Category Archives: Fashion

On a warm summer’s evening, on a train bound for nowhere.

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I think I have writer’s block or something; today I sat down to write the preamble to a recipe and the only thing that came to my mind was the lyrics to The Gambler. As you may or may not know, I have an insane memory for song lyrics/ movie lines/ random trivia, but I have an especial knowledge of Kenny Rogers’ entire catalogue. I attribute this to my parents, who had many vinyl albums and listened to them during my childhood. The soundtrack to my childhood: The Coward of the County, Lucille, Islands in the Stream, She Believes in Me. THE GAMBLER.

I have a bit of writer’s block, so let’s talk random Friday things:

1) I have been re-watching old episodes of Mad Men, and I’m wondering if I would look awesome or terrible with a Betty Draper haircut. I’m thinking terrible. At the very least, I wouldn’t be able to put it up, which would drive me crazy. And I feel like I would need to have a once-a-week set, like so many old ladies. Still, it’s a cute look.

2) Speaking of Mad Men, I think the styles of 1966 were pretty fantastic: post-giant crinolines, pre-shapeless hippie skirts. Also, go-go boots. How hot are go-go boots? I want to wear go-go boots and cute A-line mini dresses every single day.

3) The kids and I are reading James and the Giant Peach, and man, is that some funky shit. Who thinks of these things? Who imagines enormous insects inside an enormous peach that ends up impaled by the Empire State Building?  Not me, evidently. I think of Kenny Rogers songs while writing about bean burgers.

4) I miss reading the Little House books. I read – on my own, not to the kids – The Wilder Life, and I felt a strong connection to the author. I also felt a strong urge to wear a bonnet and calico dress and also go buggy riding on a date.

5) There has been a red 1970s muscle car parked outside my house every day this week, and I am dying to see who the owner is. I see it parked there in the morning; by evening it’s gone. Who is driving it? I imagine a moustachioed, hirsute man with many gold chains. I’m going to be very disappointed if it’s just some guy in Dockers and a golf shirt. At the very least I’m hoping for a cabana style or Hawaiian shirt.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: Summer Loving Had Me A Blast Edition

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My roses are blooming, and that is not a euphemism of any kind.

Well, maybe it’s a bit of a euphemism. I came across this hilarious piece about ludicrous things said by yoga teachers, and thank goodness none of them have ever been said to me, because “Let your anus blossom” is something no one should hear, ever.

Do I look like a flower? A blossoming one?

When I was a kid, I loved the book Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott, and the follow up book, Rose in Bloom. I still love it – it’s a charming picture of a privileged 19th century New England family – except there is one teensy onion in the ointment, a wedding between two first cousins. Ew. Still, I like to gloss over that part in my head. Lalalala. I can’t hear you!

This is probably a strange segue into Nicole’s Favourite Things – Summer Edition. Incest! Blossoming anuses! Let’s move on!

Nicole’s Favourite Things: Summer Edition

For those of you new to the Boy House, I like to periodically talk about some of my favourite things, things that are making me feel happy these days. This is not sponsored and I have not received anything free for writing these posts – I’m just sharing the love for things I think are fabulous.

My Garden

We had a tree taken out this year, and in its place my husband planted grass seeds. I’ve been carefully watering the little patch, which I refer to as “his grass”. It’s “his grass” and “my flowers” and every year I dig out a little more of “his grass” to make room for “my flowers”.

The rose bush that I planted a few years ago is now covered in blooms, and is very popular with my neighbour’s bees:

Bzzzzz….look at those bees go! My neighbour’s bees are also responsible for the most delicious honey I have ever tasted.

I know I should pull it out, but I find it charming how this one sprig of yarrow has found its way into the blue sage.

Colour Me Beautiful

This may shock and stun some of you, but I’m trying to add colour to my wardrobe. Colour! To my wardrobe! And not just to keep the mosquitoes away – most of the radioactive mosquitoes in Calgary seem to have died off, happily – but because I find I get a startling number of compliments when I wear colours. I guess I’m a whore for compliments, but I have to think maybe they are on to something. Don’t get me wrong; black is still my go-to, but I’m trying here, people. I’m trying.

Yes, this is a recent picture. Sweater, jeans, scarf. Summer in Calgary!

Beauty Products

I’ve recently discovered Organix hair products, and I’m in love. My hair – my overprocessed, heat styled, sad sack hair – really loves the Coconut Milk and Biotin and Collagen lines. I highly recommend them if you have a close relationship with hair colour and dryers, and also if you like sitting out in the sun with no hat on.

 
I’ve also recently discovered L’oreal Colour Riche lipstick in Sienna, and may I suggest it for anyone looking for a nice daytime neutral?
 
 
 
 Here’s me having a good hair day due to Organix, and also wearing L’Oreal Colour Riche in Sienna! Wait. It’s kind of depressing to have all these sweater shots. Here’s one from today – I’m wearing a tank top because the temperature is over 20 degrees, yayyyyy!
 
 
 Also using Organix and wearing my new BFF lipstick.
 
 
I tried to duckface just like all the young girls are doing these days, and it’s immediately apparent that a) I’m not a young girl, b) duckface is unflattering and makes me look like a 50 year old smoker, and c) I also strangely look like I have a moustache. Which I don’t. Immediately after taking this photo I ran to the bathroom armed with tweezers just to be sure.
 
This is supposed to be about my favourite things! Not about my very unattractive duckface. Moving along.
 
Summer Food
 
It’s berry season! Well, I guess it’s berry season all the time somewhere in the world, but currently it’s semi-local berry season. Hooray! I’ve been eating giant bowlfuls of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries every day for weeks. I also like to use them as dessert garnishes, on top of waffles, pancakes, and this amazing coconut French toast, and with lemon mini-cakes and coconut whipped cream. I’m also loving the summery excuse of “heat” to just have salad for dinner, which is my favourite. Check out my recipes for pasta salad, quinoa salad, and Greek salad here.
 
Because I’m not ALL about shameless self-promotion, let me tell you about Dinner With Julie’s Cinnamon Bun Pancakes. I made these the other day even though they are not vegan and are really more of a delicious dessert, and they were absolutely amazing. I had to cut down on the sugar due to my husband (he’s sweet enough! Awww.) and still they were incredible. Try them, you’ll love them. If you love cinnamon buns, that is. If not, this probably isn’t the recipe for you.
 
So tell me, lovelies, what are your favourite things about summer? xoxo
 


Nobody Puts Nicole In The Corner

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The Stampede is almost over and I have not worn my new denim skirt even once. This seems like a travesty. I think I’ll put it on today even though I’m only going to the esthetician and the grocery store. I had been planning on taking the kids to a neighbourhood Stampede breakfast, but we decided to hit the road instead and head up to my parents’ place at the lake. It was a lot of fun, although my hands were sore from white-knuckling on the highway, where people were driving anywhere from 85 to 150 km/hour. I had to pass not one but two houses being moved on semi-trailers, and also a woman driving very slow, weaving dangerously, and talking on her cellphone. I don’t like highway driving at the best of times, and I really don’t like it when my fellow drivers are a) talking on their hand held phones, b) taking up more than one lane, or c) driving super fast with a giant load of pipelines on the back of their semi-trailer. It’s quite unnerving. However, we made it in one piece and had a great time, marred only by Jake getting a wasp sting on his ankle one hour before we were due to leave for home.

Last night I watched that SharkNado movie everyone was talking about, and it was everything I had hoped it would be and more. Sharks flying through the air! Sharks in the house! A woman falling out of a helicopter into a shark’s mouth, who was later saved by a man chainsawing his way into and out of that same shark. Good times.

Speaking of movies, I read this very fun piece on how Dirty Dancing was a subversive film, which makes me feel like an edgy person for watching it approximately one thousand times. The funny thing is that I clearly remember watching it in the theatre, and then renting it on VHS, and while it didn’t escape me that there was a back room abortion, a 17 year old girl getting it on with a 25 year old man, and a whole bunch of class separation, I didn’t really care about those plot twists. I hardly thought about them. All I really was interested in – and all I still am interested in – was the dancing. I still love when nobody puts Baby in a corner and the not-at-all-era-appropriate I’ve Had The Time Of My Life starts up. Whenever the kids play Just Dance 4, I immediately budge in so I can dance to this song, although no one ever wants to play Johnny to my Baby.

Digression: I remember my very first viewing of Saturday Night Fever. I was so excited to watch the disco dancing, and I still do enjoy the scenes about dance competitions, walking with paint cans, and John Travolta blow-drying his hair in his underwear. However, innocent young thing that I was, growing up in the “safe sex” AIDS-and-STD-aware 80s and 90s, I was shocked – SHOCKED – at the sheer volume of anonymous casual sex portrayed in such a normalized way. I was also shocked and revolted by my newfound knowledge of the origins of the term “sloppy seconds.” Just writing that makes me shudder. More dancing, less deflowering of virgins in the back of a car while the buddies wait their turn in the front seat, please.

Anyway, although I really enjoyed Dirty Dancing back in the day, I didn’t feel it to be a very formative or influential movie for me, with one regrettable exception. The shorts. How many of us had this exact outfit:

I sure did, right down to the white Keds that made everyone’s feet smell terrible. I don’t remember buying jean shorts – probably they were not available – we just all cut our high-waisted jeans off at the knee and then rolled them up, after tying our white blouses at our waists. Unflattering though this look may be, I found myself thinking nostalgically about it, the uniform for teen girls in 1987, when I took the boys to the amusement park a few weeks ago.

I knew we were in for a busy day when I pulled up into the parking lot right at the opening time and saw 50 school buses parked there, all filled with teens from surrounding rural communities. If I had been thinking, I would have turned around right there, because the sheer volume of people guaranteed that there would be lineups everywhere. If I had turned around and went home, however, I would have missed out on Teen Fashion Education. I needed to be schooled, since I had no idea that all the girls aged 12-19 are wearing short shorts and giant oversized tank tops. VERY SHORT SHORTS. Baby’s outfit is unflattering, certainly, but at least it precludes strangers seeing buttocks and, in one horrifying case, ingrown pubic hair. MY EYES. I should probably mention that it was 17 degrees that day and overcast. I was cold in my sweater and pants, although I do remember that teenagers run at a different temperature than I do. I do recall wearing mini skirts in the dead of winter because, in my crazed teenage mind, tights were every bit as warm as pants. HOWEVER.

One girl did seem to think ahead about the chilly weather, as she had what appeared to be very sheer tights with the feet cut out of them underneath her camo-print short shorts. I applaud her for wearing somewhat weather-appropriate clothing, although I cannot agree with the fashion statement entirely.

But who am I to say anything? At that age I was wearing jeans that I had ripped myself and washed twenty times to make them look worn out – “You look like a homeless person!” my mother would say, snappishly, to which I would roll my eyes at her complete lack of fashion savvy – or I was wearing tiny black babydoll dresses paired with army boots. Dear lord. Well, that’s part of growing up: making terrible fashion choices that make you cringe twenty-five years later. We all have our what was I thinking? moments, and mine certainly had a lot to do with spiral perms and Jim Morrison silk-screened t-shirts.

But he knew that when he married me!

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I am planning a solo trip to visit my grandma, several weeks from now, and I think the planning logistics may just be the death of me. It occurred to me yesterday, not for the first time, that there is a fundamental difference between me and my husband. He travels frequently for business, and here is how it goes: he emails me his travel itinerary, he packs his bag, he leaves. Here is what happens when I go away on a solo trip:

1) Check everyone’s calendar for the least-inconvenient time for me to leave.
2) Book flight. Ask husband to book the rental car.
3) Arrange for the kids to be at my parents’ place for a couple of days.
4) Explore options for the dog. Book dog into kennel. Arrange for grooming at the same time. Discover they don’t have dog pickup on the weekend. Figure out if husband will be able to pick up dog before closing time on Friday.
5) Have minor mental breakdown over the dog issue; husband works very long hours; picking up dog before 7pm will be a problem.
6) Discover an immovable appointment just before kids are due to go to their grandparents’. Cry.
7) Make gigantic list of my own packing needs, in addition to what the kids will need for a couple of nights away.
8) Remember that my mother does have ample washing facilities in case they run out of clothes. Panic anyway. Make notes about cortisone cream that was forgotten last weekend and was the cause for my husband to go out in the middle of a gigantic prairie thunderstorm, and also about vitamins, allergy medication, children’s Tylenol, and what about Mark’s inhaler? It EXPIRED? Cry.
9) Make list of items to pack for the dog.
10) Cry.

It’s exhausting to be me.

It’s not like it’s easy to be my husband – I do feel sorry for him during the summer break, heading off to work while the boys and I go to the pool or the amusement park or just hang out all day, eating bonbons, etc. However, clearly he is the winner when it comes to travel. Some of this is naturally occurring – in my anecdotal experience, with my own small, statistically insignificant sample size, women tend to take charge of the packing/ children-and-pet logistics when travelling. Some of this, though, is me and my control-freak, manage-the-details, burst-into-tears-when-encountering-a-difficulty ways.

This is not the first time I’ve realized the Mars versus Venus nature of our marriage. It’s a good thing: I’d hate to have two people like me in the house. Can you imagine? Me: “Wahhhh, what will we doooooo?” Hypothetical Drama-Queen Husband: “OMGOMGOMG! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIEEEEEE!” No, a household really only needs one such person. And that person is ME, every 27-60 days.

Remember last year’s list about the things I love but my husband hates? Time for a redux, but this time it’s a list about my husband’s least favourite things that are inevitable, being married to me. Let’s make it a meme! Join in and tell me what your husband (or wife, whatevs) dislikes the most but yet must put up with in the name of marital harmony.

My Husband’s Least Favourite Things, But That Are Necessary When Living With Nicole:

1) Histrionics. I am generally a pretty even keeled person. I’m not a drama queen, generally, but sometimes (PMS) a girl has reason to get a little worked up (PMS). For example, last night when I sat straight up in bed in the middle of the night (read: 10:15 pm), ran to the kitchen, looked at the calendar, discovered the appointment for me and the boys to get our Nexus cards, an appointment we’ve been waiting for since last year, and began to sob raggedly. My husband calmly pointed out that the appointment was the day before my flight and I had many, many hours to get the boys to my parents’ place, and yet I was a complete wreck (PMS).

2) Questions About My Appearance. I think this is a universal male thing. “Do I look fat in this outfit?” “Do you think my butt is getting bigger? I do.” “How does my hair look?” “What do you think of these shoes.” His answer is always “You look great.” Whether this is truly his love-is-blind feeling, or this is a survival mechanism he has developed, I don’t know. All I know is that he would rather be poked in the eye with a safety pin than answer those questions.

3) Cilantro. I realize this is one of those genetic things, either it tastes good or it tastes like soap, but regardless even the word cilantro makes my husband shudder. I like it, which means that there is a lot of separate, after-the-fact adding of cilantro to my meals. Which brings me to…

4) Vegan meals. Sure, he’ll happily eat quinoa salads (hold the cilantro) and rice bowls and all sorts of vegan delights…as long as there is a side of meat. See also: my gig over at Yummy Mummy where I am the Meatless Mummy Con Carne. I once asked him if it was hard being married to me, and the first thing he said was “No. You’re easy to be married to. Except you’re a pain in the ass to go out for dinner with.” Well I never. The boys are excitedly planning a dinner at a barbeque where one of my husband’s old friends is playing in a blues band, and my husband checked the menu online to see what were the vegetarian options. In a barbeque place that specializes in meat platters. The vegetarian option is a green salad. I guess I’ll eat before hand. The second thing my husband said about the negatives of being married to me is…

5) My taste in movies and, relatedly, my inability to watch an entire movie not of my choosing without falling asleep. He also seems to find it “irritating” to watch my favourite movies with me, while I recite the dialogue (see also: When Harry Met Sally. Where was Sunday, what had I done with Sunday? I told him the truth and he didn’t believe me. They don’t make Sunday. Because of God.) I am a DELIGHT to watch movies with.

6) My black clothes. He seems to think that colour in wardrobes is a good thing. But if all your clothes are black then you’re always colour coordinated! Right?

Your turn, lovely readers. What does your spouse dislike, but is just part of being married to you? Do tell! xoxo

Summer, So Far

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Because of all the flood craziness around here, it feels like it’s been months since the kids were in school, when in reality it’s only been, officially, four days. It has been sunny, warm, and dry here which I am hoping will expedite the death of the billions of gargantuan mosquitoes in the city. The mosquito situation was crazy before the flooding; now they are epic. They seem to really love my bootiliciousness since they bite right through the seat and back pockets of my jeans. Forget the wisdom of wearing long sleeved shirts and pants to avoid getting bitten; these babies are so desperate for my apparently super succulent blood they go through sweaters and thick denim. My friend Nan mentioned that mosquitoes are attracted to dark colours – specifically black – which explains things somewhat. In other words, I need a whole new wardrobe. Watch for my new look, which will consist of pale pink items bought from Northern Reflections.

We headed up to my parents’ lakeside place this weekend, and on the way I saw a billboard advertising the World Plowing Championship. Before you think this is something pornographic, let me hasten to assure you that the World Plowing Championship involves tractors and other farm machinery. I immediately imagined something akin to the tractor scene in Footloose, involving non-Kevin-Bacon-like individuals. I wonder who are the winners of past World Plowing Championships and if that title is something that grants the holder of special privileges. Very special privileges, if you know what I’m talking about. I imagine this ratchets up the datability of the title holder in certain circles.

We had a fantastic weekend at my parents’, and now we are all somewhat petulant about being back in the city. My dad said something this weekend that struck me as fairly accurate, in terms of travelling with children: kids pretty much enjoy any holiday, wherever such holiday takes place. The majority of my childhood summers were spent a) visiting relatives in southeastern Saskatchewan, and b) attending Bible Camp. Neither of those things may sound all that thrilling, but I always looked forward to them with great anticipation and enjoyed them thoroughly. Spending my days with my cousins in the outdoor swimming pool that had myriad dead bugs floating in it, being evacuated due to severe prairie thunderstorms, were nothing except fun. Playing in the ice-cold lake and making crafts out of crosses and going to chapel morning and night, that was the height of summer camp enjoyment for me.

I think of my own lucky, lucky children and wonder what kind of summertime memories they will have. I wonder if they will remember the hours spent playing with a fishing rod with a stick tied to its line, christened “Sticky”, and how they made up a game and enormous backstory for humble Sticky. I wonder if they will remember how we spent our first day of summer vacation in the pool and I neglected to reapply sunscreen and they got their first (mild, I hasten to say) sunburns. I wonder if they will remember how I frantically sent their father out to drive into town to buy the cortisone cream that I forgot to pack when it was evident one of my children was having a weird allergic reaction to…something…and was covered with angry, raised red hives, and then their father got stuck in one of those severe prairie thunderstorms, unable to see the road in front of him, hail pelting the car. I wonder if they will remember the water gun fights, the trips to town with Grandma and Grandpa for ice cream, the small-town Rotary Club Canada Day celebrations. It occurred to me today that it might not be much longer that they want to play in those bouncy structured supervised by the glummest looking teenagers ever – in fact, one day perhaps they will be those downtrodden looking teenagers telling kids to slide down feet first. It’s hard to imagine.

Denim skirts, non-Mama-Duggar-style

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If you can’t beat them, join them, is the somewhat defeatist attitude I took up this weekend when I went shopping to Lammles’ Western Wear.  I am a Calgary girl, I’ve lived here my whole life, and yet I just can’t get behind the concept of western wear.  This is an attitude I felt needed adjusting, since I always have a few Stampede events to attend every year, events that become more and more important to attend as my children get older and embrace the Stampede spirit.  One such event is the school’s annual Stampede Breakfast, which is coming up in less than two weeks and at which I am going to be flipping pancakes.  I have two items of clothing that regularly come out at Stampede: a straw cowboy hat, and a denim shirt dating from 1997.  I felt that my Stampede “look”, such as it is, needed an update and that is how I found myself in Lammles’.

Now, I’m no Tom and Lorenzo, but I did feel a little part of me die a little as I looked through the racks of ladies’ wear.  Everything was either a) too colourful, b) too plaid, c) too see-through, and/or d) too covered in rhinestones to suit my taste.  If I am going to pay $60 for a shirt, I would like it to be one that I wear more than a couple of times a year and that doesn’t make me look like I’m competing in the barrel racing competition, given that I am not actually a barrel racer.  I found what appeared to be a plain black button-up shirt, but on actually taking it off the rack I discovered that it was covered with rhinestone lassos.

I was feeling rather disconsolate about the whole experience, and then I saw an item that had my name all over it:

It literally has my name on it!  So how could I refuse?  It’s a denim skirt, by the way, not in the style of Mama Duggar but this:

Cute, I think.  Plus, it’s called a NICOLE.  I figure I will get some actual wear out of it, unlike a rhinestone-lasso-encrusted shirt.

I got home and realized that my closet runneth over, but fortunately I had also lost track of what day it was, and that I had a clothing donation pickup scheduled this week.  This, accompanied by the realization that the clothing pickup was for TODAY, gave me great motivation to go through my closet and purge 3 (garbage) bags full.  I was filled with a bit of disappointment in myself and my consumerism – does anyone need so many clothes? – and became ruthless in my purge.  There was none of the oh, maybe I’ll wear this again, this is kind of cute, it doesn’t fit well but it’s still in great shape feelings I normally have.

The other thing of semi-importance that happened this weekend: my husband briefly activated the multiplayer setting on our Wii, which led to our family becoming torn apart.  It was probably the single worst idea in the history of our family’s video games.  The kids have played multiplayer in Mario Kart and Wii Sports, which is evidently VERY DIFFERENT from the murder and death that came from multiplayer Star Wars Force Unleashed.  By the end of the afternoon all three of the boys, including my husband, were not on good terms, and I was miffed that no one wanted to be Johnny to my Baby in Just Dance.  It was not the time of my life, let me tell you.  I instigated a rule that never again would the multiplayer setting be activated, and peace reigned in the Boyhouse galaxy.

Putting on my married lady pants

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Yesterday I had one of those days where I had amazing feats of accomplishments, one after another, except that the accomplishments themselves were so boring that they practically brought tears to my eyes.  I wanted to share my amazing level of accomplishments with my husband, and so I started to list off all the things I had done, and yet before I even had listed a quarter of the things I noticed his eyes glazing over and his head nodding.  I could practically see that he was thinking about work, or a meeting, or possibly an episode of Top Gear while I described my day: I walked the dog and then I went to Costco and then I put everything away and separated all the chicken breasts into individual containers for freezing…oh wait, before that I stripped all the beds and washed the sheets…and then I went to get the kids for lunch…

My husband’s head did snap to attention when, between describing “preparing vegetables for dinner” and “weeding the garden” I mentioned that I washed the windows.  I a) got the ladder out of the garage and b) got ONTO the ladder, both ALL BY MYSELF.  He, for some reason, found this information alarming.  And yet I still have both legs and an uncracked skull and also I can see out my window without rage about all the water spots and dust, so it’s a winning situation all around. 

I did not mention to him that I may have hit the minivan with the ladder whilst fetching it from the garage and also that I may have put a dent in the garage doorjamb whilst putting it back in the garage.  I DID clean the damn windows myself.  I feel like I need an award.  Maybe a badge for my sash.

I think what I will do is pour myself a large Friday-style glass of wine and put on what my sweet young girlfriend calls “married lady pants” – a certain kind of comfortable pants that give off that vibe of “we have a legally binding contract”, as opposed to “Let’s listen to Barry White and get it on all night long”.  In my case, such pants are pink pajamas that sport a hummingbird motif, although I’m pretty sure my husband finds said pajamas to be sexy as hell.  He probably thinks “Wow, those hummingbird pants are hot.  Can’t wait to see what they look like on the floor.”  Or so I tell myself. 

The other night I was sitting on the couch in my pink hummingbird pajamas with a mud masque on my face and whitening strips on my teeth, and I felt a teensy bit sorry for my husband.  My friend Clara wrote a post about the secret to a good marriage is accepting that the two of you make an engine, part gasoline, part spark.  Cannot help but think that my whitening strips that make me lisp a little bit is NOT doing my part for spark.  Freshly whitened teeth are nice though, so I’m going to go ahead and give myself half points.