Category Archives: Flower Power

Random Semi-Related Things

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I Always Feel Like Somebody’s Watching Me

After a very busy and productive August, the garden is starting to take its annual September Slow Down. Every single day last month, I spent hours in the garden harvesting berries and vegetables, weeding, and deadheading. I was especially proud of myself for my management of what I like to call The Annual Zucchini Situation; I had been picking them when they’ve been of medium size, I’ve been using them up or successfully pawning them off on my very sweet friends, and no one in my house has mutinied due to the zucchini-in-everything Augusts of the past. A few weeks ago I was in the garden, thinking about this in a very smug way, and as we all know, karma does not enjoy smugness as a character trait. I immediately tripped over a massive zucchini that had apparently appeared out of nowhere.

I can only imagine it had been watching me for weeks from its hiding place under a large leaf.

Raspberry Beret

In addition to an actual ocean of tomatoes, I have been enjoying a tidal wave of raspberries. There is no need to figure out what to do with all of them, because as soon as I pick a bowl, it magically disappears. But a few weeks ago I had a bigger than normal raspberry harvest, and I also had an unaccountable gap in my weekly meal plan. I decided to do something I haven’t done in years, since before we moved here in 2023, which was to make breakfast for dinner. I thought I’d use the raspberries, along with my farm market peaches and nectarines, for a fruit salad to go along with my Famed Cinnamon Waffles.

The Landslide’ll Bring You Down

My cinnamon waffles were Famed only in my sons’ circle of friends. During their teen years, the boys had early dismissal on Fridays, and most of the time on those days my house would be suddenly filled with famished teen boys. I always made them cinnamon waffles because it was such a massive recipe, and then I would bask in the glory of being the Mom With The Best Waffles Ever. There is nothing, nothing so satisfying as cooking for teenage boys. No one is so ravenously appreciative.

Filled with nostalgia, I pulled out my waffle maker and went to grab the recipe for Nicole’s Famed Cinnamon Waffles, which were not Nicole’s at all, but merely a recipe in the little booklet that came with the waffle maker. And that is when I discovered that the little waffle maker recipe book was MISSING.

To my surprise, I immediately spiralled into the same kind of sadness that I had experienced back in 2023, when my bookmark collection was forever lost in the moving process. I assumed that the waffle recipe book had followed suit, and all was ashes. I was sad all over again, thinking of all those Friday afternoons when the mudroom was piled with gigantic dirty shoes and the dining room table was sticky with syrup, when Barkley braved the noise of ten teen boys in the house in the hopes of some dropped waffles, when said boys exited the dining room all saying That was AWESOME, Nicole, thank you! Never again would that happen for me, mostly because I don’t live there anymore, I don’t have teenagers, and Barkley is, sadly, long gone. Also because I would be unable to replicate the recipe. I was surprised at my sudden and intense reaction. Just feel your feelings, I said to myself sadly. The lack of the Famed Cinnamon Waffle Recipe felt devastating. Not as devastating as the bookmarks – I didn’t cry myself into a dehydrated state – but sad nonetheless.

Guess Who’s Back? Back Again?

As I wallowed in sadness, I realized that, current fashion trends notwithstanding, we are not in the Nineties anymore. We live in the Age of Information! And not all of it is Mis-or-Disinformation! I bustled over to my trusty laptop and searched up Cuisinart Waffle Maker Recipe Book and lo. There it was, the Famed Cinnamon Waffle recipe. What a time to be alive. I immediately printed it off and filed it in my recipe book, to ward off any future breakfast item-related sadness spirals.

1/8 of the waffle recipe

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

The happy ending to the waffle recipe sadness spiral reminded me how wonderful the world is, and not just because we can access any kind of information at any time. It reminded me of how all of you, dear readers, rallied when my bookmarks were lost. I was going through such a massive transition in my life, and the bookmarks felt symbolic in the saddest way. No one, not one person, said they’re just bookmarks, get over yourself. Instead, friends from near and far provided me with bookmarks. My friend Sammi drove over to my house with a selection immediately on hearing the news, I received bookmarks from Washington State to Marco Island, from the US Midwest to California, from Alberta to Saskatchewan to Ontario, from Barcelona and Portugal. My son made me bookmarks featuring Rex, Salvadore the gnome, and Gerbera daisies for Christmas. My sweet friend Gigi (HI GIGI) cross-stitched personalized flowered bookmarks for me. I keep my collection in a tin that my longtime friend Elise (HI ELISE) sent me, and every time I start a new book, I happily choose one and think of what a gift it is to have such people in my life.

I will never forget how supported and loved I felt and still feel. Thank you, friends.

All You Need Is Love

Speaking of fun and exciting things in the mail, I received this from my friend Engie (HI ENGIE).

I literally screamed with delight when I opened it. Gnomes, love, AND math? I’m in heaven. Receiving fun mail reminded me that we are now into September, and it’s not too soon to start thinking about holiday cards. Are you a Holiday Card Person? If so, let’s exchange cards! (EXCHANGE is the key word here). Merely fill out this google form, and I will send you my address. If you are already on my list, no need to fill out the form, unless your address has changed. Now, I think that’s enough randomness – let’s get on to this week’s very mixed reading.

Weekly Reading

I had a DNF this week: Heated Rivalry. You all know I love a closed door romance, and whoa nelly, that was not this. It was way too spicy for me and I DNF’d at about the 12% mark, after the third graphic anal sex scene had me Kegeling like nobody’s business.

Her One Regret. From the author of The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano – a book about a woman coerced into having a baby – comes this book about the biggest taboo in motherhood; namely, regretting becoming one. It is touted as a mix between a thriller and a manifesto, and indeed, it does get at some uncomfortable truths about early motherhood like exhaustion, resentment, change of identity, and overwhelm due to the stunning responsibility that is caring for a tiny helpless person. I will say that it’s pretty repetitive and overly convoluted, and every man in this book is as flat and one-dimensional as can be – they are all complete dicks. The “thriller” part was less than thrilling, in fact when the big reveal occurred I thought “Huh. Okay.” and moved on with my life. It does highlight that society views mothers that leave their families VERY different than they do fathers that leave, but mostly I felt it was kind of overwritten and a bit dull.

Inheritance. What makes a father a father? How does your biological ancestry affect who you are as a person? This memoir explores such questions after the author discovers, through an ancestry DNA test, that her long-deceased father was not her biological father due to a very sketchy infertility “treatment.” I will say that the author’s journey to peace with this very disturbing discovery is quite interesting and eventually lovely, but something did not sit well with me throughout this reading. I am in no way disparaging or questioning her lived experience. I am sure it’s extremely disorienting to discover that your father isn’t who you thought he was, and in the author’s case, this had larger implications. Her father’s family was a prominent Orthodox Jewish one, and on her discovery, she felt as though she had lost her identity and was subsequently traumatized. “It’s traumatic because I’m fifty-four years old and I found out the father I adored, the father who raised me, was not my biological father. That the family I thought I came from is not my biological family. That my ancestors are not my biological ancestors.” I understand this, however, I take a bit of issue with it. I would say that a father who adored you and raised you IS your father, end of story. I suppose I feel touchy about this because my beloved Grandma Fern was my step-grandma. We were not related by blood, but she was still my grandma. She cherished me exactly the same as she did her biological grandchildren. In the author’s case, a (sketchy) sperm donation does not make a father, in my mind. Anyway, this was a very interesting and kind of wild read about the nature of infertility treatments in the early 60s. I also learned a lot about Orthodox Judaism. This was definitely worth the read, and had me thinking a lot about the nature of families. I think there is just so much more to family than blood.

Walking With Beth. During the Covid pandemic, the 71 year-old author and her 101-year-old friend Beth deepen their friendship with regular walks and talks, and this book is a record of their conversations. Both women are from very prominent Canadian families, and so their recollections of their younger years were quite interesting to me, not to mention all they’d seen throughout their lives. Beth was born in 1920, at the end of the 1918 influenza pandemic, so it’s interesting that the two bonded 100 years later. This book introduced me to the concept of Anam Cara, “soul-friend,” of whom I am fortunate to have a few. “This friendship…was an act of recognition and belonging. When you had an anam cara, your friendship cut across all convention, morality, and category. You were joined in an ancient and eternal way with the friend of your soul. This art of belonging awakened and fostered a deep and special companionship.” This is a beautiful story of aging and friendship, and I LOVED the description of Beth’s outfits. Talk about goals! Thanks to Elisabeth and Pearl (HI ELISABETH HI PEARL) for mentioning this book.

Hello to September! We are going on a little road trip this week, and I have the feeling we will be seeing lots of fall foliage. In the meantime, take care, friends. xo

Midsummer Plant Murders

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We have reached the point in the summer where, with the exception of a couple of rows of very hardy kale, all my greens have bolted in the heat, necessitating their removal from the garden. I am reduced to shopping at the farm market for all my leafy green needs; how they are keeping them from bolting, I have no idea, but I feel like shade is involved. What the garden is lacking in greens, it is more than making up for in zucchinis and raspberries, as well as tomatoes. I am drowning in tomatoes.

But as god is my witness, I will never plant bell peppers again. There are two reasons for this, and the first is because we consume far more peppers than I could possibly grow, unlike the aforementioned produce, which exceeds even the outside amount that one family can reasonably consume. The other reason is that, for the second year in a row, the peppers have been foiled by some manner of animal, most likely a rat. Or, as seems to be the case, several rats.

Let’s pause for a moment, Winston Smith-style, to shudder.

Last year, almost every single bell pepper had been gnawed on precisely when it would have been happily picked and consumed by me, and this year has seen every one disappear in such a way. But worse than that was that Something – Ratty McRatface, I presume – gnawed off TWO of my plants, leaving a mere three inch stick where a healthy plant once was. The thing that really gets me is that there was no pepper on those plants at all, and the plants themselves were just strewn merrily in the garden box. I am sensitive with regards to animals, and if one was EATING something, I would feel low-level sympathy, even while being annoyed at the bell pepper disappearance. But this is not that. This is just wanton destruction of plants. It’s plant murder.

Three weeks post-murder attempt.

Is the rat an out-of-control juvenile delinquent? Is this some kind of rat frat party? Maybe. It’s now set its sights on my smaller zinnias, because a few of them have also been snipped off at three-inch level.

I am typically a live-and-let-live girl when it comes to local wildlife, but I draw the line at a) the house, and b) the garden, especially the flowers.

And by “war,” I mean I will be glaring sadly and impotently at the destruction. Well, at least they have not touched the big zinnias or nasturtiums, which is important, as they are keeping those garden boxes busy since the Loss of the Greens. I like to have something nice to look at while I’m enjoying my afternoon read and sip.

Speaking of which, I was in the grocery store buying San Pellegrino, when I came across this.

I stared at it for many moments. Carl…Jung? The…Swiss psychiatrist? The…father of analytical psychology? Isn’t he…dead? Why is he…I thought that maybe I had conflated names somehow. I do that often. I confuse Tom Holland with Tom Hiddleston, Burt Lancaster with Burt Reynolds. I even once talked about Jimmy Page when I meant Jimmy Buffett. It wasn’t until I read Doppelganger in 2024 that I realized that – instead of confusing Naomi Wolff and Naomi Klein, which is the theme of the book – I had been conflating Naomi Klein and the 1970s YA author NORMA Klein for decades. I didn’t know Naomi Klein was a Canadian! I didn’t know she was a social activist! The author of Sunshine? That book about the woman with cancer?

As it turns out there are two famous Carl Jungs: the tell me your dreams Carl Jung, and Carl Jung the German non-alcoholic winemaker. I cannot fault myself for conflating the two because who knew? Certainly not me. And I certainly did not purchase any of the product, because although a non-alcoholic cooler is acceptable to me, a non-alcoholic wine is just a bridge too far.

Weekly Reading

I had a DNF this week, and that was The Kiss Quotient. My sweet friend Stephany (HI STEPHANY) had mentioned it as one of her favourite romances, and – this was the detail that sealed the deal for me – the protagonist is an econometrician. AN ECONOMETRICIAN. My people! It immediately evoked many happy memories of running regressions, data cleaning, and economic modelling. I was so excited that I even pulled out my master’s thesis, which I haven’t looked at for a few decades at least.

But, unsurprisingly for a romance, there was very little econometrics involved. WHO KNEW. Who knew no one else is interested in econometrics? The romance itself was a little spicy for my tastes, and it was a gender-swapped Pretty Woman-type story. I have to tell you that Pretty Woman is one of my least favourite movies of all time – ALL TIME – and so I sadly put the book aside and hung my head in shame as I told Stephany I had to DNF. She was so lovely and gracious, which reminded me to be lovely and gracious when and if someone DNFs my favourite books. Even though that book was not for me, I am happy that an econometrician was the sexy star of a romance. Justice for econometricians!

Speaking of books I maybe should have DNF’d:

The Names. What’s in a name, and can a name change the trajectory of a life? That is the premise of this book, which involves three parallel universes over a period of thirty-five years, based on the name given to the baby boy of a family. I will say that I found this book very difficult to read, and not just because it deals with terrible domestic abuse, but also because the middle was a bit of a slog to get through. It is not an uplifting book, although the prose is quite lyrical. It made me think of all the wasted time and lives, of all the sadnesses of the world, of how lives can be short or long but often are full of trauma and hardship. I can appreciate the book from a literary point of view, but from an emotional one I did not enjoy it. 

Sunshine Nails. From the author of Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead! In other words, Canadian author alert! This story follows an immigrant family’s struggle to keep their nail salon open when a fancy chain day spa opens up right across the street. It’s a story of resilience, family ties, and the importance of community. The bravery of people who leave their home countries to try to make a better life for themselves and their families – including the ones left at home – is astonishing to me. This story has a lot of heart, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Good People. My reading certainly got better as the week went on because wow! This is not only one of the best books I’ve read all year, it’s one of the best books I’ve read ever. It is written in an original way: a series of interviews, documentary-style, about the death of a teen girl. Information about the family involved is slowly released throughout the interviews, and it is incredibly engrossing and compelling. I loved it so much. It is, in my opinion, a perfect book.

I have such an exciting week ahead of me. I have not one but TWO sets of out-of-town visitors coming in, and I could not be happier. If you need me, I will be floating around in a cloud of joy. xo

We’ve Got Fun and Games

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What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate

A while ago, my husband’s friend went to see Guns and Roses in concert in Vancouver, which is at least a four hour drive from here, meaning that this was not just an evening out. It was a commitment. Concert tickets these days are not what they once were, and accommodations in Vancouver are also pricey, so I imagine it was not an inexpensive endeavour. It probably would have been worth it to this sixtysomething rocker, had the band played even one of their many, many hits. But no. Guns and Roses spent the entire concert playing all new material.

I can understand an artist wanting to share new work with the world; I am not sure I would want to continue doing the same thing over and over for four decades. I can understand that it would get tiring, as Elin Hildebrand said on her podcast about her annual Nantucket books, that people want the same thing every year, but make it different. And yet, I do feel that a band with such stature as Guns and Roses, who charges exorbitant fees and who has an extensive catalogue of excellent, much-loved music, should give the people what they want.

This is why I love cover bands. I ADORE a cover band. If we go somewhere and there is a cover band playing the hits, you can bet I am going to get that dance floor started. This past Friday my husband and I went to see The Hip Replacements, which is the very witty name of our local Tragically Hip cover band, and it was so much fun. I danced all night, got home late, and paid for it the next day with sore feet, a sore throat from singing, and general exhaustion due to my inability to sleep in no matter what time I go to bed. It was worth it!

But back to Guns and Roses. I always, always have a song stuck in my head at all times, but in the past few weeks I have had three on rotating repeat, for a variety of reasons.

Sweet Child of Mine

A few months ago I heard a piano version of Sweet Child of Mine, and I immediately purchased and downloaded the sheet music. What fun! And also, whoa nelly. Look at this key!

It’s a challenge, let’s put it that way, a challenge that is peppered with unusual C flats and tricky fingering. I’m working hard at learning all eight pages of it, the result of which is that the tune loops through my head many times a day. She’s got eyes of the bluest sky I’ll think as I roll out my yoga mat, looking at the morning breaking. Where do we go now I’ll hum as I look for something in the pantry.

Welcome To The Jungle

Sweet Child of Mine gives up its place in my brain every morning when I head down to the garden, at which time Welcome To The Jungle wedges its way in.

The tomatoes are going rogue.

My arms are completely covered in scratches from squeezing between the raspberries and the zucchinis. Wear sleeves! my husband says helpfully, forgetting that I am a perimenopausal woman working outdoors in the height of the Okanagan summer, and that wearing sleeves feels as comfortable as donning a medieval suit of armour.

You’re in the jungle, baby, you’re going to die! is something that inappropriately floats through my head as I serenely build the sand mandala that is weeding.

Patience

Those two songs have been in my head constantly, but a third popped in last week when I was at Costco. I don’t know if this is a seasonal fluctuation, but for the past few months every time I go into Costco I think it just can’t get worse than this and then, somehow, it does. Said woman, take it slow, it’ll work itself out fine, I mentally sang to myself while completely immobilized in the dry goods aisle, with unmoving carts before, beside, and behind me. All we need is just a little patience I thought, waiting for throngs of carts to move so I could exit the freezer aisle.

I congratulated myself on making it out without internal impotent rage, and then I saw this beside my car.

It takes so much more effort to wedge a cart’s front wheels up onto the median without destroying the vehicles around it, particularly since the carrel was mere steps away.

I wasn’t as bothered as I usually would be, because I was still pondering a very kind, but odd, compliment I had received at the pharmacy. The young fellow – I would place him in his late twenties – talked to me about my prescription and then said Oh, by the way, I love your hair! I responded with a grateful and enthusiastic thanks, to which he followed up with It’s so old-timey! Like a 1940s movie star.

Listen, I will take any compliment, no matter how strange. And I’ve always thought it would be wonderful to swan through life in soft focus like Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. Old-timey isn’t exactly a compliment I expected, but I will take what I can get, and just hope he didn’t mean Joan Crawford or Bette Davis in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane.

Weekly Reading

The book flood continues!

One of these is a reread so technically, there is no need to panic about it. But still.

Luckily, I have had a lot of uninterrupted reading time this week; after the guys got back from Vancouver, my husband went camping with some buddies for a few days, and I camped out on the deck for hours every day with my trusty reading partner.

Laundry Love. I put this on my TBR five years ago – and then promptly forgot about it. It wasn’t until my friend Stephany (HI STEPHANY) mentioned this that I metaphorically slapped my forehead and took it from TBR to my library pile. And I know what you’re thinking: an entire book about LAUNDRY? Yes. Not only is it a delightful, joyful meditation on caring for our clothes, each other, and the planet, but it also contains everything you ever wanted to know about the act of laundry, including how-tos about washing wedding dresses, wool suits, and fur coats, in case anyone actually has their grandma’s furs. I don’t, obviously, but I still found it interesting, and also oddly inspirational.

Flashlight. My writing friend Jen (HI JEN) told me about this densely layered, nuanced, and complex novel about a father and daughter who disappear while walking along a beach in Japan. The daughter washes up ashore, alive, while the father does not. The story is so much more, and takes turns I was not expecting. I learned so much about the relations between Japan and Korea – both during and after World War II – as well as the relationship of North Korea to its neighbours and to the US. The three main characters all have trauma and are all incredibly, deeply unlikeable. The writing is so good that I felt physically uncomfortable reading about their fraught interactions with each other and with the world at large; there were a few times that I had to look away from the book, so awful do these people behave. The reading experience was immersive and compelling, and one of the adjacent characters was so completely delightful that it almost made up for the nastiness of the others. A really excellent book, so well-written and executed.

Upward Bound. I would term this book as autofiction; the story is about the clients and staff at Upward Bound, a day care program for adults with severe disabilities. The author himself is the first nonspeaking autistic graduate of UCLA, and I understand there is some controversy surrounding whether or not he actually wrote this book, or if his mother stepped in while he used Facilitated Communication. To be frank, I do not give a fuck if he literally wrote it or not, that is not the point. The point of this book is to bring humanity and understanding to an underserved population, a voice to the voiceless. And if his mother did write it? Well, it’s not much different from ghostwriting, is it? It’s a moving collection of chapters from different points of view, and I think it can only help bring compassion towards people who are very much othered in our society.

The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano. I love thinking about different paths our lives can take, and this book is all about that very thing. Rose is a woman who has never wanted children, and she’s always been clear about it. Her husband agrees, but then after they are married he changes his mind. This book goes through all different scenarios, a choose-your-own-adventure, if you will. I love books about marriage, particularly when there is strife, complication, and extramarital action. This book has it all and more, and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a very nuanced and powerful statement on what it is to be a woman in our society, the pressures and resentments, the difficulties and the joys. I especially like that the book is not laid out linearly, rather all the lives are scattered throughout the book, so it kept me very engaged, even through the initial scene about prenatal vitamins, a fight that is repeated throughout the book. Thanks to Lisa (HI LISA) for the recommendation!

I’m looking forward to a pretty normal summer week; more gardening, more reading, and a nice afternoon with the girls coming up! I hope you are all having a beautiful July so far. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Mine, His, Ours Edition

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Our houseguests have gone home and it occurred to me, not for the first time, that our friendship is rare, in the world of Couple Friends: all four of us get along, as they say, like a house on fire. Not only that, but our kids all get along. Our older kids were born on the exact same day, only two hours apart, and even though those two had that special bond, they both have fun with the other two as well. In other words, all eight of us get along in any and all permutations and combinations, and I think that is very special. These are Our Friends, as opposed to friends who “belong” more to one partner than the other.

I don’t believe that when you get married, you have to share everything, even friends. There are things that are shared and there are things that are individual, and this extends to household items. The houseplants are mine, the leaf blower is my husband’s. The Peloton is mine, the squat rack is his. We share the Vitamix but each have our own coffee maker; mine is a standard drip pot, his is a fancy espresso machine that I refuse to learn how to work. The grills are his and the stand mixer is mine, the puzzle board is shared property. The televisions and sound systems are his, the piano is mine. The camper is his, but I think he wishes it was ours. Alas for him.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Mine, His, Ours Edition

Ours: Wine Tastings

If you visit me, there is a 100% chance that I will take you for a wine tasting. It is my number one activity to do with houseguests, and there is a special, personal reason for it that goes beyond my love of wine: my husband’s family used to own the vineyard and winery that is now Tantalus. My husband’s grandfather worked to own the land, and my husband himself planted a number of the old Riesling plants that are still producing fruit. The backstory might be his, but I count this as ours since our son now works for this very vineyard. And also, again, I love wine.

Mine: The Veggie Garden

I mentally split up our yard as well as the interior of our house. The large perennial border is ours, but the lawn is definitely his. The veggie garden, on the other hand, is mine. It’s early in the season yet, but everything is coming up nicely. I have already harvested the arugula, and the kale will not be far behind.

Anyone else hear the ominous music playing? IT BEGINS.

Every year, I kind of forget the vast volume of greens we get. It’s a good problem to have! Arugula salad for all!

His: The Iris Garden

I think of our flower planters as ours, but also a little bit mine, while the iris garden is definitely his. There were several old irises and tulips growing above the rock wall that lines our carport when we moved here, and my husband has spent a lot of time restoring the overgrown bed, weeding and dividing and planting. May is the month it really shines!

Mine: Gnomes

This is an obvious one; the gnomes are clearly mine. This year I decided to hide them all within the gardens, and seeing them poke out between the plants makes me smile. It’s the kind of thing I would have loved as a child, hidden gnomes, and it brings me so much delight.

Mine: Special Sunscreen

When we travel, my husband does not pack shampoo because, as he says, hotels always provide it. This is true, but also, I will never not take my own hair care products. Who knows what kind of products they have? Who knows what state my hair will be in, using some random product? What if they only have 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner? Relatedly, he uses the same sunscreen on his face that he uses on his body and there, as with using hotel shampoo, I draw a very thick and bold line. I am very choosy about the sunscreen I will use on my face, and my current favourite is one that my friend Suzanne alerted me to: Neutrogena Face Serum Sunscreen. (HI SUZANNE)

It doesn’t leave a residue, it absorbs quickly, and it works under makeup. What more do I want from a sunscreen, other than SPF protection?

The makeup table that the sunscreen is pictured on is something else that is mine, and mine alone, although the ensuite is ours.

Outfit of the Month

I don’t think I have ever in my entire life considered my husband’s opinion when I buy clothes or get dressed. I just assume that if I like my outfit, he will too, but even if he didn’t, it would have no effect on my sartorial choices. As my beloved Aunty C says, I dress for me.

To that end, this month’s outfit involves a black tee from the Gap, Skechers shoes, the world’s most comfortable pants from Lululemon, and a silk scarf from Cambodia. I wore this for a girl’s lunch out, but I think this is a perfect travel outfit. I’ve had those pants for years and they are versatile, light, and stretchy. What more do I want out of pants?

Of course, this blog is mine, and mine alone. Perhaps my husband would have a different view on things, but he doesn’t have a blog! I’m pretty sure he agrees on the iris garden, makeup table, and gnomes though. What are your favourite things this month, friends? Tell me everything. xo

The Sand Mandalas of Everyday Life

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Ever since he retired, my husband accompanies me to Costco almost every time I go. It’s like a standing, extremely non-sexy day date. We keep the magic alive, what can I say. Follow me for more marriage advice!

It IS nice to have the company, and to also have a witness to the absolute chaos that is shopping at the only Costco in a 200 kilometre radius. We were there a few weeks ago, and I learned an important lesson: the week before Mother’s Day rivals that of the one before Christmas. Evidently this has to do with the garden centre, and not because everyone is obtaining massive ingredients to put on a feast of sorts. Whatever the reason, both the parking lot and the warehouse could only be described as insane, with lineups to the cashiers snaking all the way down to the end of the store. Every aisle was crammed with people, and my husband suggested that we turn around and go home.

THERE’S NO TURNING BACK NOW.

I had a significantly large list to get through, and it would not improve by NOT shopping. Also, even with all evidence to the contrary, I had a weirdly optimistic feeling. There was a shopping cart with two wheels jammed into the meridian near our car, and we had rescued it rather than taking one from the carrel. I cannot save all the abandoned carts that litter the parking lots, but I saved that one. Also, who DOES that? It’s so much more work to jam half the cart onto the meridian than it is to just wheel it over to the carrel that is twenty steps away.

In any case, my optimistic feeling panned out. The shopping experience was somewhat hellish, to be sure. As we were finishing up, I told my husband I would just grab a few things from the produce section and meet him in the lineup. I started walking, holding my tomatoes, cucumbers, and sweet potatoes, and then I kept walking. And walking. Where was he? The lineup had magically disappeared and he was preparing to put our items on the conveyor belt.

And that is called Cart Karma, and is why we rescue shopping carts.

In my not-so-recent Ask Me Anything, my friend Diane (HI DIANE) asked What are three things you consider yourself an expert on? As I’ve gotten older, I feel like I am less and less an expert on anything, and more of a lifelong learner, although I do consider myself pretty knowledgeable in the area of karma, both cart and regular.

Sometimes I think of my life as one giant sand mandala, the kind that Buddhist monks make and then destroy as a way of practicing non-attachment and impermanence, except instead of a beautiful divine palace, my sand mandala is a pantry full of groceries. It’s a thing of beauty. I love the feeling of having a stocked fridge and pantry, so full of fresh ingredients, destined to become delicious meals. But nothing lasts forever, and I know that in mere days the stock will deplete, only to lead to me heading to Superstore and Costco with grim determination to create the mandala again. Impermanence!

I also think I am an expert when it comes to the sand mandala that is actual dinner. For over two decades now, I have honed my skills in this area. I make a weekly menu plan, I grocery shop, and then I execute. I know dinner is a struggle for many families, so I don’t want to flex too much, but I enjoy cooking and everyone in this house enjoys eating my cooking.

But dinner truly is a beautiful sand mandala. There is a lot of preparation involved, and although I am the kind of cook who literally throws things together with only a that seems good thought, and definitely no recipe, it still is a labour, the product of which gets destroyed upon setting it on the table.

The ultimate sand mandala at this time of year, though, is weeding the garden. Can a person be an expert on weeding? I don’t know, but if so, I am one. I spend time almost every day weeding, with the understanding that the next day, I will be out there weeding again. There’s no end to the weeds, and although that can feel a bit Sisyphus-ish, it’s also very Zen. Impermanence, non-attachment, etcetera.

Malcolm Gladwell popularized the notion that it takes 10000 hours to become an expert on something, and if that is the case, then most of us are experts on things we didn’t plan or want to be. Like, am I now an expert on laundry? Washing dishes? Vacuuming the floor because someone fuzzy likes to go on adventures in the vineyard and tracks in acres of dry grass and other vegetation remnants?

It’s best to practice non-attachment in those areas as well. Clean laundry, dishes, and floors are all impermanent and, like Newman said about the mail, they never stop. But the brief time where the laundry is clean and folded, dishes are all put away, and the floor is gleaming, well. It’s beautiful, and it – like everything else – will not last.

Weekly Reading

My reading count this week is bonkers, and almost entirely due to the fact that I read a total of three books on Mother’s Day alone. What can I say, other than yoga and walking the dog, I did nothing but read that day. I also had two DNF’s that I expected to love and did not: Still Life and Mornings In Jenin. You win some, you lose some.

Pick a Colour. This was an interesting little book, told from the point of view of a nail salon owner, who used to be a boxer. It’s a commentary on social status, power dynamics, and the road not taken. 

A Winter Book. My friend Laura (HI LAURA) suggested this book of short stories by a famed Finnish children’s author. These are auto-fiction, and span from the author’s childhood to her old age. My favourites were the episalatory variety, but all contain vast nature descriptions of the Finnish landscape, both within Helsinki and on the isolated island where she spent a lot of time.

The Bobbsey Twins and the Tagalong Giraffe. The book that spurred a lifelong desire to go on safari in Africa! I read this when I was seven, and for the past forty-four years I’ve been longing to go to Africa to see the animals. And I will be, soon! Now, will my adventure involve an orphaned baby giraffe named Crackers who I will accompany to a new herd of giraffes? Who can say? I hope so! 

The Things We Never Say. If you know me at all, you know how much I love Elizabeth Strout. She is an auto-buy author for me; I love everything she has ever written, and this, her latest, is no exception. It is an incredibly moving story of a high school history teacher who learns a secret that changes how he views his own life and the world at large. As he teaches the American Civil War to his students, he is faced with a country divided, and he learns that everyone has things they never say to anyone. It is a statement on loneliness, and how a person can be dreadfully alone even when surrounded by people. Strout’s writing is, as always, beautiful and precise and I loved reading every word of this.

Kokoro. It would be difficult to overstate how much this book moved me, how much it resonated with me, how seen I felt while reading it. I wanted to note down every phrase that was meaningful to me, but I quickly realized I would be soon transcribing the entire book. This book of Japanese wisdom for living a life of meaning and fulfilment, particularly for people in midlife, is incredible in every way. I think I had an out-of-body experience reading this. I think the lessons are for everyone, but particularly for those of us in our “back nine eras.” Thank you again to my friend Laura (HI LAURA) for bringing this book to my attention, and I will be immediately looking up everything this author has written.

I cannot BELIEVE I forgot to mention one of my favourite Canadian groups, in last week’s post: Blue Rodeo! Here I am with JIM CUDDY, at a 2008 Plates of Gold Olympics fundraiser. If I look starstruck, it’s because I was. Also in the photo was my husband’s colleague’s wife and Kelly Hrudy, both cut out to make it look like it’s just me and Jim Cuddy. I also got to meet Sale and Pelletier, which will mean a lot for you pairs skating fans out there.

We have had houseguests for an extended long weekend, and it feels just like a holiday. I’ve been flexing my dinner-making muscles, as well as my wine-drinking ones. I’d like to extend my sand mandala metaphor to include the latter, but I cannot think of how to do it. xo

Crazy Plant Lady

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Early in January of this year, I found myself looking thoughtfully at a Costco display of two-packs of jade plants. I was soon joined by my husband who, since retirement, likes to accompany me on my semi-monthly Costco trips. He asked suspiciously why I was looking at the plants, adding, not unreasonably, that we really didn’t have space for any more in the house.

I had something in mind that I had been pondering about for months, but there is something you must know about my husband: he is a Man of Action. I tell him nothing until I am ready for Things To Move, if you know what I am saying. Some examples of things that I spoke about casually and that materialized fairly rapidly are the Peloton and our home gym, a trip to Morocco, more closet space, a new house, every small appliance in our kitchen, and garden beds. I had only to say I really like raised garden beds and then, like a cartoon character leaving a pile of dust in its wake, my husband was out sawing and hammering and shovelling soil into the resulting six beds that he made with his own hands, erecting fencing material around it to keep out the deer.

So I didn’t immediately tell him what I was thinking, which was that Noelle, my beloved but non-blooming Christmas cactus, was at the end of her life, along with her sister and shelf-mate, Stella the star plant, who never really recovered from her move here in 2023. Some of you may be thinking so what, plants die but you are not seeing the depths of my feelings on this subject. Noelle is symbolic of many things: my friendship with Denise, who gifted her to me when she moved out of the country (HI DENISE), my relationship with my younger son, who is the same age as Noelle, and my entire life prior to moving here. You might be thinking that this is a lot to put on a houseplant, and you might be right.

In any case, I knew. I knew the way you know about a good melon, but in this case it was the way you know that a part of you has changed forever and life must, as it does, go on.

And so I bought the two-pack of jade plants, after telling my husband that It Was Time. To his credit, he did not express the glee I’m sure he felt at not having to see the slowly-dying plants every day. He asked me several times if I was sure, was I ABSOLUTELY SURE that I was ready, and I was. He took them out to the shed, never to be seen again.

Shortly after, my younger son came home from work, to find me silent and trembling in the kitchen, chopping vegetables in a deeply sorrowful way. Tears sprang to my eyes and my voice cracked as I told him the fate of Noelle and Stella. He nodded very seriously and then said, so gently, the way you might speak to a very sad child, Those new plants look nice. Are they twins or just sisters? Twins, I shakily told him. Do they have names? Jane and Jennifer, I said. Those are nice names, he said, while I burst into tears at the thought of Noelle and Stella, alone at the bottom of the compost.

The twins are beautiful, as are the rest of my plants, of which I have probably pathologically intense attachment to.

Alice, the aloe, was given to me as a mere sprig from Aunty C (HI AUNTY C) and has since grown into a happy monster. She resides on the kitchen windowsill beside Eva, the snake plant.

The other, much larger, snake plant is Sabrina, who enjoys her spot by the piano, and the gnomes who live with her.

Christy, the unknown plant given to me at Christmas from my friend Darlene (HI DARLENE) was covered with tiny white flowers when she arrived. A few months later, she shed her flowers and started to establish a lot of new growth, so much so that I think she’s going to need a new pot.

Beside her is Pippa, the pepperpot plant, who is a recent and much-loved addition to our home. My friend Tara (HI TARA) brought her as a hostess gift only a couple of weeks ago.

Finally, Anna the amaryllis was given to me by my friend Sandi (HI SANDI). After she bloomed I cut her back, and now she’s all leafy again. I’m going to try to get her to rebloom next year and will hopefully not have some kind of breakdown if she dies.

There is no Becoming. I Have Become a Crazy Plant Lady. I refer to the plants collectively as The Girls, unless I’m talking to one of my sons, in which case I refer to them as Your Sisters. Even for me, this seems unhinged, yet I am not willing to make any changes to make myself seem more sane. There are worse things than being a Crazy Plant Lady, and, in any case, gardening season has begun and I have started planting a few rows of seeds in the aforementioned handmade garden beds. In other words, Crazy Plant Lady is taking her show outside.

Weekly Reading

I devoured this book that follows an Australian woman living in London over a ten year period. If you know me, you know that “the extraordinariness of ordinary life” is my favourite kind of book, and that is this – relationships and motherhood and finding oneself across the political backdrop of the UK from 2013-2023. There is a truly incredible cast of characters, and the book is hilariously funny and also incredibly moving, all at the same time. I doubled over crying laughing a few times, only to have my breath taken away by the emotional depth a few pages later. I loved this so much.

“It’s not a whorehouse. It’s a whorehome.” 

Workhorse. I am mixed. The author worked at Vogue for seven years in the early 2000s, which is exactly the time period of this book about an absolutely atrocious slob of a young woman with zero moral compass and questionable personal hygiene who – despite those things and also her complete inability to converse like a normal, non-cringey person – lands and keeps a job at a high-prestige magazine (i.e., Vogue). On the plus side, there are a lot of juicy inside-baseball details about magazine culture during that time, in which I am genuinely interested. On the minus, OMG this is long. It is WAY too long. At 552 pages, it could have been cut in half and been a snappy, exciting book. The plot is good! The ending is good! If it was cut back, it would be very good! As it is, it is a “tell, not show” book, a writing style which I do not admire, and it is all a little on the nose. Also, in addition to the immense, unneeded length, there are a lot of weird little editing misses: girls referred to by their hair colour, which changed from one paragraph to the next, someone graduating from Columbia when the paragraph before says that person went to UPenn, that kind of thing. Disbelief must be suspended as the main character not only does not look the part (i.e., not only is she a cheaply-dressed hot mess, she is a size six, which in Vogue world is just not acceptable), but she lies on her resume and although there is a hint that there might be repercussions, that thread never gets picked up. No matter. If you’re into juicy details about early 2000s magazine culture, and if you want to settle in with a doorstop of a book, this is for you! Like I said, the plot IS good and I liked the ending.

Wherever You Go, There They Are. This was published in 2017, and as I read it I recalled that the 2010s were a really hot time for books of essays written by B-and-C list celebrities. You don’t see them much anymore, or at least, I don’t. Probably they all have podcasts instead. Anyway, many of these essays were a big dull to me, but there was an absolutely killer one about MLMs, which is another thing that was hit in the 2010s and I don’t see much of these days. Thankfully! I haven’t had a “hey girl” message on Facebook from an old schoolmate for a long while. I admit I picked up this book about the author’s dysfunctional family thinking “I’ll see you and I’ll raise you” but no. She wins.

Have a beautiful week, friends! xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Fall Follies Edition

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I was at the dog park last week, walking in my usual loop, when I passed by a man I see quite frequently. He’s probably in his 70s, and he has two dogs, one of them a very young puppy. This is against the rules – dogs less than four months are not permitted in the dog park – but I am not The Dog Park Rule Enforcer, so I usually just nod and smile. I was doing that, when he said Have you ever heard of grounding? I had my earbuds in, and wasn’t sure if I heard him correctly, so I politely paused my podcast, raised my eyebrows and tilted my head.

It’s when you stand on the ground with bare feet, facing the sun, he said, and of course I DO know that, but it was such an unexpected question from such an unexpected source. Oh yes, I have heard of th…I started to say as I looked down to see that he was indeed standing with his face to the sun, shoeless. Bare feet. In the dog park.

I blinked behind my sunglasses and then said You’re very brave to do that in the dog park! Brave? Or crazy? At that very moment, his puppy ran up to me to show me the sandal he had in his mouth, and then ran off again as the man admonished him to return it.

I kept walking.

By the time I left the park, ten minutes later, the man was still chasing the puppy, wearing only one sandal. Then I heard him call to someone that the puppy had left his sandal in the long grass and he couldn’t find it.

I hope he was able to disinfect his foot when he got home. Either that or amputate it.

I’m not saying that was one of my Favourite Things, it’s more of a PSA. If you want to ground, maybe don’t do it in a dog park.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Fall Follies Edition

Grapes of Wrath

Almost all of the grapes on the vineyard behind our house are for wine, but the four rows directly behind our house – which we own – are concords. Once those grapes ripen, the air smells like grape juice, and I cannot even begin to express how wonderful it is to walk outside and be hit by that delicious scent.

This past month, until the grapes were all harvested, I would just walk outside and pick a bunch to snack on. Just before the harvest, I snipped off three bowlfuls to enjoy for a little longer. I don’t think I will ever not love the ability to have such fresh fruit right outside my door!

A Pear Affair

Speaking of fresh fruit, the pear crop has been incredible this year as well. My son requested a pear cake for his birthday, and I was happy to oblige.

I used my friend Julie’s (HI JULIE) recipe, and I will note here that I cut the sugar in half, and it was plenty sweet that way. I followed the recipe exactly for the penuche frosting, and it made at least three times as much frosting as one could possibly pile onto the cake.

I have made this recipe before, but I hadn’t noted this down at all, so I don’t know WHAT happened. I do know that I ended up throwing out a lot of frosting, because what else could be done? I suppose I could have frozen it for later use a) when was that going to be, b) chances are I would forget it was there and then later have to chisel frozen penuche out of a container, and c) OMG IT WAS SO MUCH FROSTING. Anyway, the cake was delicious, but I have noted: cut sugar in half, make 1/3 the amount of frosting.

These Shoes Are Made For Walking

Back in my running days, I was very choosy about my footwear, and would spend quite a bit of money buying the fancy Asics Gel-what-have-you shoes. But when I stopped running, I started to buy less expensive shoes – the Skecher Go Walks. I don’t know why I thought I didn’t deserve expensive footwear anymore, particularly since I walk a minimum of five kilometres a day, often more, but that’s what happened. Even without all that walking, I STILL DESERVE DECENT FOOTWEAR.

A few weeks ago, my left foot started hurting, a lot. No problem! I had bought a pair of Skechers on sale and was just waiting for my other pair to wear out before taking them out of the box. I donned my new shoes, went for a walk, and was in pain by the end of it. Worse, the pain started in my heel, and ominous music started playing in my head. I know what heel pain means: planter fasciitis.

No! My feet are my fortune! Or, at least a very important part of me. I fretted and fretted, rolling my foot on yoga balls and massaging it and generally feeling kind of stressed about it. Not only am I on my feet for hours every day, we are going on a vacation that requires a GREAT DEAL OF WALKING very soon! I can’t not be able to walk!

My husband not-so-gently suggested I was being cheap and immediately found me a pair of Asics trail runners, appropriate for the gravelly and sometimes rocky trails that Rex and I favour.

Foot pain – gone. Let this be a lesson for us all: cheap footwear is just not worth it. And this is also a lesson in why I didn’t do another no-shopping challenge! Sometimes needs must.

Progress Not Perfection

I read an interview in Cup of Jo, and as I was looking at the photos, I thought damn, that woman has great hair. Wouldn’t you know it, she happened to mention the hair product she uses: Living Proof’s Perfect Hair Day 5-in-1 Treatment.

I ordered some, thinking it would be a good item for travel, cutting down on the many products I usually use. And friends, it worked like a dream. A DREAM!

Not only that, but my hair still felt great the next day – without washing or adding more product.

Jane, Meet The Dollhouse

I have mentioned my friend Michelle’s incredible and uplifting blog before (HI MICHELLE), and in particular I have mentioned her absolutely delightful dollhouse. Every single post is more wonderful than the last – it just gets better and better. Well, I don’t know how she is going to top this one, because she obtained a Jane Austen doll. Jane Austen! With the gnomes in the dollhouse! I am surprised I didn’t spin right off this planet.

I’m not going to steal any photos from her, obviously – you’ll just have to go to look for yourself! But in honour of her, I wore (one of) my Jane Austen tees, which is also a Favourite Thing.

Outfit of the Month

This exact outfit has been an OOTM before, but since I am shopping my closet these days – with the exception of this month’s shoes! – I thought it deserved to shine.

Yesterday my husband and I were invited to a tour and tasting at a very fancy, architecturally incredible winery, and this was the perfect choice. Sorel boots for walking and standing, tights because wineries can be really cold, and my favourite lululemon t-shirt dress. Perfectly comfortable and cute!

And now, as alluded to, I am off on an adventure! I will be taking a blog break and will see you all on the other side. Take care of yourselves, friends. xo