Category Archives: Housewifery

Three For Thursday: Dinner, Dog, Domestic Duties

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Cozy Dinner Season Begins

Gardening season is wrapping up for the year, but the zucchinis and tomatoes are still going strong. You would think we would all be tired of those things, but I made a Buddha bowl last weekend and was astonished when my son said that the zucchini was a great addition.

I have filled my freezer both with bags of grated zucchini and roasted tomatoes. The garden has produced more tomatoes than anyone could possibly consume, and that is coming from someone who can consume a lot of tomatoes. I don’t want to can them, and so I roast them with olive oil and freeze them; pureed with pasta water and a little bit of goat or cashew cheese makes for a really incredible sauce. Roasted zucchini goes great with it!

I still have some cilantro, but I feel like its days are numbered. I love it sprinkled on top of stir-fry. Note that there is zucchini in there.

My second planting of kale, spinach, and lettuce has been prolific, but I think this might be the last big homegrown salad of the year. It will be strange to buy greens again.

For the record, there was no zucchini in that salad.

The Grocery Shopping Never Ends, Neither Does The Laundry

The garden has definitely had a huge impact on the amount of produce I need to buy every week, but even so, I am constantly astounded by the sheer volume of groceries I buy for our household of now-three.

I went to Costco on Tuesday, which wasn’t the best idea given I was having the kind of day that was just filled with constant tiny annoyances. Typically I launder all the sheets on Tuesdays, and I decided to throw in my duvet cover and pillow shams as well, which resulted in said duvet cover and my fitted sheet cannibalizing all the other linens. While they were, unbeknownst to me, becoming a tangled, soggy mess in the dryer, I blithely thought to launder the pillows as well, which kept unbalancing the washer load. When the washer was stuck in spin mode at the four-minute mark for over twenty minutes, I clued in that something was wrong. By the time I resolved these very minor, but annoying laundry crises, I was not in the best mental space to tackle Costco, but I did it anyway.

My thinking was that Tuesday was far enough ahead of the Thanksgiving weekend, and that it wouldn’t be too crazy, but I was wrong. I was wrong. It turns out every elderly, slow-moving, sample-eating, spatially-unaware person in the surrounding area ALSO thought Tuesday would be far enough ahead of Thanksgiving to be a good time to go to Costco.

Now, listen. One day, hopefully, I will be one of those elderly, slow-moving people in Costco, stocking up to host the whole family for a holiday meal. Hopefully we all will be! But as god is my witness, I will never stand in the middle of the aisle eating a dixie cup filled with a sample of ravioli or frozen mixed vegetables, I will never take two carts, trainlike, and block off the entire frozen fruit section, and I will never angle my cart sideways in the produce section and then leave said cart to check on my husband in baked goods, while clusters of people become stuck in the giant refrigerator, experiencing the Costco equivalent of road rage when they are just trying to get a goddamn bag of broccoli, Carol.

I was trying to be zen about it. I mean, it’s not like an extra ten minutes was going to kill me. All the same, I had to go into the Christmas section to calm myself down. I was incredibly soothed by the displays, and I considered buying myself a giant Snoopy-themed holiday gift basket, but decided that $39 was too much to spend on something filled with things I have no use for, like hot chocolate bombs and marshmallow cookies. Still, the mug was cute.

Since the closure of Hallmark stores several years ago, I have not been able to find really nice gift wrap for birthdays and such. I always wished that Costco would make a non-holiday version of their high-quality gift wrap, and people! They have! If I hadn’t been so annoyed by my fellow aged shoppers, I would never have soothed myself in the Christmas section, and I would have never found a three-pack of beautiful, double-sided paper. The universe works in strange ways.

Two Year Rexaversary

Two years ago today, we were given the most wonderful gift: Rex. I am grateful every day we were chosen to be his family.

Rex is the epitome of joy, and I feel like we could all take lessons from him. When I open his crate in the morning, he reacts with such excitement and happiness to see me, and that sets the tone for the day. Every single thing is exciting to him: walking, gardening, getting a treat, finding a stick, and sitting with me while I write, fold the laundry, or make dinner. He loves to go for car rides; it doesn’t matter where, as long as he’s with me. He is just pure cheer and joy, and we love that giant fuzzy goofball.

How lucky we are. How grateful I am. Happy Thanksgiving, friends. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Cheap Trick Edition

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It’s sunset season!

I know what you’re going to say: sunsets occur on the daily. This is true – sunrise, sunset – but since I retire so early I don’t generally see sunsets from May to August. Sunrises, I see those every day. But sunsets? No.

I really do believe that The Best Things In Life Are Free, like sunsets, but also, I believe that You Get What You Pay For. This is a fun dichotomy, which involves me feeling very Mary Oliver about my surroundings, and also being a complete snob about yoga wear.

One thing I genuinely, desperately miss is the Sears catalogue, particularly around the holidays. Remember the Wish Book? The first few pages would be dedicated to gifts under a certain dollar amount and I absolutely loved looking at those pages. Did anyone I know need a pair of Maple Leaf themed mittens or a cubic zirconia brooch in the shape of a snowman? Probably not, but I loved looking at them. I was thinking of that recently, realizing that so many of my Favourite Things tend to be on the pricier side. But there are many things I love that are not so expensive, and so I decided that this month, every Favourite Thing would be under ten dollars. Cheap, cheerful, and immensely helpful to my life, all of these things give a lot of bang for the buck.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Cheap Trick Edition

Fly Away, Bye Bye

It’s fruit fly season! I do not remember ever having fruit flies in Calgary – perhaps the nights were just too cold for them? I have no idea – so wow, was I in for a shock last fall when my fruit-full kitchen was descended upon. Of course I made all those homemade traps with coffee filters and red wine and jars covered with perforated cling wrap, and they all worked fine, but I kind of hated the look of them. I found these cute little traps that I fill up with apple cider vinegar and a drop of dish soap, and voila. It’s a watery graveyard filled with those tiny little bastards.

Bzzzzz

Did you love Lip Smackers back in the 80s? I sure did, and I remember clearly graduating from those fruit-flavoured lip balms to Kissing Potion, a truly grotesque lip gloss that came in a little bottle with a roller ball, like those old-school roll-on deodorants. Younger readers, I’m sure you have no idea what I’m talking about, but girls of a certain age, you know what I mean.

My point is that I have had a lifelong love of flavoured, tinted lip balms and glosses, and I expect this love affair to continue until I become human compost at the base of a tree. I have graduated from Lip Smackers and Kissing Potion to Burts’ Bees. I love their entire line of balms, tinted balms, shimmers, and glosses. Typically if I’m going out I wear lipstick, but tinted balms, shimmers, and glosses are good for when I’m just hanging around the house or walking the dog. Life is too short to go without lip colour, I say.

I’ll tell you what I don’t love: plain lip balm. Variety is the spice of life and I like to be spicy. I cannot be confined to plain. I’m not going to walk into an ice cream shop with 100 flavours and order vanilla, you know?

Colour Me Happy

Speaking of colour, I spent two decades of my life paying for professional hair colour, and when the pandemic hit and I started doing it myself, I knew there was no going back. To say I regret the time and money spent on professional hair colour would be a vast understatement. Well. There is no going back, only going forward, and as god is my witness I shall never pay exorbitant prices for hair colour again, not when I can buy a box of Garnier for under ten dollars and be done and on my way in 30 minutes.

I feel so strongly about this that I actually broke up with a hair stylist who gave me the best haircuts of my life, because she just would not stop hassling me about colouring my own hair, even after I asked her not to. I did have a worrisome moment recently though; I had applied my colour and was practicing my DuoLingo while it set, and then when I went to rinse I noticed that I had dripped colour on my beautiful white bathroom cabinet. It had been soaking in for thirty minutes and was not budging. I felt actually sick.

I turned to the internet for advice, and discovered, as in everything else in life, that I was not alone. The internet suggested a Mr Clean Magic Eraser with hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol; I had both items in the house, and lo, it worked. It worked! It didn’t take the finish off the cabinet, but just…magically erased the hair colour. TRULY MAGIC. ERASER.

It’s Good But Not That Good, If You Know What I Mean

Since I seem to be revisiting my youth, remember back in the 90s when Herbal Essences first came out, and the entire marketing campaign centred around a woman using the shampoo and having an orgasm in the shower because it smelled so good? Oh, to have been a (fruit) fly on the wall at that executive meeting.

I don’t use that shampoo, but I do use Herbal Essences Touchable Hold hairspray (touchable hold, is this also a sexual euphemism? I need to get IN TOUCH with the marketing team.) Anyway, it is honestly the best hairspray I have ever tried; it doesn’t make my hair sticky or crunchy. IT MAKES IT TOUCHABLE.

This is not to say that hair that is crunchy or sticky is not touchable. I mean, anything is touchable. WE CAN TOUCH THINGS. I really need to talk to the Herbal Essences people. Anyway, the long and the short (heh) of it is that this is really good, long lasting (double heh) hairspray and it’s about six dollars a bottle. I’ve never had an orgasm using it, but it does smell pretty good.

Happy Snoopy Dance

Circling back to the Sears catalogue, the one thing I wanted and never got was a Snoopy Sno Cone Machine. Friends who did receive this item have since told me it was an absolute disappointment of a fake appliance that broke immediately; this does not stop me from coveting it, somehow. I suppose it’s because Snoopy is my spirit animal; I feel like my whole personality can be summed up by that beagle.

So it’s no wonder that I immediately snapped up this little cutie:

I know most people in the modern age now keep grocery lists on shared apps or digital notes or what have you, but I am old-fashioned, and I like a piece of paper with a pen. I don’t want just any piece of paper, though. I want a cute piece of paper. This little notepad is absolutely perfect, and I smile every time I note down yet another thing to buy at the grocery store, why do we eat so much food.

Outfit of the Month

In keeping with the theme of the month, I bought that tee on Maui in 2016 for FIVE AMERICAN DOLLARS. The rest of the outfit was definitely over my ten dollar limit, unless I think of each piece in terms of cost per wear, in which case I’m in the clear. The grey yoga tank and the shoes I bought in 2017, and I have worn them many, many times. The jeans, as you know from my ongoing saga, are new, but let me tell you a little about them. They are Silver brand, and are called “Infinity Fit.” It’s a strange thing because they are JEANS, but they come in sizes S, M, L, etc., rather than regular numbered sizes. I was pretty skeptical but they were on a major clearout from – wait for it – Mark’s, as in Work Wearhouse, and so I thought I’d take a chance. PEOPLE. It is like wearing slightly stiffer yoga pants. Yes, they are jeans, with a button and a zipper, but they are so incredibly stretchy. And yet they keep their shape all day long! Needless to say I ordered more than one pair in different washes and styles. It’s the dawning of a new era, the era of my stretchy jeans.

Oh, September! It’s such a beautiful month, especially here in Kelowna. It’s absolutely gorgeous, friends – cool, crisp mornings followed by warm, sunny afternoons, the leaves juuuust starting to change colour, the garden and neighbouring farm stands absolutely filled with produce. Right now I can step outside and cut a bunch of perfectly sweet, ripe Concord grapes for a little snack, and it’s the most joyfully delicious thing. I hope wherever you are, September is just as sweet. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The One Year Anniversary Edition

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Exactly one year ago today, I loaded up the car and drove eight hours solo, with only Rex and a queue of podcasts for company, to move from Calgary to Kelowna. The entries from my one-line-a-day journal from this time last year are kind of nuts; frantic descriptions of packing, cleaning, and purging, interspersed with lawyer meetings and nervous breakdowns. I said to myself a million times, between crying to myself singing along to The Climb and Unwritten, there will be a time after this. And there was! There was a time after that! This is the time, and it’s good.

Here we are one year after that time of pure chaos, and so I give you:

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The One Year Anniversary Edition

Better Homes and Gardens

While it’s true that I loved my cozy little bungalow in my warm and wonderful community, with the gardens that we designed and built and planted and cared for over twenty-three years, wow, do I love my new home and gardens. There’s something amazing to me about upsizing to a spacious house with clean lines and huge windows and lots of light, with a giant yard and garden and a growing season that is over twice as long as what I experienced before. Every single morning I go into my garden, and every single morning I am filled with delight and happiness.

I cannot even believe the amount of produce we’ve had so far and how gratifying I find it, harvesting vegetables and incorporating them into my meal plans. And the things I don’t grow, I can buy at the local farm market for what seems to me to be incredibly low prices.

Now, am I going to have approximately one million tomatoes and half as many zucchinis? Possibly. But I will take on the challenge of Extreme Produce Glut with gusto.

Scrub a Dub Dub

I’ve always wanted an ensuite bathroom, and now I have one, complete with the makeup table of my dreams. I love the light colours of the walls and tiles but I noticed that I was getting weird, gross orange and black stains on the floor tile grout. I mean, I’m all up for seasonal Halloween decor but not on my grout and not year-round.

You know me, I am all about the hippie cleaning products and using white vinegar and Scrub Daddies for everything, but nothing like that was removing these stains, no matter how much elbow grease was applied. I don’t like bleach and I don’t like harsh-smelling products that make my eyes water, but the stains were making me insane. Or, in-stain.

Desperate, I bought this CLR cleaner as a Hail Mary, and HOT DAMN.

I realize that this would be a much more dramatic photo if there was a “before,” but you’ll have to believe me, this is an incredible, almost total improvement on the situation.

Hair Affair

If you, like me, always squint and look with extreme interest at bathroom photos to decipher the types of products that are kept in a shower, well, squint no more! I am more than happy to talk about my new favourite hair product, Prose, and I am not even a little bit embarrassed to tell you that I heard it mentioned on a variety of podcasts many times over, and because the algorithm is always listening, those products also started showing up in my social media feed. Then I started to get codes for 50% off and I ask you, what’s a girl to do?

Now, you know I’m never going to talk about beauty products unless I’ve used them for at least a few months; I started using Prose shampoo, conditioner, and something called a pre-shampoo mask in early March and I do not think I can adequately express the metamorphosis that I have experienced.

How Prose works is that you fill out a survey about what your life is like, including things like your postal code, exercise routines, and diet, as well as what trauma you put your hair through on the daily and what your hair goals in general are. For me, I heat style and colour my hair and my main goal is to KEEP my hair. Then they send you products that are specific to your needs, including scent preferences. The labels have your name on them which is an adorable touch, I think.

I admit I was skeptical at first but not anymore. I feel like my hair has a new lease on life.

You Put The Lime In The Coconut

I try to spend as many hours a day as possible outside, and in the heat of the day, the shade of my deck is a perfect place to be. And what could be nicer on a Friday afternoon in summer than an icy cold cocktail?

Now, my friend Liv (HI LIV) told me at least a decade ago about coconut tequila, but to be honest, it fell off my radar, at least until last December when a friend made me an unseasonable, but very welcome, margarita. What made it so delicious, I asked? COCONUT TEQUILA. It was everything Liv had been trying to tell me for ten years, and more.

My coconut-lime margarita life was on hold until about a six weeks ago, when I a) found a lime margarita mix at the grocery store, and b) actually went to the liquor store in search of coconut tequila. There’s no going back now, it’s my new favourite drink for the summer.

You Put The Pine(apple) In The Coconut

But of course one cannot survive on coconut lime margaritas alone. I like a refreshing non-alcoholic beverage for regular weekdays, and Bubly came out with a pineapple coconut flavour that I am obsessed with.

Look, the can is so friendly! Hola!

Outfit of the Month

Do you have a Summer Uniform? I sure do, it’s a plain black tank top with a Lululemon skirt, the kind that has shorts attached underneath so I can go about my daily business without being worried I am going to show my panties to the world, or, more specifically, my children. No need to traumatize them.

Very occasionally I’ll swap out the black tank for a white one, but since I am a walking disaster, I will almost inevitably be ending the day with stain remover when that happens.

When it comes to clothing, I’m not a very colourful gal generally, except in the summer. I have this same skirt in a variety of colours. I’m at the point in life where if there is a piece that fits, feels good, and is cute, then I like to get multiples of that piece. The Uniform fulfils the three C’s: cool, comfortable, and cute. The sandals are Skechers slides, which are absolutely perfect for slipping on and comfortable enough to walk around in.

One whole year! Thank you to all my wonderful friends who have made the transition so smooth; my Calgary friends who wished me well, my Kelowna friends (especially Sammi, HI SAMMI) who welcomed me with open arms, and every single reader who sent love and encouragement my way. I love and adore you all. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Landscaped Edition

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I realized just as I wrote that title that I have a sugaring appointment this afternoon, but lest you get the wrong idea, what I am going to talk about today is NOT that kind of landscaping.

It’s full on summer and I am enjoying the gorgeous weather, although today is “coolish.” Of course, in Calgary this would be considered just a nice June day, but here it’s considered cool. Anyway, today I wanted to take you for a tour of my newly landscaped backyard – NOT THAT KIND OF LANDSCAPED BACKYARD, PEOPLE. We started the project in April and it finished a couple of weeks ago.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Landscaped Edition

Perennially Pretty

We had professional help for our yard; it was just too big and too overwhelming of a project for my husband and I to take on by ourselves. It’s a new climate, we have deer, and I wanted to have things blooming at all different times of the year. I am SO happy with the final result, and I look forward to seeing the flower beds fill out in the years to come, as all of these are perennials.

Can you spot Salvadore? Bonus if you can spy the other gnomes in this photo.
Gustav the gnome is hiding in the tree.
The old gas pump for farm equipment.
Before this was all rough grass; I originally wanted to xeriscape but we decided to put rock in along with the old farm equipment.
A reminder to go placidly amid the noise and haste.

Colour Me Colourful

We wanted to have some more colour, and so we added pots of annuals. You can see in the above photo we have a large one at the steps – by the most gorgeous purple clematis – and we put some on our deck as well.

Berry Happy To Just Veg Out

I have gotten so much incredible edibles out of my garden already (NOT THAT KIND OF EDIBLES), that I can hardly believe it’s only June. I have so many greens, you guys! It’s all salads all the time around here:

Plus a healthy dose of cilantro:

And basil:

And I’ve even harvested some raspberries, along with strawberries:

Also, garden spinach in smoothies is LIFE ALTERING, even more so than, say, getting sugared.

Just Thelma, No Louise

My lovely friend Sandi (HI SANDI) and I went to lunch and a movie last week, and I had to admit that the last time I saw a movie in the theatre, it was Top Gun: Maverick. Before that, it was Greta Gerwig’s Little Women in 2019. So what I’m saying is that I don’t see a lot of movies; mostly I find myself bored and distractable. But Sandi suggested we go see Thelma, which I had never heard of, but upon discovering it was about a ninety-two woman who gets scammed and then goes on a caper with her friend and his scooter to get her money back, well. I was IN. It was such a pro-aging delight, and I think the key to a good movie watching experience is to watch with a girlfriend, as opposed to, say, the members of the Boyhouse who enjoy action movies and things that are upsetting, like bombs exploding or guns firing.

On that note, I wanted to bring up something to see if anyone else can relate: I need spoilers, else I cannot get through a movie or television show. I get too stressed and anxious watching anything even remotely upsetting. Even with a feel-good movie like Thelma, which at 107 minutes is pretty much perfect, I was feeling all sweaty-palmed and worried. I have been known to google plots or to text my friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) for detailed spoilers so I know what to expect. Anyway, Thelma was absolutely wonderful and I highly recommend it, particularly as a raised fist in solidarity to combat feelings of invisibility and irrelevance that are forced on aging people, particularly women.

Me, watching a movie.

The Vulva Shaped Soapbox

Speaking of raised fists and aging women, I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about The Menopause Manifesto. I generally use the library for most books, but some books are necessary to have on the shelf at the ready, and this is one of them. I bought it in 2021 and have been using it as a reference ever since; my symptoms have vastly (VASTLY) changed in the past three years and I have never come across any book so helpful, compassionate, and evidence-based than this one. Dr. Gunter is THE last word in women’s health, and particularly in the menopause sphere, and she rails against misinformation and the so-called fixes that are sold to women desperate to find relief from their symptoms, from the merely bothersome to the downright debilitating. It’s a must read for any woman who is lucky enough to live long enough to go through this perfectly natural, but often cloaked in shame, stage of life.

Simply Irresistable

As I said, women can start to feel less attractive and more invisible as we age, but do you know who finds me even more sexy and irresistible than before? Mosquitoes. Hello summer, and my daily walks down by the creek do not go unnoticed. I have always been a person who has been hotly pursued by mosquitoes, but these days I am even more irresistible to them. It’s like I’m Princess Di, and they are the paparazzi, but with less-devastating, itchier results. Maybe it’s because you eat so much potassium, my son helpfully mentioned, and that could be true, but my whole life I have been One Sexy Bitch to those blood-thirsty insects.

Typically I put on bug spray prior to my walk, but I forgot to the other day, the exact day I was wearing a really cute yoga tank with criss-cross straps and an open back. My entire body, but particularly my back, is now covered in welts. I happen to have allergic reactions to mosquito bites, not the My Girl deadly kind of allergic reaction, but just swelling and bruising and terrible itch. I also have allergic reactions to anything that is supposed to soothe said bites, and my friend Laura (HI LAURA) told me that she is the same way. Of course she is, we are basically the same person, except she’s American. Anyway, she suggested Thayer’s Witch Hazel with Rose, and friends, IT WORKS. I had immediate relief, plus it smells lovely.

Outfit of the Month

Remember when I mentioned that my dressy sandals were just half a size too small, and my feet were swelling and falling out of them? I replaced them with these from Skechers, and I wore them to a recent birthday party ALL NIGHT. Not once did I slip off my shoes, as is my wont. Comfort and cuteness, it’s a winning combination

Here’s the full outfit: the same black Lululemon City Sleek pants that look like real pants, but feel like yoga pants, that I have talked about at length for years. The top is from long-defunct Jacob, and I don’t know exactly how long I have had it, but I do know I wore it to my 40th birthday party, and I am now 49.

June was a great month for me, and when I compare it to the nervous breakdown of LAST June, well, it looks even better. Do you have any favourite things from this month? I’d love to hear about them. I have an interesting weekend ahead of me, including a houseguest and an adventure, and I wish all my Canadian friends a lovely long weekend! And for you non-Canadians, I hope you have a wonderful regular weekend. xo

Knocking Off The To-Do List

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Thank you all so much for your commiseration about the wildlife situation around here; I am happy to tell you that since the neighbourhood collectively locked up their garbage, Baloo seems to have moved on to greener pastures, hopefully one that has natural, non-garbage food to eat. I know things will be different once fruit season kicks in, but for now, I’m breathing a sigh of relief. Now, am I low-level on the edge in the morning, obsessively checking the windows before going outside or letting Rex out? Yes I am. Did my heart rate increase by fifty on hearing a suspicious noise as I prepared for my yoga practice, only to discover that it was my mother-in-law innocently moving her recycling bin? Also yes. I thought you were the bear! I scream-whispered at five in the morning.

Just to add to the excitement, Rex and I have taken what I call “urban walks,” as opposed to our walks along the nature paths or up Knox Mountain, four times over the past two weeks, and each time we have seen coyotes. One even followed us down the sidewalk for a while, as Rex barked and barked and I used every ounce of strength to hold him back. Do I find that incredibly unsettling? Yes I do.

This park bench is on our urban walking route, and it brings me so much joy, I cannot even. Looking at it makes those coyote encounters feel worthwhile. It’s like there is an entire story written in just one sentence; I feel like Lloyd’s bench is a book that is just waiting to be written.

Speaking of books, I have one of those five year, one line a day journals, and now that I’m on my third year with it, I’m really seeing the payoff. I consider this blog to be a journal of sorts, but the one line a day is such a good way to capture, briefly, what was going on in my life, and I can see at this time last year, I was basically having a nervous breakdown.

One of the many things causing my breakdown was the uncertainty of basically everything to do with the move, and more specifically, the change in medical care. Last Wednesday, I went to note in my journal that I had, with pride and excitement, accomplished something I have been working on for more than six months, and on that very day, one year before, my husband had received some pretty devastating medical news. Now, before we all hit the panic at the disco button, let me reassure you that my husband is still alive and thriving, but at the time, we didn’t know what was going to happen. He needed a medical procedure, and we were six weeks out from moving to a new province. We didn’t know if he’d be able to get it before we left, and if he wasn’t, what were we going to do? Come back? We’d already sold the house, the movers were booked, and once a person moves to a new province, there can be a huge, sometimes indefinite delay in getting a doctor and finding medical care.

Things worked out fine for him, ultimately, but we were still doctor-less until just this week, and quite frankly, that was sooner than I could have even hoped. I’m thrilled to check “find a doctor” off our collective to-do list. Just this week we also found a dentist, due to my son somehow cracking his retainer in half and needing a new one, and started the process to renew all of our passports.

Why is dealing with anything government-related so tedious and painful? Remember the last time I had to renew the boys’ passports? At that time I dealt with the most competent government employee who had a zest for his job that I have never seen before or since, and it was still a process and a half. I am steeling myself to go to Service Canada today, thoughts and prayers greatly appreciated.

My dad, in the most dad way possible, has gifted my husband and I, along with our sons when they started driving, motor association memberships every Christmas of our married life, and one of the perks of the membership is the ability to get professional and discounted passport photos, so off we all went to cross this task off our to-do lists. Is there anything less flattering and more distressing than a passport photo? It’s worse even than a driver’s license photo. I pulled my hair into a bun, remembering the last time, when I had to smooth and sleek my hair into oblivion, and prepared myself mentally to see myself as others see me, face in grim repose.

What I didn’t prepare for was the ego-crushing admonishment that I was “too shiny” and had to use blotting papers not once but three times before the photographer was satisfied, and then I had a “there’s something on your face” that turned out to be just my face. Fellow Gen X ladies: it is very hard to unlearn the Matte Or Death lessons of our youth, but in the interest in not looking like one of those dried-apple dolls, I have been using products that are meant to mimic the dewy glow of youth. Am I comfortable with the dewiness? No, I am not. However, I recognize that matte products, on Women Of A Certain Age can exacerbate the physical signs of aging on the skin and YES, I EMBRACE MY AGING PROCESS, and YES, I AM PRO-AGING, but I would also like to not look completely like the afore-mentioned dried-apple doll. And so here I am, using non-matte tinted serums with all the hyaluronic acids and whatnot, and I get a stern talking-to by the passport photographer that I am JUST TOO DAMN SHINY. One cannot win. And then, even with all that shine, my age is vastly apparent, like a dried-apple doll that has been brushed with olive oil. My neck, in this photo and probably in life, resembles a narrow, striated tree trunk, and my facial expression toes the line of sociopath. Well. As I said, there is no good passport photo, and I will continue to never use filters on my regular photos, to lessen the shock value of reality.

Weekly Reading

Open Secrets. After my run of meh books last week, I felt that I had to break the streak with a reread of one of my favourite Alice Munro collections. Well, they are all my favourites, how can a person choose? I have wholeheartedly loved every single story she ever wrote. RIP Alice Munro! As a side note, celebrity deaths almost never affect me, I either think the person has already died, or else I just don’t feel anything at all. But Alice Munro! She was such a gift to the literary world; she was such a beautiful talent and I feel sad she is not in our world anymore. Anyway, this collection is absolutely marvellous, two of the stories – The Albanian Virgin and Carried Away – are stories I think about literally all the time. Can anyone ever say enough about Alice Munro? I know I can’t. I love her so much, and I am sad she is gone. 

Capote’s Women. I have been fascinated by the story of Truman Capote and how he betrayed the high-society, uber-wealthy women who took him into their confidence for years. Side note: there is a TV show about this, the second season of Feud, which I haven’t watched but believe me, I will! Someday. I am not a good TV watcher. Anyway, I was excited about this book because it’s a pretty wild and fascinating story; there are some very juicy details about Babe Paley and Lee Radziwill, who I have been interested in since becoming obsessed with the book What Remains. Imagine being Capote, social climbing and being a bit of a wunderkind, and then writing a book that essentially is a lightly-veiled tell-all of these women’s lives, and then wondering why he became a pariah with them? Imagine being these women, whose whole job is just to keep marrying rich men? How could this book be anything but great? Well, I am sorry to tell you that I really disliked the matter-of-fact writing style and much of it was somehow dull and boring. Oh well.

In garden news this week, not only have we had many salads, but all my smoothies have been made with spinach from the garden and it is a life-changing event. I cannot even tell you how amazing they are. More amazing is that we have already had four ripe strawberries! The first one I photographed like one of my French girls, in several luscious positions. It was delicious.

I hope you all have a delicious week! With all my harvesting, I have been thinking a lot about food, and meal planning, and, most of all, desserts, so I’ll be sure to share all my Yummy Related Thoughts soon. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Leap Year Edition

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Happy Leap Year, everyone!

Our last Leap Year was in 2020, and thinking about it now, how strange that time was, having an extra day just ahead of being locked down and going through a global pandemic. When I look at my blog from February 2020, it is all very cheerful and clearly I had no idea what was about to occur. I also, it seems, did not mark the leap day in any way at all.

Well, I shall not make that mistake this year! I have had a really lovely month filled with good things, so why not extend it a day?

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Leap Year Edition

The E is for Environment

One of my favourite podcasts, Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend, has a new segment called Podcast Pals Product Picks, and as you can imagine, I am here for this kind of content. One of the guests talked about E Cloths, which to my mind means ELECTRONIC cloths, but the E in this case stands for Environment. Anyway, they are special microfibre cloths that use only water for cleaning, and by the time the podcast guest finished talking about the streak-free shines on all of his glass and stainless surfaces, I was scrambling to order them. Here, take my money. We have a lot of windows in this house, not to mention mirrors and my shiny lacquered Yamaha piano, and I am never able to get them really clean. I will THINK they are clean, and then the sunlight will come in a certain way, and I will feel the kind of despair that accompanies what one thinks is a job well done, but was actually wasted time and effort.

NO MORE!

Listen, I do not know what magic is involved here, but all I can say is that they really work. Apparently these cloths are somehow antibacterial and antimicrobial and require no extra cleaning supplies, but that is a bridge too far for me. I may use hippie cleaning products, but I still want to use cleaning products. I’m happy to shine my glass and stainless appliances with just water and E Cloths, but I’m not relying on them to, you know, wipe up food-related messes or clean the bathroom.

The Big Ass’k

I have been on a lifelong quest to be less dissatisfied with my hair, and I honestly don’t think I will ever actually love my hair. I have issues, is what I’m saying, for many reasons which I will not go into here so as to not bore and depress us all. Nora Ephron once said that not worrying about your hair anymore is the secret upside to being dead, and when I read that, I finally felt very seen in a way I never had before.

My lifelong quest means that I am always on the lookout for new hair products. I bought this Cake volumizing product on a whim, and also because it was called The Big Ass’k, and honestly, I feel that the name called to me. My anaconda don’t want none unless…

Anyway. I like this product a lot, it’s really great for non-shampoo days to add volume, and it smells fantastic.

Look at that shiny clean mirror!

Actual Cake

I think I bought Julie van Rosendaal’s cake cookbook back in January 2023, with the eventual resolution to make every recipe in the book. My younger son sternly reminded me of this resolution a couple of weeks ago, chastising me for falling down on my goals. To that end, I tried a recipe that I have been wanting to try since obtaining the book: the Jos Louis cake. I have never had a Jos Louis in my life, and neither had anyone in my family, so we could not compare this to the original. Mine was not as pretty as Julie’s, but wow, was it a delicious cake. It might be the best cake I’ve tried from that cookbook to date.

Now, I want to note that this is not a simple recipe. There are many steps and it takes a while to get assembled. Also, I have no idea how one would cover the cake in ganache without it spilling all over the sides of the platter, but no matter. As they say in Beauty and the Beast, true beauty is found within.

Let My Lust Open The Door

I have a new favourite podcast called Bad On Paper; the two lovely young hosts are authors who talk about their writing processes, as well as about books and life in general. This checks every box for me! For Valentine’s Day they had an episode about – wait for it – obscure erotica. One of the hosts talked about a book concerning a pansexual Abraham Lincoln who – again, wait for it – has a penis fight with the Emperor of Japan to see who will – wait for it – colonize the moon. I could not be less interested in such a storyline BUT the other author brought up a book called Unhinged: An Erotic Door Romance.

The host said, “If you’re wondering ‘Is this a book about a woman who fucks her door?’ well, you’d be right!” and at that moment, I knew I had to read it. After all, let’s never forget I read the Governor General Award-winning book Bear about a woman entering into a sexual relationship with a bear – and not, as my son asked, a big hairy gay guy, an actual bear. Upshot of that, for those of you who don’t remember, bears give great oral but are maybe not so good with intercourse. Or, as I like to say now, intercoursing. Anyhoo, back to the door. This little piece of door-related erotica was well worth the $1.30 on Kindle plus the 45 minutes it took to read. I mean, not to spoil anything, but this is no ordinary door. It was made from wood from a tree that – wait for it – Zeus, Greek god, fucked. You read that right! Zeus Harvey Weinsteined an oak tree and bam, we have a sentient – and, apparently sexy – door. More spoilers! The door can sometimes take on a human form! Sexiness ensues!

But wait, there’s more!

The host of the podcast mentioned that Squeak, erotica having to do with balloon animals, was her second choice in books, and, hilariously high off of the image of a doorknob wearing a condom, I bought it on Kindle for another $1.30. Sadly, this one was disappointing. I mean, it wasn’t really entertaining to read, it was just mostly confusing. There’s a three-way? And two of them are partially balloon animals? But they maybe also turned the woman into a balloon animal by having sex with her? But I’m not sure? In a different kind of universe? I really don’t know, but it only took me about 25 minutes to read so it wasn’t a huge investment or anything. Funny thing to note: the author is clearly using a pseudonym, but there is a real photo of her and a description that she lives with her husband, seven cats, and two dogs in North Carolina and you know what, I like this level of author detail. I also appreciate her level of creativity because doors and balloon animals are not items that I have ever thought of in a sexual way before, but now I’m looking at my doors for a little too long. They seem to be getting uncomfortable.

Girl, Put Your Snowshoes On

Let me tell you, the best thing about having a retired, active husband – other than afternoon delight wherein I pretend he is a door – is the willingness to do fun things any day of the week, and the best thing about having my specific retired, active husband is that he likes to buy accessories for us to do such things. In the fall he bought us snowshoes, which I frankly thought would be a waste of money. After all, we had just bought cross-country skis. This is probably why the snowfall has been so low this year, I’m sorry, everyone. Anyway, after kind of a hectic month of not doing anything winter sport related, we decided to give the snowshoes a whirl last week, and let me tell you, I am obsessed.

It’s hiking in the mountains, but with snow!

If it wasn’t a 45 minute drive to get to snow, I would snowshoe every single day, this is how much I love it.

Outfit of the Month

I had a real Ladies Who Lunch experience with my girlfriends a few weeks ago; we went for a nice lunch downtown and then poked around in various expensive boutiques in the area. When we walked into one store called, appropriately enough, The Little Boutique, I had no intention on purchasing anything. I was just along for the ride; the clothes all seemed pretty expensive and nothing seemed to call out to me. That is, of course, until I saw a soft, drapey black sweater on the sale rack.

One might argue that I needed another drapey black sweater like I needed another leg, but I felt the material and it was so incredibly soft. It was also originally priced at $509.

I mean, who would pay that? Not me, but it was marked down to $119, which is still a lot for a sweater I did not need. But then it was 25% off of that price, and you know what, I am not made of stone. $85 for a sweater that was originally $509? Who could say no to that? NOT ME.

Something has been happening to my body lately that is just out of my control. I am in great shape, I am strong and flexible and healthy, and I am also losing my waistline. It is just…disappearing. Where is it going? I don’t know. I am developing the menopausal woman’s waistline, which is to say no waistline at all. My torso is turning into a rectangle; this is a fact, and it’s one that I have come to accept, and so having a long, drapey sweater that skims that rectangle? Yes. I’ll take it.

I debuted The Expensive Sweater at my Galentine’s party, paired with my old faithful Lululemon City Sleek pants, which have been on the Favourite Things many times already; they are actual pants that feel like yoga pants. What could be better? Other than getting an expensive sweater for 16% of the original price, of course.

I hope you all had a wonderful February full of lovely things – if you’d like to tell me about them, I’m all ears. xo

Dinner Every Damn Day

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I have mentioned at length how much I cook; until we went to Mexico, I had cooked dinner every single night from October through January. We rarely eat out, and although everyone in the house CAN cook, and when it comes to other meals they DO cook, but I am the only one who makes dinners. There are reasons for this, I’m sure, but I can’t think of what those reasons are right now.

It’s not the cooking per se that is exhausting, it’s the planning and the ingredient list-making and the grocery shopping, am I right? I am a person who makes a meal plan for the week and then sticks to that meal plan; I have done this for many, many years as the thought of deciding what to make for dinner at five o’clock fills me with dread and anxiety. I’m just not a Go With The Flow, What Do We Feel Like Eating sort of person. I need A Plan.

I have talked about my Weekly Meal Plan before, but it’s changed a little since we have moved. For one thing, I have had a bit more time during the day, and I don’t have to think about how to incorporate things into school lunches. I’ve gotten a bit more experimental in general, although I think I could get a little more lively. Birchy (HI BIRCHY) had mentioned that she has a goal of ten new recipes for 2024, and while I don’t have that exact goal, I am trying to add new things to my arsenal of tried-and-true regulars. I will take any and all suggestions you may have!

I’m not unique, I don’t think. It feels like collectively we are all constantly fatigued when it comes to meal planning and the actual creation of those meals. I thought I’d share with you what I made for dinner last week, and approximately how long it took to make those meals. I don’t include cleanup time – one or two of the guys always clean up after dinner, but I am also a clean-as-you-go person who cannot abide having piles of bowls and pans while I cook, so I do wash dishes frequently throughout the day. I also wanted to distinguish between active cooking time and passive cooking time; I don’t really count the latter because I can read or do something else while vegetables are roasting. Also, I don’t know what your tastes are – personally, I roast vegetables until they are charred and crispy, but I stir-fry them just so that they are only slightly cooked. I’m an enigma when it comes to vegetables, what can I say, but the point is, we all like things done in different ways, so this is just a general peek into my methodology. At the same time, it is a source of irritation for me when a recipe says that it takes only twenty minutes, but those twenty minutes don’t include vegetable chopping, sauce making, or other vital processes to the meal. I guess I could have left the preparation time out altogether and saved us all this long and boring explanation.

For those of you who are new (HI NEW FRIENDS!) I eat plant-based – vegan mostly, with some small amounts of dairy – and the guys eat meat. I don’t make separate meals and I never have; instead, I make a plant-based meal and then sometimes cook meat to be served on the side. Sometimes the meal is completely plant-based, and on one day – Sunday – I make a meal that is meat-based, and I eat only the side dishes. Sundays are also Dessert Days; I think they deserve a special sweet treat.

Monday

We arrived home from Mexico last Sunday night, to a clean house and an empty refrigerator, which called for a big grocery trip. Wednesday is usually Grocery Day around here, stemming from a habit I created back when I taught classes every morning but Wednesday, but obviously I had to make an exception this week, unless we wanted to eat nothing but peanut butter for two days. Grocery Day is a great day to make a variation of Suzanne’s Fall Salad (HI SUZANNE), which I have made many times, somehow differently each time. This time I roasted chickpeas and sweet potatoes, added crispy quinoa, candied pecans, dried blueberries, and chevre crumbles, with a maple dijon dressing. While the quinoa was cooking, I peeled and chopped the sweet potatoes, tossed them and the chickpeas in olive oil and sprinkled them with salt and pepper, which took about 15 minutes. It took another 5 minutes to make the dressing and another 5 to spread out the quinoa on a baking sheet to crisp in the oven; candied pecans take about 15 minutes, and then it takes another 5 to put it all together. That’s 45 minutes JUST for the salad, not including roasting time and also the hours that I leave the rinsed and drained chickpeas on a tea towel to dry out before roasting them; this is an easy trick to get nice crunchy chickpeas. In other words, this is a good meal to make if you have some time and are home for a few hours, otherwise, maybe not. I also put some chicken thighs in the air fryer for the guys and sliced up a baguette, both of which took maybe 5 minutes total. Total active time: let’s call it 50 minutes. Add in roasting time for the chickpeas, quinoa, and sweet potatoes, which is another 50-60 minutes total.

Tuesday

Tuesday night is typically stir-fry night, mostly because I always like to use up all the veggies before Grocery Day. Even though I’d already bought groceries, I still felt like having a stir-fry; I made a teriyaki sauce based on a recipe from Vegan Richa‘s Everyday Vegan cookbook, and served it with basmati rice and pan-fried tofu, adding cashews on top. The veggies took about 15 minutes to chop, the rice takes a few minutes to rinse before cooking, and the sauce itself requires cooking to thicken and takes close to 25 minutes to make. The veggies and tofu do need active hands, and they take about 15 minutes, which I do while the rice cooks. Total active time: 55-60 minutes. Again, a good meal to make if you have a bit of time.

Wednesday

Pasta night! The thing I love about pasta night is the sauce, and to maximize my sauce consumption I roast a cauliflower to eat along with the pasta. This was an easy meal because I had sauce in the freezer from a batch I had made a few weeks back. I also had some meatballs in the freezer for the guys, which I just bake in the oven. It takes about 10 minutes for me to chop up a cauliflower, and probably about 5 minutes total to toss the pieces in olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and put it in the oven alongside the meatballs. I’m going to say that heating up the sauce and boiling the water for pasta takes maybe another 5 minutes, and so total active time for this meal – thanks to Past Nicole, who put things in the freezer – is only about 20 minutes, plus cauliflower roasting time.

Thursday

This is by far the easiest and fastest weeknight meal in my arsenal: tortilla wraps. I cut up veggies and avocado, I put a couple of chicken breasts in the air fryer for the guys to slice up and add to their wraps, and I put out shredded cheese and salsa for those who wanted it. The total active time for this is maybe 10 minutes. It’s perfect for a Thursday night when it feels like the week has been busy and tiring and is it Friday yet? No? Okay, tortilla wraps it shall be.

Friday

My favourite night of the week! I could eat this meal every single day for the rest of my life, happily. Greek salad with hummus and pita, and, of course, Friday night wine. I also put some chicken in the air fryer, and for those of you who are wondering, I have a double air fryer in which one side is reserved for meat only, and the other side for vegetables. I get a lot of use out of it; it is an easy way to cook meat without having to actively cook meat. In any case, this week I made hummus, which takes probably 15 minutes, most of which are me gathering the ingredients before putting everything in the food processor. The salad itself takes 10 minutes, between chopping the veggies and making the dressing. Usually I buy mini pitas, but they didn’t have them this week, so I sliced up regular-sized ones, which took a few minutes. Total active time: 30 minutes.

Saturday

What can I say, I was missing guacamole, and I had bought a bag of avocados on Monday that ripened perfectly for this week – two were ripe on Thursday, and four on Saturday. I consider that a sign from the universe. I roasted sweet potatoes and red peppers, sauteed black beans with some cumin, coriander, chili powder, and lime, and then whipped up a batch of guacamole. It makes a perfect burrito! Total active time is about 35 minutes: 10 minutes for the guac (not including sampling it with chips), 10 minutes to chop the vegetables, and 15 minutes to rinse and drain the beans, and then sauté them. Somewhat fun story: we call these enchiladas in our house even though they are not enchiladas. Years ago I had made them into actual enchiladas, with cheese and sauce, for a friend who was going through cancer treatment at the time, and I made them for our family without the cheese and sauce, and without baking them. Still we call them enchiladas.

Sunday

This is the only day that I make a meat-centric meal, which this week was a roast pork with gravy, the active time of which is about 20 minutes. I also make an amazing roasted broccoli dish, which I long ago adapted from a recipe on The Kitchn website, a Caesar salad, and crispy roasted potatoes. Chopping time for the lettuce and veggies is about 20 minutes total; the dressings for the broccoli and salad take another 20 minutes, plus 5 minutes for toasted breadcrumbs. Assembling all of the dishes is another 5 minutes, which is a total of 70 minutes of active time, plus a lot of waiting-for-everything-to-cook time.

But wait! There’s more!

I came across this sweet little product around Christmastime but never used it until last weekend. Friends, let me tell you about strawberry daiquiri pie, a dessert that actually does take only ten minutes to make, albeit it needs a couple of hours to set. I make a graham cracker crust with coconut oil – just stir 1/4 cup melted coconut oil into 1 1/4 cups graham crumbs and squish the mixture into a pie pan – and then I whirred 3 cups thawed frozen strawberries and a can of this sweetened condensed coconut milk in my food processor, poured it into the crust, froze it for a couple of hours, and added a quick chocolate sauce for serving. YES.

Two things have become obvious here: a) I really like roasted vegetables, and b) I don’t mind cooking meat too much as long as I can use virtually hands-off processes. I know a lot of vegan friends won’t allow meat into their homes, but I’m pretty easygoing about the whole thing. We are all on our own journeys, people, and the guys in my house, well, their journeys include meat. I do have separate pans and serving utensils for meats, though, I can only be so easy-breezy.

I guess one more thing is obvious, and that is that I love dessert. It’s February, after all, and pink desserts are de rigeur. I hope you are having a delicious day! xo