Category Archives: Fashion

I’ve never been in a drunken stupor, but…

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Here it is, Wednesday of time change week and not one complaint has passed my lips. Not one! My husband, in years past, has generally adopted the traditionally masculine attitude that my vehement feelings against the observation of Daylight Savings Time and the subsequent semi-annual fuck up amounts to Nicole Making A Big Deal Out Of Something Very Minor And Unimportant. Yesterday, however, he admitted he was feeling quite tired and out of sorts and maybe it was due to time change. At this admission, I feel vindicated.
 
My children have been just fine; I guess they’ve reached the age where an hour here or there is No Big Deal At All. However, I stand in solidarity with all you mothers out there who are dealing with hot crying messes every evening and wide awake little people at ungodly hours of the morning. I shall not rest until the country has caught up with Saskatchewan, which is miles and miles ahead of the rest of us for their refusal to adopt Daylight Savings Time and its abhorrent spring forward/ fall back rituals. Also, please feel free to give a verbal dressing down to the next person who says that DST is “for the farmers”. Bitch, please. Do you have any idea what time farmers get up in the morning? The actual clock has nothing to do with it, so shut up, goddammit. If I was that kind of person I’d allude to a conspiracy theory cooked up by people who want to keep mothers down by totally fucking up their children twice a year. But I’m not. Still: DOWN WITH TIME CHANGE.
 
Speaking of fucked up, how about that mayor of Toronto? Wowza, is that embarrassing. I mean, we’ve all done silly things under the influence of alcohol or excessive Girl Guide cookie consumption, but smoking crack? In a drunken stupor? Listen, we all know how I love my red wine, and my cosmopolitans, and my margaritas, but I don’t think I’ve ever been in a drunken stupor in my life. I don’t like hangovers and I don’t like falling over. The closest I’ve come to that, lately, is becoming extraordinarily drunk at the Banff Springs Hotel with my husband and two people we met at the bar while listening to a blues guitarist. The couple was from Boston, and so they and my husband immediately bonded over the Patriots. 
 
So no drunken stupors for me, but I’ve done plenty of silly things after consuming one too many glasses of wine/ cosmopolitans/ margaritas.
 
1) I completed this Cosmo quiz and realized that the answer is “yes”.
 
 
 
 
2) At Blissdom Canada, I lay down on the hotel hallway and put both legs behind my head to show Allison and Hannah that I totally could. I blame Allison for being such a doll and bringing the peach daquiri mix and rum.

 
3) I bought hot pink yoga pants online.
 
 

4) I once danced the macarena in a Mexican bar wearing Daisy Duke shorts, high heeled sandals, and a crop top.

5) One Friday night when my husband was golfing, I live-tweeted my viewing of Top Gun. “Permission to fire, sir!” “Never fire unless fired upon.” GREAT advice.

 
6) I have, on numerous occasions, accidentally flashed my cleavage.
 

7) I was not drunk while making this gingerbread house! But the result was so depressing I had to comfort myself with a bottle of wine.

 
8) I was also not drunk in this photo! But I was fairly high on painkillers following varicose vein surgery. I was also super excited to eat the pretty fruit kabobs my friends had sent over.
 
9) I illegally brought drinks in glass containers down to the pool in Maui – in the dark! – and forced my dear, sweet friend Joanne to do the same. Everyone give some love to Joanne – she was my accomplice in illegal activities. And yet I look so INNOCENT.
 
 
 
10) I got pregnant! Hey, it was Stampede week. And then six to eight months later, I walked around looking like this:
 

I Dreamed A Dream

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“Mom, do you have a dream?” Mark asked over breakfast the other day. I was only on my first cup of coffee so I wondered if he wanted to know what I dreamed about last night. I didn’t want to tell him I had a nightmare about a mouse crawling on the ceiling and then falling off into my bed, causing me to wake up with my sheets soaking wet with a freight train running through the middle of my head, or that I had a sexy dream about his father, and so I answered sort of vaguely. “No, I mean, do you have a DREAM. Like something you want.” He paused a moment, and then said quickly in a completely neutral voice “And please don’t say you want two awesome boys and wow, you already have them.” Jake chimed in, “Yeah! That’s what you always say.”

I told them that I always wanted a fluffy brown dog named Barkley, and they groaned. “Don’t you have a dream about doing something?” Mark asked. “Like, maybe making good caramel apples?”

That’s pretty rich coming from a kid whose attempt at making a bass guitar was a ripped kleenex box with a broken rubber band on it. On a related note, we had this conversation yesterday:

Mark: Guess who had the best social studies title page in the class?

Me: I’m guessing it wasn’t you.

Mark: You’re right. It wasn’t.

Jake: Me either! I suck at drawing.

Well, it’s good to have an accurate view of your strengths and weaknesses, no?

This has been a strange, very busy week. The kids had a PD day on Monday. Why, you may ask, why did they have the day off when the past Monday was Thanksgiving and why didn’t they have the PD day on the Friday before Thanksgiving the way they always do, why, why, why? Well, they did, and two four-day weeks in a row makes for a strange week. Besides, it’s the Halloween Family Dance tonight and it is, without a question of a doubt, the highlight of the school year for my kids. It’s all downhill from here, guys. I’ve been busy preparing for this as my girlfriend and I are coordinating a silent auction as a fundraiser, and in addition to the usual busyness that accompanies such an event, I’ve also been planning my costume. My friend and I are going as witches. But not like this:

Photo from partycity.com. This costume is on sale for FOURTEEN DOLLARS. A steal!


or this

Photo from partycity.com. This is the Sparkle Playboy Witch, which seems like an accurate name.

or even this.

Photo from partycity.com. Wear a good pair of panties if you wear this costume.

I’m not even sure that last one IS a witch. In any case, we will be regular mom-like witches tonight. At least for the dance…I’m thinking I might break out that $14 outfit for a little private Halloween party, if you know what I’m saying.

I kid. If I’m having a private Halloween party, I’m going to dress up like Fiona from Shrek.

Photo from partycity.com. I’m not kidding, you guys, this is Fiona from Shrek.
GO CHECK OUT THE PARTY CITY WEBSITE CLEARANCE SECTION. It’s a scream!

I love this time of year. It’s so much fun to look at costume websites and wonder just who is going to order them. They are almost always sold out of at least one size, so people ARE buying them. Clearly I don’t go to enough (or any, really) Halloween parties because I’m always amazed by the costumes. Can you imagine going to a party and seeing this?

Photo from partycity.com. This is $105!

MAYBE one might see this at a key party. Or hey, if you’re undecided this Marvin the Martian outfit is only $35!

Photo from partycity.com

Hilarious, yet kind of depressing, no? Go ahead and look at any costume website; the teen girl section is made up mostly of smaller versions of the skeezy looking women’s section. Whatever happened to getting your mom to make you a dress to look like Morticia Addams?

If I’m being totally honest, I would have totally worn some of those super short costumes when I was a teenager, if buying costumes was a thing back then and if I made more than $4/ hour working at Pizza Hut. I also would have probably given my father a heart attack, but then, that’s what teenage girls are for. Every single time my husband sees a teenage girl, he says “Somewhere, there is a dad going grey.”

Mermaid flounces and acid-wash jeans. Oh my.

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Wednesday night I had a bit of a scratchy throat, which I chalked up to my School Council meeting; waking up Thursday morning feeling like I’d been run over by a bus, I realized this was not the case. I get sick so rarely that I always feel a little affronted by it, like my immune system has become a grave disappointment. On the urging of my husband, I took Advil Cold and Sinus at four hour intervals, and then spent the day either frantically typing out recipes and uploading food photos or passed out in a stupor, depending on where I was in the medication cycle. You know it’s bad when you sit down to rest a little and wake up an hour later in a puddle of drool with one side of your hair completely flattened.

I went to bed last night at 7:30 and woke up at 6:45 and while I am certainly not completely myself, I am feeling better, so that’s something. I feel like I could write some kind of medical manual: just sleep lots! And eat guacamole! You’ll feel better in no time. I probably have as much medical credentials as some of these people who purport to have all the answers in the “wellness community” but ah, I’ve already said too much. No need to start a war.

My cousin’s daughter posted photos of herself the other day, modelling dresses for her upcoming (well, in the spring) graduation from high school. I stared at the photos for a while, realizing that 1986 is now back with a vengeance. If there’s anything that makes a me feel like I’ve been around the block a few times, it’s being faced by a fashion repeat from my youth. I wondered if mermaid dresses with lots of flounce and colour are indeed back in style, and a quick search on google tells me that it’s true. All the pieces fit.



Photo from seventeen.com

 So, there’s that. Next thing you know we’ll be seeing acid wash jeans and pegged ankles…oh wait. We’re already seeing that.


Before you think I’m being all uppity and judgey based on clothing choices, here is a photo of me at my high school graduation – cropped to protect the innocent.

 

Please note the dyed-to-match clutch I am holding, also the wrist corsage. Not shown: dyed-to-match shoes. If 1986 mermaid gowns are in fashion right now, then maybe early 90s gowns should be in fashion when my middle niece graduates high school. I hope I still have this dress, maybe she’d want to have it. So shiny!

Hey, it’s Thanksgiving weekend! We should all list the things we are thankful for. I guess I’m thankful for the fact that I no longer think I’m the bee’s knees while wearing a red satin off the shoulder gown, or a light denim jacket that perfectly matches my light denim jeans. Personal growth.

Super Freekeh

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Today I was in the grocery store, and I noticed something in the grain/ cracker/ cookie/ ethnic food/ chocolate bar/ ice cream topping aisle. Does that seem like a strange combination of goods for one aisle in the grocery store? It does to me too. In any case, my friend and I were looking for quinoa, which is apparently an incredibly elusive ingredient for my old-people Co-Op, and I came across something called Freekeh. It’s super-freek-EH! I have had a loop of that song, plus Le Freak (or, Le FREEK) going through my head for the past couple of hours. I feel immense regret that I didn’t buy it, because although I do not know exactly how one prepares Freekeh, I feel I could have figured it out. What’s for dinner, Mom? Oh, we’re going to get a little FREEK-EH. The jokes could go on forever. Hilarity at the dinner table. Or, hilarity on my part. It’s probable that my children would be less than enthusiastic about my adventuresome culinary ideas.

It turns out that Freekeh is actually just a kind of toasted wheat, which is fairly anti-climatic.

Other semi-freekeh things:

1) Tonight is the first School Council/ Parent Association meeting of the year, and I have just taken my traditional offering of brownies out of the oven. CARAMEL brownies. I have never made such a thing before and possibly won’t ever again, but I have over a litre of caramel sauce in my fridge due to a small kitchen disaster yesterday, and I’m trying to find ways to use it up. This is a teaser for the full post which will be coming up next week over at the Yummy Mummy Club. Let’s just say that I now have more caramel than anyone really needs in their life, and that I keep finding small splotches of stickiness on the countertop, taps, cupboard handles, etc. I don’t even LIKE caramel.On another note, I have a cookbook giveaway going on – if you like baking, this is the book for you!

2) A few weeks ago, I put our decorative scarecrow family into the front garden, which is my traditional way of festively greeting autumn. Every single morning I pull open the living room drapes to let the sun shine in, and every single morning I gasp and have a little heart palpitation because someone is at the window.

If history is any indication, I will probably become used to my little ragged friend in the window once it’s time to take him down and put up the Christmas lights.

3) This is Rosie. She’s “my” scarecrow. The others are named Dummy Jimmy Too Tall, Idiot, and TV. I only named Rosie.

4) I bought a red sweater. I know. I bought it in a moment of passion and now it’s sitting in my drawer like a judgement.

5) After some discussion with my husband, I realized that I am not the romantic one in our relationship. This seems strange to me. And here I thought that not plucking one’s chin or upper lip in the presence of one’s husband was the ultimate in romanticism, but apparently that’s not enough. Well, he knew who I was when he married me, and that is someone who would much rather roll over and fall asleep immediately than engage in pillow talk for hours. Wham, bam, thank you sir.

6) Related: I think “boner” is the funniest word in the English language. If it was socially acceptable I would work it into every single conversation. Alas.

7) A yoga friend said to me the other morning that he wasn’t sure what I was doing on Sunday nights now that Breaking Bad is over. Nothing, Glenn. I am doing nothing. Mad Men doesn’t start up for months; I basically hate television now. Anyone want to recommend a show for me to become obsessed with? I hear House of Cards is good.

13 Month Old Baby Broke The Looking Glass

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Anyone superstitious out there? I am not, generally speaking, except for believing strongly in karma and the zodiac. Say what you will, all Leos I’ve ever met have been show-offs, and all Tauruses I’ve ever met (myself included) are stubborn as the day is long. But Friday the 13th? Meh. My friend Hannah will probably disagree with me, but I have no adverse feelings about it. If someone chases after me with a hockey mask and a chainsaw, I might change my tune but for now, it’s just the day Jake brought in three dozen cookies to school to celebrate his birthday, which is on Sunday.

Three dozen cookies. For his class. Because he has thirty-one kids in his class. I’ll leave it at that. I will not go into details about how I drilled my homeschooling friend Nan about the materials she uses and then promptly ordered them, not because I’m planning on homeschooling but because I’m planning on Tiger Mom-ing* the hell out of the kids since there’s no way they will be able to get what I want them to get out of school in a class of thirty-one. Mark has over thirty kids in his class too. But here I can feel myself working my way up into a frenzy again, and so I will let it go. OM SHANTI.

*I’m not really going to become a Tiger Mom, but I am going to have to supplement what they are doing in class, because as one friend said their math work seems like a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Yo Gabba Gabba. 5 x 6 = ___. Explain your work.

I need to get off this topic, quickly, lest I explode. Cookies. Here are the cookies Jake took to school – stars for the birthday star!

You know me, guys, I’m all natural ingredients and made from scratch and spinach smoothies and kale chips but when it comes to birthdays, I don’t fuck around. SUGAR COOKIES ALL THE WAY. They are made from scratch but they also have food colouring in them OMG. How else does one make “turquoise” frosting, I ask you?

I was doing some shopping earlier in the week. Mark’s idea for Jake’s birthday gift was to buy five of his favourite chocolate bars, wrap them up, and then hide them around the house. Clues will be given for this delicious treasure hunt. It’s very sweet, literally, and also I need to remember to put the dog outside for this activity.

I also looked in my favourite sleepwear/ lingerie store for new pajamas. The Blissdom Canada conference is coming up in less than three weeks, and on the last night they are having a wrap-up pajama party. PAJAMA PARTY SQUEE. I haven’t been to one of those in many years, but since my sleepwear verges on the ridiculous – pink and white pajamas with a hummingbird motif, recently – I thought maybe I should look for some new ones. This is what I look like on a typical Friday night, and yes, my husband is super lucky:

So I wandered into La Vie En Rose and walked out without pajamas – they were all either a) super sexy and therefore not really appropriate for a conference with women, at which I am going to try to maintain a somewhat professional aura while drinking copious amounts of wine, or b) kind of like the hummingbird pajamas, but with puppies, kitties, or ice cream cones on them. I did not go in there to buy hippo sock-slippers, but hippo sock-slippers I did buy.

It would take a stronger woman than me to look at those hippos and walk away, especially considering the emotional attachment to hippos around here. Poor Jake, yesterday he realized that next Tuesday would have been Foggy’s 48th birthday. There was much weeping and sadness, which was an inauspicious start to the day. I felt very, very sad for him as he cried softly into his Shreddies.

After I bought the hippo socks, I looked for a new lipgloss, and I found a shade called Wine Stain. I did not buy it. I feel that, while that may be a natural weekend look for me, I would rather have a lip colour that does not look like I’ve been a lush. I went for the cutely named Maple Sugar instead.

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The winner of my giveaway is Lynn! Hope this gift makes you feel better about the whole ant/ hornet thing you went through this summer (the bug-phobic of you will not want to click that link. It will make you want to burn your own house down.) Lynn, I’ll send you your prize soon – if I survive the next week (details to follow if I survive it….) Thanks everyone for playing along! xoxo

Born To Be Wild

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Today a man with a full-on business-in-front-party-in-back mullet rode down my street on a unicycle. I wonder if it was an ironic mullet, or maybe mullets are the new look for young hipsters, or – and this is a distinct possibility – this man was holding onto his lost youth by wearing the hairstyle of his heyday. I didn’t get a good look at his face, so I could not ascertain his age to determine if the latter was the case. Of course, my hair therapist has told me that after a certain age its best to choose a classic hairstyle that works best for one’s hair type and flatters one’s face shape, and then stick with modifications to that basic style. Perhaps this man is following that wise advice, although I’m not sure that mullets can be considered “classic” nor “flattering” but to each his own, after all.

This reminds me of a professor I once took classes with, a brilliant man who always wore his hair in the shortish, feathered style of 1983. At some point this man’s hair will be hip and happening once again; perhaps it is already, I’m not really that with it.

I know I’m not really with it because I read this morning that last night the Video Music Awards were on, and I had no idea. Apparently there was some kind of scandal with Miley Cyrus who is not on Disney anymore, people. Quelle scandale! To be honest, I’m kind of surprised anyone was even watching the VMAs, given that Breaking Bad was on. There are only five episodes left! Why waste time watching the VMAs when you can curl up in the fetal position on the couch, clench your fists under your chin, and sweat profusely while having heart palpitations? At least, that’s what happens to me when I watch Breaking Bad. I’m not even sure that I LIKE that show, but I’m so addicted to it that I have to know what happens OMG I hope Walt gets destroyed completely. I was watching one of those Talking Bad recap shows, and the guest, who was the woman who plays Claire on Modern Family, said that she was really “rooting” for Walt and “hoping he gets away with it” which is pretty much the opposite of how I feel. He is a man who has destroyed myriad lives and is, essentially, Satan in meth-cook form. My husband gently suggested that I not get so worked up over what is, in fact, a fictional show. Honey, are you okay? You’re hyperventilating again.

I need to thank Heather and Andrea, dear readers, who let me know that my post about Hot Carl is once again relevant. The authorities are looking for the owner of the vehicle with the Hot Carl license plate because they are cracking down on lewd personalized plates. However, Hot Carl’s license plate is over fifteen years old, allegedly, and so there is every reason to believe that the owner is just a guy named Carl who has a high sense of self-worth. Whatever you do, do not look up what a Hot Carl is in the urban dictionary. You will be very, very sorry and despair for humanity. In any case, I haven’t seen Hot Carl’s vehicle for long time. Perhaps he’s fled the city, or at very least the neighbourhood, having heard what monstrosities people do in his name. Poor Hot Carl!

Other things happening around here: the boys performed solo karate demonstrations at the open house on Saturday, which made me Explosion Level Proud. The next thing will be possible sparring, which makes me Somewhat Nervous And Also Proud. Continuing the tradition of mildly strange things happening in my eclectic neighbourhood, I noticed the young man across the alley chatting with our 80 year old neighbour lady. The young man was wearing a t-shirt that said FUCK THE TIME on it, which made me wonder what, if anything, was the lady’s reaction. Did she notice? Did she care? Was she somewhat offended, or maybe amused? We may never know. I also discovered that my across-the-street neighbour is a veteran who served in Desert Storm, which made me feel immediately bad for giggling about his penchant for mowing the lawn in only giant sneakers and red cut-off sweatpants. However, the pinnacle of my week was going to the grocery store and seeing this fellow in the parking lot:

That is one bad-ass beagle.

"The REAL Reason He Never Texted" – page 136

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A few weeks ago, I was feeling kind of blue, and so my husband took the boys for an outing and came home with snacks and a magazine for me. Cosmopolitan magazine.

Husband: Isn’t that the magazine you always read at the hair salon?

Me: No, that’s People.

Husband: Well, same thing.

No, husband, it is not the same thing, but I will tell you this: Cosmopolitan is much, much more entertaining. For one thing, I never know who anyone is in People unless said “celebrity” is a) a member of the British royal family, or b) is featured in an article entitled “Still Sexy at Fifty!” or similar. Not that I know who any “celebrity” is in Cosmopolitan, either – the cover showcases someone named Demi Lovato and advertises her shocking interview – but fortunately, Cosmopolitan has not changed its format much since I last purchased a copy circa 1994. BEST.SEX.EVER. 42 New Tips! So says the front cover, which is probably what all the cover stories are, and have been since the magazine’s inception.

As an aside, does anyone else find it alarming that we have before us a whole generation of young women who were (possibly) named after Demi Moore? I feel like I’m about one hundred years old looking at this magazine, but of course I’m not the key demographic here. Most of the stories have something to do with back to school fashions, new looks on campus, and this:

I practically had a hilarity overload reading this. Ah, to be young again and want to have sex inside the field-hockey net at the football stadium. Or to hook up with your TA. For the record, neither of those things happened to me – certainly not the TA – I was in economics, after all. I did, however, “work it at the library”, not in order to hook up but I did always wear cute outfits and makeup when I studied. What. I put on nice clothes to go to the grocery store; I’m like an old lady getting dressed up for a nice outing.

There are lots of style tips and advertisements in Cosmo that I found simultaneously alarming and also cute. Here’s an ad for Jordache jeans. Jordache jeans! Who didn’t wear Jordache jeans exactly like this in the eighties?

Actually, I do wear jeans like this. Not Jordache, but similar in style. I can’t tell if this is alarming (mutton dressed as lamb) or if I’m actually young and hip. I’m leaning toward the former. More alarming is the apparent comeback of the hot style of 1987 – rolled up jeans.

Unrelated to “things I wore in junior high” is this monstrosity of an idea – tailored sweatpants.

It DOES look comfortable, but not sure if it looks “chic”. What do I know, though? I thought ALL of this was kind of “skanky”, as opposed to “sexy”:

I also gave this article the side-eye:

Sex on the First Date: article concludes that, like the rule “no white after Labour Day”, “Don’t have sex on the first date” is considered to be an outdated one. Wait, what? First of all, no white after Labour Day is a very good rule. Let’s keep that one, mmmkay? Also? Now, I haven’t been on the dating scene since my husband and I “hooked up” in 1998, but I’m not sure sex on the first date as a faux pas should be equated with wearing white pants. But then again, I’m pretty sure I am not the target demographic here.

HOW CUTE IS THIS GIRL? “I’ve been going on roller coasters and riding my bike.” She’s adorable! Or cray-cray adorbs, as all the kids are saying these days.

Well, I wasn’t the exciting one…

In any case, I’m planning on bypassing the People magazine the next time I’m at the salon, and taking this instead, because I’m thinking of changing my haircolour.

What do you think?