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.
Category Archives: Fashion
Life Lessons from the Eighties
Two things happened in the last couple of days that have got me thinking about aging and hairstyles and beauty in general. First, I was at a reunion on Saturday night with people I went to school with for grades 1-10, and the most popular comment of the night was You haven’t changed a bit! This is a very kind, though untrue, thing to say. I believe the sentiment behind it is not that a person hasn’t changed but that a person hasn’t aged. Which is also untrue – everyone ages, some gracefully, some not – but is a very kindhearted sentiment all the same.
The second thing is that a friend posted a photo of me on Facebook, a photo dating back to the late eighties. I was thirteen in that photo, and I was reminded that we all go through very awkward stages in our lives. I was also reminded that the trend back then was to wear one’s bangs vertically, with enough hairspray to make a solid and unmovable wall. Possibly my circle of friends was singlehandedly responsible for climate change, given our penchant for Salon Selectives.
My first instinct on seeing this photo was unparalleled horror – I felt I must untag myself from that train wreck immediately; I’m pretty vain and I was not flattered by this picture. Upon further reflection though, I feel that embracing our awkward stages is an important part of our development as people. After all, one must be an ugly duckling before one becomes a swan, am I right? One must be veiled in a cocoon prior to blossoming as a butterfly. Etc.
I felt like I looked nice this morning – I’ve been using a new shampoo and conditioner that is improving my poor heat-and-colour-damaged hair, and before you tell me to be proactive and stop damaging my hair with heat and colour, well, not going to happen in this lifetime. I’m going to go to my grave with heat and colour damaged hair; likely it will be that orangey-red skimpy hair seen on women of a certain age, paired with bright lipstick bleeding into my liplines. No matter. I felt good this morning. This is what I looked like this today before school dropoff, forehead and undereye lines and all:
Compare and contrast with this photo, from the same era as the one posted on Facebook:
Good gracious. Although those glasses are probably popular in the hipster community right now, I feel that nothing but improvement can come from that time period in my life. In other words, I want to have changed and aged. I want to look different than I did back then, for many reasons. For one, I didn’t know how to pluck my eyebrows back then and so I went through many years with Martin Scorcese-style brows:
Those are SOME eyebrows. What I’m saying here, people, is that we should EMBRACE the aging process because the vast, vast majority of us look much better now than we did as teenagers. You know the old saying that a woman at twenty has the face she’s born with, and a woman at forty has the face she deserves? I feel like hugging all the young teenage girls I know and telling them that it gets better, it really does, and one day you will look back at your eyebrows and bad skin and cringe-worthy hair and your horrible fashion decisions and you will feel like you have improved immensely with age, like wine.
Speaking of cringe-worthy hair, I have had emotional issues about my hair for my entire life. My entire life I believed that I had uniquely awful hair. In fact, I had such insecurity about my hair at such a young age that I took to wearing wigs that were lying around:
In answer to the inevitable question, no, I do not know whose wig that was. I just know that I rocked it out.
Looking back at photos I realize that my hair, while not quite shampoo-commercial worthy, was really no worse than anyone else’s, hardened bangs and spiral perms not withstanding. Well, maybe it was worse for a brief period in 1985:
I don’t know either. Sadly, this Toni home perm was a turning point in my life, hairstyle wise, since before that the majority of my young life was marked by a variation on the Dorothy Hamill style cut which I hated with a passion:
I always wanted long, long hair, and I briefly achieved this between the ages of seven and eight:
Notes: I am reading Little Town on the Prairie, and probably dying with excitement at the old-timey romance, and also – EYEBROWS. For some reason, shortly after I rocked out a pink frilly puffed sleeve dress, I allowed my hair to be cut short yet again, only to grown out and home permed a few short years later.
There are lessons to be learned here: a) although I was horrified at finding a photo of myself and three girlfriends and our collectively spiral permed and sprayed hair sitting on Santa’s lap on Facebook, such photos keep us humble, b) we become the people we are through the mistakes we make, notably in the hair department, c) youth is a time of experimentation, also notably in the hair department, d) AGE IS OUR FRIEND.
Let’s all agree to stop saying you haven’t changed, and instead say you’re beautiful. Because it’s true – the beauty inside us shines through, and only gets better and better. Plus, as we age, we learn important life lessons such as how to wield tweezers properly and that perms are not a good idea, and also that hair clips and earrings should never match one’s lipstick. Age before beauty? Age IS beauty.
So stabby.
I feel like I must be mere minutes away from the start of my ladies’ holiday, given my current state of stabbiness. It is a good thing for the world that I am not walking around with a knife tied to a broomstick, a la Peggy OIsen, elsewise everyone I encounter today would find themselves impaled.
I won’t go into enormous ranting details, except to say that I am going to be chaperoning a field trip to the museum tomorrow, under duress. This is in addition to volunteering for Jake’s in-class field trip on Friday, and also in addition to the approximately one hundred hours I have spent volunteering this school year. I understand that not everyone can volunteer, not everyone has the resources to volunteer, but dammit, do I have to volunteer for everything? I mostly feel put-upon about the field trip, given that I hate – HATE – going on field trips, being responsible for groups of children that are not mine, and riding on the deplorable school bus. Well, there’s nothing for it except to lay in a supply of Advil and start my ujjayi breathing now, and to impotently shake my fist at the world at the thought of spending the day with seventy seven-to-nine-year-olds.
Whew, just writing that made me think longingly of a bottle of wine.
There are lots and lots of happy things in my life, however, and so I will go through them now, so as not to become a bitter old woman who runs people over at the Co-Op with her cart, and complains viciously of slow service and the price of butter.
1) My girls’ night away was fantastic, even if my husband has dubbed it the “world’s lamest girls’ night ever” because we went to see a display of the late Princess Diana’s dresses. What, it was awesome. Also we had some good food, good wine, and went hot tubbing, during which activity we were apparently checked out by men twenty years younger than us. I say apparently because I tend to be oblivious when it comes to these situations, and was only informed of it later, but I always welcome the chance to feel like a chaste Mrs. Robinson.
2) Chalking this up under the “even filial love is blind” category, I was watching The Avengers with Jake and he told me I look JUST LIKE Black Widow, who is played by Scarlett Johansson. JUST LIKE HER. There ARE undeniable similarities: we both have red hair and we both wear all black. However. On a related note: Jake can have any dessert he wants this week.
3) After our poor fireblighted tree was taken down, we were left with a stump and the contact information for “The Stump Doctor”. The Stump Doctor came last night and ground up our stump. I don’t know why, but just saying The Stump Doctor gives me a fit of the giggles. Thank you, Stump Doctor, for grinding my stump.
4) Despite my husband’s assertions that I bought too many bedding plants, I managed to plant them all in an attractive manner. This occurred between rainstorms, so I’m happy that I don’t need to “water until established”.
5) One very, very kind person told me that my hair reminded her of an old Finesse commercial, and since I have, shall we say “issues” about my hair, this was a very welcome compliment. It also reminded me of the shampoo line called Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific. Remember that? Man, I wish I had some.
Nicole’s Favourite Things – Spring Edition!
It was such a long, cold winter, wasn’t it? Snow on the ground from October solidly through April, but I tell you this: May has been absolutely stunning in YYC. I keep expecting snow in the forecast every day, or at least hard frosts, and yet it’s been warm and beautiful. It feels like spring, but not Calgary spring – regular actual spring!
And so it’s time for the Spring Edition of Nicole’s Favourite Things!
My Garden
On the fourth of May, this is what my front yard Mayday tree looked like:
This is what it looks like now:
Leaves! Flowers! All in a nine day span, which is not great for the allergy sufferers in the house, but it sure is pretty. Speaking of pretty:
This is the prettiest the Nanking cherry has ever looked. Usually the buds freeze before the flowers come out and/or the flowers get blown off by gale force winds, but not this year. I’m soaking up every second.
I know people in other parts of the world have had lilac bushes, the blooms of which have already come and gone, but look at the adorable little buds on my lilac:
There are many, many other exciting things happening in my garden right now, but if you are NOT a gardener, you may be falling asleep with boredom at all my squee flower talk. Moving on.
Embracing Colour
Well, kind of. I was shopping with a girlfriend who just so happens to have gone to design school and has a fabulous sense of style, and she practically forced me to buy this top, which I was unsure about, but now I love.
IT’S SO COLOURFUL! I feel a little bit peacock-y in this outfit, but my husband informed me that I am now no longer allowed to shop without my friend in tow. Hope she doesn’t mind her new career as my personal stylist.
I also wore a blue – BLUE – scarf to my 20th high school reunion. I don’t know if it’s spring fever or what, but all this colour is going to my head.
Anyone else feel like I need to clean my bedroom mirror? Seems a little dusty.
Mascara
I am a sucker for different formulations of mascara, and yet I don’t actually notice a difference between any of them. None of them transform me into a Megan Draper lookalike, possibly because I don’t look anything like Megan Draper and also she has fake eyelashes and professional makeup artists and she’s a TV character, not an actual person. Anyway. I did buy this mascara called “The Falsies” and although I was at first disappointed with it (see also: non transformation into a TV character) the more I use it the better I like it. My husband snapped this picture of me on Saturday night and I can actually notice my eyelashes in it:
Spring Food
I am in love with everything berry and green these days, so I’m enjoying these recipes I have up at Yummy Mummy Club: Green Goddess Bowl of Goodness, Overnight Coconut French Toast, and Lemon Mini-Cakes with Whipped Coconut Cream. Fun fact: that last recipe is a vegan riff on my dear friend Hannah’s famed Lemon Muffins.
Mother’s Day
I’m not hugely invested in Mother’s Day, but this weekend my boys gave me homemade cards and hugged me approximately one zillion times. They also had a blast playing in the sprinkler, which NEVER happens in May!
That series of photos just makes my heart happy.
Ground Control to Commander Hadfield
Commander Hadfield is the BOMB. I have never been a person even slightly interested in space. In fact, one of my strongest memories from Grade One is lying to the teacher of the gifted enrichment program about already reading a book about a dog who becomes an astronaut because, hey, books about space? Snore. I think they gave me an equally snore-worthy book about a dog who dug a hole in a garden but whatever. At least I didn’t have to read about space.
But here comes the amazing Canadian Chris Hadfield and suddenly I’m completely obsessed. I can’t wait to watch him come home tonight, with the kids. Is there anything that man cannot do? Plus, his song Is Somebody Singing makes me tear up every time I sing it (which is often, in the shower). The kids sang it for Music Monday and it was just so special.
This Fabulous Spam Comment
Anonymous wrote: I don’t even understand how I stopped up here, however I believed this put up was good. I do not know who you are but certainly you are going to a famous blogger in the event that you aren’t already. Cheers!
Anonymous goes on to post his/her website entitled “tits movie”. Oh boy! Thanks Anonymous! I sure hope you’re right, and I think I’ll just go click that link now.
Taxidermy! Food courts! Ukrainian Folk Dancing!
Today I attended an assembly hosted by both Mark’s and Jake’s classes where there was a wide variety of Reader’s Theatre (Mark was Narrator #3) and also Ukrainian folk dancing. Really, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen sixty five children wearing paper headbands and headdresses, dancing to Ukrainian folk music. It was very entertaining. I thought – unbiasedly, of course – that Mark was the very best of all the narrators, but also that he is most emphatically NOT a performer. Or specifically, a dancer. He seemed to gravitate towards the middle and back of the group, eyes on the ground, almost as though trying to disappear. In fact, that was what he was doing, as he told me he was embarrassed to dance in front of the whole school. Jake’s role was to do a sort of squat-kick spin-your-partner, except his partner was absent, so he spun himself. I thought it was excellent, in a most unbiased and objective way.
On Friday I opened the childrens’ agendas and discovered that, for this assembly, they were required to wear dark pants and white shirts. Now, I don’t know about you, but I have a policy about white shirts, and that is that we don’t have any. I mean, my husband wears them to work, and I have a couple that I guard with aprons and extra care, but my children – no. However, I didn’t want them to be the only two children without white shirts, and so I resigned myself to a mall excursion. ON A WEEKEND. I felt that since I was dipping my toe in anyway, I may as well just jump right in and also get shoes for Mark, given that his feet suddenly had a growth spurt and he was walking strangely in his old shoes, probably semi-crippled with shoe discomfort.
So there we were, the whole family, at the gigantic mall just outside the city. Like I said, go big or go home, and so we made the trek to the place that houses the Skechers outlet. We fairly expediently obtained the needed items, plus less expediently obtaining others (not for me, sadly) and then we went to the food court.
What is with kids and the food court? They think this is the biggest treat of all time. Any mention of a food court and they get so excited I worry about their little blood pressures. FOOD COURT! When I am on one of my rare evenings out, my husband will proclaim “It’s a BOY’S NIGHT!” and the children will lose their little minds with excitement, knowing that they are going to get to go to a mall and eat in a food court.
After the super-exciting food court lunch, we started to head for the exit. On the way, we passed Bass Pro and my husband asked the boys if they wanted to go in. For those of you who don’t know, Bass Pro is a wretched, wretched place filled with a myriad of taxidermied animals. I cannot even step past the taxidermied moose that mark the entrance without feeling alarm, which seems to be the exact opposite of my children, who enjoy looking at the taxidermied animals, as well as the camouflage hunting tents and whatnot. Both boys immediately said that they did NOT want to go to the store because they didn’t want to lose Mom again.
Here’s the story: the last time we were at that mall, the kids wanted to go into Bass Pro and look at all the (dead) animals, and also the gigantic fish tank. I, understandably, wanted to pass. I said I would wait outside, but I got bored and started to wander around. I texted my husband to tell him I was going to Jacob to look at black sweaters. I texted him that I was now in a shoe store. I texted him to say I was buying some boots. I texted him to ask where are you? God, I thought, they are taking forever. I wandered some more and ran into him, white-faced and frantic. It turns out that my husband didn’t have his phone with him, and thought I had disappeared. Oops. In any event, the boys were so traumatized that a) no one wants to ever go into Bass Pro again, and b) my husband doesn’t leave the house without his phone.
The last time I was in Bass Pro – many, many months ago – I snapped some photos:
Sexytimes! A camouflage lingerie section, to go with the camouflage quad/ hunting tent combination, in case anyone’s in the market.
Sears and Anthropologie: Reunited and it feels so good.
It’s snowing, again, huge fluffy flakes that would fill me with appreciation for their beauty if it were not mid-April. But! I am not going to focus on that. Instead, let me tell you about receiving the “Hello Summer!” Sears catalogue.
I love clothes and fashion. I love browsing through fashion magazines and thinking about what new styles might work for me, my body type, and my own personal style, and what, most emphatically, would not. Bright colours, patterns, and off-the-shoulder prairie blouses – no. Dark colours, tight pants, flowy tops – okay. I love to flip through the Sears catalogue to see how the company is marketing itself. We all know Sears as a store that appeals strongly to older demographics, but they are also trying to get a piece of the hip, young audience. So it’s kind of fun to see items like this:
juxtaposed with items like this:
I will spare you my Adam Glassman-esque diatribe about shorts and how they are an abomination to society unless worn for particular athletic and/or lifestyle reasons. In any case, I think we can all agree that Sears is trying to be everything to everyone.
My favourite mail days are when I get the Sears catalogue AND the anthropologie catalogue at the same time. I like to do a contrast and compare between the two; anthropologie is a company that definitely caters to the “young, hip, moneyed” crowd but oftentimes I will find clothing that really screams out “older demographic”. I find this very entertaining. View Exhibit A:
To me, this $168 dress says “cabana wear”. This one as well:
Man, that is one unflattering dress. It is not doing this woman’s figure any favours, and what hope does that give the rest of us? This dress is not dissimilar to this one, for $100 less, in the Sears catalogue.
What I found entertaining was the vast amount of floral skinny pants available in both catalogues. I’m not exactly sure of the target audience, but can you guess which pants are from which catalogue?
If you said anthropologie, Sears, anthropologie, Sears, then you’re right! Honestly, those pants are a BAD idea no matter where you buy them. There is just no way that those pants will flatter anyone. No cute shoes, tops, or scarves are going to save an outfit that contains floral patterned pants.
Other items of note:
This whole outfit is terribly fattening in every way – the way the skirt hits the widest part of the calves, the skirt itself, the cinched waist – but what I find funny is how the horse’s head hits right in between the breasts. The horse is looking at my boob.
Speaking of horses:
Jeans: cute. Booties: cute. Red plaid top with horse sweater? Well, I’m from Calgary. This outfit puts me too much in mind of bad Stampede wear. Plus, the sweater alone is $118. If I want kitchy western wear I may as well buy this very ugly denim dress from Sears for $29.99:
Not that I would, mind you. It’s pretty ugly. Item of note: there are NO horse sweaters in the Sears catalogue. There are many with floral or snowflake appliques, but no horses. There is one owl sweater:
That model finds her owl and the pretend elbow patches really saucy.
Now, lest you think I’m a hater, I found some items that I love, from both Sears and anthropologie. This dress, OMG, this DRESS! If I had somewhere to wear it I would buy it in a heartbeat. It’s gorgeous.
Someone PLEASE get married and invite me to the wedding so I can have an excuse to buy it. This one, too:
Isn’t it adorable? So zhu bisou bisou. Now, Sears, don’t feel left out. I have love for you too. This dress is very cute and much more reasonably priced:
The only thing is the name of this dress. It’s called, and I quote, “Boat Neck Slinky Dress”. I’m not sure I can get down with that label.
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All images from www.sears.ca and www.anthropologie.com
Nicole’s Favourite Things, Aloha Edition
The book fair is done! All loose ends are tied up; everything is finished until next November, when I will be relating my book fair sob stories once again. For those of you who have asked WHY I do this to myself, over and over like one of those fifty-shades types of girls, well, I ask the same question of myself when I find myself photocopying, cutting, and sorting 420 draw forms, or answering “The posters are five dollars. Yes, that one is five dollars too. They are all five dollars” a thousand times, or handling all that warm, sweaty money. The answer is, of course, that my kids tell me that they are so excited I’m in the school doing the book fair, and when I walk down the halls I get random hugs from children, and the school librarian tells me how happy she is to be ordering more books for the learning and literacy program and the ESL students. I even got thank you cards made for me by a couple of students, which makes the memory of sorting through the reorder forms fade significantly.
This week is flying by; book fair, make up karate classes, and, of course, readjusting to regular life after vacation. Yesterday my girlfriend who was volunteering with me asked me to tell her all about our vacation, and I had that far-off feeling that I was on another planet some time ago, and now the memories are all that remain. I’m trying to keep that aloha feeling going, so without further adieu I give you…
Nicole’s Favourite Things, Aloha Edition
As always, my favourite things are just things I love and I think you might too. These posts are never sponsored, I received nothing for free, and I was not compensated by any companies to write this post.
Lulu Bands
Not to be confused with lululemon, these are essentially ponytail holders that don’t damage your hair and don’t leave those annoying ponytail bumps in your hair when you take out your ponytail.
I know what you’re thinking: what is that, a scrunchie? Is this 1990? But no, they are not scrunchies, they look cute and non obtrusive in your hair, and you don’t need to worry about breakage, which is especially important for us fine-haired girls with over-processed, brittle hair. I’m wearing one in this picture – see? Not scrunchie-like at all.
Cheap Pedicures
Normally, the term “cheap pedicure” gives me visions of gross things like foot fungus or similar. I prefer to go once or twice a year to more expensive spas to get pedicures; where I live prices of these kind of services (and everything else) are fairly inflated, and so generally getting a pedicure doesn’t even cross my mind. However, I failed to recall the priniciples of supply and demand. In Maui, there seems to be a nail salon on every block, and the prices are insanely low. How could I resist? Plus during my pedicure I got to sit next to an older gentleman from Arizona who talked to me about dog breeds and golf. You just can’t buy that kind of entertainment.
Old Navy Swimwear
Last summer I bought some bikinis from Old Navy for $5-8 a piece. A steal! I also bought some skirts during the Boxing Week sales for $8 each, and they are cute, wrinkle free, and super comfortable. Their regular prices are not bad, either, and there is usually some kind of online discount to take advantage of.
Cute skirt, and perfect for travel. Also – Fern – shout out to my grandma! Love you, Grandma!
Sunglasses
My husband has always hated my old sunglasses. He’s had a vendetta against them for years. So, on this trip, we popped into a Sunglass Hut where I was helped by the most flamboyant man ever. This guy knew his sunglasses, and he fitted me out with these lovely things:
as well as a set of aviators so I can pretend I’m actually in Top Gun. Can I just give a shout out to that flamboyant man? He gave me a totally mouth-turned-down frowny face every time I tried on a pair of glasses that didn’t suit me, shook his head, and said “Um, NO.” I kind of fell in love with him a little bit, especially when he told me that his “friend” was in town from Las Vegas, and they had some champagne on the beach watching the sunset. He also said, when I told him we were leaving soon, “Well, being in paradise doesn’t pay the bills, am I right?” Truth.
Coconut
We were on holidays! And so the freezer in our condo was kept well stocked with all sorts of frozen treats. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself as the boys ate sundaes and ice cream sandwiches, meanwhile the rice milk ice cream I had purchased for myself tasted exactly like sadness. Then I discovered So Delicious Coconut Milk products, and OMG people. OMG PEOPLE.
I used to think that I disliked coconut; it turns out I dislike artificial coconut flavour and also shredded coconut, the texture of which resembles old dried-out dental floss to me. GOD BLESS THE COCONUT. I use coconut milk in my cooking and baking, coconut oil, and now I am a coconut milk “non-dairy frozen dessert” convert. Speaking of coconut, the one thing I regretted from our last Maui trip was that I didn’t bring home any coconut scented lotion. “Really, you REGRET not buying a bottle of lotion?” my husband said, confused at my use of the word regret. Yes! I regretted it! So I made amends to myself:
I’m wearing it right now and I keep sniffing at my coconuty hands. Smell my finger! Really, it smells like coconut.
Side note: the more times I type coconut, the weirder the word looks to me. Anyone else have this experience?
Speaking of smells…
Routine Natural De-odor-cream
I know, I know, I’ve extolled the virtues of Routine De-odor-cream before, but here’s another plug. It’s all natural deodorant, my friend makes it, and it WORKS. I spent my mornings at the beach, my afternoons doing my yoga practice and then going to the pool, and even with all that hot sun and sweating and activity, I STILL SMELLED FRESH. My very favourite is Sweet Jane, but I took Lucy in the Sky with me to Maui, thinking the lavender would be a bit, um, fresher. I was right! I did not smell in the least like a feral hippie. So, if you’ve ever been concerned about using natural deodorant – as I was in the past – FEAR NO MORE. This product really works.
Ah, it was a great trip. Now we are into March, my goodness, and it’s Friday! Which means wine time, also one of my favourite things.
