Category Archives: Friluftsliv

Gardeners and Flowers

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Before she was part of the Real Housewives franchise, Carole Radziwill wrote a really excellent memoir entitled What Remains, which I have read many times. There is a part in the book where she and her husband’s cousin, who is none other than JFK Jr (spoiler alert, everyone dies around her), have a discussion about marriage. They have a theory that in a successful marriage there is one Gardener and one Flower; it’s possible a marriage could work with two Gardeners, but never with two Flowers.

I have thought about this theory approximately one million times since first reading this book in 2006.

I am, of course, a literal Gardener; it’s almost actual gardening season around here, and we have SO much to do, to plan, to plant. But I have always believed that, in the Carole Radziwill and JFK Jr context, I am also a figurative Gardener. I am a nurturing, mother-hen type of person who likes to make sure loved ones are special and cared for. That said, my husband is not really a Flower, so I have always thought that we are one of those double-Gardener marriages.

Except sometimes, I think I am a Flower, or, at least, I’m turning into one.

The area in which my Flower-ness becomes most apparent is in travel, or more specifically, travel planning. I love to travel, I love to see new things and have new experiences. I love it all! What I don’t love, however, is dealing with the logistical details. I am capable of dealing with logistical details – I can and have in the past booked flights and hotels and activities – but I find it boring and tedious.

Someone who does not find it boring and tedious, and, in fact, who shines at travel planning is my husband. The man can spend hours researching places to go, things to see and do, and, importantly, how to physically get there. He loves doing it and so over the course of our marriage I have just stepped back to the point where I have ceded all control.

I am completely a Flower. We are now at the point where I only barely know not only our travel itineraries, but I also barely know where we are going. If anything, this attitude of just being along for the ride increases my enjoyment of travel exponentially. I’m like Rex going for a car ride; I’m just excited to be going somewhere, it doesn’t hardly matter where.

Now that my husband is retired and the kids are grown, we have so much flexibility for travel, and to that end we have a few big trips booked for this year, plus some smaller ones, and one of those is coming up this weekend. My husband and I are going to Las Vegas.

I am a complete non-gambler – I do not enjoy it in any way – but Las Vegas is just so much fun; this will be my fourth time going and I am very excited. Needless to say, I did none of the bookings and had nothing to say about the actual itinerary, other than to enthusiastically say “That sounds fun!” every time my husband brought up an idea. My husband has booked us a few shows, and other than that, I don’t know what we will be doing. It doesn’t matter! I’m just excited to go!

So clearly, I am a Flower.

One of my earliest memories is one of complete and utter emotional devastation upon learning that flowers die in the winter. To be fair, I was an incredibly sensitive and dramatic child and I probably experienced utter emotional devastation daily, if not more bi-hourly. However, I have a very clear memory of devastation about the fate of flora during the winter, winter being a very long season in Calgary. How or why this occurred to me, I don’t know, but I would guess that there was a book about seasons involved; I clearly remember my level of hysteria that my dad tried to quell by telling me that the flowers come back again in the spring. This was small comfort indeed, because of a Very Big Idea that Very Small Nicole had, and that is that when I grew up, I wanted to be a flower.

I was probably three, and so I had no concept of symbolism or anything else, and I obviously had only the most tenuous ideas about what constituted growing up. I genuinely thought it was an interspecies free-for-all, and that becoming an adult meant that you could literally morph into any kind of animal, vegetable, or mineral.

So you can imagine my devastation when I realized just how brief my life on this mortal coil would be after achieving adulthood. I guess I believed that my life would follow this rough trajectory: I would be a child, I would go to school, I would be grown up, I would immediately change from human to flower form, and then I would die. I would die in the winter, thus missing Christmas and a visit from Santa.

I don’t know at what point I realized that my anxiety about an instantaneous winter death was unfounded, but eventually I went on with my little human life, enjoying flowers for what they were and not as a mirror of my future self.

Weekly Reading

An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good. This was an absolutely delightful little book of connected short stories about a murderous little old lady. It is very clever and quite hilarious. It is translated from the Swedish, so there are many wonderful Swedish tidbits in here, and one made me genuinely squeal out loud, thanks to Were You Raised By Wolves. Do you listen to that podcast? If not, why not? Do you hate joy? The podcast is a beam of light in this dark world. Anyway, there is a little line in this book about Christmas Eve, and one of the characters mentions that the “children will have watched Donald Duck.” I knew EXACTLY what they were referring to, thanks to Were You Raised By Wolves, and if you don’t know, look up their Kalle Anka episode. Obviously it involves Donald Duck, but it is so much more. It is PURE delight, and so is this book. 

Dual Citizens. In the past six months, I have been made aware of a conversation in the writing and publishing community about the role of prologues in novels, and the current thinking seems to be just DON’T. I didn’t really think about it too much prior to these past six months, but now I really notice when there is a prologue, and what, if any, value is added. And I will say that the prologue – and epilogue, for that matter – in this book not only does not add to the book, but they actively subtract from it, in my view. Particularly since there seems to be a strange discrepancy; in the prologue the character is going into labour at 38 weeks, but later in the book she is said to be “overdue.” So that actively took me out of what is otherwise a really wonderful story, with incredible writing and prose, about two sisters and their narcissistic, neglectful mother. There are some interesting character arcs and a message about understanding others as we gain life experience. Some of the imagery is a little heavy-handed and slightly unbelievable – sleeping with wolves, really? – but this is a really excellent character-driven novel. I guess we can excuse the prologue.

Is anyone else totally exhausted from the time change? I SURE AM. Other than “Lose A Precious Hour Of Sleep” day, it was a lovely weekend. We attended a surprise birthday party for my friend Joy (HI JOY) and, unrelated to that, I made another cake from Julie’s You Are Human And You Need Cake book, and I took Rex for a nice long Sunday morning hike. It was an attempt to change my attitude when I can’t change the circumstances, the circumstances being the ridiculous ritual of shifting the clocks hither and thither semi-annually for absolutely no reason. ANYWAY. This Flower is heading for bright lights and (relatively) late nights, and will see you on the other side. Take care, my beautiful flower friends. xo

Five For Friday: The Ask Me Anything Edition

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Thank you to everyone who submitted questions for my Ask Me Anything! Today I have quite a variety to answer; I love how different these all are.

  • From Bijoux (HI BIJOUX): As I like to travel, what would be your Canadian not-to-be-missed sights? I considered putting off answering this question until May, when I will be back from a trip to Ontario and Quebec; I am sure there will be many not-to-be-missed sights that I will discover. Then I thought that no matter what I see on that trip, my number one answer will not change, and that is the Canadian Rockies in general, and Banff in particular. I think there is no place on earth quite as beautiful and as special. The town of Banff is very expensive and touristy, it’s true, but that is because it is so beautiful and special. The Canadian Rockies are an absolute feast for the eyes in every way; the colours, the mountains, the trees.
Prairie Mountain, Kananaskis
Lake Louise
Lake Agnes
Me and Lake Louise
Hiking in Kananaskis
One foot in Alberta, one foot in BC, which seemed to be the theme of 2023
Simpson Pass
Galatea Lake
The iconic Banff Springs – worth the splurge, I swear
View from the Banff Springs
  • From Kate (HI KATE): Do you plan to teach yoga in your new town? Do you ever go to a studio class, or only practice on your own? I don’t currently have plans to teach; we have a lot of travel planned this year, and so I did not want to commit to any classes, only to have to find substitutes. I would be willing to teach one-off or event-style classes, but I don’t want a firm commitment. I also get extremely attached to my students and I miss my Calgary ones so much; I’m not quite ready for that again. As to the second part of the question, the short answer is no, I don’t go to studio classes. For thirteen years I did practice at a studio; I practiced Mysore-style Ashtanga, which is very individual and student-led; there is a set sequence of postures that each student practices at their own pace, with a teacher available to assist and also to teach the next posture in the series. My friend Lucas (HI LUCAS) made a video of this practice at our studio back in 2012, and if you watch the video, I am in the bright pink pants. At about the 2:20 mark, you can see the wild backbends I used to be able to do. Anyway, I was so grateful to have this kind of daily practice established because when the pandemic hit, I continued with it, just at home, and without a teacher. One or two days a week I take a restorative or yin practice, again, at home. I did take one led class last year, as my friend Sara (HI SARA) was giving a special class at an art studio; I enjoy this kind of thing once in a while, but generally I prefer a practice which is more of a moving meditation than a led class.
From 2015
Practicing in what is now my kitchen, before it was my kitchen
A fancy studio shot, 2019
Another studio shot, 2019
Current yoga setup
  • From Steph (HI STEPH): Do you think you will eventually work again or are you and and your husband both retired for good? This question also answers Coco‘s question (HI COCO) who asked what does your husband do? Steph’s is a very interesting question, because I always think of “work” as the days when I worked in an office, on a trade floor, which I quit in 2004 after having my first baby. Of course, I have had various little jobs, including teaching yoga, since then, but I guess I don’t think of them as work that one retires from, exactly. So the answer to that question is never say never! I have a few ideas and projects, but whether or not they will result in any monetary compensation remains to be seen. I can confidently say my husband is definitely retired; he is enjoying the retirement life immensely. Currently, he is in his workshop building me cedar garden beds, so I can also say we are both benefitting from his retirement.
Work in progress
  • From Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH): What is your least favourite food item in the world? No contest: celery. I loathe celery. Everything about it is disgusting to me: the smell, the taste, the weird stringy texture. I clearly remember a kid bringing ants on a log for shared preschool snack, and the absolute horror it inspired in me. I love peanut butter. I love raisins. WHY MUST WE PUT THOSE DELICIOUS THINGS ON A PIECE OF THE DEVIL’S GREENERY? Close second to least favourite food: onions. I don’t mind onion flavour, so a dehydrated onion flake or onion powder is fine. But the texture of onions, particularly raw onions, gives me a full-body shudder. Not as bad as celery, and if there was a gun to my head I’d probably eat one, but that gun would have to be loaded. Obviously I don’t eat meat or seafood ever, and I don’t like to eat eggs either, although if an egg is in a baked good that you presented to me – especially if that baked good was a cake – I would eat it.
My husband made me this for Christmas!
  • From Engie (HI ENGIE): Do you think aliens exist? I am an Alien Agnostic: I just don’t know. I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t exist. The universe is big, and no one has the answers, so why not? As an alien aside, I have always had a terrible fear of E.T. I was seven when E.T. came out, and all of my little gal pals both loved the movie and loved E.T. as a concept; they were all getting E.T. stuffies and shirts and backpacks, and the horror, the horror. He’s so cute they’d say, while I would try not to cry. Look at him hiding in the stuffed animals, they would say, while I would panic, thinking about my own stuffed animals and what I would do if there was an alien among them. I have never once seen the movie the whole way through; I always have to stop it before curling up in the fetal position in a corner. I have a real visceral reaction to the whole thing. Many years ago my husband gently tried to get me to face my fears, saying in a calming voice “It’s really a nice movie, E.T. just wants to go home to his family!” and at that I started crying uncontrollably, and he probably wondered if he should return the ring, or just go ahead and face life together with a grown woman with E.T. trauma.
My Cheer Bear, without an E.T. I believe in the power of the Care Bear stare!

Doctor Teeth and the Winter Mayhem

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We received a little blast of winter this past week: a couple of inches of snow, followed a few days later by some cold days, and by “cold,” I mean the low minus 20s. Friends, experiencing forty-eight years of Canadian prairie winters has prepared me for this moment. Never have I felt so hardy. I went to Costco the day after it snowed, and the parking lot was maybe a third full. The entire store was eerily quiet and when I went to check out, the cashier with the most gorgeous head of hair –the secret is Moroccan OIL oil, not the Moroccan oil shampoo, the OIL – told me in all earnestness that the day previous was beyond busy, as people prepared for The Big Storm. I blinked a couple of times, thinking about the two inches of snow and the temperature around zero. I felt not unlike Lieutenant Dan in the crowsnest of the Jenny, screaming “You call this a storm?”

My mother-in-law has, over the past six months, expressed amazed astonishment at my willingness to leave the house in even the slightest bit of inclement weather. I will take this at face value as a perceived compliment on my strength of spirit, even though I think it is completely unwarranted; she praised me for being brave for driving in These Conditions, These Conditions, again, being two inches of snow and slightly icy streets. In Calgary, if you didn’t go out when there was snow on the ground, you would never go out. Rex and I need our daily constitutional – I am not sure which of us need it more, to be honest – and so the streets shall be braved.

In addition to our daily walk, which is typically around six kilometres, give or take a little, Rex goes out a few times a day to do what we call Exploring. We have two acres of unfenced property, and let me tell you, the “unfenced” detail was cause for much concern on my part prior to and during the move. What if he chases an animal and get lost, what if he runs away, what if he goes onto the road and gets hit by a car. It turns out that all those worries, like most worries, were merely depleting my mental resources and were ultimately unfounded; dogs can be trained to obey property lines, even unfenced ones. There are dogs at all three of the nearest properties to us, and they all stay on their own properties, more or less, unless two or more dogs are out at the same time. In that case, all bets are off and a dog party will certainly ensue. I have looked out the window to see Rex in a cluster of dogs at the end of the grape rows, all happily wagging and sniffing. After a few minutes of this they all magically return to their own places.

Of all the things I should never have worried about, Rex running away would be top of the list. Rex likes to be within sight of me or, more preferably, within petting distance at any given moment in the day. In my recently Ask Me Anything, Engie (HI ENGIE) wondered what a day in the life of Rex was like, and, other than the Explorations, his day is my day. He gets up when I do, around 4:30, and hangs out with me while I practice yoga and exercise, he is in the kitchen when I’m cooking or in the office when I’m writing. If I’m folding laundry or reading he is directly at my feet. When I shower I will open the bathroom door to find him directly on the other side of it. He is my fuzzy shadow and I really love it.

That is why last Thursday was so strange, because he was at the vet all day getting a dental cleaning. No one followed me from room to room! No one lay down directly behind the rolling office chair, so I could stand up and sit down with complete impunity, with no worries that I would accidentally roll onto a fuzzy body part! I went into the pantry without anyone at my heels, hopefully looking at the container of freeze-dried liver!

Do not get me started about the ridiculousness of a professional dental cleaning for a two-year-old dog; despite the fact that for the past nine months I have brushed his teeth and given him a dental chew every single day without fail, he still had pretty massive tartar buildup. I think Barkley was eight or nine by the time we had to give him a cleaning, but here we are with Rex, age two.

It’s funny how seasons of life change. With the kids I went through years of toothbrushing instruction, semi-annual dental cleanings, and braces, my god, the braces. I spent so many years in the orthodontist office – or, in the case of the pandemic, the orthodontist parking lot – and I figured that once my children were grown, the only teeth I would need to think about would be my own. And now here I am, brushing my dog’s teeth with beef-flavoured toothpaste, checking his gums, and having earnest conversations with the vet about the dental genetics of different breeds. If you’re interested, poodles and terriers have, in the vet’s words, the Worst Teeth Of All. That was interesting to me, as my childhood dog, Spike, was a terripoo. I asked my mom if he had bad teeth, and she couldn’t remember. But then again, she said to me, we didn’t BRUSH dogs’ teeth back then. True enough.

Weekly Reading

Speaking of my mom, she happened to mention that it was minus 55 with windchill at her place, minus 42 ambient. It sure made our little blast of cold seem cute! But it was still a chilly weekend, so I lived La Vida Hygge, wrapping up well for our walks and spending the rest of the time puzzling, reading, and, obviously because this is my life, cooking. Some hits and misses in the book department this week; here we go:

More Myself. My son very thoughtfully bought this book for me for Christmas, knowing that I love a) Alicia Keys and b) memoir about women, specifically celebrity women. And I will say that Alicia Keys has had an incredible life; she is a talent beyond talent, a woman who has been writing, composing, and producing her own music since she was fourteen years old. Fourteen is also when she met Krucial, who was her first serious boyfriend. He was 24, and a father. I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS. In his (very slight) defense she told him she was 17 (still not cool, omg), so imagine his shock when, two years later they are LIVING TOGETHER and he discovers her real age. Which was sixteen. Good lord. The way she glosses over that detail in this book is really unsettling. Anyway, she is an incredibly talented woman who has also started a number of social justice campaigns as well as a charity that supplies antiviral medication to babies of women living with HIV, so that they do not contract the virus through breast milk. All great stuff, right? Well, let me tell you, despite the incredible wealth of material, this memoir is SO DAMN BORING. There is a part where she relates a conversation with Oprah, who tells her to keep her private life private, as her Stedman relationship going public is a huge regret for her. Alicia apparently takes this to heart because there is NO juice here. It reads like a matter-of-fact listing of her professional and personal accomplishments, completely devoid of any emotion or vulnerability. Even when discussing a nervous breakdown that led her to a transformative solo trip to Egypt, it was like “I was overtaxed and exhausted. I went to Egypt. It was a transformative experience.” As a memoir, it fails.

Games and Rituals. I really love everything this author has written, and this newest collection of short stories is no exception. This is my favourite genre: everyday, ordinary occurrences made extraordinary. This is Writing Goals right here! The sign of a really good short story is that it makes you think about all the backstory that isn’t there, the iceberg beneath the surface, so to speak. I loved it. There is one particular story about a woman and her elderly father that I will be thinking about for a long time.

Cat’s Eye. Recently Allison (HI ALLISON) mentioned her daughter reading her copy of Bluebeard’s Egg, and that set off a massive craving in me to read some Atwood. I wanted a novel, not short stories, and Cat’s Eye is perfectly suited to January: much of it takes place in the dreary, drab winters of Toronto. I have read this many times and every time I read it, it hits just a little bit differently. I find something new to identify with every single time I read this moving story about a woman who returns to Toronto, the city of her youth, and is confronted by all the myriad ghosts of her past. I have always found this book to be one of the most realistic when it comes to how young girls behave towards each other, the various cruelties that girls and women can inflict on each other, and the lifelong effects of the small and larger traumas experienced in youth. It’s about healing and understanding. It is a work of art, full stop.

Our winter blast seems to be waning and it looks to be a beautiful week ahead. I hope you are all staying warm and maybe also living La Vida Hygge where you are. xo

Live Your Life With Arms Wide Open

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I became a little bit obsessed with Hamilton in the summer of 2020. What can I say? It’s a pretty catchy soundtrack, and I had some time on my hands. The lyrics Look around, look around, how lucky we are to be alive right now became my mantra. Merely repeating those words in my head really helped centre and ground me over the subsequent months and years. While I was on one of my endless walks or runs, while I was in the garden or masking up to go to the grocery store, I would look at the world around me and repeat look around, look around, how lucky we are to be alive right now.

I have always been very moved and motivated by music. Even from a child, I could be moved to tears by a lyric or a beautiful melody. I remember feeling my heart swelling while in church, as a very small child, singing How Great Thou Art. Although I don’t go to church anymore, I strongly believe in a higher power – as they say in Desiderata, …be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him (HER) to be – and I still can feel that swelling while thinking of that hymn.

Last March, I was on the Peloton when a song was played, one I hadn’t heard for a long time. That time period, March into April, was one of the most emotionally difficult of my life. I was drained, stressed, exhausted, and my heart was cracked such that I was unsure if I could ever come back, if I would ever feel like myself again. I constantly repeated to myself my longtime mantra, borrowed from Allison over a decade ago, There will be a time after this. (HI ALLISON). I knew there would be a time after, but I wasn’t sure what I would be like in that time after. I just didn’t know. Can I handle the seasons of my life? I didn’t know if I could.

The song in question was Unwritten, and the lyrics seemed to say everything to me.

I am unwritten
Can’t read my mind
I’m undefined
I’m just beginning
The pen’s in my hand
Ending unplanned

Do you know the feeling when a piece of art or music just seems to see into your soul? Do you know what it’s like to encounter the absolutely perfect thing at the perfect time? That was this song, which I had long ago forgotten about.

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it

I thought about all the times I had changed over the course of my lifetime. Ending unplanned indeed. A younger me would never even recognize the woman I am now, or even believe that it would be possible to be me, the way I am. When I was young, and dissatisfied with myself, I found the idea of change exciting and invigorating. Any kind of change, anything new was thrilling and the harbinger of great things to come: a new adventure, a new outfit, a new lipstick, a new school. Anything new was a fresh new start, a chance at a different kind of life. You might be thinking to yourself, that’s a tall order for a new lipstick, but maybe you don’t remember what it’s like to be that age, or the life-changing magic of Revlon’s Love That Red.

Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips

Somewhere along the line in my life, change ceased to be exciting and invigorating, and instead became something exhausting and to be feared or avoided.

Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

But listening to this song, I realized that I needed to change my thinking in order to deal with all the other changes in my life. My perspective was off. I was holding on so tightly to my idea of myself and my life that I couldn’t see the beauty of transformation. I couldn’t see the possibilities in front of me, I could only see losses. I couldn’t move past what was cracking my heart.

I break tradition
Sometimes my tries are outside the lines
We’ve been conditioned to not make mistakes
But I can’t live that way

Some people choose a word or a phrase in January that will set the tone for the year to come, but I don’t do that. I tend instead to grasp onto phrases or concepts whenever they come into my life, such as Friluftsliv, Embrace the Season, and Hygge, and then I keep them with me forever. Back in March 2023, look around, look around, how lucky we are to be alive right now started to transform into live your life with arms wide open. What better way to live your life than with arms wide open; open to new experiences, new people, new ways to live. This became my theme for my year of change and continues to be my theme for my life now.

In my recent Ask Me Anything, Suzanne and Elisabeth both asked about Teenage Nicole (HI SUZANNE, HI ELISABETH) and what she was like. It’s hard to say, exactly, because Nicole at 13 was a very different person than Nicole at 16 or 19. The only similarities between these Nicoles would be that they all strived for good grades, played the piano, and loved books and music. I think the tween and young teen years are probably universally the worst in anyone’s life, particularly for girls. I was a very unhappy and emotional, and therefore difficult, young girl who spent a lot of time feeling unaccepted, unwanted, and unliked; those things were probably not true, at least not to the extent I thought they were, but that was my perception. I was highly negatively impacted by the diet and beauty industrial complex and was constantly dissatisfied by my appearance. I found a lot of solace in music, particularly the dreary and dark, and also in the line from Desiderata that hung on my grandma’s wall, the same Desiderata that hangs by my piano now: You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and stars; you have a right to be here. I remember reading that around age ten, and it meant so much to me then, sad little me; it means so much to me now.

But you can change your life, and I did. I remember the transformative feeling every summer of my teens, when I would decide what my fashion style would be for the coming school year, and with that fashion style, what would be my life. Was I working from the outside in, instead of the other way around? Yes, I was. But by the time I was sixteen, I had made many positive changes. I changed schools, I changed my clothes, I changed my friend group, I changed my after-school activities, and yes, I changed my lipstick, wearing Love That Red every day. Was it a bit much for 9:00 am math class? Probably. But a child of the universe does not back down when armed with transformative red lips.

And the point is, we can all make changes. We all have seasons in our lives that are more difficult, and I have so recently been through one of those. A lot of those changes were happening to me, but the biggest change I made was in my own mind, deciding to live my life with arms wide open, feeling the rain on my skin. Or snow.

Weekly Reading

Tom Lake. After months of having this book on hold, Santa brought me my very own copy. And I am so glad he did because I LOVED THIS BOOK. Oh god, I loved everything about this. This is a love story, and a warm cozy family story, it’s a tragedy and it’s an uplifting heartwarming story about the world. It is absolutely gorgeous. It made me want to have two sisters so we could braid our hair together, it made me wish I had worked in summer stock, it made me happy in every way. It concerns a story a mother is telling her daughters about her past – and isn’t that something? It’s something so ordinary and yet not, the life a woman has before her children are born, the life a woman has before the life she has, the adventures of youth and the coziness of middle age. I want to go back in time and experience this book newly, all over again. What a beautiful book.

The Beast Within. This is the second in the series about Disney villains, and it concerns the Beast. IS the Beast the villain? I guess so. Anyway, it’s his backstory, including a friendship with Gaston, and it’s okay. I didn’t like this that much but since I liked the Evil Queen book, I am going to continue with the series.

There is still no snow in town, and so my husband and I drove out to the mountains on Friday to try out our new cross-country skis; it was our first time on skis in 21 years, if you can believe it. Next up: learning to snowshoe! There are a few wintry days forecasted this week which will make it feel more like January. I hope you are all enjoying this start to the new year. xo

March Madness

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Marching Into March

In many parts of the world, March marks the arrival of spring, but in Calgary, March is firmly a Winter Month. My birthday is in the last third of April, and I feel like that is the tentative start to spring, although it can certainly snow in any month of the year. Yes, you read that correctly. I have experienced snow – in the air, not on the ground – in both July and August. March is typically the snowiest month of the year, which has brought great joy to Rex, and a lot of lower back stretches to my classes, to alleviate any pain from shovelling. Most of my ladies outsource that job, but I think lower back stretches are always appreciated.

Calgarians have a strange tendency to disparage climates in other locations, probably to make ourselves feel better about our six, seven, eight months of winter. Any mention of typically beautiful cities with short winters – particularly cities in BC – will conjure up a “well, it’s horrible and cloudy there in the winter,” and while that may be true, and Calgary does have lovely blue skies often, it feels very much like sour grapes to me. Also, while we do enjoy a lot of sunshine, our winters are very long and very cold, and we also have a lot of this:

It’s cloudy here too, people.

All of which is to say that while I am embracing the season, friluftsliv, hygge, et cetera, I am also enjoying photos of spring in other parts of the world. It will be a while before my garden boxes are green, and in the meantime, I need to break Rex of this very bad habit:

All By Myself

It has been a bit of a strange weekend, here in the Boyhouse. My husband was out of town for the first time in months, my older son was working closing shifts Friday and Sunday, and my younger son was at the high school wrestling City Championships. Friday night, it was just me and Rex at home for dinner, which felt very odd. I think the last time I was home alone for dinner was when the guys took a trip through Yukon and Alaska in 2019. I had my usual favourite dinner of Greek salad with pita and hummus, plus some red wine and tortilla chips and salsa, because I am a girl who knows how to enjoy herself. I topped it all of by watching the first two episodes of Season One NYPD Blue. I used to love that show, and I still do, but I wanted to see what it would look like thirty years after its release. It turns out, it is a great timepiece of New York in the early 90s, and the camera work is just as interesting as I remembered.

Now, these days I do not watch much television (do we still call it television? I mean shows in general) so let’s just take this observation with a grain of salt, but there really aren’t many non-beautiful people cast in TV or movies anymore. It seems like everyone on-screen now is gorgeous, and has perfect teeth, and boy, that was not the case back in the early 90s and prior. I think 90% of the cast of NYPD Blue is pretty average looking, if not downright unattractive, which is kind of remarkable by today’s standards. All these regular-looking people, living full – if dramatic – lives, having romances, friendships, successes and failures.

I feel like it was the advent of Friends that kicked off the whole We All Look Fantastic And We Have This Amazing New York Apartment; but before Friends, we had this:

Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon

Speaking of popular culture from the 90s, I watched Pulp Fiction with the boys on Saturday night. My older son had seen it recently and, hearing a story about how the first time I saw it I was on a date and I fainted during the scene where Mia gets an adrenaline shot in the heart (spoiler alert for an almost thirty year old movie), asked if I wanted to rewatch it with him. My younger son, exhausted from a full two days of wrestling, decided to join, asking first what the movie is about. We looked at each other for a moment and I said I don’t know. It’s kind of plotless? I still don’t know how to describe the plot but it really holds up. I am not a Tarantino fan, but this movie is the exception. What can I say, I’m a sucker for a hitman who has a spiritual awakening. Also, the soundtrack, as the kids say, slaps.

Memories of Barkley

I was at the library this week, and a young, lovely librarian lit up when she saw me. Hi! she said excitedly. How is your sweet dog? I must have looked a little blank for a moment, and she continued to chatter about the days of curbside pickup, and how she loved bringing my books out and seeing that cute brown labradoodle, I have a brown labradoodle, right, and he is just like a stuffed animal, so cute?

Oh.

You know that moment when you’re going to say something that will cause awkward feelings, but you have to do it anyway? Her face fell as I explained that he died, but I loved that she remembered him so well.

The very next day I was walking Rex, and to mix up his route I walked down a street that was part of Barkley’s loop to the library. A woman was shovelling snow and she stopped to ask if she could say hi to Rex. I didn’t recognize her but clearly she recognized me as she asked how long ago Barkley died, and how sorry she was, and how she always liked seeing the two of us on our walks.

It was really nice to hear these two women – both kind of strangers – talk about Barkley in such a sweet way. The last couple years of his life were so fraught; I walked him every single day to keep him ambulatory, and every single day a stranger would comment on his appearance, generally in a “what’s wrong with your dog” kind of way. Every single day. I had people stop their cars on the street, roll down their windows, and ask about him. I had people ask if I was aware he had a lump on his side, as if it could have possibly been missed. I had one man ask when I was going to put him down. It was all very hard, but these two women were so kind, and so sweet, that it really helped erase all the sad feelings I had about that time.

Library Thievery

The reason I was talking to the librarian in the first place was because I had gone in to pick up a book I had put on hold, and it wasn’t on the Holds shelf. I wondered if it was still on the cart, although I had received notification that the book was in the day before. It wasn’t, and this led to a lot of searching and typing on the computer, and the librarian sighed deeply. “It’s a popular book,” she said, “and sometimes people see these popular books on the cart, and they TAKE THEM.” I honestly was startled at the thought of looking at the holds cart, seeing a book with a name receipt to indicate the person who had put it on hold, and then, shrugging at the rules, taking the book out. Of all the places for breaking the rules, I never think of the library as one of them, but the librarian told me gravely that this happens all the time. It’s one of the issues with the self-checkout. WHO KNEW. Certainly not me! I am a rule follower generally, and so it would never occur to me to sneak a popular book off of the Holds cart that wasn’t for me. Consider me shocked.

Weekly Reading

This feels like a good time to segue into weekly reading. I had a couple of real winners this week!

Girls They Write Songs About. Oh wow, this book! I was mesmerized. I read this very slowly because I needed to absorb every single word, and I reread many pages a few times. But how to describe this? There’s not really a plot. But it’s a story about women, about choices and relationships and work and becoming. The narrator is around my age and the story begins in NYC in 1997, and I could see myself in this story, the multiverse version of me, that is. It’s just an incredibly written, beautiful, raw, dark book that is also affirming and uplifting, but very real. I was on a real high after finishing this book; I could not stop thinking about it, so I logged into Goodreads to see if there were others who felt this way. This was a big mistake. There were so many negative reviews that I immediately logged back out, because I did not want to be brought down. What I am saying, then, is that while I absolutely loved this book, it seems like many people do not, so, you know. Your mileage may vary.

The Marriage Portrait. I had put this on hold, but unsurely; historical fiction is a tricky genre for me as I feel it is so hard to do it well. Often I find that modern values will be placed in historical fiction, to the detriment of the plot, and the dialogue can feel very off. Also, there was a lot of buzz about this book and that doesn’t always translate to me to be an enjoyable read. I mean, sometimes it does, but often I am disappointed. I read the jacket before starting the book and two things stood out: I had read and enjoyed this author’s memoir about her multiple brushes with death, and The Marriage Portrait was an imagining of the life of the subject of the portrait in Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess. I, along with everyone else, probably, read and dissected this poem in university; I really liked it and at that moment, I was in. I did enjoy this book about a young Florentine woman married off to the Duke of Ferrara; and some of it was a little heavy-handed with the imagery, and I quibble with the ending, but for the most part it was a sweeping story that really hooked me in. I was in the perfect mental space to be transported by this novel.

Happy first week of March, everyone! I wish you all an abundance of blue skies, good books, fun shows, and maybe something growing in your garden besides a 95 pound dog. xo

Getting Controversial In The Boyhouse

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It was so cold here last week, with an enormous dump of fresh snow; it looked really pretty, in contrast to my Walking Outfit, which was not so pretty. Snow pants! Toque! Giant fake-fur hood! Frosted-over eyelashes! Teenage me, who wore tiny skirts with tights that were Just as warm as pants, Mom, would have been horrified.

Speaking of horrified, I have a complaint. It may be more of a personal pet peeve, but it is something that bothers me greatly, and that is when people state subjective opinions as objective facts. Or, more accurately, when people state negative subjective opinions as objective facts. There is a big difference between saying I hate chickpeas, and chickpeas are gross. When a person states an opinion as a well-known fact, such as Alice Munro’s writing is boring, I get my back up: no, YOU THINK it’s boring. There is a big difference between a person’s perception and the actual quality of the item in question. You can think whatever you want to about whatever you want, but opinions aren’t facts.

And I love hearing other people’s opinions, even negative ones! But words matter to me, and hearing Top Gun is a terrible movie is not the same as I hate Top Gun. Hate away! Opine that it’s terrible! But that is not an objective fact. There are many things that I don’t like, but that doesn’t make them objectively terrible; for example, I dislike action movies and books by Jody Picoult, but objectively, those are not bad things. They are just things that I dislike. I might THINK they are bad, but they are not, objectively.

Interestingly enough, my impassioned opinion about opinions-as-facts does not encompass positive opinions. If someone said to me ketchup chips are the finest chip ever invented or dogs are god’s greatest creatures, I would not be offended, particularly since those are two opinions I share, but even if I did not share them, I would be happy that someone else found joy in weird Canadian salty snacks and puppers. Therefore, all you Cat People reading this might be thinking How dare! Cats are god’s greatest creatures! and although I won’t agree I will just be happy for you and your purring companions. Enjoy your kitties! I’ll be over here with my fuzzy favourite, who may be wondering if I am indeed somewhere inside all those layers.

Anyway, I was thinking of this – my opinion pet peeve – because in my not-so-recent Ask Me Anything, Stephany (HI STEPHANY) asked what controversial opinion do you hold? I thought about this for a long time, because I didn’t think I hold any controversial opinions. I believe that people are all equal and deserve to be treated as such, regardless of gender, skin colour, sexuality, religious beliefs, or abilities, and that all people should have autonomy over their own bodies and be able to make choices that best suit their own life journeys; these seem to be topics that generate controversy for reasons I cannot fathom, but to me, equality and autonomy are not a matter of opinion.

This weekend I realized that I do indeed have a very controversial opinion, and that is that I hate pie. Yes, all kinds. To me, pie is a grievous waste of fruit at best, and a flaky monstrosity at worst. Cake all the way, baby. Cake all the way. With the same passion that I hate pie, I love cake; yes, all kinds. I even love grocery store sheet cakes that are universally considered to be subpar, with frosting that is universally considered to be too sweet. If one of them was in my house right now, I would cut myself a giant corner piece just to get the extra frosting, and arrange it so I could get an extra frosting flower on my piece as well.

Usually when I voice this extremely controversial Anti-Pie opinion, someone will ask what about pumpkin, what about rhubarb, what about apple? No, no, no. And I am not yucking anyone’s yum, here, but the thought of biting into a soft piece of cooked apple makes me physically shudder. Listen, I love apples. There’s nothing like a fresh, tart Macintosh to make my heart sing. However. I do not love COOKED apples. I don’t like pastry in general, but the thought of eating a piece of pie with soft, mushy apple in it…I can’t. I have always been this way and probably always will be this way.

So I hate pie, but I love my guys, and they love pie, so I make one for them every so often, and one of those occasions was this weekend.

Many perfectly good apples were sacrificed in the making of this dessert.

Speaking of desserts and Ask Me Anything, my lovely friend Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) asked what are your top recommendations for baked goods? This was fun to think about because I bake something at least twice a week, often more. Usually that baking is a snack loaf or muffins for the boys, but sometimes I throw together a batch of cookies or a cake. I am absolutely loving Julie van Rosendaal’s cake cookbook, and her pumpkin snack loaf is in regular rotation around here. The Lutheran Ladies have an amazing banana muffin recipe that I use frequently, as well as an oatmeal chocolate chip muffin that I based this recipe off of.

I wrote a weekly food blog at YMC from 2013-2017, and I have all of the recipes, plus some that I wrote on this blog, listed here. It is split into sections and one of those sections is Baked Goodies; I think my favourites from that list are the Pot of Gold Cupcakes, the Chocolate Chunk Coconut Cookies, Old Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies, and, of course, my Grandma’s Gingersnaps. My mom’s Sugar Cookies never fail, and are a holiday staple around here.

I do love baking, but I should note that all of the above recipes are my own variations of the original. I never follow a recipe to the letter, because I am a wild rebel when it comes to baked goods. I mean, why limit ourselves to a teaspoon of vanilla when two teaspoons would be more delicious? Why use a whole cup of sugar when you can cut it to three-quarters and no one notices? Why not try coconut oil or add some extra chocolate chips? It’s a fun way to play with baking, and when the weather is dipping into the minus-a-lot, it feels like a nice, cozy activity.

Weekly Reading

Speaking of cozy activities, it was a good week for getting some reading and puzzling done.

Mary Jane. I was born in the year in which this book was set – 1975 – so I can’t say from experience, but it seems to me that people in the 70s were really separated into Establishment and Counterculture. This book – a sweet, cute coming of age story – deals with a young girl who is hired to be a summer nanny at a house that is definitely Counterculture. They smoke pot! The doctor is a psychiatrist, not a medical doctor! The wife doesn’t cook or clean and the house is a disaster! The girl is from a strict Presbyterian home that, inexplicably, has a framed picture of President Ford in its dining room. Anyway. The girl – Mary Jane – brings her mother’s housewifery skills into the chaotic household, and she learns what it is to be accepted, and becomes part of the family. It’s a sweet little book, although I found the dialogue to be stilted and contrived, but light and enjoyable nonetheless. One thing I really liked, which is quite unusual, is that at one point Mary Jane thanks her mother for teaching her all her skills, and says how much she values them. In my own life, I spend a great deal of time creating a calm household with lots of delicious food in it – see above! – and sometimes I wonder if this is time well spent. It was nice to see it valued in a book that was very tongue-in-cheek in name.

Navigating The Messy Middle. Many many years ago I read Ann Douglas’ Mother of All Pregnancy/ Baby/ Toddler Books, and I loved them. Canadian content! I feel like I’ve come full circle, reading her book about being a woman in midlife. Well, maybe not full circle; perhaps in 20 years I’ll read about being a woman in the golden years. Anyhoo. This is a book that is almost entirely made up of interviews with other women, and it is incredibly inclusive and diverse. Because of the interviews, it reads like a series of long-form old-school magazine articles, if that makes sense. It makes for a nice fast read. I don’t know if there’s anything particularly new or earth-shattering here, but it is such an affirming book. Because of the diverse viewpoints, it really made me feel both seem and like we are all on a journey, with different paths, but together. Very uplifting and encouraging: from being a sandwich generation to body changes! I really liked the sections in friendship, relationships, and “raising” young adult children.

BFF. When I started reading this, I thought this seems familiar, and that is because the author also wrote the memoir Group, and there are a few overlaps between the characters and stories in that memoir and this one, about the author and another women who lived their whole lives with a lot of difficulties maintaining female friendships, but who become very close friends. Here’s the thing: I didn’t love Group, and I didn’t love this book, which is probably on me – note to self: read the synopsis BEFORE blindly putting a book on my library list. I didn’t love BFF for the same reason that I didn’t love Group, and that was that I found the author to be incredibly frustrating. Yes, I realize that flaws and foibles are what makes for a good memoir, however, get it together, author. I guess her particular flaws and foibles were just especially upsetting to me. However, this wasn’t wasted time; there were some thought-provoking parts, particularly about female friendship triangles, and the end of the book had some really insightful thoughts about the pandemic and how it helped the author reconnect with long-lost friends.

You guys, Wednesday is MARCH! March! What a whirlwind life is, even when not much is going on. I hope you all have a cozy week, doing things you love, and maybe even eating some cake – or pie, I won’t judge! My aversion means more pie for all of you! xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Winter Pleasures Edition

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We have had the most beautiful January: temperatures have mostly hovered around freezing, plus or minus five degrees, we have had barely any new snow or any wind, and most days have seen sunshine and blue skies. On the non-sunny days, we have had some hoar frost, which is just gorgeous.

There is a polar vortex coming in on the weekend, but hey. Winter is winter, and a mild January is a beautiful thing.

In my Ask Me Anything, Kari (HI KARI) had asked What is your favourite thing to do in the winter? When I received that question, it was December, and it was minus 30, and my immediate thought was Go on a tropical vacation. I mean. That is true, it is something I like to do, but a) I haven’t done that since 2019, so does it really count, and b) a tropical vacation, while wonderful, is one to two weeks maximum out of a minimum six months of winter.

But what DO I like to do in the winter? There are lots of things that I like to do, every day, but they mostly are not winter-specific. I used to love cross-country skiing, but haven’t for over nineteen years, so that’s probably not a valid answer. I really should unearth my skis and relearn about waxing, perhaps I should have made a resolution about it.

To answer the question at hand, I thought I would talk about three things that I like doing in the winter, although two of them are things I do year-round: walking, playing piano, and puzzling.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Winter Pleasures Edition

Walking Accoutrements

Some of you may remember the massive shift in attitude I had a couple of years ago, with regards to winter. I decided I wouldn’t waste any time loathing the long, cold winters. What good does that do? I embraced the season, I embraced my Norwegian heritage, and I adopted the concept of Friluftsliv. There is no bad weather, only bad clothes. I get out to walk every single day; pre-pandemic, it was just a short, slow, 2 kilometre Barkley Walk, but during the pandemic I added in a much-longer Me Walk. Now, of course, it’s a Rex Walk.

We have had Rex for three and a half months now, and in that time he and I have gotten into a very good walking rhythm. He’s really good on leash now, but he does occasionally pull (SQUIRREL). Our January filled with mild sunny days and cold nights means that we are in a melt/ freeze cycle, and the sidewalks are quite treacherous. This is especially treacherous for my personal well-being since I am attached to a giant dog via a waist leash, and if he sees a squirrel while we are on an icy sidewalk, it can be very hard to keep upright.

To combat this, I bought something called Ice Trax in a two-pack at Costco, and they are life-changing. They fit over the soles of my winter boots, and are little tiny spikes that act as crampons on the slippery sidewalks. I thought they would be difficult to take on and off, but they could not be easier. I haven’t broken a nail yet, which was my main concern.

This is the time to shout-out my coat. I have had that winter coat since my oldest was in kindergarten, in the winter of 2009. Hands down it was the best money I have ever spent on an article of clothing. I have a number of winter coats for different temperatures and with different levels of stylishness, but this is my go-to walking coat. In other words, it is not at all stylish, but sometimes, practicality must take precedence. I wear it all the time when it is below freezing, and, depending on what I wear it with, it’s perfect for temperatures ranging from minus 1 to minus 30. It is HUGELY puffy, it probably needs its own postal code, but it is such a great coat. I bought it from Mountain Equipment Co-Op; I have no idea if they even make anything like this anymore, but fourteen years on, it is a workhorse. The pockets are huge and fit my keys, dog treats, and extra gloves.

Speaking of layers, I have not had to wear my snow pants at all this month, but when going out I do always have on long socks or legwarmers over my yoga pants, and a bum warmer. There is a wonderful local woman who repurposes old sweaters into the cutest little bum warmers, and sometimes she has enough material to make matching mittens. I have three sets, plus a little pair of legwarmers made from sleeves.

It’s all about the layers!

Piano Accoutrement

I play piano year-round, but I find I play for longer stretches in the winter. I recently bought “100 Of The Most Beautiful Piano Solos Ever” which is a very long but apt name for a songbook. I have no issue with the content, but I do have a problem: the book itself is very cumbersome to use. I have encountered this problem my entire life; a thick songbook will NOT stay open at the page you want it to, unless you completely break the binding at the place you want it to stay open, which then means it will not stay open at any other song. This would all be resolved if book-makers used a spiral binding, but alas. They do not.

I figured that I could not be alone in this frustration, so on an internet search I went. I found, and purchased, this little thing:

WHERE HAS THIS BEEN ALL MY LIFE. It holds the pages open to where I need it, if a song is longer than two pages, I secure it to where the song ends, and it’s easy to turn the page while playing. I admit that at first I was using it incorrectly, as pages flitted wildly while I attempted a multi-page song. This led me to despair that nothing in this world is as it seems, but then I actually read the instructions. When in doubt, read the instructions.

After a couple of months of practice, I have FINALLY mastered the key changes!

Puzzling Accoutrement

It’s Puzzle Season in the Boyhouse! I love jigsaw puzzles but winter is the only time I like to do them. When Rex came into our lives, I wondered if we would ever do a puzzle again, what with his fluffy wagging tail. Then I discovered PUZZLE BOARDS.

I bought this for my husband for Christmas, and it was such a great purchase. It has drawers to organize all the pieces, and, best of all, it has a ledge on it that is completely Rex-proof! He hasn’t knocked off one puzzle piece. My husband loves puzzles even more than I do, and this Northern Lights puzzle is the fourth one this season.

Julie and Nicole, the Cake Adventure

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my lovely friend Julie van Rosendaal (HI JULIE) recently published a book entitled You Are Human And You Need Cake, and I thought I would try my hand at most, if not all, the recipes. The first one was a Peanut Butter Cup Cake, which I made for dinner guests who are peanut-butter-chocolate lovers.

Because I can never follow a recipe, I swapped the cream cheese in the filling for coconut cream – to do this, put a couple of cans of full-fat coconut milk in the fridge, then separate the cream from the liquid – and I used Silk Coconut Whipping Cream, which I have never bought before in my life, but I will absolutely buy again because it was delicious.

Doesn’t the cake look fantastic? Well, I had taken the springform pan off BEFORE adding the ganache on top, which was a grave mistake.

Things slid a little in the fridge, but you know what, the person who got those pieces got extra ganache, so we can hashtag that as winning. Lesson learned: keep the springform on until EVERYTHING is set, not just the cream filling.

The second cake I made was a cinnamon streusel coffee cake, which was like a cinnamon bun in cake form. It was super easy to make and I added a glaze-like frosting because what is cake without frosting?

It’s not like I think of cake as a vehicle for frosting, but I don’t NOT think that, either. I mean, I love cake itself but a frosting-less cake feels a bit sad to me. That said, the layers of cinnamon streusel in this cake were absolutely divine, so I could have probably omitted it without too much sadness, but why not add a little joy to our lives via frosting?

Favourite Outfit of the Month

As you know, if you’ve read this blog for any length of time, I love talking about clothes. In the past I’ve posted Outfits of the Week (way too frequent) and A Week Of (Seasonal) Outfits (way too much work in a less-frequent way), and so this year I’m going to post my Favourite Outfit of the Month.

I have a tendency to hang onto my clothes until they literally fall apart. Part of Curating Your Closet is keeping only clothes that are really loved, and that make the wearer feel good about themselves. This is an outfit that I love, and parts of it are really, really old.

The jeans are the newer part of the outfit; I bought them in the fall of 2021 when I ditched all my old ill-fitting jeans and bought three pairs of new ones. Life is too short for uncomfortable jeans; bodies change as we age and so should our jeans. These are Silver brand, from Bootlegger, in the “Suki Skinny” style and if you are tempted to buy some, be warned: Silver jeans tend to stretch so if you like them, buy them a size down. I find that for the first half-hour of wearing they feel pretty tight, going directly against my “life is too short” mantra above, but then they feel and look perfect.

As it hasn’t been that cold, I haven’t been wearing my really thick, wintry sweaters; instead, I’ve been gravitating towards the lightweight ones. The black long-sleeved tee I know for a fact I bought in 2010, for a trip with my husband to Tofino. The grey sweater was purchased not long after; both are from long-defunct Jacob. I love a long sweater with skinny jeans; the look perfectly lends itself to tall boots, which are, of course, my go-to footwear from October through April, minimum.

I can hardly believe that January is almost over! My older son had some VERY good news this week, so I shall be in a celebratory mood this weekend! Perhaps I’ll grab my Favourite Cab Franc and Favourite Boom Chicka Pop (IT’S BACK, BABY!) and enjoy this last weekend of January! What have you been loving this month? Tell me everything. xo