Category Archives: Flower Power

Nicole’s Favourite Things – Spring Edition!

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It was such a long, cold winter, wasn’t it?  Snow on the ground from October solidly through April, but I tell you this: May has been absolutely stunning in YYC.  I keep expecting snow in the forecast every day, or at least hard frosts, and yet it’s been warm and beautiful.  It feels like spring, but not Calgary spring – regular actual spring! 

And so it’s time for the Spring Edition of Nicole’s Favourite Things!

My Garden

On the fourth of May, this is what my front yard Mayday tree looked like:

This is what it looks like now:

Leaves!  Flowers!  All in a nine day span, which is not great for the allergy sufferers in the house, but it sure is pretty.  Speaking of pretty:

This is the prettiest the Nanking cherry has ever looked.  Usually the buds freeze before the flowers come out and/or the flowers get blown off by gale force winds, but not this year.  I’m soaking up every second. 

I know people in other parts of the world have had lilac bushes, the blooms of which have already come and gone, but look at the adorable little buds on my lilac:


There are many, many other exciting things happening in my garden right now, but if you are NOT a gardener, you may be falling asleep with boredom at all my squee flower talk.  Moving on. 

Embracing Colour

Well, kind of.  I was shopping with a girlfriend who just so happens to have gone to design school and has a fabulous sense of style, and she practically forced me to buy this top, which I was unsure about, but now I love.

IT’S SO COLOURFUL!  I feel a little bit peacock-y in this outfit, but my husband informed me that I am now no longer allowed to shop without my friend in tow.  Hope she doesn’t mind her new career as my personal stylist.

I also wore a blue – BLUE – scarf to my 20th high school reunion.  I don’t know if it’s spring fever or what, but all this colour is going to my head.


Anyone else feel like I need to clean my bedroom mirror?  Seems a little dusty.

Mascara

I am a sucker for different formulations of mascara, and yet I don’t actually notice a difference between any of them.  None of them transform me into a Megan Draper lookalike, possibly because I don’t look anything like Megan Draper and also she has fake eyelashes and professional makeup artists and she’s a TV character, not an actual person.  Anyway.  I did buy this mascara called “The Falsies” and although I was at first disappointed with it (see also: non transformation into a TV character) the more I use it the better I like it.  My husband snapped this picture of me on Saturday night and I can actually notice my eyelashes in it:


Spring Food

I am in love with everything berry and green these days, so I’m enjoying these recipes I have up at Yummy Mummy Club: Green Goddess Bowl of Goodness, Overnight Coconut French Toast, and Lemon Mini-Cakes with Whipped Coconut Cream.  Fun fact: that last recipe is a vegan riff on my dear friend Hannah’s famed Lemon Muffins. 

Mother’s Day

I’m not hugely invested in Mother’s Day, but this weekend my boys gave me homemade cards and hugged me approximately one zillion times.  They also had a blast playing in the sprinkler, which NEVER happens in May! 

 
 


That series of photos just makes my heart happy.

Ground Control to Commander Hadfield

Commander Hadfield is the BOMB.  I have never been a person even slightly interested in space.  In fact, one of my strongest memories from Grade One is lying to the teacher of the gifted enrichment program about already reading a book about a dog who becomes an astronaut because, hey, books about space?  Snore.  I think they gave me an equally snore-worthy book about a dog who dug a hole in a garden but whatever.  At least I didn’t have to read about space.

But here comes the amazing Canadian Chris Hadfield and suddenly I’m completely obsessed.  I can’t wait to watch him come home tonight, with the kids.  Is there anything that man cannot do?  Plus, his song Is Somebody Singing makes me tear up every time I sing it (which is often, in the shower).  The kids sang it for Music Monday and it was just so special.

This Fabulous Spam Comment

Anonymous wrote: I don’t even understand how I stopped up here, however I believed this put up was good.  I do not know who you are but certainly you are going to a famous blogger in the event that you aren’t already.  Cheers!

Anonymous goes on to post his/her website entitled “tits movie”.  Oh boy!  Thanks Anonymous!  I sure hope you’re right, and I think I’ll just go click that link now.

A date to Home Depot

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Breaking News: the ground has thawed in YYC!  Yes, only a tiny drift of snow remains in only the shadiest part of my yard, and all other gardens are showing signs of life.  Little green shoots!  Tiny baby plants!  Buds on the trees, with the regrettable exception of the once-beautiful-now-apparently-dead, fifty year old hawthorn tree.  I’ve been cleaning up the gardens and cutting back the dead foliage on my perennials, and making big, big, big plans for the front garden.  Well, not BIG plans like ripping out all the lawn – which I would like to do but I encounter resistance from my husband – but plans such as replanting and changing the look of things.

With this in mind, my husband and I went to Home Depot together to buy dirt.  DIRT.  It was possibly the lamest, least romantic date ever, and that includes the time we went to Lowe’s to pick out a high efficiency toilet.  But there we were, with a cart full of dirt, about which we actually had a discussion regarding if this was the ideal kind of dirt.  My husband decided that he needed some kind of ventilation thing for the garage and then left me, with the cart full of dirt, to go look for it.  And I tell you this: there’s nothing like standing by oneself in Home Depot for a long period of time, examining the various cleaning supplies (stainless steel SINK CLEANER?  YES PLEASE.) to make you feel like a 1950’s housefrau, or, alternately, a six year old girl.  No fewer than eight separate Home Depot employees came up to me, wondering if I needed help?  Did I need to find something?  Was I lost?  I don’t mean to play up gender stereotypes or anything, but there was one other woman in the store and she was efficiently purchasing paint supplies, which means that I was not exactly doing my part for feminism.  Eventually, after about fifteen minutes of standing there between the paint and the plumbing aisle, I decided to go look for my husband.  Maybe he forgot I was there?  I ended up in the lumber department, where various burly men turned to look at me as if to say you’re in the wrong place, miss.

By the time the eighth employee asked if I was SURE I didn’t need anything, I said “Well, my husband kind of left me here.  If I’m still here at closing time, I might need a new husband.  Or a ride home.”  The young employee laughed a little nervously.  Was that the wrong thing to say?  In any case, it was only a few minutes after that my husband appeared with a number of vents and something completely unrecognizable but apparently related to the ventilation project.  He suggested I go find the checkout line and he would meet me there.  On the way I stopped by the display of gardening gloves, engaging in conversation yet another employee who gave me some unsolicited information on the various types of gloves.  Possibly I was on the closed-circuit video: she’s finally on the move!  Catch up with her in the gardening glove section!  In any case, it took me a few minutes to get to the checkout, when I saw from a distance my husband looking around for me.  “Where did you go?” he asked, frustratingly.  Where did I go?  Pot and kettle, I swear.

It was still better than the Home Depot-related trauma I suffered last year when we were doing our renovations and I was tasked with picking out fixtures.  I recall wandering around Home Depot, completely overwhelmed by the choices and close to tears, snapping pictures at random and probably raising the ire of the employees, who may or may not have seen me as some kind of competitor spy.

In any case, we now have a whole lot of dirt, the weekend is looking lovely, and I am soon going to have the shiniest sink since Hannah went all fly-lady on me. Also, it’s Friday and it’s golf season, which means wine, Greek salad, and a whole lot of NYPD Blue.  What are you doing this weekend, dear readers?  I hope something lovely. xo

It’s not easy being green.

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I was digging through my bottom dresser drawer on the weekend and found a little bag containing a number of cards, including a Blockbuster Video membership card.  How long has that been there?  There was also a Northwest Airlines World Perks card I had from my working-girl-business-travel era, which was some time ago.  Clearly I need to clean out my drawers more often.  At least I didn’t find any maternity pantyhose, like I did last time.

In case you missed it, it was my birthday on the weekend!  Best weekend ever, I tell you.  My mom made me a cake and my husband went out and bought me a case of wine, including a very nice bottle of Amarone that we shared while watching my new copy of Les Miserables, which as you may know I’ve been wanting to see for…well…for as long as it’s been out, I guess.  It was a great movie, and I restrained myself from singing along to the entire score.  I am only human though, and occasionally I would slip out with a Who am I? 2-4-6-0-1! which is when my husband would wander downstairs to see how the boys were doing on their video game or into the kitchen to fetch me more wine.  Good husband! 


The boys gave me a new yoga outfit, which I proudly wore on Sunday morning, negating the Shala’s need for lights:



I felt a bit like a walking glo-stick or lime popsicle, but in a good way.  I kind of love it.  And hey, my birthday is right before Earth Day and right after Pot Day, so wearing green seems like a great idea.

Other things I love:

1) We have finally finished reading the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.  I have been reading it to the boys at bedtime for the past couple of months and believe me when I say this: I cannot think of another series of books that I have so loathed.  The kids loved it, mind you, but I felt that it was the lamest, most mean-spirited series in the history of time.  It pushed so many buttons for me and reminded me of why I hated the tween years.  Obviously I am not the target audience but in any case I’m ecstatic it’s all over.  Next up: Charlotte’s Web!  Hooray!  No one knew that a little grey spider played the biggest part.  No one was with her when she died.  Wah.  Poor Charlotte.

2) 31 Inanimate Objects With Secret Inner Lives.  The gherkin!

3) 14 Engagement Photos. Although, the train track picture is giving me heart palpitations.  DON’T PLAY ON THE TRACKS! 

4) Mad Men.  I am really enjoying this season, especially the swingy fashion of the late sixties.  If I could get away with wearing minidresses, go-go boots, false eyelashes and white lipstick every day I would.  If I wouldn’t look like death with white lipstick, that is.  And if it wouldn’t look strange to wear false eyelashes, minidresses and go-go boots to the school, dog park or grocery store, which are my three main destinations.

I think it’s almost time for another Nicole’s Favourite Things, now that the temperatures are actually ABOVE freezing and little green things are starting to poke out of the ground.  Watch for it in the coming days!  Spring!  Finally!  Things feel grand.  xoxo

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Thanks everyone for playing along for my giveaway.  Justine was the big winner!  Congratulations Justine – something fun will be on your way, just as soon as I get to the post office. 

Nicole’s Favourite Things; Fall Edition

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I am very cross right now for a variety of reasons, amongst them a) my dog is sick with kennel cough, which he got FROM his kennel cough vaccination, and now I am faced with a new life as someone who does not want to vaccinate her dog, b) I have had to check the yard constantly “in case” Barkley develops diarrhea, and it is gross to be constantly checking dog poop, c) there are UNSOLVABLE issues with the upcoming book fair due to the fact that the school’s Remembrance Day holiday is not the same as the one that Scholastic (and, apparently, the rest of the world) is observing, d) the unsolvable issue was brought to my attention only AFTER I had sent out a cheery “would you like to volunteer?” email about it, e) I had a very awkward conversation with the developmentally slow grocery carryout guy today about suicide, which is NOT a conversation I wish to have in the three minutes it takes to put my groceries in the car, and f) it is not slated to be above zero degrees Celcius any day this week.  I AM COLD. 

I know, I know, there are bigger problems in the world.  Wah, wah, wah, and my diamond ring is too heavy for my hand, my bed of money had a lump in it, and I am just TOO beautiful. 

Still, I am in a crabby kind of mood, so I’m going to turn things around by saying WWOD (What Would Oprah Do?). 

Welcome to Nicole’s Favourite Things, the Fall Edition!


This sweater and those boots.  When fall (or, as we say in YYC, the start of the unending winter) arrives with its crisp chill, it’s a sign for me to break out the black sweaters!  This one is my new favourite.  I got it on the “We Made Too Much” clearance section from Lululemon, and it’s warm, long, and wraps around in a snuggly way.  These boots I got for half price during the Boxing Week sales from a place that I cannot recall.  Longtime readers will remember these as the “Puss in Boots” ones.  It’s a bargain of an outfit!  I think I even bought the jeans on sale.  Thriftiness in the Boyhouse!  Relatively speaking.

Those are beehives in the background.  Related: my neighbour keeps bees in her backyard and she always gives me some of her very excellent honey, to say thank you for my flowers.  Hey, it’s a two-way street; her bees make my flowers awesome, and so Taryn’s honey is on my favourite things list!


That’s her photo, by the way.  Did I mention I love this girl? 

I bought this set of three dishtowels (I know, DISHTOWELS are on my favourite things list) and they make me smile whenever I look at them, which is often, since I spend half my life in the kitchen.  They say “They Fell In Love”, “They Got Married”, and “They Lived Happily Ever After.”  Aw.  They were probably meant for a wedding shower gift, but I bought them for myself and no regrets.  Happily ever after.  I always smile when I look at that, and imagine myself in a fairy-tale like existence, and think I AM living happily ever after!  Then I go look for dog diarrhea and the mood dissipates somewhat.


Calgary is very dry year-round, but especially so in fall and winter.  I go through a lot of lotion and hand cream, and the scents from Bath and Body Works are enough to turn you into one of those creepy “Smell My Finger” guys.  But in a good way.  Twilight Woods, Cherry Blossom, and, separate from regular Cherry Blossom, JAPANESE Cherry Blossom are my current favourite scents.

That reminds me, I have been meaning to post pictures of my renovated bathroom.  Next time, okay?

My mother-in-law is a mad knitter, and she knitted me this scarf that I think is fabulous.

Fluffy, cute, and goes perfectly with a black sweater!

It was my husband’s birthday this weekend, and I made him a reduced-sugar apple crisp for his birthday, in keeping with his low-sugar dietary restrictions.  We’re such a fun couple.  Want to invite us over for dessert?  He can’t have sugar, I can’t have dairy.  Game on!  Anyway, I made him an apple crisp, although I think that cooked fruit is, quite frankly, a waste of fruit.  One of my favourite fall things is fresh, farmer’s market McIntosh apples! 


I keep our surplus apples in the crawl space.  Right next to the hall paint, apparently. 

Another thing I love about fall: pumpkins!

Those giant pumpkins were on sale for $0.19/pound.  Apparently procrastination pays off.  I am going to be roasting a lot of pumpkin seeds this weekend!

I also love making chocolate chip pumpkin loaf, and butternut squash bisque.  Lately I’ve been making that soup with coconut milk and coconut oil instead of whipping cream and butter, and it is pretty fabulous. 

So those are my favourite things about fall.  What are yours? xoxo

Slow Boat to Nowhere

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The kitchen renovation was slated to begin at 11:00 this morning.  Yesterday, I frantically cleaned out all the bottom cupboards and removed things from the countertops, pausing only to wonder when I bought Gorilla Munch, as its best before date was over a year ago.  All items are now in big Rubbermaid containers and/or on my table and/or under my coffee table.  I was ready to go!  And…now it’s 11:30.  I received information that they will start this afternoon, which is fine, that makes the lunch rush much less awkward, but I feel a little lost.

In order to assuage my lost little girl feelings, I decided it was time for a field trip to the garden centre.  Stocking up on plants prior to the long weekend seemed like a good idea, although I certainly will not actually plant them yet as it is supposed to snow.  Good times, YYC.  Good times.  I had full intentions of only buying a few plants for my containers, but ended up with a cart that looked like this:

I was powerless to stop myself.  Right now they are all on the deck, just waiting to be covered up before the snow flies. 

I just credit myself for not purchasing one of the many beautiful bird houses on display.  I almost put a very lovely one in my cart, but then I remembered: my dog likes to kill birds!  Wheee!  Perhaps a bird house would be ill-advised.

Speaking of my murderous dog, I almost had an experience that would strain neighbour relations in a significant way.  These neighbours, a few doors down, have very pampered indoor cats, one of whom likes to escape a lot.  I was working downstairs and came up to fill my coffee cup for the fourth time when I noticed the cat – whose name is, and I am not making this up, Beeps – in the backyard.  Barkley was also in the backyard.  I bolted for the door, just in time as Barkley took the opportunity to pounce.  He was mere centimetres away from the not-so-bright cat, when I called and collared him.  As I shuffled him into the house, I noticed my neighbour, standing on the other side of the fence, looking completely unfazed.  “That was a bit close,” I said to her.  “Oh, no.” she smiled at me vacantly.  “They were just playing.  They’re friends!” 

Now, I am the first to admit I don’t know much about cats.  However.  I am aware of the saying “fighting like cats and dogs” and also I am aware that the cat is much, much smaller than my dog and is declawed.  If I have to bring a cat corpse over to my neighbour’s house one day, I am not going to be happy on a number of levels.  My friend suggested that should there be a cat corpse in my backyard, perhaps it should be BURIED in my backyard, in order to keep neighbourly relations.  Not a bad plan, although it makes me feel a little bit like I would be starring in a less-interesting version of Rear Window.

Perhaps I should have purchased one of these at the garden centre:

Animatronic owls! 

I just got off the phone with the plumber.  I am going to be without a working sink until FRIDAY.  Friday of the long weekend.  Anxiety is looming.  It feels like SO MUCH could go wrong.

I will take my mind off this.  Cute kid anecdote: my kids were playing Star Wars before school this morning, and the characters they were portraying were Anakin (Mark) and Luke (Jake).  Now, Anakin DID chop off Luke’s hand, but it was by accident and it was to save him because he was trapped.  Luke forgave him.  Then they went to Planet Hoth to go snowboarding!  Good times in Utopian Star Wars.

I felt I had to share this cute anecdote as I have been talking so much about my dog lately that I was starting to feel that I was portraying myself as a crazy dog lady.  Which…I might be.  Dammit.  I should have bought that owl.

The longest day of the year

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Happy Summer Solstice!  Here, that means that the sun rises at 5:20 am and sets at almost 10:00 pm, and, amazingly, the sun has come out today!  It’s going to be 22 degrees Celcius, which may not sound like much for you people in milder climes, but to us hardened Calgarians, it might as well be a heat wave.  A very welcome heat wave.  I took the opportunity to photograph various parts of my garden:

Leopard’s bane – in bloom!  Sweet peas – stunted at one inch of growth.

The hostas have enjoyed the rain; at least SOMETHING has.

Lilacs – FINALLY blooming.  I know, I know, everyone else’s lilacs were finished weeks ago. 

My front yard.  It’s north facing and, quite honestly, a bitch to grow things in.  Lots of shady plants.

You can’t tell in this picture, but not only am I wearing sandals, but I am also wearing capri-length jeans!  Summer!

“Can we go for a walk now?  Can we?  Huh?”

That is what my garden looks like on the first day of summer.  Speaking of summer, I am going to be participating in Lynn’s “Summer of Awesome”!  I’ll be writing about all sorts of fun local things to do with kids during the summer.  The summer of awesome. 



There are many fabulous things to do with the kids around Calgary.  If you’re local, feel free to give me your feedback on the places I will be writing about.  If you’re not local, maybe this will tempt you into taking a trip to Calgary.  Although, I may have already ruined it for you with my many, many posts about snow and getting hypothermia at the soccer field.  Lesson: one does not live in Calgary for the fantastic climate.  We live here for the cowboy hats!

The other day a song came on the radio that made Mark get his groove on like nobody’s business.  It reminded me so much of saying “Doing the white man’s overbite.” 

Floral Update and Rockin’ the Bump

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Did I leave you hanging?  Are you dying to find out what happened?  All weekend were you wondering: Nicole, please tell us about your clematis, PLEASE?

Well, I will tell you – the clematis is just fine.  I repeat, the clematis is just fine.



Mere hours after my last post I received a call from one of the meter movers, who was standing in the alley watching my fluffy dog barking ferociously and wagging his tail frantically.  When it was discovered that the city hadn’t phoned me about the prep work that they had to do, the foreman seemed to get very upset.  It was no problem, I said, I was home, they could do the prep work, but would they mind showing me just where they had to dig the hole?  Because I was a bit concerned about safety, with regards to the kids and the dog.  The foreman nodded, then said forcefully, “Before you say anything, let me tell you something: I am not going to hurt your flowers.  Okay?  No one is going to kill your flowers.”


Okay!  I’m not sure if my thoughts are actually that transparent or if he had just had to deal with every elderly woman on my street concerned with her petunias, but in any case I felt relief.  I did not have to resort to crying or any other questionable practices, although coincidentally it was a warm day and I was wearing a low cut tank top.  Perhaps the take-away lesson in all this is that one should always wear a low cut tank top because you never know what a day is going to bring.  It is akin to my reasoning behind my rule of always wearing makeup, because you never know who you might run into.  This rule stemmed from me running into an ex-friend who became an ex-friend when she pronounced her affection for my then-boyfriend who later became her husband.  When a person runs into someone like that, the person wants to look as good as possible, no?   

Last Friday was our school’s annual Stampede Breakfast and the weather was, oddly enough, sunny and perfect.  It made for a great day for all those dressed to kill in the Wild West:

Don’t they look thrilled to be there?  I promise you, they were.
When I look at pictures of them now, they seem like such big kids.  I can barely remember life without them, and due to all the hormonal involvement, I can barely remember my pregnancies.  However, I’m linked up with Shell today for her Rockin’ the Bump, so I’m walking down memory lane via pregnancy photographs.  Who doesn’t want to look at themselves with an extra seventy-plus pounds? 

This picture was taken New Year’s Day, and my due date was March 30, so you can just imagine how big I actually got.  I was working at the time with a lot of men, and there are good things to say to pregnant women and bad things to say to pregnant women.  Good things: You look fabulous, You are glowing, Your hair looks great.  Bad things: Oh my god, you haven’t had the baby yet?  You look like you’re going to explode, Are you sure there aren’t twins in there? (question inevitably followed by an incredible-yet-true story of a friend of a friend who thought she was having just one baby but then ended up having multiples, this despite many ultrasounds because ultrasounds can be wrong), What happened to Nicole?  Did you eat her? 
All those things were said to me, including the one in which I was accused of somehow cannibalizing myself; I’m pretty sure the guy who said that to me is still single. 
Eeep!  I’m huge!  And I have seven weeks to go in this picture.  I can’t bear to post any pictures closer to the due date because they all involve me sitting hugely on the couch with my feet elevated because I was on bedrest due to my development of pre-eclampsia.  I also had to test my own urine for protein every morning, which was pretty gross at the time, but in retrospect, no big deal.

This is one of my favourite pictures from my pregnancy with Jake.  Mark was just fourteen months in this picture, and I was five months pregnant.  There’s something about having children really close together that gives you a kind of street credit.  Wow, everyone says, you’re going to have your hands full!  You think?  I don’t even really remember the first two years of Jake’s life, so I guess I pretty much had my hands full.

This is me about three weeks before Jake was born, which was actually FIVE weeks before his due date.  Haven’t you had that baby yet? people would ask.  Around this time I put Mark in his stroller and walked to the Starbucks down our street.  It is, at most, a ten minute walk but in my waddle-y pregnant state it took me forty five minutes.  The glamour of pregnancy, when you feel like the baby might actually fall right out of your vagina if you walk too quickly. 
If you would like to play along and post some pictures, head on over to Shell’s and link up!  Or tell me here what you loved about being pregnant, what you hated about being pregnant, what kind of foods you craved or loathed….it will be fun!