Author Archives: Nicole Boyhouse

Fun with the Sears Catalogue

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This was the view out my back door last week:

It has been cold and snowy forever, I think.  In reality it has been more like three and a half weeks, but it feels like forever.  At least the sun came out yesterday, which makes me feel less like stabbing people who complained about the summer heat, and more like taking the kids sledding.

 
 

I am someone who is hyper-organized when it comes to winter gear.  All outerwear is tried on, and necessary items purchased, by the first week of September at the very latest.  This is normally a very good thing: I am ready for when the weather drops twenty degrees overnight, I am not scrambling to find matching mittens, I know that my kids will fit into their designated snowpants.  But recently it backfired: the children’s feet had a sudden growth spurt in late September, and it was difficult for them to get their giant flipper feet in and out of their boots.  Rather than search the mall and become frustrated at the lack of sizes, choices, and temperature ratings, I always order winter boots online from Sears.

I went to pick up my order on the weekend, and there was a lovely cross-section of Sears shoppers at the catalogue office: a young couple buying a bedroom suite, a woman talking excitedly about the arrival of a new grandchild and the need to purchase a crib, a crotchety old man, and me.  The old man at first endeared himself to me by referring to me as “young lady” but then made things uncomfortable by lighting into the lady at the counter about an $0.81 discrepancy on his bill.

It was minus 24 with windchill last Friday, and yet I allowed myself to be peer pressured into walking my dog with my much hardier friends.  I felt somehow that I deserved some sort of medal for trudging through the heavy snow in the cold.  Or maybe I just need a better coat.  The one I have right now is very warm and huge; wearing it is like being wrapped in a comforter, as shown in this (old) picture:

but yet it isn’t quite long enough.  I was mentioning this to my friend, who suggested that perhaps I have reached the stage of womanhood of wearing ankle length, pastel coloured puffy coats, with ruched sleeves.  It occured to me then, not for the first time, that clothing really goes in stages of life, and I am sliding down the slippery slope from “fashionable” to “practical and I don’t care what I look like.”  The next step after that is wearing caftan-type nighties and matching velour housecoats.  




Although maybe not.  I’m more of a pajama girl, anyway. 

It’s funny, though.  I was thinking about my teen and university years, when I would wear miniskirts and crop sweaters year-round, with light jackets and no scarves.  Now I’m wearing the down-filled equivalent of a burkha.  I saw a young girl walk by my house last week, in the bitter cold, with an open jacket, a skirt and BARE LEGS.  I had to hold myself back from running outside and bundling her up.  I see girls like this and I say things – out loud, and directly to said girls – like “Oh dear, you look cold.  Don’t you have some mittens?”  In other words, I have turned into my own grandma.  I sure hope the next step isn’t wearing these:

The first sweater is advertised as a “face-framing” sweater for ultimate face-framing flattery.  The other two are called “fooler” sweaters, and I would like to know why.  Wait.  I just answered my own question – it is due to the “double cross-over collar” which “fools” people into thinking that you are wearing two “shirts”.  I got a little crazy with the quotation marks there, but can you blame me?  That poor blonde woman is staring at me with angst, probably because she is modelling a sweater with cardinals on it.

I’m pretty sure I’ll never wear one of those sweaters – they don’t come in black – but I can’t be sure I won’t be rocking the nursing home in one of these:


That model is WAY too young for a leopard-print tunic blouse.  I can see myself wearing this, with my bleeding lipstick and my super artificial red hair, my open-toed pumps, and these slacks:

There are a lot of pluses to being in the “slacks” stage of life, the biggest one being elastic waist bands.  Although that’s kind of a moot point for anyone who is often found to be wearing yoga pants.  The only difference between these slacks and yoga pants, really, is the fabric.  Another plus to these slacks is that you would never have “whale tail”.  Of course, I’m not sure thongs would be the undergarment of choice once the slacks stage of life has been reached.  I’m guessing the appropriate panty would be more like this one:

 
Or this one, for less fancy occasions:
 

Those are touted as “anti-static panties” which I find very, very amusing for very, very inappropriate reasons.

Did you know November is Gratitude Month?

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Well, it is!  I don’t know who comes up with these specialty months; probably the same people who come up with “Grandparents’ Day”.  For the record, every day is Grandparents’ Day, just like every month should be Gratitude Month.  Right?  It’s like I tell my kids when they are coveting something new immediately after a birthday, we should be grateful and enjoy the things we have, right now.  And then I go and spoil it all by purchasing a new black sweater or a yoga top.

But truly, I have so much to be grateful for, every day, and not just the obvious things like health, family, drawers full of black sweaters, etc. 

Things I am grateful for:

1) Jake can sing Gangnam Style, and his mastery of Korean lyrics is comparable to his mastery of English ones.  Heeeeyyyyy, sexy lay-day.  His rendition is equal, if not greater than, his rendition of I’m Sexy And I Know It.  There’s nothing quite so inappropriately cute as a seven year old boy singing “I’ve got action in my pants and I ain’t afraid to show it”.  He is pretty fly. 

2) The boys both like to dance Gangnam Style, although it is really just their regular dance moves, which leads me to believe that Psy stole their moves.  Imitation, sincerest form of flattery, etc. 

3) I went to an assembly at the kids’ school yesterday where there was a visit from several Calgary Stampeders and cheerleaders.  I wasn’t going to go but I ran into a friend who was going and she totally peer pressured me.  It turned out to be hugely fun, complete with student MC who, in a completely robot-like monotone, said how exciting it was to have the football players visit our school, and Go Stamps.  Then the Ralph the Dog mascot pretended to lick the principal, and hilarity ensued. 

4) Prior to attending the assembly, I was at the school photocopying things for next week’s book fair – what else do you do with a Master’s in Economics these days? – and a kid ran down the hall and barfed all over the hallway, because, as he said between retches to a teacher who was passing by, he couldn’t make it to the bathroom.  I am very grateful that child is not in class with either of mine and we have – so far, knock wood and knock back more vitamins – not had the barfing plague hit our house.

5) I am ever-so-grateful for PVR technology.  It is the technological advancement of our time.  Better than sliced bread, voice mail, and the printing press, although not superior to automatic washers and dryers, email, or the wheel.  I recorded Top Gun on TV and I’m thinking of watching it and live-blogging.  While drinking wine.  Don’t you think that would be fun?  Son, your ego is writing cheques your body can’t cash.  In any event, my husband noticed that I was recording it and asked why.  NO REASON.  I like the dialogue?  Now, where is that aviator suit? 

6) People is going to come out with it’s Sexiest Man Alive, which means BLOGGING MANIA.  Remember my list from last year, and the accompanying addendum?  Well, my friend Nan just took it to a whole new level.  Her post made my whole entire day.  And my day started off with a friend buying me a soy latte with sugar-free vanilla so it was already pretty damn good.  Go read it, and just think – NICK NOLTE won?  Whaaaa?  Where were all the other men in the world that year?

To be fair, his win was prior to this sexy photo, but still.  Still.

7) I heard Rock Me Amadeus on the radio today.  AMADEUS AMADEUS AMADEUS AMADEUS AMADEUS.

8) I bought a new cocoa-butter handcream for my hands which are so dry and cracked that clothing snags on them.  The cream works a treat, and it also smells exactly like a cocoa-butter stick I used on my giant pregnant belly back in the day.  The scent takes me back, in a very good way.  I know it’s unpopular to say so, but I loved being pregnant.  I wasn’t ever sick, and I loved getting Princess Treatment.  I loved how people would express concern over me lifting a finger doing anything, I loved how the guys I worked with constantly brought me snacks and worried about me working too hard, I loved how people opened doors for me and helped me cross the street like a whale-like octogenarian.  The cocoa-butter smell makes me feel all the warm fuzziness about being pregnant, without the inconvenience of actually being pregnant.

9) I am so grateful my kids are old enough to have normal, and frequently actually interesting conversations, they are old enough to do most things independently, and yet they still like to receive hugs, albeit not in public.  I am grateful I can look back at pictures like this with nostalgia:

Remember the days that sitting up was too much effort due to massive sleep deprivation?  I’m grateful to sleep.  While I’m in the business of cute old pictures:

Jake has a wee little Tom Brady jersey on!  Death by cuteness!

Look at the cute little bookworm!  We seem to have the same facial expression, and it’s saying “Fuck off, we’re trying to read here.”  And we can’t forget Barkley-when-he-was-a-puppy:

He is watching the Dog Whisperer!!!!

10) I am ever-so-grateful for you lovely readers, as always.  xoxo

So tell me, darlings, what are you grateful for?

Hot Carl

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Twice a year I find myself commenting that I am in awe that we, as a society, still deal with such an antiquated notion as Daylight Savings Time, and twice a year my husband tells me that I am starting to sound crazy when I launch a diatribe against it.  And yet, although my children are older and they actually DO sleep in if they are kept up late, I feel it is my duty as a mother, and in solidarity with parents of little ones who are now waking up at 4 in the morning, sobbing for lunch at 10, and practically disintigrating with exhaustion before dinner, to steadily rail against time change.  After all, when I’m a senior I expect to still pay education taxes even though my own children will not be in school, and so I expect that I will have something angry to say about time change for many years to come.  However, I have probably said it all already; you can read about my feelings on the subject here and here and probably elsewhere but I cannot find it.

My husband was away for a couple of days, and I don’t know what you do when your significant other is out of town, but I seem to drink a lot of wine, eat a lot of guacamole, and watch movies that, while excellent, generally don’t interest him.  This weekend I watched Little Women, which in addition to being an excellent portrayal of the book, also features two of the world’s sexiest men, at least in my opinion.  It also contains one of my favourite movie lines ever: “Over the mysteries of female life, there is drawn a veil, best left undisturbed.”  I think of this whenever I am doing some personal grooming or surreptitiously eating (the somewhat sad snack of) Snapea Crisps and rice-milk chocolate during my ladies’ holidays. 

I also watched Say Anything, which – not coincidentally – also features one of the world’s sexiest men.  I have been watching that movie on a semi-annual basis over the past 24 years, and I never get tired of it.  I never get tired of seeing that guy wearing shorts under his graduation gown belting out The Greatest Love of All.  I never get tired of the line “I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen.”  I never get tired of “Diane Court is a show pony; you, my friend, are a stallion.” 

I think I’m a show pony.

As a general rule I have a strong distaste for personalized license plates.  They remind me very much of Bruce from Sweet Valley High, with his license plate 1Bruce1.  Did you read those books when you were a kid?  I sure did, and I will tell you this: I had a very distorted view of high school based on those books.  In any case, due to my reading of the entire Sweet Valley High series in fifth grade, I have always thought that personalized license plates belong to douchebags, like the aforementioned Bruce.  However, parked in my neighbourhood is a vehicle with the license plate Hot Carl.  This has altogether changed my view, although maybe it’s more of an exception that proves the rule.  Hot Carl!  It’s fabulous on so many different levels.  I’m dying of curiosity; who IS Hot Carl?  I suppose camping out behind the vehicle to discover Hot Carl’s identity would be wrong, and would probably only serve to elevate my “crazy” status. 

November 1st equals Christmas

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There have been a number of Very Sad, Moderately Sad, and Mildly Sad things going on in the Boyhouse and in the world at large this week.  Happily, general Halloween festivities and related sugary and non-sugary joy have cheered me, as well as the fact that as of 11:00 this morning, I have finished my Christmas shopping, aside from a couple of stocking stuffers and teacher gift cards.  I AM FINISHED MY CHRISTMAS SHOPPING!  Hilariously, as I was leaving the mall, a very flamboyant Bay employee was busily setting up a large Christmas tree, and as he was doing so he was flamboyantly berating his fellow employee for not putting the decorations on with pizazz.  PIZAZZ.  I didn’t realize that word was still in general circulation but nonetheless it cheered me nearly as much as finishing my Christmas shopping prior to the Bay’s Christmas tree being set up.

I am famous in my circle for being an early shopper, mostly because I dislike crowds and the opposite of the Christmas spirit that pervades the mall starting in late November.  I dislike the feeling that someone is going to road ragedly run me over in the parking lot, or that I’m going to witness some kind of murder over a parking spot, or that I’m going to be crushed to death in a stampede at Toys R Us.  I met a very dear friend for coffee a few weeks ago, a friend who I’ve known for 23 years, and she asked me very seriously if I had finished my shopping yet.  “Almost!” I said cheerfully, and she smiled at me like the pathological early bird I am.

But why am I talking about Christmas when we’ve just finished Halloween?  I hope your Halloween was lovely.  We had a grand total of seven trick or treaters, all of whom got handfuls and handfuls of fun-sized M&M’s from me.  My own kids were, as usual, overly indulged as they are the pets of the neighbourhood, the only little kids on our street.  I love our neighbours.  Our doorbell rang at 5:30, and I opened it to find not a trick or treater, but an elderly lady who told me that since she and her husband were going out for the evening, she was dropping off candy for the boys.  Sweet!  In addition to that kindness, the boys went up and down our street and came back loaded with treats – tons of candy, full-sized chocolate bars, big buckets of candy popcorn, and funny treats purchased just for them.  So much kindness!  Also – so many Rockets!  I’ve only snuck one package out of their bags, so I’m congratulating myself on my own inner strength.  Like a rock, I am.

A few of my friends in milder climates posted photos of their children in JUST Halloween costumes, and I stared at those pictures with envy and mild disbelief.  It was minus six degrees here, and kind of snowy.  But what kind of Calgary girl would I be if I didn’t know how to fashion a Halloween costume that incorporates winter wear?

Puffy! 

Today, in addition to going to the mall, I went to Wal Mart, which is never particularly fun but is often interesting from a sociological point of view.  I needed a few snack items since I have some girlfriends and their children coming over tomorrow night.  If I stepped back and looked at my cart with someone else’s eyes, I would be judging the hell out of my purchases.  Here’s what I had: Gold Bond hand lotion, three bags of fun-sized Hershey bars, a box of Sleep-Eze pills, a package of Angry Birds bandaids, five “family-sized” bags of assorted potato and tortilla chips, a 2L bottle of Coke Zero, and a double pack of toilet bowl cleaner.  Fortunately I did not see anyone I knew.  I did, however, see a very large man at the pharmacy wearing fleece pajama pants in a Papa Smurf motif, and I swear I have seen that same man, in that same outfit, at that very same pharmacy before. 

Give Mom the Rockets and No One Gets Hurt

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Happy Monday/ Full Moon Day, everyone!  We are just coming off the high of a long weekend – it was a PD day on Friday, which was joyfully spent painting clay creations and playing video games with friends.  Thursday night was the much-anticipated Halloween Dance and it was everything everyone had ever dreamed of, and more.

Good times!  And, as promised, my non-slutty costume:

Arrrrrr!

The weekend was also spent carving pumpkins, which means that my kids make the designs for the faces, my husband does the actual carving, and I spend a great deal of time separating the pumpkin seeds from the gross, gross pumpkin goo.  I am, apparently, the only person who actually wants to eat the pumpkin seeds, and so I end up with orange stained, burning hands and pumpkin in my hair.

 
Can you spot the pumpkin in my hair?
 
The finished products were adorable, in my own view.
 
 
Is it strange to feel that Halloween is already over?  I keep reminding myself that it’s not actually Halloween until WEDNESDAY.  Maybe it’s because I’m in denial – it is supposed to be a daily high of ONE DEGREE on Wednesday, not that I’m the one who takes the kids trick-or-treating, but still.  I will probably sit with the giant bowl of candy, waiting for the non-existent trick-or-treaters to ring my doorbell.  As usual I have purchased a very large amount of candy, and mark my words, it will be a miracle if we have more than five trick-or-treaters.  Which means that not only will we have leftover candy to last us until the apocalypse, but the kids will receive enormous amounts from our neighbours who have similarly over-purchased candy.  It’s a Halloween tradition in the old-people neighbourhood that I live in!
 
Speaking of candy, I have a bit of a culture-shock thing going with our neighbours to the south.  In the United States, Smarties are – get this – NOT CANDY COATED CHOCOLATE.  American Smarties are, apparently, what is known in Canada as Rockets.  These seem to be universally despised as a treat, but for me, they are the first item I pilfer from my kids’ bags.  Rockets are like crack cocaine to me.  Sugary crack cocaine.  As well, Coffee Crisp does not exist in the States, which gave me a shock, like when I discovered that ketchup chips are not widely available there.
 
So here is my question of the day: what is your favourite Halloween treat, or if you are a parent, what is the first thing you steal from your kids’ stash?

Book Review: Hooked on Hockey

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When Simon and Schuster asked me to review Chicken Soup for the Soul: Hooked on Hockey, I laughed to myself.  Surely there are few people less qualified to review a book whose title is followed by “101 Stories about the Players Who Love the Game and the Families that Cheer Them On”.  For one thing, I may be a mommy blogger with two boys, but neither of them play hockey, nor are they particularly interested in hockey.  The NHL strike has not affected us one whit, and although I’m in a hockey city, I have not been to a Flames game since 1993.


Nonetheless, who am I to back down from a challenge?  In any event, I have a number of hockey mom friends; one of whom is going to receive this book the minute I am finished writing this review. 

I started reading this book with very low expectations; after all, I had never before read a Chicken Soup book as I assumed that they were filled with all sorts of smarmy stories.  There are quite a few smarmy stories in this book, notably in the “Dreams and Inspirations” and “Life Lessons”.  However, there were a number of well-written, entertaining stories as well.  I liken them to those kind of pleasant, light-hearted stories found in Reader’s Digests or similar publications that one may find oneself perusing in the doctor’s office.  Nothing life-changing, but warm and cozy to read.

Growing up in a rather blue-collar neighbourhood in Calgary in the 1980s, I knew very few boys who played organized hockey.  It was – and is – an expensive sport, and so most of the boys I grew up with played pickup games on the rough, outdoor rink behind our elementary school.  I would go to lace up my figure skates and there would inevitably be a game going on in which no safety equipment was utilized and the game would be over when the street lights came on, which is around 4:30 in the afternoon in the deep of winter.  The stories that most appealed to me, therefore, were the ones in the “Fresh Air and Ice” section; stories of kids just hanging out and playing, no adults required.  Being the mother of boys, I especially enjoyed the story “Rink of Dreams” where two brothers shoveled and flooded their own cul-de-sac for a makeshift rink, much to the angst of anyone driving in or out of said cul-de-sac. 

When I was in high school, I had a boyfriend who liked to take me to hockey games.  The games themselves weren’t of much interest to me, but I did like the upbeat music that was played and I always wondered about the guy who played the organ at those games.  It seemed to me – a piano player – to be a fun gig.  “Welcome Back Clark” is the story of the organist for the Maple Leafs, and details some of his song choices, notably the theme to Welcome Back Cotter to celebrate the return of former Leafs captain Wendel Clark.  I have no idea who that is, but the story itself is entertaining.  Plus I had the added bonus of having that song stuck in my head for the rest of the night.  Follow the link and you too can have this experience.

Other entertaining stories include “Got Teeth” about hockey players and their collective lack of teeth, “The Cursed Jersey” about sports fans and their superstitions, “Golden Tickets” about the Vancouver 2010 Gold Medal Game (I thought my own husband was actually having a heart attack in the last minute before overtime, and so that game stands out in my mind), and “I Married a Zamboni” about a woman who became Kate Zamboni on her wedding day.  That would be a pretty cool last name, don’t you think?  What’s more calming than watching a Zamboni clean the ice?  Well, there are quite a few things, I guess, but Zambonis are pretty cool, even for a non-hockey fan like me.  Chicken Soup for the Soul: Hooked on Hockey would make an excellent Christmas gift for a hockey mom or fan.

*******disclaimer: I received a copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Hooked on Hockey from Simon and Schuster Canada.  All opinions are my own.

Domination by cookie baking

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The Boyhouse is vibrating with excitement today.  It’s the Halloween Family Dance and I am just going to say that I feel badly for the teachers today.  They are going to be dealing with some bouncy kids.  Also, my own kids snuck cookies before school this morning, so they may be riding the sugar train.

I spent a large portion of the day yesterday making these cookies for the bake sale.  In my world, first you make the cookies, then you get the power.  WORLD DOMINATION VIA THE HALLOWEEN DANCE BAKE SALE.  That’s my motto.

Mark informed his classmates that his mother was bringing the best cookies ever to the bake sale, and so I had to comply.  What else to do?  Can’t disappoint a class full of third graders.  He also told me that he is planning to bring some allowance to the dance; he wants to buy one of my friend’s cupcakes (that feature gummy candy!) and also he wants to buy one of my ghost cookies.  Puzzled, I told him that he didn’t have to buy one; I made extras for us to have at home.  He feels, however, that an example needs to be set.  A cookie buying example, I guess.

I am going to be starting to do book reviews on this blog, which I thought would be very fun.  However, the first book that I am going to review is a Chicken Soup for the Soul book about, of all things, hockey.  Why I agreed to review this book is honestly beyond me.  I mean, I’ve never in my life read one of those Chicken Soup books, not to mention I don’t even like hockey.  However.  Look for a review of this book soon.  As soon as I finish slogging through it.  Hockey.  What was I thinking?

In other news, a friend sent me a bunch of old advertisements from years gone by, and they are truly amusing.  Some of them are the “Doctors Who Smoke Prefer Camels!” type of advertising, which makes me think of Mad Men, and makes me long for the days before I had watched all the episodes, when I still had something television-wise to look forward to.  This advertisement really made me laugh:

Oh, hahaha double entrendre!  I think that’s pretty bad advice, actually.  Attention menfolk: most women would NOT be at all thrilled if you blew in their faces, smoke or otherwise.  Gross!  Two things about this advertisement: I wish I had that woman’s eyelashes (do you think they are fake?  They must be), and the guy looks disturbingly like my younger brother.  I mean, the resemblance is uncanny.  Except my brother often has a giant pornstache or beard or porkchop-like sideburns, but if he was clean shaven he would look JUST LIKE THIS GUY.  Which is weird on just so many levels, I can’t even.

Anyway!  Time to sign off, dear readers, I have much to do before the big event tonight.  For one thing, I FINALLY have a hair appointment, so I can kiss my inch-and-a-half grey roots goodbye.  Also, I need to prepare for an early dinner, fold a pile of laundry, and drop off the cookies at the school or my world/bake sale domination plan will be ruined.  Pictures of everyone’s costume – including my own non-slutty one – to follow.  Stay tuned! xoxo