Monthly Archives: January 2022

A January Roller Coaster; Ninety-Eight Weeks In

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Tomorrow is February! I simultaneously feel like it’s February, whee, already! and also that New Year’s was several months ago. I’m looking at the calendar, and the first of the month, with the taking down of the tree and the Fresh Start of New Year’s, feels like a fuzzy date eons ago. February! Is tomorrow! The month of hearts and chocolates, and, in two weeks tomorrow, the month of DEEPLY DISCOUNTED hearts and chocolates! I have already sourced myself some Lindor strawberry chocolates, and I have plans for my heart-shaped cake and cookies, AND we are having dinner guests this weekend, for which I have planned a Mexican Theme, given our actual trip to Mexico in March is no more, for The Usual Pandemic Reasons, Not That I’m Sad About It But We Would Have Celebrated Our 20th Anniversary And My Son’s 18th Birthday Whilst There. Anyway.

Hidey-ho Neighbourino

We are getting new neighbours, and this is me:

A few weeks ago, a For Sale sign went up on our next-door neighbour’s lawn, and not only did it sell within 24 hours, but there was a BIDDING WAR. It must be the incredible neighbours, no?

I met my new neighbour-to-be a few days ago and he seems incredibly pleasant, which is always nice. I am friendly with all my neighbours, and good friends with a few of them. Our former next-door neighbours were nice people; we lived next to each other for 21 years, and were friendly but not friends. They would very kindly purchase big buckets of candy popcorn for the boys every Halloween, and we always exchanged pleasantries with them in passing. They kept to themselves mainly, so they weren’t the kind of neighbours who would have extra keys or anything, but we had a very cordial relationship.

So I was surprised to see the For Sale sign, and even more surprised to discover that the house was vacant when it went up for sale: a) they didn’t tell us they were moving, and b) when did they move? I am home ALL THE TIME and I never once saw a moving truck or anything that would indicate that they were leaving. I mean, you’d think I’d have seen someone moving a couch or boxes or something. Did they move on Christmas Day?

These were the neighbours who have had Hot Rod the Plumber many times over the past few months, so perhaps it was in preparation for their Stealthy Big Move.

Wisdom from my teabag.

What’s The Over-Under On This

The other day Stephany (HI STEPHANY) posted about being an over-or-under-buyer, and it is clear that I have over-buying tendencies, which have been vastly exacerbated by the pandemic. These tendencies really flared up through 2020, and I tamped them down somewhat in 2021, and I have just had another round that has ended with OMG Nicole Please Stop Buying This.

Now, in my defense, nothing goes bad in this house, in terms of food. With the exception of the occasional mushy mini cucumber, I never throw anything out. This is a combination of meal planning, targeted grocery shopping for those meals, and having two teen boys who will hoover anything down that is edible and in the house. I always have backups in the pantry of household staples: flour and oils, nut butters and baking items, toilet paper and soap and toothpaste. If the backup comes into use, then I buy another backup. It gives me an enormous amount of comfort to know that if we run out of an item on the main floor, there is a backup in the pantry downstairs.

Non-dairy milk is a staple for me.

From 2012-2021, I used exclusively almond milk for myself – the guys happily use dairy – but in 2021 I discovered macadamia nut milk, and I never looked back. It’s creamy, it’s delicious, and buy it by the case at Costco. I go through about a case every two weeks, what with smoothies and all, and since I am at Costco every two weeks, I generally have TWO cases in my pantry at any given time. You know, just in case there’s a delay in my Costco shopping. And then it was December, and I bought an extra case, and by the time my first Costco trip of 2022 came around, I had THREE cases in my pantry.

There was, during that first Costco trip of 2022, no macadamia nut milk.

Now, the rational part of me said that I had three cases at home, and there was certainly no shortage of different non-dairy milks in the city. We are so used to abundance that it is unsettling to not have exactly what we want exactly when we want it but there is still An Abundance of Food. My last Superstore trip showed very few varieties of eggs, for example, but there were still eggs. My favourite hippie crunchy natural peanut butter has been out of stock for weeks but there is still the store brand hippie crunchy natural peanut butter. There was no – oh my god, I cannot believe how spoiled I am – organic spinach for my smoothies, but there was plenty of spinach. The frozen fruit section is pretty sparse but there are still non-frozen fruits. This is not Ceausescu’s Romania where people are lining up to get bread. We have plenty of everything.

And yet, I pushed the Panic At The Disco button, about the macadamia nut milk. I thought, well, if it’s not available, maybe I can find another kind of creamy non-dairy-non-almond milk. The next week at Superstore I bought two different brands of cashew milk and an oat milk, just to try, just in case, what if there is no macadamia nut milk ever, what if, what if.

And here I will interject to say that this is all ridiculous, and also back in 2012 when I first went non-dairy, the options were almond or soy; those were my choices, along with the saddest item ever, known as rice milk. Now there are so many different kinds and brands and really, I want to punch myself in the face at my reaction to this blip in the macadamia nut milk supply.

Very long and kind of boring story short, the next time I went to Costco, there was a big display of macadamia nut milk, and I bought two cases, and I now have four full and one partial case, along with cashew and oat milk, and this is ridiculous, and I am spoiled. Imagine! Imagine transporting the Ingalls family, or a Victorian, to our modern life. Wait, you can eat more than a single potato and a slice of bread in a day? Vegetables and fruit are available to you in the winter?

All of which is to say, on my next grocery trip my mantra will be You do not need any more non-dairy milk, for the love of god, Nicole, do not buy any more non-dairy milk. I hope my mantra holds. I have officially gone from Prudent Backup Buyer to Slippery Slope Towards Insane Hoarder.

Mousetastrophe

Speaking of hardships, we had a mouse in the house last week; this is a thing that happens every three to five years, and every single time it happens I feel like I might die. It’s not enough that we are in a global pandemic, now I have to think about the Hanta virus? Not to mention the possibility of a MOUSE near our FOOD. The FOOD that we EAT. From the moment I discovered mouse droppings underneath the kitchen sink to the moment said mouse was summarily removed from the premises, I felt like a haunted shell of a woman. My younger son strolled into the kitchen to find me sweeping out the droppings and spraying down the kitchen sink cupboard with non-hippie super-chemical cleaning spray, and asked what was going on. I told him, in that kind of eerily calm voice that means I am having a breakdown, that there was a mouse in the house. “I see,” he said, “It is going to be okay, Mom. It’s going to be okay.” Then he turned and went to find the traps.

It turns out that in the times of adversity, I can be sanguine and can face almost everything with good cheer and a Can-Do Attitude, but a mouse in my kitchen is One Toke Over The Line, Sweet Jesus. Global pandemic? We can do this. Husband working from home, forever? It’s fine. My kids constantly facing cancellations and disappointment? It’s making us stronger and more resilient and flexible. Mouse in the house? I AM GOING TO DIE. Later, over dinner, I suddenly put my head in my hands and said I had a bad feeling. There was no noise. I just, like Lawrence in Office Space, had a feeling. The boys scurried over to the cupboard, and my older son announced, “We got him!” at which point I screamed frantically and ran from the room.

Later, the boys would tell me I reacted like a contestant on The Price is Right, but with less happiness and high-fiving.

Pandemic Reading

Black Girls Must Die Exhausted. I really loved this book; I was hooked from the first page and became completely invested in the characters. Tabitha is 33 and the trajectory of her life is perfect; she has checked all the boxes she wanted to check…until some medical news comes her way, derailing her plans. This book is so much more than the sum of its parts: important social issues in an incredibly readable and entertaining book. It is a book that normalizes Black culture and I think that is a really important thing: the tendency is to make white the default. It’s enlightening and joyful, as well as a thought-provoking book. I just saw that this author has another book coming soon, I will be reading it for sure. 

The Art of Travel. Okay, first, a digression. I put this on hold over a year ago; it is the only copy in the library system, and I was fifth in the queue. The rule is that books cannot be renewed if there is a hold on them, and so the reader has three weeks before returning. Let’s do the simple math: five people, three weeks, fifteen weeks. Add in a couple of days of processing and transit, and we will say that I should have expected to read this about four and a half months after putting it on hold. It was over a year! The library eliminated late fees, which in general I think is a good thing, except that it can lead to Very Bad Behaviour by patrons who just don’t bring the book back. I was number ONE in the queue for over two months. WHO DOES THAT.

Anyway. It’s not a complaint, exactly, as I had more than enough to read over the past year. It’s more of an observation, and slight admonishment. We are living in a society!

Back to the book. It’s an interesting, and at times, delightful little book about travelling, and the search for happiness, and the theme is that wherever you go, there you are. We tend to idealize vacations, thinking our troubles will melt away with sunshine, palm trees, and margaritas, but honestly, if we are unhappy in life, a change of scenery MAY not be the ticket. The author writes about different places and brings in 19th century artists, writers, and philosophers (ALL MEN, OF COURSE), which makes this a really unique and interesting read. Even though Flaubert sounded like a real ass.

The Most Precious Substance On Earth. This is exactly the kind of book I love: it follows a woman from her teen years to adulthood, and it’s an “ordinary is extraordinary, day-to-day life” book. But. It’s a Big Downer of a book, I felt, and there is a Huge Upsetting Disturbing Occurrence in the first little bit that is written so casually and calmly that I thought at first that it didn’t really happen. Content warning for parents of girls, specifically teen girls. You may not want to read this. It’s touching and sad and also funny and smart. I’m glad I read it but be aware that at times it is a hard read.

Happy End of January, everyone! The month that seemed to be months-long is at its end! How was your January? xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Hygge-Chaka, Hygge-Hygge-Hygge-Chaka Edition

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I can’t stop this feeling, deep inside of me, January you just don’t realize what you do to me…when you are cold but it’s getting more light you let me know everything’s all right…

Ever since I read The Little Book of Hygge, I’ve been a bit obsessed with the concept: winter in Calgary is long, and being intentional about being cozy fits the bill. This January has been all over the map, weather-wise, from extreme cold to pretty mild, but windy days.

Some of the things featured in this month’s Favourite Things have been featured in previous Favourite Things; because of that, I had some doubts. Should I continue with Favourite Things if I’m repeating them? Should I press myself to continue with this monthly feature if I’m just going to write about the same things over and over? Do I have no new ideas for anything and is it all for nothing? Nothing, I say???

What can I say, we are in a global pandemic. Dark moments, even about silly blog features, happen. Originally I started Favourite Things with items that I had recently purchased, and now I just like to celebrate the things I like. Apparently, some of these things deserve celebration OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Celebrate the good things! Right? There are no RULES to Favourite Things other than being things that I love that month. There’s no LAW I can’t write about bum warmers over and over. THERE IS NO LAW.

Anyway. This month it is all the things that make me feel hygge. If you can’t feel hygge in January, when can you? Well, if you live in Calgary, there are plenty of opportunities, but I digress.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Hygge-Chaka Hygge-Hygge-Chaka Edition

All The Sweaters, All The Time

I follow a number of fashion blogs, several of which are in California, one in Texas, and one in Florida. The latter blogger once mentioned that she had two sweaters for cooler temperatures, and when I read that, I stared into the distance for a while. Two! I can’t even imagine a world in which I didn’t have a sweater on for nine months of the year. Nine months AT MINIMUM. I have an enormous collection of sweaters: some are light, for mildly cold days, and some could be considered a cold-weather jacket for warmer climates.

Bonus: fuzzy slippers and fuzzy dog, both hygge.

I wear a lot of long cardigans, especially on teaching days when I need to strip down to only two layers (yoga tank and long sleeve tee) for class, without ruining my hair. If I’m not teaching, I wear pullover sweaters with layers underneath. Always, always layers. I can’t think of a single instance wherein I would have a sweater on without at least a tee or tank underneath.

Warm Up That Booty

I have mentioned bum warmers so many times, but they deserve a mention for their place in the hygge lifestyle. A local woman makes these out of thrifted sweaters, and they are just so cute and snuggly.

I have three that I alternate between, but this one is my current favourite as it’s a little bit longer. The other two have matching mittens, but this one goes nicely with my battery-powered heated mittens.

She’s Got Legs, She Knows How To Warm Them

Bums aren’t the only thing that need warming! I wear legging-style yoga pants most days, and those thin pants are just not enough for warmth. On teaching days I wear fitted, stirrup-style legwarmers to keep me warm in that cold, cold community centre; the floor is linoleum over concrete, and it is VERY cold, even in the spring and fall.

Years ago my mother-in-law knitted me several pairs of legwarmers, and they are incredibly thick and cozy. I wear them for walks on days that are cold, but not cold enough for snow pants.

They are too heavy to wear indoors or while teaching but perfect for walking. Options! It’s good to have them.

Sock It To Me

On non-teaching-but-still-wearing-yoga-pants days, I like to wear super-long socks as an extra layer. I have a number of pairs, mostly in black or charcoal.

It takes me a significant amount of time to get dressed in the morning.

It’s Tea Time, Bitches.

One of the interesting things, reading about hygge culture, is that Denmark is a huge consumer of coffee. Me too, Denmark, me too.

The very first thing I do every morning, before I drink two glasses of water, before I wash my face and brush my teeth, before ANYTHING at all, is start the coffee pot. I drink essentially a pot of black coffee every morning and I am not ashamed to admit it. The coffee is not strong, I just like a lot of it. Don’t worry: I drink a ton of water every day too, about 4 litres a day, so I am pretty hydrated and also, yes, I do have to use the bathroom a lot. Sometimes I’ll meet someone who doesn’t drink coffee and never has, and I will be in awe, wondering what that’s like.

Anyway, I have developed a Tea Ritual in the afternoon. When you drink an entire pot of coffee before 8:30 in the morning, you probably don’t need more caffeine in your life. I mean, you do you, but I don’t need more caffeine in my life. However, I like a nice warm drink in the afternoon as sort of a break in my (not-so-busy) schedule. It’s a little treat to look forward to, choosing an herbal tea from my massive stockpile and sipping.

Remember this mug? Leanne sent it to me (HI LEANNE) in the Secret Santa Mug Swap, and it is absolutely perfect for an afternoon cuppa. It’s the perfect size and shape, and it makes me feel cozy and hygge just looking at it, let alone drinking from it.

Girl Put Your Apron On, Tell Me Your Favourite Song

You know what is super hygge? Baking delicious things!

I kind of combined two recipes, and made some changes to end up with this pumpkin swirl loaf, which turned out to be super delicious. The boys asked me if I EVER follow a recipe exactly and I had to really think about it. Pie crust! I never deviate from a pie crust recipe because, let’s face it, pie crust is a bitch to make.

Here’s a Happy Homemaker Hint for you: when rolling out pie crust, roll it between two pieces of wax paper. Take off the top one, and just flip it over onto the pie pan, and peel off the bottom layer. It’s so much easier, although it can still stick and make you swear.

Anyone who knows me knows I despise pie, particularly apple – it’s a grievous waste of good apples! – but I lovingly make them for my family. Well, lovingly and swearingly; as you can see, I had to do some crust patching. Ah well, the whole thing lasted less than 24 hours, so I guess no one cares about esthetics.

Those are my favourite things for this chilly month of January; things that make me feel all the hygge. What are your favourite things? xo

Challenging?; Ninety-Seven Weeks In

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Recently I’ve seen a lot of “ten year challenge” posts on social media, which is one of those strange phenomena of our time. A challenge, in my mind, is to be ninety-seven weeks into a global pandemic and to still get out of bed every morning, putting one foot in front of the other and keeping hope and optimism in day to day life. A challenge is to parent effectively when there are constant disappointments and changes that are out of anyone’s personal control; a challenge is to keep making dinner, day in and day out, with no end in sight and nothing exciting to anticipate. What about the “ten year challenge” is a challenge, exactly? Is the challenge in finding photos that are a decade apart? Or does the challenge actually lie in the posting of photos that are a decade apart, forcing us all to face the changes that ten years have brought and the vast improvements in our ability to take photos with good lighting and posing? I feel like it’s the latter.

I vaguely recalled, pre-pandemic, that one of those challenges had occurred recently, and upon searching my online diary/ blog, I found it in December of 2019, presumably to end off the decade. December 2019 was not all that recent, of course, but what a time that was to be alive. I hosted a Christmas coffee with a dozen women in my house in that month, and we all stood close to each other and ate things.

Anyway, I do not know exactly what is the point of a “ten year challenge” other than to show the vast changes time has wrought on our faces and bodies. I am not saying these changes are bad – every day is a gift, every passing year is a cause for celebration – but they certainly exist. Not only do changes exist, but they SHOULD exist. Do we really want the same hairstyle we had ten years ago? Do we really want to go through life with our faces exactly the same, waxen-like?

I posit that the answer is no.

I had a huge argument with my dad a couple of months ago. We both got pretty heated and it was all on the topic of do I look old. It started when I mentioned a man who I haven’t seen in twenty years and who is my age or a little older; my dad said that he looked the same as he always did, but “old.” I said that the same could be said about me, at which point my dad got extremely indignant. I didn’t look old! I look great! Not old! Great! What was I talking about!

Dads and their daughters, am I right?

I tried to say that the two were not mutually exclusive and, while I do think I look “great,” I do not look like a young woman. We went back and forth for several minutes, this pointless argument ending with me ungraciously conceding, saying that fine, I still look like I’m in my twenties, DAD, and with both of us annoyed with each other.

I came across a great post that exactly describes why I dislike filtered photos; I understand the temptation, I do, but I think that a) on a personal level, I occasionally see people in person, and I don’t want to look different from my social media profiles, and b) on a societal level, I want to see and celebrate women my age who look our age. Society wants older women to be invisible, and filtering makes older women invisible. Fuck the patriarchy!

Also, sometimes those filters actually smooth out features, so that a woman – it’s always a woman – looks like she is missing a nose. I like to be a person with a visible nose.

This reminds me of something that happened several months ago. First, the backstory. Back when Facebook was in its infancy, I reconnected with pretty much everyone in my high school graduation class, including a woman I shall call X. I am still friends with pretty much everyone in my high school graduation class, by the way. I have lots of great feelings and memories about that time of life and I have much enjoyed seeing my compatriots grow and change as I myself have grown and changed.

Back in my high school days, I was a friendly acquaintance with X, rather than a true friend, and it was nice seeing her Facebook updates and getting to know her. Then, one day, she unfriended me. I don’t know why, but you know what, I’m not for everyone. Who knows. As we were never true friends, it didn’t bother me much.

Fast-forward many years, to last spring, and I received a friend request from X. Life changes, people go through rough patches, you never know what’s going on, and so I accepted. The very first post from her that I saw was a before-and-after photo: she had gotten some kind of injection or treatment that made her look like a walking Instagram filter. It was truly amazing; the bags under her eyes, the lines around her mouth – completely gone. She had commented that she had never before posted an unfiltered photo of herself, but now she was doing just that.

She looked really incredible, but something about that nagged me. Do we only post unfiltered photos if we look like we’ve filtered our faces? And yet, SHE LOOKED INCREDIBLE. Imagine walking around, with your face looking like it’s been softened with an Instagram filter! And while I am generally happy with my looks, I kept kind of thinking about it. This “thinking” increased when a friend of my sister-in-law told me, casually, as we were sitting on the beach last summer, about the Botox injections she received in the dental office she worked at. Not only did she tell me about her own treatment, which she received at a highly reduced rate, but she had unsolicited advice for me: I too could benefit from Botox. She went on to say that she wasn’t sure HOW many injections I would need to get rid of my forehead lines, but it would be a lot, and if I DID decide to get an indeterminate-but-absolutely-large-number of Botox injections, I would look amazing. Thanks? I don’t even think this was a passive-aggressive statement, I think it was aggressive-aggressive. Are my forehead lines that terrible that someone who I barely know would comment on them and give me advice about what to do about them? I wondered.

Anyway, I thought and thought and then, for research purposes, I went to look at X’s page, to see where she got the treatments done, and what kind of treatments they were, and it was then that I discovered she unfriended me, again. Well! I took it as a sign. People come in and out of your life for a reason, and I think that X’s reason was to remind me to be happy and contented with my face, as it is. Forehead lines and all.

After all, look at Betty White! What a beauty she was in her old age.

I saw that magazine at Superstore and, although I really do understand publication schedules and logistics, it was still very startling.

For what it’s worth, I’ll play along with the ten year challenge. No filters! Just me in 2012:

And now in 2022:

You know what, I’m happy with my face. I am happy with the changes, and I am also grateful – ETERNAL GRATITUDE – for home hair colour kits and moisturizer.

Pandemic Reading

The Way We Weren’t. Someone recommended this to me, and the woman I THOUGHT recommended it says she didn’t. So, I don’t know. Someone did, who was it? Anyway, this is quite a touching story about marriage, compromise, loss, and a very unlikely friendship between a crusty old man and a forty-something woman, both coping with loss and sadness. I didn’t love this but I did like it. Trigger warning: pregnancy loss is a major theme. 

Girlhood. I’m going to be honest: I almost didn’t make it through the prologue. The prologue very lyrically and beautifully outlines the author’s life: a happy childhood that ends with precocious development that leads to multiple unwanted sexual encounters and sexual assault, leaving school at 16, becoming a meth and then heroin addict, her years as a sex worker, and finally sobriety and becoming an award winning author and professor. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I had the emotional strength to read it. I’m glad I did, I guess, but I’ll tell you, it was rough going. It’s part memoir, part scholarly deep dive into what it means to be a woman, and the various ways the patriarchy destroys womanhood and our ability to love and care for ourselves. It’s compelling and powerful and very, very grim. It ends hopeful but is crushing to read. Take care if you read this.

Will. “Will Smith don’t gotta cuss on his taps to sell records. Well I do. So fuck him, and fuck you too.” (There’s a little Slim Shady in all of us, people). I got a little jiggy with it and picked this up. I liked the parts about the early days of rap and hip hop in the 80s; that was a musically formative time in my life. I still know all the lyrics to Parents Just Don’t Understand (okay, here’s the situation: my parents went away on a weeks’ vacation). It was interesting to read about DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, and also how he made so much money from those years and blew it ALL by the time he was 20. It’s an interesting psychological phenomenon to see a person suddenly strike it rich and then spend it all; it’s a fact that sudden wealth is mean-reverting and that lottery winners are broke after only a few years. Smith spent all his money on cars, motorcycles, and houses, and he also didn’t pay his taxes, so he was completely broke and owing the IRS a ton of money, just before he got cast on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Quincy Jones basically saved his life. Fun fact: the ghost writer also wrote The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, and once you know that, you can’t unknow it. The voice comes out. I liked this just fine, didn’t love it, didn’t hate it, it was okay though. Oh, and the reason “Will Smith don’t gotta cuss on his raps?” His grandma overheard him swearing and shamed him for it, saying that intelligent people don’t need to use that language. So, out of respect for his grandma, he kept his raps squeaky-clean. Awww. Grandmas!

The Cost of Living. This is the second of Levy’s memoirs, and it deals mainly with her divorce, living as a single mom, and finding space to write. I really liked it and am looking forward to reading the third. Check out the back of the book:

It’s the last full week of January! Time flies even when it’s January, I guess. How do you feel about filters, fillers, and injections? What about photo challenges? Tell me everything. xo

Goals, Goals, Goals; Ninety-Six Weeks In

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If you’re not singing that title a la Motley Crue, then I don’t know what to say. If you are, sorry/ not sorry for the earworm.

As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t set particular goals or resolutions or words-of-the-year in January, but I do like to look at my collective year-round goals during this month. What can I say, I like the Fresh Start feeling of the New Year, even if it is January 17, and New Year’s already feels like it was several months ago. Time has no meaning.

You know, I’m not even sure that I can classify most of these as goals. They are just things I aim to do every day. Well, I guess technically that is the definition of a goal, but it doesn’t feel like I need to strive to do these things; at this point, they are just habits, habits that I write down in my agenda every week as a to-do list.

Honestly, I think that is the key to any goal: make it a habit and write it down so that you can cross it off, either mentally or physically. What is it about a list that I love? I have no idea, but it’s motivational.

Before we get into that, I have to tell you something that brings me joy and happiness every single day, and that is the increasing amount of daylight. I first noticed a couple of weeks ago that it wasn’t dark at 4:30 pm, and then I started watching for the sunset. Now it happens around 5, and the sky is dusky and navy blue for a few minutes after that, and it’s really lovely.

More daylight! I also realize that since giving up the news, I have more TIME in the day. I didn’t think I spent much time reading the news, but apparently doomscrolling and obsessively checking Covid numbers and updates took up more time than I thought, which gives me time to do other things, like work on my goals/ habits.

So, goals! I’m going to call these all goals, for lack of a better word. These are the Quantifiable Goals, as opposed to my Hippy-Dippy Goals; Yoda-like, there is a do-or-do-not-do feel to them.

Food Is Delicious, Can I Have Some More Please

One goal that I started to work on a few months ago is to add new recipes to my roster. Longtime readers will remember my Eating A Rainbow meal plan that I literally never deviate from. Like, never. During the Christmas holidays, we had Greek salad on a Thursday instead of a Friday and my kids both told me that they were confused all of Friday as they thought it was Saturday. We’re having Greek salad and it’s NOT Friday, what’s happening, all is chaos and turmoil.

You’ll be happy to know that I am still not deviating from my meal plan, but I am adding to it: Pasta Night is still Monday, but occasionally I’ll try a new sauce, Stir Fry Night is still Tuesday, but I might try a different kind of stir-fry. I know! Saturdays, I might try an entirely new thing. I know. How wild can I be?

My general goal is to try two new recipes a month, whether that be for a meal or dessert or baked goods. So far, I’ve nailed it for December and January, so I hope to keep that up. I have so many cookbooks and I don’t use them frequently; I am more of a free-styler when it comes to cooking. I am a recipe developer’s nightmare as I use them as a vague jumping-off point, but still! I’m trying new things! I received this book for Christmas:

Did I follow the recipes to a tee? No, I did not. But so far, the recipes that I free-styled from it are GREAT – Manchurian sauce for stir-fry night and “nacho seasoning,” which I used on one of my usual black-bean recipes – and will be in the regular rotation.

Joyful Movement

Whenever I think of Joyful Movement I think of this:

Mmm. The Land of Chocolate.

The truth is that I really love cardio workouts and getting sweaty and red-faced.

Because I do love this kind of workout, I usually do something sweaty six days a week. The key for me is to do things that I love: Peloton biking and running are the main activities, but I am on a running hiatus right now. I will not run outside when it’s slippery, snowy, icy, and/ or below zero, so typically I use the treadmill at my fitness club for the winter months. My fitness club is still open and requires all members to be fully vaccinated to use the facility, but even so I don’t feel great breathing heavily, maskless, while others around me are doing the same. Instead I’m getting cozy with my elliptical trainer, which is fairly boring, but I find a good playlist helps a lot with my motivation.

I classify these things as Joyful Movement because I truly enjoy them; if ever I feel like I have to do something, rather than I want to do something, I take it as a sign to stop.

A small note here: a year ago I started strength training, and it is NOT a Joyful Movement, in fact, I kind of hate it, BUT I keep up with it because I feel it’s important for injury and osteoporosis prevention. I also keep all strength workouts to ten minutes or so, and really, I can do anything for ten minutes. Right? Right. Occasionally one of my sons will observe me doing my workout, with a massively bitchy look on my face, and say “Go Mom! You’re totally not going to get The Osteo!” which makes me smile and motivates me to keep going.

Go Outside And Play

I make a point to go for a walk every day, every single day, even when it’s minus 30. I think the fresh air is so important and even the coldest walks boost my mood, albeit because I feel hardy and accomplished when I go out in such weather. If I’m walking by myself, I listen to podcasts, which are also Joyful Things.

Keep The Streak, But Don’t Be Weird About It

Speaking of walks, in March 2020 I decided I would get my daily step goals, as dictated to me by my Garmin watch, and keep that streak going. People, I kept that streak for 504 days, FIVE HUNDRED AND FOUR. I finally broke the streak because I was quite ill with inadvertent iron poisoning, the story/ cautionary tale of which I will save for another time.

I felt sad about breaking my streak, even though I couldn’t be far from a bathroom, let alone go on a 5km walk. But honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking. Did I think I would keep my streak FOREVER? Would I keep going until I had one foot in the grave? I had to shake it off and let it go, thinking I can start a NEW streak, won’t that be fun or something, and now I’m on a 147 day streak. Will I exceed my previous streak? Who knows? Who cares! The point is, sometimes you have to let things go.

On December 28, 2020 I started a Peloton activity streak, which means I am on day 385; 385 little blue dots! If you know, you know. I think this is something that sounds more impressive than it is: for example, when I was on vacation I kept my streak by doing 5 minute stretches or meditations. Hey, logging an activity is logging an activity, and although I meditate every day by myself, sometimes I like a guided meditation, especially when it will earn me a blue dot.

Put That OM In The OMG

While we are on the topic of meditation, this is something I do, along with my yoga practice, every single day. Most days my practice takes around 45-55 minutes, but some days I recognize that I need less. On those days, I may do only standing postures and then sit in meditation for 20 minutes, or I may do a restorative practice, or I merely sit in meditation. I think there is an idea out there that if you roll out your mat, you have to “make it count” and do a certain number of postures for a certain amount of time, and I am here to say THAT IS NOT CORRECT. Some days a five-minute meditation may be all you need, some days you may take child’s resting pose for 20 minutes, and some days you might spend an hour on your practice. And when I say “you,” I mean “me.”

Tickling The Ivories

A year or so ago, I was talking to my son, who is a drummer, about my piano playing. I was finding it hard to learn anything new, my fingers just weren’t what they used to be. Yeah Mom, maybe if you actually practiced more, it would be easier, he said, and he’s right. I vowed to play at least three songs a day, every weekday.

It’s incredible what actual practice will do for you. My fingers remember all my old exam material, I can play without music in front of me, and best of all, I’m really enjoying finding new music to play. Some days I’m pressed for time and play three one-page songs; other days, I go through all four verses of Piano Man.

Pandemic Reading

In 2021, I read 156 books! I do not have a goal number for 2022, but I try to pick up a book instead of my phone when I am bored or have a few minutes to spare. More books, no doomscrolling, we shall see how long this lasts but so far so good.

I Heart Hawaii. I discovered, AFTER reading this, that this book is number eight of eight in a series. Eight! Well, I did not need to read any previous books about the foibles of a British girl in New York City to follow the plot of this one. It was just silly and fun and fluffy, and I recommend it if you just want some mind candy. It’s nice to read about Hawaii in January, I think.

A Carnival of Snackery. Oh, I love David Sedaris! Although I don’t enjoy his fiction, his personal essays are pure gold. If you are like me, you’ll LOVE this book. It’s comprised of his diaries and it’s just so good. At times I laughed so hard my husband came upstairs, alarmed, thinking I was having some kind of breakdown. Even Barkley, who is deaf, would pick up his head and stare at me as I cry-laughed, unable to breathe. It’s not all hilarity though; much is sad and thoughtful and tragic. Since it’s diary entries, there are many current events: the Iraq War, elections, school shootings, police violence, racism, and violence towards and changing attitudes about homosexuality. It ends, of course, with the pandemic. Throughout are observations about his various relationships, and particularly poignant is his fraught relationship with his father, who suffers ill health and is actually diagnosed with – but recovers from, at age 97 – Covid.

Devotions. I started reading this, poem by poem, in March 2020. I would start my day with one poem. After a while, I added other poetry to the mix and then would read one or two poems a week. I had been holding off on reading the last few poems for a couple of months, just going back and rereading favourites, because I didn’t want to finish this. In the words of Grace in Alias Grace when she is asked why she’s not eating the apple given her, Then it would be gone. Finally, I did read the last poem. Mary Oliver’s poetry resonates with me so deeply; her love of nature, her uplifting messages. I just might start again from the beginning.

Goals, goals, goals. That’s all of mine – any of yours you want to share? xo

No News Is Good News; Ninety-Five Weeks In

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It occurred to me this week that a lot of parallels can be drawn between pandemic mitigation strategies and sex ed. Just as the only Absolutely Certain 100% way to avoid pregnancy and STI is Complete Abstinence, so the only Absolutely Certain 100% way to avoid Covid infection is to remain Completely Isolated. However, here we are, ninety-five weeks in, and I think we can all agree that, being social creatures Complete Isolation is not ideal, just like Complete Abstinence is not something that is a practical or viable option for our young people. Or ourselves, really, but being nearly 47 and in a monogamous relationship for twenty-four years is a whole different kettle of fish, from an STI and pregnancy standpoint.

So, just like condoms and the pill prevent pregnancy and STI, not all the time but most, we look to masks and vaccines, which, together, work not all the time but most. I am not going to even get into the men who go condom-less or the people who have completely unprotected sex with several people in the course of a weekend, and I’m certainly not going to get into the people who are anti-mask-and-vaccine and who want life to be the way it was in 2019, crowds and all. The analogy starts to fall apart here, because ideally we choose our sexual partners, and we cannot always choose the people who surround us in every day life.

As an example to what things are like here, I was grocery shopping and a woman was there, in the frozen food aisle, with no mask on, not even on her chin, not below her nose, just no mask at all. We have had, for many months, an indoor mask mandate which is followed by basically everyone, and so it was Very Notable and Kind of Shocking. I had to remind myself not to judge, maybe there was some mitigating circumstance, literally the only thing I knew about this woman is that she did not have a mask on, but it was so very strange and unusual. Everyone in the frozen food aisle was giving this woman large berth, swooping their giant carts around her and, if they were like me, holding their breath. I am, therefore, grateful that such a thing is strange enough to be remarkable, and also, I am sure I will look back at these days when we think Everyone Is A Potential Disease Vector with sadness.

Also remarkable and momentous: today the kids are going back to school in person. I cannot even begin to describe the deep sense of relief I felt when I got the notification from the school board informing me of this. The schools have had a mask mandate since fall of 2020, but now every student will be given an eight-week supply of medical grade masks. Each student will be given rapid test kits as well, and will be expected to use them regularly until this wave has subsided. This is great news because rapid test kits are currently completely unavailable, and all testing centres are so overwhelmed that no one can get a PCR test unless they are involved in a current recorded outbreak or are in a high-risk category or line of work.

There is still risk to having in-person school – there are no ideal options here, people – but I feel the risk mitigation strategies are sufficient and the risks are outweighed massively by the benefits to having kids being around their peers. Online school was difficult in so many different ways and while I am grateful the kids had SOMETHING during that time, I think the vast amounts of screen time and isolation from other kids was detrimental to their mental and physical health.

A friend of mine said that I sounded fatalist the other day, because I said that I wasn’t going to spend my time and energy worrying about whether or not we contract Covid; we are doing as much as we can – vaccines, masks, distancing, limiting contact with people – and that will have to be good enough. I know so many people right now who have contracted Covid, even with Doing All The Right Things, and if I also Do All The Right Things and one still slips past the goalie, well. I have reached the point where I cannot spend any more time being anxious about it. We have to live our lives, not in a crazy reckless way but with caution, with mitigation strategies, and with hope, I guess. I am doing my best, my family is doing their best, and I cannot control what anyone else is doing. My best has to be good enough.

All of which brings me to one of my Quantifiable Goals; I mentioned last week that I do not exactly have New Year’s Goals or Resolutions, instead I add goals or concepts to my life as I go throughout the year. One of those goals – which I count as quantifiable – is Don’t Read The News. Do I need to be constantly updated with Pandemic News? No, I do not. Does constantly scrolling through the news ramp up my anxiety and feelings of hopelessness? Yes, it does. It’s an easy fix. The news will happen with or without me; I don’t need to read it. I get email updates from the CBE and the government concerning changes in policies that affect me and that affect the schools, and honestly, that’s enough. I don’t need a constant barrage of information. If something really important happens, someone will tell me, I’m sure. Following the daily case counts and death counts and positivity rates and R-values does nothing for me; it’s not going to change my low-risk behaviour, it is only going to make me despair.

My daily gratitude meditation is, of course, that the kids are back at school, as safely as possible. I am so grateful. I know many of you are living in jurisdictions in which the prevailing attitude is that either the pandemic doesn’t exist or that individual rights to not wear masks or distance or vaccinate far outweigh public health and the well-being of the community at large. For those of you living with that reality and experience, I am so sorry. I wish I could bring you here and keep you safe and healthy.

Although, if I did bring you here, you might need to pack some layers. Last week the daily high temperatures were in the minus twenties, with the windchill factors in the high minus thirties. Today, the extreme cold snap is supposed to break and that, along with the kids going back to school, makes me feel hopeful.

Pandemic Reading

Humankind. This was a very interesting and hopeful read! Covering the London Blitz and other war strategies, as well as psychological experiments from the Stanford Prison Experiment to the one with people electrically shocking other people, to the real-life Lord of the Flies and the Christmas truce of 1914, this book is full of information and compassion. I like the message that we are what we feed ourselves, in terms of information. The experiments that supposedly show the dark side of humankind are exposed in a different way, which did make me feel hopeful. It should be noted that this book was published in 2019, so pre-pandemic but mid-Trump-regime.

Things I Don’t Want To Know: On Writing. I really liked this quick little memoir of Deborah Levy’s South African childhood and her writing life. This is the first of three memoirs, and I will definitely read the next two.

This Will Only Hurt A Little. Have you ever read a celebrity memoir without having any idea who the celebrity is? I picked this up on my friend Terry’s (HI TERRY) recommendation, not knowing who Busy Phillips is (she’s in TV shows I’ve never watched and movies I’ve never heard of, plus she’s an Instagram star!). It’s very brave of her to write so candidly. Her life is kind of a hot mess, honestly, but this was worth the read/ enraging due to the stories about men in Hollywood and their entitlement and bad behaviour. Also, when she was pregnant she was constantly asked if she was having twins which, me too, Busy. Me too.

Want. This is a short and exquisitely written book that perfectly describes so many experiences: wealth, bankruptcy, consumption, motherhood, friendship, health insurance, and, most of all, all-encompassing privilege. It’s really well done BUT I found it depressing and frustrating to read. It’s dark, and enraging. I wanted to shake the main character so much and tell her to make better choices.

I am starting this week feeling hopeful; what is the situation like where you are? xo

Hippy-Dippy Goals; Ninety-Four Weeks In

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Happy New Year!

As I mentioned in my 2021 roundup, the year ended – and the New Year started – on kind of a low point. The boys were supposed to be going back to school tomorrow, but on December 30 it was announced that winter break would be extended to the 10th, and January diploma exams, of which my older son was due to write three, would be cancelled.

For the past several months, I have been saying to myself that as long as the kids are in school, I can take anything. I could go back to patchy grocery store shelves, I could line up at Costco, my husband could continue to work out of our basement, I could wear a mask anywhere and everywhere and see friends outdoors, I could forgo parties and travel and everything else, just let the kids be in school. They have been so happy in these past four months, and, well. Here we are.

The announcement made me feel like folding in on myself like an accordion, and to just go to bed. I did, however, get up on New Year’s Eve, rolled out my yoga mat, and picked up my poetry books. I read the final Rumi poem of the year, I did it, you guys, and then, because it was completely uninspiring to me, I opened up Mary Oliver’s Devotions and came across this:

This whole pandemic, all ninety-four weeks of it, I have been thinking to myself Just Keep Swimming. But it occurred to me, after reading this, that the past ninety-four weeks have had a lot of long lonely falls and frenzied risings. Perhaps all these swings will mean that our children will be the most resilient generation, learning to pivot and adapt and thrive in any circumstances.

My younger son scoffs at the idea of New Year’s resolutions or goal setting; he sets goals throughout the year, not just in January. I am the same way; throughout the year I add goals or concepts or mantras that I want to live by, and then I start right away. However, it’s nice to lay them out in January, feeling like it’s a fresh start; at the least, January is a good time to reflect on past goals and future ones. There’s nothing quite like a brand-new calendar to make you feel fresh and rejuvenated.

OKAY, CALENDAR, I’LL TRY.

It must be said that the majority of my goals are completely unquantifiable. Not all of them – I’ve had “buy a new bra” on my annual list for YEARS and finally, last year, I bought not only one, but THREE, STRIKE IT FROM THE TO-DO LIST – but most. How do you measure “mindfulness,” for example? I like having unquantifiable goals, though, because they are things that you can always keep in mind and work on throughout the year, and easily add to. Over the next couple of weeks, I am going to lay out some actually quantifiable goals that I work on daily. I mean, what else is there to write about in January? The never-ending feelings of despair that come from nearly two years of pandemic life? The fact that my teenagers will never experience normal high school life? The worry that my sons’ activities that they love will be cancelled? The concern about their education and preparation for adult life? NO. I’ve written enough about that. I’ve thought enough about that. We have all had enough.

Anyway, for today, I want to talk about the concepts and mantras that I use for everyday living.

Embrace The Season

Back in *checks blog* June 2021, I was inspired to Embrace the Season, by an incredible woman who has since passed. Rest in peace, Melanie. I think that Embracing the Season that you are in is probably the best way to go through life; you are here, this is now.

There are wonderful, joyful, inspiring things happening in every season of our lives, yes, even this one, yes, even though it’s actually minus 28 right now. It’s Winter, both literally and figuratively, let’s treat ourselves like favoured children, like our most loved ones. Right? Right.

Bloom Where You Are Planted

This goes with Embracing the Season. I’m planted here, in this city, and this is where I’ll bloom. I can make things better one tiny step at a time; I can do this with my yoga classes and my interactions with people, friends and strangers alike, I can make my yard and home into something beautiful, I can write things that will hopefully reach people in the way that I intend. I’m going to bloom, damn it.

Does anyone remember the old poem called You Learn? It was sort of about breakups and relationships, and I read it as a teenager. Back then, it was deeply meaningful to me; I’m pretty sure I read it after a breakup. Oh, the fires of youth. Anyway, there is a line in there that I have remembered lo these many years, and it was Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. Let’s plant our own gardens, and we can bloom in them.

Friluftsliv

It feels very appropriate to talk about Friluftsliv when it’s MINUS 28. I first discovered this concept in the fall of 2020, and I have adopted it in my life. It’s a Norwegian word that means, roughly, outdoor living, and goes with the idea that there is no bad weather, just bad clothes. I like to tie Friluftsliv in with Embracing the Season and Blooming Where You Are Planted because this is where I live, and where I live is more often cold and unpleasant than not. I go for a walk every day, no matter the weather, and I can tell you that dressing appropriately is the key. With proper clothing, even minus 30 is doable, with the bonus that I feel like a hardy Norwegian superstar afterwards. This segues nicely into…

Hygge

I absolutely love the concept of hygge – am I spiritually Danish? Maybe. – because what could be better than coziness and warmth in the winter? I see lots of books and warm drinks and baking in my future; not that this is a change for me, but still. Hygge.

Gratitude and Awe

Sometimes it’s easy to have feelings of gratitude and awe; maybe the sky is brilliantly blue and the trees are covered with snow, and it’s a perfect scene. Maybe my family picks up some of the household chores without being asked, gratitude, gratitude. Maybe we will get an email from the school that says the kids are going back – too much to ask? Maybe.

Several months ago I was listening to an interview with Giselle Bunchen, of all people, and she said that she practices gratitude daily; when she has a plate of fruit she thinks of the farmers, of the sun and the rain that helped the fruit to grow, the people who pick the fruit, the person who drove the truck to the supermarket, and the people who work at the supermarket. When you think about it that way, an apple can seem like a miracle. Then I was reading Wake Up To The Joy In You, and there was a paragraph about the miracle that is a book: the process to make paper, the years of perfecting the printed word, the writer who wrote the book, and the miles the book has travelled to be in your hands. When you start thinking about life that way, everything is miraculous. It takes practice, but I’m trying.

Pandemic Reading – The Year Long Books

A Year With Rumi. I did it! I finished this! I did consider, very briefly, not finishing, but then the day after I posted about it, the poem of the day was The Guest House, which is probably my favourite Rumi poem (the bar is kind of low), and I took that as a sign to keep going. 365 poems and just a handful resonated with me; apparently I’m not a Rumi person. “Is it because he’s a man?” my son asked me. Maybe?

Wake Up To The Joy In You. I loved this book of meditations so much that I think I will re-read it in 2022. I read one chapter a week and then kept the meditation in mind throughout the week. I cannot say enough about this book; it’s an incredible journey of self-care and self-acceptance and self-love, and what could be a better thing to start the year with? I mean, look at this last chapter. EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED TO READ.

Pandemic Reading – The Regular Week

How To Be A Victorian. Good lord I am glad to live in the modern age, even with a global pandemic and the polarization of our population on literally every topic. AT LEAST WE HAVE WASHING MACHINES. And food. And toilets. And central heating. And pretty much everything else. This book is an incredibly well-researched book about daily life in the Victorian age – the author has lived and worked on a “Victorian farm” and I admire her commitment to detail. Corsets, skirts, brushing her teeth with soot. Going without water-based washing for four months. Eating suet, SUET PEOPLE. Anyway, some chapters dragged for me and others were fascinating, particularly the home remedies and medical chapter. Oh! And the air quality in Victorian London was so gross – pea soup fog, no proper sewage…yay for the modern age! There is a passage about the pea soup fogs of London; at the worst of times you could wave your hand in front of your face and not see it. IMAGINE. Anyway, thanks to my friend Jeni (HI JENI) for the recommendation. Talk about gratitude. I AM GRATEFUL FOR MY LIFE, I SWEAR.

The Relatives. I was really interested to read this as I have been mixed on Gibb’s books. I loved Sweetness in the Belly, but did not love This Is Happy – sorry to all of you who adore that book. I really liked The Relatives, a lot. In fact, I devoured it. Such an interesting cast of characters, all interrelated but unknowingly. I am going to give some trigger warnings here for…a lot of things? Infertility, child neglect, abuse, and a lot of kind of gross imagery. But for all that, I really enjoyed this.

Love and Other Words. This was so disappointing for me. I really like this author and I really do like a nice, light romance, but this just didn’t do it for me. It dragged so much and I had a hard time caring about the characters and the story line. Blah blah blah. Anyway, not for me but on to the next book!

I feel like this post has been a bit of a journey for me, since I started writing it. I am still low-level worried and anxious and sad about school, but we are here, we are together, we’ve come this far and we can keep going. Right? I mean, let’s think about the Victorians. We have running CLEAN water, we might be facing Covid but we have vaccines and medical care and, presumably, we are not going to all die of cholera, because of the running water. My kids are at school, not in a sweatshop doing child labour, and today I’m going to bake muffins and do laundry and neither of those things will require massive amounts of physical exertion. Life is good, even when it feels a bit disheartening. How are you feeling, this New Year? Tell me everything. xo