Category Archives: Festivities

Sometimes You’re The Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, Sometimes You’re Linus’ Blanket; Forty Weeks In

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I’ll Take Le Tits Now For $200, Alex

I love this time of year, for many reasons, but also because it’s Decorative Tin Season, Motherfuckers. I have a lovely assortment of festively decorative tins, and I love to fill them with once-a-year treats. Why don’t I have decorative tins for other times of year, when they clearly bring me joy? I don’t know.

Every time I open the fridge, I’m faced with this tin that is filled with peanut butter truffles:

And every time I open the fridge and see this tin, I get Sean Connery’s voice in my head. I’ll take Le Tits Now for $200, Alex. I get that voice in my head whenever I receive a Let It Snow-themed Christmas card, see a festive pajama set or decoration, or, god forbid, hear the song. Le Tits Now, Le Tits Now, Le Tits Now.

Hilariously, I have had several people tell me lately that when they try to access this blog from certain locations – work, mostly – that they get firewalled, and in some cases, the site is flagged as pornography. Let’s give them something to talk about.

Side note: imagine how disappointed a porn-seeker would be on being directed to this blog. Oooh, a GIRL in a BOY house. Let’s see…huh. There’s a lot about grocery shopping – ooh! Maybe it’s a produce stockboy storyline…no. No. She’s just literally buying groceries. And getting upset about people who don’t return their carts. Maybe on this next page…no. More groceries. Oooh, double up the D! No. No. She means Vitamin D.

I’m Not A Regular Mom, I’m A Cool Mom

At least a few times a week, I sassily tell the boys that, despite all appearances to the contrary, I’m not a regular mom, I’m a cool mom. I also text them gifs to that effect, which they accept with weary resignation.

My older son was assigned the movie Mean Girls to watch for his Career and Life Management class – side note, why? When I was in grade 11 CALM I certainly was never assigned to watch movies. – and he burst out of his room with a startled look on his face.

“I didn’t know that was actually from something!” he said to me. “I thought you were just saying you were a cool mom.”

Me:

Is It Better To Burn Out Than To Fade Away, Asking For A Friend

Mean Girls notwithstanding, school-wise the last two weeks have been very intense for the boys. I found myself longing for the pre-high school days when December was an absolute shit-show and no academic work was attempted. Sure, they were hyped-up messes by the time they got home, but at least they weren’t completely burned out shells of their former selves. My younger son had a math test during the last period of the Friday before the break. My older son had a major Social Studies unit test the day before; both of them were basically the walking dead last week. I never was a fan of Pajama Day at school but now I’m remembering those days fondly.

I woke them up Friday morning by blasting One Day More; I can’t tell if they were happy about that or not.

We celebrated the end of school – after my younger son spent TWO HOURS after classes finished working on a project due THAT DAY THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL – as we usually do, with a viewing of Christmas vacation, snacks, and, in my case, boozy coffee.

Pandemic Feelings, Summarized

I did not click on any of these stories; I’d rather live with them in my imagination.

All It Needed Was A Little Love

One of my favourite Christmas TV moments is when Charlie Brown places a single ornament on his frail little tree, and, after he freaks out because he thinks he’s killed it, Linus wraps his blanket around the trunk. “It just needed a little love.” Then, magically, it grows branches and becomes a visually-perfect little tree.

I was talking about this to one of my yoga classes the other day, because it occurred to me that sometimes we are all Charlie Brown’s tree; just hanging in there, dropping needles like crazy, but still standing until someone hangs a metaphorical ornament on us, when we droop alarmingly. Do you feel like this too? Like, we’re fine, we’re fine, but then something happens that SHOULD feel festive but really feels like an anvil dropped on us, and that is IT. We are DONE.

In years past, I would have said that the ornament was a metaphor for all the obligations of the season; this year I think it is the feeling that we have to make the best of everything, making this the Best Home Christmas Ever in the face of much loss and sadness, in the season where we usually are frantically Seeing Everyone but this year we are Seeing No One.

And when we feel that droop, when we feel weighted down, we need a metaphorical Linus’ blanket to prop us up. What I want to tell you is that we are all each other’s Linus’ blanket. You, friends, have propped me up, and I hope to return the favour. Sometimes we are the tree, and sometimes we are the blanket. We are all in this together.

If you feel you can be a blanket this week, and you are heading out into a grocery store or pharmacy, consider gifting something to your cashier. I’ve been packaging up Lindt truffles and leaving them at the very end of my groceries, so when the bag comes through and the cashier looks askance, I thank her for all her hard work.

Pandemic Reading

This was just so excellent and so important for someone like me – white, privileged, Canadian. It is narrative nonfiction and explores the Great Migration of Black people from the American South to the North. From Jim Crow laws in the South to discriminatory housing, education, and employment practices in the North, this book really was insightful and a good resource for understanding the incredible obstacles faced by the migrants and the people who stayed in the South. It is a book of resilience, strength, tragedy, and hope.

The title says it all! By turns hilariously entertaining and heart-wrenchingly sad, this was enlightening and educational about mental illness and its effects.

Do you like reading about financial markets? Do you like reading about Monte Carlo simulations, random walks, and other nerdy econometric applications and theories? I do too!

Oh, I laughed so much through this book. It is VERY wittily written and really brought me back to my quantitative analyst days. The author’s general attitude reminded me so much of a former colleague, Warren. Oh, Warren. Warren worked in our Houston office but was originally from Chicago; once we were all at a conference in Chicago and, over dinner and every single opportunity he had, Warren regaled me with every detail you can ever imagine about the city’s history. And then, the first mayor Daley… I don’t remember the details because for some reason, I got really drunk on sangria. This page made me think so much of him:

I have to confess that my optimal strategy…was to speak as much as I could, while totally avoiding listening to other people’s replies by trying to solve equations in my head.

Fun fact, Warren also had married a woman, and I believe this marriage was one that used to be referred to as “mail order” and that is all you need to know. Ah, I have fond memories of him. Good times.

Oh! Remember when I spoke about the guy who broke his phone on the trade floor? I wasn’t alone!

Ah, good times.

I’m keeping that in mind this week, that the holidays are often a difficult time for many people, and this year even more so. Practicing compassion and empathy, coming into this very dark time of year. As we approach the darkest day of the year, we need to shine our lights to light the way for others, and to reflect others’ light.

So shine your light, wrap your blankets, and if you’re losing needles and drooping under the ornament, know that I’m holding you in my heart. Merry Christmas to you all, I hope you can find some joy and peace this holiday season. xoxo

Festively Locked Down; Thirty-Nine Weeks In

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What Even Day Is It

Here we are, the last week of school (or, “school”) before the holidays, and I am feeling that old familiar what even day is it feeling. When I wake up in the morning, I rarely think in terms of Monday-Friday; instead, I categorize the day by what class I’m teaching or IF I’m teaching. My week is Strengthen and Tone, Seniors, Grocery Day, Foundations, and Ashtanga, but this week my registered classes – 3/4 of the classes I teach – have all wound up for the year, and so I’m feeling a little at sea.

Monday! It’s Monday. We are thirty-nine weeks into the pandemic and in a full lockdown.

Library Lockdown

Yes, as of yesterday, we are now in a full-scale lockdown; in other words, it is now illegal to have a gathering of any kind, any number, inside or outside. I feel a bit salty about this, as I haven’t gathered with other people in months, and my god, how are we back here again but you know. Perspective. I’m fine. We’re fine. Everything’s fine.

I WAS horrified to learn that the library is now closed. Our library app has a “for later” shelf where I have listed about 150 titles; the app has a feature that shows which of those “for later” titles are available right now. When I discovered the library was closing, I did what anyone in my position would do, and started putting all of those available titles on request immediately. It was the library version of panic-buying at the grocery store.

I was feeling quite satisfied with myself, thinking of the titles that would come in before the library closed at 5:00 on Saturday, until I found out that, unlike during the last shutdown a) the library is still doing curbside hold pickups, b) the return chute is still open and due dates are still firm, and c) all of the books came in and this is my current To Read pile:

And I have another FOUR titles that I need to pick up this week. Luckily my social calendar isn’t exactly packed. It’s fine!

Wrapper’s Delight

My least favourite Christmas-related task is gift wrapping. I am terrible at gift wrapping. Maybe I should have saved some of those gift bags? But we are a Tear Open The Paper kind of family, so I stand by my decisions.

One of the fun things about doing so much online shopping is that when you go to wrap the gifts, you discover all the things that you bought and kind of forgot about. As I was wrapping, it occurred to me that some t-shirts I had ordered for my older son – whose personal style is jeans and a graphic t-shirt, but not just any graphic t-shirt, it has to be a specific unique random thing that I’ve often never heard of, who even is Tyler Bryant – had not yet arrived, even though I ordered them in early November.

Not two minutes later, I heard a knock on my door. It was the elderly lady across the street letting me know that she would be away for a few days, and if anything happened to her house, could I call her, and by the way, did I know I had mail? And like a Christmas miracle, there it was, the package of Seinfeld-themed t-shirts with These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty and Look to the Cookie emblazoned on them.

Everything is fine!

Speaking of (W)rap

If you are a person who has a Spotify account, undoubtedly you will have discovered your number one song for 2020. My music genres are wildly varied, from hard rock and 1990s hip hop for workouts and running to Broadway show tunes, from mellow 1970s music to soul and Motown, alongside the hippie chanting and instrumental music I use for my yoga classes. I was excited to see what my very number one listened to song was.

It was – wait for it – Walk This Way by Run DMC. I was puzzled – I do love that song, it is on two separate playlists for running and cardio workouts, but I was surprised it was my number one song.

The mystery was solved when my husband looked at his list. His number one song was Let’s Stay Together by Al Green, followed by Copacabana by Barry Manilow, two songs he has never consciously chosen to listen to in his life.

His Spotify account is linked to our kitchen Sonos, which is what I listen to when I’m in the kitchen, which, as we know, is many, many hours a week. Hilariously, the rest of his list was filled with Aretha Franklin, the Bee Gees, and the Doobie Brothers, and although I am amused at the idea of him secretly grooving away to Nights on Broadway, you will have to believe me when I say he is not a Bee Gee kind of guy.

Festive Friday

I have declared the two Fridays leading up to Christmas to be Festive Friday, and so last Friday we decorated gingerbread men. This is, as longtime readers will know, an annual tradition that leaves us with dozens of identical gingerbread men with three buttons, two eyes, and a smile, all made by me, and about a dozen of ridiculous messes that no one will eat because that icing is really not that great. Allow me to illustrate.

After decorating, the boys proceeded to squirt the remains of the icing tubes into glasses of water, which they drank like tequila shots, at which time I uncorked a bottle of wine.

Pandemic Reading

Thanks to Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) for recommending this book. Light-skinned Black twins run away from home to start new lives – separately. It is a compelling read about racial identity, gender identity, and the pull of family. I immediately looked up other books by this author and put them on my (ever-growing) to-read list at the library.

So. Did someone recommend this to me? Was I drunk when I was on the library app? All I know is that I would have never put this on hold if I had read the plot synopsis. DEAR GOD. It is set in the fall of 2020. It concerns – wait for it – a deadly virus that is causing a global pandemic. A deadly NOVEL CORONAVIRUS. The incredibly uncanny thing about this is that it was written and edited between 2013-19, and published MARCH OF 2020, and there are many details about self-quarantine, wearing masks, and end-times panic about groceries. What the what. Why did I even read this to the end, I don’t know. It was written in a style I very much like: different viewpoints and timelines, showing how all of the characters are interconnected in the manner of no man is an island, ask not for whom the bell tolls, etc. However. Maybe if we WEREN’T currently living this dystopian nightmare, I’d feel differently about reading it, but we are, and I cannot UN-recommend this book strongly enough. Unless you like reading about the deaths of millions of children, then go for it, fill your boots.

Yummy Things

In addition to gingerbread, this week I made mint squares, peppermint bark – the Christmas treat that is so easy and yet always impressive – and chocolate truffles. Important addition to the latter: after rolling into balls, I placed them on wax-paper lined cookie sheets and then put them in the freezer. Meanwhile, I melted 1 cup chocolate chips with 1 tablespoon coconut oil, then dipped the frozen truffles into the mixture. Then I put them back to the freezer, and I’m taking them out as needed.

Have a beautiful week, everyone! Are your kids still in “school” this week? Are you all ready for the holidays? Tell me everything. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Festively Crazy Edition

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Do you have a Buy Nothing group in your neighbourhood? I do, and it’s really a great thing: people post items that they want to get rid of, and also items – and sometimes acts of service – that they need. I have been able to re-home many items from my house in this way, and it makes me happy to think that someone local is using our outgrown clothes and boots, old towels, and bought-on-a-whim-but-never-used toiletries.

Some of the things gifted on the site are kind of bizarre – partially used salad dressing, for example, expired coconut milk – but hey, no judgement here, the point is to keep things out of the landfill, and almost everything that goes on the site is snapped up.

On my most recent Organization Spree Because There Are So Many People Home All The Time In This Small House, I pulled a big Rubbermaid bin from a closet downstairs. The bins below it were filled with various knitted objects from my mother-in-law, and a quilt my grandmother had made for me as a child, and the bins above it were filled with spare blankets for winter.

You might think that the bin in question would also be filled with similar items, but you would be wrong. It was filled to the brim with gift bags.

I have another box, handily residing on a shelf, that I store gift bags in, and so I did not even realize I have saved every gift bag from every gift I have ever been given. I mean, this bin had gift bags that I remember getting at my baby shower, my baby shower being held in May 2004.

I also was made to realize that every year I buy packages containing hundreds – hundreds! – of Christmas gift tags, and then only partially use the package as I don’t, obviously, give hundreds of gifts annually. In other words, I had stacks and stacks of partially used packages of gift tags. I may never have to buy gift tags again. When I die, my grandchildren will be cleaning out my apartment and will wonder why I have so many gift tags.

Also found: many ribbons, partially empty boxes of cards, and bags of Easter grass.

Thank god for the Buy Nothing group, is all I can say. Two nice ladies took the bags – one specifically taking dozens of wine gift bags, guess what people like to give me – and both commented, after picking them up from my front step, that that was more than they expected. THEY’RE YOURS NOW, LADIES. Enjoy the monkey paws.

My vow to not buy gift tags did not extend to actual gift WRAP because, although I knew, I knew in my heart that I had several rolls of Christmas wrap at home, I still bought a Costco roll on my last trip. We all know how long those rolls last. I guess my grandchildren will also be clearing Christmas paper out of my apartment and thinking that Grandma was Festively Crazy.

I am Festively Crazy! And why not. Here we are, the darkest month of the year, the darkest year of the century/ millennium/ dear god let’s HOPE it’s the darkest year, and, as you know, I’m Feeling Festive.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Festively Crazy Edition

Gnome Sweet Gnome

Back in mid-November, I noticed this guy in my neighbourhood.

Cute, right? Then, suddenly, he started multiplying and I was seeing this sweet greenery gnome everywhere around the neighbourhood. Sometimes I would see three or four houses in a row with gnomes on their front steps or gardens. I finally saw a gnome owner – a gnowner, if you will – and she told me that a local nursery was selling kits and giving webinars to Make Your Own Gnome. Right there I knew it was a non-starter for me. I am the least crafty person I know, and if I was to try this project – which the woman said “was tricky in parts” – it would end with a pile of shredded greenery, and me dissolved in a puddle of tears. I did look on the nursery’s website, and the kits themselves were $80, which seemed like a lot to spend for a decoration that would only last one season (I’m half Scottish), and also for something that I would surely destroy accidentally.

This all doesn’t stop me from admiring each and every gnome on my daily walks, nor did it stop me from talking to my husband about the gnomes. Look at how cute they are, I love gnomes, I especially love the kind of gnomes that have faces like that, I wish I had a gnome.

Look what arrived on the weekend!

Dreams do come true! I am now officially a gnowner, without the tears and shredded greenery.

Pulling The Ferrari Out Of The Garage

My friend Liv (HI LIV) uses that term for bringing out the good china, and although I have a full set of Lavender Rose Royal Albert china that was my grandma’s, I rarely use it. It generally comes out for fancy Christmas coffee and treats with the girls, which is obviously not going to happen this year. I do not feel like going through the trouble of bringing out the Lavender Rose for the guys, who do not now and never will appreciate it. However! Our Sunday night desserts have been a variety of the Christmas treats and baking I’ve been doing, which is a perfect opportunity to bring out the Christmas Spode platters.

So many trees.

I love Spode; the platters hide in plain sight year-round. This bowl usually houses decorative balls with Chinese writing, but at Christmas gets filled with pine cones I collected years ago, from my in-laws’, my husband’s childhood home.

Party For One, A Festive Kitchen Party

If you’re going to spend a lot of time at home, and in the kitchen, may I suggest festive tea towels? You can see the Spode one above, but I have a wide variety, almost exclusively purchased post-Christmas at huge discounts (Scottish, again).

I use the wine-themed ones only on Fridays and Saturdays as a celebratory reminder.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside Bum Warmers

FRILUFTSLIV! I know I’ve talked before about My Cozy Buns, the local woman who repurposes old sweaters and makes them into these adorable skirt-like bum warmers, but I do not think I can talk too much about them. I mean. Honestly. How much cuter of an idea can you get? Plus, recycling, upcycling, keeping warm in the winter, looking cute, and friluftsliv! I am normally an all-black-or-at-most-very-neutral colour person, but I saw this set – which comes with a matching headband, not shown – and it was just the perfect pop of festive colour without making me feel weird and conspicuous.

Please note that I am only coatless to take this photo, I immediately layered up afterwards.

Don’t Throw Me Down, Clark

My friend Chloe (HI CHLOE) sent me this coaster last Christmas (she also gave me her heart, but I gave it away) (I hope this year she gives it to someone special) and it makes me smile every time I look at it, which is often.

When this pandemic started, I vowed to write a monthly Favourite Things, and it has really helped me to focus on the positive. I think I’ll keep it up! So tell me, what are your favourite things lately? They don’t have to be festive (but I am here for the festivity!). xo

Everything Is Fine; Thirty-Eight Weeks In

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The first week of at-home schooling has been fine. So much better – oh my god, SO MUCH – than in the spring. For one thing, we finally bought my older son a laptop – my younger son has had one since seventh grade – and that right there was worth the price, times one thousand. Both boys can now work in their rooms, as opposed to my older son working on our desktop – the same desktop on which I am writing right this very moment – and my husband cobbling together a stand desk in our bedroom from an aerobics step and an upside-down Rubbermaid container.

Does that sound weird? It is weird. My husband still has to use this “stand desk” for the two hours a week that I’m teaching yoga from home, but mostly he is at the desk with his work laptop. Allow me to illustrate.

The stand desk.

Welcome to our “home office!” It’s a desk, right beside the gaming area and also home gym, hello open concept.

Gaming area is also attached to my library and the cardio machines (god I love those machines).

Cardio area, where I can watch the boys gaming if I want to be confused as to what they are doing. Anyone want to talk about Peloton with me? I feel like I’ve happily joined a sweaty cult.

The weight area, also the place where I teach zoom yoga from home.

IPad setup for zoom yoga, beside the laundry area.

Not one but TWO drum kits, one acoustic and one electric, the electric one being used any time someone actually has to hear anything else in the house. Not that I’m complaining! I love listening to my son drum. He’s learning In The Air Tonight and I have been waiting for that moment all my life.

Guitar cases and also a small peek into the storage/ pantry room.

The acquisition of the new laptop has made an enormous difference in our domestic harmony; my husband takes over the basement during working hours – except when I’m teaching – and the boys are in their rooms. The school is, of course, so much better equipped to handle at-home learning and although some of their option courses are a little strange to take online – mechanics, for example, and sports performance, both of which my younger son is in – mostly it’s fine. It’s fine! It’s fine.

When my community centre classes went online a few weeks ago (WAS it a few weeks ago, time has lost all meaning) I was given the option of teaching from home or teaching at the completely empty community centre, and I chose the latter because OUTING.

Speaking of outings, last week I took a deep breath and decided to do One More Costco Run, The Last Until After Christmas on my usual grocery shopping day. When I do Costco and Superstore on the same day, it typically means that, even at top efficiency, Grocery Shopping And Putting Away The Groceries is, at minimum, three hours from start to finish. I chugged a green smoothie, popped my vitamins, drank a pot of coffee, and I was ready.

I was…surprised. If you need to shop at Costco in December, may I suggest going the week AFTER lockdown restrictions are announced? I can only assume that the entire city was in Panic Buying Mode the week previous, and now have no room left in their pantries and freezers. The parking lot was so quiet that I actually looked at my watch, phone, AND the car clock to ensure that I was here at a normal time, and not, you know, in the middle of the night. Time has lost all meaning. The store was as quiet as it’s ever been, it was quiet for Pre-Pandemic Times. In December. Carpe diem, I shopped the hell out of that store and then zipped over to Superstore, where it was also eerily quiet. Everything is fine. It’s fine.

Usually on Wednesdays, after my grocery shop, I look with great satisfaction at the fridge and pantry, thinking look at all this beautiful produce, look at this delicious healthy food, look at all these ingredients with which to prepare all the meals which I have lovingly planned out. This motherly feeling of accomplishment and abundance can last up to five days, at which point I look in the fridge and wonder what happened to all the grapes, they were meant for school snacks, and what kind of ravenous garbage monsters do I live with. This is a similar feeling to that which I get 24 to 36 hours after I lovingly bake muffins or snack loaf so that it comes out of the oven just before the boys get home from school, greeting them with scrumptious scents and warm baking, when I look at the tin and see nothing but crumbs or perhaps an errant chocolate chip.

This week was different.

It was only when I finished rearranging the fridges, freezers, pantry, and cupboards to make room for my grocery acquisitions that I looked around and thought okay, this is getting weird now. I have crossed the line from I’m just being prepared to I think I might be a crazy person. I would not blame you for looking askance at me and my forty kilograms of flour, three Costco-sized bags of chocolate chips, five crunchy peanut butters, five jars of salsa, and four and a half cases of almond milk.

What I’m saying is, I don’t need to buy staples for a while.

I need to remind myself, apparently, that the supply chain is strong and vigorous, and that there IS NO SHORTAGE OF ANYTHING AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE. Even my Just Nuts Crunchy Peanut Butter is, after many weeks, back in stock. JUST CALM DOWN, NICOLE. Anyway, my goal for the next month is to just buy produce and other perishables and work my way down through my massive stock of staples. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

Case in point: I was making tacos, and there was only one shell in the box in the kitchen. I wrote taco shells on my grocery list and went downstairs to fetch my spare box in the pantry. Except there were THREE spare boxes. It was with great strength of will that I crossed taco shells off my list. THERE IS NO TACO SHORTAGE.

This pandemic is messing with my mental state in many ways.

It doesn’t, for example, take a PhD in psychology to see what’s REALLY going on with my recent obsession with all the shoes and boots in this house, and the purchase of several shoe and boot racks, and the subsequent reorganization of all the closets in which shoes and boots reside. If someone was tracking my movements and purchases, they might see that this recent project was positively correlated with the recent school shutdown and the subsequent result that Everyone Is Home All The Time.

Side note: most of the footwear is mine, and all of it Sparks Joy, so not one pair has been purged, but they are all very neatly organized on one of the five shoe/ boot racks purchased in the last couple of weeks (has it been a couple of weeks? Time has lost all meaning.). Although, I should mention that when a shoe rack advertises that it “holds nine pair” that does not account for the fact that my younger son has size twelve feet and therefore any rack with his shoes on it yields a much different result. It’s fine. It’s all fine.

Everything is fine, and if anyone needs pantry staples, I’m your huckleberry.

Pandemic Reading

This was so interesting; a very comprehensive study about the “Spanish” flu (a misnomer, the pandemic actually started at an army training camp in Kansas, and from there travelled to France during the latter months of the war, but since Spain was neutral and did not censor its media, it was assumed that the flu was of Spanish origin). This discussed health implications, economic implications, how the pandemic became a global one, the rise of public health care, and how the war was affected by soldiers falling ill in the trenches. Absolutely fascinating. Am I recommending it to you? I don’t know. I would absolutely NOT have been open to reading it six months ago, but I was in the right stage to do so now.

Photo from 1920, 100 years ago!

This was published in 2017, so it’s interesting to see the “future pandemic” scientific protocols, when we are living it.

This was SO good, thanks to Allison (HI ALLISON) for the long-ago recommendation. I am not telling you one single thing about it because I want you to be as surprised as I was.

My Christmas baking this week consisted of sugar cookies and peanut butter truffles. Melt together 2 cups peanut butter and 1/4 cup refined coconut oil. Add some vanilla (I freestyle, probably 1-2 tsp) and 2 cups icing sugar. Chill until able to work into balls, at which point the balls go on wax paper-lined cookie sheets in the freezer. Melt 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips with 1 1/2 tablespoons coconut oil, dip the balls in the mixture, and freeze again. Easy peasy.

EVERYTHING IS FINE, WE HAVE BAKING. It’s fine. xo

Lockdown, Redux; Thirty-Seven Weeks In

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Double Up The D

I am a person who feels very strongly about the benefits of various vitamins and dietary supplements, and if you are a person who, like my dad, thinks that AT BEST such items are useless and a waste of money, not to worry. I am not going to try to sway you to the side of tumeric supplements and the various vegan glucosamine options available to you. I am, however, going to talk about Vitamin D.

I am not a medical professional or being paid by Big Vitamin, but I want to encourage you all – especially those of us in the Great White North – to double your Vitamin D intake. I have long been a believer in Vitamin D, and not just for the bone growth and development that it is officially touted for. I think Vitamin D plays a significant role in mood stability and also immunity. Current research shows a correlation between Vitamin D deficiency and the more severe of the Covid symptoms for those who contract it, and I feel vindicated.

Although, technically, I think that a Vitamin D deficiency is probably present in most severe cases of viral and bacterial illness, not just Covid, but let’s stay on trend here.

We all take a multivitamin in the Boyhouse, which contains 400 IU of Vitamin D, but that is, in my non-medical opinion, NOT ENOUGH. During the summer we take 1000 IU in addition to the multivitamin – yes, I spend a lot of time outside in the sun, but I am always wearing sunscreen which prevents Vitamin D absorption – and then, when we roll the clocks back, we take 2000 IU. Actually, this year we started taking the double dose early, since we had such a stretch of cold and grey weather, but you know. I approximately time it with the end of Daylight Saving.

School’s Out…For A While

I feel like we need all the Vitamin D we can get our hands on, not only because the sun is setting before 5 pm, but also because new restrictions were announced on Tuesday, and the only one that affects me – as I was already NOT gathering with people, NOT eating out, NOT playing team sports, NOT going to worship services, and really NOT doing anything at all – is that all grades 7-12 students are doing “at-home learning” now until January 11.

I had a really hard few days last week; I am generally perky and optimistic, but I was feeling extremely despondent and sad. Monday morning as I was finishing my cardio workout, my watch started exploding with notifications from Power School, saying that my younger son was marked “in isolation” for the week. As it was 7:45 am and he was a) still at home, and b) healthy, I was very confused. It turns out that there was a Covid case in one of his classes and he was to be home for two weeks.

To be totally honest, I was not worried about his physical health; the case was in his math class, all kids are masked and relatively distanced, and it wasn’t one of his friends with whom he eats lunch (outside, also relatively distanced). I was, however, worried about his mental health. He’s a very social kid and the thought of him spending hours doing schoolwork alone in his room on his laptop was…not great. The next day, however, I learned he would soon be joined by his brother, as everyone was transitioning to “at-home learning.”

So that was a blow. I get it. I do. But! My kids have been thriving in their strange, masked-up school environment. They have never complained about wearing masks, they have never complained about all the restrictions, they wear masks even when outside, when they are with friends. We’ve had a few days to process it, and the school is doing everything to make this a smooth transition, learning from the chaos that was in the spring, but still. It’s a blow.

Also we do not have a big house and, well. Everyone is home, all the time.

All Quiet On The Grocery Front

Before the restrictions were announced on Tuesday, I was getting multiple texts from friends saying a) Costco and Walmart were both completely sold out of toilet paper, b) lineups at Costco were snaking doubly through the warehouse, and c) everything was terrible.

Wednesday is my regular grocery shopping day, and all I could think was I can’t do this again, I can’t do it. I was so stressed by the thought of grocery shopping, I hardly slept Tuesday night. I hauled myself to the grocery store for 8:00 am, right after seniors-and-those-with-disabilities hour, and…it was fine. Busier than a regular Wednesday at 8:00 am, but fine. There was plenty of everything, including toilet paper and other paper products, there were tons of cleaning supplies, including Lysol in spray and liquid AND wipe form, and all of the usual staples were stocked up. The only thing they did not have was large packages of spinach, of which I usually buy four per week. I figured this was just a delay in shelf stocking, and that there was no actual spinach shortage, so I am not ashamed to tell you that I completely cleaned out the store of smaller packages of spinach, stacking seven of them in my cart. As god is my witness, if I have to give up my daily green smoothies, someone is going to get stabbed.

Despite the overall fine-ness of the shopping experience, and despite the fact that I got a Lindor chocolate house as a gift with purchase instead of the dreadful poinsettia (they give them away for free, do NOT try to fundraise with them, NO ONE WANTS THEM) I was in a funk. I could not shake it.

Do you know what DOESN’T work when you’re in that kind of sadness spiral? Telling yourself that a trip to Superstore in a pandemic is not exactly standing in a bread line in Ceausescu’s Romania. Telling yourself that your life is not exactly like that of the dad’s in that movie about the little boy who was a ballet dancer, the dad who was a striking coal miner in 1980s Britain, who had to chop up his dead wife’s piano just to use the wood for the fire, who eventually crossed the picket line and endured the verbal abuse of his former friends just so he could provide for his family. I mean, next to that, I am practically Kate, Duchess of Cambridge.

I eventually told myself that while a paper cut is not a broken leg, it still hurts, and I sat with my sadness for a while. I went to bed early and felt much more myself the next day.

Oh Yes, We Need A Little Christmas. Right This Very Minute.

The tree is up!

That was the boost this week needed! This year’s ornament is a narwhal. The unicorn of the sea! Bye, Buddy, hope you find your dad!

I also started my Christmas baking, kicking things off with my annual gingersnaps (thank you, Co-Op, for having molasses).

Here’s your one chance, Fancy, don’t let me down.

Pandemic Reading

This was lovely and sweet and as soon as I finished it I put every single one of Camille Pagan’s books on my “to-read” list.

It is, I think, very important to read stories about people who encounter life differently from me, with different backgrounds and experiences. With that said, I did not at all enjoy this book. While it was beautifully written, I found it extremely disturbing, upsetting, depressing, and sad. It probably didn’t help that I read most of it on Wednesday of this week.

Following up on my reading of Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales, Grimm’s are also pretty nuts. Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) in particular mentioned Hansel and Gretel, which was in this collection. HOO BOY. Did you know that in the original version, Hansel gets turned into a fawn, then they live in the forest for a long time, the King goes on a deer hunt and injures him, and then falls in love with Gretel and marries her? This is all after their parents abandon them in the woods to die and instead they get taken in by a witch who – for reasons that are not clear – locks Hansel only into a cage to fatten up in the manner of veal, for later feasting. Not at ALL a disturbing concept for children.

It’s the last day of November and as we head into December let’s all remember to be extra kind and patient with people in customer service, and people in general. Everyone has something going on, always, but especially this year. In the meantime, enjoy this Barkley photobomb. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The November Joys Edition

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Usually at this time of year, my calendar is very full with so many social events; every weekend from now until Christmas would have at least one party, dinner, or cocktail event. I would usually be busy figuring out menus and buying ingredients and packaging up dozens of homemade goodie bags for my various yoga classes, I would be deciding which dress to wear when and stocking up the liquor cabinet.

So it feels very strange and sad to have a blank calendar, to be starting the season with literally nothing going on. I know it’s a Small Thing, and we are just Doing Our Part, but right now it feels Hard. It feels Hard not to see the friends-who-are-more-like-family, it feels Hard not to see my actual family – I haven’t seen my nieces in forever – it feels Hard to know that there are no parties and no reasons to put on a dress and no reason to even stock up the liquor cabinet because I don’t tend to make mixed drinks unless we have company. It would probably feel Less Hard if I wasn’t constantly seeing posts about Other People having parties and gatherings, but I’m not going to talk about that, I’m just going to sit here and practice my ujjayi breath for a while.

Well. That’s just the Way Things Are right now, and I cannot control anyone else, only myself, and so it will be a quiet holiday season coming up. It will be Different, and that’s Okay.

Let’s turn this beat around, shall we? I actually really do like the month of November; as I’ve mentioned before it’s the kickoff to the festive season for me. So even though this November is different from previous Novembers, there are still many things that bring me happiness.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The November Joy Edition

Friluftsliv

As I mentioned before, this winter I am embracing my Norwegian heritage and adopting the concept of Friluftsliv. As god is my witness, one day I will live in a warm climate, but that day is not today, bloom where you’re planted, live in the now. It’s winter here for fully 2/3 of the year, and I am NOT going to spend 2/3 of my life being unhappy because it’s cold. FRILUFTSLIV. Yesterday was quite cold and damp, and yet I felt so much better being outside. We are in a global pandemic. I have no Christmas parties to look forward to. I am going to ENJOY THE FRESH AIR, GODDAMMIT. Also, I have lots of cozy warm clothes and I think I might buy myself a few new pieces as well.

Super cute ear warmer, with super cozy blanket scarf, with my warmest calf-length coat for walking yesterday.

See that “skirt?” It’s a BUM WARMER. A local lady makes them out of repurposed sweaters, and mittens to match. I think I might need a second one.

FRILUFTSLIV! It’s just fun to say.

Roasted Tomato Soup

I made the most incredible soup the other day; it was a riff on my riff on my grandma’s tomato soup. I roasted a cookie sheet of halved cherry tomatoes (tossed in olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt and cracked pepper) for 45 minutes at 400 convection. Meanwhile, I added 1 teaspoon of baking soda to a large can of crushed tomatoes, stirring until the bubbles dissipated. In a blender, I whirred together 1/2 cup soaked-overnight raw cashews, 3 cups of water, and a cube of Knorr veggie stock. I stirred that in with the non-bubbly tomatoes, and added the roasted tomatoes. OMG. It was LIFE. I topped it with roasted chickpeas and served it with a green salad and it was, to me, a perfect cold-weather dinner.

Kalettes

Kalettes are back at Costco! I meant to mention this last month, but, you know. Time flies, etc. The last time I raved about kalettes, they instantly stopped selling them. I realize now that they are very seasonal, and limited, and they are so good, you guys. I roast them for 10-15 minutes, after tossing in olive oil and drizzling with balsamic vinegar.

Rocky Mountain Soap Body Butter

With the wearing of socks – many layers of socks – FRILUFTSLIV!!! – my feet are not as, well, crunchy as they are in the summer, and so while I still use O’Keefe’s Healthy Feet once or twice a week, on a nightly basis I am using this stuff:

It smells exactly like candy canes, and while it’s not as intense as O’Keefe’s, it does work nicely, when paired with cotton socks afterwards. It’s cold and I’d be putting on socks anyway, friluftsliv.

Mary Oliver

Every morning before my yoga practice, I read a poem. I have been working my way through Mary Oliver’s Devotions, and I came across this one:

I think about it all the time. I watch the sun come up every day; sometimes it’s a glorious sunrise, sometimes it’s just the sky getting light, but either way I think something that more or less kills me with delight. I notice the way the sky looks when I’m out walking, I notice the Christmas decorations starting to appear, I notice how cute Barkley looks when his nose is all snowy from sniffing Every Single Place Another Dog Ever Peed. Finding extraordinary joy in every day things is my JAM, people.

Non-Dairy Ice Cream

I make all my own ice cream, but 99% of it is dairy and I cannot eat it. I enjoy making it for the guys, and there is never any fewer than three flavours in our freezer at any given time, but it’s dairy. I mean, I CAN make non-dairy ice cream, but sometimes you just want to not put a ton of effort into something that is, frankly, not amazing.

Every Sunday I make a big dessert to go with a big dinner, and last week I wanted brownies, ice cream, and fudge sauce. I couldn’t think of anything else and while it’s super easy to make vegan brownies and fudge sauce, I just did not want to put the effort into ice cream as well.

I picked up this (startlingly expensive) vegan ice cream at Superstore, and people, it is incredible. It’s almost as delicious as the cashew-based ice cream my friend Denise (HI DENISE, I MISS YOU SO MUCH) gave me for my birthday. Almost. We all loved it and while I did not take a photo of the brownie and fudge sauce, believe me, it was good.

Festive Face Masks

A local woman – a friend of a friend – (HI LIANA) made this beautiful festive mask. The material is so soft, and I think it is just so pretty. I have many of her masks, but now that it’s the festive season, I’m cycling into my Festive Masks.

I’m on an outing! To Superstore. I rarely wear my hair down, because of my (zoom) teaching schedule, but I am out on the town, people.

Wine

So I’m not much of a Mixed Drinks Girl without company, but I am very much a Wine Girl, as you know. And today is Friday, and that means that in a mere eleven hours I will be doing this:

I feel MUCH better now, recording all my November Joys. I hope you are all enjoying some joys and happiness, even as we kick off this very strange and kind of lonely holiday season. xo

19th Nervous Breakdown (in the grocery store); Thirty-Five Weeks In

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The province announced what I am going to call a very mini-shutdown on Friday the 13th, and it called to mind the last Friday the 13th, eight months ago, when the very mini-shutdown led to the total big shutdown. It’s enough to make a person turn superstitious. I’ve been oscillating between despair that a mini-shutdown is going to do anything at all, sadness that there is really no way to police what seems to be the real driver, large private gatherings and that people are just going to keep partying, slight hope that two weeks might make a difference, and a what can you do other than recite the Serenity Prayer over and over kind of feeling. I’ve been refreshing the news all weekend but so far, still a very mini-shutdown, also still the depths of despair about a looming full-scale one. Well, today I feel calm and zen about the whole thing, it’s like I’ve been constantly preparing for the possibility of a full-scale shutdown. My house is stocked, my pantry is full, my Christmas shopping is complete and I have two cases of wine in the basement.

What more could a girl need?

Two of my favourite bloggers, Suzanne and Swistle (HI SUZANNE HI SWISTLE) have been regularly writing about grocery store shortages, and I find it endlessly fascinating, the things that are available and unavailable in other parts of the continent. Forget continent, there are variances in our province. My mother, who lives two hours north of me, couldn’t obtain a ten-kilogram bag of flour, whereas in my grocery stores, flour is plentiful. In fact, last week Superstore had the ten-kilogram bags on sale for $8.98. EIGHT DOLLARS AND NINETY-EIGHT CENTS. For ten kilograms of flour. Of course I picked one up, even though I had two bags at home, which leads me to my next point.

My brain has completely changed in the past eight months; I used to be able to calmly think oh, I have flour at home, I can get some when I need it, but not anymore. NOT ANYMORE. Suzanne referred to this as Grocery Store Pathology, this panicked feeling that if you do not seize the moment and buy the things that are available to you, they may not be there next time.

Here’s the thing: circling back to the grocery store shortages, I have not really noticed anything in short supply over the past few months. There has been talk about aluminum shortages, but I bought soda water in cans last week and there certainly didn’t seem to be any shortage of that. Flour – as mentioned – pasta, rice, frozen vegetables, toilet paper and paper towel, all of those things are plentiful right now. The one thing I’ve noticed – and this probably isn’t a pandemic thing, it’s more like a weird Superstore thing – is that I haven’t been able to get my favourite kind of peanut butter, Just Nuts Crunchy.

All the other Just Nuts peanut butters are available: creamy, sea salt, honey, but the crunchy hasn’t been there for weeks, and I was starting to get into my one backup jar, so I was feeling a bit desperate. I mean, I only eat peanut butter on toast once or twice a week, so the situation was not DIRE, but it felt like it was. I took a leap of faith and bought the store brand natural crunchy peanut butter, although I was somewhat irritated to discover that it was a dollar more expensive than the name brand for the exact same size. The store brand! More expensive! This is an outrage, I want to talk to the manager.

Anyway, as I was in Superstore last week I was feeling so serene about everything – it’s fine, everything’s fine, if the worst thing that happens is I eat store brand peanut butter, well, I am better off than pretty much everyone – until I got to the baking aisle. I needed a carton of molasses with which to make my annual gingersnaps. I had finished my last carton making gingerbread a few weeks ago. I pushed my cart, humming along to the music, and then, puzzled, retraced my steps. I looked again. People, there was no molasses. I stared at the empty shelf for a solid minute and then felt like I might have an actual breakdown right there in the baking aisle, next to the dried fruit, shredded coconut, and shortening. CHRISTMAS IS CANCELLED, THERE ARE NO GINGERSNAPS. It was a 180 degree flip, from calm and serene to everything is terrible. On the outside, I’m sure I seemed perfectly fine and put together, but it’s like when your sock starts sliding off into your boot: I was not fine. I smiled at people through my mask, I chatted with the cashier, I gestured to the elderly man who had literally a loaf of bread and a package of sausages to go in front of me, but on the inside, I was like the Sadness character from Inside Out.

I made it to the parking lot, and it had not been plowed. I immediately regretted the soda water and the ten kilograms of flour, as my cart became immovably stuck in the snow. What even is the point of all this flour. I cannot make gingersnaps. Is there even a molasses substitute. All is ashes.

Literally, I could not move the cart, using all my strength and momentum. I stared up the aisle of the parking lot, seeing my car in the distance. There was nothing for it but to abandon my cart and carry each bin, one by one, to my car as fast as I could. By the time I had gotten down to the last bin, a very kind woman stopped and helped me move the cart to a packed-down part of the parking lot, and from there I was able to maneuver it to my car, the whole time wondering how many calories I was burning during this shopping trip. Her kindness perked me up, and I decided to stop at the Co-Op on the way home. I don’t like doing two grocery shops in a week but I thought I would just pop in and pop out, to see if they had molasses. People, they did, they had shelves of it, and I bought TWO, which is much more than I need but hey. Grocery store pathology. I can always use it next year.

Pandemic Reading

Apparently Toxic Masculinity was the unwitting theme of the week. Last week it was Liar’s Poker, this week:

I am unsure if I am recommending this to you or not. I mean. At its core, it’s a story about a family, told from multiple points of view. It’s also a study of toxic masculinity and the rise of supporters of a certain person who wanted to make America great again. So, it might be a wee bit raw. It was well-written. It was well done. It was thoughtful and insightful and very smart. But. I cannot say it was enjoyable.

This was a really wonderful book – by a Canadian author – about being a young woman in a secret relationship with an older, prominent politician. Well, you probably think you know where this is going. But it has turns I did not expect and an ending I did not expect, and it was very well done. It was probably the most brutally honest, yet enjoyable, book about being young and in a toxic relationship. Speaking of toxic masculinity! It’s up there, Steve.

This was the week to pull out the Christmas tea towels, coffee mugs, and music. 70s on 7 has been changed to the Hallmark channel while in the car, and my festive Spotify playlists have been on repeat. We need a little Christmas, right this very minute. Stay safe and healthy, friends. xo