2020: The Year We Skip Spring?!

Week seven of quarantine…how is everyone doing? Me? I’m fine. Just fine. Somewhere between the realizing normal will never be normal again, the overpowering feeling that everyday is the same with no end in sight, enjoying the extra sleep and self-care…fine. One thing I learned early on is that I need to stay busy to stay sane. Here’s a quick summary of how I spent the last seven weeks—and likely how the rest of quarantine will look.

Baking. A kitchen is foreign territory to me, but I find baking helps break up the day and I benefit from all the sweet treats! I’ve made carrot-apple bread, lemon-blueberry muffins, banana chocolate chip bread, and oatmeal raisin cookies. Interestingly, I’m getting a little braver and even started experimenting a little.
Live-streaming fitness classes. My living room now looks like a makeshift gym, complete with soup cans for weights. Without my normal commute, I crave physical activity and feel a massive rush of positivity after each class. My favorite classes are from the rockstar former Radio City Rockettes who run Jane Do and boxing livestreams from Church Street Boxing.
Doing house projects. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that we moved to the house right before lockdown. We paused most of the big ones, so we’re focusing on small projects like yard work and hanging photos. I would never categorize yard work as fun, but to have a task where I’m outside and able to track my progress, I feel fulfilled.
Watching everything. Catching up on every series and movie that I didn’t watch over the last few years. The most common argument in the Levine residence these days is over finding something we both agree on. Latest favorites: High Fidelity, Little Fires Everywhere, and Bombshell.
Drinking…a lot. It’s the truth. My one glass of red at night has turned into two heavy pours or even an occasional tequila cocktail. The days and nights are blending together and I pour myself a drink to switch from work to off the clock…much earlier than I normally would.
Self-caring. More sleep and less heat than ever before! I decided to stop all blowdrying, straightening and curling while in quarantine. The hair masks, face masks and bubble baths have all increased drastically. That said, I’m desperate for a wax and a hair appointment, in that order.
Online shopping + outfit planning. While my daily outfits have ceased to exist and my work from home dress code is redefining casual, I’m still keeping my eye on the prize. While we can never go back to the way it was, we will eventually go back to work and outfits will be worn.

It was on one of my dog walks with the trees in bloom and my allergies picking up that I really wished that I put on my favorite leather jacket, rather than my heavier winter coat. That’s when it hit me: we likely weren’t going to have a spring or a leather jacket season this year. My spring pairings would be tragically replaced with sweatpants. No season-changing outfits to speak of. There’s something about skipping a whole season—to be clear, spring in New York is essentially one week of glorious weather before overpowering humidity—that really added another layer of sadness to the quarantine.

While this won’t solve my spring blues, I refuse to let the season pass without some sort of outfit recognition. So I’m sharing the spring outfits that I planned in my Stylebook app. One point of clarity that’s important to me. I’m not one for putting on outfits just for the photo. I take pride in Magenta Blazer being authentic in that every outfit truly was an #ootd that was snapped on my way out the door to work. Quarantine has changed the out the door aspect, so here I am putting outfits together just for the photo…and also to salute spring in my own little way.