Category Archives: Food

All Baking and No Eating Makes Nicole Go Something Something

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Happy Monday, I say from my perch on the office chair with a big coffee next to me. It’s Day…I don’t know how many days it’s been painfully cold but suffice it to say it was an indoorsy kind of weekend. Jake came down with a cold – probably because I’d JUST finished saying how lucky we’ve been and how we haven’t even had a cold in the house since late September – and so the boys did not even go to karate class on Saturday. Quiet weekend indeed. I baked some cookies in honour of Valentine’s Day.

Vday

SOME cookies. Eighty four, to be exact. Sadly, they are almost exclusively made of butter so I cannot eat them.

I also shot a couple of videos for Yummy Mummy Club:

Quinoa

The video on how to make quinoa as a breakfast cereal is right here. I’m wearing the apron my mom bought me for Christmas, from a lingerie store. The last video I shot I wore my old cupcake apron and my mom’s feelings were VERY HURT that I wasn’t featuring my lingerie apron. See Mom? I’m wearing it! I just like to switch things up a little.

Speaking of lingerie, I had a post all planned about thongs, but it will have to wait a day or two because my dear friend Kimberly from Make Mommy Go Something Something tagged me in a meme! And it’s Meme Monday so really, what could be better? NOTHING, that’s what!

1) If Jane had 3 apples and John had 78 nails, how many layers of clothing are you wearing (how is the weather in your neck of the woods?)?

Well, Kimberly, I am currently wearing jeans, a turtleneck, a huge sweater, and I’m sitting in front of a space heater because it’s OMG MY FACE HURTS cold outside. It’s the kind of cold that I always think “That’ll wake you up in the morning!” when I drop the kids off at school. Seriously. Every time. Oh, and I’m wearing my favourite thigh high thick grey socks OVER my jeans and fuzzy slippers.

socks2

I’m bringing sexy back…to the store for a refund.

2. What is keeping you sane during these long winter months?

Honestly, I’m at the point where I can’t remember what grass looks like. I’ve probably already lost my sanity. Oh! But I’ve been on a Margaret Atwood binge lately. Last night I picked up Cat’s Eye and remembered how hard it is to put down. *yawn* Which means I stayed up until 9:30 last night reading. 9:30! Clearly I HAVE lost my sanity!

3. If you were on a boat with a box of chocolate and your Mother In Law, who would you throw overboard?

What kind of chocolate? I kid, I kid. My mother-in-law has been knitting up a storm for me this winter and honestly, it’s made a huge difference in my quality of life. So far I’ve amassed six scarves and four pairs of legwarmers – plus she is currently working on an infinity scarf for me. To add to the sweetness, she sends them to me all wrapped up in ribbons with a note that says “Custom Made For Nicole”. Cute! So I’ll toss the chocolate and keep my mother in law and her knitting needles.

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4. What’s in your underwear drawer besides underwear?

I have so many of those bra inserts that come in yoga tops. I don’t like wearing the inserts, but yet I feel like I MIGHT want to some day. I like to keep my options open. So I have about forty of those inserts taking up valuable panty space…I should go throw them out RIGHT NOW. I won’t, but I should. WHAT IF I NEED THEM?

5. Do you trust yourself with sharp objects near your face? (as in, do you pluck your own eyebrows? Do you have any eyebrow horror stories?)

I do pluck my own eyebrows because if I had to wait 4-6 weeks to get waxed, it would be a nightmare. I’d look like Martin Scorcese crossed with Frida Kahlo. It would not be a good look for me. And here’s a secret…I also pluck my upper lip. I KNOW. The feminine mystique takes quite a beating as we age, doesn’t it? Now, my husband has seen me give birth – twice – and yet I will not allow him in the room if I’m plucking my upper lip because I want to keep the romance alive, people. Feeling like your wife might look like a 70s rocker or possibly Magnum PI without the help of a tweezer is probably not conducive to romantic thoughts.

6. I am terrified of dead bodies, spiders, and the dentist. What are you scared of?

Moths. Good lord I just typed “moths” and I think I had heart palpitations. Either that or I’ve had too much coffee. THIS is what happens when I stay up until 9:30 on a Sunday night!

7. Does your husband cut up the back of your legs with his long toenails when you sleep?

Um, no. No he doesn’t.

All right, it’s my turn to think of seven questions and tag seven people but you know, I like Kimberly’s questions, except for the toenail one. I’ll keep those and add the last question: are you wearing nail polish? And if so, what colour? (I have red on my toenails and pale pink on my fingernails, FYI). I tag the following wonderful bloggers:

Hannah from Hodgepodge and Strawberries

Allison from Bibliomama

Sarah from No Whey, Mama

Swistle from Swistle

Lynn from Turtlehead

Alex from I Don’t Blog

Peady from Tempered With Kindness

You don’t have to be a blogger to answer these questions – feel free to comment on any of the above. Have fun! Happy Meme Monday! xo

This Post Is Steeped

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Today I received an email from an insurance broker about a mix-up, and she very earnestly apologized for the “incontinence”, which has been making me smile all day. I’m sure her coworkers would be more in need of an apology than me, given the puddles and all.

I’ve been re-reading Alias Grace, and in the language of the 1850s, she describes sweeping under a bed and finding a ton of slut’s wool, which is apparently what they used to call dust bunnies, sluts back then being lazy housekeepers and not the whores we think of today. In my own bid to be a fabulous housewife, I moved the couch for the first time in many weeks to sweep behind it and I myself found enough slut’s wool to create my own dusty sheep, so I feel a kinship with all those nineteenth-century sluts.

When Jake started Grade One full time, I had several people ask me what will I do with all my TIME, intimating that I should consider going “back to work”. Did you know I used to have a career? One where I wore pantyhose and high heels and worked on a trade floor for twelve hours a day on average, and I used to cry in the bathroom sometimes, and once a guy flipped out so much that he banged his phone on his desk until it broke and he had to take an anger management course? Good times. Anyway, I never really considered going back to work in that capacity after I left, and it’s good that I didn’t, because then I wouldn’t be available for my current career of “school volunteer”, not to mention my role of slutty housewife.

Yesterday I was a judge at the school science fair, and let me tell you, it was the most fun I’ve ever had in a volunteer capacity. I highly recommend it. I was easily the most excited judge around, walking with my clipboard and asking VERY SERIOUS scientific questions. I loved all the students with their science-y joy and ideas. Changing the world, one science project at a time. One kid was so into his topic of waves and resonance, and so engaged and excited, that I mentioned he might want to consider taking more science once he was in junior high and high school, which subsequently made him even more engaged and excited, that I thought he might spin off the planet right then and there.

Sadly, there was not one baking soda volcano among the bunch. Not one! However, someone had built a Lego robot, and the boys assured me that it was one of the most popular tables, when their classes visited, along with a research project about venom and its uses. Venom! There’s nothing like a potentially deadly substance to get a bunch of third-and-fourth grade boys interested in scientific applications.

And hey, one week until Valentine’s Day! Apparently I will be making approximately one million heart-shaped cookies for the boys’ classes next week, in lieu of cards which they say are “lame” and “stupid”. Well, cookies are the opposite of lame and stupid! Remember that old Tim Hortons’ commercial in which the teenage son bought his mom a tea and said it was steeped, after which she thought “steeped” was the new word to say for something that was cool and used it in all sorts of situations? That’s totally me. I am that mother. Also, cookies in lieu of cards for Valentine’s Day is steeped. STEEPED I SAY.

Someone was asking the other day what men like to receive for Valentine’s Day and I blinked a couple of times. Blink. Blink. I can really only think of two things, and they are pretty obvious: sex and blowjobs. It’s perfect, you don’t need to wrap anything, you don’t need to buy anything, you don’t even need to leave the comfort of your own home. Alternately, you could make a batch of my aphrodisiac blondies. Blondes have more fun, my sweet young blonde yoga friend is always telling me, and I…don’t know if that’s true or not. But these blondies are very fun. Personally I’m hoping for a teddy bear wearing a bee costume emblazoned with “Bee Mine” but I’m not sure if I’ll get that or not. I might have to be satisfied with smooches and general romantic feelings. And maybe a bottle of wine.

Late to the party.

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I have been relentlessly cheery today, so much so that I’m even annoying myself. Maybe it’s all the green smoothies I’ve been drinking; today I made one with frozen strawberries and, while it was very tasty, it looked like sludge.

But it has a great personality!

But it has a great personality!

I think my cheerfulness is actually directly related to the unseasonably warm temperatures we have been experiencing. It’s a spring-like feeling, the sun shining and the snow melting into messy piles of brown slush that very closely approximate the “great personality but non-photogenic” smoothie I had for lunch, which is a little disturbing to think about. Spring in January! Obviously I am not taken in by this; I recognize we have a solid four months before spring is actually here, but that does not mean I am not enjoying being able to move my fingers while walking the dog.

So I’m feeling cheerful and have spent the morning happily doing things around the house, singing random cheerful songs like “Burning Love” and “Sweet City Woman” and even, strangely enough, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree”. I’m not singing these songs now, however, because the boys are home and they have a friend over. I have to keep checking to ensure that there is just one extra kid, because by the sounds of it there are about 40. What are they doing that necessitates so much enthusiastic yelling? I DO NOT KNOW. Well, it’s Friday, and in approximately ninety minutes I’m going to pour myself a big glass of wine and watch Downton Abbey. My husband and I, for the past several months, have been working our way through all six seasons of The Sopranos, which we own on DVD. Why we have all six seasons on DVD I cannot explain, but we have been doggedly watching them like it’s our duty to humanity. We swore we wouldn’t start a new series until we finished, and finally, finally last weekend we finished. I know I’m about seven years late to this party, but that was certainly an anticlimactic ending. I was expecting some sort of apocalyptic-all-ends-tied-up Breaking Bad-esque ending, but no.

In any case, I am now free, free as a bird – AND THIS BIRD YOU CANNOT CHANGE – and so I started watching Downton Abbey on Netflix. Here’s the problem: as a rule, I do not watch television during the day, unless you count the morning “news” I watch while eating breakfast. Lately I haven’t even been watching that because the local newscast has almost exclusively focused on a) FLU OUTBREAK PANIC PANIC PANIC EVERYONE GET YOUR FLU SHOTS OMG OMG WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE, followed by b) we are all out of flu shots and we don’t know why. I can conjecture why. In any case I’m sure there were other things happening in the world, however, by the time the local news decided that “other events” were worthy of coverage, I would have already turned the television off in exasperation at hearing the same flu clinics are mobbed we’re all going to die and now we’re out of vaccines, sorry, we can’t imagine why there was such sudden demand. It’s been so bad that I find myself watching the Business News Network with my husband and having earnest conversations on whether or not to hedge our currency exposure.

Sorry, I nodded off for a second there.

Anyway, back to Downton Abbey. I find myself hopelessly addicted to this show, but the problem is my husband seems to be completely uninterested for some reason. Apparently if the show doesn’t contain strip clubs, chopping off people’s heads and hands before sending them to a watery grave, murderous rampages, or a former junkie chained to an underground meth lab who is forced to produce crystal for a dead-eyed sociopath who is in love with a logistics coordinator for a manufacturing conglomerate who is illegally shipping said meth around the world, then my husband is just not interested. Even when I explained it was a British period drama about social hierarchies, he remained unmoved. And so I’m trying to watch the episodes before he comes home from work in the evenings, but that is proving to be difficult, what with preparing dinner, and cleaning up from dinner, and supervising homework. Apparently trying to voraciously wolf down episodes on the sly is not in keeping with being an involved parent.

Why not, you may say, just watch the episodes while he was home? Screw it, as it were. Well, the issue here is that my husband actually likes to TALK to me, apparently. He finds me scintillating for some reason. And trying to carry a conversation – even one about currency exposure and should we be looking at Asia? – while constantly pausing and rewinding Downton Abbey just isn’t working for me. So I think I’ll knock off a bit early today, and spend the rest of this lovely Friday afternoon conjecturing if Bates and Anna are going to get it on, servant style. What? I’m only on the first season, DON’T TELL ME.

Truly Upsetting Recipes from the Lutheran Ladies’ Family Favourites, and Puffy Pirate Shirts

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On Friday I was visiting my parents and going through old albums, feeling nostalgic for years gone by. Not all of the albums had dates written in them, but as it turns out I can predict with 95% accuracy the year based on my hairstyle and clothing in the photos. Long, straight hair with hairbands and ripped jeans with tights underneath? 1990. Gigantically teased bangs and permed hair with Benetton t-shirts and acid washed jeans? 1988. Babydoll dresses with combat boots? 1991. Super short kilts with turtleneck sweaters that probably made my dad age 100 times faster? 1992-3. High waisted jeans with puffy pirate shirts and spiral permed hair, drinking a bottle of Evian?

Pirate

1994. This photo sums up the early nineties quite nicely, I think, including the home décor.

That hair was soon to be sacrificed for the Rachel cut, as I joined practically every other female aged 16-34 in getting those layers that took forever to grow out.

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Speaking of hair, this morning I was having a startlingly good hair day. It was amazing, voluminous but not too voluminous, wavy but not too wavy, grey roots noticeable but not too noticeable. Sadly, the wind is gusting 65 kilometres an hour, and three minutes before I had to leave the house the snow started. And not regular January snow, either, but the super wet, heavy snow that is more typical for spring than winter. Sadly. Wet, heavy snow plus gusting wind equals a demolished good hair day. Since I am nothing if not spunky and tenacious, I did manage to salvage something out of my initial “one hour of fabulous hair”, enough to take a picture:

selfie

A number of people have sent me the link to Buzzfeed’s “Truly Upsetting Vintage Recipes” and honestly, a startling amount of them reminded me of church potlucks of my youth. In fact, I have a cookbook given to me by my mother, many years ago, entitled “Canadian Lutheran Ladies’ Family Favourites Cookbook” and it features an entire section of “Meat and Macaroni Salads”. Don’t get me wrong, the baked goods in this cookbook are amazing – no one makes muffins and “squares” like the Lutheran Ladies, but the “Salads” sections are sadly lacking in yumminess. Of course, this book was published in 1983 and things were different back then. I don’t know about you, but the salads of my childhood were iceberg lettuce-based, with a few radishes and cauliflower pieces thrown in, topped with Thousand Island dressing. That’s what salads WERE back then, people, at least in my part of the world. We didn’t have fancy herbs and lettuces and avocados and vinaigrettes; vinaigrettes were white vinegar with some vegetable oil, lettuce was iceberg, and no one knew what cilantro was. We all survived, and now we’re all completely spoiled with our year-round produce availability based on the 10,000 Mile Diet. Nowadays I get all uppity if the grocery store kale isn’t crisp enough, or if there’s no fresh basil in the produce section. COMPLETELY SPOILED.

But just to show that I haven’t forgotten my roots, I will share with you a couple of recipes from the Lutheran Ladies.

Truly Upsetting Recipes From The Lutheran Ladies’ Family Favourites

1) Vera’s Weiner Pie. Besides the impressive name, this recipe involves potatoes, onion, celery, carrots, and turnips in a creamy sauce, along with a “package of wieners” and a “pie crust”. Vera, is the pie crust homemade or frozen? We will never know. How did Vera come up with “wieners” in a “cream sauce”? WE WILL NEVER KNOW.

2) African Chow Mein. I’m just going to let that title sink in for a moment. This recipe utilizes the flavour combination of hamburger, celery, and onion, together with rice, soy sauce, canned mushroom soup, and – oddly – molasses. What makes it African? What makes it chow mein, for that matter?

3) Beet and Cream Molded Salad. Molded salads were the backbone of the church potluck, were they not? Fortunately I have never actually seen the beet and cream one, which involves canned beets, orange jello, and sour cream.

4) Watergate Salad. Again, the title is the most impressive thing about this salad, which really just sounds like something that would have made me cry a little at the church picnic. I mean, it’s no African Chow Mein, but still I wonder – what makes this worthy of the Watergate title? It’s crushed pineapple, pistachio pudding mix, non-dairy whipped topping, miniature marshmallows, and nuts. Not my cup of tea, but it just doesn’t seem scandalous enough for the name.

5) Vegetable and Pineapple Souffle. This odd recipe mixes lime jello with mayonnaise and vinegar, then adds crushed pineapple, cucumber, celery, and ONION. I’m really confused about the flavour combination.

6) Jellied Chicken Salad. Have you ever looked at a packet of Lipton’s Chicken Noodle Soup and thought, I wonder what this would be like in jellied form? Well, here’s the recipe for you – also includes cooked chicken, celery, onion, apple, and lemon jello.

7) Summer Salad. I think you could probably make this any time of the year; the ingredients are always available these days. One can of tomato soup, 1 package of lemon jello, cottage cheese, mayonnaise, celery, green pepper, onion, cheddar, and chopped chicken. You could use shrimp OR salmon instead of chicken, to shake things up a little.

8) Liver Casserole. Entire recipe reads as follows: “Sear liver. Place in layers as follows: Liver. Onion. 2 apples. Place bacon slices on top. Cover and cook 1/2 hour at 350 degrees. Uncover and cook 1/2 hour more.” Ah, simplicity.

9) Hungarian Style Baby Beef Liver. I was going to write the recipe for this one but I got as far as “skin liver” and I don’t know what that means and my mind is racing. I guess what makes this recipe Hungarian is the paprika involved.

10) Jellied Egg Salad. Lemon jello is very popular in this book. This recipe involves lemon jello, mayonnaise, cottage cheese, and sliced hardboiled eggs. I need offer no further comment.

Green Smoothies are the Cocaine of the Smoothie World

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I know I’m in the vast, vast minority here, but I actually really like January. Everything feels fresh and new and invigorating. I was always that kid in school who loved to get new school supplies, but especially new journals; I loved the feeling of the smooth untouched pages with all the potential in the world. In January, I feel like anything can happen. So today, as the kids went back to school, I felt like I could smooth open the new hypothetical journal and write 2014 in bold letters.

Maybe I’m just high on green smoothies. I’ve been on a bit of a green smoothie binge since the New Year and I swear, those babies are the cocaine of the smoothie world. I’ve been having one every day at lunchtime for the past week, and it seems to perk up my day with high energy, and also the kind of smug good feelings that one can only get from drinking four cups worth of liquified spinach. So far today I’m crossing items off my to-do list like nobody’s business, rubbing the smoothie on my gums and talking really fast and occasionally grooving out to hits from the mid-nineties like I Like To Move It, Move It.

Speaking of food, I realized something over the weekend and that is that religious extremism is very similar to dietary extremism. Imagine, if you will, someone who practices a different religion than you do. No big deal, right? You may know that person’s religious leanings, but likely it doesn’t affect the way you feel about that person. Now imagine that person constantly talks about their religion with zeal, spreading lots of good news and glad tidings. Maybe it’s interesting, and maybe you appreciate that person’s efforts, but maybe you also want to spend a little less time with that person. What if that person starts to try to coerce you into their religion? What if that person starts to predict doom and darkness and terrible suffering that will overcome you if you don’t convert to their religion? What if that person believes that once you know the truth, you will embrace their religion with the same zeal, and if you don’t, well, that’s because you have not sufficiently evolved enough to do so? How much would you enjoy spending time with that person?

And so it is with dietary extremism. Especially at this time of the year, love it though I do, the dietary extremists come out of the woodwork with siren songs coaxing you to come over to the dark side. Frankly, I find it distasteful, but I also find it amusing to think of extreme Paleo people in the same room as extreme Vegan people, or Low-Carb people with Low-Fat people, maybe all of them attending a potluck function. Chaos and calamity would ensue! It would surely be interesting – maybe therein lie the makings of a reality television show – because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that “dietary extremism” and “sense of humour” seem to be mutually exclusive. Here’s the thing: I follow a vegan diet, but not strictly so – the occasional dairy product or egg finds its way in, and my neighbour the urban beekeeper supplies me with honey that was helped along by my flower gardens. I also cook all sorts of non-vegan things for my family, although I do try to ensure that these things come from healthy, non-factory-farmed sources. I would rather use butter than margarine, vegan though the margarine may be. I prefer whole, unprocessed foods when possible but I also reach for the breakfast cereal every day. We are so fortunate to have a choice, you know? So many people don’t, due to time constraints or financial situations or inaccessibility to good food sources.

It’s a good thing to remember at this time of year, when we’re smoothing out the first few pages on our new day-timers, thinking about what 2014 will bring. I think that we can all resolve to just do our best, whatever our best may be, and keep the thought that everyone else is also doing their best, whatever that best may be. It’s a nice perspective.

Bringing Sexy (or Blogs) Back, Festivus Style

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So far, Christmas vacation has been epic. EPIC. On Friday, after coming home from yoga in minus-JC-it’s-cold temperatures, I declared a lazy day and decided that we would not be leaving the house. Instead, I cracked the big bottle of Bailey’s and glugged it into my coffee. Thus armed, I watched The Price is Right with the boys, and it was Firefighter Day. I repeat, Firefighter Day. Just when I thought things couldn’t possibly get any better than that, I remembered I had two avocados in the kitchen and then made myself a double batch of guacamole for lunch. The boys had pancakes, and – other than my Santa tummy from three coffee and Bailey’s and two avocados’ worth of guacamole – it was pretty much the best day ever. Today I plan on making a giant bowl of popcorn and watching Elf with the boys. “Things busy for you?” Dr. Hipster asked this morning. “No,” I replied, “I’m embracing sloth.”

Today is Festivus, for all you Seinfeld fans, and so in addition to being slothful I am also going to air my grievances. It’s been said, lately, that blogging – story telling, personal blogging – is dead. Dead! While I recognize the surge in popularity of review and giveaway blogs, I am not writing this from beyond the grave. Let’s take back the blog, people.

While writing last week’s book post, my friend Allison and I were talking about how fun it was to do memes, old school memes, and it is my personal resolution to bring back the meme. Bringing sexy back, in meme form. Since it’s two days until Christmas and I’m a sloth, I bring you…

Meme Monday: Festivus Television Version

1) What is your favourite Christmas television special and why?

The original How The Grinch Stole Christmas. No contest. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more. Exactly.

2) What is your least favourite Christmas special and why?

Ugh, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer has always held least-loved spot in my festive television viewing world. Poor Rudolph – the story is terrible, and the creepy clay-mation…I’ve never made it through an entire viewing. I’d rather watch the news when they report on December 21 that “Malls Expected To Be Busy Today” followed up by “Airport Also Expected To Be Busy.”

3) What is the Christmas movie you cannot live without?

Elf and Christmas Vacation, of course. These are viewed annually, along with Little Women and When Harry Met Sally. As a side note, I’ve reached the point in my marriage where my husband will no longer watch these movies with me. The boys will watch Elf, but other than that I’m on my own. Apparently my husband has “bought the cow” and he no longer needs to romance me by watching me recite all the dialogue to When Harry Met Sally. If anyone needs me I’ll be on the couch with my DVD’s and some guacamole.

4) Name a Christmas special from your childhood that is so obscure you’re not even sure it exists.

Does anyone else remember The Little One, or is it something I have made up in my jasmine of my mind? It was a show about a donkey who was no longer good at…doing donkey things? I don’t know. He was heading for the slaughter house, I guess, but SOMEONE bought him because he was perfect for a job. That job was carrying Mary to Bethlehem. I feel FAIRLY certain I watched this at Sunday School. Has anyone else even heard of this or did I just make it up?

5) Name a “very special” Christmas episode of your favourite childhood television series.

This is hard, because I remember so few things from my childhood – except for those I may have made up, i.e., the donkey movie. Also I didn’t watch much television as a child other than The Muppet Show and Lorne Greene’s New Wilderness. However, I do remember watching Silver Spoons – remember that show? – and there was a Christmas special about a family living in a CAVE because they had no money. Did this show really happen or did I dream it? I DON’T KNOW EITHER.

So it’s your turn! Christmas memories, TV style. Bring back the blog, people, and sexy too, while you’re at it. Or just Festivus-ly air your grievances.

Merry Christmas to all of you, dear readers. xoxoxo

I’ve never been in a drunken stupor, but…

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Here it is, Wednesday of time change week and not one complaint has passed my lips. Not one! My husband, in years past, has generally adopted the traditionally masculine attitude that my vehement feelings against the observation of Daylight Savings Time and the subsequent semi-annual fuck up amounts to Nicole Making A Big Deal Out Of Something Very Minor And Unimportant. Yesterday, however, he admitted he was feeling quite tired and out of sorts and maybe it was due to time change. At this admission, I feel vindicated.
 
My children have been just fine; I guess they’ve reached the age where an hour here or there is No Big Deal At All. However, I stand in solidarity with all you mothers out there who are dealing with hot crying messes every evening and wide awake little people at ungodly hours of the morning. I shall not rest until the country has caught up with Saskatchewan, which is miles and miles ahead of the rest of us for their refusal to adopt Daylight Savings Time and its abhorrent spring forward/ fall back rituals. Also, please feel free to give a verbal dressing down to the next person who says that DST is “for the farmers”. Bitch, please. Do you have any idea what time farmers get up in the morning? The actual clock has nothing to do with it, so shut up, goddammit. If I was that kind of person I’d allude to a conspiracy theory cooked up by people who want to keep mothers down by totally fucking up their children twice a year. But I’m not. Still: DOWN WITH TIME CHANGE.
 
Speaking of fucked up, how about that mayor of Toronto? Wowza, is that embarrassing. I mean, we’ve all done silly things under the influence of alcohol or excessive Girl Guide cookie consumption, but smoking crack? In a drunken stupor? Listen, we all know how I love my red wine, and my cosmopolitans, and my margaritas, but I don’t think I’ve ever been in a drunken stupor in my life. I don’t like hangovers and I don’t like falling over. The closest I’ve come to that, lately, is becoming extraordinarily drunk at the Banff Springs Hotel with my husband and two people we met at the bar while listening to a blues guitarist. The couple was from Boston, and so they and my husband immediately bonded over the Patriots. 
 
So no drunken stupors for me, but I’ve done plenty of silly things after consuming one too many glasses of wine/ cosmopolitans/ margaritas.
 
1) I completed this Cosmo quiz and realized that the answer is “yes”.
 
 
 
 
2) At Blissdom Canada, I lay down on the hotel hallway and put both legs behind my head to show Allison and Hannah that I totally could. I blame Allison for being such a doll and bringing the peach daquiri mix and rum.

 
3) I bought hot pink yoga pants online.
 
 

4) I once danced the macarena in a Mexican bar wearing Daisy Duke shorts, high heeled sandals, and a crop top.

5) One Friday night when my husband was golfing, I live-tweeted my viewing of Top Gun. “Permission to fire, sir!” “Never fire unless fired upon.” GREAT advice.

 
6) I have, on numerous occasions, accidentally flashed my cleavage.
 

7) I was not drunk while making this gingerbread house! But the result was so depressing I had to comfort myself with a bottle of wine.

 
8) I was also not drunk in this photo! But I was fairly high on painkillers following varicose vein surgery. I was also super excited to eat the pretty fruit kabobs my friends had sent over.
 
9) I illegally brought drinks in glass containers down to the pool in Maui – in the dark! – and forced my dear, sweet friend Joanne to do the same. Everyone give some love to Joanne – she was my accomplice in illegal activities. And yet I look so INNOCENT.
 
 
 
10) I got pregnant! Hey, it was Stampede week. And then six to eight months later, I walked around looking like this: