Author Archives: Nicole Boyhouse

Nicole’s Favourite Things; Fall Edition

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I am very cross right now for a variety of reasons, amongst them a) my dog is sick with kennel cough, which he got FROM his kennel cough vaccination, and now I am faced with a new life as someone who does not want to vaccinate her dog, b) I have had to check the yard constantly “in case” Barkley develops diarrhea, and it is gross to be constantly checking dog poop, c) there are UNSOLVABLE issues with the upcoming book fair due to the fact that the school’s Remembrance Day holiday is not the same as the one that Scholastic (and, apparently, the rest of the world) is observing, d) the unsolvable issue was brought to my attention only AFTER I had sent out a cheery “would you like to volunteer?” email about it, e) I had a very awkward conversation with the developmentally slow grocery carryout guy today about suicide, which is NOT a conversation I wish to have in the three minutes it takes to put my groceries in the car, and f) it is not slated to be above zero degrees Celcius any day this week.  I AM COLD. 

I know, I know, there are bigger problems in the world.  Wah, wah, wah, and my diamond ring is too heavy for my hand, my bed of money had a lump in it, and I am just TOO beautiful. 

Still, I am in a crabby kind of mood, so I’m going to turn things around by saying WWOD (What Would Oprah Do?). 

Welcome to Nicole’s Favourite Things, the Fall Edition!


This sweater and those boots.  When fall (or, as we say in YYC, the start of the unending winter) arrives with its crisp chill, it’s a sign for me to break out the black sweaters!  This one is my new favourite.  I got it on the “We Made Too Much” clearance section from Lululemon, and it’s warm, long, and wraps around in a snuggly way.  These boots I got for half price during the Boxing Week sales from a place that I cannot recall.  Longtime readers will remember these as the “Puss in Boots” ones.  It’s a bargain of an outfit!  I think I even bought the jeans on sale.  Thriftiness in the Boyhouse!  Relatively speaking.

Those are beehives in the background.  Related: my neighbour keeps bees in her backyard and she always gives me some of her very excellent honey, to say thank you for my flowers.  Hey, it’s a two-way street; her bees make my flowers awesome, and so Taryn’s honey is on my favourite things list!


That’s her photo, by the way.  Did I mention I love this girl? 

I bought this set of three dishtowels (I know, DISHTOWELS are on my favourite things list) and they make me smile whenever I look at them, which is often, since I spend half my life in the kitchen.  They say “They Fell In Love”, “They Got Married”, and “They Lived Happily Ever After.”  Aw.  They were probably meant for a wedding shower gift, but I bought them for myself and no regrets.  Happily ever after.  I always smile when I look at that, and imagine myself in a fairy-tale like existence, and think I AM living happily ever after!  Then I go look for dog diarrhea and the mood dissipates somewhat.


Calgary is very dry year-round, but especially so in fall and winter.  I go through a lot of lotion and hand cream, and the scents from Bath and Body Works are enough to turn you into one of those creepy “Smell My Finger” guys.  But in a good way.  Twilight Woods, Cherry Blossom, and, separate from regular Cherry Blossom, JAPANESE Cherry Blossom are my current favourite scents.

That reminds me, I have been meaning to post pictures of my renovated bathroom.  Next time, okay?

My mother-in-law is a mad knitter, and she knitted me this scarf that I think is fabulous.

Fluffy, cute, and goes perfectly with a black sweater!

It was my husband’s birthday this weekend, and I made him a reduced-sugar apple crisp for his birthday, in keeping with his low-sugar dietary restrictions.  We’re such a fun couple.  Want to invite us over for dessert?  He can’t have sugar, I can’t have dairy.  Game on!  Anyway, I made him an apple crisp, although I think that cooked fruit is, quite frankly, a waste of fruit.  One of my favourite fall things is fresh, farmer’s market McIntosh apples! 


I keep our surplus apples in the crawl space.  Right next to the hall paint, apparently. 

Another thing I love about fall: pumpkins!

Those giant pumpkins were on sale for $0.19/pound.  Apparently procrastination pays off.  I am going to be roasting a lot of pumpkin seeds this weekend!

I also love making chocolate chip pumpkin loaf, and butternut squash bisque.  Lately I’ve been making that soup with coconut milk and coconut oil instead of whipping cream and butter, and it is pretty fabulous. 

So those are my favourite things about fall.  What are yours? xoxo

Friday Fun in the Boyhouse

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Well, hello there, Friday!  It’s been a long time since I posted on a Friday evening.  Normally I’m too busy sitting on the couch making out with a bottle of wine and watching Jeopardy or reruns of 30 Rock to think about writing anything.  But lucky you, dear readers, because tonight I am sitting here making out with a bottle of wine in front of my laptop. 

Fridays are always crazy around here; crazy in a “fun, exciting” way and not in a “dress the dog up in a bumblebee outfit” way.  I won’t bore you with the details of Friday yoga practice and how it’s Primary Series day, unless you care.  Do you?  Anyway, Friday yoga practice is different from the rest of the week, and then the kids’ school has early dismissal on Fridays – at 1:10 – which means they eat lunch at the school, which normally they never do.  And – sssshhh, it’s a secret – I always have a different lunch when they are at school.  Sometimes I just eat guacamole.  Today I had crackers and a spinach smoothie.  THIS IS HOW CRAZY IT GETS AROUND HERE.  Then, of course, there is no yoga practice tomorrow, and we know what that means: I crack open the alcoholic beverages as soon as is socially acceptable.  Sometimes sooner.  Not today though; today I had to take the kids to get their hair cut at 4:30, and so I did have to wait until an actually socially acceptable time to open that bottle of Cupcake wine. 

I will tell you this: I am so thankful that, since the wet-socks-from-stepping-in-the-puddle-of-pee incident, the boys never want to play in the ballpit at Beaners. 

Today I was at the spa for a wax.  I started going to this spa ten minutes away from my house after my esthetician decided that she was quitting esthetics forever.  I tried not to take that personally, as she told me during a bikini wax and I wondered if my yeti-like condition drove her to it.  Anyway, the spa is awesome since I can get an appointment whenever I want, unlike the wheeling and dealing I had to do with my former esthetician, whose hours were varied and ever-changing (“I have an opening at 7:15 pm on Tuesday, or 2:00 pm on Friday next week…”).  It is also a full-service spa, with nice little amenities such as fluffy robes, slippers, and complimentary herbal tea and organic gingersnaps that look only the teeniest bit like dog treats.  I partake in none of those niceties because I’m just getting a wax, dammit, I want to get in and out as soon as possible.  Anyway, I was waiting in the cozy room with the lounge chairs and fireplace, waiting for the esthetician to call me, and I noticed a man.  It’s not unusual to see men in the spa, but usually they are with wives or girlfriends, getting couples’ treatments.  However, it was 10:30 on a Friday morning and this man was by himself, in the lounge chair, wearing a robe and slippers and sipping on the complimentary herbal tea.  He was also studiously reading a magazine, which, upon further examination, was O Magazine.  I found myself completely obsessed.  Was he trying to figure out how to Live his Best Life?  Was he having an Aha! Moment?  Was he disagreeing vehemently with Adam Glassman about the appropriateness of yellow skinny pants in the workplace?  Then I noticed he was near the end of the magazine.  Maybe he was finding out What I Know For Sure?  I haven’t read O Magazine in a while, so I don’t know what the latest What I Know For Sure is, but I sure am curious.

Fortunately I was called in for my appointment.  Any longer and I probably would have mentally written a novel about the Guy in the Spa Reading Oprah.

Here’s What I Know For Sure for this week:

1) If you are telling a group of people the many and convoluted ways that you stay healthy during cold and flu season, and those ways include but are not limited to excessive vitamin consumption, hand sanitizer use, and a homeopathic flu protocol, and those people are staring at you in silence, do NOT try to make things less awkward by talking MORE.  The more you talk the crazier you seem, so STOP TALKING.

2) People who look like Santa are not always nice.  I was parking my car and there was a complete asshole in the parking lot who looked exactly like Santa.

3) If you have two children who have the same sock size, buy a whole lot of the exact same socks.  That way you never have to spend time pairing and matching the socks.

I had more things to tell you about, about crazy Fridays, but I just finished my second glass of wine and I DON’T REMEMBER WHAT I WAS GOING TO SAY.  Oh yes, now I remember – apparently certain Banana Boat sunscreens are possible fire risks, because if you apply the sunscreen and then expose yourself to spark or flame prior to the sunscreen drying completely, you could set yourself on fire.  Now, I’m certainly not dismissing or belittling those who have become engulfed in flames post-sunscreen applications, but how much of a problem is this?  Who is exposing their own skin to sparks and/or flames immediately following sunscreen application?  Maybe this IS a problem, I don’t really know. 

Hey, guess what else I learned today?  Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel got married!  I thought they were married already, actually.  This was very anticlimatic information, like when I find out an elderly celebrity died who I thought had died many years ago.  Oh well.  Bringing sexy back, which for a married couple means getting into a bottle of Cupcake wine and wearing a Top Gun Halloween costume. 

Do you know how hard it is to find a non-slutty pirate costume?

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It’s only eight days until the second-most-anticipated event in my household, second only to Christmas, and that is the school’s annual Family Halloween Dance.  It is, without a doubt, the social event of the season, and it is over by 8:30 pm, which is to say that it is my kind of party.  My husband allowed me to choose his costume this year, although he balked at this one:

 
Why, HELLO there, little lady.  Of course, dressing up like a cowboy when you live in Calgary IS kind of lame.  I mean, that’s why we have Stampede.  So instead, I chose this one:
 

 
I KNOW, RIGHT?  Bow chicka wow wow.  “You can wear it other times, too,” I said lasciviously.  It came with an interchangeable name tag: Goose or Maverick.  I would have much rather it came with an “Ice” name tag, but one takes what one can get.  And I am certainly no crazy-ass-Tom-Cruise fan, but would anyone really choose Goose?  The plaque for the alternates is down the hall in the ladies’ room.
 
So my husband is finally fulfilling my dreams and dressing up like a naval aviator.  Now all he has to do is serenade me with You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling at a bar and all will be well.  While I wear my pink sweater tied around my shoulders.  In any case, I needed to find a costume for myself but I did not think this was appropriate attire for the Family Dance:
 
 
 
Plus being so matchy-matchy is a little cutesy.  Maybe for some other kind of dance.  I am always blown away by the sheer volume of slutty Halloween costumes that are available to women, and always a little disturbed by the lack of normal, family friendly costumes.  I know I’ve written about this before – click the link to see a slutty Finding Nemo and Blueberry Muffin – but seriously.  Seriously.  I have grave doubts in my mind for anyone who purchases this outfit:
 
 
It’s new for 2012!  Are those supposed to be…bullets?  Disturbing on a number of levels.  Not to mention dangerous for one’s nipples.  Oh!  But if you do want an army motif and you don’t want to be almost totally naked at your Halloween festivities, then consider this little number:
 
Or maybe you’re more of a Navy girl?  No fear.  This one is called the High Seas Honey:

I don’t mean to belittle here, but that is actually really ugly.  A romper?  Speaking of unflattering for the vast majority of the population, here is one that I was not surprised to see was on clearance:

 
 
Thos horizontal stripes are nobody’s friend.  Also, I’m not sure if this is a costume or just some bizarre nautical piece featured on fashion runways twenty years ago.
 
I decided, after some discussion with the children – who are going as a vampire and Luke Skywalker – that I would dress up as a pirate.  My word.  Have you ever tried to find a non-slutty pirate costume?  Have you?  IT IS NOT AS EASY AS IT SOUNDS.  In fact, I did find, after hours of searching, a costume that is normal, non-whorish, and even cute.  But first I looked at these:
 

Ahoy there matey!  I will wear this to the Family Dance and then I will be banned from all school functions from here to eternity.  So much cleavage! 

 
NEW FOR 2012!  Super skanky, shiny, AND slutty.  A trifecta!  Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.  There was also this little number which, to be honest, costume retailers, is more of a tutu than a pirate costume:
 

 
I also discovered this one, which came in one size.  One size fits most.  Now, how is that possible?  How is it possible to get a skirt, blouse, and vest thingy that fits most?  It seems like more specific measurements are needed for this particular outfit, which is unfortunate, because this particular outfit was among the least-slutty of the bunch.  Sure, it’s a little short, but it’s no bright pink 6-inch tutu.
 
 
Here’s the thing: after you start looking at one slutty group of costumes (pirates are a group), it is impossible to look away from other groups.  It’s fascinating.  There is a whole section on sexy clowns:
 
 
 
I’m not sure I would consider this “sexy” so much as I would consider this “weird”. 
 

 
And this one says more “skanky crazy person who misread Alice in Wonderland” than “sexy clown”.  But maybe it’s just because I don’t ever, ever, ever think of clowns in “sexy” terms.  I mean, is that a thing?  Are there men out there getting boners for clowns?  If so, why?  The face makeup?  The riding of tiny tricycles?  The pom-poms and ventriloquism? 
 
As an aside, for Jake’s fourth birthday we had a clown, and her name was Button the Clown.  I do not think she was remotely sexy, but maybe all around town certain menfolk were talking their wives into hiring Button for their children’s birthday party and then sexing the hell out of those same wives later that night, remembering how fiercely she made balloon animals. 
 
Further digression: when I called to book Button her husband answered.  Her husband who was also a clown.  A clown named Buddy.  I told my friend about the marriage between Button and Buddy and she wondered if they had little clown babies and I tell you this: the unsettling image that popped into my head made me question my own sanity. 
 

 
You know.  Now why would THIS be on clearance?
 
Given my recent unintended acquisition of Popeye related bodybuilding paraphernalia, I was amused to think of myself dressing up like Olive Oyl.  As I recall, Olive Oyl’s skirt was way longer and her sweater way less filled out:
 
 
 
I do find it more than a little creepy when I see slutty rendition of popular children’s characters, such as the afore mentioned slutty Blueberry Muffin or slutty Finding Nemo, but this Hello Kitty outfit strikes that fine balance between slutty, ugly, and also kind of creepy:
 
 
 
Potential Hello Kitty costume purchasers: from a fashion standpoint, almost nothing is less flattering than a romper suit.  The hat-and-mittens combo is just weird.  So, you’re left with an unflattering romper suit, and what is sure to be an uncomfortably warm and impossible-to-hold-a-drink-with hat and mittens combination.  The shoes and stockings are NOT included.  This is $42 plus tax and shipping, which seems excessive for the world’s ugliest/creepiest Hello Kitty costume. 
 
One thing I do not think that costume retailers understand is that wearing an outfit that has a silkscreened picture of a character does not indicate that a person is dressed up as that character.  If I put on a shirt that has Princess Leia on it, that does not mean that I am dressed up as Princess Leia.  (This is meant to be illustrative only, I do not have such a shirt.)  And therefore wearing a tiny white dress with a picture of Smurfette on it does not mean one is actually dressed up as Smurfette, even if the outfit does come with a Smurfy hat:
 
 
 
 
Same goes for Miss Piggy,
 
 
“Sassy Bedtime Bear” Care Bear, or
 
 
 
Tweety Bird.  As a side note, who would ever want to dress up like slutty Tweety Bird?  Tweety Bird is one of the most annoying characters in the history of cartoons. 
 
 
 
 
Are your kids into Katy Perry?  Mine enjoy her music, and I groove along to California Gurrls with them, but I think that if a person ever wore this to the Halloween Family Dance their child would likely require some serious therapy.
 

 

In which I reveal myself as a snob and a lunatic, all at the same time

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I had the most productive weekend!  Shit got DONE around here.  I had a number of things on my to-do list and every one of them was accomplished, even down to the “putting photos in albums” task.  For reasons that I do not comprehend, I find putting photos in albums to be one of the worst tasks, even worse than cleaning the toilet or shovelling the sidewalk.  Our snow is melted, I should add; shovelling the sidewalk is just an example.  In the case of the photo-geddon, I had put off developing pictures for thirteen months; I had photos from Jake’s seventh AND sixth birthdays.  I had upwards of 500 pictures to put in albums, and by the time the weekend rolled around, I was down to about the last 200.  I did get them all in their albums, and I felt a strong sense of accomplishment until my friend Nan asked why didn’t I just make photo books, which would be faster and easier.  Um, because such a radical idea never occurred to me?  Because I must spend hours of my time cropping, developing, sorting, and putting photos into albums in some kind of masochistic plan to suck the joy out of life?

Probably because of the chill in the air, I have been craving soup like nobody’s business.  I wanted to make my favourite butternut squash soup, but with coconut milk instead of whipping cream, but when I went to the grocery store they were all out of butternut squash.  It was puzzling; was there a sudden rush on butternut squash?  Maybe all the seniors in the neighbourhood were hoarding them?  In any case, I decided mushroom soup was the way to go, but never having made it before, I nervously opted for winging it.  I had some fresh mushrooms and some dried mushrooms, and someone had told me that reconstituting the dried mushrooms in white wine made for a lovely mushroom soup addition.  The only problem with that is that I rarely have white wine in the house; I’m staunchly a red wine type of girl.  So, off to the liquor store for this very important ingredient. 

Now, normally I’m a Superstore liquor store kind of girl, and normally I just buy a case of my favourite red and stash it in the crawl space.  I don’t shop around at the liquor store.  The last time I shopped around at the liquor store I found myself singing a duet with a perfect stranger.  A duet of Baby, It’s Cold Outside with strange gentleman in his sixties.  With a cart containing a case of wine, a twenty sixer of rum, and the biggest bottle of Bailey’s available.  This is what comes of shopping around. 

In any event, I was loathe to browse the liquor store shelves in the event that I should burst into song again, although Christmas music isn’t high on my list right now, I wanted to avoid singing “Islands In The Stream” or some such duet with any of the other shoppers, and so my goal was to go into the store, grab a bottle of Gewurztraminer or Riesling – the only drinkable whites in my opinion – and get out.  However, it took a lot of searching to find either of those.  Pinot Grigios and Chardonnays abounded, and so many bottles labelled merely with “White Wine”.  While I do not like to think of myself as a snob, I really had trouble purchasing those, even the ones labelled “Mad Housewife” or “Middle Sister”.  Even though I am both of those.  (Technically, I am a middle child, since I have brothers on either side.  Still.)  I almost got sidetracked by a bottle of “Chocolate Cake Liqueur” which kind of smells a little four horses of the apocalypse to me, and then I almost got sidetracked by some giant bottle of alcohol labelled “Kinky”.  I wish I had bought that.  Finally I found some Quail’s Gate Gewurztraminer AND Riesling.

And I also found, on sale, a bottle of Cupcake wine.  JUST SAY IT, I know you’re thinking it.  I fell for cupcake marketing.  You just can see the winery owners, stroking their goatees, “Well, if we call it CUPCAKE you just know women everywhere will fall for it!  Bwahahaha!”  It’s true.  Women will always purchase things that are in any kind of cupcake motif.  Men certainly will not; not even the most flamboyant man is walking out of the store with a wine labelled “Cupcake.”  In my defence I had tried this wine before and it makes a very nice companion on a Friday night.  Also it is a Shiraz which is my boyfriend.  MY WINEY BOYFRIEND. 

I walked up to the counter with both wines, and the very young man at the counter asked me if I wanted a bag.  “No,” I said absently, “I’ll just double-fist them back to the car.”  Did I say that out loud?  Yes I did.  So I walked back to the car holding my naked wines like an alcoholic mess who JUST wanted to make mushroom soup, dammit, leaving in my wake the two young men at the counter who were probably shaking their heads at having to work in an area with so many lame people.



What kind of monster have I become?

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It’s a beautiful autumn day here in YYC!

Did you just cry a little?  Yeah, me too.  Less than two weeks ago, this was the scene:

Jake, climbing our tree, wearing shorts.  Not shown in this photograph is the total heart attack I was having and trying to conceal.  “Wow, honey, you’re a really great climber!” is what I said.  “I am going to dial 9-1 and wait to dial the other 1.  I think I’m having palpitations!” is what I was thinking.  That was silly of me, because Jake DID lose his footing, but instead of falling he gripped the tree with both arms and both legs, hanging upside down, boasting the whole time about his superior climbing and monkey skills. 

It’s funny, the things you never think you’ll do or say that you end up doing or saying.  Things such as “Get down from there or you’ll break your neck!”  Or cleaning your child’s dirty face with your own saliva.  Just writing that down, I am revolted with my own motherly self.  And yet who among us hasn’t done this?  Who among us hasn’t retorted with the ever-popular “Because I said so, THAT’S WHY.”  Who among us hasn’t pretended to listen to their child’s steady stream of chatter and nodded absently and unmindfully?

Sometimes I wonder about the person I have become.  I look at my life and I wonder what happened to me.  For example, yesterday I was at the mall.  The mall.  On a snowy, windy, October afternoon.  All I’m going to say is, so many crying babies.  Not that I’m judging – I’ve been there before, the young mom desperate just to get out of the house.  Still.  Anyway, I was at the mall, and I saw a pink Star Wars t-shirt in my size and I considered purchasing it.  I really did.  I actually picked it up, then after a minute, I set it down again, mourning the little piece of me that died when I considered buying a pink Star Wars t-shirt for my 37 year old self.

What have I become?  I also marvelled at myself when I intervened in an argument between the children.  They were, uncharacteristically, bickering when Jake suddenly burst into tears.  The reason for the outburst was that Mark told him that of all the planets, he hated Tattooine the most.  This soul-destroying information just couldn’t be unsaid.  I spoke with Mark, and my exact words, my EXACT WORDS were “Honey, that really hurt Jake’s feelings.  How would you feel if he said he hated Naboo?” 

Who am I?

Another example of my burgeoning lameness is that the other day I purchased a bottle of Mrs. Dash.  I have always associated Mrs. Dash with the elderly who have been required by their health care providers to adopt a low-sodium diet.  I am now, apparently, a person who seasons food with Mrs. Dash.  I don’t even know what to think of this, except that I sprinkled it on my avocado-and-tomato quesadilla yesterday, and it was delicious. 

Other things that my former self would not have conceived of doing: spending hours photocopying things and becoming proficient at fixing paper jams, secretly becoming panicky and tiger-momish when my child gets four points docked on a bar graph unit test for not showing all the work, becoming sad when unable to obtain oven mitts that match my apron, and wondering if the socks-over-jeans-but-under-boots would be a good look for me. 

No, honey, I will not murder you when you cease to be a fast driver.

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Happy Thanksgiving, all my Canadian friends.  Although I’ve always thought that Thanksgiving is among the lamer of the holidays, given that I have never been interested in pie, turkey, or any of the usual turkey-trimmings-pie-fanfare.  And yet, it’s always a good idea to be thankful for what one has.  Right now I’m mostly thankful that I’m not in the car anymore.

We drove out to my in-laws’ house for the holiday, and came back today.  It’s a long drive, and I spent most of it staring out the window, listening to Jedi commentary and Star Wars trivia, queries about how much longer the drive would be, childrens’ voices singing along to vastly inappropriate popular music – “I’ve had a shit day!  You’ve had a shit day!” – and a startling amount of swearing at other drivers on the road, notably those who were driving RV’s, pulling trailers, elderly, and/or driving slow on undivided stretches of highway and speeding up whilst in the passing lanes, making it difficult to pass.  “If I ever get old and start driving like these assholes,” my husband said as he passed an elderly man driving an RV, “Just put a fucking bullet in my brain.”  Sorry babe.  I am never going to put a bullet in your brain.  Possibly you need someone else to carry out that living will of yours, mmm-kay?

I am also thankful for the three Macintosh apples I JUST ate in rapid succession.  One of the best things about visiting the in-laws in October is the fresh produce.  A friend of mine tried to convince me that yes, I could eat a varied diet as a locavore, but I say one hundred miles is not enough.  Fuck the 100-mile diet I say!  And those apples made the drive worthwhile, as well as the twenty pounds of Concord grapes my mother-in-law sent me home with. 

Another thing to be thankful for: it will be another year until we do our family pictures, so I won’t have to put up with the usual family-picture angst from the children about how the clothes I have chosen for them make them look like dorks.  Honestly.  It’s not like I was dressing them up in bow ties or that we were all wearing matching clothes.  My bar is pretty low: I want them in jeans with intact knees, and clean shirts that are not emblazoned with Angry Birds, Lego Star Wars, or similar.  And yet the drama that follows is worthy of an after-school special about a mean mommy who deep down really does love her children.  I have yet to upload the photos, but have a good mind to get our Christmas cards printed with ones that have a good photo of me and husband, while children block out their own faces by pretending to use the force and/or are making faces like Scooby Doo when faced with a large sandwich.  I’m sure I will have lots to choose from.  Merry Christmas!  We don’t know what happened to the children.

Here’s something neat to be thankful for – a yoga friend of mine, who also happens to be a mad talented at making videos, made this video from filming a typical morning practice at the studio.  It’s pretty amazing, I think, and if you’ve ever wondered what Mysore-style Ashtanga is like, well, here it is!  Take a look, you won’t be disappointed.  Fun fact: I am wearing the world’s brightest pink pants. 

Since getting home three hours ago, I’ve baked banana loaf, unpacked everything (well, my husband helped – is he trying to get lucky?  If so, it’s totally working.  Usually I unpack everything alone.), made and ate dinner along with my three apples, cleaned up, and have written this post!  Not bad!  I’m thankful for Wifi, my own foresight in stocking the fridge with long-lifed items before I left, and for my husband, who I will definitely not shoot in the head, if only to show my gratitude for his help in unpacking the luggage.

Happy Thanksgiving, fellow Canadians, and for my dear American readers – happy Columbus Day!  Is that a holiday? 

Sorry, but I’m not a bodybuilder

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I am in a MOOD.



I was in a very chipper mood this morning, even though it was snowing and gusty and freezing. Part of this chipper-ness had to do with the fact that my husband is now at home and I am not the sole responsible adult around here, and part of the chipper-ness had to do with the fact that I can now breathe through my nose without sounding like I am a cocaine addict. Which is a win, as far as I can tell. But oh! That chipper mood has evaporated like a bucketful of tears left out on a hot, dry day. Not that I remember what hot, dry days feel like since it’s snowing and my dog rolled in the snow and is now soggy and filling the house with wet-dog odour.



My sour mood could have something to do with the fact that I just spent the last ninety minutes photocopying, cutting, and sorting papers for various school events and fundraisers. NINETY MINUTES. I started to lose the will to live after the first half hour. Sorting 1200 little pieces of paper into classrooms is really, really dull. At least I got to use the large-armed paper cutter, which spiced things up a little. For this I have a Master’s degree.



I am pleased my cold is nearly gone, and if I had to guess, I would say that yesterday’s Vitamin C overdose may have helped. I get sick so rarely that when I do I get hurt feelings about it; like my immune system has let me down. How could you do this to me, immunity? I give you everything you ask for. Some of this emotion may have to do with the minor high I get from cold medication. Some of that stuff, I wonder if it should be legal. Or perhaps I shouldn’t take it and then drink six cups of coffee, I don’t know. In any case, I actually slept (passed out?) yesterday morning. I walked the dog, came home, and climbed into bed.  This is so unusual I seem to have to make a note of it. 



I realized that the amount of supplements I now consume is bordering on the insane.  It started off normally, with a daily multivitamin, and now it’s just crazy.  So yesterday, with this cold, I realized that I had taken a LOT of additional vitamins, and I was eating those lozenges that are fortified with Vitamin C, so I thought I should actually read the package, lest I somehow overdose myself. The package informed me that I should limit my lozenge intake to no more than thirty a day. Thirty! Two things: a) if I am consuming thirty lozenges a day, I have larger issues than Vitamin C overdoses, and b) how much Vitamin C could possibly be in one of those lozenges if the daily maximum is thirty? I felt a little bit disappointed in the lozenge manufacturers; like how those sugar-ific “fruit” snacks say “contains real fruit!”, but the reality is that the fruit content is the equivalent of a grain of sand on a vast beach.



As a rule, I never answer the door during the day, or in the evening if I’m home alone.  I have a fear of being murdered.  I realize that might sound extreme, but something like that did actually happen not long ago.  A woman answered her door one evening, and a crazed man killed her!  In front of her children!  This is something I would like to avoid.  And so I never answer the door, unless I know for certain it isn’t some mur-diddly-urdler.  There is no downside to this, really, because mostly the only people that ring my doorbell are door-to-door salespeople, politicians, and occasionally my neighbour, looking for Beeps.  So I’m really not missing much.  However, yesterday I had to answer the door TWICE, which, along with my drippy cocaine-addict noise, was putting me in a bad mood.  First, the water-meter-reader rang my doorbell to complain that the city had not installed the kind of water-meter that can be easily read via, I don’t know, satellite, from the back alley.  The water-meter-reader, apparently, has to come INTO MY YARD to read my water-meter, which is completely inconvenient for him and ruins his day.  What I am supposed to do about this state of affairs, I am unsure.  I guess that my ownership of a bloodthirsty squirrel-bird-possibly-Beeps-killer of a dog is noted in my file and hence my wrong kind of water-meter is a danger to society, or at least to the water-meter-reader.  Keep in mind that while listening to this man, I had the boys home for lunch, the dog was frantically barking at the appearance of an unknown person at the door, and I was high on Advil Cold and Sinus.  And I had just woken up from my morning nap.  JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO, BUDDY.  Do I need to call someone?  Stop with the long explanation already.  I do not understand your water-meter language.

Because of my excessive vitamin supplement consumption, I order all my vitamins online.  It’s way cheaper that way, and generally the box arrives the very next day.  This leads me to the second reason I had to answer the door: I could see the Canada Post man standing there.  I very reasonably thought he was unlikely to be a murderer – and he wasn’t, I’m still here to tell this tale, never fear – but you never know.  We are all, I think, familiar with the term going postal.  But in any case, the Canada Post man was very nice and I opened my giant box of online-ordered supplements.  Inside was a piece of paper informing me that my gigantic order qualified me for a free gift.  The free gift consisted of the following items:

– a cheap plastic water bottle
– a lidded cup that is apparently intended for vigourous on-the-go mixing of various bodybuilding protein shakes
– an orange-scented car air freshener in the shape of Popeye
– a “performance pill” box, also emblazoned with an image of Popeye
– a Popeye-themed lanyard
– a Popeye key chain
– a sample of a high-dose protein shake
– something called anabolic energy muscular endurance muscle fiber activation workout fuel (two servings!  Blue raspberry flavour!)
– a sample of something that promises to get me “beyond ripped” and is a subcutaneous fat-incinerator
– an enormous t-shirt with a maple leaf on it

What a generous free gift!  What to do with this?  I feel completely deflated, environmentally.  Also I am puzzled; my order was Women’s Multivitamins, Vitamin D, and Women 50+ Calcium supplements.  My order does not match this free gift.  However, if any of you want to start a new bodybuilding regimen, let me know.  I have some things for you.