Category Archives: Kondo-ing my life

Pulling The Ferrari Out Of The Garage

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Several months ago I listened to a podcast interview of a man who, with the exception of his car and the possessions he had hastily packed into it, lost everything in the Los Angeles fires. He was remarkably sanguine about the situation, saying that although his house and everything in it burned to the ground, he was actually looking forward to collecting the insurance money and starting over again, somewhere less expensive, where he could continue to work remotely.

I am sure there was a complicated journey to get to that place of peace, I am sure he had some mourning and grieving and anger, but I was impressed by this attitude. I am not sure if I would ever get there myself, should I find myself in that kind of situation. But he said that he and his wife, who also works remotely, had no children and at the end of the day, where would their possessions go anyway? The only thing – the only thing! – his wife was sad about was the loss of the family Bible that had recorded births, deaths, and marriages for generations.

But then, he said, what would have happened to it anyway, after they died? The best case scenario, he said, was that eventually that Bible would end up in a secondhand shop, hopefully found by someone who placed value on old books.

Well.

I related this story over dinner and my sons both seemed to think this was a completely normal and reasonable thought process, and maybe it was. We all learned that lesson, my older son said, when we moved. We got rid of something and five minutes later we forgot we ever had it.

I don’t know if that’s depressing or uplifting, but I do think there’s some truth there. What WILL happen to all of our stuff upon our demise? Will anyone want my gnomes? My books? My non-blooming Christmas cactus? Who’s to say. I do know that when we were cleaning out my grandma’s apartment, twenty-five years ago, my cousin handed me yet another dollar store tchotchke and said gravely This is why you should never give your grandma knickknacks for every birthday and Christmas and Mother’s Day. It’s true. Whereas she treasured these gifts from her grandchildren, none of her grandchildren wanted anything to do with the little ceramic unicorns or, in my case, inexpensive brooches from Sears.

I’m not a minimalist, certainly, and I do have some things from both of my grandmas that I value deeply: my framed Desiderata, some old books, a stack of magazines featuring Princess Diana, a piano stool, and an entire set of Lavender Rose china, which I brought out on Friday for an afternoon fondue party with the girls.

The truth is that although I don’t bust out the fancy china very often, I am not a believer in saving things for special occasions. Years ago my friend Swistle (HI SWISTLE) wrote about family heirlooms that literally never got used and spent decades in boxes in order to “save” them. That post affected me deeply, honestly, because what do we have stuff for if we are never going to use it? Swistle wrote “It WOULD be sad if an irreplaceable 1940s plate got broken, it WOULD. But I’m looking at the two possibilities: (1) using the dishes many, many times and enjoying them each time, and ending up with a set that has a few missing/chipped pieces, or (2) never using the dishes, and ending up with a perfect set. That we never see. Because it is in a box.” I don’t think I could possibly add to that.

I think there is a mentality, particularly with people of a certain generation, to want to preserve and keep things because they lived through a time where possessions were so precious and of such great value. I am sure we all had an older relative who covered all the furniture in those clear plastic covers; no seat was comfortable by any stretch of the imagination, but at least the upholstery was preserved! Gorgeous wooden tables covered with ugly wipeable tablecloths, lampshades with the cellophane still on them, all the blinds closed so that nothing fades from the sunlight. Guest towels that would get you killed if you used them, ditto the flower-shaped fancy soaps in the powder room. Whole rooms that no one could go into, lest they become polluted by the people entering in. All of these beautiful things that took a lifetime to amass, and that were, at best, rarely used and never enjoyed, due to the worry that they would get “ruined.”

My friend Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH) just wrote about this on her Patreon: fancy candles, special clothes, handmade quilts all going unused so as to not ruin them. It breaks my heart a little bit; what is the point of having possessions if they never get used? Especially since – and this is also mildly heartbreaking – there is a strong possibility that no one will want them later. I mean, I cannot imagine my sons will ever want my grandma’s china. It’s possible, I suppose, but not probable. The same goes for the stack of Princess Diana magazines; chances are they will end up in the recycling when I shuffle off this mortal coil to join her, may that be many decades in the future. And I would never blame them, I don’t want them saddled with boxes of things that were mine but that they have no interest in.

Listening to the man who lost everything in the fires really sparked something in me; I love my home and all the things in it, I have so many treasures and beautiful art and special things. I would be devastated to lose them. It reinforces my determination to appreciate and use all of them. As my friend Liv (HI LIV) used to say when I’d talk about using Grandma’s china, Pull the Ferrari out of the garage!

Those are words to live by. Use the fancy dishes, drink the expensive wine, eat the good chocolates, wear the silk top or the cashmere sweater or the sexy shoes! Dry your hands on the guest towels after washing them with the specialty soaps! Open up the blinds and let the sunshine in, even if the flooring and upholstery fades because of it!

In a way it reminded me of a show from years ago – maybe it was Ally McBeal? I don’t remember, honestly – in which a character talked about her tricks to keeping her skin young-looking and wrinkle-free: keep facial expressions to a minimum, don’t laugh, and stay out of the sun. Talk about living as grimly as possible! There is such a thing as sunscreen! I suppose it would keep the face pretty youthful; I wouldn’t know, since I resemble the crypt keeper these days, but I’d rather have that than a lifetime of no facial expressions.

It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? It’s just as ridiculous as having a houseful of things that never get used.

Weekly Reading

I embarked on a Very Special Reading Project this week, which I will write about in a separate post later this week, so I just have one book to talk about today.

Sandwich. I read this last year but wanted to refresh myself since Catherine Newman’s new book, Wreck, is coming out next month and it centres around the family in Sandwich. I love this book. I love the thoughts on menopause, women and their reproductive lives, empty nests, aging parents, marriage, all of it. As you know from last week, I am a Catherine Newman Superfan, and I really love this one.

Speaking of Sandwich Life, today is a very special day – my younger son turns 20! Two decades of joy.

I hope you all have a joyful week – pull those Ferraris out of the garage! Put your (sunscreened) faces to the sun! Pop the champagne! Whatever you’re saving for a special day – today is a special day! xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The 48 Feels Great Edition

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I had a moment of birthday-related epiphany this past week. When I was pregnant, way back in the day, every single change in my body was noted and celebrated by me. Every pound of weight gained, every change in my skin and hair, everything made me so happy. I was lucky enough to never have morning sickness or any other nauseous unpleasantness; I did have aches and pains, and I was diagnosed with preeclampsia in my first pregnancy, but in all cases I took it in stride with joy. Oh, so I have to be on bedrest for weeks? Okay! Maybe I’ll watch some movies! These were my actual cheerful thoughts when I had the potentially deadly preeclampsia diagnosis, which just goes to show how thrilled I was to be pregnant.

I was thinking about my happiness with my changing body during that time of my life, and how a changing body doesn’t elicit that same level of happiness during other stages of life. It’s not fair, really. Why should our bodies not be celebrated in the same way, just because the boulder is rapidly rolling down the fecundity hill? Change is part of life, and just because those changes that come with age are not valued in the same way by our youth-obsessed, patriarchal society, it doesn’t mean they are not worthy of celebration. Why is a waistline expansion cheered when one is pregnant, but not when one is in perimenopause? Both are natural occurrences and both involve hormones and shifting times of life. If anything, perimenopause should be cheered even MORE. We’re here! We made it! Not every woman experiences pregnancy, and not every woman experiences perimenopause, but not experiencing the latter most often indicates that the woman did not live long enough to do so.

I turned 48 last week, and although I hope to live to see triple digits, there is a decent chance that the number of years I have ahead of me is fewer than the number of years I have behind me. I don’t want to dwell on the past but good god, I wasted a lot of time in so many ways. So much time worrying about really pointless, stupid things. I mean, life’s a journey, all our experiences shape us into the people we are today, etcetera, etcetera, but still. I can’t get that time back.

I’ve been triangulating toward this for a while, but I feel like I’ve gotten to a point where I wish to fully embrace – or at least, pleasantly accept – my changing body. I refuse to waste any more time thinking about it except to nourish it in every way; joyful movement, joyful food, joyful serums and beauty products. Fashion trends are absolutely not meant for my demographic, and so I will curate my outfits with my own personal style, without thoughts to what’s in style. Joyful Nicole Style! That style will not include wide-leg pants. I have been there, done that, and the young people can laugh at skinny jeans all they want, but they’ll pry them out of my cold, dead hands.

I feel great at 48; I, like Goose, feel like I’m lucky to be here, and I would like to share with you a few things that made my birthday month shine.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The 48 Feels Great Edition

Spiritual Gangster’s Paradise

There is a little clothing boutique beside the Kihei Caffe (if you know, you know), and while we were standing in line for the best breakfast in Kihei, my husband saw a very cute tank top on display. You need this shirt! he said to me very seriously; one thing led to another, and now I have it in my possession. Did I need another workout shirt in the form of an early birthday gift? Probably not, but the material is so soft, it doesn’t look sweaty when it is sweaty, and it just makes me happy.

Pre-workout.
Post-workout, and boy, is my face red.

Great news, you do not have to travel to Maui to proclaim your spiritual gangsterness, (although, it’s not a bad incentive); you can buy a number of different styles online. They are a bit on the expensive side, but the material is quality and I think it’s going to last a long time.

Sugar, Black Honey Honey

I finally joined the Black Honey party, only a couple of decades late. Black Honey by Clinique is touted as a lip colour that flatters every skin tone, which seems like a tall order to me. It reminds me of the time Victoria’s Secret was giving out thongs as a gift with purchase, and when I told them my size, the woman assured me that she didn’t need to know it. These thongs were “one size fits all.” What. How is that possible?

And you might be thinking the same thing, how can one lipstick flatter ALL skin tones? Well, I don’t know. I cannot speak for every woman; I am no Whitney Houston. What I can say is that, by looking at the actual product, I did not think this would work for me, but it DOES. Does it flatter every skin tone? I don’t know, but it flatters mine. It’s a very natural-looking colour and I love it.

Mentioning the Unmentionable

Speaking of thongs, or panties in general, about once a year or so I go through my underwear drawer and throw out anything that is worn out, ripped, or in a state that is not even fit for “Ladies’ Holidays.” We all know that I like a good outfit, and I think that a good outfit starts with good underwear. This might be an Information Overload situation, but I always match my panties to my bra – which isn’t too hard since they are almost exclusively black, with a couple of so-called “nude” items for light coloured bottoms or dresses – and I like them to be pretty. Yes, they have to be comfortable and functional, but they must be pretty or I won’t wear them, not even to bed, not even to exercise, not even during my period.

I love the products from La Vie En Rose, which frequently have promotions for bulk buying panties. I just took advantage of one of those promotions, happy birthday to me, and I cannot even tell you how happy it makes me to know I have pretty new panties on. Life is too short for ill-fitting, ugly underwear.

Even I shall not show photos of my panties on the internet. Behold, my dresser.

Opening Pandora’s Box

Many years ago, when I got my first Pandora bracelet, a friend of mine excitedly said “This is so great, now your family will always know what to get you for your birthday!” This turned out to be a very prescient comment. I now have four Pandora bracelets, and I have never purchased a charm for myself. For my birthday my parents gave me this gorgeous heart charm, and if you have a magnifying glass you might be able to see the words “Love Forever” etched on the tiny heart in the middle.

Isn’t it lovely? These are my two “everyday” bracelets; every single charm means something special to me.

Nailed It

Before our Maui trip, I wondered what to do about my nails. I didn’t want to waste precious liquid carryon space for nail polish, but the polish I love simply doesn’t last that long. With winter and hand-washing and general dryness, polish tends to chip within a few days for me, at best. I decided to give Sally Hanson Gel a try; it goes on just like regular polish and as a bonus, it dries really quickly. But the biggest benefit is that it LASTS. For me it lasts at least a week, and sometimes up to ten days.

My nails after 8 days of wear.

Outfit of the Month

Since the majority of this month has been spent cleaning and decluttering, my outfits have been pretty plain and simple: tees and sweaters with jeans. And rubber gloves.

However, I wanted to dress up a little on my birthday for my brunch out on the town, and also just because.

I have mentioned these pants many, many times. They are the City Sleek line from lululemon; they have a button and zipper and yet feel like soft pants, which is pretty much the most we can ask for from pants. The boots are Sorels; they are not winter Sorels as they are unlined, but they are waterproof, so perfect for spring. Or, “spring,” as we say in Calgary. The sweater is from lululemon, and I always think of it as new, but as I wore it for our holiday card photo in 2018, it is not. The tank top underneath is a basic Old Navy, and it is at least as old as the sweater. My friend Amy (HI AMY) made that mala years ago, and I love it.

It’s Taurus season, everybody! Thank you all for your very sweet birthday wishes, and if there is something that you loved this month, do let me know! 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

Dreams Can Come True, Look At Me, Babe/ Kalette, I’m With You

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I have been doing a massive house decluttering and purge, using a technique I learned from Apartment Therapy: choosing one small area and setting a timer for 15 minutes. It is extremely effective; I find that the less time I have to wonder do we need this item, the more efficient I am at letting go. Granted, I found three full drawers of user manuals for appliances that we no longer own, so letting go is not really so difficult.

Other than the defunct user manuals, there are many items that I feel could be of some use to someone else, and so I have been sorting things into various donation piles. The Kidney Foundation had, most fortuitously, called to see if I had any donations of clothing or household items, and I accepted their offer with more enthusiasm than I think the telephone caller had anticipated. I do think they are a worthy cause, but I think that the best way to donate items, both from an environmental and a community-minded standpoint, is through our neighbourhood Buy Nothing page. I envisioned giving as much as I could away to the community, and then bagging up the rest for the Kidney Foundation pickup.

At this point, I am ready to just set fire to everything.

Donating things through Buy Nothing, while very worthy, is just so much work. I have noticed that, while there are great people who are excited to take my old books and DVDs, and who schedule a time to pick up and actually pick up at that time, there are also those who make me wonder what I’m doing with my one wild and precious life. Almost always there will be someone who gives an enormous window for pickup – I’ll be there between noon and 9 pm on Wednesday – and then doesn’t pick it up for days, leaving me to wonder if I should ask if someone else wants it, or should I leave it on the step, and is it okay for things to sit out in below-freezing temperatures for days at a time? About a eighteen months ago I had gifted a number of cleaning products to a woman in the group who then didn’t pick them up for two weeks; I had messaged her a number of times, only to get the answer that she’d “be there tomorrow.” At the end of two weeks, my sister-in-law had stopped by to drop off Girl Guide cookies – I have to support my nieces! A case of cookies is not too much! – and I ended up giving her the bag of Lysol wipes and such. Two days after that the original woman messaged me to ask if she could come and get them that evening, and I was so irritated I ghosted her. That was probably rude on my part, but what can I say, it was in the thick of the pandemic, and my patience for such things was wearing thin.

In any case, things are slowly making their way out of my house, with the exception of some of my old textbooks, which according to the city’s website are only fit for the recycle bin. No one wants outdated textbooks for any reason, in any capacity, so there go my myriad economics and finance textbooks from the nineties. But why? Surely someone out there is looking for Varian’s Microeconomic Analysis, Third Edition, 1992. Or a twenty-five-year-old copy of Adjusting To Volatile Energy Prices. I am having a small crisis about the environmental impact of a small amount of broken toys that are heading for the landfill, but let’s move on.

As I clear out old detritus, this week I brought in many new items, in the manner of food. I am constantly amazed at the amount of groceries a mere four people go through in one week. A few weeks ago I was lamenting the apparent end of kalette season, but, thrillingly, it was NOT the end. It was a mere blip. Two girlfriends (HI JANET HI TRACY) had texted me to say that they had seen kalettes in the wild/ Costco’s refrigerated produce section, and so off to Costco I went. Dreams can come true!

When I saw the display I immediately got the song Dreams stuck in my head, and it stayed there for days. The problem with this song is that I really only know the chorus, along with the words I know what I want, and baby, it’s you, and so that was going through my head, over and over, on a loop. On my way home, I heard Anne Murray’s Snowbird on 70s on 7, and it reminded me of the show Sensitive Skin. Did you ever watch it? In the premiere, the husband was writing a piece on the cultural impact of Snowbird and for research purposes, listened to it on repeat for days on end, as he began to lose his mind. I could really see this happening to me, but with Dreams. Not that I’m listening to it on repeat, but my brain thinks I am.

I remember Sensitive Skin as being a really good show, but when I watched it I was 39, and my kids were 9 and 10. I think seeing it now, it would hit very differently: a middle-aged woman, empty nest, moving from her home in the suburbs to a downtown condo, aging mother, midlife crisis. At 39, I probably thought “Interesting!” and then moved on with my life. Or, “I like what she did with her hair.” These days, I would be more likely to dissolve in a puddle of mascara and tears and hot flashes.

Speaking of landsliding, my son finished his last exam on Friday, and so has this entire week off before starting his last semester of high school! In mere months, we will be out of the public school system! Just to add to the wow, time, feeling that I have, my thirty year high school reunion is coming up in June. I mentioned it to my dinner guests last weekend, who then asked if I was going to go it, and it turns out that I am actually kind of organizing it? I am not exactly sure how this happened, and I didn’t really need an extra project, but here we are.

Look at that sweet young thing! She had no idea that thirty years on, she would be wondering about reunion locations.

Weekly Reading

After last week’s fairly heavy and dark reads, this week was Very Mysterious.

The Accomplice. This book was mentioned by three friends – Suzanne, Engie, and Allison (HI SUZANNE HI ENGIE HI ALLISON) – and their synopses made me think it looked interesting. It was very fun to read! I so rarely pick up mysteries, but when I do, I enjoy them. This book had everything: ride-or-die friendship, murder, extramarital affairs, romance, greedy stepfathers, and hilariously nosy neighbours! A fun read that kept me up past my bedtime (by ten minutes but STILL).

Death on the Nile. Would you believe I had never read an Agatha Christie in my life? It’s true! I saw this at the library and thought, maybe I should get on that train. After all, Agatha Christie is kind of a big deal. I have a very soft spot for Egypt, having travelled there twenty-three years ago, AND I cruised down the Nile, albeit in a less-fancy way than the characters in this book.

No one got murdered on that cruise, that I know of.

At some point in my life I realized that I no longer associated myself with the beautiful young protagonist, and instead, found myself in sympathy with the motherly characters. See also: no longer a Handmaid, more like a Wife. Or Martha. Anyway, in this book there is one character who is described as an older, grey-haired woman. She’s 50. I mean, in the absence of hair colour that character is the closest to me, but it cracks me up that what we see as middle-aged was seen as quite advanced, back in the 1930s. Speaking of 1930s, there is some objectional language describing the Egyptian people, which is not unusual for a book from a British author in 1937, but should be noted. All in all, I really enjoyed this book – it was very entertaining.

The Lifeguards. This was a decent thriller/ mystery about three friends that have three sons who are also friends, and who come across a dead body. There are secrets, and a twist I did not at all see coming, but the ending was not very satisfying to me. Questions, I have them! But I did like it – not love it – it was just fine! Three mysteries in one week, who am I?

So it’s been a mystery-filled, decluttering-filled, kalette-filled week in the Boyhouse. What will this week bring? I hope it brings you lots of happiness. xo

Just One Backup

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This week, the first after getting home from vacation, has been so satisfying. I’ve been getting Back Into Routine, crossing things off the to-do list, and gardening. My neighbour very kindly checked the house and watered the garden while I was gone, but of course there was much to be done after two weeks away. I have harvested one zucchini, and there are many, many more tiny ones on the plants, which grew so big that Salvadore was completely hidden; I had to move him to a different bed in order to enjoy his gnomeiness. I have two little peppers on my plants, and I had my first of many pea and tomato harvests.

I like to leave the house nice and clean when we leave for vacation as it makes reentry so much nicer; I make especial efforts to ensure the garbage and compost bins are empty and that the fridge only contains long-dated items. Unfortunately, and inexplicably, the jug of milk was something I forgot to deal with before leaving, and there was what can only be described as a science project in the three inches of milk left in the fridge. Ew. Chunky.

On that note, let’s get back to The Big Project. Previously on The Big Project, I had cleaned out my clothing closet and made a few rules for future shopping. This is, I feel, the easy part. It’s the rest of the house that will require some serious effort and also, is kind of boring. I like clothes! I am a bit daunted by other household items.

The next step in The Big Project, that I haven’t yet taken, is to go through my kitchen and donate my excess containers – the kids really do not need tiny snack containers at this stage of our lives – and to really assess the pantry situation.

And what a situation it is.

I have been working my way towards having Just One Backup of staple food and cleaning products, although I do make an exception for things I tend to need multiples of: canned beans and chickpeas, for example, for weeks in which I would need more than one can, or dish soap, which I appear to go through at an alarming rate. I have successfully gotten down to one backup of each of coffee and the various oils, vinegars, and sauces I use regularly, one bag each of flour, sugar, and rice, and one container of vitamins for each person in the house (we all have different brands). I still have a few extra nut butters and jars of vegan mayonnaise and salsa, as well as sundried tomatoes and, weirdly, mustard, but I’m sure we will get through them in due time. Tissues and toilet paper I purchase in large multipacks, and I try to have just one of those in backup.

Small digression: I was visiting with my husband’s aunt – who lives alone – a few weeks ago, and she told me that in the early stages of the pandemic she would purchase a large package of toilet paper every time she saw one available, not unlike me with twenty-five pound bags of flour. At one point she looked at her stockpile of toilet paper and thought oops. That stockpile of toilet paper lasted her a year and a half. I think we can all understand this. For reasons unknown to me, I have enough boxes of ziploc bags to last until I have headed for The Home or shuffled off this mortal coil, whichever comes first. I rarely use ziploc bags but somehow have a number of Costco three-packs in my pantry, in a variety of sizes, which must have been a Pandemic Purchase, but I cannot for the life of me recall my thinking on this matter. I may just give them away on our community Buy Nothing page. Either that, or I’ll leave them for my possible future grandchildren to discover upon my demise. Oh look, here’s Grandma’s wedding dress and…seven hundred ziploc bags. Huh. Will ziploc bags even exist fifty years from now? Who can say.

No matter. I have been working hard to not purchase things of which I already have backups (or, in some cases, several backups), and mostly, I have done well. I am trying to get back to my pre-pandemic consumption patterns and it is a Journey.

However, I have confessions to make. Friends, I am sorry to tell you that my Just One Backup vow has failed miserably in three notable areas: lemon juice, popcorn, and dried fruit. The last item, I give a pass – the dried fruit I love (strawberries and something that is cheerfully called Fruit Medley) is only available a couple times a year at Costco, and so I stock up when I can. This is my very valid excuse for having ten bags in my pantry at this time; it will last me for months, hopefully until the next time they come available.

As I mentioned briefly a little while ago, there was a strange blip in the lemon juice world, or at least, in my lemon juice world. Suddenly, there was no lemon juice anywhere. My brain immediately went from let’s just pick up one backup to PANIC PANIC PANIC. Let us refer to the lessons from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment as a precedent for the weird obsessions we get when something is not available to us. When I found store brand lemon juice, I bought it. When I found tiny little environmentally-disastrous plastic squeeze lemons, I bought them. My mom saw lemon juice at her grocery store and bought me two bottles. I now have seven bottles of lemon juice in my pantry and a few weeks ago it was back, available at Costco. Even with seven bottles in backup, I had a really hard time NOT buying the two-pack at Costco, and I know many of you can empathize with this. I especially feel bereft as it has not been available at Superstore this whole past month, and I noticed it was not there last week when I was at Costco. What if I can never buy it again, what have I done seems to be my thinking.

The other item that has been very difficult to buy recently is popcorn. Popcorn! Boom Chicka Pop has been largely unavailable for a few months now, so I have snapped up substitute bags here and there when I could. I am sorry to say that on my last trip to Superstore there was neither Skinny Pop nor Lesser Evil available, proving that I have indeed cursed us all by supporting ridiculously-named companies that apply moral values to food products. I currently have twelve (12!) bags of popcorn of various flavours and brands in my pantry, so it’s probably good that it’s currently unavailable. I mean, we all love popcorn but twelve bags is pretty excessive. WE JUST NEED TO WORK OUR WAY THROUGH WHAT WE HAVE, PEOPLE.

You may notice I haven’t mentioned the elephant in the room – sriracha. The sriracha shortage is a little unsettling, but not as unsettling as the environmental reason for the shortage. In any case, two of us here really like sriracha, and I have half a large bottle in the fridge with NO backup, but I think with careful rationing we should easily be able to make it into September, when it is supposed to become available again. We have two bottles of chili garlic sauce, and that should be a decent substitute, should we require one.

So I do need to go through the Very Full Pantry to see if there’s anything to be donated – ziploc bags! – and I vow not to purchase anything else until I am down to the last backup (but what if lemon juice and popcorn become instantly available, WHAT THEN), but I do have a food-related success story to share. I have cleaned out my freezer! I have discarded all freezer-burned items or items of questionable origin! I also have a dead freezer.

About a month ago I came home from the lake and my husband greeted me with the following: Nicole, you have to go look at the freezer. It won’t stop beeping and the temperature is rising. People, my freezer, my ten-year-old freezer, DIED. Without warning. As you might imagine, it was very full, and so I jumped into action. Fortunately we have a bar fridge-sized freezer from our early-marriage-child-free days, and after plugging it in we ascertained that it still works. I rearranged everything in the two fridge freezers and between those and the tiny freezer I managed to save most things, the exceptions being anything that I couldn’t recall purchasing or that was fuzzy with frost.

This is where I’ll mention that my mother-in-law still has the chest freezer she got as a newlywed in 1962, and it still works, although it probably uses more power than anything else in the house combined. STILL. Ten years, and I guess that old freezer is going to end up in the landfill? I don’t know what will happen to it when the New Freezer Delivery Guys take it away. I hope it will go for parts or something, but who would know. WHO WOULD KNOW.

Nonetheless, I’m counting this as a win. When my new freezer arrives, I am going to put nothing in it that cannot be consumed within a few months, mark my words. It’s a chance for a Fresh Start and I am not going to throw that away.

Weekly Reading

Children Playing Before A Statue Of Hercules. This collection, curated by my much-loved David Sedaris, is comprised of his favourite short stories and the proceeds of which go to an educational charity in NYC, which made me glad that I received this as a Christmas gift, rather than borrowing it from the library. If you love short stories like I do, you will not be disappointed. It is really excellent and it contains a few authors that I had never heard of, let alone read. One of my own favourite authors, Alice Munro, is featured; the story chosen isn’t my number one favourite, but it’s so good. Granted, as Sedaris says in the introduction, how can you choose just ONE Alice Munro story? Anyway, I loved this; every story is unique but they are all linked by the theme of class structures and societal constraints due to them.

Thick. This was such a powerful and important collection of essays about being a black woman in America. The author is an esteemed academic and her brilliance comes through in her writing, which is very thoughtful and readable, in addition to being very well researched. An important read for anyone, to be sure, but particularly for a very privileged white woman, like myself. I will be thinking about these essays for a long time to come, particularly one about her experience with prenatal and maternal “health care” that ended in a breathtakingly tragic way.

I am hoping to start on my cull of excess containers (and ziploc bags!) and organization of the pantry this week; will I, though? That remains to be seen! I hope you are having a lovely August so far. xo

The Big Project

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Longtime readers may remember the great Life Changing Magic I experienced, back in 2016, accomplished merely by Tidying Up. I Kondo-ed my entire house that year, section by section, and then followed that with the No-Shopping Challenge of 2017-18. The two experiences, together, really changed my consumer behaviour for the better. I became incredibly mindful of all purchases, but particularly clothing purchases. I bought clothes and shoes with intention. In terms of household items, I established a routine wherein I would have one backup in storage of all food or cleaning staples, and when I used that backup, I would add the item to my shopping list. This worked really well for me. Nothing expired or got freezer-burned, my clothes were all pieces that I loved, and I didn’t have a cupboard full of useless products, bought on a whim.

Then the pandemic hit.

I know I don’t have to tell you how it affected my personal consumer behaviour, because it probably affected yours in the same way; the mere idea that there could be a shortage of an item was enough to make me panic and buy that item whenever it was available, no matter that I already had a backup of that item, or, in some cases, several backups of that item. At one point I had one hundred pounds of flour in the house – four twenty-five pound bags, I just kept picking up a bag every time it was available – and although I do indeed bake a lot, that is really too much flour for a family of four. It was at that point I told myself that I could not buy any more until I had used up the last backup, and I kept to it.

Flour wasn’t the only thing I panicked about; I still have a lot of baking powder and, bizarrely, cream of tartar. I could make enough play-dough for every preschool program in the city at this point. My freezers were all full and so was my pantry, and I realized that all my good and reasonable consumption patterns had taken a turn.

I definitely needed a reset when it came to purchases, particularly in the area of groceries and household products. At the beginning of the pandemic, I bought some non-hippie cleaning supplies when they became available – remember how we couldn’t get things like Lysol? – and because I usually use my natural, hippie, probably-isn’t-effectively-killing-germs-but-they-smell-nice cleaners, I still have those bottles, unused, in my cupboard.

Then I read The Curated Closet and, looking at my own overflowing closet, it was like a little light went off in my head. Time for a project, and not just a project, but A Big Project. I needed to Change My Life, again.

I started with what can only be described as a mix between the Kon-Mari method, the Curated Closet ideology, and Swedish Death Cleaning. I apologize for referring to my own eventual demise two weeks in a row, but I promise you I am not planning to shuffle off this mortal coil just yet. However, I did have a what am I keeping this for moment while looking at some of my things, remembering when my grandma was moved into long-term care from her apartment. In cleaning out her apartment, there were so many items that, sadly, no one had use for. I want someone to use the things I have, even if it’s not me using them.

One of my friends was collecting linens and the like for a couple of charitable projects of her own, and so I made the plunge and donated four full sets of old towels and three blankets that I was keeping for no particular reason. Well, there was a reason for the towels: my thinking was that in case our basement ever flooded, I would have extra towels to mop up the water. For context, this has never happened, and we have lived in this house for 22 years. Our basement got slightly wet near a single window back in 2005, the summer I was pregnant with my younger son, and that was due to an enormous amount of rain and a malfunction of our eavestroughs. Those eavestroughs have long since been fixed, and being our basement didn’t even get a drop of water during Calgary’s 2013 flood, I felt that four extra sets of towels, particularly ones that are never used, were just too many towels.

After that, I had momentum going for me. I tackled my closet and dressers, and believe me, that is a task in itself. I tend to buy quality, non-trendy pieces that last a long time, which means I have many things that are over a decade old, but still are in great shape. I have been the same size for probably fifteen years, but my body shape has changed, if that makes sense, so some of those items, while they technically fit, did not feel good at best or felt unflattering at worst.

I made a vow to keep only pieces that I love and that make me feel, if not gorgeous, at least cute. LOVE means different things, right? The love I feel for my husband and kids is different from the love I feel for a glass of cabernet franc, or for coconut milk ice cream. Similarly, the love I feel for a fabulous black dress is different than the love I feel for a cute old tee, emblazoned with the words Shine On, that I wear when I am gardening. But the key to cleaning out my closet was I wanted nothing in there that I didn’t love or that I didn’t feel fabulous in. Can you feel fabulous in yoga pants and a sweatshirt? I think you can, because I do, albeit in a different way than when I’m in a dress and heels. Different costumes for different activities! Gardening clothes are different from workout wear, and both are different from going-out clothes, but different doesn’t mean better or worse. Right? My body shape is different, but that doesn’t mean it’s any better or worse than five or ten years ago.

In an effort to show the clothes I love some love, I bought a big set of velvet hangers, got rid my mishmash of plastic and wire hangers – NO! WIRE! HANGERSSSSSSS! – and took every item out of my closet and dressers. When I wasn’t sure about something – a dress I hadn’t worn for years, for example – I tried it on and if I didn’t feel spectacular, I put it in the donation pile. If I felt meh about a piece, I put it in the donation pile. I thought, if it doesn’t Spark Joy or I don’t Love It, it goes. The hardest part was getting rid of sweaters that were expensive to start with, even if I had gotten a lot of wear out of them. But there were some that I just didn’t love anymore, for whatever reason, and I thanked them for their service and hoped they found their way into the closet of someone who would love them.

Fortunately for me, in the middle of this the Kidney Foundation happened to call to see if I had any donations; this was their haul, three of those bags being from my sons’ cull of their respective closets.

One of the rules from The Curated Closet is to carefully examine your wardrobe, identify gaps or needs, then – and only then – make careful, measured purchases. I have to say, in a completely honest way, that I have no gaps or needs, even after this massive cull. You guys, I have a lot of clothes. It’s ridiculous. I am not going to go on another No Shopping Year, mostly because if I do I fear my mother will disown me and my husband will leave me, but I have made a few rules for the next year, starting May 27, which is when I began The Big Project.

  1. No quick purchases. If there is something I think I need in the clothing department, I am going to wait at least a week to purchase it to see if I can be without it. Chances are I already have several similar items in my closet; i.e., my twenty black sweaters and thirty-two black tees in a variety of sleeve lengths and fits.
  2. Socks and underwear are exempt from Rule #1. Those items can be purchased whenever required.
  3. Seasonal essentials are somewhat exempt from Rule #1; I have many, many pairs of gloves and scarves and hats, but should I require something that will allow me to live my vida hygge, or friluftsliv, I shall not hesitate.
  4. Decent footwear is vital to my well-being, and if any of my current sandals, shoes, running shoes, or winter boots wear out, they can be immediately replaced.
  5. If it doesn’t make me feel fabulous, it doesn’t belong in the closet. This means new purchases, yes, but it also means I need to assess my old favourites from time to time, as my body changes with perimenopause.

So here I am, almost two months into the Rules already, and I have kept to them so far! The next step is dealing with the pantry and household goods; stay tuned.

Weekly Reading

Hooked. This was so interesting; the cover somewhat suggests one of those weird lecture-style books about the dangers of food, but it was not like that at all. Instead, it’s a smart and well-researched book on the nature of addiction, the role memory plays in our eating lives, and corporate manipulation. There is a lot about the processed food industry, and a sideline about the famous McDonalds lawsuit. I was excited to read about Indra Noori and PepsiCo, whose memoir I had recently read. Noori famously worked towards bringing healthier choices to PepsiCo, and was lauded for it by everyone BUT Wall Street. That was a detail that was not in her memoir, and apparently one of the reasons she stepped down in 2018. Investors, apparently, wanted more of those crazy unhealthy multi-product items on the menu.

Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have To Offer. I put this on my library hold list for a reason, but for the life of me, I cannot remember what that reason was. Did I hear about it on a podcast? Did I read about it in an interview? In any case, it was very, very different from what I was expecting, which was, as it says on the cover, “…a masterly ode to unfettered, unrestrained, and unrepentant joy.” I’m pretty sure I would not use the word “joy” to describe this collection of essays. I was expecting joyful discussion of tacky pop culture, and each essay did circle back to a different piece of pop culture, that’s correct. The author is many years my junior and so the pop culture in question that shaped her youth were things that I vaguely remembered from my twenties and thirties and, in the case of Guy Fieri, my forties. I suppose it’s because of my age that I had that not-unfamiliar motherly/ big sisterly feeling of alarmed disappointment when I read about her frankly quite horrifying and unhealthy exploits. Honey, you deserve better than this, I thought constantly, along with For the love of god, make better choices. So I’m not the desired demographic. I will say that each depressing essay was extremely well-written; the author is a talented essayist, even if I find the content disturbing and sad.

Heart Talk. I am including this in my weekly reading, although I have been reading it, one or two pages at a time, for months, before my yoga practice in the morning. It was a lovely way to start my practice; it’s such a gem of a book about self-care and self-love. Perfect pre-yoga reading!

I hope you are all having a lovely summery week, friends! I am going to leave you with photos of “the twins,” taken on my morning run when I was up at my parents’ place last week. Aren’t they sweet? xo

Thirst Traps and Letting Go; Eighty-Eight Weeks In

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These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty

I love listening to podcasts while doing menial household drudgery or slowly walking Barkley around the neighbourhood; it makes me actually look forward to doing dull things like folding the laundry or other mind-numbing tasks. I feel like I learn new things every day; I discovered the “We Didn’t Start The Fire” podcast, which goes through every single lyric in the Billy Joel song, with different expert guests for each topic. I am only at Sugar Ray, so I have many more episodes to go, but I’m learning so much.

Small note for anyone who wants to look up that podcast: they have the absolute WORST theme song, it is We Didn’t Start The Fire played on the kazoo. The kazoo! I will never understand some artistic choices. If you can get past the kazoo, the podcast itself is very enlightening.

On Stephany’s recommendation (HI STEPHANY), I started listening to You Can Sit With Us, which is not at all enlightening, but is just some younger women chatting about their lives in a mindlessly soothing way. Well, it’s not totally un-enlightening, because this week I learned about Thirst Traps.

I have a number of younger women on my Instagram feed, and so I had seen Thirst Traps without knowing there was an actual name for it. I just thought they were Sexy Photos That People Post On Instagram To Get Attention, Not That I’m Judging, but Thirst Traps is much more succinct.

At the dinner table, I told the boys that I learned what a Thirst Trap is, and their reaction was pure horror. “Oh, GOD.” my older son said. “How did you learn about that? Did one of your friends tell you? ARE YOUR FRIENDS POSTING THIRST TRAPS.” My younger son, apparently too anguished to speak, merely bowed his head, with his forehead in his hand, pained at the thought. I assured him that neither myself nor my friends were posting Thirst Traps, but that I heard it on a podcast, to which they responded with “WHAT PODCAST, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FUCKBOIS OF LITERATURE?”

To be honest, I haven’t been listening to the Fuckbois; it is such a great concept but the execution is…not.

Anyway, there will be no Thirst Traps from me – for one thing, just no, but for another, my sons and a number of their friends inexplicably follow me on Instagram. My feed is almost entirely books, with some baked goods, a landscape, and an occasional selfie thrown in for good measure, so I’m not sure why any teenager would be interested in it, but in any case, No Thirst Traps For Nicole. The mental anguish of my children would be too much.

Let It Go, Let It Go

It has been a very productive week; I was completely inspired and motivated by my dear friend Allison (HI ALLISON) to tackle some shelves in our storage room/ pantry and purge items no longer needed. I did this years ago, when Kondo-ing everything in the house, but you know, I think as the children grow up I need to revisit my storage areas more regularly. No one has used Lego in years, not to mention the adorable Playmobil pet clinic. I gave those things to the little girls across the street, and put a number of things on my local Buy Nothing page.

What is it about purging our stuff that feels so great? I feel a Mary Oliver poem coming on:

It’s not like I want to burn or trash all my things – so wasteful, Mary! – or keep NOTHING, I do love my stuff, even as I let things go. One thing I haven’t been able to get rid of yet is a set of alphabet and farm animal fridge magnets. I know! It’s time. Just…not yet. I was silently judging my husband for not letting me get rid of his underwater camera that he took travelling when he was in his twenties, thirty years ago. I mean, it takes film. Film! We aren’t going to use it. But he’s sentimentally attached to it, just like I’m sentimentally attached to a box of fridge magnets, and I have a stainless steel fridge.

I Am Santa, Baby

My holiday cards and the photo calendars that I order for the grandparents every year arrived this week, which meant that I was able to package up and mail the parcel I send to my mother-and-sister-in-law. This is one of those jobs that feels like it should take, at the most, half an hour, but always ends up taking up an entire afternoon.

I have at times felt resentful that somehow the job of purchasing, wrapping, and mailing gifts to my husband’s family has fallen to me, but I remind myself that a) there are many, many jobs around the house that my husband does automatically, that don’t even occur to me to TRY to do, and b) our parcel makes up over half of their Christmas gifts, and so I would feel terrible if I didn’t send them. It’s unacceptable to me to think of my mother-in-law, all by herself on Christmas morning, with nothing to open. Also, choosing a gift for my nearly-eighty-year-old mother-in-law is not really in my husband’s wheelhouse, but it is in mine, so here we are.

Anyway, I had a few parcels to mail, and since it was November 16, I felt that the post office would be a quick in-and-out, and was I ever wrong. In fact, I am not sure I could have been MORE wrong. There were at least fifteen people in the lineup that snaked down the aisle, and only one person working at Canada Post. Forty minutes later, I collapsed into my car, exhausted. Note to everyone reading this: if you need to mail anything, go now, or just assume you’re going to need to schedule an hour for this errand and maybe take a book. Actually, even if you do go now, take a book.

Pandemic Reading

Speaking of books!

The Thursday Murder Club. I don’t often read mysteries, but I enjoyed this book about a quartet of septuagenarians who meet on Thursdays to discuss unsolved murders. The developer for their retirement community is found dead under mysterious circumstances, and so they are on the case! It’s nice to read a book about older people who are thriving and enjoying life; this isn’t a thing that happens much in literature. There was a line about how they used to get up early because there was so much to do – work, family, etc. – and now they still get up early because who knows how much time they have left, and they want to make the most of it. I liked that a lot.

Even So. Hmm. Okay. So. The first two-thirds of this book was really great; in fact, I thought “this is the story I’ve always wanted to write.” It read like a thriller; very fast-paced and action-packed, about a very well-off woman who has a seemingly beautiful life but blows it up by having an affair. It’s REALLY good. But then, it takes a turn and becomes a religious allegory. The last third of the book is all about redemption and forgiveness and is very heavy on Catholic imagery and beliefs. Essentially, it IS an allegory, with themes of sin, lust, greed, followed by guilt, redemption, and forgiveness. I wish I had known that going in. It felt like a book I might have read when I was in confirmation class at age 14. It’s almost like the author wanted to hammer her faith into the reader’s head; it’s pretty over-the-top. Unless you want a lesson in Catholicism or God’s plan for your life, I would pass on this book.

Consent. I have read many, many books in my life, but none so abjectly horrifying, shocking, and disturbing as this. This is a memoir written by a woman who entered into a relationship with Gabriel Matzneff, who was an acclaimed writer who wrote about pedophilia, RAPING CHILDREN and having sex with young girls and boys. Did you hear that? He won awards for his work. The author entered into this relationship when she was 13 and he was 49, and all the adults in her life, including her own mother, were complicit. It is absolutely unbelievably shocking. A fourteen year old girl, who essentially is living in a hotel with a fifty year old man, skips school constantly and no one does anything at all. When she leaves him at age 15, because he had taken up with a younger girl, her own mother says “are you sure? He loves you so much” which, what. This woman is only three years older than I am, and this took place in the 1980s. The 1980s! So many adults saw this relationship, knew about this relationship, and shrugged it off because Matzneff was, apparently, a literary giant. This man wrote about sex tourism in the Philippines, where he would buy 11 and 12 year-old boys for his own sexual pleasure. He wrote about all his young conquests, including the author of this book, and people bought those books and applauded him, awarding him literary honours. How did this happen? This is just such a disturbing book and if you have daughters, maybe take a pass.

On that note…time to sign off. Have a beautiful week, everyone! xo