked the new marsh boardwalk, and then up the Baldy Dune overlook, with Lake Michigan turquoise below and the Frankfort Light in the distance. The weather is syrupy and golden-honey now but very soon will show its teeth, with the gales of November and the immense black winter laying heavily down along the shore.

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Miss L and I made my dad stop for pumpkins at a roadside stand; it was full of bushels of apples and squash and the scent of cider. I wanted one of every kind of squash – acorn, butternut, spaghetti , delicata – but we just left with two four-dollar pumpkins. Miss L and I sat on the back deck in that rare sunshine and carved them into jack o’lanterns to leave with my folks to scare all the evil Halloween spirits from their old farmhouse.

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We drove downstate on Sunday, in lines of leaf peeper traffic, and took a few short detours for some color touring of our own. Highway 115 between Thompsonville and Cadillac was at or slightly past peak. Hurry if you want to see color, as the rain is coming in again and will likely take all those bits of sunshine with it.

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overly ambitious

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Saturday it rained, but we miraculously managed to find two windows free of torrential downpours, so Brandon and I ran 10 miles and then took Miss L to the Renaissance Festival. First the run – which went well. It was overcast, cool and damp, perfect weather temps for me, and the 10 miles, while naturally slower, felt a lot better than the 10 miles of the Crim. I’ve swapped for a bigger hand-held, a new Flip Belt, and am experimenting with Clif shot blocks instead of gels, all with good results. My only complaint was the inevitable shock of getting into the shower afterwards, wherein every inch of chafed skin made itself known with bolts of pain. We’re almost a month out from the Rock & Roll Half in Savannah!

After running 10 miles, it may have been overly ambitious to tackle the Ren Fest. An hour in the car to feel my muscles stiffen up and then a ton of walking around a model Renaissance Village in the middle of the country…but Miss L has been looking forward to this for weeks and it was the only time we could go. She’s been collecting bits and pieces for her elfin warrior costume and her stepmom made a cool leather belt for her with all sorts of jars and pouches and a dagger. She looked like a prettier, smaller, redheaded Legolas.

I’m not sure if Ren Fest is a uniquely Michigan thing, or if they have them all over, but ours is in an actual small village with tiny themed buildings, a jousting field (where they actually joust)…and if you don’t go in costume, you are definitely in the minority. Brandon had never been and he went out of curiosity, but will go back for the gigantic smoked turkey legs.

All in all, I got almost 26,000 steps for Saturday, and then made up for it on Sunday by doing not much at all except shuttling Miss L to a birthday party and an appointment, and doing small yet satisfying things like knitting a pumpkin and putting badges on Miss L’s Girl Scout vest.

i know, sarge

I’m a knitting and reading fiend these days and will hopefully have a finished object to show soon, and on October 8 I’ll be participating in a Show Us Your Books virtual meet-up, so I’ll wait to review all my recent reads then. Until then, stay dry and let’s all cheer the beginning of my favorite month of the year!

lunchtime knitting at the botanical gardens

dow gardens

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Brandon’s parents are retired and relocating to warmer climes soon, and, as always seems to be the case before one leaves a homeplace, they have a short list of Michigan things to do and see before they go. We helped them cross one of their items off their list this weekend, with a day jaunt to Dow Gardens and the newish Whiting Forest canopy walk. I still have a bit of PTSD from living there after graduating from college, when I worked for the Evil Conservative Chemical Company empire that rules the roost up there, but for Brandon I suppressed my shudder of distaste.

We loved the gardens, and they had an origami sculpture event going on, too, so the whole afternoon was really enjoyable. The canopy walk was a little less than I expected, but Miss L really enjoyed it and so did Brandon’s folks. There isn’t any significant color change in the trees  to notice yet, but it can’t be far off.

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I’ve been knitting baby mitts for the asylum seekers in Maine, and watching “Outlander”, and listening to a great book on Audible, “The Stranger Diaries” by Elly Griffiths. It’s perfectly gothic and creepy for early autumn. Miss L is collecting bits and pieces for her costume to visit the Renaissance Festival in a couple of weeks – an Elfin warrior queen – and we had a supremely enjoyable girls’ day on Saturday, shopping for shoes and new outfits for middle school, and a sushi lunch. Pot Roast is still periodically afflicted, but seems improved and we’ll ALL be glad when the nightly “pilling” sessions of antibiotics are over – she has a follow up visit on Wednesday and hopefully all will be well.

The next six to eight weeks are my favorite time of year. We have Ren Fest for Miss L to look forward to, and vintage toy show season is starting up, too – I’m hoping to find some good Halloween collectibles. We have long runs at Kensington to prep for the November Rock & Roll half marathon in Savannah and we just signed up for the Detroit Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day before the big parade (we’re doing the Drumstick Double event, both the 5k and the 10k). Lots to look forward to, life is good.

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