Category Archives: Fleeting Time

A Week of Summer Outfits

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With only a couple of exceptions, we have had the most beautiful summer weather over the past few weeks. In fact, we even had a HEAT WAVE. Now, before my friends in the southern part of the US start to feel sympathy for me in this heat wave, let me show you the warning from Environment Canada to give some context:

For those of you who think in terms of Fahrenheit, let me translate: the daily highs varied between 82.4 and 89.6, with overnight lows in the 50s. That, friends, is what constitutes a heat wave in Calgary. The entire city starts to melt and shrivel in such crazy hot temperatures.

Have you finished wiping away your tears of laughter?

As I’m going through the process of loving and appreciating all the clothes I have, as per The Big Project, I wanted to share with you a typical week’s worth of summer outfits; the week includes our Heat Wave but also a day or two of cooler temperatures, because it’s all about volatility in this city.

As previously discussed in A Week of Spring Outfits, the Curated Closet encourages the idea of a “uniform,” and my Summer Uniform for hot (or, “hot”) days is comprised of a skirt with shorts attached (a “skort”), and a shelf-bra yoga tank. Non-hot days call for a uniform similar to the rest of the year: fitted pants with a yoga tank or a tee, sometimes layered.

One Week Of Summer Outfits

Thursday

The week starts on Thursday, which happened to be the start of what I have been thinking of as Summer Vacation. Because of the Heat Wave, I decided to take the boys up to visit my parents at the lake. My husband was busy with work, so we decided to go up on Thursday after my younger son’s driving lesson and come home on Saturday, and it was the most perfect visit you can imagine.

Behold the Summer Uniform! I have had this skirt since at least 2015, and the tank since probably 2010, but possibly longer. Needless to say, this outfit is a longtime favourite! I don’t wear much colour as a rule, but I do like a little pop in the summer on occasion.

This was a perfect outfit for driving – very comfortable – and great for drinking wine while the boys paddleboarded in the evening, prior to a couple raucous dice games with my parents.

Friday

This day might go down as one of the best days of all time. I will be remembering it forever, I think. It was truly perfect: I went for a sweet run in the morning, and then we spent the day on the boat. The weather was perfect and the water – which only two weeks ago was absolutely frigid – was swimming-pool temperature. The boys and I jumped off the boat and swam a lot, and the boys tried out the Big Mable for the first time in three or four years, and we just had the best time. Many thanks to my dad for being our captain for the afternoon!

I spent most of the day in a bikini and booty shorts, but by late afternoon my look was more Drowned Rat than anything, so I attempted to make myself presentable for Margarita Hour and dinner.

This is an actual tank top – from Jacob, which closed its doors in 2015, so who knows how old it is – and I’m wearing an actual bra, which I feel is notable. The skirt is probably four years old and makes me feel lovely and summery.

Saturday

Sadly, time to go home! I took a solo paddleboard in the morning on the perfectly-quiet lake and then we headed home. I was only away from my garden for a day, but it needed some love, particularly the tomatoes.

Before I get to the outfit, I have to tell you about this watering wand from Lee Valley Tools. It was a birthday gift this year and it’s amazing. You know when you have an old tool that doesn’t work well but it works well enough, and then it’s replaced with a far superior model and you can’t believe how long you put up with the crappy old tool? That was my experience with this watering wand. My old one leaked, so every time I used it my shoes and pants would be wet; this new wand is like entering a whole new world of hand-held garden irrigation.

This tank top, in a subtle camouflage, feels new, but it must be at least four or five years old. Isn’t that funny how that happens? And my black skirt, well, it’s a Summer Staple.

Sunday

It was a lovely surprise that my husband decided to take this week off; something was delayed, work-wise, and believe me, if he has the chance to take time off, he should take it. This is not something that happens with any sort of frequency; more typically he is working on our holidays and weekends, do not get me started on Easter weekend this year. In any case, on Sunday he decided to take the boys out to the mountains to camp for one night. The weather was a bit cooler – no more Heat Wave – and so I wore a tank and these pants, which are the cropped version of the lululemon City Sleek trousers, which you may remember are pants that look like actual pants, with button and zipper, but feel like yoga pants.

They are comfortable for sitting and lounging, which is what I did all evening. When the cat’s away, the mouse will play, and in my case, that means eating Greek salad and hummus while watching an episode each of The Golden Girls and The Muppets. I stayed up late into the night (read: 9:00pm) reading a memoir by Valerie Bertenelli; do not tell me I do not know how to live it up.

Monday

Well, the people complaining about the heat must have been happy, as it was chilly and rainy all day, with a high of only 18 degrees, which is in the low 60s, for you Fahrenheit people. Time for simple jeans and a tee, and an afternoon of reading, laundry, and a viewing of Velocipastor with the boys. Oh, Velocipastor. Not since The Godfather have we seen such cinematic glory. And yet this film about a priest who transforms into a dinosaur was snubbed by the Academy.

Tuesday

I spent a lovely morning with my chosen sister, Janet (HI JANET)

We hadn’t seen each other for a while, so we talked and walked, to the tune of 9.5 km. After that I showered and got a little dressed up for my much-looked-forward-to pedicure. I hurried down the street, which is going through sidewalk refurbishment, so I had to keep zigzagging to avoid the cement trucks and rebar people. I burst into the salon just barely on time, only to find out that my appointment was YESTERDAY and I missed it. I had either miscommunicated or written my appointment down incorrectly. I was so upset with myself; I never make mistakes like that, and it was embarrassing, not to mention inconvenient and a loss of income for a small local business. I was able to rebook myself for today, and I’m hoping a very large tip will make up for my unexplained absence on Monday. The owner looked at me sadly and said “We waited for you, but you didn’t come!” and I felt like a bit of a monster. I wasn’t doing ANYTHING Monday afternoon, I could have been having a pedicure!

Anyway, this is the super-cute outfit I had dressed up for; it dates back to 2016 at the latest, but I think it’s probably earlier. It’s a skort, of course, and an actual bra under my tank top, that’s how dressed up I was.

My older son is my fashion photographer, and he made me retake this photo. “Mom, your face looks really grumpy. Can you smile like you’re not grumpy?”

Wednesday

My older son and I have been talking for years about biking the Banff Legacy Trail, and on Wednesday we did it! We biked from Canmore to Banff and back, and it was really a perfect morning. I knew we would be gaining elevation from on the first half, but it was gradual so I didn’t realize it until we turned around to go back; it felt like we were flying back to Canmore, and in fact we were 15 minutes faster going that direction.

This skirt, which I have had for seven or eight years, has padded shorts underneath, and let me tell you, padded shorts are a must. A MUST. I had a tank top underneath this very lightweight top, which was perfect for the temperature and to keep the sun off my shoulders. There’s very little shade on the path, particularly when we were finishing up near noon. All in all a perfect day.

Lots of summer fun this week and lots to come, I hope. I hope you are having a beautiful summer as well. Tell me: do you have a Summer Uniform? Do you like biking and hiking in the summer, or are you having an Actual Heat Wave, as opposed to a Calgary Heat Wave? Tell me everything. xo

Challenging?; Ninety-Seven Weeks In

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Recently I’ve seen a lot of “ten year challenge” posts on social media, which is one of those strange phenomena of our time. A challenge, in my mind, is to be ninety-seven weeks into a global pandemic and to still get out of bed every morning, putting one foot in front of the other and keeping hope and optimism in day to day life. A challenge is to parent effectively when there are constant disappointments and changes that are out of anyone’s personal control; a challenge is to keep making dinner, day in and day out, with no end in sight and nothing exciting to anticipate. What about the “ten year challenge” is a challenge, exactly? Is the challenge in finding photos that are a decade apart? Or does the challenge actually lie in the posting of photos that are a decade apart, forcing us all to face the changes that ten years have brought and the vast improvements in our ability to take photos with good lighting and posing? I feel like it’s the latter.

I vaguely recalled, pre-pandemic, that one of those challenges had occurred recently, and upon searching my online diary/ blog, I found it in December of 2019, presumably to end off the decade. December 2019 was not all that recent, of course, but what a time that was to be alive. I hosted a Christmas coffee with a dozen women in my house in that month, and we all stood close to each other and ate things.

Anyway, I do not know exactly what is the point of a “ten year challenge” other than to show the vast changes time has wrought on our faces and bodies. I am not saying these changes are bad – every day is a gift, every passing year is a cause for celebration – but they certainly exist. Not only do changes exist, but they SHOULD exist. Do we really want the same hairstyle we had ten years ago? Do we really want to go through life with our faces exactly the same, waxen-like?

I posit that the answer is no.

I had a huge argument with my dad a couple of months ago. We both got pretty heated and it was all on the topic of do I look old. It started when I mentioned a man who I haven’t seen in twenty years and who is my age or a little older; my dad said that he looked the same as he always did, but “old.” I said that the same could be said about me, at which point my dad got extremely indignant. I didn’t look old! I look great! Not old! Great! What was I talking about!

Dads and their daughters, am I right?

I tried to say that the two were not mutually exclusive and, while I do think I look “great,” I do not look like a young woman. We went back and forth for several minutes, this pointless argument ending with me ungraciously conceding, saying that fine, I still look like I’m in my twenties, DAD, and with both of us annoyed with each other.

I came across a great post that exactly describes why I dislike filtered photos; I understand the temptation, I do, but I think that a) on a personal level, I occasionally see people in person, and I don’t want to look different from my social media profiles, and b) on a societal level, I want to see and celebrate women my age who look our age. Society wants older women to be invisible, and filtering makes older women invisible. Fuck the patriarchy!

Also, sometimes those filters actually smooth out features, so that a woman – it’s always a woman – looks like she is missing a nose. I like to be a person with a visible nose.

This reminds me of something that happened several months ago. First, the backstory. Back when Facebook was in its infancy, I reconnected with pretty much everyone in my high school graduation class, including a woman I shall call X. I am still friends with pretty much everyone in my high school graduation class, by the way. I have lots of great feelings and memories about that time of life and I have much enjoyed seeing my compatriots grow and change as I myself have grown and changed.

Back in my high school days, I was a friendly acquaintance with X, rather than a true friend, and it was nice seeing her Facebook updates and getting to know her. Then, one day, she unfriended me. I don’t know why, but you know what, I’m not for everyone. Who knows. As we were never true friends, it didn’t bother me much.

Fast-forward many years, to last spring, and I received a friend request from X. Life changes, people go through rough patches, you never know what’s going on, and so I accepted. The very first post from her that I saw was a before-and-after photo: she had gotten some kind of injection or treatment that made her look like a walking Instagram filter. It was truly amazing; the bags under her eyes, the lines around her mouth – completely gone. She had commented that she had never before posted an unfiltered photo of herself, but now she was doing just that.

She looked really incredible, but something about that nagged me. Do we only post unfiltered photos if we look like we’ve filtered our faces? And yet, SHE LOOKED INCREDIBLE. Imagine walking around, with your face looking like it’s been softened with an Instagram filter! And while I am generally happy with my looks, I kept kind of thinking about it. This “thinking” increased when a friend of my sister-in-law told me, casually, as we were sitting on the beach last summer, about the Botox injections she received in the dental office she worked at. Not only did she tell me about her own treatment, which she received at a highly reduced rate, but she had unsolicited advice for me: I too could benefit from Botox. She went on to say that she wasn’t sure HOW many injections I would need to get rid of my forehead lines, but it would be a lot, and if I DID decide to get an indeterminate-but-absolutely-large-number of Botox injections, I would look amazing. Thanks? I don’t even think this was a passive-aggressive statement, I think it was aggressive-aggressive. Are my forehead lines that terrible that someone who I barely know would comment on them and give me advice about what to do about them? I wondered.

Anyway, I thought and thought and then, for research purposes, I went to look at X’s page, to see where she got the treatments done, and what kind of treatments they were, and it was then that I discovered she unfriended me, again. Well! I took it as a sign. People come in and out of your life for a reason, and I think that X’s reason was to remind me to be happy and contented with my face, as it is. Forehead lines and all.

After all, look at Betty White! What a beauty she was in her old age.

I saw that magazine at Superstore and, although I really do understand publication schedules and logistics, it was still very startling.

For what it’s worth, I’ll play along with the ten year challenge. No filters! Just me in 2012:

And now in 2022:

You know what, I’m happy with my face. I am happy with the changes, and I am also grateful – ETERNAL GRATITUDE – for home hair colour kits and moisturizer.

Pandemic Reading

The Way We Weren’t. Someone recommended this to me, and the woman I THOUGHT recommended it says she didn’t. So, I don’t know. Someone did, who was it? Anyway, this is quite a touching story about marriage, compromise, loss, and a very unlikely friendship between a crusty old man and a forty-something woman, both coping with loss and sadness. I didn’t love this but I did like it. Trigger warning: pregnancy loss is a major theme. 

Girlhood. I’m going to be honest: I almost didn’t make it through the prologue. The prologue very lyrically and beautifully outlines the author’s life: a happy childhood that ends with precocious development that leads to multiple unwanted sexual encounters and sexual assault, leaving school at 16, becoming a meth and then heroin addict, her years as a sex worker, and finally sobriety and becoming an award winning author and professor. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I had the emotional strength to read it. I’m glad I did, I guess, but I’ll tell you, it was rough going. It’s part memoir, part scholarly deep dive into what it means to be a woman, and the various ways the patriarchy destroys womanhood and our ability to love and care for ourselves. It’s compelling and powerful and very, very grim. It ends hopeful but is crushing to read. Take care if you read this.

Will. “Will Smith don’t gotta cuss on his taps to sell records. Well I do. So fuck him, and fuck you too.” (There’s a little Slim Shady in all of us, people). I got a little jiggy with it and picked this up. I liked the parts about the early days of rap and hip hop in the 80s; that was a musically formative time in my life. I still know all the lyrics to Parents Just Don’t Understand (okay, here’s the situation: my parents went away on a weeks’ vacation). It was interesting to read about DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, and also how he made so much money from those years and blew it ALL by the time he was 20. It’s an interesting psychological phenomenon to see a person suddenly strike it rich and then spend it all; it’s a fact that sudden wealth is mean-reverting and that lottery winners are broke after only a few years. Smith spent all his money on cars, motorcycles, and houses, and he also didn’t pay his taxes, so he was completely broke and owing the IRS a ton of money, just before he got cast on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Quincy Jones basically saved his life. Fun fact: the ghost writer also wrote The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, and once you know that, you can’t unknow it. The voice comes out. I liked this just fine, didn’t love it, didn’t hate it, it was okay though. Oh, and the reason “Will Smith don’t gotta cuss on his raps?” His grandma overheard him swearing and shamed him for it, saying that intelligent people don’t need to use that language. So, out of respect for his grandma, he kept his raps squeaky-clean. Awww. Grandmas!

The Cost of Living. This is the second of Levy’s memoirs, and it deals mainly with her divorce, living as a single mom, and finding space to write. I really liked it and am looking forward to reading the third. Check out the back of the book:

It’s the last full week of January! Time flies even when it’s January, I guess. How do you feel about filters, fillers, and injections? What about photo challenges? Tell me everything. xo

Boyhouse Year In Review 2021

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Is it just me or was this year actually a decade?

Well! I think at this time last year we thought the Pandemic At The Disco would be in the rearview mirror, and yet it is not. Currently we are going through our FIFTH wave, which is extremely disheartening and, at this point, makes me feel like this is forever. Intellectually I know that’s not the case; everything passes with time and this will too. (WHEN?)

We are ending the year on a low; yesterday it was announced that the winter break would be “extended” and the January diploma exams, of which my older son was due to write three, have been cancelled. It is very discouraging. Going through this post I realized that there were many low moments, but I do feel like there was a lot of joy and laughter this year as well. I think living through a global pandemic has forced me to re-examine my life and to make new kinds of choices about it. There have been ups and downs and in-betweens, and, on that note, let’s examine the year in the Boyhouse.

Boyhouse Year In Review 2021

January

I set some goals and expressed my gratitude, I cleaned my oven and reused canning lids, after six weeks of at-home learning the kids went back to school and my son immediately broke his glasses in gym class, and I talked about being judgmental and how I don’t want to be that way, but we are only human. I also shared my hot tip on how to grow your hair out – just stop cutting it.

I kind of forgot how grim things were last January, with everything closed down for the second wave. Wait, was it the second? Yes, second. Still, look at that photo! Lots of beauty still to be found.

February

I continued to embrace the concept of friluftsliv with my fabulous wardrobe choices, I decided to change my mindset towards overstocking the pantry and also my period, it was really, really cold and it was also Family Day, which was great since I hadn’t spent every SINGLE waking hour with my family for eleven months, and I was really sad and couldn’t figure out if it was hormones or, you know, life in a pandemic. I also expressed my love for hearts and chocolate.

I must have cleaned my fridge right before that photo – it’s so shiny!

March

My son was almost done with his braces and to celebrate, I made him be my pack horse at the liquor store, in the spirit of Trying New Things I had body sugaring done and it was life-changing, I reflected on one year of Pandemic Living, I compared Costco 2021 to Costco 2020, and we had A Very Eventful Week which started with me thinking I had a blood clot to my son threatening to burn his orthodontic elastics, and, failing that, his masks. To add to the excitement, I talked about my favourite cleaning items, please don’t everyone click on that at once, you might break the internet.

April

Wow, a lot of things went wrong and so I was as cross as two sticks, my tenacious chin hair turned white and I had lots of awkward interactions at the library, we were in another mini-lockdown and so I talked about my Coping Mechanisms, I talked about being Pro-Aging, as opposed to Anti-Aging, which is a ridiculous concept, and I got vaccinated the day after my birthday! I also talked about my favourite skin-care products FOR PRO-AGING.

Gosh, remember how hopeful we all felt back then? Like the Pandemic was no longer going to be At The Disco. Good times.

May

After talking about Pro-Aging, I was asked if I wanted the senior’s discount at Shoppers, and then the lady didn’t even give me the discount, I had a really big downward spiral and then started to climb back up, then I had lots of ups and downs, including lineups at Costco (down) and flower purchases (up), it snowed and the kids were slated to go back to in-person school, Barkley turned 13, and I discussed all my favourite little helpers!

June

I was inspired to Embrace the Season – inspired by a woman who, sadly, has just recently passed after a long and difficult illness. Her words will remain with me forever, and she will be much missed. Rest in peace, Melanie.

Less sadly, I talked about clothing trends and how depressing the mall is these days, after a couple of weeks being in school the boys were on exam break, our provincial government continued to be stupid and dropped every single Covid protocol which, spoiler alert, was not a good idea, and I did a lot of gardening.

July

We visited my parents and I swam in the lake, the province may have dropped their mask mandate, but I kept my own, I talked about aging and my aging face, and I bought new bras and shared my favourite life-changing items.

August

We went on vacation and unsurprisingly given the complete lack of Covid restrictions, there were tons of outbreaks, I read a lot, I was grateful to Spotify, my aunt sent me Royal Family memorabilia, I almost lost my mind not being able to find my clothes, I did an “Ask Me Anything” post, I recycled all the old boxes my husband had hoarded out of the storage room, I got very Landslide-y, and recalled all the stupid things I used to worry about, and I loved my garden.

September

Thank you, Universe, the kids went back to school, we got our ducts cleaned and found a sheep, and my husband and I went to Lake Louise, I recapped eighteen months of Pandemic Life, my son turned 16 and I did a deep dive into Jane Eyre, I talked about clothing trends and bought new jeans, and I shared all my handbags with you.

October

I was feeling very low, I talked about gourds and Gords, I was – as always – grateful for modern technology as I have zero sense of direction, my cute little mini-gourds were being eaten by something in the neighbourhood, and I shared my favourite things about Spooky Season and discovered a gruesome scene.

November

I shifted my festivities focus from Spooky Season to Tiny Secret Festive Season, I was living la vida hygge, I had one-on-one time with my younger son and WE ATE TAKEOUT FOOD, I learned about thirst traps, I got full-on festive, and I talked about the reasons I love November.

Usually by this time in the annual recap, I think well, this just happened! but it feels like November was a year ago already. Time has no meaning.

December

I received the most thoughtful Secret Santa gift and my son came down with a cold, I completely lost track of the days, I had not one, but two Christmas miracles, I went to Banff with my husband, and I shared my favourite things about December.

As we wrap up the (very strange and weirdly long) year, I wish you all the best in 2022. WHO KNOWS WHAT 2022 WILL BRING. I think we can all agree that no one can predict anything anymore, but I hope you are all safe and healthy, and am wishing you much joy, peace, and happiness. Thank you, always, for reading my little blog. xo

It’s A Conspiracy; Seventy-Seven Weeks In

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I find anything to do with the 1918 influenza pandemic fascinating; in part because it ended, and that gives me hope, and in part because I realize that we also will be a footnote in history. This week I read the book Gilead – more on that later – and came across this passage:

I read it over and over again. There’s just so much in here that fascinates me: people wearing masks to church, if they even went, and sitting as far apart from each other as possible, just like today, but I think what is most fascinating is “there was talk that the Germans had caused it with some sort of secret weapon, and I think people wanted to believe that.” Conspiracy theories abounded even in 1918, it seems.

Earlier I had made the mistake of peeking at my Facebook and seeing a local yoga teacher – who I unfriended long ago – posting YouTube videos about Covid on a friend’s wall, and how “natural immunity” is better than being vaccinated, and how she got the Delta variant and is just fine, and that the pandemic itself is a conspiracy created by the wealthy, who have just got wealthier, and you know what, I’m glad they didn’t have YouTube or Facebook in 1918. All I know is if this woman lived a century ago, she’d be accusing the Germans of launching viral weapons of mass destruction. It’s boggling how people can dismiss the top minds of the world for the likes of YouTube, but here we are.

It’s been an eventful week here in the Boyhouse, what with school starting and getting back into routine. I generally dislike school starting before Labour Day, but it’s also kind of nice to have this little break to ease back into things. The boys are happy with their classes and seeing their friends; my younger son is in Phys Ed, which, in Grade 11, is basically “all fun outings all the time.” I don’t think they are actually in the gym itself at all, they are busy kayaking and playing pickleball and bowling and going to golf simulators, and after a year of intermittently taking gym class online and in his bedroom, it feels overwhelmingly exciting. I do not remember gym class as being remotely fun, but then again, I didn’t take Phys Ed when it became optional, in Grade 11. Good lord, no. Maybe it was just as fun back then; maybe that’s the reward for sticking it out for a decade.

In any case, he’s happy, and my older son is happy, albeit with a fairly heavy workload.

The first day of school coincided with us getting – wait for it – our furnace ducts cleaned. One of the guys, in the midst of the cleaning, brought this to me with the words “There was a sheep in your vents!”

I clearly remember my younger son dropping that sheep down the vent while playing farm animals, which goes to show you how infrequently we get our vents cleaned. That sheep has been missing for at least ten years, probably closer to twelve. When did my kids stop playing farm animals? I can’t remember. In any case, the fellow in charge of the duct cleaning gave me some stern words about the state of things, and how the ducts need to be cleaned every two years rather than every sixteen years, and how our furnace filters are too thick for our furnace and don’t allow the most efficient airflow, all of which I am sure I will forget in due time.

In other news, my husband and I went on a beautiful hike to the Big Beehive at Lake Louise, which is where we got engaged twenty-one years ago. Returning to the scene of the crime!

Classic photo of Lake Louise, angled so that there are no crowds visible. Because, hoo boy, there were crowds. This viewpoint, around the Chateau, is always filled with visitors, and it was not easy to keep distance from people, even with our very early start.

Next stop: Mirror Lake. That’s the Big Beehive in the background, and we’re going up!

Lake Agnes, isn’t it beautiful?

Don’t go chasing waterfalls…

View of Lake Louise from the top of the Big Beehive.

View of the glaciers on the way back, looping through the back way.

Almost back! You can see the Chateau in the background. Why is it, when hiking, that the last couple of kilometres feel like they last forever? We saw a bridal party just after this, getting photos done, and it was so lovely.

Pandemic Reading

Good Company. A few weeks ago, Ally (HI ALLY) asked what my favourite genre of book is, and, if you read that post, you will know I had a hard time defining it. Female protagonist, slice-of-life, the ordinary written as extraordinary. Or something like that? I know it when I see it? Well, I will tell you this: this book is exactly what I love in a book. It’s near-perfect to me. Flora discovers her husband’s supposedly long-lost wedding ring, and secrets unravel. A book about love, friendship, marriage, and motherhood. I loved this so much. You may note that the author also wrote The Nest, and I can tell you that I disliked The Nest greatly, and if I had realized the author was the same I probably wouldn’t have picked it up, so I am glad that I am somewhat vacant when I put books on hold.

Gilead. I tried to read Home by the same author years ago, but I could not get into it. I recently found out that it is second in a series, Gilead being first. Perhaps that is why I couldn’t get into it, and I had recalled that friends had raved about it. I took this out from the library sight unseen – and if I’d read the synopsis I wouldn’t have at all. See what I mean about vacantly putting books on hold? Sometimes it works out for me and sometimes it doesn’t. This one DID, although the synopsis sounds super dull – an elderly man writes a letter to his young son, explaining his life and that of his father and grandfather, all three of them preachers. Boring? Strangely enough it wasn’t boring to me. Maybe it’s my churchy background, or my summers spent in small prairie towns. I liked it quite well and found it beautifully written, so I will give Home another try.

Single, Carefree, Mellow. Is Katherine Heiny my new favourite author? Maybe! I’m 2/2 for her books – the other one being Early Morning Riser – and this collection of short stories is an absolute delight. What a witty and smart writer! This is absolutely my jam and I loved it so much. If you love short stories, particularly short stories about women and their lives, you will love this. One of the stories was a bit hard to read, because it dealt with a dog with cancer, and of course I read that on a day that three separate people asked me about Barkley’s extremely large lump, but it too was a beautifully written story.

Happy Labour Day, friends! I hope you get a restful day before the bustle of the week begins. xo

I’m Getting Older, Too; Seventy-Six Weeks In

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On Friday night we had friends over for dinner, friends who we hadn’t seen for over a year, friends who are more like family, who we vacation with and our older sons share a birthday and are only a couple of hours apart, friends who, in the past decade, we would see every few months except for this past year. I baked a cake for my friend’s 50th birthday which is coming up, and having her and the family in our house felt so good, I could cry. I did cry.

I have been feeling very emotional and very, very fortunate. My sons are busy getting ready for school and hanging out with friends for hours and hours; they all meet at the elementary school and play basketball and hang out and go to the 7-11 for Slurpees and hang out some more. All their friends I have known for years, some of them since they were in kindergarten, my older son’s best friend since he was three and they were in preschool together. Their mothers are all my friends and sometimes I think, look at us, look at all of us, with our kids growing up and with our lives all changing. I look at all their friends and I think they are just like they were when they were small, but more so.

Some of my friends have children heading off into the world, flying the nest, going to university or getting apartments or, in one case, getting married. Some of these children I have known their entire lives, I remember holding them as tiny babies and going to baby showers and bearing gifts of Robeez and board books. Some children I knew even before they were born, when their mothers would tell me that they stopped birth control and started “trying.” Those days we all talked about fertility and the cautious excitement of a late period and the elation of the two lines on the pregnancy test and the disappointment when our periods arrived, those days I remember so clearly, and now we all talk about our menopause transitions and how to handle the tidal waves of our periods and our hot flashes.

It’s just life, and it’s such a fortunate one, I am so lucky to be living the one I am, and sometimes I think of all the friends I have made, over the years, friendships based on our children being at the same school and volunteering together. I would recruit my friends to help with the book fair, and then I would in turn be recruited to help with the winter dance or a silent auction or the Stampede breakfast, where there would be tension over flattening pancakes with a spatula to test doneness.

Oh, the things we used to worry about! Will flattening pancakes make them too tough? It didn’t matter anyway, the kids drowned them all in syrup. For the four years I chaired the School Council, these were the three most controversial issues, the issues that caused much tension, debate, and consternation for the council and Parent Association: weed control in the naturalization area, Fun Lunch and the suppliers thereof, and the possibility of introducing Fresh Fruit Friday. These were the biggest issues. You cannot imagine the sleep lost from those issues. You cannot imagine!

I was talking with a friend whose young children go to the same elementary and preschool that my own kids did, and when I mentioned something about the schools, she said I don’t know, I haven’t actually ever been inside them. Covid protocols, which have been in place for the whole time her kids have been at these schools, dictate that parents cannot enter the school property. Imagine! My whole life, when my kids were that age, was defined by being inside the school, I spent hours every week there, I knew every classroom and every teacher, I knew the kids by sight and, due to the book fair, I knew what books they read. I knew how to run the temperamental photocopier and that the school secretary preferred red wine to white and that being on good terms with her was of utmost importance. My whole life and so many of my friendships, women with whom I am good friends to this day, was based on doing things inside the school.

We all moved on from life inside the school to our own lives, and as we’ve gotten older my friends have blossomed and flown in different directions, now that our kids don’t need us to stand at the playground, waiting for them after school. I have seen my friends pursue different careers and interests, and it’s beautiful, but sometimes I miss the camaraderie of the playground, the “circle moms” chatting and waiting for the kids and wondering if we were going to have enough volunteers for the casino or if it was going to snow on Music Monday and would it have to be held inside.

Now the boys start school this week, grades eleven and twelve. Their high school experience has been defined, and will continue to be defined, by Covid. It is defined by masks and sanitizer and uncertainty around whether or not things will be a go. They are currently thrilled that they are allowed lockers this year, after a year of hauling around every single textbook and all their winter gear, not to mention my younger son participating in gym class in his jeans rather than gym clothes, it’s a relief. It’s such a small thing to be thrilled about, but also not.

At some point the pandemic will be behind us. At some point. At some point I won’t be washing masks every day, or scanning the headlines for daily Covid updates, or stepping six feet off the sidewalk to let another person pass by. At some point I will go back to being disappointed by humanity for not returning shopping carts to the carrel, rather than for spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation and, ultimately, deadly disease. At some point, other parents will be allowed inside schools again and will hold book fairs and fundraisers and will be able to meet their children’s teachers in person, rather than on a screen. That won’t be me anymore, as that time has passed, but it might happen for my friend.

It’s hard to imagine, but one day.

Pandemic Reading

One day my reading list will not be prefaced by the word “pandemic,” but that day is not today.

Early Morning Riser. This book was just nothing but good feelings. It is really hard to describe, but it is about family, the family we create in life. It is just the sweetest, most feel-good book I’ve read in a while. If you are a person who really likes thick plots and lots of action, this book is not that. In fact, it’s a little plotless, but it is just wonderful. It takes place in a small town, with a second grade teacher and the town’s handyman, who has slept with pretty much every other woman in town, and his assistant who is developmentally slow. It sounds weird and sort of distasteful, but it truly is a lovely book.

The Guncle. Given my Landslide feelings lately, and the daily horrors of the news on literally every front, I have been seeking out a lot of light and feel-good books. This one did not disappoint! Two children, after the death of their mother and their father going into rehab, go to live with their gay uncle in Palm Springs, known as their “guncle.” My friend Alice (HI ALICE) pointed out that “dead mother, father in rehab” does not sound like the makings of a feel-good book, but it actually really is. This is the author of Lily and the Octopus, which I DO NOT RECOMMEND IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE ABOUT DOGS WITH CANCER. I cannot stress that enough. But The Guncle is just a fun, sparkly read, and, despite the premise, heart-warming.

The Two Lives of Lydia Bird. It took to page 254 for me to get invested in this story – and the book is 365 pages long. I did not love it. However, the last 100 pages were pretty decent; there was some great messaging about idealizing life as it “could have been” and letting go. The ending, you could see it a mile away, but still, it was nice. I would give this book a solid C, maybe a C+.

Wishing you all a happy and safe start to September! Remember, we can sail through those changing ocean tides. xo

Summer’s Almost Gone; Seventy-Five Weeks In

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I don’t think I can adequately describe the relief I felt when I received an email from the Calgary Board of Education, stating that not only would masks be mandatory for students K-12, but all other health protocols would remain in place. With the Delta variant of Covid cases skyrocketing, again, and the general mask mandate dropped in the province, I was somewhat concerned about in-person school. I just want my kids to go to school for the year, and maybe even see my oldest have a graduation ceremony, is that too much to wish for. But I was so happy to get the email about masking; masks kept us all so healthy last year – we’ve never had such an illness-free year – and with all of us fully vaccinated, I feel even better.

I was feeling less happy to see that school starts not on September 7, like I thought it did, but September 1, which means this is the last week of summer, I’m not ready. I am just not in the headspace yet, but I’ll get there, and meanwhile, our hot summer weather ended abruptly and now it’s cool and rainy and it feels like fall. The universe is trying to prepare me, is what I’m saying.

August is a month where I always feel a little glum and melancholy and Landslide-y, and the grey, chilly, rainy days are exacerbating those feelings. Well, these days are good for getting things done in the house – when it’s warm and sunny I spend most of my day outdoors, and there were a few things I really did want to get done before school starts (NEXT WEEK OMG) and I get back to teaching yoga and we are all busy with our fall schedules. Like making jam.

My husband reminds me that we have air conditioning, if I want to make jam on a warm day I can, but I never do want to do that. Jam making is for chilly days, I will die on this hill and also we have many months of chilly days, but few warm ones.

So Many Empty Boxes

One of the things I have wanted to accomplish practically since the pandemic hit was to clean out our storage/ furnace room. My husband, god bless him, likes to keep the original boxes of any electronic equipment while said equipment is under warranty, just in case there’s an issue. The problem is that he never gets rid of the boxes after the warranty expires, and therefore we have perfectly good storage shelves that are jammed full of empty boxes. We still had the PS4 box from Christmas 2014, for example, along with boxes for stereo equipment we no longer own.

Summer is coming to an end, the pandemic has been going on for seventy-five weeks, I go back to teaching in two weeks, IT IS TIME TO CLEAN OUT THE FURNACE ROOM. I took out every single box, rearranged everything, and was able to put all the bins full of childhood art and school projects, bicycle gear, and assorted sports things ACTUALLY IN THE STORAGE ROOM instead of behind my son’s drum set. He’s thrilled that he no longer hits his elbow on the bins when he’s practicing.

This is the van full of cardboard my older son and I took to the recycle depot, and doesn’t include the three garbage bags full of packing materials, RIP our earth, that came out of the boxes.

Not one day after The Big Cleanup, my husband – in a typical act of service to make my life easier – had ordered some new windshield wiper blades for my car. As he grabbed his keys for the garage, he said “Don’t throw out these boxes, just in case these blades don’t fit.” Dear reader. I answered him with a look only and, fortunately for our marriage and everyone involved, they DID fit and my husband subsequently recycled the boxes.

No YouTube Videos On How To Break In To Your House

Speaking of the garage, a couple of weeks ago older son went to get out the lawn mower, and couldn’t unlock the garage door. We typically lock the person door with just the knob, rather than the deadbolt, and while the key fit in the knob, it wouldn’t open. Obviously the automatic openers for the big car door were in the cars that were locked in the garage, and the keypad has not worked for years. My husband searched up YouTube videos but to no avail: all videos instructed what to do if you were locked INSIDE a house, rather than outside, because I guess YouTube doesn’t want to advertise how to break into someone’s home.

Anyway, it was either call a locksmith or actually break down the door, and we took the former option. We now have a garage door that locks by deadbolt only, in case such a thing should happen again. Unfortunately, we are all in the muscle memory mode of just twisting and locking the knob, and the number of times I’ve thought oh yeah, I need the key to lock the door over the past couple of weeks is extensive.

Burn Baby Burn

Remember how my son, after his braces removal, wanted to burn all his orthodontic elastics, and, failing that, his masks? This is what happened on the Annual Boys’ Camping Trip:

Pyromaniac dreams do come true, I guess. You are still going to need masks! I admonished him after seeing these photos, but he countered with a) it was just one mask, and b) that mask was unravelling anyway. Was it? Was it really? Well, he does have at least eight other masks, and it’s not hard to get masks now anyway, and what happens on the Annual Boys’ Camping Trip stays on the Annual Boys’ Camping Trip.

I Have Found My People

You all know how I feel about Thoreau and, also, many of the widely celebrated male authors/ fictional characters (Jay Gatsby, I’m looking at you). So I was so excited to discover this podcast:

The Fuckbois of Literature! If you, like me, think that maybe a person can’t claim to be self-sustaining while living intentionally in the woods when his mother is bringing him sandwiches and doing his laundry, then this is the podcast for you.

I’ll Take The Rapists For $500, Alex

On Peloton, people have the option to add a hashtag to their user profile, and those hashtags are used to connect with other people. Sometimes the hashtag has to do with a favourite instructor – I, for example, am part of the #yestoyoucrew and my son is a #denismenace – sometimes it concerns career choices, interests, or life in general, like #teachersofpeloton, #pelotonmoms, #peloforwine, #pelotonsingles.

I was riding the other day and the person on the leaderboard ahead of me had the hashtag #therapistsofpeloton and friends, it took me a really long time to realize that it was therapists of Peloton and not the rapists of Peloton. I spent some time being shocked that a) someone would cop to being a rapist, and b) there was a whole group of rapists, connecting through exercise.

In my defense, it was pretty early in the morning and I hadn’t yet drank my whole pot of coffee.

Outfit of the Week

I’m really glad I posted all those summery outfits, because SUMMER IS OVER and it’s time to pull out my jeans, socks, and long-sleeve shirts. This top dates from 2016, and I bought it in the small town where my parents live. Isn’t it cute? It’s great for this kind of weather as it’s too thin for winter, but great for a typical Calgary summer day!

The whole reason I have started the Outfit of the Week was to appreciate and express gratitude for my wardrobe; I am thinking about taking it off the blog and onto Instagram only, where outfits of the week belong. You all know I love clothes; I love reading fashion blogs and I love seeing Outfit of the Day posts. If you, like me, also enjoy seeing what people are wearing, you can check it out on Instagram. If you’ve hated my OOTW, lucky you! No more scrolling by to get to my weekly reading list.

Pandemic Reading List

The Soulmate Equation. I have read and enjoyed a few books from Christina Lauren, and this one did not disappoint. It’s just a very sweet and fun romance with very loveable characters. The main character is a single mom and freelance statistician (how often does that happen in a romance book, the statisticians are highly underrepresented in fiction) who is matched up with the founder of a DNA-based matchmaking company. Throw in her energetic seven-year-old and her romance-writer best friend, and you have got yourself a feel-good read.

Think Like A Monk. This book was so inspiring! As you know, I love the idea of living a peaceful and purposeful life, and this book deals with the kind of mindsets that work towards such an ideal. From feeding your brain positive material to finding your life’s calling, this book is full of wisdom and inspiration.

I discovered that I have a LOT of internal work to do. I enjoyed this book so much I started listening to the author’s podcast, and the first one I listened to had an interview with an absolutely lovely young woman, who spoke intelligently and with great enthusiasm about overcoming trials in life, the biggest being the death of her mother when she was a teenager. She was witty and smart and spoke about her work to empower young girls and women, and after the podcast I looked up the show notes to see who this remarkable young woman was. The link took me to her Instagram account, and people: if I had seen her Instagram first, I would have never listened to the podcast. I would have completely dismissed her as having nothing to say, and I would have been very wrong. It was a wake-up call that I need to examine my own biases as a person. Well, it’s a journey. We all have work to do.

And on that note, it’s Monday of the LAST WEEK OF SUMMER and although it doesn’t feel summery, I am going to embrace it. I hope you do too. xo

Who Moved My…Clothes; Seventy-Four Weeks In

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Every evening I choose a yoga/ workout outfit, complete with hairband and scrunchie, and I set those things in the bathroom; that way, when I wake up early I just slip into my clothes and I’m ready for my yoga practice and workout, without having to disturb anyone. I have been doing this essentially every day since 2008; it’s just part of my day.

I had plans for a big hike with my friends Janet and Susan (HI JANET HI SUSAN) on Tuesday, so Monday night I had packed up my backpack with clothing layers and water bottles, I had set out my hiking boots and poles, I had a lunch in the fridge and my hiking clothes set out on the table, AND I had my yoga clothes in the bathroom, so I could do a nice stretchy practice before a 15 km hike.

Tuesday morning, around 4:15 am, I started the coffee maker and headed to the bathroom to get dressed, and there were no yoga clothes. Confused, I stumbled back out to look at the table where my hiking gear was: no yoga clothes. I looked all over, including pawing through the kids’ laundry baskets – in the dark – and no yoga clothes. I finally tiptoed back into the bedroom, quietly grabbed a couple of pieces, and got dressed.

Have you ever became completely obsessed and crazy about something that is really very small? It doesn’t seem like a big thing, but it was. Usually I am able to focus on my breathing during my practice, but I was completely frazzled. Where were my clothes? I clearly remembered choosing the outfit – grey pants and a striped tank – and my hair accoutrements were in the bathroom, where were my clothes? Did I put them in the fridge? Did I put them in the hall cupboard with the towels? Did I throw them in the garbage? Did I lose my mind? DID SOMEONE IN MY HOUSE STEAL MY CLOTHES AND IF SO, WHY.

I’m generally fairly chill about a lot of things but apparently, losing my clothes in my own small house is not one of them. I cannot even describe the weird agitation I was feeling, or the feeling of complete relief and befuddlement when I went into my son’s room a second time to look through his laundry basket and – since the sun was up by this time – discovered the clothes lying on his floor beside the laundry basket. Long, incredibly boring story short, he had showered, gathered up his clothes along with, unwittingly, mine, and went to bed in the dark, dropping his clothes in his basket and my clothes, somehow, on the floor.

I don’t know either.

I kept thinking about the guy I worked with, twenty years ago, who read Who Moved My Cheese and told me it was the worst and stupidest book he had ever read in his life; on that kind of recommendation I have never read it, but whenever something is misplaced I think of him.

Anyway, the hike was fabulous and I had some really good Girl Time with my friends. Janet and Susan are the kind of women who are uplifting, inspiring, and so much fun to be around that I was just buzzing for the rest of the day. The guys had gone camping and when I got home to my empty house, my neighbour shared some vegetarian Greek food he had picked up at the Greek market, which was the cherry on top of a sundae of a day.

Speaking of Girl Time, I have been thinking a lot about female friendship and the various forms it takes. This was instigated from my reading of the Anne books, and particularly this week’s reading of Anne’s House of Dreams (more below). One of the characters, Leslie, is consumed by jealousy over Anne’s seemingly perfect life – Leslie’s life is just terrible and tragic, and their friendship, such as it is, is very much darkened by her feelings of jealousy and unfairness. It made me think a lot about the cultural narrative we have that we should hate women who have something that we do not. Why is this a thing? From Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful to She thinks she’s ALL THAT to my least-favourite line from my favourite movie, What does she look like? Thin, pretty, big tits…your basic nightmare. I mean, Janet has the most beautiful hair you have ever seen in your life – I’m not kidding, it’s long and thick and wavy, and she literally just washes it and goes, IT IS EFFORTLESSLY BEAUTIFUL. If I could somehow transplant her hair onto my head, I would, but instead I just admire it. But this is the point: although I covet her hair I don’t HATE her, quite the opposite, I love her to death. It’s my goal in life to be happy for people who have things that I never will, not just hair, but anything, and to not let jealousy get in the way of friendship or admiration.

In a horrible twist, Anne and Leslie become very good friends, but only after Anne suffers a terrible tragedy: her very much wanted first baby dies one day after birth. At that point, Leslie can see that we are all human and we all suffer, and, incidentally, things end up turning out really well for her in the end.

It’s a good lesson, really, we are all in this life together; jealousy gets us nowhere. The older I get, and the further away from the hectic intensity of parenting younger children, the more I appreciate and value the women in my life. We all have our wonderful gifts, and, to quote L.M. Montgomery, “If you can’t shine like a star, shine like a candlestick.”

Outfit of the Week

Almost every week this summer, I have thought I’d better post a really summery outfit, who knows how long this weather will last! We have had just the loveliest weather, and NO MOSQUITOES, which is unheard of. UNHEARD OF. Therefore, another summery outfit it is!

Yes, another skort from lulu and yes, another tank top from Old Navy, and I will go to my grave saying that Old Navy has the very best fitting tank tops at the very best prices.

Pandemic Reading

The Anne Series – Part Two. As I mentioned last week, I have been rereading the Anne series and I’m going to just put a “spoiler alert” here for anyone who does not want to know what happened in a book written a century ago.

Anne of Windy Poplars. After I finished Anne of the Island, I thought “Yay, House of Dreams is next!” and excitedly ran downstairs to retrieve it, only to discover that the next book was Anne of Windy Poplars. I HAVE read this book before but it made very little impression on me, the only thing I really remembered from it was sad sack Katherine-with-a-K. The book itself is a strange format, and very different from the preceding books: it is almost exclusively made up of letters from Anne, working as a school principal, to Gilbert, who is in medical school. The strangeness of it can be explained by the fact that it was written in 1936, when Island and House of Dreams were written in 1915 and 1917, respectively. Montgomery had a sad life and was battling depression, and was keeping her family financially afloat with her writing, particularly at this time of life.

Anne’s House of Dreams. I love this book; it is the most interesting of the Anne books. It has some very dark storylines and it also introduces three really great characters: Miss Cornelia, Susan, and Leslie. Miss Cornelia is the ultimate “lift up other women” woman, whose catchphrase “Isn’t that just like a man?” I want to adopt for my own. “I’m not hankering after the vote, believe me. I know what it is to clean up after the men.” What a line! Susan is the devoted housekeeper – “Do not worry about the pantry, Mrs. Doctor, dear. Susan is at the helm,” and Leslie is the afore-mentioned beautiful woman who has the most tragic life: married off at 16 to save her mother from losing her home, to a man who is an alcoholic and has probably impregnated and left a “girl from the harbour,” although this is alluded to very circuitously.

The darkest of the storylines, as I mentioned, is that Anne has a baby, and that baby dies. It’s terribly sad and dark, and as an adult it reads so differently: when she has “dreams” (read: is pregnant) again, a “grim shadow” follows her throughout the pregnancy. Ah, my heart wrenched reading that part. Montgomery had three sons, one of whom was stillborn, which makes the story even sadder.

Anne of Ingleside. This is kind of a strange book. I think it is because this was written in 1939, so far after the original series, and even after Rilla of Ingleside, which chronologically comes after Anne of Ingleside. It deals mostly with Anne’s children and their adventures, but it also has some very adult themes as well, like marital issues and problems with in-laws. Gilbert’s aunt, for example, comes to stay for a week and ends up staying almost a year, wreaking havoc on the household, but Gilbert will not tell her to leave. Finally she leaves on her own volition when Anne throws a surprise birthday party for her – she is appalled that everyone knows her advanced age, WHICH IS 55. Welp. There is also a storyline about Anne thinking Gilbert is falling in love with his old flame, but it’s all a miscommunication. Anne thinks the spark is gone, and laments how they take each other for granted and her own aging looks and exhaustion from looking after many small children and DO WE ALL FEEL SEEN BY A CHILDREN’S BOOK FROM THE 1930S OR IS IT JUST ME. “Well, that was life…always change! You had to let the old go and take the new to your heart…learn to love it and then let it go in turn.” Wise words, Anne. She gets the Landslide.

Invincible Summer. Someone recommended this book – who was it? I liked it – didn’t LOVE it, but liked it a lot. It follows four friends after university graduation through the ups and downs of adult life, going from that starry idealism and invincibility of youth to the times where the shit hits the fan. I found this particularly interesting to read as the characters graduate the same year I finished my undergrad, so all of the events were relevant to my own life. A satisfying read, to be sure.

THANK YOU to everyone who asked me questions last week – the answers are coming up soon! In the meantime, let’s enjoy the rest of the summer, and I hope the sun is shining where you are. If it’s not, shine like a candlestick, my friends. xo