Mammograms and Crocuses and My Ability To Misunderstand Basic Instructions

In what must be a new record for me, on Saturday Jake and I cleaned up the two warmest gardens in our yard. It’s so early! Most years everything is still frozen and snow-covered at this time of the year; believe me, I’m not saying that cannot still happen, but at the moment there is […]

May all your blues be Monday. Or something.

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 […]

The mall in early November is glorious.

Ahhhhhh. I JUST finished the last thing on my “to-do” list for the week – other than writing this post – and I feel the way you do when you’ve been on your feet wearing super high heels all day, and you get home, and you take them off. It feels exactly like that. Ahhhhhh. […]

Is this day thermal-spray-worthy? Probably not.

Remember the Seinfeld episode where the contraceptive sponge was discontinued, and Elaine stocked up on them but had to screen each of her potential sexual partners to ensure that they were worthy of a sponge? I’m having that issue right now, but with hair products. I haven’t written a “Nicole’s Favourite Things” in a while, […]

An obstacle is an unrecognized opportunity.

I’ve come a long way throughout the years, and I’ve learned a lot from my mistakes. A person who never made a mistake is a person who never tried anything new was displayed on the wall of Jake’s old classroom, and I think that’s inspirational. I regularly tell my children that mistakes are learning opportunities, […]

Zucchini Fest 2015

Remember in Gone With The Wind, when Scarlett has a recurring dream in which she is running and running through mist and fog, looking for something, something that will make her happy? And then she finds herself actually running through mist and fog and she realizes – finally – that the key to her happiness has […]

In the spring, an elderly woman’s thoughts turn to rage.

It’s that amazing time of the year when the sun is still out when I go to bed (granted, this isn’t that late) and the sky is lightening up when I go to yoga at 5. The drive home at 6:25 requires sunglasses, the sky is blue and the mornings are calm. The wind picks […]