I have been learning Spanish via the Duolingo app, thanks to the encouragement of my younger son, who is using that app to learn Japanese. My goal is to become semi-conversational, and I was practicing phrases the other morning when everyone was in and out of the kitchen, making their breakfasts and getting ready for the day ahead. Imagine, if you will, a perky, I’ve-Been-Awake-For-Hours Nicole, trying out Spanish phrases on her Just-Woke-Up-Don’t-Talk-To-Me family. “Tu quiero un jugo de naranja?” I said to my older son as he, bleary-eyed, poured himself some orange juice. “Yo bebo cafe!” I said happily. “Tu quiero el pan?” I asked my husband as he opened the fridge to grab the rye bread. He looked at me blankly and then said “Si, senorita.”

Oooh, senorita! Is he trying to court me? My son asked what was the difference anyway, between senorita and senora, which led me into a long diatribe about the world in which we live in, where men go their whole lives being senors or sirs, and women get demarcated into ma’ams or senoras at a certain age to indicate their mature status, at which point he said, “Well, you’re always talking about how GREAT aging is and how AMAZING it is to get old, and how you’re so LUCKY to be able to be old, so you should be really be excited to be a senora.” Then he raised his eyebrows, with a half-smile, in the way someone would while laying down a royal flush, just before scooping a huge pile of chips towards them.

Well, he’s right. And today is my birthday! If you know me at all you know a) I love birthdays, b) I think everyone should be treated like a queen or similar on their birthday, and c) I especially love MY birthday. Although I’ve been married to one for over twenty years, I don’t really understand people who go about their birthday like it’s just another day, and are completely quiet on the subject. If it were socially acceptable to walk around with a tiara and a sandwich board proclaiming It’s My Birthday, I would. Alas, it isn’t.

But it’s my blog and I Do What I Want. It’s a Thursday, which may not be the Prime Day for a birthday, but means I can really spread out the celebration over two weekends. It also means that I can give you a Nicole’s Favourite Things!

I don’t know about you, but the number 47 is one that I use conversationally in a hyperbolic way to indicate something that is scrambled or chaotic: I feel like I’m being pulled in 47 different directions, I have 47 different things on my plate right now, all I wanted was a coffee and there were 47 things on the menu and none of them were coffee. Do I feel, on my 47th birthday, like I’m scrambled or chaotic? Not really, but I thought it would be fun to list out 47 things I love on my 47th birthday.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The 47th Birthday Edition

• Coffee coffee coffee.

• Early morning yoga in a silent, sleeping house.
• Watching the night sky lighten into dawn.
• Sunrises.

• Holding my breath as I put away my thick, heavy, cute sweaters and take out my lighter, spring-weight cute sweaters.
• At-home hair colour.
• Books books books.
• The library! I love you, library. You are so good at sharing.
• Having teenage boys and all the great conversations that we have, including but not limited to: The Girl From Ipanema is a stalker song, how Shakespeare lacked originality in naming characters in Macbeth, and Brezhnev’s eyebrows.
• CAKE! All kinds, but especially BIRTHDAY cake!

• Red red wine, you make me feel so fine, even if you give me hot flashes. It’s worth it!

• Dr. Jen Gunter and The Menopause Manifesto, for normalizing things like hot flashes.
• Sunday morning walks with my Shmoopy.

• My Garmin watch, which praises me for moving. Thanks, Garmin, I DO deserve a “mic drop” for getting my steps in.
• Friends I get to see in real life, even if it’s not often, and friends I never get to see in real life, but connect with often.
• My chosen sisters – you know who you are!
• Visiting my parents at the lake.

• Wrinkle cream and serums! God bless.
• Mascara!
• Lipstick and lip gloss for those times I don’t need a mask. Is there anything more transformative and life-affirming than a good lip colour?
• Yoga pants.
• Yoga pants that look like regular pants – it’s sorcery!
• Greek salad and hummus on Friday nights.
• My piano.
• Spotify, what an age we live in that I can just listen to whatever I want whenever I want ALL THE DAMN TIME, even when it’s something completely random.
• Podcasts! Especially Gen X This Is Why, By The Book, Jiffy Pop Culture, and We Didn’t Start The Fire – my current favourites.
• Modern medicine: thank you, modern medicine, for being awesome and saving lives.
• Little green shoots in my garden, that are currently under a thick blanket of snow, but I know they are there!
• Barkley! My puppers.
• My home gym, specifically my Peloton, and, even more specifically, Leanne Hainsby’s classes. I was saving her latest Disco Ride for this morning, and – this has never happened before – it disappeared. DISAPPEARED. I wanted disco, so I did an old Disco Ride, which was great, and I was number one on the leaderboard (out of one, that’s how old the ride was). Still, I will be singing Ring My Bell all day today.
• Popcorn. It was back at Superstore, and I may or may not have completely stocked up and I may or may not look like I’m hoarding popcorn.
• Berry season! Bring on the berries!
• Salvadore, my garden gnome, who is not yet in the garden but has been moved every night after I go to bed. It’s like my own, non-holiday version of Elf in the Shelf.

• Puzzles, but not ones that are too challenging.
• Desiderata, which belonged to my grandma and has meant something special to me since I was a kid, and now hangs, reframed, beside my piano. I read it every day.

• My yoga students; past and current. I love them all. One of them brought me peppermint bars today!
• Mint chocolate; whoever first put that combination together deserves accolades.
• Nuts; every day I am grateful there are no nut allergies in our house.
• Speaking of nuts, peanut butter and chocolate. Now there’s a delicious combination.
• Memories of long-ago spring break beach vacations, and dreams of future ones. There are going to be future ones, right?
• Cutting into the perfect avocado.

• Sunshine and mild spring temperatures, hopefully they are coming.
• Running in the fresh air.
• Our proximity to the Rocky Mountains and my ability to hike in those mountains.
• Cute pajamas.
• Green smoothies, every day.

• All of my wonderful blog friends. Some of you have been with me since 2008, some of you are more recent friends, and I appreciate each and every one of you. Thank you for being here, thank you for taking this journey with me. We are better together. xo