Category Archives: Fashion

Bringing Happy Home

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I flew in from Maui yesterday and boy, are my arms tired!

Sorry. I’m still pretty tired from a) flying the red eye on Monday night and b) dealing with an overtired child who was too tired to sleep last night and then had nightmares every hour or so that I’m having that weird thing where I don’t even really know what I’m doing. Yesterday I looked in the refrigerator for salt, for example, and I stared at the shelves for a good two minutes before I realized that on Planet Earth, we don’t refrigerate salt. I am less tired today – I’m not looking in the refrigerator for spices – but still in fog brain mode.

But who cares, right? I just spent twelve days in Maui and it was the best vacation we have ever had. Everything was perfect. Although it already feels like months ago when I was hanging out on the lanai drinking vodka and vitamin water:

Nicole

or wearing a giant hat

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or reassuring one of my children that the other one would not get close enough to a blowhole and get killed.

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So it’s back to reality, I guess. I’m trying to get back in the swing of things without complaining about the absence of palm trees or afternoon boozing. WHAT IS THIS BULLSHIT PLACE WITHOUT OCEAN BREEZES? It’s weird getting used to wearing socks and pants again, but here we are.

There’s been a lot of talk lately (forever?) about women wearing bikinis and getting your body bikini-ready and you know what? This was my fourth visit to Maui and I would say that 95% of the women on the beach are in bikinis, regardless of age or body shape. This is how it should be! I mean, really, look at men – they generally shirtless on the beach and we never, ever say a word about it. We don’t say “that guy has too big of a gut to wear those board shorts,” now, do we? Maybe we get a little weirded out when the elderly man wearing a brief-like swimsuit bends over near us and we see his testicles, but that doesn’t happen often (although when it does, we cannot unsee it). So why do we have a debate over whether or not women can wear bikinis?

From personal experience, I think bikinis are much more comfortable than any other kind of swimsuit. I’m kind of tall, and one-piece bathing suits never fit right. Tankinis don’t work for me for swimming because they ride up too much. So I opt for bikinis, although I’m less than three weeks away from being forty and the bottom part of my belly is a bit wrinkly from having babies and the “girls” are not what they used to be, believe me. But who cares? Why do we feel the need to look like Gisele Bundchen on the beach, or snark at other women for also not looking like Gisele Bundchen on the beach?

Maybe I’m feeling snappy today, but I’m making a vow, and that is to stop with the negativity. Not just for myself, but I’m no longer going to silently stand by while women tear down other women. We’d all love to be perfect, but no one is, and we aren’t going to get any closer to perfection by being mean and negative. Maybe, just maybe, instead of discussing someone’s flaws, we can inspire people to be better by discussing positive, happy things.

And on that note, I leave you with this: no makeup, swim hair, bug bite, and reapplied sunscreen. When I look at this photo, all I can think of is how happy I was at that very moment. xo

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 bikini

This is a million dollar idea.

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The other day I was putting gas in my car and I reset the odometer as I always do whenever I fill up. I realized that I have been doing this since age 16, when my dad told me to, ostensibly to calculate gas mileage. In all these years, I have never once calculated the gas mileage, although I always reset the odometer, without fail. My dad would probably be disappointed to know this. I actually don’t even know the volume of the gas tank, and I don’t keep track of my gas station receipts, so really, there is no need to reset the odometer. And yet, if I don’t, I feel as though the apocalypse might be upon us, and so reset the odometer I will.

Friday afternoon the boys and I headed out to Dairy Queen to get the fabled Treatzza Pizza for Mark’s birthday party, and on the way home we were stopped at a red light beside a young guy who had music blasting. The music wasn’t the usual thumpy bass-heavy sound of today’s youth; curious, I cracked my window. All the better to hear you with, perfect stranger stopped at a red light next to me.

The song was Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash. It was BLASTING. The guy had his windows down and had a perfectly straight face. He wasn’t grooving. He wasn’t singing. He wasn’t even tapping his hands on the steering wheel, but he was playing Ring of Fire cranked up like nobody’s business. When the light turned green, I noticed that the car itself was a Lincoln sedan.

And how was the birthday party? MY GOD, LOUD. It was four hours and honestly, I now think that I was unbalanced to think that was a reasonable amount of time to have eight children in the house. I mean, sure, the kids had a great time. Everyone said the party was “epic.” And yet, with forty minutes to go until pick-up time, I looked at my husband and told him that I didn’t think I was going to make it. But make it I did; everyone was happy and the kids all brought tons of food for the food bank, so it was a win. Maybe next time I will schedule the party for three hours.

In the interest of grievance airing, I must tell you that I am constantly grieved by a failure on nail polish companies to make a long-enough brush to reach the polish at the bottom of the bottle. I long for a world in which I can actually use all the polish in the bottle, without tipping the bottle precariously, trying to get the polish on the brush. Years of throwing out 3/4 empty bottles of nail polish because the last 1/4 is inaccessible has made me feel slightly bitter towards all nail polish companies. This is the same feeling I get with lip gloss – I can see there is still lip gloss in the container, and yet the applicator cannot access it. It is wasteful and must be stopped. Petition forthcoming.

Years ago I saw an episode of Dragon’s Den or Shark Tank or one of those shows in which the panel displays disgust at someone for triple-mortgaging their house to finance a really ridiculous and un-saleable idea, and the would-be entrepreneur talks about how moronic the panel is not to take them up on the Coolest Idea Ever, and that their offer of $1,000,000 for a 5% stake in their would-be company is a steal of a deal. Do you know those shows? My husband likes them. I do not. But years ago I saw an episode that featured a young woman who had come up with an idea for a long, skinny spatula that was designed to get the last bits of conditioner or lotion out of the bottle. It was called the Spaddy Daddy. Someone needs to come up with a Spaddy Daddy specifically for nail polish and lip gloss. I’m putting it out there! Someone please grab that idea and run with it, so I don’t have to spend half a blog post writing about how stupid this nail polish and lip gloss waste is. Again.

Now that I’ve aired a grievance, I feel like I need to balance the scales a bit by telling you about something I love. My husband recently installed Sonos in our house, fulfilling his lifelong dream to watch a movie with surround sound in the comfort of our own home. Now, I don’t really care about movie sound, but he also put in satellite radio in our house and I am in love. The greatest thing about this technology is that each song title and album cover pops up on my phone, which means I get to look at Bob Seger and really admire his hair.

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Seriously, look at his hair. It’s lustrous. Shiny. Full of wave and body. Things I never thought I’d say: I covet Bob Seger’s hair.

Now look at this:

DanColey

It’s not possible for me to love this photo more. Look at the hair. The moustaches. The wide lapels and the (I assume) three piece suits? Damn, Dan and Coley really got it together for this album cover. Plus, look at the expressions on their faces! I’m not talking about moving in. And I don’t want to change your life. But there’s a warm wind blowing the stars around, and I’d really love to see you tonight. I feel like he really WOULD love to see me tonight.

The show is about NOTHING.

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Another book fair in the books! For those of you playing along at home, that was number fourteen, and it was by far the most successful book fair ever! We raised over $4700 for the library, home reading program, and English as a Learned Language program, which means that the total for THIS SCHOOL YEAR is $8200, far and beyond what our fundraising has been in the past. Yay for book fair! Now that I’m slowly coming to the final chapters of my years as Book Fair Lady, I’m starting to already feel nostalgic for it. The posters are five dollars, I said starting at 9:10 on the first day and then repeated that mantra many times over; this isn’t unusual, but it was unusual how unbothered I was by the question. Is this one hundred dollars? a child asked, holding up a highlighter shaped like a bottle of nail polish? No, I assured him, It’s one dollar.

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But it has two zeros at the end of it and that means one hundred! the child argued. Not wanting to get into a whole decimal point explanation with him, I sold him a pencil sharpener shaped like a fish.

I ran into a friend on the way into the book fair, and we laughed about the nail polish highlighters. But you can polish your nails with the highlighter! she joked, unwittingly foreshadowing the very first conversation I would have about those highlighters. How did she know?

Anyway, I’ve been feeling pretty good about the success about the fair, or I was until someone mentioned to me that it might be worthwhile to run another one, so we could have three a year. I stared blankly for a minute. Blink. Blink. I don’t think so…

In addition to the great excitement surrounding the book fair was Pink Shirt Day. I always, always vow to finally find or make a pink shirt for my kids, and I always, always forget until the day before, when it’s too late. Do your kids have Pink Shirt Day at school? It’s an anti-bullying movement sparked by a boy wearing a pink shirt. I feel that it’s a great thing to raise awareness about bullying – of course – but I have to tell you, it’s the bane of my existence. As I said, I never remember to buy/ make a pink shirt. I feel slightly weird about the whole thing, kids wearing their pink shirts with pride while I meanwhile know about certain girls pulling that emotional bullying stuff that only tween girls do so well. Also, one year one of my sons burst into tears at his lack of pink shirt; he assumed that everyone would consider him a bully for not having one. That year I had to pin a piece of pink paper on his shirt, frantically, because explanations were just not working. I also feel weird about the families who maybe cannot afford to buy a pink shirt that will go unworn for the remainder of the year. And yet, I don’t want to be the person who is NOT for Pink Shirt Day.

Our amazing principal saved the day, however, declaring that red and purple shirts were just as good as pink. Now that is some good leadership. I was relieved…until I discovered that for Jake, blue and green are the new black. What my drawer is for black sweaters, his is for blue and green waffle weave. We had to improvise with a karate t-shirt that had a red flag on it.

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Yesterday after school, Jake came out saying he couldn’t find one of his mittens. We do have spares at home, but these are not cheap mittens, and so I hustled him and Mark back to the school. We grabbed a door as someone was coming out just before it closed – the doors are locked for safety reasons – and as we waited for the kids to come out so we could go in, Mark leaned on the closed double door. The door snapped open with a child eager to get the funk out of school, smacking Mark directly in the face. Eeep! He had a huge lump on his forehead and has had a headache since then, but otherwise seems okay. I’m just happy it didn’t hit him in the nose, because it would have probably been broken. Small mercies, but with the help of Tylenol, an ice pack, and an episode of Seinfeld – which he currently professes to love – the swelling seemed to go down a bit.

Now, about this Seinfeld thing. I’ve seen every episode ever made, and I love that the kids are interested enough to watch with me. They think Kramer, Newman, and George are the funniest characters on TV – which they just might be. However, there are some adult themes (“It has come to my attention that you and the cleaning lady had sexual intercourse on your desk.”) that are slightly awkward, but the kids aren’t interested. Ew. If this is about sex, can you fast-forward? Yes. Yes I can.

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Happy weekend, everyone. I for one will be enjoying my wine, and also the new season of House of Cards! xo

Middle Sister

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Wow, what a week! It wasn’t a bad week, just a very long and hectic one. On Wednesday afternoon I wrote “liquor store” on my Thursday to-do list, which is kind of telling. I dropped the boys at their karate class and hot-footed it to the liquor store. I browsed around a bit, and noticed that a wine I like was on sale. I opened up a case to make sure it was the type I wanted – for whatever reason I didn’t see the information on the case itself. The cashier looked at me strangely, and said, in a bit of a snippy voice, “That wine is on the display! You can just take a bottle!” I smiled sweetly and informed her that no, I wanted the whole case, which caused the entire lineup of people to swivel around to look at the wino in aisle 2. What?

After hauling my case into the car, I texted a friend a photo of a cute bottle of wine that I saw.

middlesister

The Wild One! That’s me! Even though I went to bed before eight last night.

Isn’t that the cutest? I texted it to my friend because she has three beautiful girls, and I feel a particular kinship with the middle one. I am a middle child myself, although I don’t have sisters, and so I decided to go back into the liquor store and pick up a couple of those bottles.

Nothing says “stability” like going back to the liquor store 90 seconds after leaving it.

Anyway, I was in line to pay for the three more bottles of wine I had somehow picked up, when I overheard the conversation from the other lineup. An older man was paying with cash, and the cashier asked him if he had five cents, so as not to have to give him a pile of change. He didn’t. “Oh! I have five cents!” I blurted out to this complete stranger, as I dug through my wallet for a nickel. As he was leaving, he said to me, “Thanks again, young lady, that was very kind.” Now, I don’t know how kind it is to give someone five cents, but it was worth many times that to hear the words “young lady”.

It was nice to hear, since I watched myself on the local television program I was on this week. I realized, suddenly, why I am so wrinkly. Not only do I talk with my hands, but I really talk with my face. I am like a female Jim Carrey, but without the…well…most of Jim Carrey. I have a lot of expressions, is all I’m saying. Also, my mouth is huge. I laugh and smile a lot with all teeth showing. This isn’t a bad thing, just an explanation for the forehead wrinkles and smile lines.

wrinkles

This is WITH filters.

It’s been freakishly warm here – I am certainly not complaining; any day in January that is not minus 30 is a win, as far as I’m concerned. But it has been ABOVE ZERO for a few weeks now! Someone suggested that perhaps this is due to my recent boot purchase. Hey, if I knew I could alter weather patterns via my clothing purchases, I would have bought ALL THE BOOTS years ago. Who knew I had so much power?

The joys of tween boys.

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Tweens, am I right? Parenting tweens is – I’m discovering – a funny business. There’s the newly found need for space, the sudden interest in girls, the need for me to tell the kids to GET OUT OF THE SHOWER, IT’S BEEN TWENTY MINUTES. There’s some emotional outbursts, although from what I can glean from my friends with daughters, the emotional outbursts that occur in my house are like a peaceful ocean wave compared with the Lieutenant Dan Fighting With God During Hurricane Carmen of Girl Emotions. Or, say, my Ladies’ Holiday Emotions. So, essentially what I’m saying is that if there is an emotional outburst, it’s more likely to come from me than anyone else, but I am finding that the tween years are slightly more emotional than the robot-level of emotion displayed by the boys in years past.

I will tell you the greatest thing ever about parenting tweens, at least in my house: they like to talk about what they are doing in school, and this translates into some very interesting and entertaining conversations. For example, today we were chatting about myths, and I told them the story of King Midas. They were fascinated; at first by the level of greed, and secondly about all the ways you could destroy the world with such a power.

Speaking of destruction, Mark has been learning chemistry at school, which makes me happy because I loved stoichiometry back in the day. Jake is a bit jealous about the chemistry unit, and has mentioned a few times that he cannot wait until he can take chemistry, so he can make experiments that blow up. Godspeed and wear your protective goggles, please. Anyway, Mark has been enjoying everything about chemistry: the periodic table, litmus papers, and the like. The other day, we were chatting about various fruits, and Jake reiterated his dislike for the following: fresh pineapple, oranges, and lemons.

Me: Jake, you really don’t like acidic fruits!

Mark: Jake’s just a basic kind of guy.

THAT’S MY BOY.

Mark had brought home his creative writing journal, and in it was an assignment in which the students use creative words to describe a person.

me

Orange hair is mentioned TWICE. Well, I cannot very well deny that it is true, given that any time I’m photographed in front of our burnt-orange walls, my hair fades into the background.

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I like that my son sees me as friendly, and I like his description of my clothing and jewelry, but is it strange to take exception at “wears pink lipstick”? I associate pink lipstick with either the frosted pink of the 1960s or the neon colours of 1987. Either way, it’s not a look I want to embrace. Nevertheless, I can hardly think that he will take well to my lessoning him on the different shades of lipstick in my purse – tween boys do have their limits, and I’m guessing he won’t be amenable to learning the difference between “pink” and “shell”.

Boots and songbooks: where have you been all my life?

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It’s cold here, but not unusually so, by which I mean today was -22 without windchill and that is the coldest it has been all week. The rest of the week sat around -15 without windchill, which is certainly par for the course for January in Calgary.

My usual morning routine is to drop the kids at school and then meet friends at the off-leash with our dogs. (Who’s a good doggie? Who’s a GOOD DOGGIE? Barkley’s a good doggie!). After our dog walk, I couldn’t feel my feet, which is something that’s been occurring more and more often lately. Lest you think I was underdressed for the weather, this was my outfit: turtleneck sweater underneath a thick wool sweater, jeans, thick woollen legwarmers, two pairs of socks, ankle length parka with hood, earmuffs, gloves underneath thick mittens, and my Joan of Arctic Sorel boots.

Remember when I bought those Sorel boots, years ago, and how it was a revelation to me? They no longer are the godsend they once were. I don’t know if it’s a factor of lots of wear or if my Reynaud’s and circulation issues are just getting worse, but in any case, I’ve been really suffering lately. After spending most of the day in foot agony post-walk, I decided that it was high time for new boots. And I went to MARK’S WORK WEARHOUSE.

End times are nigh.

I went into the store and spoke to the very young male associate. I informed him that I wanted the warmest pair of boots available. These are pretty warm, he said, to which I responded, No. I want your WARMEST pair. Whatever your warmest pair is, I will take them.

I came home with marginally ugly but OMG MAGICAL boots.

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They are called Snow Queens, which makes me feel regal.

I feel like my life has changed, with one trip to Mark’s Work Wearhouse. Previously my trips there have been only to purchase Christmas gifts for my father-in-law.

In other where have you been all my life news, I had ordered a piano song book and yesterday it arrived. It may be the single greatest song book of all time.

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Look at that lineup! And it doesn’t even tell the whole story.

I’ve been playing the piano for almost thirty years – I was quite serious about it for many years, but now I just play for fun.

Digression: how many of us were into something like a sport or an instrument in a very serious way, but now as adults we say “now I just do it for fun”? I have friends who were competitive figure skaters, gymnasts, divers, hockey players, and swimmers, as well as those of us who spent hours daily at an instrument. Question for another day: was it worth it? Are the intangible lessons from that kind of discipline enough to outweigh the time, money, and energy spent? I like to think so, but honestly I am not sure. Thoughts? In any case, I was very happy to be able to spend hours a day at the piano, back in the day, and I’m very happy now to be able to play. I wish my kids had some interest in playing, but they can barely summon up the wherewithal to play their recorders.

Anyway, for the past few years I’ve been feeling a little stale at the piano. Other than Christmas music, my general repertoire was Fur Elise, followed by New York State of Mind or Piano Man, ending with Solfeggio in C Minor. Occasionally I’d plunk away at something new but would be mostly bored.

I tell you this: my new songbook has revitalized every feeling I’ve ever had about piano. Because look!

islandsinthestream

OMG

I had initially ordered the songbook for Don’t Stop Believing, but THIS was the first song I chose. I played it for my husband last night, who was nonplussed.

Mr: I don’t even know what you’re playing.

Me: It’s Islands in the Stream!

Mr: *goes back to reading about the NFL*

So that was disappointing. However, as I flipped through I saw the music for Stairway to Heaven and started to play.

Mr: Now THAT’S a good song.

Other gems: Wish You Were Here, Open Arms, Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong, and EYE OF THE TIGER. I’m not sure how that will translate to piano, but ever since I heard that guy play Sweet Child of Mine on the accordion, I’ve been inspired to think outside the music box. Heh. Music box.

Cherry Cherry

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Sometimes, in order to get motivated, one needs to have a period of complete sloth, and that was me last week. I didn’t exercise. I didn’t work. I did the bare minimum around the house. Basically I spent a lot of time on the couch, with a glass of wine and this:

pioneergirl

Between my kids, husband, and mother-in-law, I received fifteen books for Christmas. My husband had wrapped them all but when we got an Amazon delivery on December 23, he decided he had enough of wrapping paper and tape and just handed me the book. It has essentially taken up every spare second I have had since then. I will have much to say about this – the Ingalls family saw much more scandal and poverty than one might think from reading the children’s books – but it will have to be at another time.

On Christmas morning, my husband handed me a small package, saying in a discouraged tone that he wasn’t sure I would like it, and that he did keep the receipt. It’s very unusual for him to be so unsure about a gift, since he normally bats things right out of the park. For example, this was in my stocking:

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Santa sure knows how to stuff MY stocking.

Anyway, my husband was uncharacteristically filled with insecurity, but when I opened the gift I couldn’t understand why. This choice shows how well he knows me!

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I’m not going to say it’s the greatest Christmas album ever, but it’s definitely close.

So I was mostly slothful and busy eating lots of snack mix and drinking lots of wine, but I had to haul myself off the couch on Christmas day, because I was hosting Christmas dinner. It was my very first that I hosted, and I think it went really well.

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After all this relaxation and festivity, I woke up on Boxing Day with a bee in my bonnet. I was filled with my usual urge to rip down the tree and

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But for reasons unknown, I had agreed to go Boxing Day shopping with my husband. Every year he takes advantage of the sales to purchase new suits, ties, and other expensive work wear. I had, for some reason – marital harmony, perhaps – said I would go with him while the kids stayed at home and played with their new video games. And I will tell you this: it was a huge mistake. For one thing, since Jacob closed its doors, every other clothing store means nothing to me. NOTHING. While my husband was busily fitting new suits, I was wandering from store to store amongst hordes of people who were foaming at the mouth. I wandered into Guess only to be completely shocked by the clothing. I wandered into H&M and wandered back out when I was confronted by the same black acid wash jeans I had in junior high. I was a person without a destination, which is not the way to Boxing Day shop, as evidenced by the stampede of people at Aritzia. In the end, I was bitterly regretting the one hour I spent at the mall, and by the time my husband was done I was pretty much ready to run home, just so I could clean the house.

The second we got in the door, I took off my “nice shopping clothes” and put on yoga pants, fuzzy socks, and an old waffle-weave shirt and began boxing things up. All Christmas-card glitter and dust was wiped away, the floors were washed, the bathroom scoured, the laundry done. It was, as always, a most satisfying project, Project End Christmas On Boxing Day.

And once again I will remind everyone that there are two types of Christmas Elves in the world, of which I belong to the latter category: 12 Days of Christmas Elves, and Advent Elves. We Advent Elves start Christmas festivities early. We are the ones who finish shopping in November, dig out our Christmas CDs the second Halloween decorations are put away, and fight the desire to tear down the tree at 10:00 am on December 25. 12 Days of Christmas Elves are the ones who keep their trees up into the New Year, who wrap gifts on December 24, and who think Advent Elves are insane. It’s okay! We think you’re kind of crazy too. We can still be friends!

As an important side note: the 12 days of Christmas START on Christmas. They do not start 12 days prior to Christmas.

In any case, around the Boyhouse things are pretty quiet this week. It’s terribly cold, so we are in hibernation mode: the kids playing with their new things, I’m enjoying my new books and clean house, and Barkley is just happy to have things back to normal.

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