Category Archives: Flower Power

Look At Me, I’m Growing

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All Is Well, I Hope

First of all, thank you so much for all your lovely comments about my mysterious, asymptomatic ailment, but a special thanks to Erin (HI ERIN) for sharing her story and reminding us that yes, we should be vigilant on following doctor’s orders when it comes to infections. I hasten to assure you that I did indeed finish my round of antibiotics and have been instructed to go for follow-up lab work, as apparently “lack of symptoms” is not a reliable indicator for being infection-free in my case.

A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall

We have had a lot of rain, and a few really crazy rainy days in the past few weeks, to the point of the declaration of a State Of Local Emergency, which is fairly alarming. Much less alarming, but still of personal concern, is Salvadore’s cleanliness, or lack thereof.

He became very muddy during the downpours. I brought him inside not once, but twice to give him a bath.

As I toweled him off, my older son looked at me with some concern. “Are you okay, Mom? I think you might be having a midlife crisis.” I am having a midlife crisis! And it is entirely manifesting in gnome-related care. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to go sing a lullaby to my gnome.

Hurry! Or Your Memories Will Be Lost Forever And It Will Be All Your Fault.

Speaking of midlife crises, the ongoing saga between me and the graduation photography company continues. I am still getting emails about my son’s graduation photos, but they have taken on a whole new ominous level: if I don’t order soon, they will be deleted and lost forever. Deleted! Lost forever! Okay, photography company. That’s a bridge too far. I am almost at the point of unsubscribing but I haven’t got the photos from the grad ceremony yet, and by the time that happens my younger son will be posing for grad photos. I’m caught in a trap, I can’t walk out.

Fly High, Free Moth

If you know me at all, you know I have a mild phobia of moths. What you don’t know is that I have been working very hard to overcome this phobia, and I have had ample opportunity to do it because at least once a day I notice a small fluttering somewhere in the house, often first thing in the morning when I’m on my yoga mat. I try to breathe through it, thinking calmly, the moth is just living its life, just like I am, it is not going to bother me, it’s fine, ommmm. Generally this works but the other day there was a tiny moth on the cupboard where the coffee mugs are kept. I calmly took out my mug, poured some coffee, repeating my mantra, when the moth leapt (leapt?) off the cupboard door and fluttered right in my face. Luckily I didn’t scald myself by dropping the coffee. I congratulated myself on not freaking out and just stepped back away from the fluttering, at which point the moth fluttered down and flew INTO THE TOASTER.

What to do, what to do. I waited for a moment, thinking that surely the moth would fly out the way it flew in but no, no, this did not happen. I thought about what would happen if I just left everything as-is. Would the moth get toasted the next time someone wanted a bagel? Would I be the person to inadvertently eat a toasted moth with toasted bread? But how to get a moth out of a toaster? I turned it upside down and shook it. I took out the crumb tray and still, no moth exited that I could see. I tapped the toaster frantically thinking that maybe the moth would fly out. I sat down and drank a cup of coffee and stared off into space for a while. Eventually I used a flashlight to peek into the toaster and I could not see a moth so I figured it either somehow escaped without me noticing or it immediately died and disintegrated. I cleaned out the crumb tray an extra time to be sure.

It’s Lilac Season, Motherfuckers

The lilac bushes are in bloom all over the city, including, of course, my yard, and it’s absolutely glorious. I love lilacs so much; when I was a kid I wished so hard that we had our own lilac bush, because my long-suffering mother would not let me pull blooms off of neighbouring bushes FOR SOME REASON (HI MOM). Instead I would have to be satisfied with just sticking my face into the blooms on my way to and from school, and I still stick my face into blooms on my walks around the neighbourhood. Barkley stops to sniff, I stop to sniff, our walks are even slower than normal. Every day I walk around the yard to check out the gardens and I spend some time smelling the lilacs.

Other exciting garden news: I have rows of tiny lettuce and carrots, and rows of larger peas; one of my zucchinis has blooms already – IT BEGINS – and on Sunday I harvested some kale and Romaine for a salad. My Siberian iris started with one bloom and then exploded, and the columbines are all budding.

The yard is pretty soggy with all the rain which is making weeding difficult, but I’m in that happy place of having Vigorous Perennials in every bed, which cuts down on the weeds significantly. Consider this your helpful gardening tip of the day: plant perennials that want to take over the world, and the weeds will not stand a chance. I feel like there’s a Life Metaphor in there somewhere.

Weekly Reading

No one asked, but I am going to tell you how I decide what book to read next: in addition to a select few books that I own and haven’t read yet, I have a “For Later” list of 233 books on my library app. Every once in a while I will migrate some books from “For Later” onto my “Hold” list, depending on their availability, trying to time things so that I don’t get 12 non-renewable books all at once, which is what happened to me earlier this month. When this happens, I read the ones that are due first, which has meant that, coincidentally, I have read a LOT of memoirs and non-fiction books lately.

Left on Tenth. I wanted to like this. I did not like this. It sounded like something I would like: two widowed people finding love again in their seventies, but there was so much medical detail about a cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment that I just felt exhausted and sad reading it. Also, the writing style was so choppy and disjointed that I found it difficult to focus. It could be that my reaction was because it was Another Cancer Memoir, in a long line of Memoirs, so perhaps take my review with a grain of salt.

Butter Honey Pig Bread. This was an interesting and beautifully-written novel about a woman who is an Ogbanje – a spirit who dies repeatedly in childhood and is reborn – and her twin daughters, who are somewhat estranged after one experiences a childhood trauma. Thanks to Allison (HI ALLISON) for the recommendation.

They Left Us Everything. OH GREAT, ANOTHER MEMOIR ABOUT DEATH, AND BONUS, THERE IS A WHOLE CHAPTER ON PUTTING DOWN THE DEAD MOTHER’S ELDERLY DOG. So clearly I was not in the greatest headspace to read this memoir of a woman going through her deceased parents’ home and possessions after their passing. To be fair, I did enjoy parts of it; there were some interesting stories and I liked thinking about the things I inherited from my own grandmas that are important to me and would not be at all important to anyone else – one example would be all the old magazines with Princess Diana that my Grandma Fern kept. Grandma and I watched the Royal Wedding live at 2am back in 1981, and it is one of my best memories. But the rest of the book I found to be sad and upsetting, particularly the stories about her childhood memories of her parents and her parents’ marriage. Those were distressing at best. Still, some thought-provoking parts about the nature of stuff and our attachment to things, and the memories they hold. The author believes that you should NOT go through your stuff before you die but leave everything for your kids to deal with, which I do not agree with. The author lived in this house for 16 months, going through what sounds like hoarder-level possessions, and who among us has the time to do that?

On that note, I will leave you with a teaser for my upcoming Nicole’s Favourite Things, coming this week. In the meantime, take care and keep growing and shining, you crazy diamonds. xo

Bits and Bobs, June-Style

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Happy June!

Here Is The Envelope, And I Am Pushing It To The Max

June 1st is typically considered Calgary’s Safe Day To Plant Out Tomatoes And Other Delicate Plants, but Danger Is My Middle Name and so I planted out mine on May 31.

I do like to live on the edge, and so does Salvadore; he has been moved into the garden, specifically, into the zucchini patch. It has been so much fun, the past two months, as he has magically moved every single night after I go to bed. I never know where he will end up; I could open up the cupboard to grab my coffee cup in the morning, and his cute little face is peeking out at me, or he might be behind the television or hiding behind the yoga frogs. Last weekend I noticed the paper towel roll unravelling on the countertop, and I went to fix it, only to find Salvadore ensconced in paper towel.

Zucchinis For Days

I started zucchini plants from seeds this year, and the thing about me is that I have a quirk wherein I get very attached to all of my plants, but particularly the ones I start from seed. I start to refer to them, and I am not joking here, people, as My Babies. “Look at My Babies!” I will say to my actual children, who know I would never refer to them as my babies. What this means is that I have a very hard time thinning plants, which is why I decided to use seed tape for my lettuce and carrots this year. Last year I thinned exactly zero carrots, and the result was a lot of extremely tiny carrots.

Wouldn’t that be nice if that’s what baby carrots actually were, rather than whittled down regular carrots? Just smaller-than-normal carrots that were never thinned in the garden because the gardener was a little bit crazy? Instead, baby carrots are just manufactured out of regular carrots, which begs the question: what happens to the whittled off part of the carrots? Does it go through a grater and end up in bagged salad mixes? Does it just get thrown out? If so, how wasteful. I guess I could look it up but honestly, I feel like I have already given this too much brain space and I should really move on with my life.

Anyway, I ended up with six very healthy looking zucchini plants. If you have ever grown zucchini, then you know how prolific they are, and if you know me, which you really should by now, you will have deduced that I planted every last one of them and I am going to have a lot of zucchinis this year. I mentioned this to my friend Hannah (HI HANNAH), and she suggested I just grow All The Zucchinis and then give away or donate the ones that I cannot use, rather than killing any of My Babies. This is a brilliant idea as there is a Little Free Food Library at the end of my street, which empties out daily.

Flower Power

For the past several years, I have ordered plants from a fundraiser, first for my own kids and then for a friend’s. Don’t get me wrong, I still go to the garden centre, but I love getting big flower planters for my front yard from the fundraiser: they are great quality, well priced, and I can just get them loaded into my car directly rather than awkwardly maneuver through the garden centre balancing six large planters on one cart, which is a recipe for disaster. This year the plants arrived the day after my son’s grad, because why not do everything on one weekend? It was well worth it; the plants are gorgeous and my front yard makes me so happy.

I usually buy one other thing from the fundraiser, just for fun, and this year I bought a ten-pack of assorted vegetables. The pack included four different types of tomatoes, a cucumber, a Romaine lettuce, two peppers, and…a zucchini.

Hurry! Only One Day Until The Next Sale

My son had his grad photos taken back in January, and I was so excited to get the proofs – both emailed and in the actual mail – shortly thereafter. In the envelope there was a coupon code for 30% off photo packages, which was perfect; I wanted a big package for the grandparents, his aunts and uncles, and to have some for our home and for Christmas cards. I immediately ordered, they arrived, I framed most of them, I was happy.

Ever since that day I have been bombarded constantly by Limited Time Offers, both over email and on little postcards that end up in my mailbox every few weeks. Hurry! Order your grad photos now! I am not sure how many photos the company wants me to have, perhaps they think I should wallpaper my house with my son’s smiling face and cap and gown, or maybe send wallet-size photos to everyone I have ever met? In any case, I can’t unsubscribe because this company took photos at the recent grad ceremony, and I have been waiting for those to arrive, and I am way too anxious to take myself off their mailing list because I want the ceremony photos.

I realize that this would never happen, a company that sends out physical mail as well as an email every other day is not going to forget about me when it comes to possibly selling me more photos in a different capacity. But what if they do? I don’t want to miss out! Also, there will almost certainly be another, probably meaningless, coupon code. If everything is always 30% off, doesn’t it indicate a lack of mental capacity on my part if I actually ordered something at full price? The discount is always there, therefore, meaningless.

Step One: Cut A Hole In The Box

The house next door has had a new crew working on the exterior for the past couple weeks; they have been putting up stucco by hand. It is a very arduous process, and very quiet; the only sounds emanating from the house are from the softly-playing radio and from occasional communication between the crew members. They have been working long days; normally they start before six, and they are still at it when I go to bed at night, which, granted, is rarely past 8:45.

The other morning I was opening up the windows to let in the fresh breezes, and I could hear their music playing. I recognized the song. It was Dick in a Box.

I was kind of startled as I don’t think I have ever heard that song unaccompanied by video, but there it was. Hey girl, I got something real important to give you.

When I was in grad school, I was friends with a Norwegian girl who told me that she perfected her English by watching musicals and noting down words she didn’t know, to look up later. She told me she learned the word “devoted,” by watching Grease, from “Hopelessly Devoted To You,” among, obviously, other words. From hearing the crew speak, I know that English is not their first language, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they subscribe to the same methodology, and if so, well. “What does Backstage at the CMAs mean?”

Weekly Reading

Such Big Dreams. This was a very enjoyable debut novel about a Bombay street-kid-turned-office-girl for a human rights law office. The author so skilfully weaves themes of caste, corruption, slum life, paternalism, and the role of NGOs and foreigners in India. It’s a fascinating POV and very unique. 

My Life In Full. I saw this woman speaking on BNN and I immediately went to put her memoir on hold. It’s fascinating! Indra Nooyi was CEO and chairperson of PepsiCo and under her leadership, the company transformed ethically, environmentally, nutritionally, and as a more family friendly workplace. This is an incredibly honest memoir that details her struggles with work-life-family balance, her work ethic that allowed her to rise through the corporate world, and her early life growing up in a multigenerational home in India. She never fails to credit her support system and her luck, but she also worked incredibly hard. It was really interesting to read so soon after Four Thousand Weeks; it was a completely different perspective. It was also really fun to read about PepsiCo’s transition from 1994 to today, all the inner workings of the company. For example, the logistics of shipping chips to different locations is incredibly complex, and if the company wants a sales boost, they introduce a new and For Limited Time Only flavour of chips, which I found fun to think about.

Tired As F*ck. I picked this up solely based on the cover, and so I didn’t realize this was a memoir; it’s really a series of essays that read like blog posts, so very quick and easy to read. This poor woman suffered years and years of physical and mental health issues, including a horrific dental problem and subsequent surgeries that made me shudder. Anyway, it’s about dealing with minor trauma and how stress can give your body a domino effect of problems. I liked it okay; I had her other book on my list but I think I’m going to pass on it for now. Why do I keep reading memoirs by very young women when I cannot relate to them at all? I don’t know.

First Darling of the Morning. This was an interesting collection of stories about Umrigar’s early life in Bombay, from her childhood in the 60s to her adolescence during the Emergency, to her activism in college and departure for America. I enjoyed this very honest and raw account.

This is my last week of classes, my kids’ last week of classes before finals, and it has been raining for the past two days, so everything is lovely and green. I hope you have had a happy start to June! xo

You Could Stuff A Throw Pillow With That Chest Hair; 113 Weeks In

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I was planning to post a Week of Spring Outfits, but this is what it looked like at the beginning of the week:

Although the week ended in a spring-like fashion, I thought the early part would overlap too much with my Week of Winter Outfits, what with my winter boots and warm sweaters. But I’m dying to talk to you about clothes and fashion for spring! Maybe next week.

You know what’s fun to do when you’re wearing your winter boots and it’s 5 degrees and snowy in May? Go to the garden centre! It sounds like I am being sarcastic, but believe me, I am not. I prefer to shop at less busy times; this sounds like a Pandemic Thing but it’s really just a Nicole Thing. I have always hated shopping at busy times; once, pre-pandemic, I went to Costco on a Sunday afternoon and my thought was this is how it ends for me, I guess.

When the sun comes out and the weather feels more May than March, it’s almost like the entire city remembers that a) it’s spring and b) gardens exist, and the garden centres are abuzz with activity. But with weather like we’ve had, well, I’m not saying I had the whole place to myself, but it was pretty easy to socially distance.

I texted my modest haul to my husband, who marvelled at my plant-buying restraint. What he didn’t know was that I have six flower planters and a ten-pack of vegetables on order from a fundraiser arriving in a couple of weeks, and what he does know but doesn’t always remember is that the majority of my gardens are filled to the brim with perennials, and so my plant needs are not so large. Also, after my garden centre trip I went to Superstore, where the gift with purchase was…a flower planter! What I’m saying is I’m pretty excited to get in the garden and get as much as I can out of our very short growing season. You can expect many, many garden updates from me over the next few months.

On a non-garden note, here’s an exciting update for you: I have finished watching Season One of The Golden Girls! At this rate I’m going to finish the series by 2026. Season Two opened up with two fantastic episodes: Blanche thinking she’s pregnant, but is instead going through menopause, and the ladies becoming mistaken for sex workers and ending up arrested. There is a guest appearance by the man referred to throughout the episode as Mr. Burt Reynolds, and I actually laughed out loud with delight when the gentleman in question appeared at the door with Sophia. Sorry, spoiler alert for a 37 year old TV show.

Anyway, it got me thinking two things: first, this might have been one of the very first mainstream television shows to discuss The Change, even if there are plot holes you could lose your house in. I mean, who thinks pregnancy at age 55? And also, in the history of the world is there one woman whose periods just naturally stopped with no other changes at all, and that was her menopause? But I cheer the effort to address something that women then, and sometimes now, seem loathe to address.

Second, heartthrobs in the 80s were very different from heartthrobs today. They were so much hairier! No chest waxing for Mr. Burt Reynolds (do guys still wax their chests? Or did that go out with the 40 Year Old Virgin?) I will tell you, people, when I saw that giant moustache, tanned skin, and brown leisure suit walk into the Golden Girls’ home, well. It was a look.

It reminded me of our 1987 family trip to California. We did all the usual things, including the most boring viewing of the Spruce Goose, which only served to make me appreciate the casino episode of The Simpsons. Anyway, one of the things we did was go to Universal Studios, and I don’t remember a single thing about it except that there were life-size cardboard cutouts of then-current heartthrobs, notably Tom Selleck, which you could get your photo taken with to trick your friends into thinking that you had your photo taken with the ACTUAL Tom Selleck. The 80s! Such a quaint time. My mom did have her photo taken with “Tom,” his arm floating a couple of inches above her shoulder. I myself had my photo taken with one “David Hasselhoff.”

It was an odd choice to be sure; I have never in my life seen an episode of Knight Rider, and certainly I wasn’t interested in David Hasselhoff at that time. My celebrity crushes in 1987 were limited to Iceman and Maverick (NEW MOVIE COMING OUT SOON OMG), Corey Hart (I was in his actual fan club), and, weirdly, Ralph Macchio from the Karate Kid Part II.

Another odd choice is my Garfield zodiac sweatshirt paired with a collared shirt but again, it was 1987 and I felt pretty hip. Also, there’s no need to ask “What’s your sign” when it’s in Garfield form on your body, for all to see.

Pandemic Reading

Before I get into the books I read this week, I am going to tell you about something I did that I never do: I took a book back to the library without reading it. A friend had highly recommended a book and I immediately put it on hold, without any other information, and when it came in I was distressed to see that it was a memoir about addiction. Addiction memoirs are right up there with sci-fi and dystopian novels for me, in the category of Things I Don’t Want To Read. Not only was this an Addiction Memoir, but it was also a Parenting With Addiction Memoir. I kept putting it off and renewing it, and finally I decided I would flip to a couple of pages to see what it was like. The very first line I read concerned putting a child to bed and then doing a line of coke, and I was like that NOPE octopus gif.

Here is what I did read this week:

Black Widow. I heard this woman on a podcast and I knew I had to read her book about being suddenly widowed at age 44.  It’s such a compelling and touching read but also extremely witty and somehow funny. 

The Great Gatsby. CONTROVERSIAL OPINION ALERT. I first read this 25 years ago and HATED it. Like, I have a visceral reaction to even the title. But my younger son is reading it for English, so I decided to reread it. I didn’t hate it. I didn’t like it but I can appreciate it as a social commentary, a time capsule, a voice of a generation, etc. Still. My son suggested I don’t like it because it’s written by a man and the main character is a man, and you know, he’s probably not wrong. I find it dull, although the ending is decent. I know, I know, I am in the massive minority here, everyone loves it and it speaks to them, but that is the great thing about literature, we can all like what we like. And I don’t like this – but I can appreciate it.

Everything Must Go. I almost quit this book before I began: the very first paragraph, THE VERY FIRST ONE, deals with putting down a much loved dog riddled with cancer. Um, that sucked. I immediately checked the book jacket to see if this was a major theme in the book – it wasn’t – and then continued reading. The dead dog was only tangentially in the story but TRIGGER WARNING for those of us with elderly, cancer-ridden dogs. Anyway. The book is about a woman dealing with her mothers dementia, written from both points of view. The author’s signature seems to be light and easy books about heavy and difficult topics, and that’s how I’d describe this. DEAD DOG THOUGH YOU GUYS. It’s fine. It’s fine. Barkley’s still here. I’m fine. Everything is fine. This book is fine.

More than fine? My new kale patch! I felt a little nervous, putting actual plants in, but kale is pretty cold tolerant so I think it will be fine. I hope you have a More Than Fine week, my friends. xo

Boyhouse Year In Review 2021

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

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

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

Boyhouse Year In Review 2021

January

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

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

February

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

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

March

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

April

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

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

May

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

June

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

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

July

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

August

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

September

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

October

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

November

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

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

December

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

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

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The “I Love My Garden” Edition

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Well, as I write this it is 7 degrees Celsius and we had a huge hailstorm this weekend that mushed flat all my garden beds and flowers. Prior to this, with the heat and the no mosquitoes, I was thinking what was wrong with me all these years, Calgary is not so bad, look at this beautiful summer, and well. Well, complaining gets us nowhere AND I have enjoyed my summer and my garden immensely, and seasons change and so do I. Calgary has many great things about it; the weather is not generally one of them.

Sometimes during the summer I wonder what I do with my time when I don’t have the garden to tend to, which is how I feel now with the weather changed and no need to water or work in the garden. What DO I do with my time? Oh yeah, I usually have a job.

Anyway, I love my garden immoderately. I have been working on the flower beds for twenty years – twenty! – and over the last two years I have delved into herb gardening. This year, as you know, I started my first vegetable garden and it has been so satisfying. I mean, it’s not like we are saving lots of money growing our own vegetables, because it was kind of expensive to build the garden beds and fill them, but it’s been so much fun.

Let’s tour around my garden, shall we?

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The “I Love My Garden” Edition

The Perennials

My entire goal with perennials is to have something blooming at all times of the year, so I mix up early and late bloomers, as well as long bloomers, and so there is always something pretty and colourful to look at.

Early spring:

June:

July:

August:

The roses bloom from July until September, as does the yarrow and ornamental sage.

My hostas and creeping Jenny are quite stunted this year, partly because of the hot, dry weather, and partly because Barkley, in his dotage, has decided to walk through them several times a day. If admonished, he stands in them, staring at me in a what are you going to do kind of way, and since there is nothing I am going to do to discipline a 13-year-old dog with cancer, I guess I’ll live with my stunted shade garden.

Speaking of Barkley, every single day when we are walking – every day! – someone will stop me to ask “what’s wrong with your dog?” and it gets very tiresome. While I appreciate the sentiment of concern, I very much dislike the conversation that follows, and I am much too polite not to answer. I prefer the days when people would stop me to tell me how cute he is or to ask about his breed. He’s still cute and I still think Labradoodles are a wonderful breed! Please don’t ask about his giant growth on his side.

The Annuals

Over the years I have used annuals to fill in the blanks in my perennial garden beds, but now there…are no blanks. I use annuals mostly in containers in our very dry and shady front yard, as well as this pretty little one in our very sunny back yard:

The Herbs

I cook every single day but apparently, I don’t use many fresh herbs. The past few years I’ve been buying an assorted ten-pack of herbs from a fundraiser, and while I’ve enjoyed the element of surprise as to which herbs I’ve received, I’m not going to do that again. I only ever use fresh cilantro, basil, and oregano, and the rest I just water and…do nothing with. Well, not nothing. I am in the process of drying all the herbs for winter use – I do use a lot of dried herbs, but I don’t tend to use recipes with dried herbs in the summer.

If you’re interested in drying herbs, I really recommend a dehydrator. Also? Basil is a bitch to dry, with the thick leaves. As an example, parsley takes about two hours to dry in a dehydrator, and basil takes…a lot longer. I have no idea how much longer because I kept checking it over the course of two days, discovering the leaves still weren’t dry, and then restarting the dehydrator, only to forget about it for hours at a time.

Last year I attempted mint extract and it was a complete failure. I am not sure if it was user error or if I had the wrong kind of mint; I have so much mint this year and nothing to do with it. I might try the extract again, but I’m not sure if I want to waste the vodka on it.

The Veggies

This is my first year of veggie gardening; the guys built and filled five garden boxes for me, and I really recommend this kind of gardening. I’m a bendy kind of girl, but having the raised beds is just wonderful. Also, Barkley pees on the side of the garden boxes, and if the beds were in the ground he would be peeing on our vegetables, which seems suboptimal.

This year we grew radishes, carrots, beets, lettuce, kale, peas, potatoes, tomatoes, and zucchini with a lot of success, although I will say that next year I will use seed tape for the smaller seeds as I am terrible at thinning things out. I also tried peppers and cucumbers, which were unsuccessful – unsurprising, perhaps, but if there was any summer they could grow it would have been this one, with the heat.

I think next year I will increase the amount of kale, decrease the carrots, and omit the radishes altogether. I thought I would enjoy growing carrots more than I do; although if I use seed tape it’s sure to be more satisfying than my tiny, unthinned carrots.

Our growing season is so short here; at best, I have another month, but realistically we could get frost any day now, and snow in September is not unusual. I’ve made the best of the growing season, and I will enjoy it for as long as it lasts! Do you garden? Tell me everything. xo

My Own Mask Mandate; Sixty-Nine Weeks In

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The mask mandate in our city was officially dropped this week; when I went to the grocery store on Wednesday I counted six maskless faces. I will say I find it strange and startling to see actual faces indoors, which goes to show how quickly people adapt to their circumstances. After all, a year ago masks were still quite new, and now I feel strangely naked without mine.

I still wore my mask in the grocery store, and will continue to do so for a while. What can I say, I like to emphasize my eyes. I went to the post office and to pick up dog food, and I was the only person masked.

Also on Wednesday, we had a massive hailstorm which was not great for my garden, but if you are hale enough to garden in Calgary, you had better plant things that can deal with hail. Do you like what I did there? My flowers were pretty squished, but they have since perked up, and the veggies all seemed to survive for the most part, the zucchini, sadly, getting most of the damage. Well, you can’t keep zucchinis down for long, and hopefully I will still be stuck with a plethora of them at the end of the season.

I might be a little hesitant with the reopening of everything, but the boys sure aren’t. They are so happy to be able to do what I would consider very modest teenage things, like going to a movie (still masked) with their friends, and going to our fitness club. I feel like in the future we will see many theses and dissertations on the effects of the pandemic on the brains, behaviours, and well-being of all different age groups, and one thing I can say for sure is that, for my kids, being essentially cloistered for sixteen months gives a greater sense of gratitude for all sorts of fairly everyday things. They have been spending many hours at the club, working out and swimming, with plans to play badminton and bowl. We even shared an order of fries! one of them said to me, so thrilled with this tiny pleasure that it made my heart swell and break at the same time.

Well. I am happy for them, despite being somewhat nervous in general. Right now our Covid numbers are as low as they’ve ever been, but will that continue through the month, particularly with Stampede this week? Talk about super-spreader events; the Stampede is always a haven for germs. Also for pregnancy, divorce, STDs, and general debauchery. Maybe it will be different this year.

San (HI SAN) linked to this really great Atlantic article about the shift in the pandemic, personal choice and how it affects public health, and if you have ten or fifteen minutes, I encourage you to read it. It’s really smart and well-written, and also touches on things I have been wondering about, namely vulnerable groups and those who work several jobs to make ends meet. It also reaffirms my own personal mask mandate, even if the general one is dropped.

Outfit of the Week

It has continued to be hot and summery here; IT’S SKORT WEATHER, PEOPLE. God, I love skorts. This is one of the first that I ever purchased, and so it probably dates to 2015 or earlier. The tank top has made an OOTW appearance before, but never on its own.

Shoes, like all my flat non-running shoes, are Skechers. I have a tiny bit of a Skecher addiction, particularly of the Mary Jane variety.

Pandemic Reading

At Home. I love Bill Bryson’s work; his dry British wit coupled with incredible facts and anecdotes are unmatched! If you, like me, have ever wondered why we have salt and pepper shakers, of all the spices in the world, or how the modern house evolved – where did chairs come from? – this is the book for you. It focuses on the massive changes in day-to-day living in the nineteenth century. Let me tell you, the grimness of life in the Victorian age will make you grateful for the modern era. Maybe don’t read the section about how the modern bathroom came to be while you are eating, because the description of the sewer system in London, pre-mid-nineteenth century – when it was completely overhauled – is pretty gross. Having read The Body, I recognized some of the anecdotes in At Home, such as the discovery that cholera epidemics were connected with contaminated water, and how women’s health was dealt with (badly, very badly). Definitely worth the read, if only to pepper your loved ones with fun facts.

Good Neighbours. I enjoyed this kind of bonkers book about a neighbourhood gone totally…bonkers. It’s an illustration of how mob mentality works and things aren’t always what they seem. There’s an underlying theme about our environment and climate change, as the book takes place in the near future. It’s a very absorbing and thrilling read.

Wintering. “When everything is broken, everything is up for grabs.” This lovely book explores the concept of winter – figuratively and literally – and how to move through it, how to cope with, as Landslide, the seasons of your life. I suspect I would have liked this book better when it was actual winter, or when we were in the depths of the pandemic, but library holds come in when they will. Summer notwithstanding, this book is a beautiful tribute to listening to and living with different seasons of our lives, particularly the difficult winters.

This made me feel like the author was talking about me, personally: “…we make and remake our stories, abandoning the ones that no longer fit and trying on new ones for size.” Also: “That’s the gift of winter. Change will happen in its wake, whether we like it or not. We come out of it wearing a different coat.” Isn’t that a beautiful sentiment? “When I started feeling the drag of winter, I began to treat myself as a favoured child: with kindness and love.” Wouldn’t it be nice if, when we started to feel down, we treated ourselves with kindness and love?

On that note, I hope your week is full of kindness and love, and that you treat yourself like a favoured child. xo

Refreshed and Rejuvenated; Sixty-Eight Weeks In

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Thank you all so much for weighing in on last week’s question! I am cautiously optimistic and hopeful, and also clinging to my mask collection.

I did take advantage of the Big Reopening in one way, and that was to visit my parents for four nights. It’s interesting; I am a person who thrives on routine and yet having a pandemic-length constant day-to-day routine has worn me down mentally. Just like everyone else, it has been a real drag to just keep trudging along, day after day, with nothing to really look forward to and no enjoyable distractions.

All of which is to say, after four nights up at the lake, with beautiful weather and even a birthday celebration for one of my nieces, I feel like an Entirely New Woman. I am so refreshed and rejuvenated! We spent so much time on the boat, swimming, paddleboarding, being outside, and drinking margaritas; it was absolutely the mini-vacation I needed. My parents have hardly seen us in the past year and a half, and it just felt So Good.

It’s back to reality this week, but I feel like I can really face reality once again! A while back, I was listening to a guided meditation, and the words Finding Magic in the Mundane came up. I have been thinking about that a lot; given that we have had sixty-eight weeks of Mundane, I think that lately it’s been hard for me to Find The Magic. My ability to Find The Magic has been fading, without me even realizing it. “Find The Magic In The Mundane!” I would say to myself, and then I would stare blankly at the pile of laundry or the dishes in the sink or the groceries to be put away.

In any case, I’m excited about a fresh new week, even the mundane parts. I have tiny little peapods in my garden, tiny little zucchinis and tomatoes, the lettuce and kale are going wild, and the daylilies and roses are all starting to bloom. Life is good. Maybe even magical.

Outfit of the Week

This week’s outfit is slightly ridiculous, but it’s not every day you see a thirty-three year-old inflatable Olympic Mascot while on your morning constitutional.

Remember Hidy?

I love my Good Vibes tank top, and those silly shorts are at least six years old, from Old Navy; I wear them only when exercising in very hot conditions. I actually wore them to swim in. It was hot enough for me to want to actually jump into the water, but I was wearing a bikini underneath and I worried I would have a wardrobe malfunction that would send my kids into therapy, so I left my shorts on.

Every once in a while, I need to remind my kids that I’m a good swimmer and I need to remind myself that it’s fun to get my hair wet.

Pandemic Reading

Animal. This was one of the darkest, most disturbing books I have ever read. It is ROUGH. I cannot say I liked it, but I found it compelling. I wanted to see how it ended and, well, it’s DARK. The book synopsis said that it follows a woman who goes from prey to predator, and that’s sort of accurate, but also not.

I hope you all have a beautiful and magical week, even if it is mundane. xo