Monthly Archives: January 2016

Pajama Pants and Formal Day

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Yesterday – January 28 – was so mild that I wore my “light” winter coat and, after a trip to Costco, drove home with no gloves on. Those of you who know me, and have noticed my giant, purple, Reynaud’s-stricken hands know that this is indeed something worth commenting on. We’ve had so few really cold days this January that it feels like a victory, albeit one I had no control over.

It’s been a long week, hasn’t it? My husband was travelling for business earlier in the week, which always seems to make the week drag by, so I’m extra glad it’s Friday. It’s also a Spirit Day at school: Formal Day. Wear your best formal wear! Given that my boys are ten and eleven, their first instinct was to do the absolute opposite and show up in jeans and a t-shirt. I am of two minds of this: one the one hand, I don’t particularly care if they don’t want to participate but I don’t really want to encourage an attitude of mockery, since that seems like it is direct opposition to the intention of Spirit Day. On the other hand, they wear jeans and t-shirts every single day. Their options are limited; their “formal wear” is limited to a single pair of khakis purchased in 2014 for my brother’s wedding and never worn since, and in fact are probably miles too short by now anyway. So jeans and t-shirts it was, although they each threw on a button-up shirt over the t-shirt and Jake put some gel in his hair, so as to be extra fancy.

Speaking of non-formal clothing choices, I’m sure we’ve all heard about the U.K. principal who called out parents wearing pajamas to school drop-off. There seems to be quite the uproar about this.

Hey, I’m not telling anyone what to wear. The Fashion Police – like unicorns, the Yeti, and benefits to adopting Daylight Saving Time – are an imaginary construct. No one is actually going to arrest you for your clothing choices, especially if you aren’t planning to get out of your car. Personally, I rarely, if ever, notice what someone else is wearing unless I find myself coveting their outfit. Case in point: at last week’s School Council meeting, one of the teachers had on this fabulous flowy black tunic worn with these terrific ankle boots, and the second the meeting was over I ran over to her to find out where she bought them. I will always notice your gorgeous scarf, your beautiful necklace, your rocking shoes, but I probably won’t notice your sweatpants if you’re doing the school run. I admit that I noticed a stoned-looking fellow wearing gigantic purple Hammer pants in Costco yesterday, but that may have been attributed to the matching scarf jauntily thrown around his neck or possibly the giant cart filled entirely with toilet paper and frozen pineapple.

Let your freak flag fly, right? And if your personal freak flag is wearing sleepwear outside of your house, well, I have no issue with that. Personally, I have never worn pajamas outside the house because my pajamas are all adorned with things like hearts, coffee cups, and owls, and also it really doesn’t take a lot of effort to put on pants. When I was first a stay-at-home mom, I realized that it was very bad for my mental state not to have “night clothes” and “day clothes” because it gave some shape to those blurry, foggy days. I was never one to not shower for days; in order for me to be psychologically sound, I needed my daily shower, makeup, and clothing, and if that meant I had to put the baby in a bouncy chair in the bathroom and sing to him frantically over the noise of the water, I would do it. If it took me three hours to prepare to leave the house, what with feedings and soothing and diaper changes, well, I would take three hours to prepare. There is no shame in doing what you have to do, people, and if what you have to do to remain sane is wear your pajamas all day, I will support you.

I think that people get upset about edicts like this because it feels like a judgment on them as people and as parents. Saying “You shouldn’t wear pajamas to drop off your kids, put on some pants.” can be loosely translated in mom-guilt-language to “You are a mess and you’re going to screw up your kids and I bet you kicked a puppy yesterday.” Yes, pajamas are to me “at-home only” clothing, but there are exceptions. I mean, I admit I felt a little strange one Saturday morning when I was in line at Wal-Mart behind a man wearing pajama pants with a Papa Smurf motif, but that was more because the stench of vomit and cigarettes emanating from him was making me feel a bit nauseous. That has nothing to do with his Papa Smurf pajama pants. Not all Papa Smurf pajama pant-wearing people reek of vomit and cigarettes – although maybe the odour would be less in different pants. Non-vomited on pants. I don’t know. All I’m saying is that if I see a mom with a baby strapped to her body holding the arm of a limp and screaming toddler while trying to get her first-grader to class on time and that mom is wearing pajama pants? NO JUDGMENT HERE, ONLY DEEP EMPATHY. Papa Smurf-pajama wearing man whose smell is making me dizzy? Maybe a teensy bit of judgment. Hey, I’m human.

I also admit to feeling very uneasy when I see the elderly woman a few doors down walking down the street in her pretty blue flannel snowflake-motif pajamas. I worry a bit that she is wandering; as far as I know she’s in sound health, but what if she isn’t? When I see those snowflake pants, I watch carefully out the window, checking to see if she comes back to her house, breathing a sigh of relief when she does.

Good mothers put on pants before they leave their house AND ALSO good mothers burn out of the house in their pajamas to get the kids to school on time. Some mothers live in yoga pants and other mothers live in work dresses. It’s not about pajamas, it’s not about what you wear. Clothes can be fun or functional, or both, but they don’t determine your worth as a person.

Choosing lip gloss is not my best quality.

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I’m feeling a bit tired and blah today, and it’s only Tuesday. Thursday is usually Exhaustion Day, when I find myself waiting for the kids at karate and wondering if I’m going to make it or if I am just going to fall over from tiredness, but I feel like that today. It doesn’t really bode well for the rest of the week.

I should be more perky, really, since January is almost done and it’s light at five o’clock now. The sun is up before 8:30 and it sets after 5:00, and that alone should be enough to give me some pep. Also, we’ve only had a few Very Cold Days; mostly the weather has been (relatively) mild for the entire month. But the sky is a dull, dull grey and my husband is out of town and I bought the wrong lip gloss; all is ashes.

My two favourite lip gloss colours have been discontinued, and it is distressing me more than it should. Ideally, I should be able to bounce back from this kind of thing, but for some reason I am now obsessed with finding an exact match to my two favourite glosses. This puts me in mind of a lipstick hoarding issue I had; I had purchased a bunch of dark lipstick on sale, and time ticked forward and suddenly, that dark colour no longer suited me. Instead of making me look perky and red-lipped, I looked like a papery-skinned old crone who was desperately holding on to the vestiges of youth, which is not a look I want to embrace. Anyway, I was left with several lipsticks of that shade, thanks to my hoarding/ sale purchasing. Never again would I waste money that way, I thought to myself.

Sadly, this has come back to haunt me. Since the discontinuation of my two favourite lip glosses, I have tried – and failed – to purchase a reasonable facsimile. There is a significant hurdle to face: sample lip glosses. I cannot even bear the thought of putting a sample lip gloss near my face – think of all the people who have touched it! – and yet just dabbing it on my wrist does nothing to tell me if this is a suitable colour or not. So I buy a lip gloss, hope for the best, and become immensely disappointed when it washes me out or, in the case of my latest purchase, is purple.

purple

When the lip gloss itself started to fade, it left me with a purplish ring around the outside of my lips, like a 1986 lip liner. This feels like an immense waste of money, although, as Swistle says (HI SWISTLE), it is educational and will keep me from purchasing anything similar in the future. Which is true, but damn. I just want a perfect, non-glittery, sort-of-mocha, neutral toned lip gloss. IS THAT TOO MUCH TOO ASK? If I could hop on my super-awesome-time-travel machine, I would go back and buy out the entire line of those two lip gloss shades and hoard them until they became brittle, crusty bottles of goo.

Anyway. I had no intention of this being a post about my lip gloss angst. What I had meant to write about was how women are often very self-deprecating; I read two things today (HI LISA) (HI ALI) in which the writers talked about their inability to accept compliments and their difficulty in saying what they love about themselves, respectively. How that segued into lip gloss, I have no idea. However, I want to know – what do you love about yourself? I want you to brag a little – tell me what is the most awesome thing about you. Do you have fabulous hair, do you take amazing photographs, can you edit a paper like nobody’s business? Can you run a 10k, do you decorate cakes, can you sing really well? Do you know how to knit or can you change a tire? I want to know what you think your best qualities are. Don’t be shy – it will brighten up this dull January day. Tell me, please. xoxo

I’ve got the power!

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I know what you’ve all been wondering: How did Nicole survive the Great Power Outage of 2016? Did she have to resort to grinding her own seed wheat in a handheld coffee grinder? Did she have to feed hand-twisted hay sticks into her fireplace just to keep warm? Did she play a song on her fiddle to keep her spirits up?

Answer: none of the above. Her coffee grinder is electric, her fireplace is gas and the pilot light has been unlit since 2005, and she has no fiddle, nor does she know how to play one.

I will tell you this, while switching back into the first person, that a power outage is not all that bad when you know it’s coming. First thing in the morning, I cranked the heat up from its usual 19 degrees to 23 so that by the time I left to take the kids to school, I was sweating. By the time the power went back on the temperature had only dipped to 18, so I call that a win. I spent most of the day running errands, walking the dog, and taking Mark to the orthodontist, so I wasn’t stuck in my dark and cooling-down house all day. My friend Janet (HI JANET) had tipped me off that Jugo Juice makes kale smoothies so I didn’t even have to go without.

The kids and I had lunch at the food court, where I had my smoothie and they enjoyed chicken fingers and fries, and I spent some time surreptitiously eavesdropping on the many teenage conversations around me. I forgot that the mall is essentially a teen hangout, especially at lunch and especially at a mall that is across the street from a high school and two junior highs. MY WORD THE DRAMA. Dylannnnn did you get me a doughnut? Fuck you, Dylannnnn kiss my asssssss I wanted a doughnuttttt. No, I think she still likes you, she’s just mad that you were talking to Jaden. Ugghhhhhh he’s so GROSS don’t talk with your MOUTH FULL GODDDDDD.

The power went back on half an hour before it was scheduled to, which was nice, since the backup battery of the carbon monoxide detector had died and the beeping was making me feel like I was going to lose my mind. I couldn’t figure out how to stop it, so basically every time it went off Barkley and I looked at each other, distressed. But the power was restored before I had completely descended into insanity, so all’s well that ends well.

I was a little worried that all was not well, though; as I was preparing to go to the School Council/ Parent Association meeting – that I was NOT chairing, thank you god – Jake called from downstairs saying that the computer wouldn’t turn on. And it was true; the power bar was plugged in, everything else was working, but the desk top – on which ALL my work, photos, writing, etc., was saved – was not turning on. Nothing, no sound, no fan, nothing.

Cue panic attack.

I called a computer repair company and told the technician my story. He thought it could be a damaged power supply – despite my surge protector – or possibly a fried motherboard. MOTHERFUCKER. I made an appointment with him and then did some deep breathing to calm down. Less than one hour later, the computer magically turned on. I felt like Cousin Eddie: “It’s the damnedest thing. She falls in a well, eyes go cross. A mule kicks her, they go back to normal. I don’t know.” I had to cancel the appointment, citing the “suddenly working and everything’s fine” thing, feeling slightly like I’m a drama queen who just made up a computer issue for fun.

I’m no Ma Ingalls, I’ll tell you that much. But if Ma Ingalls had electricity and access to small appliances, she’d probably love this:

icecream

Ice cream!

It all started when we were at a Ukrainian Christmas celebration, and our hostess had made her own ice cream. She pointed out that most “ice cream” is now called “frozen dessert,” and one thing led to another and suddenly my husband ordered me this beauty. I’m especially excited since non-dairy ice cream is ridiculously expensive, and now I can make my own! Today I’m making a classic vanilla for the boys, as a test run. The only issue here is that my family is ridiculously spoiled. I know, I know, pot and kettle, yada yada yada. BUT THEY ARE. Since I make so many things from scratch they won’t even eat certain store bought items. Case in point: a few weeks ago I bought some hummus.

Husband: What is this hummus?

Me: I bought it at Costco.

Husband: It’s terrible!

Me: It’s not bad. I’m eating it.

Husband: Ugh, I can’t eat this stuff. It’s terrible. It’s SWEET or something.

Mark, grabbing a pita, completely oblivious to the conversation: Mom, where’s the hummus?

Me: It’s right there.

Mark: Ew. I don’t want that. Where’s YOUR hummus?

They proceeded to eat their pitas completely dry, rather than eat the non-homemade-hummus.

Do you see where I’m going with this? It’s a slippery slope, but fortunately making one’s own ice cream is a pretty fun slippery slope to be on.

May all your blues be Monday. Or something.

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It’s Blue Monday! Mercury’s in retrograde, it’s January, and today has been calculated to be the most depressing day of the year. Maybe no one should communicate at all today, JUST IN CASE.

Well, blue is my favourite colour, and even if the algorithm has calculated it to be the saddest day of 2016, this morning the sun came out and the sky is gloriously blue. It looks just beautiful against the snow, and the temperatures are warming up this week. This is great news because in my panic last week, I didn’t realize that the seven-hour power outage is scheduled for THIS Wednesday, instead of LAST Wednesday. Good news: I will have had a week to prepare. Bad news: I will have had a week to fret, because what if they make a mistake and the power NEVER comes back on? Then what? I’ll never have a decent smoothie again, that’s what!

Oh, speaking of smoothies and related vegetables, I have a piece up at YMC about the high price of cauliflower. You know, no one wants to talk macroeconomics, but everyone wants to talk about cauliflower. Well, I tell you, they’ll pry those tiny $8 cauliflowers out of my cold dead hands before I give them up. My grandmother is probably turning in her grave, but a) I almost never go to Starbucks, b) I almost never eat out, c) we almost never have take-out, d) I WILL ENJOY MY EXPENSIVE CAULIFLOWER LIKE THE PRINCESS THAT I AM.

Gosh, we’ve become a spoiled, entitled society, haven’t we? Oh my god, the kale is like, not crisp at all. Ugh, what a rip-off. I feel like Louis C.K. but with vegetables. Let’s partake in the miracle of January avocados. We can have anything we want to eat at any time, we just have to pay for it. Sorry! But it’s true. There’s a trade-off for everything and in this case, it’s dolla dolla for your caula caula.

Not that I want to start living out the winter with nothing but sauerkraut the occasional piece of dried fruit like I’m a heroine in a Little House on the Prairie-esque drama, but I think you can see what I’m getting at.

In non-vegetable-related news, last Friday I chaperoned the last day of Mark’s field trip, and it was really fun. The kids learned all about stage fighting, so if anyone needs someone to be fake-choked, I am your Huckleberry. Related to this, the class is doing a unit on Greek mythology, so Mark is in his element. Next week they are having a fashion show, narrated in French, and Mark is dressing up in Greek fashion. This means that a few hours this weekend was devoted to the making of a cardboard-and-duct-tape sword and shield, along with a toga. I helped him make a toga out of an old sheet, and wondered if these skills would be used again some time down the road. Toga party!

Last week Barkley had a vet check-up and shots, and I will tell you this: I live in dread of the pet scale. Barkley likes his food, and at the vet clinic entrance is a huge poster that shows the decline in life expectancy for pets that are too fat. I try to watch his food, and buy low calorie dog treats, but he is what we might call curvy. I nervously had him sit on the scale…and he’s lost three pounds since last year! Three pounds! I practically did the Snoopy dance right there in the waiting room. He’s svelte! Or, as the vet says, “Still quite plump.”

Well then. He also needs dental scaling and that, along with my meeting this afternoon with the orthodontist to discuss Mark’s braces, is going to lead to financial wreck and ruin. Not really, but I might have to cut back on the cauliflower. Do me a favour: if I start jonesing for roast cauliflower, someone throw me a box of spinach or some other veggie methadone. xo

Panic at the (Electricity-Free) Disco

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Here I was, calmly going about my day, when I heard someone drop something in the mailbox. Hmmm…the mail is early today, I thought, and if my life was a (admittedly very boring) made-for-TV movie, some kind of ominous music would be playing. The soundtrack would then circle to the crazy-sounding, straight-to-the-asylum middle bars of A Day In The Life when I started reading the piece of paper that had been stuck in my mailbox.

People, the electric company is doing maintenance work on a generator in my neighbourhood, and the power is going to be off between 9 and 4 tomorrow. Seven hours with no electricity or heat; for a person who works from home, this is a nightmare on par with the one I have where I’m endlessly folding laundry and then I turn around and there is another, unfolded pile to be done.

Clearly, I would have been a terrible pioneer or settler, because the slightest hardship or inconvenience gives me a Panic At The Disco feeling. How will I make a smoothie tomorrow, I thought worriedly, like the spoiled princess that I am. Why couldn’t this happen during book fair, I thought, as if maybe the electric company was doing this strictly to inconvenience me.

Oh well. I was very productive today prior to this notice, and I have been utilizing our electrical appliances like crazy. I baked brownies and mini-muffins today, and let me just give a shout-out to my friend and YMC colleague Gwen, over at Delightful Adventures. I had been meaning to try her Vegan Gluten Free Gingerbread Loaf, but with regular gluten-full flour, and today I gave it a go. In addition to changing the flour, I also subbed in brown sugar and grapeseed oil, realized that I didn’t have cloves nor all-spice, and then decided to make it into mini-muffins instead of a loaf. In short, I was like one of those awful recipe commenters who say “This was terrible; I changed everything in the recipe and it didn’t work.” Except, it turned out awesome! I’m sure the original must be delicious too; check out Delightful Adventures if you love recipes and gorgeous food photography.

Like Jake’s class did last month, Mark’s class is on a week-long field trip. Unlike Jake’s class, which toured the Board of Education buildings and got to do thrilling things like discuss community collaboration and education funding and sit in on a school board trustee meeting, Mark’s class is actually doing something fun. They are at the Arts Commons, and they are making Greek masks, writing plays, and learning stage-fighting. Methinks Jake’s class got the short end of the stick. Mark’s “partner class” – the one they collaborate with most often – is on a similar field trip, in which they get to focus on Healthy Living. Games, physical activities, and making pizzas is on their agenda, which made me feel even more sorry for Jake’s class. I mean, the highlight for the entire class was seeing the fish tank in the indoor garden. I should point out that these field trips are assigned to the classes, and are not chosen by the teachers or the school – the school board runs them and it is considered a privilege to go. However. Fish tank viewing is not equal to learning to stage fight or making pizza.

Well. Life, as we know, is not always fair, and meanwhile when the power is out tomorrow I think I’ll take Jake out for lunch. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to go to the mall food court for lunch, which has never happened before in the history of his school experience; the mall food court being the epitome of fine dining for a ten-year-old boy.

Speaking of the mall, my mother was in town yesterday and we had a little visit and quick shopping trip. The trip to the mall reminded me why I almost exclusively shop online. People, the Old Navy is a hellhole. A yard sale set up by Mary Ingalls would be better organized. If I took everything out of my drawers and closet and piled it up on my bed, it would look somewhat like the Old Navy displays. It was a bit soul-sucking, but they had a table of boys’ t-shirts advertised for $5 each – discount taken at register! – and my mother chose one for each boy. Do I even need to tell the punch line to this? The discount was NOT taken at the register, and I left feeling like Old Navy Customer Service Has Gone To The Dogs. This $10 in Old Navy Cash feels like blood money, or at least bloody irritation money.

Well, I’m off to prepare for the coming apocalypse/ power outage, and fret that all our food is going to go bad. Fortunately for my comfort, it’s not going to be terribly cold tomorrow. Unfortunately for my food, if the power is off for longer than anticipated, my giant weekend grocery shop will be all for naught.

Heyyyyyyy Macarena.

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You guys, Christie Brinkley is turning 62 next month. 62! And yes, this should seem unsurprising given that the Age of the Supermodels was the Eighties, and the Eighties were three decades ago but my point is, have you seen a photo of Christie Brinkley lately? Google one right now, I’ll wait. Or, better yet, here’s an Instagram photo from a few months back. My god, forget the eye cream, I need something stronger. Is there any way to completely rid myself of Bitchy Resting Face? I’ll take any advice that I can get.

Oh well, it’s not like my face is my fortune, or that an awesomely talented musician wrote a song about me or anything (that I know of) so I guess I’ll make peace with my non-Christie-Brinkley-appearance. But still, DAMN.

Time just flies by, doesn’t it? Today I learned that 2016 is the year that the Macarena turns 20. Somewhere there exists a photo of me – in cut-off denim shirts and a red crop top – doing the Macarena in a bar in Mexico. I cannot find the photo but I do have a photo of me in that same outfit, drinking a margarita:

016

That hair, though.

Other songs that turn twenty this year include Champagne Supernova, Killing Me Softly, and No Diggity, if you want to shake your head in disbelief about the Flight of Time.

The Flight of Time felt more like a crawl this week, though. The first week back to regular routines and schedules always feels a bit strange. Technically it was a short week, since the kids had Monday off of school, but I had booked them in for an orthodontist check-up first thing in the morning. I had expected just a “we’ll see you in six months” appointment, and that is what happened for Jake. Mark, however, has lost his last baby tooth and braces are imminent. He had moulds made and X-ray imaging done, and so it feels like I’m entering a new era; The Orthodontia Years. Or, since he’s expected to have them less than two years, The Orthodontia Months. Teenage angst is not far off! Sunrise, sunset.

A nice aspect of this orthodontist’s office is that the kids get to spin a wheel, similar to a slot machine, and then they receive a prize. It’s like a graduated version of crappy dentist office prizes; Jake got two free cookies from Cookies by George, and Mark got a gift card to Kernels. Enjoy the popcorn while you can, buddy! Since it was a day off, after the (unexpectedly long) appointment we went to the mall to collect their prizes. “Isn’t it great we get this free stuff?” the kids asked, and I refrained from pointing out that “included” is not the same as “free.”

Since we were at the mall anyway, me and my dark undereye bags decided to go into the Kiehl’s store. I love the Kiehl’s store. It feels like I’m really Doing Something Important, what with the sales associates standing around in white lab coats, and their brisk business-like attitude. There’s no hippie-dippiness going on around here. You have a problem. They have a solution. I ended up purchasing something called “Powerful-Strength Line-Reducing Eye-Brightening Concentrate” which isn’t something that succinctly rolls off your tongue, but it describes exactly what I want in an eye cream.

I tried to take a photo of my undereye bags for a “before” shot, but the result was so depressing I’m not sure I can post it. I mean, really. I drink a ton of water. I eat well. I exercise. I get about seven hours of sleep a night, and more on weekends. Why, then, do I look like an extra in the Thriller video? No wonder no one knew what I was dressed up as for Halloween – my undereye bags are like extra-large undereye Samsonites.

TGI Friday, am I right? Does anyone have plans for the weekend? I am still working my way through Game of Thrones, and I’m now in the third season – i.e., I am losing my will to live. The problem with binge-watching these shows is that they take over one’s subconscious. I remember this feeling with Breaking Bad; too many episodes in a row and I started to feel sweaty and shaky and have weird dreams. Those weird dreams were NOTHING compared to Game of Thrones-inspired dreams. HOO BOY.

Detoxing my life

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The other day I saw an infographic about “daily steps to keep your house clean and organized” which, I am sorry to admit, is a genuine interest of mine. I LOVE organizational and cleaning tips to the point that I’ve often thought I could start a whole blog about it, or at least a series of posts, a la the Fly Lady. But then, I remember that upon cleaning out my bathroom and hall cupboards, I found sanitary napkins dating from 2005 and cold medication that expired in 2010, so that would make me feel like Matt Foley, motivational speaker. Also, I do not ever wear shoes in the house; the Fly Lady would be ashamed of me.

The biggest deterrent, however, to making my OWN infographic of household tips or writing a series of posts, would be the Professional Internet Commenters. Circling back to this infographic I saw, I noticed that there were several hundred comments on it. Several hundred, on an infographic that had daily, weekly, monthly, and annual chores. People, I did something that I never do, something that I know not to do, something that never brings about joy or happiness: I read the comments.

You wouldn’t think that an infographic that has such things as “make your bed” or “wash the dishes” as daily chores would be all that controversial, would you? Well, what if I told you it was A MAN that created the infographic? Would that enrage you? At least half the comments were with regards to the obviously single, childless, entitled man who dared write an infographic on household tips. “What about taking the kids to activities? What about making lunches? This guy has no idea what real life is like! Must be nice!”

Oh, people of the internet. You do realize that no one is forcing you to a) read things, or b) implement the things you’ve read into your own life, right? If the mere suggestion that washing dishes daily is better than letting them all pile up all over your counters, until your cupboards are empty and then trying to deal with a mountain of disgusting, crusty pots and pans and plates enrages you, then maybe don’t read anything about household tips. If “making your bed” makes you outraged, then you really don’t have to do it. And the kicker? The kicker is that you DON’T HAVE TO COMMENT ON IT, EVEN IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT OR DISAGREE WITH IT.

It’s that time of year when everyone is making resolutions and choosing words to keep in mind for the coming year, and I love all that. I love that we like to improve ourselves and our quality of life. I don’t really have resolutions, other than to maintain what resolutions I made five months ago – apparently August is more of a New Year’s for me. Some of those resolutions are dull and I won’t bore you with the details, but the one I want to talk about is detoxing.

I don’t mean that I’m going to drink only juice for three weeks or take enough laxatives to cleanse my colon or anything. What I’ve been doing in the past little while is detoxing my life.

You know when someone goes on Facebook and announces that they are going through their friends list and deleting everyone they aren’t in touch with and everyone on their friend list rolls their eyes and presses “hide?” Or, less passive aggressively, sends messages to everyone on their friends list, saying since you don’t like any of my photos feel free to “un-friend” me? The latter actually happened to me, which was startling, since all the photos on that person’s feed were of cars that she had keyed for parking crookedly and taking up two parking stalls. While bad parking is annoying to everyone, I am not a fan of random property damage, and so it was true, I didn’t “like” those photos.

In any case, I noticed that there were a number of people on my Facebook who were constantly bringing me down, and no matter how much I “hid” their comments or how quickly I scrolled past their ignorant updates, it would still infect my spirits, a little. Now, I would never chirpily announce that I was “cleaning out my friends list!” because that behaviour is lame, but I did actually think long and hard about people I wanted in my life. Why did I have them on my friends list if we had what might be termed as irreconcilable differences? Did they bring anything to my life? No? Then why were they there?

And, dear reader, I did it. I went through and I took out the people who said things like “anyone who isn’t atheist is a sheep and a moron” and who insulted people who live in my province and who were just in a constant state of outrage. Percentage wise, it wasn’t many – most people I know are lovely – but that small percentage was bringing me down, like a virus.

Then I started thinking about what causes me angst and grief in my day-to-day life, and I swore that I would no longer be affected by someone else’s negativity. If someone was constantly bringing toxicity into my life, I thought long and hard about how much contact I wanted to have with that person. I asked myself two questions: do I want them in my life, and do I have a choice whether or not they are in my life? I think I often forget that I have the power of choice; I can choose not to enter into unkind gossip and I can choose not to be around someone who is constantly negative. I can choose not to be with people who openly dislike me and have no qualms about saying so and I can choose not to listen to ignorant and uninformed opinions.

I can choose to be with people who uplift me, or people who support me and who I support. I can choose to surround myself with joy and laughter and interesting conversations.

So, if I have a resolution this year, it’s to continue to exercise that choice. Well, that and to finally start using eye cream. I’m starting to look like an old crone.

Do you have any resolutions or words for 2016? Do tell. xoxo