When we first decided to move to Minnesota, there were plenty of opinions. “You know it’s cold there,” people said. “Are you ready for all that snow?” they asked. “People literally die from frostbite all the time,” one family member swore. “You can get it just driving around in your car!” Now, we hadn’t spent…

I have a friend who occasionally asks me when I’ll move to a real apartment, meaning a modern one that I can’t afford. Mine is in a 130-year-old former bakery I like to think is haunted by donut ghosts. The building was built on top of an aquifer, and the sump pump thrusts out massive…