Category Archives: Illnesses

Poison

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My husband is always incredibly supportive and encouraging of anything I decide to do, and so last August when I told him that I wasn’t up to teaching yoga in our new city – the thought of starting over was overwhelming and discouraging, and it felt like time for a pivot – he was in full agreement. When I quietly mused about taking a creative writing course with the thought of writing a book, he was one hundred percent on board immediately. Of course I could write a book! It would be a best seller! Maybe even on Oprah’s book club! I don’t even know if Oprah still has her book club, and it feels aspirational just to get it finished and maybe published, as well as highly unlikely it will ever get to best seller stage, but it’s nice to have such blindly enthusiastic support.

That same supportive husband accidentally poisoned me last week.

Now, clearly I am not writing this beyond the grave – or am I? – so this poisoning was pretty mild. And there was nothing nefarious to it – I think? – but before we get to that, I was reminded of an exchange between myself and my mother-in-law several weeks ago.

She was pulling up her rhubarb in the garden, and my feelings about rhubarb are not as strong as my feelings about celery, but they are close, and so I was assuring her that no, I did not want any. The leaves were enormous, I would say almost three feet long, and my mother-in-law asked me if I knew that the leaves of the plant are poisonous.

I did know this, which begs the question: what person in history found this plant with incredibly toxic leaves, the root of which is so sour and awful that it requires pounds of sugar to make it palatable, and thought hey, what a great idea for dessert.

Getting back to the foliage, I recapped an Alice Munro story for my mother-in-law, one in which the protagonist concocts baked goods with the toxic leaves, in order to seek revenge on her cheating husband. My mother-in-law listened intently, nodding, and then said That seems pretty slow. I can think of a faster way to get rid of the cheating bastard. True, but also, that would be an entirely different short story.

Now, lest you draw any parallels between these two story threads, my semi-poisoning was not a result of me stepping out on my marriage, nor did it have anything to do with rhubarb and baked goods. It did, however, involve a veggie burger.

My husband was festively preparing to grill burgers for the family plus our houseguest, and while rummaging through the freezer, he noticed that I had not one but three different kinds of veggie burgers. He mentioned that in addition to a few boxes from Costco, there was an open box with chickpea and sweet potato burgers; ever since Costco discontinued my beloved chipotle black bean burgers, life has been but dull and meaningless from a veggie burger standpoint, and so I agreed to the latter type. It all seemed very innocuous, until later in the evening, when I was feeling uncomfortably bloated. I chalked it up to eating a big slice of Guinness cake, took a Benadryl for my many mosquito bites, and went to bed.

I woke up a few hours later feeling like Count Almasy returning from the desert – I have been WALKING for three DAYS – and I could not get enough water. The next morning I dragged my strangely exhausted self out of bed and, getting dressed, I couldn’t help but notice my stomach. Now, perimenopause has given me a soft, cuddly tummy, but this was not that. It was distended to resemble, both in size and firmness, that which I had when I was approximately five months pregnant, which extended to six months after drinking my morning water. I and my stomach went through my normal morning routine, but I was dizzy and fatigued, and, distressingly, when I got home from my Rex walk, I was completely uninterested in breakfast. Not only was I not hungry, but I was also strangely repulsed by even the thought of consuming anything at all, except more water.

I continued on with my day, but by the time I had showered and not had lunch, I was exhausted from just existing, so I thought I should sit down for a moment. Something that you should know about me is that during the day I am almost never tired, and I never “sit down for a moment” without some seated project like reading, writing, or Duolingoing in mind. I immediately fell asleep in my chair.

At this point in the Trifecta Of Weird Things, I was getting suspicious. No one else felt off in any way, and so my husband inspected the package of veggie burgers, and they had expired eight months ago.

Now, typically we cycle through food very quickly, the exception being veggie burgers as I am the only one who eats them. But we have been in this house less than a year, and is it too much to ask of a frozen food to still be good after eleven months? I really don’t know.

You poisoned me! I kept saying to my husband before dozing off again, as he gave the package the side-eye. Now, to be sure, it wasn’t terrible in a Praying For The Sweet Release Of Death kind of way. I wasn’t – how to put this delicately – expelling anything in any way, but I was experiencing considerable stomach pain, so much so that I started googling things like intestinal blockage signs of and sudden onset Crohn’s disease. My algorithm should be interesting now.

It took 24 hours of no eating, plus another two days before I felt like myself again, and my faux pregnancy has subsided to my usual soft, cuddly tummy. But you can bet I’m keeping my eye on that husband of mine. If he starts concocting suspicious-looking baked goods, I’m sounding the alarm.

Weekly Reading

A huge upside to enforced rest due to accidental poisoning is that I got quite a bit of reading done.

Refuse To Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts. This book has some very helpful advice about editing and revising, which I am taking to heart. One of the books I read this week could have really used this. Thanks for the recommendation, Laura (HI LAURA!).

Peacocks of Instagram. WOW. You know I love a collection of short stories, but a collection of interconnected short stories by a female Canadian author? SIGN ME UP. I loved these slice-of-life, ordinary-yet-extraordinary stories about safety, privilege and the lack of it, and when a person can call a place home. Big thank you to Pearl (HI PEARL) for mentioning this!

The Idea of You. Okay. First of all, this book has legions of fans and has been made into a movie, so kudos to the author for this level of success. In fact, the way I heard about this book was from one of those fans, and the premise sounded kind of interesting: 40-year-old woman meets her 12-year-old daughter’s favourite boy band, and ends up having an affair with one of the 20-year-old members. I think this band is roughly based on One Direction. Given all the real life examples of wildly May-December relationships – Al Pacino, Robert de Niro, BILL BELICHICK WTF GRANDPA, LEAVE THE 24 YEAR OLD GIRL ALONE – I thought, hell yeah, older woman, let’s fucking go. Well. Was I wrong. As I said, a very successful book but so not for me. The writing is SO bad, I can hardly even describe how bad it is. About 80% of this book is soft-core porn-level sex scenes in a variety of luxurious locales – think Aspen, Anguilla, Cote d’Azur – and the other 20% is worry about her daughter finding out about the affair, angst when she does find out about the affair, the ocean of fans who suddenly hate this woman for having sex with this Harry Styles-like boy band member and how they make her life hell, and some boring parts about art. Here’s an example of the writing that probably says it all: “And how in God’s name had I ended up here, on my knees in a five-star hotel, sucking some guy in a boy band’s dick? And dear Lord, please don’t ever let my daughter do this.” I mean there’s a part where she is upset because a paparazzi photo of them in flagrante goes viral, and she talks about her life being ruined, how she’s going to lose her daughter, her gallery, everything. Her life is a complete shambles, she says. Then, the next sentence: “But you are really, really good at eating pussy, so maybe it was worth it.” Honestly, I think the author could have used an editor, or at least the Refuse To Be Done book, but what do I know, she’s crying all the way to the bank.

Amazing Grace Adams. Well this was quite the ride! This novel follows a woman who has just Had Enough and has a bit of a breakdown, leaving her car parked in traffic to walk to deliver a cake for her daughter’s sixteenth birthday. It’s kind of wild, this book that both takes place over just a few hours, interspersed with multiple timelines from the past. We, the reader, are meant to believe that this breakdown is entirely spurred on by perimenopausal symptoms, the stress of mothering a teen girl, and her work-life balance, and the whole time I kept thinking okay, okay, a bit dramatic, but okay. But then! There is a big reveal, and things started to make sense, but then! There is a OMG HUGE REVEAL and everything, everything clicks into place and wow, what a well done book. In the acknowledgements, the author says she was inspired by the movie Falling Down, and yes, that really tracks. Thanks to Anna (HI ANNA) for the recommendation!

We are having a bit of a heat wave right now, and other than having to walk Rex super-early in the morning to beat the heat I am so here for it. Summer! Bring it all on! I hope you are having a beautiful, summery week as well, with no poisoning, accidental or otherwise. xo

Five For Friday: The Small Grievances and Their Associated Upsides Edition

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  • At the end of October I always head to Bath and Body Works to purchase festive hand soaps for Tiny Secret Festive Season, and this year was no exception. I prefer regular liquid soap to the foaming variety for reasons that are mostly hard to articulate, with one exception: foaming soap never seems to pump nicely, instead I seem to always have to apply what I consider to be excessive force just to wash my hands. The result of this is that the soap often shoots out wildly, in the best case scenario into my sink, in the worst case scenario onto my sweater. As I shopped for my soaps this year, I noticed that all the soaps were of the foaming variety; when I asked the salesperson about it, she directed me to one small shelf near the back, where the selection was very small and the bottles themselves very bland, and not festive at all. According to her, foaming soaps outsell regular by twenty to one, and so the company has now focused the majority of their festive soap effort on foaming. Rather than buy a sad, pine-scented hand soap – I love pine trees, but I don’t want pine-scented hands – I gave in and bought the foaming soaps. The scents are glorious – Coconut Snowball! Twisted Peppermint! Winter Candy Apple! – and I’ve mostly mastered the pump-without-spraying-my-sweater, but not entirely. I’m learning and growing as a person.
  • Despite all this festive hand-washing, last week my husband and I succumbed to the cold-like viral sickness that has been going around. I was, pardon my indelicacy, desperate for my Neti rinse, but I could not find my squirt bottle nor the giant Costco 200-pack of Neti salts to go with it. I looked everywhere, but sadly concluded that those items must have been part of my Insane Moving Purge in the spring. I wasn’t comfortable sharing indoor air with anyone, so instead of going to the drugstore I ordered a new bottle and salts from Amazon, which I thought was a one-day delivery, but it ended up being three. As soon as it arrived I ripped the package open and showered the sinuses I love with love, if you know what I’m saying, and it was such a relief. I washed out the bottle and then went to put it under my bathroom sink, where I found my old bottle, partially hidden behind my hair products. I was very annoyed, thinking this whole time I could have been Neti-ing. However, I had noticed on the package that the company recommends replacing the bottle every three months and at that point, I’d probably had my old bottle for at least eight years, so it was probably for the best. Although, doesn’t it seem like an environmental disaster to throw out a perfectly good bottle every three months? That seems like an excessive reaction, and a ridiculous waste. I’ll probably keep this one for another eight years, I have not died from not replacing my Neti yet.
  • This might be a uniquely Canadian problem right now, but has anyone else noticed the sugar shortage? About five weeks ago there was no brown sugar at Superstore, and then there was no white sugar, and this lasted up until this week. I mentioned this to my mother-in-law who had NOT noticed, but then she called me in a panic to say that the workers at the Rogers’ factory were on strike. Ah! No sugar tonight! This explains why I could buy a giant bag of imported brown sugar in the international aisle but not in the baking aisle. I think the strike is now resolved but sugar is, of course, slow to get back to its regular supply level. I was at Costco and they had the giant ten kilo bags; an older couple was there with two carts, one of which was completely full with sugar, and they were working on filling the other one. Should I be hoarding sugar too? I thought. Maybe? Is this like 2020? The woman noticed me looking at her, lost in my own thoughts, and I startled myself back to reality. “You must have a lot of baking to do!” I said in the most pleasantly normal voice I could, trying not to sound accusatory like I know what you’re doing, you hoarder. “We have a lot of JAM to make!” she said, and I wondered if she had some kind of jam home business, or if it was all a cover to profiteer on the sugar black market, like we were in Europe in World War II. Either way I grabbed a bag, which I technically didn’t need, but let us remember Lessons From The Pandemic: if you see it, maybe buy it. Within reason, of course, let’s not forget how I ended up with six boxes of expired cream of tartars in 2023, and I don’t even use cream of tartar.
  • I have been talking about the nightmare that is time change for twenty years, so I won’t bore and depress us all with its history, how it makes no difference with energy usage which is WHY it is touted to be still in existence, and how everyone is just fucked up for a week twice a year, including, importantly, the pets of the world. JUST PICK A TIME AND STICK WITH IT, I DON’T EVEN CARE. What I did not realize is how early it gets dark here; it is completely dark at 4:30 pm. I even thought I was maybe hallucinating a little, due to time change and my brain fog from my lingering sickness, but no, a check of my weather app tells me that the sun sets at 4:21 pm. What will happen in December? Well, there’s nothing for it but to embrace my inner Dane and get Hygge with it. I have my light-up gnome and electric candles, so I can participate in the Danish Hygge ritual of candles without the fear of scary actual candles burning my house down.
  • I have been so looking forward to a women’s weekend retreat that was to take place next weekend. I haven’t been away by myself since my YMC days, and I was so excited as my friend Sara (HI SARA) was teaching the yoga sessions, and in addition to that there was going to be snowshoeing, lovely meals, and a comedy night. I was hoping to meet other snowshoeing women in the area, and did I mention it was a weekend of meals someone else prepared? Bring your swimsuit for the hot tub! the website said cheerfully. DONE AND DONE. Then, earlier this week, I got a notification that the weekend was cancelled, or, technically, postponed until 2024. And this after my husband bought me a new headlamp so I could take part in the Night Snowshoe Adventure. Well, I did get use out of the headlamp when I walked Rex before sunrise a few weeks ago; the completely unlit path was a little terrifying even with the headlamp, and I kept waiting to get murdered or for us to get attacked by wildlife, but perhaps wildlife could smell Rex and kept out of our way.

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you have a great weekend. xo

Miley and Me

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The other day I woke up with No Scrubs stuck in my head; this isn’t an entirely strange thing, as I do like that song, and hear it fairly often on one of my playlists. What was strange, though, was how tenacious it was. All through my morning yoga practice I kept hearing hanging off the passenger side of his best friend’s ride over and over. A scrub is a guy who can’t get no love from ME. Then I took a Peloton ride and the very last class was No Scrubs, and it started to feel surreal. After that there was no getting away from it; I wondered if this would be like the time I had the Lido Shuffle stuck in my head for days, and kept hearing it on the radio, and is this is how it starts, the descent into madness.

The next day I chose a Peloton ride that had a No Scrubs-free playlist, but it turns out that I am becoming unhinged anyway, as I got all choked up singing along to Miley Cyrus’ The Climb. There’s always going to be another mountain, I’m always going to want to make it move, it’s always going to be an uphill battle…at which point my singing voice started cracking and I started rapidly blinking back tears. To MILEY CYRUS.

Well, things have felt a little Uphill Battle-ish lately. Every morning I wake up with renewed positivity and optimism, and just as soon as I cross a few Stressful Things off my list, five more Stressful Things take their place. This past week a very unexpected, fairly serious health issue popped up in the Boyhouse, which is causing me considerable worry, as we are moving next month, and this needs to be taken care of prior to that. We are not just moving house, but moving provinces, and let me tell you that I absolutely love the Canadian universal health care system for the most part, but it can be hard to get things in a very timely manner, and inter-provincial health care is not ideal. Switching provincial care and finding new providers is going to be a Big Deal, but I’m trying to keep my head up and take things step by step.

This move is something that’s been in the works for a while, and although I have had some emotional ups and downs about it, I am definitely looking forward to being settled into my new home. In the interim, however, everything feels like chaos. I am not a person who Does Well With Change, in fact, I’m kind of the opposite, and everything is changing at once. EVERYTHING IS CHANGING ALL AT THE SAME TIME. It’s like ripping off a giant bandaid, or getting a Brazilian wax all in one strip. OUCH, but also, it isn’t dragging things out, I guess.

Anyway. Things will get done. In not too long, I will be on the other side of this. On the huge plus side, my son had his second dental surgery this week and it went really well. It went so well that I had a few moments of regret that the first went so badly, but we cannot change the past, people. He and I spent an afternoon watching Forrest Gump, and because I am currently an emotional wreck, I spent much of it blinking rapidly and swallowing hard. We both agreed that the best parts of the movie were the Vietnam scenes and the friendship between Forrest and Lieutenant Dan, and that the music, as the kids say, slaps.

One thing I am very much looking forward to in my new home is gardening. The growing season is solidly four months longer than it is in Calgary, and this winter is going to be all about planning and designing my new beds. The trick will be to keep Rex out of them, which takes some doing. Incredibly, after a winter of being sat on and walked on – Get out of the garden! I said countless times this winter, only to be answered with a look of innocence before slowly trampling the beds on his way out – my Siberian irises are in full, gorgeous bloom. On the other hand, Rex seemed to have killed my creeping Jenny in the hosta garden. Who knew one could kill creeping Jenny? I thought it would survive nuclear fallout, but apparently, it cannot survive a winter with Rex.

Weekly Reading

Foreverland: On The Divine Tedium of Marriage. It’s interesting how sometimes a book will come into your life at just the right time, and will resonate with you so strongly that you might look around, wondering if someone is actually inside your house. Or your head. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book of essays that is so honest, so candid, and yet so funny and self-deprecating as this. It’s divided into four sections that can be described as courtship and engagement, wedding and early parenthood, house, home, and parenting older kids, and, finally, bumps in the road, including dissatisfaction, illness, and the pandemic. I cannot even describe how much I related to so much of this book, even for things that happened long ago; it has been a very long time since I had a newborn, but her description of the feeling that the baby was an actual part of her body and when she was separated from the baby, it felt like she was literally missing an organ was so exactly what I too experienced. It is a rare book that makes a person feel completely seen and less alone, but this absolutely did. It’s really a beautiful, yet brutally honest, look at so many facets of marriage and life, and I loved it.

Funny You Should Ask. I read most of this in waiting rooms so I think I was a bit distracted and found this book a bit hard to get into. It’s a nice light romance about a journalist who interviews a movie star and then they meet again ten years later for another interview. The interview skyrocketed her to fame, it started a bunch of rumours, I don’t know, it was fine. I liked it just fine but didn’t love it. Apparently this book went viral on TikTok, so my meh reaction could be just me.

The Paper Palace. Wow, this was a really incredible book. On the surface, it’s about a woman who has just had a clandestine encounter with her oldest friend, and now she’s faced with the choice: leave her marriage and her much-loved husband and children, or stay and figure out how to deal with the fallout. One might think, as I did initially, if she loved her husband so much, why the affair? This book delves into the past fifty years, and how it affected a twenty-four hour period. It’s filled with secrets, and horror, and love; it shows the butterfly effect of single actions, and the connections between us. It is so well written and the descriptive writing is beautiful. I had no idea what was going to happen or how it was going to end, and it’s the kind of book that leaves you wondering and wanting more. I really loved it.

This week felt so long, but I am, Monday morning once again, filled with renewed positivity and optimism to tackle the ever-growing To Do list. Happily, my skin care routine is working and I look fantastic.

I hope you all have a beautiful, uncomplicated week. xo

Boyhouse Year In Review 2022

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Happy Almost New Year! I hope you have all been having a restful and restorative week! I have been enjoying myself immensely; lots of sleep, puzzles, books, food, and wine. We spent a few days at my parents, which is always fun, and involves games and food and more wine.

As is usual at this time of year, I’ve been reflecting a lot on the year that’s passed and the year that is to come. One of the biggest benefits to having a blog is the ability to look back, and wow, have we come a long way since this time last year. Late December/ early January were an absolute low point; things were dismal. Happily, on our Roller Coaster of Life, things have been more up than down; so let’s take a look at what happened in the Boyhouse in 2022.

January

The New Year started off pretty bleak and grim, with winter break extended and all diploma exams cancelled, and to distract myself from complete despair I talked about my concepts and mantras I try to live by every day, the kids did go back to school and I decided to stop reading the news, I talked about actual quantifiable goals that I work towards every day, I talked about how much I hate filtered photos, how I actually thought about Botox, and how I was unfriended by a high school acquaintance not once but twice, and I had a roller-coaster of a week that included new neighbours, a cancelled trip, a mouse in the house, and a possible hoarding issue with macadamia nut milk. This month’s Favourite Things were of the Hygge variety, appropriately enough.

February

I talked about all the fun physical changes that come in one’s forties, including but not limited to moustaches and chin hair, I had massive gratitude for all the Galentines in my life, I showed you a Week of Winter Outfits (spoiler: lots of sweaters and legwarmers), and I talked about automatic car starters and marital mismatches. I also told you all about the daily choices I make to show myself some love.

March

All Covid restrictions were dropped, and I went to Costco and lost my mind, it was exactly two years since the pandemic started, and we celebrated my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, two years and one week in, we got Covid, and we eventually recovered enough to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary with a Banff getaway, and my son turned 18. While we were isolated, I talked about the things that made my recovery happier.

April

I talked about the juxtaposition of my desire to wave at every neighbour and my reluctance to talk to them and hear insensitive comments about Barkley (god, that was hard for me to read), there were many signs of spring in my life, Salvadore came into my life and brought so much gnome-related happiness, we had a massive snowstorm and I scheduled appointments like a boss. It was my birthday and I talked about 47 things I love.

May

I was absolutely exhausted from the neighbour’s construction, our internet went out for seven hours and somehow we all survived, we had a lot of snow and I went to the garden centre, I shared my Week of Spring Outfits, and my son had his high school graduation ceremony, dance, and banquet, none of which I thought would happen, and I am eternally grateful. At that point I stopped my Weekly Covid Count. I also shared with you my makeup routine, and included my 4:00 am bare face.

June

I lived on the edge and planted my tomatoes slightly early while the construction guys listened to Dick in a Box, I had a weird medical mystery, my midlife crisis manifested in me giving Salvadore an actual bubble bath, and I confessed to having Low Level Shame about ghosting my long-time hair stylist. I also joined my husband in Banff for a Fancy Conference. Well, I was there for the Fancy part, he was there for the Conference part.

July

On June 30, we said goodbye to Barkley, and we were all brokenhearted. We started off the summer with some visiting relatives from California – including my teenage pen pal – and our usual trip to the lake for Canada Day, I found solace in hiking, my garden, and cooking, and I also snapped at door-to-door solicitors, I talked about Cart Karma, I started a Big Project and Curated my Closet, and in the face of a Calgary Heat Wave, I shared my Week of Summer Outfits. It was also the Ten Year Anniversary of Nicole’s Favourite Things!

August

We went on vacation, I read a lot, I vowed to have Just One Backup of everything in the house and kind of failed, I got all nostalgic, my husband and I went to Mexico where I spoke broken Spanish and sang karaoke, and I read a lot more. Notably and for the first time ever, I travelled with ONLY carryon, and I can never go back, proving that YOU SHOULD NEVER JUDGE.

September

Life has its ups and downs, and to that end there were mice in the house and the boys drank our expensive Patron mixed with Dr Pepper, on the same day I cleaned my kitchen with a toothbrush, the Queen died, my son turned 17 and when I went grocery shopping I realized I had some kind of Psychological Long Covid, and I thought about house staging and photo filtering, and showed photos of my unstaged, unfiltered home. My son went backcountry camping and to distract myself from thoughts of giardiasis I talked about a variety of Favourite September-Related Things.

October

My son did not get giardiasis, but we had a number of run-ins with local wildlife, one of my students introduced me to the concept that Gratitude Is The First Step To Joy, and I listed off some of the things I am grateful for, Rex came into our lives and has brought us so much happiness, I shared my Week of Fall Outfits, I talked about body changes and the concept of “flattering” when it comes to clothes, and I prepared for Halloween like a crazy person. I also celebrated all things fall-related!

November

I rapidly shifted into Winter and Tiny Secret Festive Season, we celebrated our one-month Rex-aversary, I finished my Christmas shopping, I joined all the cool kids in doing a Day in the Life post, I revealed my longtime desire to join a flash mob, and my son decided to join the throngs of men who observe Movember. I talked about Christmassy favourites and just regular favourites.

December

We all started Advent calendars, and mine was a puzzle one, I went to an actual holiday party with actual people and actual fancy clothes, I answered your questions about the holidays, I took the car in for servicing and it was a huge ordeal, I revealed my favourite childhood gifts, and I celebrated my girlfriends. On Festivus I talked about my favourite holiday things and also how I jerry-rigged the furnace.

It has been quite a year! 2023 will be a year of change for me; I’m not great with change, and I love my life as it is, but change is part of life, so here we go! Time to jump in. Happy New Year to all of you. Thanks for being here on this journey with me. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Isolation Chamber Edition

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Full disclosure: I had a very different Favourite Things planned for this month, but I decided to write a little about my experience with The Plague instead. You’ll just have to wait for Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Daily Glow-Up Edition! I’m sure you are all dying to know about my new favourite CC Cream; soon, my pretties.

Okay, that’s cruel. It’s by IT Cosmetics and it’s called “Your Skin But Better.”

As I mentioned in my last post, all four of us came down with The Covid, and our experience was that it was very, very mild. I have been pretty sanguine about the whole thing for several months now, but I do not want to tell you how to feel or to negate your experience in any way. I am just sharing my experience.

To be honest, if this was pre-2020, we would have just gone about our normal day-to-day lives with the kind of symptoms we had. Obviously we followed all the protocols as soon as my son tested positive, but remember back in the Before Times, when we would have just Pushed Through? Remember taking Advil Cold and Sinus and just going to work or to school, never thinking of calling in sick unless we had literally one foot in the grave, merrily spreading our germs to all and sundry? Thankfully, those days are gone, and I have to say it was kind of nice to be forced into isolation without being very sick at all. Forced rest is quite lovely, and we were lucky to have such mild cases.

Well, I say “lucky,” but a big part of that was due to the efficacy of vaccines. My husband has a couple of health issues that are largely controlled but that have been linked to severe outcomes, so I credit science and his vaccination status for his bout: he merely had a sore throat for about twelve hours, and an on-again-off-again headache for a couple of days. Had this happened a year or more ago, things could have ended up very differently, and I will always be breathtakingly grateful that this was our experience.

I think it goes without saying that one of my favourite things is VACCINES. I will get boosted for the rest of my life, if needed.

Again, this is my lived experience. Yours might be very different. I have many friends who are very wary and anxious about contracting Covid for a variety of reasons, so I am definitely not minimizing those feelings. I am saying that we all got off very easy – my younger son, for example, NEVER developed any symptoms at all. Many people have reported that they had symptoms like a “mild cold,” but I wouldn’t even say that. The only symptom I had was being tired and low energy for a couple of days. I know many people who got quite sick with fevers and pain, and others who have suffered Long Covid, and I feel very, very fortunate. I am generally a very healthy person, but similarly healthy people have had very bad experiences with Covid, so general health isn’t always an indicator.

This is a very long preamble to say that I wanted to share with you the things that helped me through my bout, and resulting isolation.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Isolation Chamber Edition

My Beauty Has Always Been A Curse; Ew, David

My love of the Golden Girls is well known. I have loved that show since the 80s and I was excited to see that it’s on Disney Plus, which is one of the many streaming services we seem to have that I never use. I have been watching one episode week, just like it’s 1985, and at this rate I’ll finish the series in 2029, give or take a few months. My kids like to say I’m binge-watching something if I watch more than three episodes a month, so I guess I’m binging?

The writing is just so good in that show, and I love the costumes and set design. I read that Rue McClanahan had it in her contract that she could keep all of the clothes she wore on the show, so I like to imagine her closet overflowing with super-colourful separates. Also, she was only four years older than I am now, when the show started.

I know I’m about seven years late to the party, but my husband and I have started watching Schitt’s Creek, and WOW, do I love it. So far we’ve finished the first season, and I have heard – from all my friends who have been telling me to watch it all these years – that it only gets better.

She Puzzled Until Her Puzzler Was Sore

I love puzzles, but I never start one unless I know I have time to become obsessed with it and have it completely take over my life. Well, hello there, Covid Isolation!

Isn’t this cute? One of my students gave it to me a few weeks ago, and I felt like this was the absolute perfect time to put it together. It was not a difficult puzzle at all, which was good, as I was kind of fuzzy and exhausted, and it was a really cute and fun one to do. I quibble with the “world’s cutest dog” label though; in my mind, that title belongs to Barkley.

I Heart My Library

I’m always a little surprised when a person tells me that they don’t like to use libraries; when the libraries closed in 2020, I felt like a little part of me died. Don’t get me wrong, I love OWNING books and I HAVE many books:

But I read well over a hundred books a year, and if I were to buy that many books I would be a) broke, and b) drowning in books. I only have so much space, people! I always have a nice big stack of library books on my side table, usually because I put a ton on hold and then they all come in at once, even the ones for which I am way down in the queue. Isn’t that funny when that happens? Luckily I had just picked up several holds before the plague hit us, so I was able to work my way through the stack.

This is my current stack, and oooohhhh you guys, I’m excited about all of these titles. Reviews to come!

Relax and Restore

I love restorative yoga and I do one such practice per week. For those of you not familiar, restorative yoga is made up of very slow-moving, long-held asana, usually with bolsters and blankets. The goal is very gentle opening of the body, while being completely comfortable and supported. To give you an idea, when I used to teach restorative classes, there would be about four or five relaxed, supported asana in a one-hour class. There are a ton of books on the subject, and I’m sure many examples on the internet, but here are two of my favourite postures, that do not require any blankets or bolsters – although you could use them, if you wanted.

Child’s resting pose is so great for the back and shoulders, and if it is painful for the knees to be in this position, you could add a rolled-up blanket between your knees and hamstrings, or support your chest and head with a bolster or pillow.

Viparita Karani, or legs up the wall, is probably my number-one favourite restorative pose. It’s so great for the back and for circulation, as well as allowing a very gentle stretch for hamstrings. If your hamstrings are a bit tight, then simply move your body farther away from the wall to allow for a more gentle experience. I will sometimes lie like this for twenty minutes; if you like guided meditations, this is a good posture in which to listen to one.

I wanted to include these photos to show you that lack of space need not be a deterrent in yoga. You can see how tight we are for space, but it works. Would I rather have a devoted home studio? Obviously yes but I take what I can get, and what I can get is the space between the kitchen and the dining room.

Food, Glorious Food

I couldn’t believe how hungry I was when I had Covid. I certainly did not experience any loss of appetite, taste, or smell. If anything, it was the opposite: even though my activity level was about 1/20 of normal, I was ravenous constantly, and everything tasted great. I am, as you all know, a big proponent of Listening To My Body, and my body was telling me that it Needed Food To Heal. Is this what it feels like to be a teen boy? I was So Hungry, even after a full meal, and so between meals I grazed constantly, for three straight days.

This is a good time to tell you about one of my favourite things: dried fruit. Now hear me out! I am constantly mocked in my family for my love of dried fruit, but if Fruit is Nature’s Candy, then Dried Fruit is Nature’s Gummy Bears: delicious, sweet, and chewy.

These are my favourite dried fruits, which I buy at Costco, but they aren’t always available. Each type is only available a few months out of the year, so I tend to buy a few bags at a time. Am I hoarding? Maybe. I regret nothing!

My sister-in-law (and my brother, too, but let’s be real: it was my sister-in-law who arranged this) sent me this incredible Edible Arrangement and a box of cookies for our anniversary and my son’s birthday – both yesterday! – and I feel that this is the time to mention them because a) Fruit Is Nature’s Candy, b) chocolate-dipped fruit is the greatest thing ever invented, and c) cookies.

Several cookies somehow went missing BEFORE the photo was taken! There are thieves among us.

Those were my Favourite Things this month; this wasn’t what I thought I was going to talk about, but it sure was fun. What were your favourites this month? xo

Secret Santa, Bits and Bobs; Ninety Weeks In

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This year I started following the lovely San over at The In Between Is Mine; she is so smart and articulate, and I am forever fascinated by people who are fully fluent in more than one language, as she is; English is not her first language and yet her English is perfect. I mean, I took YEARS of French – I was even the winner of the French Award in Grade 9 – and although if I read a page of French I would be able to get the general gist of it, I cannot have a conversation beyond Salut! Comment ca va?, let alone WRITE anything in French. In any case, I love San’s blog and I also love that she put together a Secret Santa Mug Swap, which I happily signed up for, knowing that it would be well-organized and smooth.

I came home from a walk this week to find a package on the doorstep; I didn’t recognize the name or return address, and was briefly confused before remembering SECRET SANTA MUG SWAP!!!

Just imagine my delight to open this lovely box from Leanne (HI LEANNE!) that was decorated by her daughter:

Not only did she include the sweetest, coziest mug, mint chocolates (MY FAVOURITE!!! TEAM MINT CHOCOLATE FOREVER!), an adorable mug ornament for my tree, and a BRACELET HANDMADE BY HER DAUGHTER, but she also added a lottery scratch ticket, and I won $5!

I feel like I won the lottery in more ways than one. Thank you, Leanne, for such a kind and thoughtful package. It certainly brightened my entire month! I cannot get over your wonderful generosity and thoughtfulness! And again, thank you, San, for organizing #secretsantamugswap2021; it has been a great way to meet and connect with new people. There are so many incredible people in the world, I am honoured to know so many – and welcome, Leanne, to the Boyhouse!

Much, much less exciting than opening up a lovely package full of wonderful surprises was that my younger son developed a terrible head cold. This is the first cold in our house in over two years. Sneezing, it’s so 2019! He missed three and a half days of school, which, in Grade 11 requires MUCH catch-up work, and an entire week of wrestling practice, which was most devastating to him. I mean, he probably picked up the cold during wrestling practice, as it is the only time he is unmasked when not at home. I have been waiting for the rest of us to succumb; so far, no one has, let us all knock on wood.

Over the past few weeks, I have received numerous texts from friends about the grocery situation; we have been all updating each other regularly. Due to the devastating flooding in BC, and the resulting completely washed-out highways, things have been wildly hit and miss in the grocery store. One afternoon two weeks ago a friend texted me to say that the produce shelves were empty – literally, empty – but then the next day as I anxiously wheeled my cart into Superstore, I was pleasantly surprised to see business as usual in the produce section. I had spent the day before mentally planning to use frozen produce and figure out a whole new menu plan, which turned out to be unnecessary.

We are so lucky to live in this day and age. I was reminded of The Long Winter, wherein the Ingalls family and the entire town of DeSmet nearly starved to death as the trains carrying supplies were unable to make it through due to blizzards; I thought well, if I have to use frozen spinach in my smoothies, it will not be a tragedy. It’s not like I’m grinding wheat in my coffee grinder to make a single loaf of bread for six people, or going slowly mad sitting in the dark all day listening to the wind, or twisting hay to burn so as to not freeze to death prior to starving to death.

Although there have been produce shortages here and there, that has not been my experience as of yet. However, I found that anything coming in from the port of Vancouver is…still at the port of Vancouver? I don’t really know how it works. In any case, things coming from China and its neighbours, like rice, noodles, and things like sesame oil, are completely unavailable.

Fortunately I had the foresight to buy a 25-pound bag of rice and several bags of noodles when the flooding started, which should last us a while. Stir-fry night, like my heart, shall go on.

This week was also the much-anticipated unveiling of the annual Spotify Unwrapped, and as always, I was somewhat surprised. I wasn’t at all surprised to see that Aretha Franklin was my number-one artist – LOVE Aretha; I will never get enough of watching this video, that FUR COAT DROP, QUEEN – but I was a little surprised that none of her songs were on my top five. Yes, I know how math and algorithms work, but still. Did I really listen that much to Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch? I guess I must have. The algorithm does not lie. I also apparently listened to the Evita soundtrack quite a bit, as Andrew Lloyd Webber made my top five artists. You must love meeee….

My younger son, being home, compared his list to mine and it was quite funny. He’s the drummer and is very into 90s grunge, and his “Audio Aura” was Bold and Angst, whereas mine was Mellow and Happy, both of which check out. His fourth most popular genre was “Pirate” which I did not even know was a thing. Pirate? Apparently, in addition to his bold and angsty music, he listens to a number of sea shanties, so Pirate Mystery solved.

Pandemic Reading

Persephone’s Children. Wow, this book is like nothing I’ve read before. It is so original and creative, and incredibly moving. It’s a memoir of a woman’s journey to leave an abusive relationship, told in essay form BUT each of the essays is structurally very different. Think: script for a play, a multiple choice quiz, a crossword. There is a lot of mythology, horticulture, and magic woven into the story. It’s mostly about a biracial woman finding the strength to leave her emotionally abusive, gaslighting husband, but also about motherhood, her family of origins, and her experience growing up as “other” on the Canadian prairies. It’s an absolutely fascinating debut!

Christmas Shopaholic. I’m not sure I could put two more different books side by side! Anyway, this was very silly and sweet and ultimately satisfying. I have only read one other Shopaholic book – the OG one, many years ago – and when I first started reading this I thought maybe I should just quit while I’m ahead. I was NOT enjoying the first bit, but then I kind of got into it. It’s light, you know? Very Christmas spirit-y.

Glorious Frazzled Beings. My friend Marion (HI MARION) loaned me all five of the 2021 Giller Prize Shortlist! I don’t think I’ve ever read a whole shortlist for a literary prize before, so this is pretty fun. I decided to start with this gem of a collection of short stories, and I feel like an entire university Can Lit course could be created just around this one book. The writing is gorgeous, with lots of magic, otherworldliness, and more-than-humanness, which is not generally something I enjoy, but I did in this book.

Happy December, everyone, I hope you have a wonderful week. xo

…and I scream at the top of my lungs, “What’s going on?”

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I am a person who really has to make a concerted effort to have just one or two backups of any given staple in my house, whether it be food, toiletries, or paper products. I have to work at not hoarding things, with the thought in mind that I can always buy it next time I’m here. So you can probably imagine my state of mind, and also the state of the pantry, fridges, and freezer right now.

Interestingly enough, as of yesterday my local Co-Op had toilet paper in stock, but I got the last two bags of round tortilla chips, and the chip aisle itself was pretty much decimated.

This is usually one of my most hectic weeks of the whole year, getting ready for spring break and all that comes with it. Suddenly I’m thrust into a quiet state and I hardly know what to do with myself. Our spring break trip to Mexico is, obviously, cancelled. Hence the extra avocados; if we can’t go to Mexico, I guess Mexico can come to us. Although – and I just realized this in a panicked way – I was going to stock up on vanilla on my way home at the duty free, and now I will have to buy expensive vanilla, all is ashes.

Anyway, I am very disappointed and sad, for the lack of a Mexican trip and also, disproportionately, the lack of vanilla. These are Princess Problems, of course, but I am still sad. Never mind all my groceries, I have a serious plethora of sunscreen that I stocked up on, as well as new bikinis and coverups. My son’s sailing trip has not yet been cancelled, but of course it will be, and I guess I will be donating the giant rubber boots I bought for him, because no ninth-grader is actually going to wear giant rubber boots unless he is actually on a sailboat on the west coast.

All that angst about the poinsettia fundraiser, all for naught.

I am also a person who has always washed her hands countless times per day; I open up doors in public places using the bottom of my shirt and I hand-sanitize after touching keypads or buttons. I have indoctrinated my kids to do the same; from the time they were little they knew to wash their hands after coming into the house, they would hold out their chubby little hands for a squirt of hand sanitizer in public places. So you can probably imagine my state of mind right now, not to mention the state of my hands. If you were to judge my age by my hands – as they say – I would be 102 years old.

Well. I’m trying very hard to be positive, thinking that we are all working together to mitigate the coronavirus, to “flatten the curve,” as they say, and at the very least, I will be spending a lot of time with my family. My husband’s office is closed, so he’s working from home. The schools have not yet been closed, and perhaps they won’t be, but in any event, spring break starts on Friday. I just read that the virus is not transmitted through sweat, so tomorrow I am going to go to the gym, and I’m feeling confident about my yoga classes.

Just as an aside, it’s minus twenty and snowing right now. It is a full fifty degrees warmer in Puerto Vallarta AND they have mango margaritas there.

Positive thinking, POSITIVE THINKING. I am going to get a lot of reading done, I have un-paused all of my library holds and I have a number of books at home that I was looking forward to reading on my beach chair. I will read them in my comfy chair at home! That’s almost as good. I remembered earlier in the day that today is Pi Day, and so I baked a cherry pie for the guys. I will never cease to be amazed at mathematics. Any circle in the world, any circle, take the circumference and divide by the diameter, and you get pi. ANY CIRCLE, ANY ONE AT ALL. Is that not amazing? Anyway, cherry pie. Together with that and the coconut chocolate cookies I made yesterday, we are awash in baked goods. Baked goods or not, we are luckier than 99% of people, I think.

Earlier in the week there was a lockdown at the high school, caused by a student who brought a gun to school; it was quite terrifying but ended up that the gun in question was an Airsoft one, and so everything is fine. The point is that we are all here and healthy. My beautiful friend Florence, of amazing hair fame (HI FLORENCE) said she was taking this opportunity – this forced quietness, this forced pause – to stop rushing around and just spend time with family. Given that my plans for the next week would have had me in a literal frenzy, I feel that I should take this time as a gift. It’s also an opportunity to practice loving-kindness towards ourselves and others, to remember the people who are not as fortunate as ourselves, and to eat any manner of delicious things and – as I have been doing – to drink a lot of wine. After all, I have a fairly full rack of wine, lots of gin and vodka, and if all else fails, I can figure out how to make my own mango margaritas. Although, that will require a trip to the grocery store and honestly, I do not think I have the stamina to do that again for a few days. But, sometimes, needs must.

Stay well, my friends. Wishing you lots of wine and yummy things, and, above all, health. xo