Category Archives: Eating a Rainbow

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Viva Las Vegas Edition

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One of my very Favourite Things about air travel is the insane cultural whiplash you can experience in only a few hours. It’s pretty incredible, when you think about it. One moment one is involved in their sleepy little life, and the next moment one is on the Vegas strip, being bombarded with sights and sounds and lights and people. And then? Back to the sleepy little life.

We had an absolute blast in Las Vegas; we got back on Monday and things have been smoothly puttering along since then. We have houseguests arriving today, but not for a happy reason: our friends from Ottawa, who we will be visiting next month, are here for his father’s funeral. What this means is that we have our anniversary, two birthdays, and a funeral, all on the same day. Well, we celebrated our anniversary in Vegas, really, and my son is spending his Saturday night 20th birthday NOT with his parents, and I have always vowed that Rex’s special day shall be October 10, the day he came to us, and NOT on his actual birthday. I only have so much bandwidth, people.

But Vegas! As I mentioned before I am a non-gambler, and yet this is my fourth time in Vegas. There are many things to do in Vegas for people like me, but of course, gambling IS the main event there. I find it fascinating and wild to walk through the casinos; it’s exciting, seeing people at the craps tables, and also depressing, seeing people glassily hitting the spin button on the video terminals at 7:00 in the morning. One thing that was very surprising to me is that all of the casinos allow smoking. It’s been so long since I experienced cigarette smoke indoors that I found it kind of shocking. There was a lot of pot smoke too, and while I dislike cigarette smoke I absolutely loathe the smell of pot. It makes me feel actually nauseous, but happily the casinos do have great ventilation systems and unless a person is right beside someone smoking, it’s not noticeable, to me anyway. Another thing I noticed was that there were many fewer cocktail waitresses bringing free drinks to the gamblers, with the exception of the people at the card tables. Vegas in general is insanely expensive, much more so than the last time we were there, in 2015.

Speaking of that last trip, prior to it I had stayed healthy and virus-free for months leading up to it, which is remarkable considering I had elementary-school-aged kids at that time, and the morning of our trip I woke up with a head cold. Back then I doped myself up with cold medication and that, with the addition of a lot of alcohol, led to me having a prolonged and dramatic nosebleed in the middle of one of those super-expensive shops at Caesar’s Palace. I had to make a run down the fake-marble floors to the washroom, where people averted their eyes at what they assumed was a cocaine-addled hot mess. It wasn’t my best moment, and so I wasn’t super excited to wake up last Tuesday with a sore throat and general malaise. Not wanting history to repeat itself, I kicked it into High Gear, Tender Loving Personal Care-wise, and did almost nothing but sleep and eat for the days leading up to our flight and I am happy to report that I was mostly recovered, energetic, and, crucially, public nosebleed-free for the trip.

Was that too much information? Perhaps. Anyway! I have much to say so I will start with all of my Favourite Things.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Viva Las Vegas Edition

This Flower Loves Flowers

We stayed at the Bellagio, and arrived around noon on Friday, and it was absolute mayhem. There were so many people everywhere, and I noticed this amazing indoor garden, but the number of people there made it impossible to move through it. Happily the crowds are almost non-existent in the morning hours, and so I was able to walk through and admire it all.

The garden was a tea party theme, and all the flowers were spring ones. I am delighted to tell you that two of my girlfriends were there recently, and the themes change with the seasons; my friend Megan (HI MEGAN) was there when it was Lunar New Year-themed, and my friend Karin (HI KARIN) was there at Christmas to see the Nutcracker theme. I love thinking that this is someone’s JOB, to create a new garden regularly, and in the morning I watched the grounds crew replanting and watering, and it just seemed to me to be the loveliest occupation possible. Am I excited to get started on my own gardens? YES I AM.

Food, Miraculous Food

Right next to the garden was a delightful breakfast and lunch place called Sadelle’s, a gorgeous place that had the most incredible avocado toast. We went there every morning for breakfast and every morning I ordered this:

For our anniversary dinner we went to another restaurant in the Bellagio called Harvest, and let me tell you, it was absolutely incredible. They had a full, separate vegan menu that was so divine that my husband ordered off of it. We had other great meals too, including a falafel pita at this crazy little hole-in-the-wall place that was to die for.

This drink was called You Broke My Heart, Fredo, so of course I had to order it. Times two. It was delicious albeit expensive, although probably pretty average for Vegas prices. I mean, don’t apply the exchange rate or think too hard about it, is the moral of the story.

Show Me The Way

We went to see Cirque de Soleil’s KA, which was absolutely incredible. In 2015 we went to see O, which I think is actually a better show, but our seats for this were perfect and the performers were acrobatically swinging right above us at times. The breathtaking strength of the performers has to be seen to be believed.

We also went to the Sphere, which is a pretty amazing work of technology and engineering. The show we saw there was Postcard From Earth, about which I have much to say, but for brevity’s sake will tell you that it is an incredible experience and is absolutely stunning.

Not So Still Waters

The Bellagio has a famous water and, if you see it at night, light show that happens…well, I don’t know how often it happens. It seems like it happens every half hour, but it could be more frequent than that. There is music playing, often some old school Elvis or Frank Sinatra, which I am HERE for, although my husband and I had a great conversation on what life would have been like for those two specific performers prior to the days of the 24-hour news cycle, social media, or, you know, feminism. Pardon me while I separate the art from the artists here, because I do love that music, even if the performers themselves were pretty suspect.

I also loved the water show both during the day and at night:

It’s a gorgeous hotel and I’m so glad we stayed there.

A Miracle of Chocolate Engineering

Speaking of fountains, the Bellagio also is the proud home of the World’s Largest Chocolate Fountain, which impressed me to no end and which my husband probably does not want to hear about ever again. But you guys! It’s the World’s! Largest! Chocolate! Fountain!

You might be wondering if I partook in any of the chocolatey delights, and sadly, the answer is no. There was a glorious patisserie and gelato assortment, but all of it was very dairy-heavy. Whomp whomp.

That’s It! You People Have Stood In My Way Long Enough! I’m going to Clown College!

Remember the episode of The Simpsons when Homer goes to Clown College, and then he admires himself whilst wearing the requisite pants? Homer incessantly talks about how comfortable the pants are, while Krusty yells that the pants are supposed to be baggy. Baggy!

This is how I felt in my new plane pants.

I know, I know, I JUST talked about skinny jeans and the horror that are wide-leg pants, but we should all know that I cannot be trusted when it comes to advertising. To be completely honest, I really wanted a pair of pants to wear on the plane that would be cute, stylish, and, most of all, comfortable. As some of you may know, I have some pretty serious circulation issues that require the wearing of full-length – up to my bra line, people – medical grade compression hose for any flight over about an hour. My hose are “nude” and I only need to put on a patterned housedress with white open-toed sandals to display the reinforced toe to become my own grandmother. Anyway, a fun little side effect of my myriad circulatory issues is that my legs also actually swell up on planes, even with the compression hose, which makes any non-yoga pants to be very tight and uncomfortable.

So I was on the search for new travel pants and Lululemon had these on clearance; it’s a risk, buying pants online, but I have what is known as a “Sweat Membership” at Lulu, and one of the many perks is that I can return clearance items. Full-length, they look like frumpy palazzo pants from 1996, but I cuffed them and added boots and a close-fitting top, and I think it worked!

By the way, “kale salad” on that sign was only an advertising gimmick. There was no kale salad.

Outfit of the Month

Speaking of boots, having the right footwear is so important in Vegas.

Those heels are normally very comfortable, but after 20,000 steps and a day of walking and a couple of You Broke My Heart, Fredos, wearing them made me feel like Lotus from The Good Earth. Except with giant swollen feet. So not at all like Lotus, but I was walking like Lotus with tiny, painful steps, and I ended up carrying my shoes and classily walking in my stocking feet after dinner, through the casino, and back up to our room. Huge shout-out to Sheertex stockings, because they are still intact after all that abuse.

What I am saying is my little Sorel boots are the unsung heroes of this trip. So comfortable, so grippy, so cute, they held up for miles and miles of walking, and I did not have sore feet for even a minute with them on.

I bought this Lululemon rain coat when I moved to Kelowna: it’s unlined, which is a completely impractical item while living in Calgary, because when it rains, it’s freezing and probably raining sideways. But in Kelowna it can rain and still be warm, so this coat is perfect. It was also perfect for Vegas, because look at this forecast:

It was actually warmer in Kelowna than in Vegas, which wasn’t actually as bad as that sounds; I find cooler weather to be better for walking around and exploring. The Sorel boots are also unlined and waterproof, which was perfect because, as Vicki, our world-weary Uber driver originally from Oregon said, Vegas has no drainage and can flood with less than an inch of rain. It’s true, there were giant puddles of standing water everywhere. The sun came out when we were leaving, and our other Uber driver, Vernon said that he hadn’t seen a nice day like this in months. Months! The day we were leaving! Ah, well, one cannot control the weather. Vernon, in case you’re wondering, was originally from Miami but has lived in Las Vegas for twenty-eight years, and the only thing he misses about Florida is access to his eleven grandchildren. When I said wow, eleven grandchildren, how nice, he talked for a while about how his two sons make choices, and he does NOT have an opinion on those choices, but one of his daughters-in-law practices a religion that will not allow her to get her tubes tied, and he doesn’t know why and he doesn’t WANT to know why, it’s not his business, but yes, ma’am, he misses his grandchildren. It was a ride. A literal ride!

People are SO interesting, and I have a lot of people-watching to tell you about – we were inadvertently there during St Patrick’s Day, and there were thematic green clothing items and shamrock headbands as far as the eye could see – but it will have to wait until later. In the meantime, if you’d like to tell me your Vegas Vacation Stories, or any story about your favourite things this month, I would love to hear them. xo

Dinner Every Damn Day

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I have mentioned at length how much I cook; until we went to Mexico, I had cooked dinner every single night from October through January. We rarely eat out, and although everyone in the house CAN cook, and when it comes to other meals they DO cook, but I am the only one who makes dinners. There are reasons for this, I’m sure, but I can’t think of what those reasons are right now.

It’s not the cooking per se that is exhausting, it’s the planning and the ingredient list-making and the grocery shopping, am I right? I am a person who makes a meal plan for the week and then sticks to that meal plan; I have done this for many, many years as the thought of deciding what to make for dinner at five o’clock fills me with dread and anxiety. I’m just not a Go With The Flow, What Do We Feel Like Eating sort of person. I need A Plan.

I have talked about my Weekly Meal Plan before, but it’s changed a little since we have moved. For one thing, I have had a bit more time during the day, and I don’t have to think about how to incorporate things into school lunches. I’ve gotten a bit more experimental in general, although I think I could get a little more lively. Birchy (HI BIRCHY) had mentioned that she has a goal of ten new recipes for 2024, and while I don’t have that exact goal, I am trying to add new things to my arsenal of tried-and-true regulars. I will take any and all suggestions you may have!

I’m not unique, I don’t think. It feels like collectively we are all constantly fatigued when it comes to meal planning and the actual creation of those meals. I thought I’d share with you what I made for dinner last week, and approximately how long it took to make those meals. I don’t include cleanup time – one or two of the guys always clean up after dinner, but I am also a clean-as-you-go person who cannot abide having piles of bowls and pans while I cook, so I do wash dishes frequently throughout the day. I also wanted to distinguish between active cooking time and passive cooking time; I don’t really count the latter because I can read or do something else while vegetables are roasting. Also, I don’t know what your tastes are – personally, I roast vegetables until they are charred and crispy, but I stir-fry them just so that they are only slightly cooked. I’m an enigma when it comes to vegetables, what can I say, but the point is, we all like things done in different ways, so this is just a general peek into my methodology. At the same time, it is a source of irritation for me when a recipe says that it takes only twenty minutes, but those twenty minutes don’t include vegetable chopping, sauce making, or other vital processes to the meal. I guess I could have left the preparation time out altogether and saved us all this long and boring explanation.

For those of you who are new (HI NEW FRIENDS!) I eat plant-based – vegan mostly, with some small amounts of dairy – and the guys eat meat. I don’t make separate meals and I never have; instead, I make a plant-based meal and then sometimes cook meat to be served on the side. Sometimes the meal is completely plant-based, and on one day – Sunday – I make a meal that is meat-based, and I eat only the side dishes. Sundays are also Dessert Days; I think they deserve a special sweet treat.

Monday

We arrived home from Mexico last Sunday night, to a clean house and an empty refrigerator, which called for a big grocery trip. Wednesday is usually Grocery Day around here, stemming from a habit I created back when I taught classes every morning but Wednesday, but obviously I had to make an exception this week, unless we wanted to eat nothing but peanut butter for two days. Grocery Day is a great day to make a variation of Suzanne’s Fall Salad (HI SUZANNE), which I have made many times, somehow differently each time. This time I roasted chickpeas and sweet potatoes, added crispy quinoa, candied pecans, dried blueberries, and chevre crumbles, with a maple dijon dressing. While the quinoa was cooking, I peeled and chopped the sweet potatoes, tossed them and the chickpeas in olive oil and sprinkled them with salt and pepper, which took about 15 minutes. It took another 5 minutes to make the dressing and another 5 to spread out the quinoa on a baking sheet to crisp in the oven; candied pecans take about 15 minutes, and then it takes another 5 to put it all together. That’s 45 minutes JUST for the salad, not including roasting time and also the hours that I leave the rinsed and drained chickpeas on a tea towel to dry out before roasting them; this is an easy trick to get nice crunchy chickpeas. In other words, this is a good meal to make if you have some time and are home for a few hours, otherwise, maybe not. I also put some chicken thighs in the air fryer for the guys and sliced up a baguette, both of which took maybe 5 minutes total. Total active time: let’s call it 50 minutes. Add in roasting time for the chickpeas, quinoa, and sweet potatoes, which is another 50-60 minutes total.

Tuesday

Tuesday night is typically stir-fry night, mostly because I always like to use up all the veggies before Grocery Day. Even though I’d already bought groceries, I still felt like having a stir-fry; I made a teriyaki sauce based on a recipe from Vegan Richa‘s Everyday Vegan cookbook, and served it with basmati rice and pan-fried tofu, adding cashews on top. The veggies took about 15 minutes to chop, the rice takes a few minutes to rinse before cooking, and the sauce itself requires cooking to thicken and takes close to 25 minutes to make. The veggies and tofu do need active hands, and they take about 15 minutes, which I do while the rice cooks. Total active time: 55-60 minutes. Again, a good meal to make if you have a bit of time.

Wednesday

Pasta night! The thing I love about pasta night is the sauce, and to maximize my sauce consumption I roast a cauliflower to eat along with the pasta. This was an easy meal because I had sauce in the freezer from a batch I had made a few weeks back. I also had some meatballs in the freezer for the guys, which I just bake in the oven. It takes about 10 minutes for me to chop up a cauliflower, and probably about 5 minutes total to toss the pieces in olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and put it in the oven alongside the meatballs. I’m going to say that heating up the sauce and boiling the water for pasta takes maybe another 5 minutes, and so total active time for this meal – thanks to Past Nicole, who put things in the freezer – is only about 20 minutes, plus cauliflower roasting time.

Thursday

This is by far the easiest and fastest weeknight meal in my arsenal: tortilla wraps. I cut up veggies and avocado, I put a couple of chicken breasts in the air fryer for the guys to slice up and add to their wraps, and I put out shredded cheese and salsa for those who wanted it. The total active time for this is maybe 10 minutes. It’s perfect for a Thursday night when it feels like the week has been busy and tiring and is it Friday yet? No? Okay, tortilla wraps it shall be.

Friday

My favourite night of the week! I could eat this meal every single day for the rest of my life, happily. Greek salad with hummus and pita, and, of course, Friday night wine. I also put some chicken in the air fryer, and for those of you who are wondering, I have a double air fryer in which one side is reserved for meat only, and the other side for vegetables. I get a lot of use out of it; it is an easy way to cook meat without having to actively cook meat. In any case, this week I made hummus, which takes probably 15 minutes, most of which are me gathering the ingredients before putting everything in the food processor. The salad itself takes 10 minutes, between chopping the veggies and making the dressing. Usually I buy mini pitas, but they didn’t have them this week, so I sliced up regular-sized ones, which took a few minutes. Total active time: 30 minutes.

Saturday

What can I say, I was missing guacamole, and I had bought a bag of avocados on Monday that ripened perfectly for this week – two were ripe on Thursday, and four on Saturday. I consider that a sign from the universe. I roasted sweet potatoes and red peppers, sauteed black beans with some cumin, coriander, chili powder, and lime, and then whipped up a batch of guacamole. It makes a perfect burrito! Total active time is about 35 minutes: 10 minutes for the guac (not including sampling it with chips), 10 minutes to chop the vegetables, and 15 minutes to rinse and drain the beans, and then sauté them. Somewhat fun story: we call these enchiladas in our house even though they are not enchiladas. Years ago I had made them into actual enchiladas, with cheese and sauce, for a friend who was going through cancer treatment at the time, and I made them for our family without the cheese and sauce, and without baking them. Still we call them enchiladas.

Sunday

This is the only day that I make a meat-centric meal, which this week was a roast pork with gravy, the active time of which is about 20 minutes. I also make an amazing roasted broccoli dish, which I long ago adapted from a recipe on The Kitchn website, a Caesar salad, and crispy roasted potatoes. Chopping time for the lettuce and veggies is about 20 minutes total; the dressings for the broccoli and salad take another 20 minutes, plus 5 minutes for toasted breadcrumbs. Assembling all of the dishes is another 5 minutes, which is a total of 70 minutes of active time, plus a lot of waiting-for-everything-to-cook time.

But wait! There’s more!

I came across this sweet little product around Christmastime but never used it until last weekend. Friends, let me tell you about strawberry daiquiri pie, a dessert that actually does take only ten minutes to make, albeit it needs a couple of hours to set. I make a graham cracker crust with coconut oil – just stir 1/4 cup melted coconut oil into 1 1/4 cups graham crumbs and squish the mixture into a pie pan – and then I whirred 3 cups thawed frozen strawberries and a can of this sweetened condensed coconut milk in my food processor, poured it into the crust, froze it for a couple of hours, and added a quick chocolate sauce for serving. YES.

Two things have become obvious here: a) I really like roasted vegetables, and b) I don’t mind cooking meat too much as long as I can use virtually hands-off processes. I know a lot of vegan friends won’t allow meat into their homes, but I’m pretty easygoing about the whole thing. We are all on our own journeys, people, and the guys in my house, well, their journeys include meat. I do have separate pans and serving utensils for meats, though, I can only be so easy-breezy.

I guess one more thing is obvious, and that is that I love dessert. It’s February, after all, and pink desserts are de rigeur. I hope you are having a delicious day! xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Fancy Was My Name Edition

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A few weeks ago, we were having dinner and Fancy came on, via the Nicole’s Karaoke playlist, which sparked a discussion with regards to the mother-daughter relationship between Fancy and her mother. Well, she basically prostituted her daughter, I said, to which my son answered, What do you expect? She named her daughter Fancy. Obviously she didn’t think she’d grow up to be a lawyer.

One of my Favourite Things in the world is having Responsible Adult Children. Recently Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) asked what has, so far, been the best age when it comes to children, and I have thought about this a lot. I think I suffer from recency bias because if you asked me at any time in my children’s lives what the best age is, I would say, with great enthusiasm, this one! I loved babies and toddlers, I loved preschool and elementary school, and I loved – and am still loving – the teen years; yes, even the awkward junior high years. I’ve loved all the ages and stages and I think I just enjoy my children more and more as the years go on, as I see them grow and change and become more and more the people they have always been, but more awesome.

So there is probably some recency bias here, but wow, do I love my kids being Responsible Adults. My husband and I went away to Secrets Maroma in Mexico for a week; we have, over the years, gone away together several times, but never for very long, because when the kids were younger there were just so many logistics to account for, plus the typical motherly guilt about leaving the children behind. But now we have very few constraints and my younger son wasn’t working last week, so we left him to be in charge of the house and also Rex, which is no small task, given that he has Very High Needs when it comes to exercise and general affection. He drove us to the airport at 5:00 am, and picked us up in the middle of the night (read: 9:00 pm); I came home to a perfectly clean house – albeit one with an empty refrigerator, because he cooked all his own meals for the week – a happy dog, and no laundry to do except for the myriad bikinis and sundresses crammed into my carryon.

It was a really incredible week, and a perfectly indulgent one. We met up with friends, relaxed, ate and drank and soaked up the sun and played in the Caribbean. I have zero complaints; no notes. I do have many Favourite Things, though, so without further ado:

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Fancy Was My Name Edition

Life In Front Of The Curtain

The incredible vacation started out on the flight. We had splurged on premium seats and friends, I do not think I can ever go back to economy. I can’t! I won’t! Well, I will – we have a few upcoming flights that are not premium – but as god is my witness, I will never go economy again if I can help it. Flying in general feels like a tedious exercise in maximum discomfort, but flying premium? Oh la la. I felt a Mad Men-level of glamour, like it was the 1960s and everyone was dressed up for a fabulous flying experience. I mean, they served us actual meals on actual crockery and drinks in actual glasses; we got snack packs and offers of booze, refreshing hot towels, and the exclusive use of the premium bathroom. On a practical note, my circulation and varicose vein issues are pretty bad, even with my full-length, medical grade, “nude” compression stockings, and with the roomy seats and legroom I was able to stretch out quite a bit. Also, our flight was ninety minutes delayed on the tarmac before takeoff, and I think I might have died, or at the very least, been incredibly annoyed at having to sit in a cramped economy seat for an extra hour and a half on top of the over six hours of flying. As it was, I just chilled out and read, sipping from my complimentary water bottle. Ten out of ten, would recommend.

Here’s Your One Chance, Fancy, Don’t Let Me Down

We have been to many of the Secrets/ Dreams resorts in the past, and they are all really great. This one, however, was beyond everything I could have imagined. Every single detail was pure luxury. The rooms were beautiful, the pool areas were stunning, the service was incredible in every way; I have often thought that all-inclusive resorts are a bit like a fancy summer camp for adults, because it’s so easy to meet people and there are fun activities people can partake in, pretty much every hour of the day. My preferred activities were reading by the pool, cooling off in the pool, and swimming in the gorgeous turquoise Caribbean Sea. I did, however, partake in Spanish lessons one morning.

Hablo Espanol

I have been learning Spanish via Duolingo for a while; 702 days, to be exact. My son got me started on it – he’s learning Japanese – and every week we go on our Friends Quest together to maintain our positions in the Diamond League. Anyway, I felt like I had learned a lot, but I don’t have any friends to speak Spanish with, face to face, with the exception of my husband’s colleague’s wife, who very patiently, and with great encouragement, spoke with me at his retirement party in September.

Therefore, I was a little nervous to attempt to converse with actual people; practicing on an app is one thing, actually speaking is another. I was worried that I would use the wrong word or phrasing, I worried I’d use the wrong verb conjugation. Then, just before we left I had a pedicure, and the esthetician, who spoke little English, had a brief conversation with me about the weather; at that moment I realized that I would never judge someone learning English for using the wrong grammar or conjugating a verb incorrectly, so it stood to reason that the same would go for me, speaking Spanish.

I was right! Also, I was amazed at how well I could carry a conversation; I could understand everything being said to me, and even when it took me a moment to formulate a response, I could still formulate the response. Now, I probably have the conversational ability of a preschooler (I WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK SPANISH WITH YOU PLEASE) but it was so great to be able to practice. My Spanish lesson at the resort was fun and also enlightening; the teacher informed me that, in Mexico, one should never say estoy caliente, because that doesn’t mean I’m hot, it means I’m horny. This, I felt, was excellent information to have.

The Sharks Like It

After discovering that this invention was the highest valuation on Shark Tank, my husband bought us LARQ water bottles. The cap contains a special UV light that kills bacteria and there are two modes: regular, and “adventure.” I wanted to use fewer plastic water bottles, which are ubiquitous at these resorts, and so I was excited to give this a go. Now, there are two things to note: a) the concierges warned against drinking the tap water in the rooms, and b) there must be a big filtration system somewhere on the resort because there are a lot of fruits and vegetables, not to mention ice in drinks and jugs of water in restaurants. I did not know about a) until I had filled this bottle from the tap, and drank from it, at least four times. I didn’t get sick so I guess it works.

While I was by the pool, I asked one of the bartenders if I could have water to fill my bottle, thinking that he would just fill it from a tap behind the bar, but instead he just opened up a couple of plastic bottles and poured them in. That was a little discouraging, but then I discovered a bottle filler NEAR the bar. I’m sure it was filtered just fine, but still I used my little UV light, feeling like a well-hydrated rock star.

I got some kind of mystery marks on the bottle, which I THINK came from a travel-size black plastic tissue pack that melted in the heat, but happily, after an application of baking soda paste with a Scrub Daddy, they have since disappeared.

Here Comes The Sun(screen)

Just like (hopefully?) I will never go back to economy seats, I will (absolutely!) never go back to checking luggage. Generally it’s not too difficult for me to pack carryon only, but the one thing that is tricky is ensuring I have enough sunscreen. On our trip to Maui last year, I just purchased a lot of sunscreen on the island, but I didn’t want to do that here because omg, do you know what a bottle of sunscreen costs in a Secrets resort? FIFTY-EIGHT US DOLLARS. With the exchange rate and tax, we are looking at almost a hundred dollars for a measly bottle of Banana Boat.

But sunscreen we must have, and there are only so many travel-size bottles one can squeeze into the regulation one-litre bags, especially when one needs to take hair products, makeup, and night cream. It was serendipitous that I came across these solid Neutrogena stick sunscreens, which do not count as liquid, obviously, because they are solid. Bonus for the fishies in the sea, it’s mineral.

Some of you may remember my lament last year about mineral sunscreen and the white cast it leaves on the skin, and this one, despite being “Ultra Sheer,” is no exception. However, it works really, really well, as evidenced by the little spots of sunburn on my knees and breasts where I obviously missed with my application.

Welcome To Margaritaville, Population: Me

My husband’s birthday is in October; we went out for dinner to celebrate. Since that day, I have made dinner every single night. Every. Single. Night. So what I’m saying is that I was very excited to partake in unlimited food items that I had absolutely no hand in preparing. The food at the resort was so incredible, so vast in variety and so well-prepared and fresh, and, in comparison with other resorts, the plant-based offerings were Off The Chart. I couldn’t even begin to believe my luck. I’m used to very limited options, and so I was amazed at all the delicious vegetarian and vegan food available. At breakfast there was CHIA PUDDING. And little waffles made with almond milk. And incredible fresh fruit. And made-to-order smoothies. Lunches had me plowing through vast amounts of lentil and chickpea salads, and chips and guacamole; so much guacamole, friends. There were fresh berries and caramelized pumpkin seeds, there was every dessert you could imagine, and every dinner was more delicious than the last.

Of course there were also mango margaritas by the pool!

Probably it’s good to only have gone a week, my liver may have exploded in protest if we stayed longer. But oh! So delicious.

Outfit of the Month

I know, I know, I KNOW that we are all trying to avoid fast fashion. I really am. But also? I am not made of stone, and I found this dress at Old Navy last summer for ten dollars. That is TEN CANADIAN DOLLARS, which is essentially free for my American friends. What price my morals? I know. Anyway, I keep all my clothing for many years, to the chagrin of my husband, and so I’ll probably have this cute dress for decades. The sandals are old Skechers, but I think I need to retire them. I think these sandals are a half size too small. A few times after a big dinner and lots of wine, I had to walk barefoot back to the room as my swollen feet exploded out of their strappy cages in the heat and humidity. Probably that is not an ideal thing to do, but I’m still here, with intact feet, so I guess it worked out fine. I’m in the market for dressy new sandals, is what I’m saying.

This week of rest and relaxation was exactly what I needed after such a hectic and stressful year. I feel so rested and ready to take on anything. Up first: figuring out how to make my own caramelized pumpkin seeds, and finding new sandals. xo

Wrapped, Rapped, Rapt

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Last Friday I woke up to the lightest dusting of SNOW, and people, I do not think I have ever been so excited by such a meteorological event. The first snow, IN DECEMBER! This is incredible to me, and also it felt so special and festive, even if it didn’t even cover the grass and disappeared by mid-morning. It snowed lightly throughout the weekend, though, so I may be able to use my new skis very soon!

I spent many hours last week grocery shopping and wrapping gifts and packing parcels to be mailed. So many hours, people. Any week that I visit Costco AND Superstore is going to feel exhausting, in the grocery shopping department, but whoa nelly. I think I’ve mentioned before that the Kelowna Costco is the busiest in Canada and second-busiest in North America, right behind the one in Maui. How they measure this I do not know, but having visited both many times I believe it. In any case, this past week it seemed worse than usual, in that it was almost impossible to move the cart as there were people literally everywhere, and then the lineup went two-thirds of the length of the store. She died the way she lived, standing in line at Costco. On the plus side, I had a nice conversation with two ladies, one with regards to the giant stuffed bear in her cart. Have you seen those? One bear fills an entire cart and costs $150; she was telling me that it was for her grandchildren but that she kind of wanted to keep it for herself. This was extremely understandable. “Touch it!” she said to me a little intensely, but I did as she said.

The other lady was also very intense, about the role of ingredient substitutes such as artificial sweeteners or keto-friendly bread in our society. I didn’t disagree with her opinions – after all, I myself am not a fan of those or meat substitutes – but her level of disapproval was, shall we say, heightened. Costco shopping can be a fraught time, emotions run high.

I generally like all manner of holiday-related jobs, such as baking or treat-making or decorating or what have you, but there is one festive job that is at the very bottom of my list, and that is gift-wrapping. I strongly dislike gift-wrapping, possibly because I am so abjectly terrible at it. I might be the worst gift-wrapper over the age of five. I don’t know why I am so bad, but I am: I’m always cutting the paper too big or too small, and then I am trying to either repair the gaping strip where the ends don’t meet or, alternately, folding up huge wads of paper on the sides. There is no in-between. I use far too much tape and somehow I always manage to tape strands of my own hair onto the gift itself; perhaps the stress of wrapping makes my hair fall out, I don’t know. And this is if the gift is in a box, which is the best-case scenario. If it’s irregularly shaped, forget about it. You might be thinking to yourself gift bags exist, which, indeed they do, but we are tear-open-the-gift-wrap people around here, and I also have four rolls of Costco wrapping paper purchased years ago and I still haven’t used them up. I might take them to my grave at this rate, the grave I’m working myself into by standing in line buying such things as giant rolls of Costco wrapping paper.

Anyway, one of the best things about having a newly-retired husband is that I can delegate such jobs to him, and he is happy to do them. I can’t outsource all my wrapping to him, though, which means all the gifts directed to him will be a jumble of wrapping paper and tape.

I don’t know how you get through the various drudgeries of your day, like gift-wrapping, but I mostly listen to music or podcasts. Spotify Wrapped came out this week and it turns out that I, as my friend Nicole said (HI NICOLE), am an actual teenager.

You guys. I am in the TOP ONE PERCENT OF SPOTIFY LISTENERS. Now, in my defense I did spend many hours this year packing and cleaning and moving and unpacking, but still. 93,784 minutes is a lot of minutes. My peak day was July 18, which checks out. That was moving day and I drove eight hours listening to podcasts, then spent another couple of hours unpacking the car and organizing things, so 643 minutes sounded about right.

I’m always a bit surprised when Spotify Wrapped comes out, to see what my top song was. For several years running it was, inexplicably, Midnight Train to Georgia, but this year it was Dog and Butterfly by Heart. Who could have guessed? Certainly not me.

The interesting thing about my top artists is that Wilson Phillips made it in there. There is only one song that I listen to of theirs, and that is Hold On. I feel like that says a lot about my mental state for the first half of the year. I had no idea I listened to that much TLC, but otherwise, I’m not terribly surprised.

I seem to be missing something in my brain – probably because it’s filled up with song lyrics – that allows me to create any kind of visual art. If, for example, you asked me to draw a car or a dog, I would be completely unable to. It would almost seem as if I had never in my life seen a car or a dog, but had only received a verbal description. Here’s a…tire? A dog has…a tail? It’s really bad and probably somewhat related to my inability to wrap gifts with any kind of normalcy. This past weekend we went to a party and I was asked to bring a veggie plate. My beautiful friend Sammi (HI SAMMI) sent me a few photos of Christmassy veggie plates, to see if I wanted to try to recreate one. I was a little nervous – as I said, this is not my forte – but after looking at the photos, and with strong encouragement from my husband, who suggested I try the absolute easiest one, I did it!

My husband, thankfully, made the star. I know I’ve seen a star shape but…?

Weekly Reading

I had a DNF this week; it was I Have Some Questions For You. I had started reading the e-book in September, and it just wasn’t captivating me, and I ended up not finishing it by the time it was due back at the library; I put it back on hold and thought I would finish it later. Well, it came in this past week and after another chapter or two I thought life is too short and I cannot waste any more time on this. This could be because I had just finished the below book.

The Invitation. By the time I got to this book, I was on a four-book meh streak. I thought this might break the streak; it’s a story about a woman in a loveless marriage having a one-night stand, and then the two lovers being inadvertently thrown together on a yacht in 1950s. Friends, it did not break the streak. Five meh books in a row.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful. Finally! The streak of meh books was broken! Thank god. I don’t think I could have taken another one (my DNF was right before this one). Anyway, I loved this author’s earlier book, Keep Moving. I read it in the thick of the pandemic and whoa nelly, did it ever resonate. What I didn’t know (or maybe I forgot?) is that she wrote Keep Moving while going through an absolutely terrible divorce, and this book, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, is about that divorce. Her prose is absolutely gorgeous and can I just say that a toxic marriage and dreadful divorce make for very good writing material – as one of her friends said, at least you’re a writer so all this material isn’t wasted. Isn’t that a silver lining? I love dark humour and I loved this book. 

Shelley: Also Known As Shirley. I first read this book in 1987; I was at my grandparents’ house, bored, and helped myself to my grandma’s paperback collection in the basement. I had never seen or heard of any movie Shelley Winters had been in, and in fact I didn’t even know who Shelley Winters WAS. But I have always been interested in women’s and girls’ stories only, and this was one of the few books about a woman. Well! You can see how many times I read this book over the years, because it completely fell apart. I haven’t read it for a long time though, and so I thought I’d revisit it to see how it holds up. IT HOLDS UP! This is one juicy autobiography, and wow, did she ever live an interesting life! As a child she lived in tenements in Brooklyn; when she was about nine her father’s haberdashery shop burned down and he went to prison in Sing Sing for arson. It was a wrongful conviction, so he got out after about a year but sunk into a deep depression. By the time Shelley (then Shirley) was 14 she dropped out of school, got her working papers, and organized a strike at the Woolworth’s she worked at, which led to all the Woolworth’s in the five boroughs being unionized! She became a model, acted in Broadway and off-Broadway plays, was discovered by Harry Cohn and ended up in Hollywood. Oh, and she got married to a man who was in the air force. He came home from the war and they got divorced, and this all happened by the time she was NINETEEN. If that wasn’t enough, she had so many interesting friendships and affairs, going on a publicity tour to Europe while engaged to a costar, and ended up meeting and marrying Italy’s biggest star, Vittorio Gassman while she was there. Later they had an absolutely explosive divorce while starring in an Italian film. This book HAS IT ALL. Wow, what a fun, star-studded read!

I know I talk about Costco with exasperation a lot, but here’s where it pays off: it’s kalette season again! I consider myself to be an unpaid Kalette Influencer; if you see them, just know that they are a life-changing vegetable that is here for a good time, not a long time. So have a good time, the kalettes won’t shine every day! xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Oooh, It’s October Edition

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At the risk of sounding like an incredibly demented Little Miss Sunshine, I do not have a Least Favourite Month. I don’t have a Most Favourite Month either; I love April because it’s my birthday, and December because of Christmas, I love July and August because of the heat and summery vibes and I love September because it’s my younger son’s birthday and, together with January, there are those fun Fresh Start Feelings. I love May and June because of gardening, and March because it’s my older son’s birthday and our wedding anniversary. Even the less-popular months like November and February I love; the latter because I like to celebrate Galentines’, Valentines’, and eating half-price chocolate, and the former because of Tiny Secret Festive Season. October, of course, is a great month for Halloween and all the festivity that comes with that, including, but not limited to, fun sized candy.

But in my mind, due to a lifetime lived in Calgary, October is the beginning of winter. The leaves were always blown off the trees, meaning that the trees would be naked until May. It would always snow. The constant wind meant that wearing lip gloss and having my hair down at the same time was hazardous. My whole life I have always secretly wondered at those people who are strongly Fall People; it always seemed aspirational to me, while I dug out my winter coat and boots, to be walking around in October in only a sweater and scarf, with leaves still on the trees, eating fresh apples and looking at pumpkin displays that hadn’t been frozen and thawed so many times that they turned into mush.

But wow! Do I ever love fall here! October is gorgeous; even on the rainy and cool days, it’s beautiful. I’m turning into a Fall Person! And so of course it’s time for…

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Oooh, It’s October Edition

If You Leave Me Now

Now, of course I greatly enjoyed the fall colours when I lived in Calgary, of course I did. Every year for approximately two to three weeks, I would walk around like the aforementioned demented Little Miss Sunshine and photograph the changing trees against the blue sky backdrop. Then there would be a hard frost and an enormous windstorm and the trees would be mere sticks against that blue sky backdrop. And then it would snow.

You guys, not only are the leaves in full, glorious colour right now but they have been for over a month AND there are some trees on which the leaves are STILL GREEN. What is this magic? It is so gorgeous, I can’t even. I CAN’T EVEN. I have gone from demented Little Miss Sunshine to possibly scaring fellow walkers with my enthusiasm for fall foliage. The vineyard is golden, trees are all green, yellow, orange, and red, RED, you guys. I can’t get over it. I actually phoned my husband the other day, while driving, to shriek about the alternating colours of the trees near the library. I would have taken a picture but you know, I was driving.

The Book Of Love

Speaking of the library, after my rough start I am getting really comfortable with my local branch. I still have my CPL account for ebooks, but I am finding the selection here for paper books is quite good. I went in the other day to pick up a hold, and ended up cleaning out almost their entire shelf of “Staff Picks.” As I went to the counter with my arms stacked, I mentioned somewhat sheepishly and guiltily that I had done so, and the librarian checking me out cheerfully said That’s what they are there for! We will just put in new ones!

Also, the loan period is four weeks, which seems gloriously generous and justifies my giant, greedy piles.

People Of The World, Spice Up Your Life

If you are not following my friend Suzanne’s blog (HI SUZANNE) you are sadly missing out: not only is she an incredibly gifted writer who is an absolute delight to read, but she also frequently posts recipes and dinner ideas. Last fall she posted the Perfect Fall Cookie and my goodness, friends, you need this cookie in your life.

This particular one was more chocolate chip than cookie, which should be Cookie Goals.

Now, because I’m me, I made a few changes: I added vanilla and omitted the cloves, and I did not want eight giant cookies, I wanted many, smaller cookies, and so I just adjusted the baking time accordingly. They were perfection, all the beauty of fall in cookie form.

Kale-ing Me Softly

Back in the spring, my sister-in-law thought I would be sad, moving to Kelowna, particularly since I would miss out on a whole year of gardening, and so she planted some cherry tomatoes and kale for me in my mother-in-law’s garden. You may remember that my mother-in-law is next door, but what I haven’t mentioned is that the garden will be mostly my responsibility next year. I have BIG PLANS, including raised beds for all the veggies, but in the meantime, I had these lovely cherry tomatoes and kale that were just for me.

The kale is STILL GOING STRONG. I have had so many cuttings of it this year, and it’s still going! We’ve been enjoying giant salads every Sunday dinner since we arrived here, and it’s been so prolific that my husband MAY have hinted that he’s tiring somewhat of kale. Well, too bad for him, because we still have some in the garden! Plus, my favourite farm market still has them in giant bunches 2/$5, so get ready for more Vitamin K!

That sounds like a joke, but kale really is high in Vitamin K. Moving on!

Snack-ual Healing

Let’s stay with the topic of food for a while; I have two items that I am obsessed with. Now, the first one I am a little shy to tell you about, as I JUST wrote about the madness of diet culture and my belief that we CANNOT assign some kind of morality to food choices, we just can’t. It’s absolutely wrong and destructive and I WILL NOT DO IT.

But OMG, this popcorn. Look, I know. I know the name is stupid and goes against every single thing I just said, but this popcorn is SO good. Could I pop my own corn and toss it in a coconut oil and nutritional yeast concoction to make something similar, precluding me from financially supporting a snack food company called Lesser Evil? I sure could. Will I? NO, because this is so delicious and also I make every single thing from scratch around here, just let me have this. Let me just have something easy.

I picked this up at Costco on a whim; I was hungry, and also I was stuck in a cart traffic jam, waiting for a dozen people to get their free sample of crackers and file out of the aisle so I could move on with my life. I saw this and was intrigued, and let me tell you, it is every bit as amazing as I could have ever hoped. It’s spicy and sweet, and tart and sour all at the same time. It’s like an incredible chewy candy, but it’s fruit. It is so good and I plan on grabbing several bags the next time I spot this. Of course, this is Costco we are talking about, and so who knows if I will ever see it again.

Smooth Operator

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you will know that I have been a Neutrogena devotee for years, decades even. You will also know that any skin care or beauty product must be used by me for a minimum of three months, and must show some kind of benefit, for it to be featured in my Favourites. Well! Let me tell you about this:

I started using Neutrogena Retinol Plus about six months ago, both the eye cream and the regenerating night cream. I was initially attracted to it because it comes with a warning label: NOT FOR BEGINNERS. This cracks me up so much, but it also indicates that it involves some pretty potent retinol. Well, this is not my first retinol rodeo, people, I’ve been riding that retinol bull for some time now.

Does it work, you may be asking, and the answer is I think so? But it’s impossible to tell, really, because time keeps marching forward and I do not live in the multiverse, people, and so there’s no Nicole Without Retinol to compare to. But I do think that my makeup-free face is less haggard-looking than it was when I started; then again, when I started I was in the midst of preparing for a move and an empty nest and my husband’s retirement, and was having a nervous breakdown every other day, so who can say what the cream is doing. It could be working OR I could just not be under an unbelievable amount of stress, who knows. What I know for sure is that my forehead lines are a permanent fixture and nothing short of surgery or massive filler injections is going to change that, so que sera sera.

Welcome To Her Dollhouse

Do you need a little pick-me-up? Of course you do! Well, let me tell you about my lovely friend Michelle (HI MICHELLE). She is an artist and a crafter and she has been working on a dollhouse for a while now, and let me tell you, it is the MOST incredibly adorable thing you have ever seen. Like, I have actual fantasies of shrinking myself down to live in that dollhouse. Every single new addition is better than the last, and I honestly feel like I might spin off the planet whenever I look at it, it is SO cute. I go and look at her photos at least once a week, when I need cheering or when I just want to see how the doll-half lives. THERE ARE GNOMES, PEOPLE. I find when I’m looking at it I am barely coherent because LITTLE TINY ROLLING PIN AHHHHHH.

OOTM

Look at me, swanning around with no coat, just a jaunty sweater and blanket scarf! This is Peak Fall Fashion Goals for me.

Rex wants you to see his white tuft, which matches my outfit.

These pants, boots, and top have all been discussed at length before, I am sure, but what I want to talk about is this cream poncho-like sweater. I bought it from lululemon at least ten years ago, and while I love it, I don’t wear it often. Mostly, because it’s cream and I almost always immediately spill something on myself whenever I don light-coloured clothing. But there is a funny story attached to this sweater, and that is that I was wearing it at the playground, underneath my winter coat, while waiting for the kids to finish sledding after school one day. My friend Helena (HI HELENA) came up to me and pulled me aside to tell me that she thought I should know I had toilet paper hanging down in the back.

Now, first of all, god bless everyone who tells people things like this, whether it’s a toilet paper mishap, lipstick on the teeth, chocolate on the face, or skirts tucked into pantyhose. These people are doing the lord’s work. But the thing was, I did NOT have toilet paper stuck in my waistband and hanging down below my winter coat, it was just that the jaunty edges of the poncho-like sweater gave the ILLUSION of having toilet paper stuck in my waistband and hanging down below my winter coat, and I think we can all agree this is not a look anyone would aspire to.

Therefore, I swore I would never wear that sweater again underneath any outerwear, and since I lived in Calgary until three months ago, this meant that my opportunities to wear it were greatly reduced. Calgary is not a place that really encourages a person to go anywhere without a jacket. But now! Now I can wear it in all its glory, I just have to make sure I’m not going to immediately spill wine or salsa on it, which is what happened the last time I wore it. Resolve Stain Remover: also a Nicole’s Favourite Thing.

Hilariously, one of my Favourite podcasts, Nobody Panic, released an episode this week called How To Be A Basic Autumn Bitch and it spoke to me, people. It spoke to me. I hope you are enjoying October too, and if you have Favourites to share, I’d love to hear them, as always. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Wake Me Up When September…Wait, September Is Ending Edition

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What a month September has been; oddly enough, it simultaneously feels like it flew by, and that it was three months long. We packed so much in, and now my already tenuous sense of time is completely warped. Everything already feels like it happened so long ago. Was it only three and a half weeks ago that my older son moved out? Were my parents really here only last Monday? Was my husband’s retirement party only one week ago today? Was my younger son’s 18th birthday less than two weeks ago? Did I get Rex groomed two and a half weeks ago and his clean fur lasted only two hours? Yes to all of those things.

I have been in Kelowna for two and a half months now, and I have to tell you, I really love it here. I am a person who really loves being outside and who enjoys the beauty of nature, and Kelowna is really gorgeous, with pretty much perfect weather. Even when it rains, it’s beautiful. I mean, look at this double rainbow I spotted from my window this week!

My husband, who grew up here, always said that September was his favourite month. For me, growing up in Calgary, September was a bit of a gamble; the leaves could be still beautifully coloured, on the trees, or they could be blown off in a massive windstorm, resulting in naked trees until the following May. The days could be sunny and warm, or they could be cold, windy, and possibly snowing. There was no telling what the week could bring; too long, didn’t read, wear layers, make sure the winter coats are at the ready. But here, September means cool, crisp mornings with sunny, warm afternoons. We’ve had some rainy days, but the temperature is still so mild that an unlined rain jacket is all that is needed. Some of the trees are changing but many are still green. It’s just full of beauty, and I am really happy here.

You never know, right? You never know what a new place is going to be like until you’re in it, and certainly there have been some adjustments to be made – I spent a lot of time on my yoga mat, meditating in a what lens am I viewing this through, we can control our own responses but not other people kind of way – but I’m happy with our move, and I wanted to share some of my favourite things about this month.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Wake Me Up When…Wait, September Is Ending Edition

To Market, To Market

Kelowna is a hotbed of fruit and vegetable production, and this time of year is just rife with so much fresh produce. There are what are called Farm Markets on every corner, it seems, which sell all manner of local goods. I have discovered my favourite one and I visit there weekly to get the freshest local fruit you can imagine.

McIntosh apples have been in abundance this month, my favourite apple. Tree ripened fruit, sign me up! Also, my favourite Farm Market is selling kale at $5 for two bunches, and those bunches are absolutely enormous. Like, Fill Up All Available Lidded Bowls enormous.

It’s Gourd Season, motherfuckers! Decorative and otherwise.

Pumpkins for DAYS, people, and all locally grown. Listen, for a Calgary girl who has never successfully grown a gourd, this is pretty incredible.

My older son was over for dinner, and upon seeing my bowl he said “It’s Decorative Gourd Season already?” Usually I wait until October, but these little cuties were too good to pass up, and only $0.75 each!

Looking Out My Back Door

One of the most incredible things about living on a vineyard is actually living on a vineyard. Most of the grapes are used by the winery above us, but there are a few rows of Concords and Sheridans, and I do not think I will ever get tired of stepping out the back door to snip myself a snack.

There is a short window of Concord Grape Eating, Before They Get Too Soft, and I am doing my best to keep up.

I Didn’t Want To Love You

One strange, possibly surprising little quirk about me is that when it comes to beauty products, I absolutely hate free samples. I think they are wasteful and environmentally unfriendly, in their tiny little packages, as well as useless. How can one tell if a product is going to work for them from one use? In my mind, most products need to be used consistently to see results, one dab of cream or hair mask is just not going to cut it. I am a product monogamist and I’m not interested in trying things willy-nilly. Why would I engage in a one-night stand when I’m happily married? Does the one-night stand understand how important Top Gun is to me and will possibly don a flight suit? No? Then I am NOT INTERESTED.

So when I got a notification from the Nutrafol people that I was receiving a sample of shampoo and conditioner in my spring shipment, I was annoyed, and resigned myself to either donating or angrily throwing out the sample. What I didn’t realize until the shipment arrived was that they sent me full-size bottles to try. Well! That’s different.

Here’s the thing: Nutrafol alone is already expensive, although I can tell you right now it really does work for hair loss. This is not sponsored, obviously, nothing is for sale on this blog although, if Nutrafol DID sponsor me, I would totally take it, we all have our price, but what I’m saying is that it works. I have been taking it for ten months now and my hair is significantly thicker.

But it’s expensive, especially for Canadians who are not only swimming against the exchange rate, but also have to pay international shipping. The last thing I wanted to do was add ridiculously pricey shampoo and conditioner to my already burgeoning hair budget. Listen, Nutrafol is not dumb. They are a 1970s cocaine dealer, giving me a couple of bumps before I take my platform shoes and sparkly jumpsuit to the dance floor, only to have me coming back to them, wrecked and desperate, with mascara smudges and missing a shoe, weeks later. The first one is free, and then all goes to hell.

What I’m saying is that this shampoo and conditioner is really, really good. In combing out my wet hair, perhaps one or two strands are left in my comb. The scent is gloriously citrusy, and my hair is bouncy and healthy-looking. I am still using my free bottles, and I haven’t decided if I will purchase more when they are gone; I keep hoping that they’ll send me more for free. I will keep you posted, and in the meantime, I’ll toss my hair around while grooving to Get Down Tonight.

The Eyes Have It

Speaking of product monogamy, long-time readers will know that I have exclusively used Maybelline’s The Falsies Lash Lift mascara for years, and before that, The Falsies. If it isn’t broke, let’s not fix it. It works great, it washes off easily, and although I don’t think anyone would mistake my eyelashes for actual falsies, I am happy with them.

Since I love this line so much, I was tempted when I saw that The Falsies has a new product, called The Surreal. I decided to give it a try.

I don’t think the end result is very different from the Lash Lift – and both are superior to The Falsies, in my mind – but the Surreal seems much less prone to smudging. It seems to last a lot longer without giving raccoon eyes, which is an important consideration, particularly for those of us who just naturally seem to have raccoon eyes and bags underneath that should be really checked in at the airport, rather than carried on.

The downside to less smudging is that it is a little bit more involved to remove – it requires a bit of extra effort, but nothing that I would consider a hurdle for purchase.

Outfit of the Month

As I mentioned in my last post, last Thursday was my husband’s retirement party, and I figured I would just wear one of my many little black dresses. When this was communicated to my husband, well, I won’t say he begged me to buy something new, that would be an exaggeration, but he strongly encouraged me to buy something new. I think his exact words were “For god’s sake, Nicole, stop being so fucking cheap! You can’t wear the same dress to every event for a decade!” WELL I NEVER. For one thing, I have NOT worn the same dress to every event for a decade, but I have reworn several of my dresses several times, and while I think that is great, and that I am not being fucking cheap but merely being in keeping with my own personal mindful consumption goals that were renewed after reading Unraveling, I do see his point. The dress I was planning to wear I purchased in 2014.

So I took a reconnaissance trip to the one mall in Kelowna, and found the perfect dress at the first store I went to, which is how I like to shop. Get in, get out.

Isn’t it cute? It’s a little lower-cut than I generally prefer, but it felt simultaneously sexy and classy. The heels I have had since probably 2014, and wow, am I unused to wearing heels. Our Uber driver let us off a block and a half from our destination to avoid us sitting in traffic for 20 minutes, and normally I would welcome the extra steps. NOT SO IN THESE SHOES. My feet felt like they were going to snap off at the ankles and I would have to tap tap tap my way into the event on my sheared-off ankle bones. Still, they went nicely with the dress.

That wrap dress wraps up all my favourite things from this busy, busy month! What are you loving in September? Tell me everything. xo

Five For Friday: The “We Moved!” Edition

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  • We did it! We moved! The house is almost entirely unpacked and organized and, relatedly, I am so physically tired. This may be as physically tired as I have ever been in my entire life. It would be an exaggeration to say that I have been on my feet every single day from the second I wake up to the second I go to bed, but not much of one. I realize that Not Everything Needs To Be Unpacked Immediately, but, well. After a couple of months of mess and disorganization in the old house, and a month of Pure Chaos, we all just want to be settled in and living in a clean and organized house. I mean, for a week before the move we were all eating dinner squashed on the couch around the coffee table, with one of my sons using the piano bench for a seat, as we had donated and gifted much of our furniture. We are all ready to resume life in a normal, non-boxed manner. And on that note, if you are planning a long-haul move, may I suggest having teenage boys and a handy, perfectionist husband? A few times this past week I have gone to bed and woken up to discover that my husband had built a whole row of shelves in the storage room, or that the guys had moved all the weights to nicely arrange the home gym. Since we have more vehicles than family members, getting them all there required some serious logistics. The weekend before the move, the guys drove out my husband’s car and my younger son’s truck, both completely full, including my Peloton and the extra dog crate (priorities!), and then flew back. I went to pick them up at the airport, and there was a problem with the gate. They sat on the tarmac for 75 minutes, which was about twenty minutes longer than their actual flight. Luckily I had taken a book with me, but let me tell you, tempers were FRAYED by the time they got into the car.
  • I missed the worst part of the move – the packing and the loading – as I drove myself and Rex out the day before the packers came. We all decided it would be best to not have Rex around while people packed boxes or loaded things into the truck, so I went to the new house early to clean and organize and buy groceries. The guys drove my husband’s truck and my older son’s car out two days after that, arriving late in the evening but before the movers arrived. I have driven that eight-hour route through the mountains many, many times, but never by myself, and never with so much stuff in the car that I couldn’t see out the rearview mirror. The drive itself was lovely and uneventful, and Rex did well in the car, which was a relief. It was a bit weird being in the new house alone; Rex and I were both really happy when the guys pulled in. I was also really happy that all our stuff made it in one moving van (plus all the multiple car and truck loads), with almost no damage. The guys helped the movers so much that the cost was actually less than half of what we thought it would be, so hooray for excessive late-teen testosterone. While helping a mover with the tremendously heavy granite-topped coffee table down the steps of our old lawn, an old lady pulled up and started a long conversation with my older son about our Christmas decorations and how she’d miss them, all the while the mover and my son had sweat pouring down their faces, biceps popping. It’s nice to be appreciated and missed, although my son thought the conversation could have happened when they weren’t carrying heavy furniture.

  • There is nothing like a move to make a person reconsider every possession owned. I have been obsessive about finding the perfect spot for absolutely everything, having learned from experience that I’ll just set this here until I find a better place is code for This is where this will live, forever. However, this is a very long and involved process and I have been constantly questioning whether or not we need an item. My sentimentality is long gone by this time and I am reminded of the poem by Mary Oliver entitled Storage. I kept saying things like “Do I REALLY need to keep this? Why do I still have my wedding dress?” which causes my husband to look at me with some alarm and say “I think you might want to keep your wedding dress, I think you might regret that.” But will I? Should I just keep it until I die and my great-grandchildren are saddled with all my fusty possessions, pressured to keep it until THEY die and have THEIR great-grandchildren wonder what this weird shred of possibly mouse-eaten material is?
  • This is probably bordering on the insane, but I have been cooking actual dinner every single night. Part of this is because there are no takeout places close by, and driving back and forth to get takeout would take as long as making a meal, and part of this is because the guys lived on takeout for about a week during the move and informed me that they missed my cooking So Very Much and were Dying For Vegetables. However! I will say that making a meal on top of unpacking, cleaning, and organizing for hours on end is the exhausting cherry on top of the taxing sundae.
  • Ever since I got here, everyone I have encountered – most notably my husband’s mother and sister – has treated me with kid gloves, assuming, I suppose, that I am One Toke Over The Breakdown Line. I welcome this gentle treatment, of course, but the honest truth is that I feel really great; I seem to have hopped the Melancholy Hurdle to start Embracing This Season of Life and Blooming Where I Am Planted. Probably this is because I have had numerous emotional breakdowns over the past several months, and so it is all out of my system. This is a good reminder of the benefits of Feeling Your Feelings, whatever they may be, and so if you too find yourself sobbing on your Peloton, hysterically cry-singing along with Miley Cyrus, IT IS OKAY. There will be a time after this, and you’re not alone.

I have much more to tell you, but it will have to wait. In the meantime: how are you? I’ve missed you all! Tell me everything that has been going on. xo