Category Archives: Food

PSA: Don’t be a dick.

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Do you remember back in the day when you were trying to get pregnant, and it wasn’t happening very quickly, and everyone you knew was getting pregnant, and you were sad and frustrated and felt like stabbing every single person who asked “So when are you going to have a baby?” or who carefully examined what you were drinking to see if it contained alcohol or who had some unsolicited advice about getting pregnant or who said things like “You’re not pregnant yet?  Can’t wait forever!  Tick tock tick tock!”?  Remember that?  I know it wasn’t just me. 
I was reminded of this the other day and here is my public service announcement of the day: It’s really fucking insensitive to ask a woman of childbearing age about their fertility.  So don’t ask.  Related PSA: Don’t be a dick.  Actually, that should be a lifelong public service announcement. 
Segueing from PSA’s to PDA’s, yesterday I went to pick the boys up from lunch and a friend quickly walked over to me in the playground, asking if I noticed the teenagers on the hill behind the school.  There, lying on top of each other on the frozen ground, were two teenagers passionately making out and, um, grinding.  Soon the two of us were joined by three other mothers picking up their kids; the five of us staring at the oblivious couple.  Aw!  Young love.  It reminded me of that day last summer when a young couple started making out passionately in front of my house, groping each other eagerly.  The guy made it to second base.  Sometimes it just can’t wait, I guess.  
Following the advice of several people, I decided to check out Staples in my seemingly endless quest for Christmas printer paper.  I should note that this is NOT a sponsored post, but maybe it should be because even though prior to Monday I had never set foot in Staples and now I am a little bit in love with it.  This is what I saw as I entered the parking lot.
Do you think it is NOW available due to my whining?  Probably NOT but I will take the credit anyway.  I walked into Staples and – as usually happens when I’m in a new and large store – I felt completely overwhelmed.  I stood for nearly five minutes looking around, wandering into one of the aisles, having no idea where to look or what to do.  It’s almost like I’m practicing to be a senior citizen.  What’s that?  Where is the paper?  The pretty paper?  No, not THAT paper.  The only thing worse would be going into Future Shop or something like that.  Five minutes in Future Shop makes me want to huddle in a corner in the fetal position, crying and rocking back and forth.  Finally, a super friendly guy with the biggest smile ever asked if I needed assistance.  How could he tell?  He directed me to a display that was almost right in front of me. 
Squee!  Not only was there a large selection, but there were also pretty little seals in the shapes of snowflakes and seasonal address labels!  I finished my shopping on the weekend, but I could not resist what was in front of me: 
Angry Bird stuffies!  Thanks to my husband and his new iPad, the boys (and my husband himself) are now into Angry Birds.  The three of them played it together for much of the weekend while I re-read Sense and Sensibility.  It is exactly like what I thought life would be like when I had two boys.  The three of them play a video game, I do something girly.  Maybe on the upcoming weekend they will play it and I can give myself a pedicure or something.  Anyway, I thought these would make cute stocking stuffers.  Then I saw the cutest little snowman Pez dispensers with a really excessive amount of Pez refills:
They needed a home too.  Clearly the boys’ stockings are going to be VERY WELL STUFFED.  Then – then, OMG – I saw something that I am hoarding just for me:
Peppermint Lindor!  These are really, really hard to find, in my part of the world anyway.  They are EVEN BETTER than After Eights.  They are even better than frozen York patties.  They are even better than Swistle’s Died-And-Gone-To-Heaven-Mint-Chocolate-Brownies.  They are the G-spot-orgasm-plus-he-gave-me-a foot-massage-and-unloaded-the-dishwasher of mint chocolate.  I bought the above three boxes but I would have bought the whole damn display if I knew where the carts were kept.  However, as it was I had items slipping out of my arms every time I took a step, so I limited it to three.  I don’t care what Kate Moss says, peppermint Lindor taste WAY better than skinny feels.

LIVE IN THE NOW, Oil of Oregano, Lots of Links

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I have a little something something up at the Yummy Mummy Club – and I would be so happy if you popped over there to read it.  If you were so inclined to leave a comment, I would be VERY happy.  xo

I wrote all about living in the moment and enjoying the present, which I think is a very important thing to do.  I also think of – get ready for a dated reference here, people – Wayne’s World.  Remember the scene when Wayne visits a guitar store and looks longingly and lustily at a very expensive guitar (“Excalibur”) and Garth freaks out: “Stop torturing yourself, man.  You’ll never afford it.  LIVE IN THE NOW!”

I also have a lovely recipe for gingersnaps up at my cooking blog. These are my husband’s favourites, and I baked a batch last week, despite the fact that I normally only bake these around Christmastime.  Yesterday, he went out to run errands and came home with an iPhone!  For me!  I highly recommend you bake these cookies.  You never know what could happen.  They are magic!

How was your weekend?  I had an amazingly productive one: hair was cut and coloured, Christmas shopping was nearly completed, much writing was done, photos were chosen for the annual calendar given to the grandparents, dinner with my girlfriends was consumed, Christmas lights were hung, a jack and impact gun were purchased and the snow tires put on the minivan.  Full disclosure: the Christmas lights and tire change were NOT done by me, obviously, but they are DONE.  Then, Sunday morning I woke up with a sore throat, headache, and general fatigue and lethargy that did not bode well for the busy week I have coming up – a week of running the school book fair. 

I jumped into action.  I took oil of oregano several times, which was extremely unpleasant and probably ranks in the top five worst tastes ever.  I drank Vitamin C drinks, I ate two giant slices of chocolate zucchini bread (file under “Feed a Cold”), I swallowed a few spoonfuls of honey, I took Tylenol Cold Nighttime Relief and went to bed at 8:45.  I woke up eleven hours later feeling, if not 100%, much, much better.  I feel like patenting this combination for my very own “nip it in the bud” prescription.  I have a feeling that the eleven hours of sleep probably counted for more than the other home remedy/ over the counter/ homeopathic antidotes, but I hope that the oil of oregano did something.  I would hate to think I took that horrible stuff to no purpose. 

And now I am off to set up the book fair.  I wonder if there will be much Justin Bieber paraphernalia, or will his possible thirty-seconds-of-action-leading-to-a-lifetime-of-paternity-allegedly indicate the demise of those “Future Mrs. Bieber” stickers?

It was a graveyard smash!

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It snowed today!  The little dusting is, I believe, positively correlated with the comment I made yesterday regarding the unbelievable fact that we had made it through September AND October with no snow.  But, dear readers, we had NOT made it through October, and so now we have snow.  It’s not much though and it is mostly melted, but I feel silly for having mentioned it. 

I also feel a bit silly for having thought – although not spoken aloud – that we have eluded illness quite successfully so far this school year.  Mark now has a very, very minor version of the sniffles which has the unfortunate yet usual side effect of THE COUGH.  This means that he is waking up to cough in the night, which gives me post-traumatic flashbacks to his bout with pneumonia and the subsequent months of nighttime coughing.  I gave him a shot of his steriod inhaler this morning and he responded by saying “Wow, my chest feels all crazy!” which led me down a spiral of worry.  But he seems fine.

He really was just fine until the morning after the Halloween Family Dance, which is, quite honestly, the highlight of his calendar year, right after Christmas.  And it was a fabulous time for all of us, although I’m happy that it’s all done.  I cleared my calendar last Thursday specifically to make these:

Ninety sugar cookies!  They are almost completely devoid of nutritional value, yet are a consistent crowd pleaser.  I was taking three dozen of them for the bake sale/ concession at the dance and was pleased to see that they sold out fairly quickly. 

Nothing sells like a choice of spooky shapes and lots of sprinkles.

The dance itself was so much fun, augmented by a flash mob performance from a local studio – teenage girls dressed as zombies, dancing to Thriller.  My kids were dressed in their finest spooky wear:

A vampire and Spider Monkey from Ben 10!  My husband and I are in the background, and we are also dressed up, although my neighbour did not realize it.  I walked over to the school early to help set up, and as I left the house with my makeup gun set to “whore” I fervently hoped I would not run into anyone I knew.  No sooner than I had thought that, my neighbour got out of his truck and started talking to me in a casual, awkward, elephant-in-the-room way.  I mentioned I was on my way to set up for the school Halloween Dance, and he said “Oh!  Halloween!  I thought you were just going out with some girlfriends!”  That was a little disheartening.

For the record, I do not look like this when I go out with my girlfriends.

Near the end of the dance, the DJ was inspired to play a number of “oldies” for the parents’ listening pleasure.  I was a little wary – after all, this was only days after the soul train – but the very last song was Don’t Stop Believing by Journey, which is pretty awesome, if you ask me.  I was belting out Hold on to that FEEEELLLLININNNNGGG for the next couple of days.

There was even – hold on to your hats! – much Grade Six Girl Drama, complete with mediation (“She’s upset because you said you didn’t want to dance?  But then she saw you dancing with Sophie?”) and crying in the bathroom.  A few years ago my niece was at a school dance and my sister-in-law asked her how many girls were crying in the bathroom and my niece was completely flabbergasted.  How did you know girls were crying in the bathroom?  Because girls have always and will always be crying in the bathroom at dances until the end of time.

There is something very comforting in that.  When my children are chaperoning their own children’s dances, and Party Rockers in the House Tonight is the golden oldie played for the parents, girls will still be huddled in a group in the bathroom, surrounding and comforting one of their sobbing compatriots.

So THIS is why people love the fall.

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Happy Thanksgiving, my Canadian friends!  I hope you had a lovely long weekend.  I spent the long weekend at my in-laws’.

Pause.

I’m all about positivity, and so I will leave it at that and simply post this picture of me eating grapes.

I seem to have my mouth full in that picture, either that or I’m not willing to show my purple stained teeth that possibly have Concord skins stuck in them.

An airport is the single greatest place to people watch, I think.  We flew, rather than drove, this weekend and I amused myself by watching the world go by.  I also like to examine local fashions when I’m in a different place; I like to feel like I’m some kind of fashion anthropologist.  While I was admiring other people’s tall boots and sweaters, I noticed a woman wearing the shortest dress I had ever seen.  When she turned around I saw that it was evidently homemade from a light cotton imprinted with kittens.  Then I saw a woman who looked extremely stylish from behind, with a lovely fall jacket and long scarf.  When she turned around, her lovely jacket was unbuttoned to show a gigantic, overstuffed fanny pack.  I speak on behalf of purses everywhere when I beseech us all to ban the fanny pack. 

I woke up so exhausted this morning that I actually went back to bed rather than heading for the yoga studio; that’s something that almost never happens and so I’ve been feeling off kilter all day.  I can’t figure out my exhaustion; I’ve certainly had a lot of sleep in the past couple of days.  Either I’m fighting some sort of virus or I’m just completely burnt out from attempting to keep a pleasant demeanor in the face of passive aggressive criticisms.  I tried to regain my normal energy by taking on a number of tasks today – sorting and labelling photos, baking banana bread, cleaning the house, making salsa and kale chips.  While I had the kale happily dehydrating in the oven, I decided to rally the boys and rake the leaves.  With raking comes jumping in the leaves:

Why yes, Mark is wearing his swimming goggles in order to “swim” through the leaves, why do you ask?

We also did some ladybug rescuing:

 It’s on his hand, can you see it?

How about now?

While I’m at it, here’s some pictures of our scarecrows with our STILL BLOOMING flowers.  This has been the mildest fall I can remember.  This must be what people mean when they say they love fall.  Normally I think of fall as one week of howling winds tearing all the leaves off the trees before winter sets in, but this year has been so beautiful. 

My scarecrow is the girl.  Her name is Rosie.  My husband’s scarecrow is named Dummy Jimmy Too Tall.  I think Mark named him.

The boys’ scarecrows are named Idiot and TV.

Usually the leaves on the Mayday tree turn brown from frost and then fall off rapidly, but this year has been so mild that they are actually changing colour. 

And that, I think, is enough to be thankful for. 

Dental Scaling or Pelvic Exam? Survey says…

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Last week I was at the dentist for a checkup and for scaling.  The word “scaling” gives me the chills.  I conducted a brief and informal survey among girlfriends, regarding which they would rather have: dental scaling or a pelvic exam.  The results were approximately 75/25 in favour of pelvic exams.  Of course, this isn’t a scientifically accurate survey.  The sample size was small and not representative of the total population, but I strongly agreed with the majority here.  I would much, much rather endure the awkwardness of the bright lights and scootching my bottom down a little, and even the weird retractor thing, than have my teeth scaled. 

People have a tendency to quote statistics, with absolute certainty, in order to prove a point.  I could say, forcefully, that 75% of women prefer pelvic exams to dental scaling, but I would be incorrect.  A survey of less than twenty of my girlfriends does not constitute an unbiased, random sampling, and the sample size is much less than what is considered statistically significant.  This is one of my all-time pet peeves: the quoting of inaccurate statistics.  Wow, I’m really a nerd.  It’s like I’m one step away from pulling out my mechanical pencil and pocket calculator in order to do my own calculations.  Show me the data behind your statistics.

Where was I?  Oh yes, the dentist.  I dread it every time.  My mouth resembles a crime scene afterwards, and while I realize that flossing more regularly would help matters, I still believe strongly that putting a sharp metal object forcefully against soft tissue is going to result in bleeding no matter what.  My real issue is that I’m a people pleaser when it comes to my hygienist, and I end up being less than truthful when it comes to my flossing habits.  There is a scene that I relate to in my friend Michal’s short film Arithmetic, where Annie is reclined in the dentist chair, blood spattered all over her paper bib, and the caption is something along the lines of “There are two people Annie lies to: the dentist and her mother.”  I’m like that.  Not that I lie to my mother.  (Hi Mom, if you’re reading this!).  Hey, did I mention I was an extra in that film?  I did?  Oh.

By the way, I KNOW I have to floss more, but knowing is not the same thing as doing, as anyone can tell you who has found themselves with a mysteriously empty bag of potato chips, a bloated stomach, and crumbs all over their shirt.

I also had to take the dog to the vet for a checkup and vaccinations.  Canine vaccinations are the only type of vaccinations I will ever mention on this blog.  Have you ever noticed that there is very little debate over getting your dog vaccinated?  Or maybe there is debate and I just haven’t noticed.  (Note: I don’t want to know.)  Anyway, I took the dog to the vet and – some of you may remember his weight struggles (he’s fat) – he lost weight!  He lost five pounds which is almost ten percent of his body weight!  I was so happy, and I expected great praise and accolades, which did not materialize.  Yes, the vet said, it’s good that he’s lost weight but he should really loose a couple more pounds.  I was completely crestfallen.  Where are my accolades?  The vet, furthermore, informed me that Barkley needs to have MORE dental chews (apparently he and I have plaque in common) but that I should deduct the number of calories from his dental chews from his total daily caloric intake.

I agreed with the vet, but internally I thought no fucking way.  There is no way I am going to start doing a calorie count for my fucking dog.  “It’s easy!” the vet said, giving Barkley a small treat, “These are ten calories each.  Just deduct that from his food.”  I spend enough time calculating my own calories, I do not need to worry about my dog’s intake.  The thought of dividing my dog’s food into little ten calorie portions in order to deduct that amount from his food total makes my head spin and, quite frankly, makes me fear for society.  Is this where we are going, people?  Are we going to expand our obsession with weight loss to include our furry friends?  Because I do not want to go there.  

Charity Birthday Parties, or the post where I have strong opinions about birthdays

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I frequently look at my house and feel like I’m drowning in stuff.  I’m not even talking about Mark’s extensive “rock collection” (“Maybe we should get him a rock polisher for Christmas!” my husband suggested cheerfully, to my horror – how many MORE rocks would we then have in the house?).  I’m not talking about the fact that my fridge is threatening to implode from the sheer volume of artwork that is either festooning it via magnets or piled in a scary high stack on top of it.  Those are things I can handle (although not the idea of a rock polisher, heaven forfend). 

We’re in an awkward stage, toy wise.  The problem I’m facing right now is that my children still build complicated tracks with their wooden Thomas toys, they use both the junior Duplo Lego AND the teeny tiny big kid Lego, they play with dinosaurs AND stuffed animals, they stage car races with dozens and dozens of little Hot Wheels, they play with board games and superhero action figures.  In other words, there is nothing in the house that I can in good conscience donate or otherwise get rid of.  We are literally drowning in the volume of toys that we have and I have not been able to donate anything that was unused since I boxed up all the Little People sets and Mega Blocks. 

So when we were planning Jake’s birthday party, there was no question: no gifts.  We did this last year as well; on the invitations I specified that in lieu of gifts, each guest was asked to bring a food bank donation.  One of the things I most dislike about other children’s parties are buying gifts for them – I never know what to get, I never know if they have something or not, and I generally feel overwhelmed and confused while trolling the aisles of the toy store.  Food donations – easy.  And let me tell you, people stepped up!

Having a charity birthday party is a very good way to introduce children to the concept of giving and what I consider to be the responsibility of people who are more fortunate than others.  My children are, I think, extremely fortunate and lucky children; they receive many gifts from aunts and uncles, grandparents, and us.  There were fifteen children at Jake’s party; he would not need, and should not have, fifteen little gifts. 

In order to have a successful charity party, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.  First, make sure your child is in agreement – have a discussion about charities and giving and be sure to reiterate that they ARE going to get gifts from family members, just not from their little friends.  We can only expect so much.  Second, make sure the party is going to be a lot of fun – the focus of a birthday party, or any party, should really be the good time we are all having, rather than gifts.  We held the party at the Calgary Gymnastics Centre, and it was fabulous.  The kids all had a blast, there was no downtime, and there was only thirty minutes of “party room” time which is where I find parties to really drag. 

Third, make sure you have good food.  Since our party was from 3-5 pm, I did not want to have a huge snack for the kids right before the dinner hour, so I just served cupcakes.  We had a guest with Celiac disease, and so I branched out and made both regular and gluten free cupcakes, and they were equally – but differently – delicious.
Can you tell which are gluten free?  (Hint: the short ones).

The last thing to remember about having a successful charity party is do not forget the loot bags.  I know.  I know.  Loot bags are a scourge on society, but really, you CAN have loot bags and not lose your essence of yourself if you choose carefully.  I gave each child a little egg of Silly Putty – my kids once received those from a dinner guest of mine and they played with it for months after, so hooray for longevity and non-breakable-ness – an eraser shaped like a crayon, and a ton of candy.  Fortunately Halloween candy has been in the stores for over a month now, so I bought several large bags of rockets, bubble gum, and candy necklaces.  I gauged the party’s success from the sheer joy that volume of candy brought to the guests.  Our little gluten-free guest was particularly overjoyed as she opened her bag.  “ROCKETS?  Nicole, I’m ALLOWED to have Rockets!” she shrieked.

Success!  At the end of the day, we had a giant box of food donations AND a group of happy, exhausted, and sugar-high children.  What could be better?

Save the drama for your mama.

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I try to write quality posts and occasionally I try to write beautiful posts and yesterday I checked my statistics to see why, specifically, people visit this blog.  Is it my views on parenting, on mindful living, on good karma and kindness?

Here are some of the popular search terms that have been used to find my blog:

1) Cougar moms and velour tracksuits.
2) 16 year old girls with whale tails.
3) Boys stripping girls in their house. *although this has also been spelled “boyz striping girls in there house”, but that kind of spelling gives me squidgies.*
4) Boy and fack girl in the house.
5) Asam Sandler singing into ex-girlfriends intercom  *That is how it is spelled.  I altered neither the spelling nor the punctuation, despite my squidgies.*

All of which is to say, I must have a lot of disappointed blog visitors.  Perhaps I should talk more about my velour tracksuits.

The past few days has seen a lot of sadness and difficulties for various friends and family, the details of which I am not going to go into, but I seem to be coping by baking things.  There are worse coping mechanisms, I suppose (like drinking, which I am doing right this second).  Tomorrow we are having a birthday party for Jake and 13 little friends, and so I have been a cupcake baking machine.  We have two guests coming who are unable to eat wheat and/or gluten, and so I made a batch of gluten free cupcakes.  I was a bit concerned as to how they would turn out; I read some recipes in Chatelaine magazine (don’t judge, I AM a suburban Canadian mother) but I became completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of different flours and ingredients required.  My dearest friend, who has a daughter with Celiac disease, suggested Pamela’s Products, and I have to say, the result was not bad at all.  The cupcakes were only one inch high but they were tasty.  The package suggested adding an extra egg for extra light cupcakes, and I will say this: if you need to make gluten free cupcakes and there is an option to make them “extra light”, ADD THE EGG.  I can’t imagine how dense the result would be if you, as the package suggested, added less water for a more dense cake. 

So it’s the birthday party tomorrow and I am sure I will have much to say about that, but for now, I think I might go sample another cupcake and refill my wineglass.  I hope your weekend is going well, my lovelies.