Secret Santa, Bits and Bobs; Ninety Weeks In

This year I started following the lovely San over at The In Between Is Mine; she is so smart and articulate, and I am forever fascinated by people who are fully fluent in more than one language, as she is; English is not her first language and yet her English is perfect. I mean, I […]

Full-On Festive; Eighty-Nine Weeks In

It’s up! It’s up! The tree is up! I was visiting with a friend (HI MARION) last Thursday and I mentioned how excited I was to put up the tree that evening. “It is so LATE to be putting the tree up,” I said, as she cocked her head and looked at me. I mean, […]

Thirst Traps and Letting Go; Eighty-Eight Weeks In

These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty I love listening to podcasts while doing menial household drudgery or slowly walking Barkley around the neighbourhood; it makes me actually look forward to doing dull things like folding the laundry or other mind-numbing tasks. I feel like I learn new things every day; I discovered the “We Didn’t […]

And You, Asshole, You’re Lucky To Be Here; Eighty-Seven Weeks In

Every few weeks for the past couple of months, my husband has been travelling to check on the progress of the enormous renovation of our vacation home, and to meet with all the various contractors and so forth. Last week the boys had two days off of school, and so my older son accompanied him […]

Festivities Shift; Eighty-Five Weeks In

Hello November!! It was a brisk, wintry start to the weekend, so I wasn’t sure if we would even get any Trick-or-Treaters, but we ended up with an all-time high of 43, smashing our earlier record of 25. Maybe it was the decorations! We do have some candy left over, which some of us are […]

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Spooky Season Edition

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS. LOOK AT THE GRUESOME SCENE THAT WE DISCOVERED ON OUR FRONT STEP LAST NIGHT. I guess the mystery of the missing gourds is solved – it’s a case of cannibalism! I don’t know WHO is responsible for this carnage, but a) I love it and b) I have my suspicions! […]

Dreams, Jeans, Go(u)rds, Thanksgiving; Eighty-Two Weeks In

Thanks and Giving Thank you to everyone who reached out with kind words last week. It does make things lighter to know that we aren’t alone. Today is Thanksgiving, for those of you not in Canada, and it is the first Thanksgiving in many years that we are not visiting my mother-in-law, which feels strange. […]