Category Archives: Housewifery

Same But Different

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Very often, I think about all of us in the world, how we are all going about our lives in ways that are both the same and vastly different. Isn’t it incredible, in this big small world, that we are all bustling along, working away, caring for ourselves and our families and our pets, sneaking in bursts of joy in the day, and it’s all the same but also different?

I try not to be ethnocentric, or, more accurately, Nicolecentric, but sometimes I am surprised to discover that friends do boring, everyday things so very differently than I. It’s not like I think my methods are better or worse than anyone else’s, but they are different, I am discovering. I think sometimes there can be moral value judgement placed on how women do things – how often we do laundry, how often do we clean the bathroom, what are we making for dinner – but I’m not interested in any of that. One thing is as good as another, in my books. All the same, I wanted to talk about things I have noticed lately that we all do, but in different ways.

By The Book

My husband asked why I even have cookbooks because I never use them, or if I do use them, it is to wildly change the recipe. This is an exaggeration but only a little one; I don’t think there is any recipe I use regularly that I have not adapted or changed in some way. I’m like the irritating people who used to write in when I was working at YMC, who would say ridiculous things like: I made the chickpea dish you posted but I didn’t have chickpeas so I subbed ground beef, and I didn’t have lemon for the sauce so I used Worcestershire, and instead of parsley I used lettuce. It was terrible, I give zero stars to this recipe. Although, I’m not exactly like that, I like all the dishes I make, no notes. Even recipes for baked goods get the Nicole treatment – shave off some sugar, double the vanilla, let’s add chocolate chips! – and so all my cookbooks have my writing all over them, noting changes. I guess I think of cookbooks as aspirational jumping-off points, rather than, you know, something to use to make dinner.

Before we moved, I committed the cardinal sin of buying something new and extra to pack – two new cookbooks. I think I was having some kind of emotional crisis. My thinking was along the lines that we were going to be in a new house, in a new province, living a new life, with a half empty nest, and it was time to shake up the weekly meal plan. There seemed no need to have a pita pizza night when it would be just me and my husband, and there was no need to make extra pita pizzas for school lunches. So I bought two cookbooks and one of them sounded so promising, called Mandy’s Gourmet Salads. Mandy’s is, apparently, a famous salad and bowl place in Montreal, and I thought, what could be better? Well. This is the most ridiculous cookbook I have ever seen. Each recipe refers to at least one, but usually more, additional recipe on a different page, and then THAT recipe refers to another recipe. As an example, I wanted to make a peanut Thai noodle dish, and the recipe referred to another page for a spicy tofu recipe, and to another page for the chili lime dressing. When I got to the dressing page, the first item in the chili lime dressing recipe referred to ANOTHER recipe as the base for that dressing, and then THAT base recipe referred to another recipe for sesame syrup reduction, at which point I slammed the book shut and decided just to Free Bird it, deeply regretting wasting money on a cookbook when I was just going to make something up anyway. And this bird you cannot change.

Oh, I’m Dishwashing My Life Away

Someone recently asked me, when I mentioned washing dishes for the fifth time in a day, why I didn’t just get a dishwasher. I do indeed have a dishwasher and I do indeed use the dishwasher, but only for plates, silverware, and glassware, which is honestly only a small percentage of the items that need to be washed in the kitchen each day. I hand wash pots, pans, the food processor, the Vitamix, mixing bowls, and all the related cooking accoutrements. I suppose I could put some of those in the dishwasher, but they all take up a lot of room which would necessitate running the dishwasher several times a day, which seems wasteful.

When we were in planning stages of the house, the designer strongly recommended a large single sink to my husband, who relayed this information to me, was clearly not prepared for my outsized, passionate feelings about a double sink. He may have physically backed up slightly. I need a double sink to survive, is what I am saying, which is why Diane’s (HI DIANE) recent post about her dishwasher breaking, and her stopper-less single sink, gave me secondhand dishwashing anxiety. I have a very specific way of washing dishes: I fill the left sink with hot soapy water, and use the right sink to rinse out dishes BEFORE they go into the hot soapy water, because it harshes my kitchen mellow to have food particles or grease in the dishwater. I like clean dish water, what can I say. If I’m really in the zone I can rinse the washed-and-soapy dishes with hot running water, and allow that hot running water to also rinse the dirty dishes in the right sink, which feels like a virtuous water conservation project. If a pot is really gross, I will use a scrubber and the rinse water to clean it out BEFORE it goes into the hot soapy water. All the clean dishes get piled up on the dish rack and there they stay until they are dry, or dry enough, to put away. Growing up, my job was always to dry dishes, and there is not a household job I loathe more than that, no, not even scrubbing toilets; as god is my witness I shall never dry dishes again. Well, sometimes I do if I’m desperate, and when the kids clean the kitchen after dinner one of them will dry dishes, to prevent the inevitable tumbling down of the tower of dishes piled in the rack. They do not seem to have my dish-drying aversion.

This is controversial, but I never put a plate in the dishwasher without rinsing it first. I pile all the plates and cutlery into the dirty dishwater, after pots and pans are washed, and give each item a quick swipe with the scrub brush before loading the dishwasher. “So, you wash the dishes BEFORE they go into the dishwasher?” my mother asked me with her eyebrows in her hairline. No, I rinse them; if I washed them I would use the clean dishwater. My friend Dom (HI DOM) straight up told me that this methodology is a) insane and b) would, over time, result in a subpar performance by my dishwasher. Nevertheless, I am who I am and I shall not be deterred.

Girl, Wash Your Face

Speaking of washing things, if we were playing Never Have I Ever, I would say used a washcloth to wash my face. I use my hands, and so does my entire family; not to be insular, but I never really thought about it any other way until I read this by Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) and this by Engie (HI ENGIE) and realized that a large percentage of people are Team Washcloth. I have just never considered a washcloth as an option, and I probably never will, because the way I wash my face works just fine for me. A washcloth seems too rough for my skin and always has, although that doesn’t explain my early-teen usage of St Ives Apricot Scrub. I think that product could remove rust from a wheel well.

When I admitted that, while I own a couple of washcloths, they are never used for their intended purpose, I felt kind of exotic, fielding questions about washing my face with my hands, like I just landed here from Mars and humans were wondering how Martians perform their daily ablutions. Are you wondering how, exactly I wash my face? No? Are you thinking Nicole, this is the weirdest and most boring topic you have ever written about, and I just read a thousand words about how you wash dishes and hate cookbooks, so that is saying something? Well, we didn’t come this far just to get this far, people. Strap in, friends, we are going for a wild ride.

Here are the necessary items that guarantee success: a fresh hand towel for patting the old visage dry post-washing, Dove bar soap, Neutrogena cleanser.

Also necessary: tying back my hair and, when applicable, pushing up sleeves. No one wants to go to bed with wet jammie wrists, not that this is a concern with summer jammies.

First step: wet hands, work up a small lather with the Dove bar, and then splash the soapy water on the face, massaging gently to loosen the layers of makeup and sunscreen from the day, paying special attention to the eyes. I gently rub my eyelashes until I no longer feel mascara, but instead look like a crazed raccoon.

Next step: rinse hands and then work a dollop of Neutrogena cleanser into a lather, apply to face, massaging gently for a minute or so.

Last step: rinse, and then pat dry with the clean towel. I don’t like to put my face into a used towel, so I have many hand towels that I have under the sink for single use, like the princess that I am. This can also be used to wipe up any errant water sprays if need be.

Now I’m ready for my many serums and night creams!

Weekly Reading

Before I get into what I did read this week, I am going to tell you about a DNF. It is very rare for me not to finish a book, but the Menopause Reset made it onto the short list. How or why this ended up on my Kobo, I know not; maybe someone recommended it, maybe the Kobo algorithm recommended it, maybe I heard the author on a podcast and liked her, who can say. Well. The very first sentence is something like “Are you tired of not being able to lose weight?” and I thought, NO. Not only am I not interested, I am not even interested in reading even tangentially about weight loss. But I pushed through the first two chapters before abandoning ship. It was not well written, for one thing, although I have read worse-written books. The first two chapters talked about how great the author’s life was until menopause hit, and then there were SO MANY HOT FLASHES, YOU GUYS. Then she outlined how she took charge of her menopause, and mainly, it seems, that was accomplished through the keto diet, intermittent fasting, and detoxing. Again, none of these things are of interest to me but I may have still read it, had she not revealed that she did not believe in medication utilization for depression and anxiety. I myself do not suffer depression nor anxiety, but I have friends who do and medication literally saved their lives. Listen, I will grudgingly tolerate this attitude from Tom Cruise, because Maverick, but I will not read this kind of bullshit from another woman. DEE EN EFF.

A Living Remedy. This is a memoir about a woman losing both of her parents; I had also read her memoir about being adopted and the search for her birth parents, and I will say that this book was a much more compelling read. She discusses her father’s death from complications from untreated diabetes, and what stood out to me is the absolute disaster that it is for people without health insurance to become sick in the United States. I am no Smug Canadian here, because our health care system is far from perfect (ask me about finding a new doctor! Or wait lists!) but I think the absolute last thing a sick person should be doing is worrying about costs of treatment and if those costs are going to push a person into bankruptcy, which is exactly what happened in this book. Her working poor parents had no health insurance, and her dad became sicker and sicker, until he went to a doctor and discovered he lost 90% of his kidney function. His treatment, plus her mother’s bills from cancer treatment, meant that they had to declare bankruptcy. For some reason, they didn’t qualify for Medicare or disability insurance either. I think it is an absolute travesty. Recently I listened to the Hooked on Life podcast where one of their guests discussed his own journey with cancer and said that what is never talked about is the crippling depression that happens AFTER treatment; this man had lost his home, his job, everything. Anyway, this book is about more than just that, it also shows a beautiful and loving relationship between the author and her mother. Her mother died of cancer during the early part of the pandemic; the author could not be with her mother when she passed, and it made me so sad to remember that very terrible time. So many deaths that would have been so lonely. This book is definitely worth a read but, clearly, heavy reading material. 

If you, like me, are also fascinated by the myriad ways we experience the boring and mundane minutia of life, feel free to share! Are you Team Washcloth or Team Hands? Do you also have weird and absolutely rigid ways of doing the dishes? Do you hate drying them? How do you feel about recipes? Tell me everything. xo

Acclimatizing

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Are You Feeling Hot! Hot! Hot!

Since I got here, it has been one beautiful day after another; summer here is absolutely gorgeous. If I had even one day like this in Calgary – warm and sunny, windless and without storms – I would be frantically spending every possible second outside, carpe diem, not wanting to waste a beautiful day. Weather there is always so volatile – one of my girlfriends texted me last week to say it was 13 degrees and pouring rain – so I’m ever so grateful to be living in a place where I can predict what the day will bring. Summer weather in the summer, what a novel concept!

I was a bit concerned, moving here, how Rex would do in the heat. He’s definitely a cold-weather dog, and I was worried that the temperatures would be too hot for him, but so far it has not been a problem. I walk him at 8:00 at the latest, and our walking route is a beautiful trail that is almost entirely shaded. It winds along a creek, which he enjoys drinking from and also is the reason his white paws are completely grubby all the time now. Attached to this path is an offleash park, which is also shaded and has water taps, bowls, and kiddie pools. It also had, one day, Rex’s doppelgänger.

As an aside, one of the first days I was at the offleash a very attractive young man was chatting with me and told me not to worry about the water in the bowls, he had just filled them, adding, ominously, You know, I don’t trust the old water, because of that woman. Wait, what woman? I told him I just moved here and he explained that there was a woman who would came to dog parks, with no dog, and poisoned the water in the bowls. Several dogs got sick and one actually DIED. I listened to this story with wide, horrified eyes, and was reminded of my days at the playground, how the young mothers would warily eye men without children, sitting on the benches. In any case, now that Rex has discovered the giant water bowl that is in the creek, he is completely uninterested in the water at the offleash.

I do love our morning walk route, but I have had to adjust to driving to get to the trail, rather than just strolling out the door, as I was used to doing. The first morning I was here I decided I WOULD walk to the trail; it was only about two kilometres, and I had used it as a running route before, so I was sure it would be just fine. Well. I had grossly misjudged how stressful it would be to walk down a busy road with no sidewalks, only a bike lane, with an enormous and excited dog bounding around, while cars zipped past. It took all my strength to keep the leash short and Rex on the inside, which backfired completely when he excitedly discovered not only a dead raccoon, but several squashed birds, at which point my soul briefly left my body. Suddenly, it didn’t seem like driving five minutes was such a hardship to be avoided.

International Costco Woman of Mystery

I have been slowly getting used to the grocery stores here. Sure, Superstore is Superstore, and Costco is Costco, but there are differences from what I’m used to. I think the biggest difference is that because Kelowna is just over a tenth of the size of Calgary, there is only one of each of those stores, and hence they are very busy. I made the mistake of going to Costco on a day that was a bit cooler and overcast – but still, temperature-wise, would have been considered a hot day in Calgary – and it was INSANE. It reminded me of the Costco in Maui, and just writing that makes me feel like I am a fancy world-Costco-traveller. Nicole: The International Costco Woman of Mystery could be the name of my memoir. Anyway, the layout was the same as the one in Maui and opposite of that in Calgary, which made it tricky to find everything on my list, and also it was so busy as to be almost impossible to maneuver through the aisles. It was literal bumper-to-bumper cart traffic. Perhaps it will be easier when tourist season is over.

The biggest difference for me, grocery-wise, is Superstore. It’s not just the layout, it’s the actual products that are available. Calgary in general and the part of the city in which I lived in particular is much more multicultural than here, and so the international foods aisle was always a cornucopia of fun and interesting items. Here, this is not the case. A quarter of the international aisle is filled with British products, like spotted dick, which I am not in the market for, culinary or otherwise, and the selection of Asian, Indian, and African items is pretty limited. I’m finding it hard to find noodles I like, is what I’m saying.

Hi Neighbourino

Probably the largest adjustment I have had to make has to do with my next-door neighbour. Before I get into that, a little context: my husband grew up on his family-owned vineyard, and about twenty years ago his family sold it and the attached winery, keeping two acres of it. The house in which we are living was originally his grandparents’; we added a second floor to it and took the existing house down to the studs, renovating it completely. It is such an incredibly fortunate thing to be able to live in a beautiful new house on a vineyard, overlooking the lake and the city. Every morning I wake up and look out the windows and feel so very lucky.

There is one thing that I feel you should know, and I’m mentioning it in a very casual, value-neutral way, and that is that there is another house on this two acre property, and that house belongs to my mother-in-law. While you absorb that information, I will hasten to assure you that my mother-in-law and I have a good relationship, albeit one that has been cultivated long-distance over the past twenty-five years. She is not one of those women who think that No One Is Good Enough For Her Precious Son; in fact, she thinks everything I do and every decision I make is Just Wonderful, Dear, which is lovely and, I think, rare. She is not a person who insists on having every meal together; in fact, I can’t even remember the last time we had a dinner together, it might have been Thanksgiving 2020.

But still, living next door is a lot different from twice-or-thrice annual visits, and so this is an adjustment to be sure, mostly a mental one. My main concern is maintaining boundaries and protecting personal privacy, for both of us, and mostly it’s been fine. We had an open and honest conversation about this prior to the move, which was INCREDIBLY difficult for me, because I don’t know how you grew up in the 80s and 90s, but open and honest conversation was not part of the story for me. In any case, there have been a few gentle bumps, but mostly it’s been fairly smooth sailing.

Bye Bye Birdie

In eighteen days, my older son is moving on campus for his first year at university. He’s so excited, and I’m so excited for him, and also, landslide. The university is close to us, so this feels like a very soft landing, but it’s still going to be a big change. In the meantime, I’m really cherishing having four faces at the dinner table. When he was working shift work this past year, I found myself thinking that the nights he was home for dinner was a real treat; this past month I feel spoiled having both the boys here all the time. What I am going to say is nothing new or original or earth-shattering, but I just love my boys so much; I am so proud of them both and I think they are incredible people, and I can hardly believe my luck that the universe gave them to me. It’s been so wonderful having them both here this summer, and of course it’s going to change very soon, and, like everything else, I will adjust to the changes. All you who have been through this know what it is.

I’m going to miss my son’s bartending skills; check out this mango margarita!

Weekly Reading

First of all, thank you all for your very kind comments of understanding and stories of hope, with regards to Bookmarkgate. So far they have not been recovered, but there are some boxes with garage items and gardening implements that I have not yet gone through, and although I’m not very hopeful, I’m not COMPLETELY hopeless. It’s more like 90% hopeless, as opposed to 100% before your lovely comments. We hosted our first dinner party this weekend and my sweet friend Sammi (HI SAMMI) brought me bookmarks as a housewarming, to “tide me over until the others were found.” I have such lovely friends!

Prep. When I was a kid I was obsessed with the idea of boarding school. It just seemed so fun and cool. Is it just me or does everyone think this? Anyway, this book is a very realistic portrait of a girl from Indiana who goes to a New England boarding school on scholarship; it shows her evolution from freshman to senior, and I really liked it. It showed an insular and privileged world, with all the angst of a teen in the 90s. I thought it was such a true picture of what it was to be a teen at that time, albeit in a very different life than the one I had.

Here we are at the end of a long weekend, and I hope yours was great. Have a lovely week, everyone! xo

Birthday Weekend!

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I am a person who likes to have little treats and things to look forward to every single day. Sometimes these treats are very simple parts of my everyday life, for example, when I wake up, I think “oooh, coffee,” or “yay, it’s pasta night!” I spend time choosing a scented lotion to apply after my shower, every day I text or message or see a friend, and even on my busiest days I squeeze in some time to read a book. These are all just tiny joys that brighten a regular day.

Fridays are my favourite day of the week, and I always try to fit in lots of happy little things on Fridays. Last Friday was my birthday, which happens to be my favourite day of the year, and so I decided I would just make it a day full of lovely joyful things: coffee and reading and yoga, an energy-boosting Peloton ride with a fire playlist, a long walk with Rex, which is always a joy, even in the falling wet snow.

Spring!
Putting my best face forward but deep down, what no one could see, is that my sock came off inside my boot.

Earlier this week I came across some videos from when the kids were small; it was very nostalgic and sweet, and I had that bittersweet feeling that accompanies the end of an era. Look at how cute they are, I thought. They called me Mama! It’s so easy to gloss over the physical exhaustion of caring for a 2-and-3-year-old, it’s easy to forget messy mealtimes and meltdowns and night wakings when faced with a tiny voice saying “Mama go yo-yoga! Cheese! Not bathtime yet Dada!” But even as I look back on that sweetness, on the cusp of yet another era ending, I have to tell you that it is really wonderful, having adult and almost-adult children. My older son was working Friday evening so he treated me to brunch; we had a lovely visit and I had the most amazing avocado toast.

For my birthday dinner that evening, my husband and younger son brought me takeout from my favourite Lebanese place; as usual I raved over the food and also as usual, my son asked plaintively that if I love it this much, why don’t we eat there more often? It’s a good question.

As I usually do on Fridays, I had a few glasses of some lovely red wine, and I also treated myself to a couple of episodes of NYPD Blue.

The birthday weekend really began on Thursday, with gifts and a family viewing of Seinfeld, my choice of episode; I chose the one with Keith Hernandez (“I’m not DRIVING him to the AIRPORT!”), and didn’t end until cake and a dinner I did not make nor clean up for on Sunday.

It’s been a bit of a busy week for me, so it was nice to wind things up on Friday. I’ve been in constant cleaning and decluttering mode and it’s exhausting. I am no minimalist, but I do a big Kondo-style declutter every few years, and so I did not think, prior to this past month, that I had a lot of stuff. I also, if you had asked me a month ago, thought that I had a very clean and organized house, but after this extreme iteration of decluttering and cleaning, I am now of the opinion that we are a family of disgusting swamp monsters who are wallowing around in our own filth and over-consumption.

I know this is not a popular opinion, but in general I find cleaning to be a very soothing and satisfying job. I took yoga teacher training with a lovely woman who owns a small cleaning company, and we once had a long discussion about this exact thing. There’s something so great about stepping back and admiring the results of your hard work. I was really feeling it after the past few weeks; giving things away on the Buy Nothing page, scrubbing and scouring little corners of the house that have been neglected, and generally raising the bar on the overall cleanliness of the house. I was so pleased with myself, even if no one else noticed that I’d scrubbed the tile ceiling of the shower or the areas behind the toilets.

Here’s a little tidbit about Rex: in the last six-plus months since he came to us, he’s become very well-known at the dog park. Everyone there is very indulgent, as a nearly-100-pound dog runs in circles around them and then, with certain receptive people, comes in for a pet. “Hi Rex, yes, hi there.” He is laughed at constantly in a gentle way, as he will take a run and then barrel roll in the grass or snow or leaves, depending on the season. He’s always rolling around joyfully, and it’s very cute, and then he shakes it all off.

Earlier this week I had let him outside; it was only five minutes later he barked to come back in. This is what I was greeted with:

What happened.

I have never seen him in such a state before; he had dry grass everywhere from his eyebrows to the tip of his tail and it took some significant brushing and six sweeps of the floor to deal with. Six sweeps of the previously spotless floor. Was he trying to bring me more cleaning satisfaction by bringing in a yard’s worth of dead grass? Or perhaps reminding us to not neglect the yardwork, with all this inside work? What a good boy.

Weekly Reading

I had some very good and interesting reads this week, one fiction and two non.

How Not To Drown In A Glass Of Water. The structure of this book, about a woman who, after 26 years, loses her factory job, is quite interesting. This is in NYC in 2009, the woman is in her fifties, is not a US citizen, and neither reads nor writes in English. The book is made up of one-sided conversation, as she goes to a 12 week career counselling program after losing her factory job. Through these interviews, her life is revealed: her early life in the Dominican, her struggle to pay bills, her relationships with her son, sister, and the people in her building. In a way this book made me think of Olive Ketteridge, as the narrator is unreliable and deeply flawed, but also with a good heart. There were a few parts that made me a bit breathless with the reveal; it’s a very real book. It’s a fascinating look into what it means to be a community member, and how the financial crisis affected vulnerable populations.

The Body Liberation Project. How much of diet culture and toxic wellness ideology is steeped in racism? A lot. This important book explores the connection and is incredibly uplifting and inspiring, to bring joy and love to our physical bodies and whole selves. As a white, straight-sized, cis woman who has immense social, economic, and health privilege, I have to say much of it is uncomfortable to read. But discomfort is where growth begins. Being an ally in anti-racism doesn’t mean performatively posting video and memes and black squares on social media. That’s less than worthless, according to the author. We need to learn and do better, and not try to explain to other white people why hashtag Black Lives Matter. We need to listen. Sometimes we need to just be quiet and step back. Lots of learning and thoughts from this very excellent book.

Token Black Girl. This was fascinating and, for me, really eye-opening and informative. I don’t think I’ve read a memoir with this POV before. The author us an affluent Black woman who grew up going to elite schools and activities with nearly all-white populations. She began working in the fashion industry, and her experiences in our world of structural racism and white supremacy seem shocking and, if you’re wondering how to change things, overwhelming. I learned a lot reading this young woman’s story, about fashion, beauty, and the struggle to fit in to a society that at its core undervalues Black people. It was a really great read. Also, after reading about what lengths she and other women go to for their hair, I will never complain about my own locks again. Well, I probably will, but I will try not to.

I have an interesting and somewhat complicated week coming up; I hope you all have a beautiful week filled with wonderful things. Maybe even some cake! xo

Maui Encounters, Medical Emergencies, Mini Eggs

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This week’s post is brought to you by the letters M and E! I could say every post is brought to you by ME, I suppose, but let’s separate the letters this week. In addition to the title, I could also add in Massively Exhausted. Whew, I don’t think I’ve fully recovered from the red-eye flight, the time zone change, and the incredible amount of work I’ve been doing since returning. I’m in a massive decluttering and organization project, which I’ll discuss in detail later – hold onto your hats – and it’s physically and mentally draining.

Something that happens to me now that never happened in my pre-perimenopausal life is that I can tell with one hundred percent accuracy when my period will start, and it’s not just that I have existential angst, a descent into non-specific sadness, and sleeplessness. That happens, but for the purposes of this story, I will tell you about the one other symptom that is a neon sign that Nicole Is Getting Her Period: my breasts. Suddenly, my breasts go from resembling the stocking that Laura Ingalls set out for Santa Claus that contains a single orange and a penny in the bottom to over-inflated water balloons. Va-va-va-voom! I would appreciate this brief foray into bustiness a lot more if it was not accompanied by agonizing pain that makes me want to bind my breasts like a medieval upper-class new mother who has just handed her infant off to the nearest wet-nurse.

It just so happened that this Playboy-centerfoldness occurred on one of our last days in Maui and although I know better, I really do, I donned a bikini that, while absolutely adorable, was maybe not as supportive as others. I did notice that I was a bit more cleavage-y than earlier in the vacation when I had worn this specific bikini, but yolo. I soldiered on to the beach. My mistake was soon revealed in a literal sense; it was just fine when I was swimming or bobbing around in the waves, but when I hopped on the boogie board and caught a wave, I ended up flashing the entire beach as my breasts popped right out. Right out. The bikini top was completely BELOW my breasts and I scrambled to pull it back up, while not letting the boogie board float out to sea as the waves pulled back. It was no mean feat, let me tell you. Fortunately, my sons were behind me in the waves, and so were not psychologically scarred, at least as far as their mother’s public semi-nudity is concerned.

I decided to call it a day at that point, and headed to our little umbrella-and-beach chair set-up, letting the guys play in the water while I read a bit. I was soon approached by a young man, at least twenty-five years my junior, who was holding an M&M tube, the kind that contain mini-M&Ms and are found in Christmas stockings everywhere, except for Laura Ingalls’. He held up the tube with a huge silly smile and asked if I wanted to see something cool. Awww, I thought. This maybe-slow young man wants to show me something. I gave him a big, encouraging smile, and said sure. He opened it up and I peered inside. What…was it? Was that a little crab leg? Or legs? Dead bugs? It was hard to see – I was under the umbrella and I had sunglasses on, and the sun was at this fellow’s back.

“What is it?” I finally asked, after an uncomfortably long pause. “Weed!” the young man said with enthusiasm. “Do you want to buy some?” At this, I burst into laughter. “Oh, HONEY,” I said. “Honey, no. No thank you, dear.” It was like I was ninety years old and someone asked me to go skydiving, or to have some backdoor action in a public washroom with a stranger. He looked a little started at my laughing and asked if there was anyone I knew who might want his presumably M&M-scented weed? I shook my head and said “No, sweetie, I don’t.” He looked perplexed at both my cluelessness and my laughter, and set off, presumably to try to sell to someone who didn’t seem like his own mother. Or grandmother. I was gratified that he thought I was so hip, even though my “honey, no” would indicate that I am not.

I haven’t smoked weed for well over thirty years, but I do, on occasion, use over-the-counter sleep aids. I decided to take some Gravol for our overnight flight; generally I am a person who can sleep in transit, but I thought I should take something to help me get more than a couple of hours. According to my watch, I did sleep five out of six hours on the flight, and the hour that I didn’t was fairly interesting, if somewhat worrisome.

I had completely passed out as soon as we were in the air, and I blearily awakened to some jostling, anxious voices, and the caution to “stay in your seat.” I opened my gritty-feeling eyes to see several flight attendants in various stages of distress, right at my seat. The woman directly behind me was having a medical emergency; she had been treated for a sinus infection while on vacation, and suddenly was having severe shooting pain in her eye, as well as feverishness and nausea. Fortunately, the man across the aisle from her was a nurse – and was coming back from his honeymoon! – and he was able to assist the flight attendant with the emergency medical care she was administering. The flight attendant was on a phone call with a hospital for more instruction, and at that moment I thought to look at the digital flight map. We were directly in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, an hour and a half from Maui and four and a half hours from land, so there would be nowhere to turn around or to land. Perhaps it was because it was the middle of the night, perhaps it was due to my aforementioned Lady’s Holidays, but my thoughts started to go dark. What happens if someone is having an emergency and there is nowhere to land? What happens if someone dies on a flight? What do they do with the body? They couldn’t possibly just leave the dead body in the seat, but what? Is there someplace to put a body? Things are pretty tight on a full plane. Would the body be put where the flight attendants sit for takeoff and landing? Then what of the flight attendants? These unsettling thoughts kept pinging into my brain until the woman was given an antiemetic, put on oxygen – the tank was under my seat – and the flight attendant said she’d check back every ten minutes, which indicated to me she was stabilized somewhat. Relieved, I drifted back to sleep, waking only a couple more times to peek over the seat to make sure she was okay, before we landed.

With five hours of unsettled sleep and a time difference of four hours, I was pretty disoriented when we got home to our clean but food-less house. Does grocery shopping ever end? Of course not. Since we were in a condo in Maui, we ate a lot of meals there, which meant grocery shopping in Maui, too. Which is fine, but what I am saying is that I wasn’t super excited to immediately set out for the grocery store while the rest of the family napped at 9:00 am. However, I did want food and I had to pick up Rex in the afternoon, so off I went.

The very first thing I saw in the store were the one-kilogram bags of Cadbury Mini-Eggs, and they were on sale for $5 off. I have an actual mini-egg preference, and that preference is Cadbury, so I immediately picked up a bag and dropped it into my cart. Dropped it. Into my cart. As soon as the bag made contact with my cart, it exploded, and a kilogram’s worth of mini-eggs scattered all over the aisle and into the produce section. I stood there, frozen, as mini-eggs cascaded from my cart, rolling and bouncing in all directions. After about five long seconds, I looked around to see a produce clerk coming my way. “I’m so sorry,” I said, still staring at the rolling eggs that were now surrounding other people and their carts. I followed the apology by surpassing the world record in banal statements: “The bag, I think the bag, I think it has a hole in it?” The clerk assured me that it would be taken care of and not to worry. I picked up another bag and very slowly, very carefully, placed it in my cart.

Weekly Reading

I read so much on my vacation that I am going to make a separate post about all the books I read; the excellent, the pretty good, and the really bad. Do you rate the books you read? I do, but privately. I give a rating out of five on the spreadsheet on which I track my books, and it’s extremely subjective based on how much I loved the writing and how it made me feel. I don’t get too mired in the details, but a five would be a book I absolutely loved, and a two would be a book I hated but still was able to read. I am realizing now we all have very different methods of rating. I was talking to a friend about this, because I was surprised to see her rate a few books I really liked as threes. A three, to me, is meh; a book that is fine, but that I would never re-read. To her a three was pretty good, a maybe re-read, and a five would be a book of the quality of Maya Angelou or James Baldwin. I found that so interesting! I am not at all stingy with my fives; if I loved it, it’s getting a five. If I loved it but had some small quibbles, I will give it a four.

In any case, I read one non-vacation book this week:

In Every Mirror She’s Black. This book follows three Black women who all come to Sweden because of one powerful Swedish man: one through employment, one because of romance, and one as a refugee. Their lives intersect but are very separate. The ending is pretty intense, and I would say this book had its ups and downs for me. I didn’t love it but I liked it well enough.

More books to come, but in the meantime, I must get on with my week! I hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend. 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

Happy Galentine’s Day!

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It’s February 13, and you know what that means!

Happy Galentine’s Day!

I don’t know what it’s like in your house, but in mine, Valentine’s Day is kind of a non-event. Not a total non-event; we do celebrate with cookies:

And cake:

But other than baked goods and the tank top decorated with a bee and the words Bee Mine that my husband gave me one year, we really don’t celebrate it around here. If you know me at all, you would know that the bee top won me over for years to come, although I am still waiting on the I Choo-Choo-Choose you card.

So there’s no big romantic dinner (on a Tuesday, are you crazy?), and wine mid-week disrupts my sleep; my husband and son have pollen allergies so floral bouquets are a no-go as well. I could really get down with heart-shaped chocolates, although I usually like to buy them discounted on February 15. What can I say, I’m half-Scottish. We spent Friday night watching a special on Super Bowl commercials, and Saturday watching only the funny parts and fast-forwarding the rest of Old School, so who’s winning at romance now?

I do like to lean into the idea of GALENTINE’S Day, though. Last year at this time I vowed I would host a Swistle-style Galentine’s party (HI SWISTLE), but I remembered that vow only a few days ago, so that was a no-go. Next year, maybe. Instead, I put together a bunch of silly classroom cards for my Monday afternoon ladies, and taped a strawberry Lindor to each one. If you have never tried a strawberry Lindor, my goodness, you are in for a big treat. If you like fruity chocolate, that is, which I do.

For Christmas I received a new Garmin watch, and one of the new features on it is a “Body Battery,” which uses metrics like heart rate, stress levels, and sleep quality to measure the body’s energy reserves throughout the day. I am OBSESSED. I used to focus on Steps and Intensity Minutes, but now it’s all about the Body Battery, baby. Well, I still look at Steps and Intensity Minutes, but other than hitting my daily goals, I don’t really care much. With the Body Battery measurement, it’s fascinating to me to see my energy levels go up and down, and what affects them. If I read for an hour, what happens? If I walk for an hour, what happens? It’s not like I need data from a watch to tell me that I’m tired or refreshed, but it’s nice to have that confirmation, if you know what I mean.

Here’s the reading after a decent sleep:

And a not-great-but-not-terrible sleep:

And here’s a Friday night sleep, after I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine:

Oops! Well, the cost/ benefit analysis still comes up in favour of Friday night wine, as it is a treat I look forward to, but everything has its price, I guess.

In terms of batteries, and recharging them, I sometimes think of people in this way. There are people who I feel literally energized after talking to or visiting with, and there are those who I can feel my battery draining away in their presence. It’s not that I dislike those people, or never want to see them, but I do limit my time around them, and bring awareness to myself and how I’m feeling when I am around them.

In a Charge My Battery move, I signed up for my friend Sara’s (HI SARA) yoga event at a local art gallery. This is the first led yoga class, not taught by me, that I have attended since 2018. Sara has a thriving online teaching presence, but every few months she has an in-person event and the stars lined up for me this weekend, and I was able to attend.

Let me tell you, what a treat it was. My daily practice and, obviously, the classes I teach are all set by me; I flow through my own cadence and breathwork and asana. What a treat it was to follow along with the nourishing, delicious class of asana Sara put together! If you’re local – or even if you’re not, because she’s online! – you should really check out her classes. Rumour has it that her sweet dog Alton is always on or near the mat during her online classes.

I’m sure this guy would love to be on my mat too! But he’s still sleeping when I’m practicing.

Weekly Reading

I didn’t really make any New Year’s Resolutions, or choose a word of the year, or what have you, but after reading that nightmare of a book back in late December and regretting the time wasted in reading it, I have decided to just…not finish books if I don’t want to. Generally I push through, thinking maybe it will get better, and you know what, it rarely does. Why am I wasting my time? NO MORE. So far this year I have picked up and then immediately taken back to the library four books. The first was Something Wilder, by Christina Lauren. I have liked and not liked their books in the past, and I read the prologue and the book jacket before deciding that this one was not for me. The second was The Opportunist, which I had picked up on a whim at the library, and by the first chapter I was completely irritated by the characters. The third was a book that is actually quite good, but that I realized I had read before, in August 2020, which is When You Read This. Does that happen to you? I will start a book and by the first or second chapter I will think wait a minute…and then I’ll check my spreadsheet and see that yes, I’ve been there and done that. So, there was nothing wrong with When You Read This, but if I’m going to reread something, I want it to be on purpose. The final Did Not Finish Or Even Start was Matthew Perry’s memoir. I do not, as a rule, enjoy addiction memoirs, and by flipping through it casually I could see that it was ENTIRELY about his addictions. Also, after reading a paragraph here and there I saw that it was trying really hard to be funny, and I decided not to waste my time.

Anyway, I had some real winners this week in the reading department. In what can only be described as Library Kismet, all the books that came in on my hold list this week were romances. Does the library know it’s Valentine’s Day? Maybe!

The Bodyguard. Well! This was just the most delightful read! It was exactly what I needed this week. The plot, while a little silly, is just so much fun and I am 100% here for it. It follows a woman who works as a specialized bodyguard, and she is put on duty to guard a Chris Hemsworth-like movie star from a stalker, as he has moved to Texas to be near his ill mother. He doesn’t want knowledge about the stalker to add stress to his family, so the bodyguard needs to be undercover; she has to pretend to be his new girlfriend. PEOPLE. I AM HERE FOR THIS. I think we all know what happens in romance books when there is a pretend relationship – SHIT GETS REAL, Y’ALL. I can’t say enough about this cute book, because although, like I said, the plot is a little silly, the theme is REALLY good and heartwarming, and the epilogue, my goodness, the epilogue. A delight. The narration and dialogue are really funny, too. If you need a pick-me-up, go get yourself this book, stat.

In A New York Minute. Oh my gerrrrrrd this was SO MUCH FUN TO READ! I am dying! It’s such a good romance – it starts with the worst day ever: a layoff, a sweaty subway ride, a wardrobe malfunction to end all wardrobe malfunctions. Listen, while carrying the box from her desk after being laid off, her dress catches in the subway and completely rips down the back, leaving her as exposed to the New York commute rush as wearing a hospital gown. And someone is live-streaming it onto Instagram stories. A stranger comes to her sartorial rescue – but the two are opposites. OPPOSITES YOU GUYS, I THINK YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN. It’s such a romp and I never say this, because I generally deeply dislike when books are adapted for the screen, but if this was made into a movie, I’d watch it. The happens to be cohost of one of my fave podcasts, Forever 35. If you love joy and happiness and warm fuzzy feelings, I recommend both book and podcast! 

Nora Goes Off Script. Well, with this, I am 3/3 for incredible romance novels this week! This was so good; a screenwriter’s home is the set for her movie, and the leading man stays on for a while after to rest and recharge. He settles into her routine as a single mom, and they end up having an affair. This takes twists that I did not see coming, and was a delightful mix of “I am woman hear me roar” and heart warming romance. Oh, and by the way, the screenwriter is a Hallmark-movie style screenwriter who makes it big with a different style of script, and I was here for it. A Hallmark-type-book with a twist, about a Hallmark-movie-writer with a twist! I loved it. 

Happy Galentine’s Day, my friends, and may your Valentine’s Day be filled with self-love and battery recharging. May your February 15 be filled with half-price chocolates. 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