Monthly Archives: March 2016

My name is (not) Matt Foley and I am a motivational speaker.

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I have been on the go, go, go since I got home yesterday morning. We flew home from a wonderful twelve days in Maui, on the red-eye, and I’ve basically been in a whirl of somewhat dull but very necessary activity since then. Well, not counting last night after the kitchen had been cleaned up, when I watched two episodes of House of Cards and ermagerrrrd what is going on in that show? I have to keep reminding myself that it is not real, but now I’m eyeing everything political with even more suspicion than I did before.

It’s funny; no matter how incredibly prepared and organized I am – and I’m very prepared and organized – the first day or two back from vacation are a whirlwind of chores and errands and catching up on work even though I still worked a bit throughout my vacation. It’s been productive 36 hours though, although I almost got derailed by uploading my photos. They’re so pretty; I just want to photo edit and do nothing else for the rest of the day. Alas.

Every day on my vacation I took long, long walks in the morning. Part of the motivation was fitness-related – I didn’t want to repeat last year’s Post Vacation Inability To Fit Into Pants Syndrome – but mostly it was just wonderful to walk in the soft, floral-scented air and take in my surroundings. I found myself daydreaming about using this little space on the Internet for good – Motivational sayings! Spreading joy and happiness! – but my tune changed a bit when I got back to reality so you’re welcome, dear readers. You will not be subjected to motivational sayings from me, unless it’s something like Hang In There with a picture of the 1970s kitten stuck on a tree branch.

Slight disclaimer: I do think it’s important to find beauty everywhere, and to bring the sunshine with you wherever you go. Invincible summers in the depth of winter, etcetera. If you follow me on Instagram you will notice that I have the goal of posting one beautiful photo every day – although beauty may be in the eye of the beholder some days, unless you really like banana muffins. Hey, sometimes banana muffins are the best we can do!

For example, this is what my view looks like today:

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Which, you know, is fine. It’s March and there’s no snow and things are starting to green up, which is ridiculously early for Calgary. Barkley got his spring haircut and isn’t dragging dead leaves and grass into the house anymore. It’s nice. But it’s not this:

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or this

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or this

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or even this, the plumeria graveyard

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Ah well, it’s good to be home. Cocktail hour at 4 pm daily was nice, but my body is probably happier with green smoothies. My long walks were wonderful but getting on the yoga mat today, I felt exactly like C-3PO, or possibly the Tin Man. Time to get back on track with everything!

I have lots and lots of things to say about beach fashion – thongs seemed to be a big thing this year, as well as athletic-style halter tops – and how my own beach fashion drastically changed this year (read: no more string bikinis). I also have lots to say about travel in general, and a great way to save your hair from sun damage, and some awesome books I read, and my opinion about this douchebag who preferred to send nasty tweets about the woman on the plane in front of him, rather than simply asking her to move her ponytail. Wait, I think I just gave away my opinion on that. The point is I have so much to tell you, but no more time today. Shall I leave you with a motivational saying? No, I shall not. But I’ll leave you with this photo of me with a whole lot of these gorgeous yellow flowers that were everywhere. xo

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Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Book and Movie Edition

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Now that I’ve gotten my Spring Rage About Time Change out of the way, I’m feeling much better. Coffee helps. My body feeling like it’s 3:30 in the morning when it’s really 4:30 in the morning is making it very easy to get to sleep at my usual hour. I’m slowly adjusting, so in eight months I will be prepared for my Fall Rage About Time Change.

As an aside, there is a huge psychological difference between 4:30 am and 3:30 am. The former feels like “dawn,” the latter feels like “middle of the night.”

Anyway. I had meant for today’s post to be a praise for a few movies and books I’ve seen and read lately, but things got away from me. Let’s keep going on a positive note, shall we? I am sure, dear reader, that you do not want to hear any more about time change until at least November, if ever again.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Book and Movie Edition

Zootopia: We saw this on the weekend, and it is just excellent. Lots of fun cameos, and a really engaging story. We were in one of those theatres with reclining La-Z-Boy-type chairs, and I didn’t fall asleep, which means the movie must have been pretty good. The animation is very cute and all through the movie I kept wondering whose voice is this, I know this voice. It’s Jason Bateman!

The Skeleton Twins: My husband sold me on this because it stars Bill Hader and Kristin Wiig. Hilarious, right? Well, it’s funny but in a dark way, and is one of the most interesting and compelling movies I’ve seen in a long time. Of course, given that I usually watch movies with three guys, I’m normally forced to view things with lots of explosions and shooting. This was a very refreshing change. Luke Wilson’s turn as the loving, kind husband is absolutely heart-wrenching. The acting is great, the story is great, and there’s a lip sync scene which is to die for.

Fishbowl by Bradley Somer: I picked this up on a whim at the library while Mark cleaned out the children’s section on Greek mythology. It’s a lovely book, written – sort of – from the point of view of a fish who jumps out of his bowl and falls down a 27-floor building. It’s also about the lives that go on within that building, and it’s absolutely delightful with many turns and twists along the way. A very happy, enjoyable read – and it doesn’t even end with a dead fish, improbably enough, so points for that.

Mean Streak by Sandra Brown: Another grab from the library’s New and Notable section, this book is not the type I usually gravitate toward. I’m not much of one for a suspense novel or a mystery, but this one is a fascinating page-turner about a woman who goes missing, her captor, her husband, and a larger background than it first appears. Plus, there’s some good sexy scenes, if you’re into that.

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant: I read The Red Tent years ago and enjoyed it; I have always thought it would be kind of nice to have my very own red tent during my Ladies’ Holidays, if only to save my husband and children from my pre-menstrual pretending-I’m-not-crabby-when-I-really-feel-murderous-rage-over-this-unrecyled-envelope demeanor. So I was interested to read this book by the same author, about a Jewish girl born in 1900, living in a Boston tenement. It’s a really engaging story that shows the change in women’s attitudes and attitudes towards women over the twentieth century; it has kind of an “Oprah’s Book Club” feel to it, but I like that sort of thing.

Come Away With Me by Karma Brown: Karma and I have mutual friends and we are Facebook friends, which is my way of bragging/ living vicariously through someone else. This book is incredible, and I can’t say too much without spoiling it, but suffice it to say that you need to read it for yourself. I really loved it; there are some great travel descriptions as well. Part of the book is set in Maui, which is my favourite place on this planet, making it even more enjoyable.

Sweetness In The Belly by Camilla Gibbs: I recently read This Is Happy, and to be honest, I didn’t really enjoy it. I didn’t see what all the hoopla was about, but I did enjoy the parts where Gibbs discusses her travels to Africa, specifically Ethiopia. This reminded me that I had Sweetness In The Belly – inspired by her experiences – on my bookshelf. It was a book club read from long ago when I actually belonged to a book club, but I couldn’t remember anything about it at all. I started reading it and I remembered why: there is an extremely graphic female circumcision scene in the book. Back in 2006, I closed the book at that scene – which is near the beginning of the book – and I never re-opened it after that. In my defence, I had a one year old and a newborn at the time, and hormonal mood swings meant that reading about female circumcision was not in the cards for me. This time reading it, I made it past the scene, and I’m glad I did. An excellent book that spans the 1960s-1980s and describes the Ethiopian crisis we all remember, it is both a love story and a wonderful peek at a culture and country rich in history.

On the blog front, Cara-Lynne is an incredibly sweet woman who years ago wrote me a kind note telling me how much she enjoyed my Boyhouse adventures. She now has her own blog; it’s all about yoga and inspiration! I really enjoy reading it and I hope you do too. You can find it here.

What are you reading these days? Have you seen any good movies lately? That sounds like a pickup line, I know, but I’d love to hear about it if you have. xo

At least we can calculate the volume of a sphere.

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It’s a good thing today is Pi Day – pancakes for lunch to celebrate the fact that we can calculate their area! – because otherwise I would be in a complete state of bitchery, rather than a partial one. Time change fills me with impotent rage every year; every year I think of the futility of moving the clocks around and I am furious that this outmoded imaginary concept is still a thing. Why are we forced to deal with crabby people and car accidents and general confusion two times a year, not to mention the children, oh god, won’t someone please think of the CHILDREN? It just doesn’t make sense.

Worse yet is the idiots who continually say such things as “It’s for the farmers.” Who started that rumour? Was it just to prove that people will believe anything, no matter how ridiculous? If I was a part of the farming community, I would be so pissed off that Daylight Saving Time was attributed to me and my ilk. Do you know who doesn’t care what time the clock says? FARMERS. Farmers get up and work when it’s DAYLIGHT, they don’t punch a time card on a clock. Daylight Saving Time is NOT for the farmers, it was originally established as a wartime measure to save on electricity, and do you know what? THERE IS NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST THAT THIS WORKS ANY MORE OR IF IT EVER DID. So don’t tell me it’s for the farmers, and don’t tell me this is a good way to be environmentally savvy because IT IS NOT.

God, I get so worked up about this every year. It’s ridiculous. Let’s all pour one out for the parents of small children who will be impossible to get to bed on time tonight and who will be impossible to wake up tomorrow morning and who will be sobbing messes for the next several days until their little bodies adjust to the new “time.”

And while I’m on a rampage, here, let me just tell you that words matter, people. If you are the sort of person who enjoys more light later in the evenings, I understand that. I don’t particularly share that view, being an early morning person, but I understand it. Here’s what I hate: when people say “I like that extra hour of daylight.” NO. That is not how it works. That’s not how any of this works! Oh, you enjoy the extra hour? Why not move our clocks ahead three hours? Why not 12 hours, then we can have 24 hours of daylight! There is the exact same number of daylight hours as there were before Daylight Saving Time, it’s just adjusted differently. So do not tell me that you like the extra hour because there IS NO EXTRA HOUR.

I love early morning light but I would be willing to give it up for you late evening people if it meant NO MORE CHANGING THE CLOCKS. If someone in a powerful position woke up tomorrow and said Let’s just leave the time where it is right now I would be perfectly accepting of the situation. But since no one – NO ONE – has the balls to do this, I am fated to semi-annual rages until the end of time, or until I do something drastic like move to Hawaii, whichever comes first.

Why does no one have the balls to do this? I don’t know. Are all our politicians in cahoots with the time change lobby group? Is there a time change lobby group? Since there is no empirical benefit to time change, there probably isn’t a lobby group, so why is this happening?

Yes. This is the hill I am going to die on.

The old grey mare, she ain’t what she used to be. But she can still do anything good.

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It has been a long week. My husband was travelling for work, which made it feel even longer. All day Tuesday I thought it was Thursday, which was kind of distressing. Then the same thing happened on Wednesday; I was doing some work and I thought that’s strange, the computer’s date is off. March 9th is a Wednesday, and today is Thur…oh shit. By the time Thursday actually came around it was kind of anti-climatic.

Thursday was the Junior High Open House, and since my husband was not yet home, I took both boys, which means that one of them is now super excited for next year, and the other is wishing that he also was starting at the cool school with the Industrial Arts room and a cafeteria in September. Don’t wish your life away, boys, I want to say to them, but I also am caught up in the excitement of a school with three floors! And so much awesome stuff in it! Like a real, light-up score board in the gym! And a stage that will be used as a stage instead of a classroom because, unlike the elementary school they are currently attending, this school is not grossly overcrowded!

It does make me feel a bit long in the tooth, however. Junior High! Earlier in the week I went to the mall to pick up a baby gift and also some more of that Powerful-Strength Line-Reducing Eye-Brightening Concentrate from Kiehl’s. As usual, the mall was filled with obviously-pregnant women and women with toddlers and women who fell into both camps. Maybe it was the contrast between their youthful radiance and glowing fecundity, maybe it’s just my old-crone-ness, but I bustled into Kiehl’s to grab my eye cream and the attendant came over to me right away with a I love a project! look on her face. “Oh,” she said, “You already know what you want. Okay, let me give you some samples I think you’ll like!”

Sure! I love samples. It wasn’t until I got home that I looked at them: three different wrinkle creams and one hand cream specifically designed for cracked, aging skin.

Cue the sad violin of doom. Not that I’m not going to try them, mind you. I need all the help I can get.

I was getting a pedicure today, a rare treat. As I chatted with the young esthetician, I mentioned something about my kids. “Oh!” she said, “Are they in high school or university?”

Now, I realize that it is perfectly possible for me to have high school and/or university aged children. I realize that many women my age do, in fact, have children of that age. I recently learned that my own cousin, who is only a few months older than me, is going to be a grandmother. So I know, I really do, that this is not in any way something terribly unusual or crazy.

But still. It actually felt a little odd telling her that my kids were in grades five and six and if she felt awkward at all about assuming that my children were possibly grown adults, she didn’t show it.

Well. Aging is a good thing, it really is. As the esthetician slipped on my sandals before applying polish, she complimented me on them and asked where I bought them. And that’s when I told her that I had purchased those sandals in 1997, for a post-graduate trip to Mexico with some girlfriends. She smiled and told me that those sandals were almost as old as she was!

It seems to be a conspiracy this week. It reminded me of the day I popped into the liquor store to pick up a bottle for a friend, and there, on the counter, were pre-packaged shooters that reminded me of my semi-nefarious youth. Butter Ripples! Fireballs! Sex on the Beach! Remember back in the day when you would go out dancing, probably wearing a bodysuit and high-waisted jeans, drinking vodka slimes, and some guy would buy you a Sex on the Beach? Or a Screaming Orgasm? Oh, those were the days. But I looked at the pre-packaged shooters and laughed a little. “Do people actually buy these?” I asked the guy at the counter. He smiled at me, and very gently said, “Well, the younger crowd does.”

I take your point, sir. I take your point.

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If you need a little boost, I suggest you watch this little video that my yoga teacher posted. We should all be more like Jessica! I can do anything good! Come on, repeat after me! I can do anything good!

Mammograms and Crocuses and My Ability To Misunderstand Basic Instructions

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In what must be a new record for me, on Saturday Jake and I cleaned up the two warmest gardens in our yard. It’s so early! Most years everything is still frozen and snow-covered at this time of the year; believe me, I’m not saying that cannot still happen, but at the moment there is no snow in my yard. Not even in the very coldest area of the yard. NO SNOW. In fact, yesterday I noticed that in the very warmest part of the yard, the crocuses Mark and I planted last fall are poking their little green shoots through.

Small side note: the aforementioned garden cleanup – consisting of cutting back dead foliage, most notably from the gigantic Siberian iris, the clematis, and the enormous ornamental sage – has never taken me less than two hours to accomplish. With Jake’s help, it was finished in 45 minutes. I am enjoying my competent and still-wanting-to-be-helpful preteen!

I’m telling you, this gorgeous weather has real mood-elevating qualities. It’s been a crazy long week – and it’s only Wednesday – and yet I feel like everything is rosy and wonderful. I am mere steps away from singing and soft-shoeing down the street like my life is an old-timey musical.

I had a mammogram on Monday; all is well, not to worry. This is my third – I get them annually ever since I found a lump when I was 38. Apparently, I just have really lumpy breasts, and the annual mammograms establish a baseline for this. I was pretty much a mess during my first mammogram, as you can imagine; basically I spent the entire test and follow-up breast ultrasound mentally choosing a wig, and wondering where one actually purchases wigs, and what I would look like in a wig. I think I obsessed about wigs so as to not think about what it would be like for my children growing up without me.

I had to do some deep breathing just typing that.

Anyway, as I said, all is FINE. Have you ever had a mammogram? Honestly, my first I had no idea what to expect, except that people had said it was very painful and uncomfortable. Truthfully, I do not find it to be particularly painful, although I suppose that varies from person to person, depending on what kind of lumps or breasts you have.

The one thing I wondered about was that, when you book the appointment, you are told to not wear any deodorant. I wondered for a long time why: was there something in the deodorant that reacted badly with the mammography machine and the results? Was it something with the aluminum in most deodorants? If I wore a natural deodorant would it make a difference? After all that wondering I finally asked, and the answer was much more practical than I had anticipated: when getting the test your armpit rests on the corner of the machine, and deodorant makes it too slippery to hold still long enough. This is also why they tell you not to use any body lotion; so that your breast won’t slip right out of the machine, which would be awkward and pretty difficult to get a good result.

I don’t need any help on the awkward front. The technician led me to the little change room and handed me a medical gown, and I SWEAR I thought she said it ties at the back. I put it on and it seemed weirdly difficult to tie; I wondered how less flexible patients even managed to do them up. Also the collar seemed weirdly snug, but at no point did I think that I had it on the wrong way.

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I feel sure I don’t need to tell the punchline to this story, which is that when the technician brought me into the exam room, she looked at me quizzically and said, “You know, I think most women find it more comfortable to tie those gowns in the front.” WELL NOW THAT SEEMS OBVIOUS. Of course, it was a bit moot by that point since I had to immediately disrobe anyway.

Other than (kind of unnecessarily) pointing out the obvious, the technician was nice but I missed the young girl I had last time, whose perky and vivacious demeanour reminded me so much of a 1980s aerobics instructor. “Okay, now we need to lift the breast in. Lift! Lift, and stay, stay, okay! Great job! Now the other breast. Lift! Little lift. Just a little more lift and…STAY. YES. Perfect! Great! Okay, moving on!” I half expected her to break out the Olivia Newton John CD and tell me to Get Physical.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Beauty Products (and wine) Edition

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This morning while I was driving to yoga, I noticed the moon. The sky was perfectly black and the moon looked exactly like an illustration in a children’s book: a perfectly golden crescent shape. When I left the shala, the sky was beginning to brighten. One of my favourite things about this time of year is that you can see the amount of daylight increase, day to day. The sun is fully up by 7:30 and doesn’t set until almost 6:30, all of which is going to change next weekend, with the start of one of my least-favourite things, Daylight Saving Time.

Well, we can’t have it all. I’ve been noticing a gross trend lately, and that is a complete inability by many people to look outside their own worldview and experience. I know! It’s like I’m on the internet or something. But it’s kind of ironic, since as a society we are all about inclusion, and open-mindedness, but apparently those qualities are reserved only for people and ideas that one already agrees with. Examples include but are not limited to: methods for school fundraising, clothing purchases, and dietary choices, as well as the usual inflammatory topics of children’s birthday parties, charter schools, and whether or not it is acceptable to get a puppy from a reputable, caring breeder.

It’s funny what gets people up in arms, isn’t it? And by funny, I mean completely disturbing and disappointing. I like to think that I’m a person who tries to not say anything at all if I can’t say anything nice; this doesn’t always happen but I try. In this light, I always feel a little deflated when I mention something I love, only to have someone tell me something unsavoury about it. Oh really, you like Lululemon? Don’t you find it disturbing that they are an overpriced cult? Oh really, you BUY almond milk? Don’t you know how easy it is to make it? Oh really, you like thong underwear? I thought only hookers wore thong underwear. Oh really, you wear sunscreen/ use dental floss/ wash your dishes in Palmolive? Don’t you know that it is carcinogenic/ leads to greater tooth decay/ smells weird?

I don’t know; I don’t like celery or running, but I’m not assuming that people who do like them are mentally unstable or inherently uneducated or misinformed about life.

All of which is to say that I have let Nicole’s Favourite Things lapse for too long. You read it here first; I’m bringing my Favourite Things back because when I find something I love I want to tell you about it. Maybe you’ll like it, maybe you won’t. But the beauty of the Favourite Things is that nothing is sponsored, I received no compensation to write about these things, and I did not get any free samples. These are just things I love and maybe you will too.

Eye Cream

A while ago I posted about finally using eye cream, and I chose Kiehl’s Powerful-Strength Line-Reducing Eye-Brightening Concentrate, not least because the name itself just seemed like everything I wanted in an eye cream.

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 I’ve been using this for about two months now and I think I see results. I think my eyes are line-reduced and brighter, in a powerful-strength kind of way. Here’s a very poor photo of me in January, taken late in the evening (meaning 7:45) with no makeup on, so as to show my undereye circles.

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Sorry about the crazy eyes. It’s hard for me to take photos of my eyes. Here’s me, yesterday evening at about 6:30. Now, I do have makeup on but still, I think there is an improvement, and not just because I don’t have psycho eyes.

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Even better? Instagram filters. Put a good filter on and suddenly I have the skin of someone two decades younger.

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 If only life had an Instagram filter, am I right?

Hair Care

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I’m always on the lookout for products that make my hair less orange-straw-like. My hair therapist recommended HOME Ultra Bond Seal once a week, and it really does help with the dry hair/ breakage/ orangeness. The only thing I don’t like about it is that it is a bit of a process; you have to wet your hair, towel dry it, massage it in, comb it, and then let it sit in your hair for ten minutes before following with regular shampoo and conditioner. I save it for the weekend but it is still worth it.

I bought this Garnier Whole Blends Hair Mask after the big launch last month; I had some friends at the launch and the reviews seemed good, so I picked up a jar at Superstore one evening, being seduced by the vanilla/ coconut scent. I will pretty much buy anything that is vanilla/ coconut scented, but this was a good buy. It’s a nice moisturizing conditioning mask, but my only complaint is that it’s in a JAR, which is marginally less convenient than a traditional squirt bottle.

Marc Anthony’s Coconut and Shea Butter Conditioner is really a fantastic conditioner for those days near the end of my hair colour cycle, when everything is ashes. It actually gives a lot of bounce and makes my hair look healthy. I used it today – and I’m ten days away from Hair Therapy Day – and I don’t actually want to cry when I look in the mirror. See?

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And that’s after a whole day of activities.

Mascara

I have so many feelings about mascara. My all-time favourite is Maybelline’s The Falsies, but I was lured – LURED, I tell you – into purchasing The Falsies Push-Up Drama at the drug store. Same manufacturer. Basically the same name. This, my friends, is why you should buy into the old adage that If It Ain’t Broke Don’t Fix It. It is the kind of mascara that goes on really wet, with a poky-sharp brush, that makes your eyelashes mold into four or five giant clumpy lashes. I informed my friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) of my angst and she panicked on my behalf. “I thought it was just your favourite lipgloss that was discontinued! What happened to your mascara?” Oh no, Hannah dear, you misunderstand me. My favourite mascara was not discontinued. I just stupidly tried to improve on near-perfection and was seduced by the display. JE REGRETTE TOUT. Never again, I swear.

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Middle Sister Wine

This has nothing to do with beauty products, but I am drinking a glass of this as I type this, so I feel it deserves a mention. Middle Sister Wine – not only is it a lovely beverage, but the label speaks to me. I am a middle sister! I wake up at stupid o’clock every single day! On Fridays I look forward to wine o’clock! I like big sunglasses, flowy scarves, and boots too! I IDENTIFY WITH THIS WINE LABEL.

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And on that note I shall pour myself another glass and wish you all a very lovely weekend. xo