Month in Review: February 2022

Is it just me or has this winter dragged on? I spent many days in February wondering when we were going to be done with cold temperatures and grey days. We did get a few sunny moments, but February 2022 seemed longer than it should have been.

I considered skipping this month’s Month in Review post, since nothing hugely important happened this February. I originally started this series when we moved to Prague and my monthly reviews were full of all kinds of adventures. But now that we’re back in Vancouver and not travelling as much, I’m trying to learn to appreciate the little things. I won’t always be able to get on a plane and explore a new place, so I want to teach myself to find joy in my day to day life too.

So with that fairly lacklustre intro, I hope you’ll still read on for my February 2022 month in review!

Highlights

In the spirit of appreciating the small things and looking for joy in my daily life, I really embraced our new neighbourhood of Yaletown this month. Colin and I had a hot chocolate date as part of the Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival and took a salsa lesson at a nearby dance studio.

We also started a new game where we put the names of a bunch of local restaurants into a jar and draw one out each time we don’t feel like cooking or have run out of groceries. It’s been a fun way to get us out of our rut of always ordering from the same places on Uber Eats. And it’s the yummiest way to explore our new neighbourhood!

Other highlights of February included doing a huge grocery shop at Superstore courtesy of Colin’s mom’s car that we got to borrow, enjoying a cute Valentine’s date night at home and catching up with some girlfriends I haven’t seen in a while.

Lowlights

As I mentioned above, I’ve been feeling a bit bleh about life at home this month. I think after the go go go that was our wedding in September, honeymoon in October, moving to a new place in November, Christmas in Toronto in December, and Hawaii trip in January, February has felt like a huge deflation. We don’t currently have another trip on the books, which is tough for me as I like to have something to look forward to.

I shared in last month’s review that our living situation might be changing and sadly, that is still up in the air. Not only has it been upsetting to think we may have to leave our new place so soon (and before we even get to enjoy the huge patio in the summer!) but it has also been frustrating to accommodate the different moving pieces in this process. Hopefully next month will bring us a resolution one way or the other – but fingers crossed we get to stay!

Best watch

As you might know by now, I’m a big Survivor fan (yes, that show is still on). And while the American version is on hiatus between seasons, Colin and I turn our attention to Survivor AU. Australian Survivor is Survivor on steroids: Instead of 18 people playing for 26 days it’s 22 people playing for 50 days. And instead of airing just once a week, it airs three times per week. It’s absolutely wild but so much fun to watch! This season in particular has been awesome with great gameplay, production, casting and challenges.

What’s cooking?

February was an extremely yummy month! A few highlights include:

• Colin made a delicious quinoa fajita bowl and a great batch of butter chicken.
• I took a turn in the kitchen and made yummy spiced chicken breast, honey garlic chicken thighs, and egg-free, butter-free cupcakes (because we were short on ingredients).
• For Valentine’s Day, I put together a quick and tasty charcuterie tray which we followed up with special Cartem’s donuts and a box of fancy chocolate.
• And playing our new restaurant game, we were able to try some new places in Yaletown: sandwiches and pastries from Tartine and delicious pizza from The Parlour.

Posts from this month

This month on Teaspoon of Adventure I published:

• Should You Travel Internationally During Covid? Visiting Hawaii in 2022
• All About Budget Travel with Esther Susag
• What to Eat in Halifax, Nova Scotia

Check out any of the posts you’ve missed!

For my throwback post of the month, I’m going back to Feb 2019: Are There Too Many Travel Blogs? I’m really proud of this post and think it has held up well, three years later.

This post tackles big issues in the travel blogging world like if there’s anything original left to say, if travel bloggers are actually travel experts, and why travellers bother blogging. If you have ever thought about starting a blog or have a travel blog of your own, I’d love if you gave that post a read.

Reads

February was actually a pretty bad reading month for me. In fact, I finished a total of zero (!) books this month. This is pretty unusual for me; I’ve averaged about 4 books per month since May 2019. I’ve definitely gotten out of my reading routine since the wedding and moving to our new place. While I’m not forcing myself to read or hit a certain reading goal, I would like to get back into reading. I especially would like to turn to a book instead of my phone more often!

Travels

Sadly, no travel happened in February 2022 (as much as I wanted it to!). But at least I can look back and happily reminisce over some of our past February travels.

Where we have travelled in February:

• FEB 2020: One of my favourite months of travel was February 2020. We visited Barcelona, Madrid and Seville with my siblings from Toronto, where I absolutely fell in love with Seville. And then Colin and I continued onto Chefchaouen, Fes, Marrakech and the Agafay Desert in Morocco.
• FEB 2018: Back in 2018, Colin and I spent a snowy long weekend hibernating in a log cabin in Hope, BC. It was the perfect, relaxing winter getaway.
• FEB 2017: My first visit to Mexico was a family vacation to an all-inclusive resort in Huatulco in Feb 2017. Funny enough, I went back to Mexico that same year to another resort in Cozumel with another side of my family. I’m excited to explore the non-resort side of Mexico one day!
• FEB 2014: In 2014 I studied abroad in Amsterdam for a semester. My first trip during that time was to Milan in February 2014. My friends and I spent Valentine’s Day on Lake Como joking that we were looking for our Valentine, George Clooney.

Gratitude

This month has been a big exercise in trying to stay present, enjoy the moment and appreciate my life. I am so lucky to live in an awesome apartment in a great neighbourhood with the most incredible husband and dog. I need to remember that more often and be grateful for all the little things in my life. I spend way too much time planning ahead and living in the future, forgetting the present is pretty awesome too.

Coming up next

We don’t have any huge plans for March 2022. We’ll celebrate Colin’s birthday mid-month and hopefully keep exploring Yaletown and Vancouver as the weather gets better. I’m hoping for some more local adventures and maybe a foray into a new creative project.

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I hope February 2022 was wonderful for you and March is even better!