I am forever jumping the gun before spring and fall, obsessing over one warm and rainy or cool and breezy afternoon and rushing to the market for fresh flowers or pumpkin butter, depending on the coming season.

The other day the sun came out on a 65 degree afternoon and I peeled my sweater off in the driveway, rolling the windows down in my car and feeling the sun on my bare arms. I immediately started listening to music from this playlist and it brought me right back to springtime of my junior year of college, when I ran every day and had just started dating a tall boy named Rob Peterson.

But then more recently it was rainy and cold as I stepped into rain boots on my way out the door early on a Sunday morning, a hot latte in hand. Rob was in the kitchen, feeding our daughter eggs and sliced strawberries as she babbled happily to him in her almost-15-month-old way, and I couldn’t help but think that while warm-weather college nostalgia is still so special to me, there’s something truly magical about being present in a moment that you know will become a rainy-day memory, complete with songs to bring you back to it every time.

Here are some songs I’ve been listening to that I love, no matter the weather.

Shake, The Head and the Heart: for me this was one of those songs that pop up on your Discover Weekly or Daily Playlist and make you pause to take note of it the first time you hear it. I love it.
If You Ain’t Got Love, Mason Jennings: a song that used to remind me of the ex-boyfriend who first introduced me to it but now just makes me so incredibly thankful for the life and family I ended up getting instead.
Step, Vampire Weekend: this one made it onto my “most played 2018” list.
60 & Punk, Death Cab for Cutie: one of my favorite songs on the new album, and one that I really loved hearing live in late August when my brother was visiting.
Home, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros: reminds me of living in Minneapolis and driving to Wisconsin for a music festival and planning our wedding and snow and spring and my friends and s’mores over campfires and basically everything good.