Category Archives: Fleeting Time

The Ten Year Challenge

Posted on by

One of the perks of my husband’s job is that we often get invitations to private screenings for popular movies; on Saturday we headed out to see the new Star Wars. Facebook memories had let me know that five years ago we went to The Force Awakens, and is there anything that inspires a person to start singing Landslide in a shaky, sobbing voice than Facebook memories?

A month or so ago I noticed a social media “10 year challenge” in which people posted photos of themselves from 2009 and 2019. I guess this is because a new decade is dawning, but the weirdo in me kept obsessing on 2009. If we are looking at how we have changed over the decade, shouldn’t we start in 2010? Because that was when the decade began. Maybe New Year’s Eve 2009, I could get behind.

Anyway, it’s interesting to see the changes in ourselves over the decade: hairstyles, clothing, and also how we have all learned how to take a good selfie. And use filters. I think that is the biggest change for every single person throughout the decade: we have learned how to use lighting to our advantage

January 2010 versus December 2019

Why stop there? Why not look at photos throughout the decade? And so I give you ME, year-by-year over the past decade.

2010

2010 was the year I went from Book Fair Lady-in-Waiting to full-on Book Fair Lady; it was the year one son finished kindergarten and the other started, and it was the first year we took our kids on a winter vacation. We went to visit my parents in Palm Desert, and the kids were extremely excited that you could get on an airplane in a place filled with snow and ice, and get off an airplane to actual grass and flowers outside. It was also the Olympics, and the start of my children’s obsession with the Vancouver mascots.

My husband and I took a trip to Tofino for his birthday, which is where this photo was taken. We left the kids with my parents for three days, which was the first time I had ever been away from them for more than 24 hours. Side note: I still have – and wear – this little black dress.

2011

In 2011 I made the leap to becoming Chair of the School Council/ Parent Association, and if I had known I would hold that position for four years, I maybe wouldn’t have. We took the kids to Disneyland, and I got my varicose veins stripped.

This photo was taken after my varicose-vein-stripping, when I was able to walk around semi-normally but was still so scarred and bruised that boots and tights were a necessity. I still have those boots and that skirt, but sadly, not the top. I like that top! I wish I still had it.

2012

This was a big year of change in the Boyhouse. We celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary, took a trip to Maui – which we would subsequently visit four more times in the coming years – my husband unexpectedly changed jobs, and we renovated our house.

I also discovered I love umbrella drinks. I still have that tank top but not the skirt or scarf.

2013

I landed a paying (or “paying”) job at Yummy Mummy Club, as the Meatless Mummy. I would go on to write many, many, many vegan and vegetarian recipes for the site over the next four years. It was a fun time in my life, if poorly paid, and I wore a lot of cute aprons.

2014

More aprons, more food, and longer hair. Hundreds of recipes written, more book fairs organized and run, much drama in the School Council/ Parent Association, and a solo trip to Toronto.

2015

I turned 40! This is my favourite photo of all time. It was taken when my husband’s colleague found my husband’s Top Gun flight suit (doesn’t everyone have one?) in our front closet, put it on, and started singing You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling. It was always my dream to be serenaded in that fashion. Dreams do come true, people. Don’t ever forget it.

What with my 40th and my husband’s 50th, 2015 was a big year for travel: we went to Maui, Tofino, and Disney World. I also learned that sadly, a switch goes off when a person turns 40, and so I started implementing cardio workouts into my life in order to fit into my clothes.

2016

I started yoga teacher training, which was a very excellent decision. It was a really big step for me to do something for myself that didn’t include the children. I also started transitioning out of being Book Fair Lady and School Council Chair, as my younger son was in his last year at the elementary school. The posters are five dollars.

2017

This was the year I started teaching a lot, and I also quit my job at Yummy Mummy Club. Both kids were in junior high, and I really embraced the teaching life. I also abruptly stopped volunteering for the school due to massive volunteer burnout. I started running, my older son took a week-long trip to Quebec, and we went to Mexico instead of Maui.

2018

I discovered life with two teenagers is busy and fun, and mostly consists of food acquisition and preparation. I also continued to teach a lot, including new classes for seniors, which I love. We visited Mexico again, and also took a wonderful road trip from Jasper to Vancouver, and discovered that the kids really prefer trips in “nature” than trips to a city.

2019

Here we are at the end of the decade!

Definitely more lines in my face, and my roots show up three weeks after colouring. Life is good, my friends. What will the new decade bring? xo

Decades and Decades

Posted on by

Last week I had a letter from the government regarding my taxes, and is there any other kind of letter that can strike so much fear in one’s heart? Oh my god, am I being audited? I thought, wondering where I put the brown paper bags and should I go get one now? Happily, I am NOT being audited, and a phone call to a very nice government employee was calming and reassuring; there was just a little information that was required, on my part, to provide to Revenue Canada. “If you could just fax that over to me this afternoon, that would be great,” said the very nice government employee, to which I replied that well, actually, I don’t have a fax machine. Because it’s not 1997, I didn’t say. Do people fax things anymore? Scanning and emailing was not an option offered to me, and so it was off to the post office. Actual literal mail! Fax machines! What year is it?

Recently there have been quite a few memes going around about there being only a short time left in this decade, and what have we all accomplished? I tell you what, until these memes came out I kind of forgot that we are starting a new decade. Yes, I do know what year it is and yes, I do know how decades work. The thought of “2020” just didn’t have the kind of importance to me that, say, the Nineties or 2000s did, other than it feels kind of cool to say 2020. Plus, what have I accomplished? I think we’ve all accomplished lots of things; for example, this weekend I helped my husband and son hang the outdoor Christmas balls in the tree.

After many hours of work, there is still much to do in terms of Christmas lights, which is less a reflection of my husband’s work speed and more that we have so many outdoor decorations, we are now rivaling Clark Griswold. “Now” rivaling is a bit of a misnomer as this has been going on for years, and each year my husband and older son go to Canadian Tire for “cords” and end up coming home with more light-up animals and snowmen.

We had the cutest light-up snowman who met an unfortunate demise this past summer. Due to its gigantic size, my husband was storing it on the covered back porch, where it was partially eaten by a squirrel. The squirrel not only ate all of its hat, it also chewed through the electrical wires, rendering it not only unattractive, but also dangerous and useless. Yet another reason why to loathe the squirrels.

I have a laughably eclectic library pile right now, and since Helter Skelter took me longer than average to get through – and no wonder, it’s well over 600 pages of fairly intense detail – I checked my app to make sure I’d be able to get them all read before their due date. They are all due the first week of December, which was startling to me. December! December is many weeks away! I thought, before looking at the actual calendar and realizing that no, it’s ten DAYS away.

I did finish Helter Skelter, and you might wonder why I would even read such a thing, given that I don’t watch the news, I rarely log into the sewer that is Twitter, and I have snoozed everything on Facebook so much that my entire feed is either yoga related or photos of vacations, kids, and dogs. Just how I like it! I myself wondered why I was reading Helter Skelter literally every time I picked it up, and I still don’t know. It’s something I’ve been thinking about reading for about thirty years, and let me tell you, my life has not been enriched by the experience. Not only is it incredibly disturbing on any number of levels, it got me thinking about the importance we place on decades, ending and beginning. The Sixties were a very strange time, what with all the communes and free love and youth runaways and my god, the venereal disease. This book contains a LOT of information about the latter; did you know that Charles Manson and his harem of girls lived for a while with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys? Wilson ended up spending a lot of money on penicillin for the “case of clap that never went away” and you know what, guys? Have a shower. Wear a condom. Good lord. That’s just a sidebar to the most horrific and unsettling details I’ve ever read, and as such I probably wouldn’t recommend this to anyone. Why did I read it? WHO KNOWS. Not to mention that every time I looked at the cover I would get when I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the SLIDE then I stop and I turn and I go for a RIDE in my head, over and over, which is not good for anyone.

Two books I would recommend, though:

Chop Suey Nation was so interesting, especially as I am a Prairie girl – those Chinese-Western smorgasbords are ubiquitous all across the Prairies. I’ll always fondly remember visiting a crude oil terminal in small town Alberta as part of my then-job; the guys at the terminal took me to the local restaurant. Over my plate of fried rice, I watched as Larry slathered Thousand Island dressing on his egg rolls. Fusion cuisine before its time! Larry was also the fellow who told me about hitting a deer with his truck on Christmas Eve; the poor thing was not dead, but badly injured, and Larry did not, as he often did, have his gun in the truck. He had to wait to flag down a friend, and after the mercy deed was completed, got back into the truck where his hysterical young children assumed that Daddy just shot one of Santa’s reindeer.

Well. That lost something in the retelling.

As a caveat, neither my cousin Karen (HI KAREN) nor my friend Julie (HI JULIE) liked The Farm. I loved it, though. It WAS a bizarre concept: girls kept on a “resort” to be surrogates for the uber-rich, but as page-turners go, it was excellent.

Why do we call them page-turners? Isn’t that just how books work? Anyway. You all know what I mean.

The season for socializing has started with a bang. Last weekend we had a lovely dinner and games night at my friend Denise’s (HI DENISE) and I will be thinking about those vegan mushroom/ cheese phyllo pastries for many weeks to come. We played Cards Against Humanity, which I had heard much about and had never done before, and it was an absolute riot. Now all I want to do is play the game and eat vegan phyllo pastry. My favourite Q: Why does my back hurt? A: Feminism.

Tomorrow I’m going out with the moms of my son’s friend group; last week a few of the friends were over at my house for our Customary Friday Afternoon Cinnamon Waffles. I said to them, “I’m going out with ALL of your moms next week! Mom’s Night Out! Woot woot! It’s going to be lit!” and all of the boys just stared at me silently for several seconds, before turning their gaze waffle-ward. Not one of them responded, although one gave an awkward smile before shoveling waffle into his mouth.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend; I shall report back on just how lit Mom’s Night Out was. xo

Maternal love = creepy clowns

Posted on by

Time just flies by, doesn’t it? Next week is Halloween already, and then we are into the Christmas season! I know many of you think that November 1 is too early to start thinking of Christmas, but in this world I think we should all just take joy where we can find it, and meanwhile, I’m already halfway done my Christmas shopping. I should definitely be done before the first week of November is over, at which time I can start making lists about cards and baking and various elfing duties. I was at Costco this week – when AREN’T I in Costco, really? – and I picked up a pre-built gingerbread house and two Advent calendars. If there is one thing I’ve learned about Costco over the years, it’s that if you see something seasonal that you think you might want, you should carpe the hell out of the diem and buy it, because there is no guarantee that it will be there next time.

There are no guarantees in life, are there? Shopping at Costco feels like a metaphor for life, sometimes: carpe diem, be patient in the lineup, and be a good person by taking your damn cart back to the corral. Also, you will never regret buying the strawberries, they are always delicious.

Speaking of Costco, they were selling packages of 18 full-size chocolate bars, and I seized the day and bought them, despite having already purchased 240 fun-sized chocolate bars. I have always wanted to be the fancy rich lady giving out full-size chocolate bars on Halloween, and now I will have realized this dream. The only thing is that 18 far exceeds the actual number of trick-or-treaters that we have ever had in the past, not to mention 240, but hope springs eternal. I have some pumpkin-themed bags to package up the extra treats, and who knows? I entered our address in the community association’s map of the neighbourhood’s “Spookiest Houses,” so perhaps we will have a run on treats. I hope. Even though my kids are not – for the first time ever – trick-or-treating, my mom had dropped off a box of 50 fun-sized chocolate bars for them, plus 120 Rockets for me. In other words, if we don’t get a lot of costumed kids on the 31st, we are going to have a great deal of candy in the house.

Well, what else is new. My kids have often had leftover Halloween candy sailing into Easter, so it will likely be no different this year, given our stock.

After my Costco trip I went into Michael’s, which is not something I do often. I am not a crafty person, and I find myself to have the same reaction in Michael’s as I do in Bed Bath and Beyond – a feeling of being completely overwhelmed and also inadequate. What is it about that store? So many people who are bustling around getting their yarn and their craft supplies and their really interesting things that I have no idea what to do with, and then there’s me, standing like a deer in headlights as women – they are all women – swoop around to get their melting wafers and acrylic paints.

Anyway, I went in there to buy those little tiny Chinese take-out boxes, to put treats in for a yoga event I’m hosting on the weekend, and I did obtain them. However, for whatever reason Michael’s also had 50-70% off all Halloween and fall decorations and, although our house is super-spooky as-is, I felt like, as with many but not all things in life, more is better. After all, I’m trying to get us on the literal map. Therefore, in addition to our bats and ghouls, animatronic skeleton dogs and tarantulas, graveyard and skulls, and our pair of 17-foot reapers, we now have a 5-foot ghost who looks like it’s going to climb up our house, a crazy skeleton ghoul to add to the trees, and, as a show of deep maternal affection, a scary skeleton clown.

I LOATHE clowns, but the boys think that IT – both versions – is “hilariously funny” and they were so thrilled with the acquisition that it made up, somewhat, for my extreme distaste. Look at the sacrifices I make for you people. It’s crazy enough to me that they thought The Shining was a comedy of epic proportions, but the IT quotes come several times per day. If I have to hear “Pardon me, but do you have Prince Albert in a can? Well, you better let the poor guy out!” ONE MORE TIME, well. I don’t know what I’ll do. Probably nothing. I did manage to put a stop to them crazy clown-dancing around me, but there’s no stopping the Prince Albert In A Can joke.

GAH. That thing is awful.

Well, it’s almost the weekend and in addition to my yoga event I have many dozen Halloween cookies to be made. When the kids were little, I’d send enough for their classes, as well as contribute to the inevitable bake sale. These days their friends still love those cookies (“These are the greatest cookies EVER, Nicole”) so I make enough for the boys to share with their buddies. Wow. We are going to have a LOT of sugar in this house. All hail Halloween! xo

Leaning in to the Sexy Librarian Look

Posted on by

You people who don a cozy sweater and scarf and then head off apple picking, whilst sipping your pumpkin spice lattes and kicking around leaves? I envy you. Well, not the pumpkin spice latte part – pumpkin spice is NOT my jam, I am, as we all know, a mint chocolate girl – but the rest feels so idyllic and fanciful to me. What must that be like, I think. Imagine going apple picking. Imagine leaving the house in a cozy sweater and scarf. Imagine not digging out legwarmers and winter coats on the last weekend of September.

When I went to upload and name these photos, there were a dozen already named some variation of “Snow September” which is a bit depressing. My husband had the weather channel on for a few minutes on the weekend, and there was a reporter there who was on the streets trying to get an interview with passers-by. She was over-the-top dramatic about SNOW! In September! and kept trying to drum up some kind of enthusiastic dramatic response from the people walking by in their parkas and toques. Can you BELIEVE it? I mean it’s September! she kept saying, and every single interviewee shrugged and was pretty complacent, albeit not particularly happy. Who is this woman? I thought. Where did she come from? She’s obviously not local. Accepting weird and appalling weather in a stoic and martyr-like way is part of our cultural identity, along with day-drinking and cowboy hat-wearing in July.

Things are starting to melt; all the trees that had turned colour before the snowfall are completely decimated now, while many trees are still completely green-leaved, in stark contrast to the snow. As I walked Barkley, with trees dripping all the melting snow on my head, I thought it felt like spring. Spring! The fact that green leaves and thick, wet snow feels like spring to me is a very sad testament to this hellhole I call home.

But enough about the weather! I have much more important things to talk about. For one thing, I picked up my new reading glasses yesterday and I’m really going to lean in to my new look, the Sexy Librarian.

Have you ever worn reading glasses? They are really quite bizarre. As I had Mr. Magoo-strength glasses, and then contact lenses, from age 11 to 25, my experience has been that when you put on glasses, everything becomes clearer. With reading glasses, the book you are reading becomes clearer, it’s true, but everything else is completely blurry. I mentioned this to the fellow helping me fit the glasses, and he said “That’s why you always see people looking up OVER their glasses.” Aha! Now I understand.

My new look:

My husband kept looking over at me while I was reading last night.

“It’s just so strange,” he said, “I just haven’t seen you in glasses in so long.” Maybe he really likes the Sexy Librarian look, maybe he’s waiting for me to slide off my cardigan, whip off my glasses, and shake my hair out of the bun.

He’ll have to wait on the bun thing; that baby is held in place by many – MANY – bobby pins. On that note, you will be all happy to know that I had a hair appointment and my Hair Therapist and I agreed that we would start “putting length on,” which, given I can’t stand split ends and get my hair trimmed every five weeks, will take a while. Probably it will be another 9-10 months before we really see a difference, but I have been taking biotin lately, so maybe it will be faster than I think.

Now I can be one of those people who are constantly looking for where they left their glasses!

This side table is normally stacked with library books, but a few days ago I finished my stack and had no holds come in, a rare thing. I decided to re-read The Handmaid’s Tale; I last read it about twenty-five years ago and let me tell you, it reads very differently for a woman of 44 than it did a woman of 19. For one thing, I do not remember being much horrified by the – spoiler alert – Removing Child From Parents storyline. I also find that I have different empathy for the different characters. While it is not IMPOSSIBLE that I could find myself pregnant at this age – EXTREMELY UNLIKELY but not impossible – I am much closer to being a Wife than a Handmaid. Or, given my enormous load of domestic chores, a Martha.

Speaking of which, it’s my dad’s birthday today – Happy Birthday, Dad! – and we are having a big family party on the weekend. I am in charge of bringing the cake, or, more accurately, cakes, as there will be about 25 people there. I’m bringing cupcakes for the little ones, and they will be – on my five-year-old niece’s strong suggestion – worms and dirt. Worms and dirt! I haven’t made those since my bake sale days, god bless. I am sure I will have many cake-related photos to show you by this time next week. On that note, I have many Martha-like duties to complete before I can settle back down with my reading glasses and The Handmaid’s Tale, so I must sign off. Plus, I picked up four holds at the library this afternoon so there will be a lot of Reading Glasses Duty in the next three weeks. I just hope my husband can contain himself. xo

Reality Bites

Posted on by

My husband got home from work and turned on the television. I heard familiar music and turned to look at the screen.

Me: That’s weird. What kind of football is on Tuesday nights?

My husband: Um, Monday Night Football. It’s Monday.

Who among us has not woken up Thursday morning, thinking it was Friday? It is rare, for me at least, to be that confused about the day of the week so early in the week. It felt like an ominous sign.

I think we are all there this week; it’s the week that we go from the frying pan to the fire, so to speak, and for me things have been hectic. Full school schedules! Lunches! Being An Involved Parent And Listening To All The Stories! I have picked up two new classes for the fall and while I love them so much, it has required an even higher level of organization to just keep things running smoothly. I was thinking about writing a whole series of posts on getting organized, and I may still do that, but the main takeaway is WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN. It’s all about the list, baby.

Did you ever read Still Alice? I maintain that it is the most beautiful and terrifying book I have ever read. For weeks, maybe even months after I read it, I would have low-level anxiety every time I went to the pantry and forgot what I was looking for. I no longer have this panic, but I can’t help but compare my endless lists to Alice’s sticky notes and Blackberry reminders. It is just a good coping mechanism, it does not mean I have early-onset Alzheimer’s. 

As an aside, I had told my mother about this book when I had first read it, and not too long ago she said that she had taken it out at the library and “wondered why I recommended it to her, it was so sad.” Mom, I said NOT to read it!

Wednesday is now my designated Get Everything Done Day and last weekend I realized, with a start, that I was running dangerously low on wine so today I went to the liquor store after buying ALL THE GROCERIES at Superstore. They had one of their crazy specials in which a very tasty Shiraz was on sale for – get this – $8.98 a bottle. I immediately stocked up with two cases, justifying my purchase with the thought of the eleven teenage boys who will be at my house on the weekend for my son’s birthday party. This is what I looked like fourteen years ago:

I was clearly not drinking any wine at the time.

Fourteen years, and this is what I look like today:

I kid, I kid, except not about the lipstick and there is a strong possibility that I will get reading glasses soon. Back in 2000, I had laser eye surgery and it worked perfectly, but at the time they mentioned that I would likely need reading glasses sometime in my forties. Reader, at age 25 I had no concept of what it would be like to be in my forties, except “old.” Now in my forties, I consider “old” to be anything north of 80, and I’m sure when I hit 80 that line in the sand will move again.

Speaking of awkward, let’s file this one under Things You Couldn’t Do Even If You Tried. I always wear silver sleeper hoop earrings; I never take them out except for fancy occasions when I replace them with larger and slightly more ornate silver hoop earrings. The other morning I was taking off my yoga top in preparation to shower and somehow got the spaghetti strap caught in my earring, which apparently opened and closed just to accomplish this, like a Venus flytrap. It wasn’t until I went to drop the top on the bathroom floor that I noticed that, instead of dropping, it was heavily hanging off my ear. It is not easy to open a sleeper hoop with one hand while supporting the weight of a yoga top so as to not rip the aforementioned earring right out of ones earlobe with the other. However, I did it, and I felt like I could easily take on the world, which is why I ended up taking my car for an oil change. I am woman, hear me roar. People, for those of you with flexible schedules, apparently 12:30 midweek is a perfect time to get your oil changed. There were literally no other cars and the entire process took less than twenty minutes.

I know everyone the world over is in love with fall and yes, I do like cozy sweaters and boots and all that, but honestly, mostly I just feel cold. I know that in a few months 8 degrees will be considered an amazingly happy turn of events, but right now it just feels cold. Even in the sun the air is sharp, not that we’ve seen the sun much lately, it’s been so cold and grey and damp, which is a bit depressing, particularly if you find yourself thinking of the fleeting nature of time and how there are not that many back-to-school days left in your future. OR MAYBE THAT’S JUST ME. Perhaps that’s why I’m eating my apple-flavoured feelings; possibly the best thing about fall, in my mind, are McIntosh apples. There were some “orchard run” Macs last week at Superstore, but they have since disappeared, so I’m waiting in eager anticipation. My mother-in-law always talks to me about apples and how she makes them into pie filling and applesauce, which is always sort of horrifying to me – it’s a waste of an apple! I would never put an apple I liked in pie. Of course, she lives in the land of orchards, whereas I am in the middle of the Prairies, and so I view things differently. Fall is also the season where everyone in the city who has crabapples or ornamental apples are now trying to give away the excess, which is always kind of funny. No one wants them. No one. I’m sorry for your luck of having a crabapple tree, but for the love of god please don’t try to give them to me. That isn’t real fruit, I am sorry, people. It’s like a much kinder and fruitier version of multi-level-marketing; everyone avoids eye contact and makes excuses about not having time to go to the party. xo

Happy could have totally made that shot.

Posted on by

I’m in that First-Week-Of-September-What-Is-With-This-Schedule mode right now, and it’s only Thursday. It’s only Thursday and I’ve had a light week, class-wise, which means that next week, with a full roster of classes should be very interesting. With everyone gone last week, I feel like I didn’t get enough closure on summer. The long weekend was dreadful, weather-wise, with actual thick fog and drizzle and cool temperatures, and so I would like an end-of-summer do-over, please. Is that too much to ask?

As an aside, the guys had The Greatest Time camping in the Yukon and Alaska, and my husband has gone so far as to describe to me “how much better campgrounds are now” which feels like he’s preparing to pop the question: will I go on a northern camping trip with him? There are showers and everything! You get to meet so many people! he said in a coaxing way and well. This is a thing that currently feels undesirable but life, as we say, is unpredictable. Who knows what the future may hold? Maybe in our golden years I will happily acquiesce to RV living, although this seems unlikely at this juncture.

The first couple days of school have gone really well; the boys are enjoying their classes so far, which bodes well for the semester. I was reminiscing with a friend about dropping the kids off on their first day of kindergarten. I remember the teacher reading The Kissing Hand to my older son’s class, and then all the children gave their parents (well, it was exclusively moms, as I recall) little pink construction paper hearts to keep for the day. I think I still have that little heart somewhere. My younger son’s kindergarten teacher was almost a parody of a kindergarten teacher, she was so wonderful and lovely with a crinoline-lined dress, long blonde hair, and a speaking voice that could only be described as “soprano.” She gave all the parents (moms) a little paper bag that had some cute things in it to symbolize the kindergarten year, but what those things were has disappeared from my memory. Ah, the kindergarten drop-off. So emotional.

Back then I was involved as involved could be, volunteering for every committee and to help cut pieces of milk cartons for bird houses and baking snacks for class celebrations. Comparatively, my younger son informed me that Meet the Teacher night is next Thursday, but “we don’t have to go.” Oh, thank GOD, I said, because honestly? I’ve done my time, listening to the principal talk about the importance of parental involvement in education and how to check your child’s progress online. I’m fine, thanks, I’ll talk to you at report card time. If then. How the mighty have fallen. And I only have two kids, one grade apart! Imagine how jaded I would be if I was my friend who is now entering her eleventh year at the elementary school with her youngest, with seven years still in front of her. I’m not sure I’d even slow the car down before allowing the kid to jump out.

Perhaps this is nature’s way of preparing me for their eventual flight from the nest?

Every year at Back to School time I get the song from Billy Madison stuck in my head for literally DAYS: Back to school, back to school, to prove to my dad that I’m no fool. It probably speaks volumes that my household got into a tense argument about which movie is more realistic: Billy Madison or Happy Gilmore. Usually we argue about which movie is BETTER, but for both questions my answer is Happy Gilmore. It’s just silly to think someone could go through a grade every two weeks, no matter what the stakes! Also that woman would never go out with such a loser, I said, to which my husband replied that no one could ever take a running leap and make that golf shot to win the tournament. Deadlock has been reached and as with any debate, no one’s mind has been opened or changed.

The thing I notice most about Back to School is that we go through much more food. School is hungry work, apparently, and adding that to the Growing Teen Boys thing that I have going on, my grocery needs have skyrocketed. Yesterday I spent hours going to both Costco and Superstore, and I can tell you that doing that is a very good way to get your steps in. Feel the burn, I thought to myself as I went up and down the stairs myriad times to put everything away. Maybe I should market this as a fitness program; it could be the next CrossFit or Legree! And lift! And turn! And push! And now return the cart, you lazy bastard!

That last one just slipped out. I swear. xo

Some of us are really, really sad about Back to School.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The “One Is The Loneliest Number” Edition

Posted on by

I am going to tell you something that will probably make a large percentage of you become very envious: my husband and kids went camping in Alaska, and they have been gone ten days, returning this evening. Ten days, alone. Now I’m going to tell you something that will probably make a large percentage of you very angry with me: I do not, as it turns out, enjoy being alone for that long.

Sure, I’m all for a day or two of solitude, where I can eat Greek salad for dinner and never once turn on the television, particularly to Bloomberg or any kind of sports network, but I have discovered something about myself: I really, really enjoy people around me. What can I say, I’m a people person. This was the longest I’ve been apart from the children; indeed, it’s the longest I’ve been apart from my husband in our twenty-one years of togetherness. So I found myself being a bit lonely and blue, particularly after spending the weekend at my parents’ house; walking into my silent empty house seemed almost too sad to bear. I’m always a bit blue the last week of summer, and this was even worse than when I took the kids to see Inside Out just before the September long weekend, years ago. I was feeling verklempt and then when – SPOILER ALERT – Bing Bong died I cried and cried uncontrollably. It’s like Bing Bong is dying and I’m all alone in my empty nest. 

The thing is – and I’m sorry for all you mamas out there who are just desperate to use the toilet unaccompanied or who want to just sit down for five minutes without someone needing something, I’m sorry, I really am – I do get time to myself every day. I do get time where no one needs anything and not one person has tried to accompany me to the toilet for many, many years. And so this felt a bit like a long stretch of time where I realized that the days are very long indeed when one is alone.

However, I’m not complaining, not really, because the boys had a great time with their dad, Making Memories, as my mother-in-law says often. Many Memories Were Made, and meanwhile I scheduled in something fun every day, so I got to Make My Own Memories.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The “One Is The Loneliest Number” Edition

Greek Salad and Pita

It was tempting to slide back into my single-girl eating days and have popcorn for dinner, but instead, I made myself a balanced dinner every night. If you’re going to eat a balanced dinner instead of popcorn, then why not make your very favourite meal? Recalling that I am a person who consumes the same exact thing for lunch every single day, it follows that I do not mind repetition in my evening meal either, which means that over half the nights I had Greek salad with hummus and pita for dinner. My favourite! My family is always happy to eat what I make but I’m pretty sure there would be a mutiny if Greek salad was on the menu for five out of seven days.

\

I Heart Books

I’ve always been an avid reader, and I always carve out some time to read every day, but with no one there to talk to or cook for, I read for many hours a day while they were gone. I’m on my sixth book since they left, which means my library pile of last week has been whittled down a lot:

As a brief aside: Class Mom is a very fun, light read, and is especially great for those of us who have been in the trenches, so to speak, when it comes to volunteering at elementary schools. Those days are long behind me but well I remember some of the, shall we say, drama.

Following The Nursing Home Schedule

When one is not immersed in household duties, there are many more hours in the day, which may explain why, on Sunday evening, I stretched and thought it was time to start preparing for bed. It was 6:30. I have always been a morning person and when left to my own devices, this tendency becomes extreme. I ate dinner between 5 and 5:30 every evening, with the exception of Sunday, when I ate at 4:20. I had my pajamas on by 6 or 6:30 most nights, and was sleeping well before 9:00. Then, of course, I found myself wide awake even earlier than normal, when I would listen to some weird overnight talk radio show until it was an acceptable time to get to the yoga studio. I shall be one hundred percent ready for the nursing home, when the time comes. I embrace their early-to-bed ways.

30 Rock

Someone – I think it was Lynn (HI LYNN) – told me that 30 Rock is now on Amazon Prime, and hoo boy, is it ever still an excellent show. I’ve rewatched several episodes and it is still very, very funny. Of course, with any show more than a year old, there are some episodes that, let’s say, would not be created today. For example, Jenna gains weight and it’s a whole thing, and also, Bill Cosby writes an angry letter to Tracy. Tracy says that Cosby interfered with Eddie Murphy’s Oscar win, and it’s an interesting line, as today it is well-known that ye old rapist hated Murphy and tried to sabotage things for him, as he felt Murphy was a stain on the black community. Oh, how the worm has turned.

Extended Outdoor Activity

Having all this extra time on my hands has meant I’ve been able to do a few really fun outdoor things, like last week’s hike to Ha Ling Peak. On the weekend I went for a 22 km bike ride at my parents’ house; usually I ride with the kids and we do more exploring than serious hills and whatnot. I took advantage of my aloneness to go the distance, so to speak.

Speaking of distances, Taryn and I went to Healy Pass yesterday and it ended up being just under 21 kilometres of hiking. It was the best hike I have ever done, so I will leave you with these gorgeous shots:

And how often do you stand in two provinces at the same time?

All in all, an amazing day. Today is also amazing; I’m getting so excited to see the guys that I’ve been singing The Boys Are Back In Town all day. Have a wonderful long weekend, everyone, and may the first week of September go smoothly. xo