Category Archives: I almost failed Home Ec

All I do is win, win, win, no matter what.

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The sun has come out! The sun has come out! It was a wee bit too late to save our Sunday afternoon barbeque for fourteen people, but better late than never. On Sunday my husband and I looked at the sky with nervous hope; about twenty minutes before our guests arrived, the sky turned black, the wind turned icy, and the rain started pouring and didn’t stop. That was a bit disappointing but I shall repeat: the sun has come out!

The boys are at karate camp this week, so I’m extra glad for the sunny weather. I can’t imagine how miserable the camp would be if the weather had been what it was like last week. Mind you, last year there was one day that was twelve degrees and raining and they still went swimming at the heated outdoor pool so I guess the show must go on. Swimming isn’t happening this year, though, as was evident when we pulled into the parking lot and saw a giant digger and dump truck, and where the pool had been previously was merely a pile of rubble. There’s always next year! In any case, if yesterday is any indication, they will be having an EPIC week full of karate and water fights and obstacle courses.

I am austerely taking this opportunity to get a lot of work done. It’s amazing how much one can get done without having near-constant conversations about The Simpsons, Overwatch, and – alarmingly – Grand Theft Auto. Mom, there’s a guy on GTA who does yoga! Ah, yes, thanks for letting me know about the criminals and how they spend their time when they are not stealing cars or shooting people.

Grand Theft Auto is just one in a string of examples of things I never thought I would allow, but here we are. Although “allow” is probably the wrong word for it; it’s more like I was railroaded into this “decision.”

The other day I bought a pair of athletic socks, and this is actually a much bigger deal than it appears. I hate, hate, hate spending money on socks, for some reason, but I especially hate spending money on athletic socks. I don’t know why. I don’t know what my issue is but it probably would take a team of therapists to get things straight. In any case, I realized that the two pairs of athletic socks that I own are on their last legs (feet?). One pair I purchased for spin class, last attended in 2001, and the other pair I purchased for golf. My last golf game was somewhere in the first half of 2003.

I probably needed a new pair of socks, is what I’m trying to get at.

We all know my love of all things lululemon, and so I purchased a pair of socks from there. They are pink, to match my trainers, and they have all kinds of claims like “micro-cushioning” and “sweat-wicking” and plus did I mention they are pink? Anyway, they were a bit pricey but I figured that by the time I bought a new pair, somewhere in the vicinity of 2030, I would have gotten my money’s worth from them. Per-unit usage and cost-benefit analysis and all that. “Micro-cushioning” isn’t cheap, you know.

Anyway, I took the socks from the packaging and I was faced with one of lululemon’s signature inspirational sayings. Except that it was less inspirational, and more depressing. It said that women, on average, walk five kilometers more than men. FIVE KILOMETERS. I thought of all the women in the world, walking for hours to find clean water and whatnot, and I thought that was probably the least inspirational thing I could have read on my sock packaging. Because honestly? I’m not sure that Fitbit-wearing women in North America are walking five kilometers more than their male counterparts. I mean, I haven’t seen the data or anything, but that doesn’t seem credible, which makes the “on average” thing that much more depressing.

This is why I don’t have a Fitbit. Well, not exactly, it’s not because I would become depressed thinking about the plight of women in disadvantaged situations, although every time I think about it I do. The real reason I don’t have a Fitbit is because I would turn into David Sedaris. I have somewhat of a highly competitive nature and would probably spend my days trying to kill it on the Fitbit. All work, childcare, and sanity would go out the window as I would spend my days walking briskly to get more steps. This is the reason that my husband will no longer play Monopoly with me, and also the reason I secretly fumed at my sister-in-law’s brother for winning Shopkins Bingo at my niece’s birthday party. It’s bad enough that I have a step counter on my phone; if I had a Fitbit I’d probably railroad my husband into getting one too, and then see if I could walk five kilometers more than him on a daily basis. Actually, I’d probably make it six for good measure and to get back at him for the Grand Theft Auto thing.

Well, it’s better for my marriage, sanity, and everything else to not have a Fitbit, and meanwhile, I am enjoying my new socks very much. If I was walking an extra five (or six) kilometers a day, I’d probably have to spring for another pair, and that is just a bridge too far.

I’ll never look at Cookie Monster the same way again.

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If I was a person who analyzed my dreams, or took the interpretations to really mean something, then I might be worried. Usually my dreams are incredibly dull; folding laundry for hours on end, for example, is a common dream of mine. But Saturday night I had a vivid dream that I was supposed to make a cake to look like Cookie Monster. It was incredibly agitating; whoever was asking me for this cake specified that it could not be round, it had to be the exact shape of Cookie Monster’s body. I kept stressing out about the EYES, how would I make EYES to look like Cookie Monster? What kind of decorating tool would I use or could I buy something that would be like an eye. And the mouth – oh, god, I didn’t want to make a mouth out of black food colouring. Then, when I went to bake the actual cake in a kitchen that wasn’t mine, the oven wouldn’t heat to 350 degrees. Instead, it heated to all sorts of strange and unusual temperatures: 414, 273, etc. I woke up in a panic about it and then wondered, why Cookie Monster? My kids haven’t watched Sesame Street in many years. That was weird.

My friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) suggested it sounded like an anxiety dream. If so I should have had it last Thursday; Friday morning I had a physical with my doctor. Now, I’m very healthy and have no issues, but I was due for a Pap test. Menfolk, you might want to consider not reading on, if you happen to be squeamish about women’s issues. First of all, my period is due any day now, and so I was worried Aunt Flo would arrive 20 minutes before my appointment and I would have to rebook. Again. The only reason I had this appointment was because I was scheduled for a Pap five weeks ago, and my period unexpectedly shown up. I was worried this would happen again, and again, and again, and I would have to call the office and rebook constantly. If there’s one thing I hate to do, it’s phoning for appointments.

Why is making appointments over the phone so hard? I dread it; it’s almost like I hate committing that time to an appointment. There never seems to be a good time for anything; and then once I figure out an appointment that will work for me, it’s not available, and we start all over again.

Anyway, Aunt Flo stayed home and I was able to carry on with my appointment. All signs point to healthy; and then it was time for the Pap. My doctor – who I really do like, and who I really do feel is a good doctor – could not find my cervix. Longtime readers will know that this is not the first time this has happened, and it probably won’t be the last. The only doctor who did NOT have a problem finding my cervix was a woman, and although it is a small sample size – one that I do not want to get any larger, three different hands up in my business is quite enough, thank you – I think it is significant, if not statistically, then emotionally.

Time goes slowly when one’s feet are in stirrups, so a solid ten minutes of speculum-prodding feels like hours. The doctor asked me TWICE if I’d had a C-section; I have not, and I’m not sure what C-sections have to do with cervical positioning. I’m not sure I want to know. “I’m sorry,” the doctor said, “I know this is uncomfortable, I have just never had so much trouble finding a cervix before.”

“Well, you’re not the first,” I told him, “But I’m pretty sure it’s still there.”

Ten minutes and two different speculums later, my cervix was found. Hurrah! Except…”Oh dear, the speculum moved. I have to reposition it.”

Now that I think of it, maybe my Cookie Monster cake dream was a post-traumatic anxiety dream. Maybe my anxiety about making the eyes was some kind of response to the cervical searching, and the big black mouth was a symbol of the cavernous wasteland of my womanhood? In any case, it’s only about 362 days until I have to start thinking about my next Pap test, so carpe diem? Or something.

KonMari FAIL

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Here’s a little tidbit about me that some people (read: my husband) find quite un-endearing: I have a really, really hard time spending money on non-essential items. What often happens in my house is that my husband will suggest a purchase, and no matter how minor, I rail against it. Spotify, for example. Why would we need Spotify, I argued passionately, We already have Sirius! Or the Roomba. We don’t need a Roomba, we have a vacuum!

Well, over the course of our marriage, my husband has learned to just make the purchase, which I subsequently fall in love with. Like, I cannot imagine how I actually did workouts before without Spotify. And Roomba? Roomba, as I’ve mentioned before, is now my favourite child. Everyone in the house talks about Roomba as if he is a living, breathing person who exists only to clean our floors. Great job, Roomba! we all say as Roomba whirrs around. Oh, Roomba, you got into the cords again! we will gently chide him as we see an extension cord pulled out from under the bed. Even Barkley has learned to live with Roomba, even though his tail was once almost vacuumed, causing him to now watch warily when the whirring starts.

roomba

 

It naturally follows that if a person has a hard time spending money on non-essential items, then that person should have – in theory – a fairly empty closet. Right? Well, it appears that clothing is essential and that I have far, far too much of it, if my exploding closet and drawers are any indication.

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The “yoga clothes and beach wear” portion of my closet.

The problem is that I like clothes, and I buy quality, long-lasting clothes, which means I have a lot of clothes. I mean, I have yoga pants from 2008 that still look fantastic, I have classic black dresses purchased between 2011-2014 that are always in style, and I have very well-cared for sweaters from the now-defunct but much loved Jacob.

Everyone has been talking about the KonMari method of tidying up; yesterday was a PD day and I was looking for a project, so I thought I would re-organize my closet. Although I am a very organized (read: anal) person in general, my closet was getting a little small and cluttered. Now, I knew the rules: if an item was used and brought joy, then it could stay. Otherwise, it would get purged.

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How much beach wear is too much beach wear, when one does not live anywhere near a beach?

Do you know, all of my clothing brings me joy?

Reader, I couldn’t bear to part with a thing yesterday. I regularly comb through my dressers whenever I get a phone call asking for clothing donations for this charity or that one, and I usually can gather a good solid garbage bag full. But perhaps I’ve gone to that well too often, or perhaps yesterday was the wrong day to go through my things, I don’t know. All I know is that after putting everything in a giant pile, I ended up neatly rolling everything up and putting it back in the closet. I found a couple of unused containers and I rolled each bikini piece together, Kondo-like. (Who needs fourteen bikinis, mostly black? I DO. I need ALL the black bikinis.)

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It’s marginally neater!

 

So that was a bit of a fail. Not only did I go through my closet, but I also cleaned out my dressers and the same thing occurred; I couldn’t bear to part with any items at all. Well, on the upside, everything is now neatly put away. On the downside, I still need to deal with my shoes and boots, and that, my friends, is going to be a test.

I’ve got the power!

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I know what you’ve all been wondering: How did Nicole survive the Great Power Outage of 2016? Did she have to resort to grinding her own seed wheat in a handheld coffee grinder? Did she have to feed hand-twisted hay sticks into her fireplace just to keep warm? Did she play a song on her fiddle to keep her spirits up?

Answer: none of the above. Her coffee grinder is electric, her fireplace is gas and the pilot light has been unlit since 2005, and she has no fiddle, nor does she know how to play one.

I will tell you this, while switching back into the first person, that a power outage is not all that bad when you know it’s coming. First thing in the morning, I cranked the heat up from its usual 19 degrees to 23 so that by the time I left to take the kids to school, I was sweating. By the time the power went back on the temperature had only dipped to 18, so I call that a win. I spent most of the day running errands, walking the dog, and taking Mark to the orthodontist, so I wasn’t stuck in my dark and cooling-down house all day. My friend Janet (HI JANET) had tipped me off that Jugo Juice makes kale smoothies so I didn’t even have to go without.

The kids and I had lunch at the food court, where I had my smoothie and they enjoyed chicken fingers and fries, and I spent some time surreptitiously eavesdropping on the many teenage conversations around me. I forgot that the mall is essentially a teen hangout, especially at lunch and especially at a mall that is across the street from a high school and two junior highs. MY WORD THE DRAMA. Dylannnnn did you get me a doughnut? Fuck you, Dylannnnn kiss my asssssss I wanted a doughnuttttt. No, I think she still likes you, she’s just mad that you were talking to Jaden. Ugghhhhhh he’s so GROSS don’t talk with your MOUTH FULL GODDDDDD.

The power went back on half an hour before it was scheduled to, which was nice, since the backup battery of the carbon monoxide detector had died and the beeping was making me feel like I was going to lose my mind. I couldn’t figure out how to stop it, so basically every time it went off Barkley and I looked at each other, distressed. But the power was restored before I had completely descended into insanity, so all’s well that ends well.

I was a little worried that all was not well, though; as I was preparing to go to the School Council/ Parent Association meeting – that I was NOT chairing, thank you god – Jake called from downstairs saying that the computer wouldn’t turn on. And it was true; the power bar was plugged in, everything else was working, but the desk top – on which ALL my work, photos, writing, etc., was saved – was not turning on. Nothing, no sound, no fan, nothing.

Cue panic attack.

I called a computer repair company and told the technician my story. He thought it could be a damaged power supply – despite my surge protector – or possibly a fried motherboard. MOTHERFUCKER. I made an appointment with him and then did some deep breathing to calm down. Less than one hour later, the computer magically turned on. I felt like Cousin Eddie: “It’s the damnedest thing. She falls in a well, eyes go cross. A mule kicks her, they go back to normal. I don’t know.” I had to cancel the appointment, citing the “suddenly working and everything’s fine” thing, feeling slightly like I’m a drama queen who just made up a computer issue for fun.

I’m no Ma Ingalls, I’ll tell you that much. But if Ma Ingalls had electricity and access to small appliances, she’d probably love this:

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Ice cream!

It all started when we were at a Ukrainian Christmas celebration, and our hostess had made her own ice cream. She pointed out that most “ice cream” is now called “frozen dessert,” and one thing led to another and suddenly my husband ordered me this beauty. I’m especially excited since non-dairy ice cream is ridiculously expensive, and now I can make my own! Today I’m making a classic vanilla for the boys, as a test run. The only issue here is that my family is ridiculously spoiled. I know, I know, pot and kettle, yada yada yada. BUT THEY ARE. Since I make so many things from scratch they won’t even eat certain store bought items. Case in point: a few weeks ago I bought some hummus.

Husband: What is this hummus?

Me: I bought it at Costco.

Husband: It’s terrible!

Me: It’s not bad. I’m eating it.

Husband: Ugh, I can’t eat this stuff. It’s terrible. It’s SWEET or something.

Mark, grabbing a pita, completely oblivious to the conversation: Mom, where’s the hummus?

Me: It’s right there.

Mark: Ew. I don’t want that. Where’s YOUR hummus?

They proceeded to eat their pitas completely dry, rather than eat the non-homemade-hummus.

Do you see where I’m going with this? It’s a slippery slope, but fortunately making one’s own ice cream is a pretty fun slippery slope to be on.

May all your blues be Monday. Or something.

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It’s Blue Monday! Mercury’s in retrograde, it’s January, and today has been calculated to be the most depressing day of the year. Maybe no one should communicate at all today, JUST IN CASE.

Well, blue is my favourite colour, and even if the algorithm has calculated it to be the saddest day of 2016, this morning the sun came out and the sky is gloriously blue. It looks just beautiful against the snow, and the temperatures are warming up this week. This is great news because in my panic last week, I didn’t realize that the seven-hour power outage is scheduled for THIS Wednesday, instead of LAST Wednesday. Good news: I will have had a week to prepare. Bad news: I will have had a week to fret, because what if they make a mistake and the power NEVER comes back on? Then what? I’ll never have a decent smoothie again, that’s what!

Oh, speaking of smoothies and related vegetables, I have a piece up at YMC about the high price of cauliflower. You know, no one wants to talk macroeconomics, but everyone wants to talk about cauliflower. Well, I tell you, they’ll pry those tiny $8 cauliflowers out of my cold dead hands before I give them up. My grandmother is probably turning in her grave, but a) I almost never go to Starbucks, b) I almost never eat out, c) we almost never have take-out, d) I WILL ENJOY MY EXPENSIVE CAULIFLOWER LIKE THE PRINCESS THAT I AM.

Gosh, we’ve become a spoiled, entitled society, haven’t we? Oh my god, the kale is like, not crisp at all. Ugh, what a rip-off. I feel like Louis C.K. but with vegetables. Let’s partake in the miracle of January avocados. We can have anything we want to eat at any time, we just have to pay for it. Sorry! But it’s true. There’s a trade-off for everything and in this case, it’s dolla dolla for your caula caula.

Not that I want to start living out the winter with nothing but sauerkraut the occasional piece of dried fruit like I’m a heroine in a Little House on the Prairie-esque drama, but I think you can see what I’m getting at.

In non-vegetable-related news, last Friday I chaperoned the last day of Mark’s field trip, and it was really fun. The kids learned all about stage fighting, so if anyone needs someone to be fake-choked, I am your Huckleberry. Related to this, the class is doing a unit on Greek mythology, so Mark is in his element. Next week they are having a fashion show, narrated in French, and Mark is dressing up in Greek fashion. This means that a few hours this weekend was devoted to the making of a cardboard-and-duct-tape sword and shield, along with a toga. I helped him make a toga out of an old sheet, and wondered if these skills would be used again some time down the road. Toga party!

Last week Barkley had a vet check-up and shots, and I will tell you this: I live in dread of the pet scale. Barkley likes his food, and at the vet clinic entrance is a huge poster that shows the decline in life expectancy for pets that are too fat. I try to watch his food, and buy low calorie dog treats, but he is what we might call curvy. I nervously had him sit on the scale…and he’s lost three pounds since last year! Three pounds! I practically did the Snoopy dance right there in the waiting room. He’s svelte! Or, as the vet says, “Still quite plump.”

Well then. He also needs dental scaling and that, along with my meeting this afternoon with the orthodontist to discuss Mark’s braces, is going to lead to financial wreck and ruin. Not really, but I might have to cut back on the cauliflower. Do me a favour: if I start jonesing for roast cauliflower, someone throw me a box of spinach or some other veggie methadone. xo

Detoxing my life

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The other day I saw an infographic about “daily steps to keep your house clean and organized” which, I am sorry to admit, is a genuine interest of mine. I LOVE organizational and cleaning tips to the point that I’ve often thought I could start a whole blog about it, or at least a series of posts, a la the Fly Lady. But then, I remember that upon cleaning out my bathroom and hall cupboards, I found sanitary napkins dating from 2005 and cold medication that expired in 2010, so that would make me feel like Matt Foley, motivational speaker. Also, I do not ever wear shoes in the house; the Fly Lady would be ashamed of me.

The biggest deterrent, however, to making my OWN infographic of household tips or writing a series of posts, would be the Professional Internet Commenters. Circling back to this infographic I saw, I noticed that there were several hundred comments on it. Several hundred, on an infographic that had daily, weekly, monthly, and annual chores. People, I did something that I never do, something that I know not to do, something that never brings about joy or happiness: I read the comments.

You wouldn’t think that an infographic that has such things as “make your bed” or “wash the dishes” as daily chores would be all that controversial, would you? Well, what if I told you it was A MAN that created the infographic? Would that enrage you? At least half the comments were with regards to the obviously single, childless, entitled man who dared write an infographic on household tips. “What about taking the kids to activities? What about making lunches? This guy has no idea what real life is like! Must be nice!”

Oh, people of the internet. You do realize that no one is forcing you to a) read things, or b) implement the things you’ve read into your own life, right? If the mere suggestion that washing dishes daily is better than letting them all pile up all over your counters, until your cupboards are empty and then trying to deal with a mountain of disgusting, crusty pots and pans and plates enrages you, then maybe don’t read anything about household tips. If “making your bed” makes you outraged, then you really don’t have to do it. And the kicker? The kicker is that you DON’T HAVE TO COMMENT ON IT, EVEN IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT OR DISAGREE WITH IT.

It’s that time of year when everyone is making resolutions and choosing words to keep in mind for the coming year, and I love all that. I love that we like to improve ourselves and our quality of life. I don’t really have resolutions, other than to maintain what resolutions I made five months ago – apparently August is more of a New Year’s for me. Some of those resolutions are dull and I won’t bore you with the details, but the one I want to talk about is detoxing.

I don’t mean that I’m going to drink only juice for three weeks or take enough laxatives to cleanse my colon or anything. What I’ve been doing in the past little while is detoxing my life.

You know when someone goes on Facebook and announces that they are going through their friends list and deleting everyone they aren’t in touch with and everyone on their friend list rolls their eyes and presses “hide?” Or, less passive aggressively, sends messages to everyone on their friends list, saying since you don’t like any of my photos feel free to “un-friend” me? The latter actually happened to me, which was startling, since all the photos on that person’s feed were of cars that she had keyed for parking crookedly and taking up two parking stalls. While bad parking is annoying to everyone, I am not a fan of random property damage, and so it was true, I didn’t “like” those photos.

In any case, I noticed that there were a number of people on my Facebook who were constantly bringing me down, and no matter how much I “hid” their comments or how quickly I scrolled past their ignorant updates, it would still infect my spirits, a little. Now, I would never chirpily announce that I was “cleaning out my friends list!” because that behaviour is lame, but I did actually think long and hard about people I wanted in my life. Why did I have them on my friends list if we had what might be termed as irreconcilable differences? Did they bring anything to my life? No? Then why were they there?

And, dear reader, I did it. I went through and I took out the people who said things like “anyone who isn’t atheist is a sheep and a moron” and who insulted people who live in my province and who were just in a constant state of outrage. Percentage wise, it wasn’t many – most people I know are lovely – but that small percentage was bringing me down, like a virus.

Then I started thinking about what causes me angst and grief in my day-to-day life, and I swore that I would no longer be affected by someone else’s negativity. If someone was constantly bringing toxicity into my life, I thought long and hard about how much contact I wanted to have with that person. I asked myself two questions: do I want them in my life, and do I have a choice whether or not they are in my life? I think I often forget that I have the power of choice; I can choose not to enter into unkind gossip and I can choose not to be around someone who is constantly negative. I can choose not to be with people who openly dislike me and have no qualms about saying so and I can choose not to listen to ignorant and uninformed opinions.

I can choose to be with people who uplift me, or people who support me and who I support. I can choose to surround myself with joy and laughter and interesting conversations.

So, if I have a resolution this year, it’s to continue to exercise that choice. Well, that and to finally start using eye cream. I’m starting to look like an old crone.

Do you have any resolutions or words for 2016? Do tell. xoxo

Clean all the things!

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How have your holidays been? Mine have been a lovely mix of sloth and good food, along with my usual post-Christmas frantic cleaning and reorganizing. All last week I hardly worked at all, and then I fell into the Christmas cheer. We visited with some of my husband’s family on Christmas Eve, and if they ever decide to go on a sunny vacation together, I’m thinking of tagging along because these people are FUN. Christmas Day we headed to my parents’ for a couple of days, which was lovely.

Usually my tree and decorations come down on Boxing Day, but since I was actually not home on Boxing Day, the annual CLEAN EVERYTHING fiesta waited until Sunday, when I had been home for approximately three minutes. I love Christmas and all its glorious sparkly decorations, but I also love that clean, uncluttered look too.

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The house looked like this for a brief moment on Christmas morning, and then I started the cleaning process. My husband gave me the side-eye a little because I’m sure he thought I was going to start de-Christmassing, but no. Not on Christmas Day, no matter how tempting.

Yesterday I decided that just de-Christmassing wasn’t enough; I had to reorganize everything in the bathroom and hall cupboards. And honestly, it was pretty bad. There were a number of items I hadn’t used or gotten rid of: several shampoo bottles with 1/2 an inch of shampoo left in them, lip glosses that were discovered to be unflattering, and many bottles of expired medication. There was also a package of gigantic, extra-absorbent sanitary napkins that I had purchased for post-partum bleeding back in 2005, and then never used again, alongside a box of slim, light days tampons. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that no woman who has given birth vaginally is going to use slim, light days tampons. I think we can all admit that in those cases the feminine mystique takes a bit of a beating and those tampons are best left to others.

I also found a number of strange items in the hall cupboards, including a bottle of golden corn syrup. For one thing, I cannot remember ever buying corn syrup or even what I would have used it for. For another thing, it was far from golden; it was dark brown and sort of sludgy looking.

Today the big job was to reorganize my dresser – a big task, given that it was getting difficult to close the drawers properly. I was in the perfect mood to do it; if I didn’t LOVE an item, it went into the donation bag. At this rate I’m going to mow through the house by the time the kids go back to school. It’s a very satisfying process; I hope I don’t lose my ambition. NO HALF-MEASURES, NICOLE.

Speaking of binge-watching things, my husband and I have been watching Game of Thrones. He watched the whole thing last year, and I joined in around Season Four. Let me tell you, things make MUCH more sense when watched from the beginning. I was previously so confused and constantly texting my friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) questions about who was who, why was that guy like that, what’s with all the incest, and OMG ARE THOSE ZOMBIES? Finally, I understand – sort of.