Category Archives: Fashion

Death by Shapewear; Nicole’s Favourite Things, Back-to-School Edition

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I was watching the news the other day and there was a story about how wearing shapewear, such as Spanx, excessively could lead to infection, blood clots, and death.  Death.  By shapewear.  I’m sure there are more humiliating ways to die, but at the moment I cannot think of any.  As my friend Rachel said, you would have to die twice – you would need to come back and die of embarrassment when the coronor cut you out of said shapewear, with the ensuing flesh explosion. 

Death by shapewear.  I don’t even want to think too much about the “infection” part. 

As we all know, nothing gets between Oprah and her Spanx.  So, on that O-related note, may I present the second edition of Nicole’s Favourite Things!  This is the back-to-school edition.  I am not exactly looking forward to the change of seasons.  I’m a summertastic kind of girl, and the thought of cold mornings and my aching, purple hands does not get me excited.  But, as I tell the boys cheerily, there is always SOMETHING to look forward to in every season! 

This is how you can tell I’m a Canadian girl – last week I pulled out all the kids’ winter gear and forced them to try everything on, in anticipation of the stores being sold out of everything by the end of September.  If you’ve ever tried to buy a pair of snow pants in January, you know of what I speak.  Fortunately my methodology of buying large so that the boys will “grow into it” worked – I only needed to buy one pair of mittens and one hat.  I also needed to buy indoor shoes for school since my children have disproportionately ginormous feet that grow quickly.

My favourite shoes for the boys are Skechers.  They last well, they’re cute, and at this time of year there is always a buy one, get one 50% off deal at the outlet store.  My only complaint – and this is not just Skechers related, but related to every single retailer in the world – is that the selection for boys is a tenth of the selection for girls.  RETAILERS, YOU SUCK.  There are always thousands of glittery, adorable girls’ shoes, and a handful at most of boys’ shoes.  This reminds me of my recent trip to Costco – not this Costco, thank goodness, or I would be lynched by the Americans for taking up a parking space – when I looked for boys’ underwear.  Pretty simple, right?  It turns out Costco had – and I am not exaggerating, people – four packages of boys’ underwear, size 16.  NOTHING ELSE.  Of course, there was a large selection of girls’ underwear.  Boys need underwear too, Costco, you bastards.

Whew, I went off on a little tangent there, didn’t I?  I also would like to give a shout-out to the good people at Mountain Equipment Co-Op, where I bought those backpacks last year.  MEC is famous for having an insanely good return/exchange/fixing faulty items policy.  They will literally do anything to satisfy their customers.  Their backpacks – along with most of their items – last forever, so I always make sure I purchase a nice, neutral colour that no one will tire of.  Most of their kids’ gear has reflective strips, which is nice for those days when the sun sets at 4:30 in the afternoon.  Sob.

My kids come home for lunch, which has its pros and cons.  The biggest pro is not having to pack lunches.  The only exception to this is our early-dismissal Fridays, when the kids are out at 1:10 and so they have a “nutrition break”.  I don’t know about your kids, but mine aren’t huge fans of sandwiches when they are not of the peanut butter and jam variety (we are at a nut-free school).  One of my girlfriends suggested a healthy, homemade alternative to those vile Lunchables: packing crackers with various cheeses and meats, veggies, and fruit.  I found these cute little Tupperware containers to keep things separated.

What are those little hearts?  I’m glad you asked.  I’ve never tried one of those label companies before, but I won a set from Lovable Labels and included were these cute little stickers that say things like “I love you to the moon and back” on them.  Awwww.  I stuck some of the little hearts on the inside of the containers, as a special reminder to the kids.  Awwwww.  I’m going to miss them and their constant Star Wars prattle.

Nothing to do with back-to-school, but this time of year is fantastic for zucchinis and tomatoes.  So why not think about baking a deliciously addictive loaf of chocolate zucchini bread, roasted vegetable lasagne, or salsa (not seltzer)?  You can eat your feelings about your children going back to school and your somewhat-empty-nest syndrome.  Or maybe that’s just me.

Whiskey and cigarettes

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My husband and I are currently halfway through Season Five of Mad Men.  The thought that we are almost at the end is filling me with great sorrow.  We discovered this show a few months ago, and have ravenously watched it from the first season, some evenings watching two or three episodes in a row.  I am bereft at the thought that we only have a few episodes to go.  I don’t know what we will do when we are finished.  I don’t remember what we did before Mad Men.  I’m adrift, people. 

I know I’m late in the game to watching this, but the writing is so fabulous.  My favourite Don Draper lines are as follows:

Bohemian guy: How do you sleep at night?
Don: On a bed made of money.

Betty’s dad: You people.  You think money is going to solve all your problems.
Don: Well, it’s going to solve THIS particular problem.

Peggy: You never say thank you!
Don: That’s what the money is for!

Oh, Don.  You mercenary rascal.  I do wonder if all the actors are required to be smokers for the show, or if they had to learn to smoke, or if they are now addicted to cigarettes because of all the smoking, or if they had to sign a waiver about cancer risks and smoking before taking on the roles.  Also, do they need to shower after work?  Because you would think they would be pretty stinky and smoky after shooting scenes.  I find myself becoming obsessed with those little details, the same way I obsess about sexy scenes: did the guy get a boner when he shot those scenes?  Or would he be too nervous to in front of the camera crew?  Is that girl really naked?  Because she looks naked.  That would be weird, to be shooting a sexy scene while naked. 

Anyone who has any acting/tv/movie knowledge, feel free to answer my questions.  Otherwise, I’m going to keep wondering.

I do remember, when I first started working, that some people smoked in their offices.  I remember a professor of mine telling me that he used to smoke while teaching.  This seems so strange now, doesn’t it, given that the last time I tried to buy a lighter – to light birthday candles with – that the grocery store I frequent does not sell them because it is illegal to sell smoking paraphernalia in a location where pharmaceuticals are also for sale.  I just wanted to buy a damn lighter for the birthday cake.  Also, if Mad Men is to be believed an accurate timepiece, and I think it is, everyone must have been drunk half the time.  I wondered aloud to my husband what whiskey tastes like, which filled him with surprise that I had never had a whiskey.  Really, is that so surprising?  Whiskey is not a huge drink for the ladies nowadays.  In any case he pulled out a bottle of whiskey – we have whiskey in the house, how or why I do not know – and I will say this: it’s nasty. 

The thing I love most about Mad Men, other than the writing and the plot and all the awesomeness, is the clothes.  I covet Megan Draper’s entire wardrobe.  I find myself mentally trying on her cute little dresses, not that I have reason to have such little dresses, but they are adorable.  The dress that she wears to sing “Zou Bisou Bisou” is especially awesome:

I think this dress would look great on me.  I suggested to my husband that I could get something similar for his office Christmas party, a statement which was met with dissention.

Sigh.  I probably don’t need to think about shopping right now anyway, since I was rearranging my dresser last weekend, and the pile of sweaters on the bed led to a tense conversation about how many black sweaters are too many black sweaters.  And that conversation was before my husband discovered the piles of sweaters on the kids’ beds, because I had run out of room on our bed.  What?  I like sweaters.  I saw this sweater today and I did NOT buy it, which feels to me like a massive display of self control:

Looking at that now, I cannot believe myself!  I didn’t buy it!  It is a perfect black sweater!  I have enormous self-restraint!  Unfortunately I have no room in my dresser.

I did really need to reorganize my dresser, apparently, since I found at the very bottom of the very bottom drawer not only my old compression stockings and the bra and panty combination I wore to my wedding, but a pair of size large maternity pantyhose.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: Summertastic!

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When we were in Maui, the boys wrote in their journals every day, in order to show their class when they got back.  Mark’s was ridiculously and tediously detailed (“Mom, do you remember what I had for breakfast yesterday?”), while Jake’s simply wrote out the major activities of the day.  In other words, the majority of his daily journal entries read as follows:

I went to the beach in the morning.  I went to the pool
 in the afternoon.  I ate ice cream.  It was good.
Not, perhaps, riveting, but accurate.  This is what blogging feels like in the summer sometimes, like a mix between some kind of glorified scrapbook of activities – SUMMERTASTIC! captions, along with photos of us at the pool, again, or at the zoo, one more time, everyone smiling and sunshiney – and a tedious listing of details about how I made ginger cookies out of beans.  
By the way, the bean-based cookies are pretty fabulous. 

I’ve been thinking for a while about writing posts about things I love, in a non-sponsored way.  I thought it could be like a meme for bloggers, and a fun discussion in the comments about products, fashion, and food that we love.  In the theme of SUMMERTASTIC, I propose the first of such posts be My Favourite Things, The Summer Edition.  Care to join me?   It will be like the O List, but without the bazillion dollars and free stuff.

Nicole’s Favourite Things – Summer Edition
Favourite Summer Beauty Products
My hair, since I started Operation Grow It Out, and also since I’m getting old and have been colouring it for so many years I barely remember what it was like before, is QUITE dry and brittle.  In the summer, I like to walk around hatless, all footloose and fancy free, and my poor, processed hair takes a beating from the sun.  I love Herbal Essences “Hello Hydration”.  I buy it in humongous jugs from Costco, and it works much better than any super-expensive “hydrating” salon product I’ve ever tried.  Once I accidentally bought the 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner, and it wasn’t until I noticed I had the softest hair ever that I realized I was double-conditioning.

Giant jugs.  Hehehe.
Just because I walk around hatless does not mean I am all casual about sun damage.  I wear sunscreen year-round, but I really pile it on in the summer.  I like Neutrogena’s Ultra-Sheer Water Light face sunscreen – it’s even good for those of us who are still considered “acne-prone” decades after our teen years.  You know those people who say things like “I don’t know HOW I got sunburned, I put on sunscreen.”?  I am not one of those people.  Here’s the trick: put sunscreen on after your shower, naked, in front of a mirror.  It’s the only way.  I use Neutrogena’s Ultra Sheer Body Mist to spray my back and shoulders, since I tend to wear tank tops that expose a lot of skin in those areas.  Then I use Hawaiian Tropic on the reachable parts of my body.  It smells so nice and summery, I think.  For the rainy days in which there is no sunshine – like yesterday! – I love Bath and Body Works Body Lotion in Forever Sunshine.  Get it?  I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day…


Speaking of cloudy days, how about a body wash that practically FORCES you to have a Happy Time?  I use body wash instead of shaving gel, because it seems to work better and leave my skin more hydrated.  I read this manifesto about not shaving the other day and embracing my natural self, but my natural self is a yeti, or at the very least, a fair-skinned, dark haired lassie who belongs – apparently – in the Highlands, and my body seems to think that growing hair will keep me warm and comfortable.  Long story short, I shave/wax a lot, and this body wash is marvelous as a shaving aid.

You’re going to be happy, dammit!

Favourite Summer Fashion

I wear a lot of tank tops, and my favourites are those with shelf bras.  So I can be braless!  But not in an alarming, scare-the-neighbours, depressingly deflated hippie-chick sort of way.  But these tanks – from Lululemon – keep everything in, the straps don’t slip, and they are long enough for my liking.  They are a bit pricey, but I have tanks that I bought five years ago that are still in mint condition after much washing and wearing.  The caveat here is to purchase in a colour that I don’t tire of (black).

See?  Braless, and yet…not.

It’s no secret that I hate shorts.  I loathe them.  For years, when my varicose veins were rivaling those of bedridden senior citizens, I wore nothing except capri pants in the summer.  This summer, now that my scars are (mostly) healed, I am rediscovering my love of skirts.  Skirts are so cool and fun in the summer, but I also like to not be concerned that I am going to obscenely flash someone at the playground, or that I can sit crosslegged without my children requiring therapy.  Check this out! 

It’s a skirt (please ignore my apparently filthy mirror)
But it has SHORTS built in underneath!  It’s a miracle of skirt engineering.

Favourite Summer Food

My very favourite snack in the summer:

Delicious summer berries!  I try to eat berries until I’m sick of them, because, well, ’tis the season, but I never, ever get sick of them.  I used to eat them with vanilla yogurt, but sadly dairy products are causing me to break out like an extraordinarily awkward teenage boy, and so I just eat them as-is.  I add a little sugar and I barely miss the yogurt. 

My favourite summer meals:

Thai noodle salad!  I created this recipe!  It’s pretty yummy and I crave it all the time.  Recipe is here.  My other favourite is actually a year-round favourite, but it really is better in summer, what with seasonal veggies and it being a cold salad: GREEK SALAD (recipe here).  Feta is my concession to dairy consumption.  Maybe goats are better than cows in the whole dairy department?  I don’t know.  All I know is I don’t want to imagine life without feta.  I can’t.  I won’t!

Now it’s your turn: tell me, dear readers, what are your favourite things in the summer?  Share in the comments, or share on your blog, if you’re a blogger.  I chose fashion, beauty, and food, but that could be because I’m shallow.  You can choose any category.  Make yourself feel like Oprah at Christmastime!  Tell me all.  xoxo

69 Days of Summer Vacation; Mark and Jake Are Going To Do It All!

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I was going to do a “Wordless Wednesday” and just post this picture of my kids on their last day of Grade One and Two:
But there is a reason I don’t do Wordless Wednesdays, and that is because I am much, much too wordy.  I want to tell you all about the last day of school and how I held my friend’s four week old baby boy today, and he was all curled up like a little bean on my shoulder and he fell asleep, and now my boys are all huge (see above picture for relative hugeness) and pretending to be hip-hop artists, apparently, and how sad I am that their favourite teacher is leaving the school and so Jake won’t be in her class next year, and how she whispered “I love you, Jake” when we were leaving, and how she described Jake as blossoming from a shy little boy in September to one of the leaders and role models of the class, and how happy she was to have Mark in her class for two years, and how she described Mark as having a huge love of learning, and how I came home and while thinking about fleeting time I missed a step going up the stairs and slammed my bare foot on the edge of the step and now it’s all swollen and bruised and how I’ve been home for two hours and still haven’t accomplished any of the tasks I set out to do, and how I’m wondering if a beer would solve these problems.
It might.
So I’m not going to think about my empty nest eleven years hence, but instead I am going to relate snippets of life around me over the past couple of weeks.
Overheard at the mall:
Girl #1: I think I’m going to stop dyeing my hair.  The roots are coming in too light.
Girl #2: What’s your natural colour, anyway?
Girl #1: Like, ash blonde?
Girl #2: WHAT DID YOU SAY?
Girl #1: Ash blonde?
Girl #2: Oh my god.  Ash blonde?  Your natural colour is ASH BLONDE?  Why in the world would you EVER colour ASH BLONDE?
Girl #1: I didn’t think it was that exciting.
Seen while driving: a billboard proclaiming “Look your Stampede best!  With BOTOX.”

Conversation between the kids, after watching Empire Strikes Back:
Mark: Mom, I thought you said that Princess Leia and Han Solo were in love.
Me: Yes.
Mark: They totally do not seem like they are in love.  They just bug each other all the time.
Jake: Mark!  That means they are going to get married.  Sometimes your wife is just a pain in the butt all the time!
Me: Jake!  Why would you say that.
Jake: No, Mom, it’s true!  That’s what being married IS. 
Me: I’m not a pain in the butt to your dad.
Jake: I didn’t mean you, Mom.  Sometimes it’s Dad who is the pain in the butt.
Conversation at my dinner table:
Husband: You look really nice today.
Me: Thanks.
Husband: No, I mean it.  You look great.  That shirt is great.  You should wear it more often.
Me: Thanks!
Husband: It’s so nice to see you in something colourful.
Me: This shirt is navy.
Husband: Yes, but it’s not black.

I think I’m a Winter

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I’m starting to talk like our contractors.  My husband asked me, casually, what the tile guys were going to do with the cement shower base and cinderblock bench.  “They’re gonna beef it up real good” was what I actually told him.  Because I now know ALL when it comes to pouring the cement for a shower base.  Also, if ever I am in a tiling situation where I am instructing someone, I know that the proper way to ask someone to affix a tile onto a surface is to say “Butter it up, slap that fucker on.  COME ON!  Shim it up a bit!  Fuck!  Let’s go!”

I was just out driving in an electrical storm, which is always a bit freaky, although they say a car is the safest place to be.  I don’t know, I think I prefer to be in the comfort of my own home, but maybe that’s just the irrational, “hail is pelting my windshield and it’s scaring me” part of my brain talking.  Speaking of irrational, when I went to pick the boys up for lunch, Mark came out with no jacket.  In the rain.  When asked about it, he said he didn’t think he needed it.  By the time I had to take them back to the school, the rain had upgraded from “raining a little” to “torrential downpour plus hail” and yet Mark still refused a jacket.  To be honest, I was just as glad because sending a child to school with two jackets is a recipe for one of those jackets to be destined for the lost and found.  “Run fast!” I told him as I dropped him off, hoping he wouldn’t be totally soaked for the rest of the day.

Yesterday was a beautiful, warm day, and this is noteworthy since it was a Tuesday, and, therefore, a soccer practice.  A warm day for soccer?  It’s bringing up the average temperature!  Meteorologists across the city were probably rubbing their lying hands with glee.  In any case, I was just as happy to be sitting in the sun.  Or, as it turned out, playing soccer in the sun.

The coach approached me a couple of days ago to ask me to help out on the field at last night’s practice.  He specifically requested that I, maybe, could wear sneakers?  We both looked at my feet when he said that.  I was wearing three inch wedges – in the playground, ridiculously enough.  What is wrong with me?  Anyway, I told him I most certainly would help on the field, and I did not mention the fact that despite owning many, many pairs of black shoes, I do not own a single pair of sneakers.  What?  I’m not a runner, nor do I ever frequent the gym, so…I pulled out my one pair of sensible shoes – Mary Jane-style Skechers that I wear when I work in the garden.  They worked for the purpose, anyway, although the “parents versus kids” game that I was supposedly participating in morphed into an “older siblings who want to annihilate their younger siblings versus kids” game, which, quite frankly, sucked.  I don’t usually complain about other mothers, and I try not to judge, but there is one mom on the team who brings her ten year old son to watch the practices and games, and whom she very obviously favours over her younger son (who is on the team).  I’m not a big FAN of favouritism, like most of us, but when she happily sat by as her older son effectively kept the ball away from the younger players, WHOSE PRACTICE IT WAS, well, Judgy McJudgerton.  Yes, your ten year old son is awesome compared to the U8 team.  Praise Jesus.

I am not – obviously – a fashion blogger, nor do I read any fashion blogs, but I do love when people write about clothing, shoes, bags, etc.  So I was kind of excited to read Swistle’s post about all her clothing essentially being the same three colours.  I was excited because my wardrobe is, as you may or may not know, almost exclusively black or grey.  It’s not just me, lots of people have a predominant colour palette in their wardrobe!  Remember how everyone used to get their colours “done” and would only wear colours in their “season”?  It occurs to me that maybe we are all subconsciously doing just that, without actually getting our colours “done”. 

The book is a little misleading though.  THIRTY special colours? 

Not to be an idiot, but I would have to think very hard to come up with thirty colours, unless I lamely did something like light blue, medium blue, dark blue, etc.  I most assuredly do not have thirty colours of anything in my wardrobe. 

So tell me, what’s in your wardrobe?  Do you find you buy your clothes in similar colours, or are you a veritable Rainbow Brite?

 

Good Vibrations (not THOSE kind of vibrations)

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Hey, I’m guest posting for my dear friend Kimberly, who is recovering from gall bladder surgery and easing her way back into the world of the eaters, over at All Work and No Play Make Mommy Go Something Something.  Kimberly is an amazing woman and I’m not just saying that because her blog name is so very awesome.  She is one of the strongest, bravest women I know, but not only that, she’s FUNNY.  Like as in I think about something she wrote over two years ago and I still get the giggles (it was a metaphor of back hair, Italian heritage, and stallions).  So go over and check out my post, pretty please.  Check out the rest of her blog while you’re at it – she’s a lot of fun.  Thanks for letting me guest post, Kimberly – and get better soon!  xoxo

Volunteer Fatigue and Mrs. Robinson

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The boys went to Aggie Days with their school yesterday.  They came home, alternately raving with excitement about it and complaining about the crowds.  Those are my boys!  They talked about the sheep shearing – sheep are, Jake informed me, very good listeners – and the corn mazes.  The parent volunteer for their group was a friend of mine and was apparently very fun and even let them go through the corn maze a lot!   Note that I was not volunteering.  I received the permission forms and quickly sent them back without checking the “I can help!” box.  Just the thought of riding on a school bus with sixty first and second graders made me feel nauseous, let alone spending the day in a crowded, giant facility looking at livestock.  Not to mention the anxiety I feel spending the day in a crowded, giant facility and being responsible for someone else’s children.

I am also at the point where if one more person asks me to do one more thing on a volunteer basis, I am going to stab that person.  I feel pretty maxed out, volunteer-wise, as I do every year at this time.  One would think that I would have learned my lesson by now.  But no.  This is the bane of the stay-at-home mom’s existence.  The general assumption is that stay-at-home moms have nothing better to do, so they may as well volunteer, and in some ways that’s true.  I certainly have much more time to volunteer than a mother with an actual paying job, and I have much more time to volunteer than a mother with very small children at home.  And so I tend to take on a lot of volunteer related jobs – chairing the PA, for example, or writing for the community newsletter (putting the FREE into free-lance, that’s me), or running the school’s book fairs, or scheduling the community soccer games for, god help me, four years running (THERE WILL NOT BE A FIFTH, I SWEAR, YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST).  But none of these are small undertakings, and by mid-April of each year I have extreme volunteer fatigue.  And so when I get asked to chaperone a field trip, for example, I become unreasonably enraged and stabby, and self-righteously think that someone ELSE can do it for a change, although there is never a shortage of volunteers for field trips and, other than the one time I went to the fire hall with Jake’s preschool (which was for entirely cougar-licious, self gratification reasons), I have never chaperoned a field trip. 

It turns out that my friend who was in charge of Mark and Jake’s group was much more fun than I would have been, anyway.  I probably would have gotten very bored of the corn maze.

Instead of going to Aggie Days, I went shopping with my mom for my birthday, which is in two days!  I need to unpack my tiara and my “It’s My Birthday” sandwich board.  But my mom and I had fun shopping, and she bought me this sweater, among other things:

I like this sweater, but am currently worried that I am bringing to mind that awful saying regarding mutton dressed as lamb.  It’s a crop top, after all, and although I have no intention of starting to wear crop tops with Daisy Dukes, I still feel slightly self conscious.  I mean, I’m going to be thirty-seven in a couple of days.  It’s hard to know what’s appropriate.  It’s hard to be stylish without crossing the line from “fashionable” to “desperate-looking cougar”.  I have an aunt who I recall thinking she was hard-core styling when I was around eleven, but looking back, I think that those hot pink suede miniskirts and tasseled jackets were actually not appropriate for a woman in her thirties.  Although, it was the eighties, so who knows.  Maybe that was appropriate back then.  I had permed hair; who am I to judge anyone?

Here’s a little tidbit for those of you who are in your late thirties or beyond – Anne Bancroft was thirty-six when she played Mrs. Robinson.  THIRTY-SIX.  The thought makes me feel a little faint, to be honest.  As of Saturday, I am going to be older than Mrs. Robinson.

It makes me feel a little self-conscious to go to the firehall to drop off my bag of old batteries, that’s all I’m saying.