Category Archives: Luckiness

Do You Remember the Very First Night of December

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Get Your Calendars Ready!

Happy December, everyone! Are we all starting Advent calendars today? I have my usual dogs-in-Santa-hats puzzle calendar ready to go, but after last year’s extreme disappointment over a much-coveted After Eight calendar, I decided not to buy myself one. Instead, I opted to purchase a few bags of treats that I love – Lindts, mostly, but also York peppermint patties – and I’m going to choose one daily. It’s like my own low-effort, high-rewards calendar.

I did buy three actual Lindt calendars from Costco for the guys at least six weeks ago, and while I was browsing I came across this:

Please notice the stack of Godiva chocolates for scale. This Lindt calendar was over five feet tall, and on sale for a mere $249.99. To be fair, each day in the calendar contains an entire bag of Lindts or a full-sized Lindt bear, and that is probably a decent price for that volume of quality chocolate. And I will say that I did have a moment when I wondered if I could fit it in the car, and then I had another such moment last week when I saw it again, and it was discounted by $50. However. That really is a lot of chocolate. I think it would be an incredible addition to, say, an office break room, if one had a lot of staff. Which I do not.

Am I still thinking about it? Am I wondering how discounted it would be now? Am I considering asking my husband to bring his truck to Costco? Yes to all of those questions. However, his truck is currently full of leaves, ready to be taken to the organic waste section of the landfill, so I guess that is a no for me.

It’s Really The Twenty-Fifth Night of December

My sons both loathe December by Earth, Wind, and Fire, citing it as the stupidest Christmas song ever written. They changed one word and then called it a Christmas song, they say, which is true. I still like it though, as well as Taking Care of Christmas, which I probably shouldn’t mention in the same sentence as December. After all, there are festive lyrics in there, not just a swap of “December” for “September.”

The song I really loathe is Wonderful Christmastime. The second I hear the opening bars, my shoulders creep right up to my ears and I do whatever I need to not to listen to that tuneless tripe. However, my friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) sent me this as a coping mechanism:

Reframe the narrative, as they say. I cannot always control hearing Wonderful Christmastime, but I CAN control my thoughts about it, and now I will constantly think of it as masking witchcraft.

It’s Mariah’s Time To Shine

The truth is I love most holiday music and will bop along to anything. I will also, as per Buddy the Elf, sing out loud for all to hear, although I admit I don’t do this consciously. It just sort of happens. Sometimes I will see someone else singing quietly in Superstore, and our eyes will meet with great understanding.

And let’s not forget about my all-time favourite!

I swear, the first person to hurt my feelings about Whamaggedon will get buried in my floorboards. Emotionally.

First Sob of the Year

Back in October, we were having breakfast in Morocco with our new Australian friends, and somehow I volunteered the information that one of my favourite songs of the season is White Wine in the Sun. How or why this topic presented itself, I cannot say, but I got into an involved conversation with one of the Australian men. He told me that Tim Minchin wrote it when he was 25 and far from home. And when he gets home, everyone is waiting for him drinking white wine…I started to say before choking up, waving my hands in front of my eyes. It’s too much! I said, welling up, which made the Australian man also well up, while our respective spouses looked on, dry-eyed.

It’s my go-to Christmas Cry song, along with River and, if I’m in a certain mood, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Recently, my friend Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) asked what was the last book that made you cry and I had to sheepishly answer that it was Of Mice and Men, when I was 19. I am very often moved, sometimes vastly, but I never cry while reading. I just stare off into space for a while, sometimes with my hand on my throat. Am I made of stone? No, because even thinking about and you won’t understand, but you will learn someday brings tears to my eyes, and if I go further than that, heaving sobs are guaranteed. Am I crying RIGHT NOW, just thinking about it? Yes. Did I listen to that song on Friday and go hug my son tearfully, who asked Mom, are you listening to that stupid song again? Yes.

For the record, if I have to tell anyone the ending of Of Mice and Men, I will also start with the heaving sobs.

Buble, King of the World

My husband watches The Voice, and, by the powers of osmosis, so do I. Technically I read on the couch while he watches, but I look up often enough to reflect that it is one of the nicest shows I have ever seen. Remember the days of American Idol? Perhaps those days still exist, I don’t know. What I do know is that there is no nastiness on The Voice, all of the judges are kind to the contestants and to each other, and their appreciation of the music is unmatched.

Michael Buble is one of the judges, and wow, do I love him. What’s not to love? He’s a proud Canadian, by all accounts he is a great husband and father, we never hear anything bad about him, and he gently makes fun of himself while advertising for Bubly, which I ALSO love. Not to mention that he created the single greatest Christmas album of all time! I love all versions of Santa Baby, but I love his best of all.

Blue Jays fans: did anyone else think his name was spelled Boba Shett?

All of this is to say I love holiday music and at any given time these days I’m grooving along to it.

Weekly Reading

This was a VERY fun week for reading!

All The Other Mothers Hate Me. This was a ride and I loved it! It’s a fast-paced, weird and funny book about a former girl band singer who is a hot hot mess, and whose only reason for getting out of bed in the morning is her quirky 10-year-old son. When her son’s nemesis – an heir to a frozen food fortune – goes missing on a field trip, she springs into action…to make sure her son isn’t accused. I don’t know how to describe this book. A thriller? A comedy? A thrill-com? It’s just FUN. A good time, quick read. Fun fact: the author wanted to create a main character who was as awful as can be while still being a very loving mother, and DID SHE EVER.

The Love Haters. What I love about Katherine Center is that while her books are warm-hearted, light, and so much fun, they also deal with deeper issues. For this book, that deeper issue is body image and, in the words of Whitney Houston, learning to love yourself. It is the GREATEST LOVE OF ALLLLL. The body image issues that the protagonist has certainly resonated with me, even if she is of my children’s generation, rather than mine. In fact, the love interest mentioned his mother’s year of birth, which is the same as my husband’s. Nevertheless! I really loved this book, even if at times the story was a bit silly and far-fetched. WHO CARES. It was a delight! It had it all: a handsome rescue swimmer with the Coast Guard, a group of old ladies known as The Gals whose ringleader was named Rue, a Great Dane named George Bailey. It was just a perfect romp with a great message about loving your body because it’s your body, and not wasting time and energy trying to live up to some stupid societal standards. My one quibble was the title. I did not get the feeling that any of the characters hated love. But that is such a minor quibble – I really loved this.

It’s that time of year again! Now that the madness of November and NaBloPoMo is over, I am going to do an Ask Me Anything. Do you have questions for me? Just fill out this form and I will be happy to answer them in the upcoming weeks. I am, as you know, willing to talk about almost anything. Happy December, friends. I hope you have lots of light and chocolate and music and all the good things. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Fight The Gloom Edition

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November is such a grey and gloomy month, isn’t it? As I write this, the sun rises at 7:29 am and sets at 4:02 pm, and those precious daylight hours are only going to get worse before they get better. However! November is also the month of Tiny Secret Festive Season, which morphs into Full On Festive Season, and all the happiness and light that brings to me. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. It’s not the depth of winter, not even close, but the sentiment stands. In the depth of November, within me I found some Favourite Things.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Fight The Gloom Edition

It’s Puzzle Season, Motherfuckers

November through March – i.e., the non-garden season – is unofficially Puzzle Season around here. I love a good puzzle but I definitely gravitate towards the less difficult realm. Do I want to go insane while staring at 1000 pieces of hell? No I do not. My husband is a person who enjoys wildly difficult puzzles, like the one we did of a canoe on a lake with a background of mountains, or the one of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in which every single piece was the exact same shape. I like a series of vignettes, is what I’m saying.

The completed puzzle!

My older son gave this Jane Austen puzzle to me for my birthday, and I saved it to kick off Puzzle Season. It’s a very special puzzle because the photo on the box does not contain the solution. The Puzzler must put the characters together, figure out who goes with whom, and then use the conversational clues to figure out how to arrange them for the final product.

ELL-OH-ELL Mr Darcy

You need to be a Fan, is what it boils down to.

Oh, Caroline Bingley. Go pretend to read a book.

It’s a really clever idea and it was so much fun. I tried to explain WHY it was so amusing to my family, and their eyes started glazing over.

Fun fact: I used It’s Puzzle Season, Motherfuckers for a Favourite Things last December, and it also included a Jane Austen puzzle! Will the pattern continue? Check in with me in 2026!

Oh, I’m Writing My Life Away

On the topic of Items Received For My Birthday That I Am Using Seven Months Later, my dear friend Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) sent me this notebook.

Mary Oliver!

I was absolutely delighted, and I knew that I wanted to save it for a special use. Right now Inhale Exhale is out for review with Clarion, which means that the process is out of my hands, as nerve-wracking as that is. Time to redirect that nervous energy and start something new!

Work in progress.

Two of the women in my writing group, Gill and Michela (HI GILL HI MICHELA) swear by Morning Pages; they say that there is something about it that really sparks creativity. I am not at the Morning Pages Life Stage yet, but I have been using Suzanne’s gorgeous notebook to handwrite thoughts about my new project in a very stream-of-consciousness way. And I have to say, it has worked. Creativity has been sparked!

On the same topic:

Isn’t that a beautiful cover? I am SO pleased with it. If you’re wondering what it’s about, wonder no more!

My publisher, Friesen Press, is a hybrid one, which means that my path to publication is not traditional and I won’t have the ability to pre-order, or to give you an exact release date quite yet. However! It will be available at all the usual bookstores, and the MINUTE I have that information, it will be here on the blog, it will be on my Instagram, it will be on Facebook, it will be sung from my own rooftop. I absolutely loved writing this, and I hope people will love reading it.

Me and my writing buddy.

She Walked Up To Me and She Asked Me To Pose…Y-O-G-A Yoga

I realize that a discussion of yoga mats might be more topical in, say, January, but in my mind ANY time is a good time for yoga. Also, it’s possible that one might want a yoga mat for Christmas, and I have very strong feelings on this topic.

As a small digression, I would like to go on the record to say that yoga truly is for everyone. No one is “bad at yoga.” No one “can’t do yoga.” No one is “too stiff” to do yoga. There are as many ways of practicing yoga as there are people on this earth. Some people do seated postures on a mat, some people do standing postures, some people sit in a chair, some people lie in savasana. And, as I said sternly to my husband and son who were watching a commercial with a football player doing a barre practice while someone jeered, no yoga teacher has ever “laughed at” a student. If such a thing has ever occurred, it has not been in my hearing, and I would posit a theory that such a person is not truly a yoga teacher. Yoga teachers are almost exclusively a gentle, loving bunch who only want the best for their students. If a person can sit quietly and listen to the sound of their breath for thirty seconds, THEY ARE DOING YOGA. Yoga doesn’t necessarily mean putting legs behind one’s head, although it can. Yoga doesn’t necessarily mean touching one’s toes, although it can. Yoga is LIFE and it is practicing loving-kindness to oneself and to the world around us, and it means leaving a room a little brighter than one found it. In this definition, I would venture to say that we are all yogis. We are all practicing yoga every day, or at least we have the potential to. Being able to touch one’s toes is a nice thing, but it doesn’t define a yoga practice.

Back to the topic at hand, which is my own personal physical yoga practice, and my mat of choice, which is a Manduka Pro Black Mat. It is expensive, yes, but it is the best mat on the market. It is thick and heavy and doesn’t move around while you practice, even if you are taking vigourous vinyasas. It gives cushion for the knees and for the sitz bones, and mine are going to go with me to my grave. My (theoretical) great-grandchildren will be cleaning out my room at The Home and will wonder why Grandma had so many mats.

Because I do have SO many mats. There are four – FOUR – Manduka Pros in this house, although one is my husband’s, given by me for Christmas one year.

My husband’s mat, foam roller, and yoga balls. I feel like a picture is worth a thousand words here.

One of the mats was purchased to leave at this house, when we lived in Calgary, so that I didn’t have to schlep it back and forth. Another was my practice mat, which I kept in a storage space at the Yoga Shala, and the other was my teaching mat, which lived in my minivan and would be taken to all the non-Shala places I used to teach. And then the pandemic happened, and the Shala closed, and my classes went from ten a week to two, and those two were taught via zoom; my need for multiple mats evaporated, but my mats live on.

The collection.

Ever since my friend Gillian (HI GILLIAN) turned me on to them in 2009, I have been a devotee of the mat cover. These microfibre covers serve several purposes: a) they keep your hands and feet from slipping by being grippier the more sweaty one gets, which is good news for a sweaty gal like myself, b) although this seems to completely contradict what I just said, it makes your feet slide nicely when doing vinyasa, c) it feels nicer than a naked rubber mat, and d) it keeps the mat clean and is machine-washable. Need I say more? And yes, I have three, one for each of my mats.

The practice space, complete with practice buddy in doughnut pose.

Friluftsliv!

A little while ago, my friend Sarah (HI SARAH) said plaintively in response to all the autumnal celebrations that fall is already really nice, what are we doing about winter? Well, what I do, and what I have done for the past five and a half years, is to embrace my half-Norwegian heritage and the concept of friluftsliv, which means that life is best lived outside. I go outside every single day and I also embrace the somewhat strident Scandinavian belief that there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes. To that end, I want to talk about something that has definitely made my Favourites in the past: the bum warmer.

Walking In Winter Fashion

A woman in Calgary that I met through a Yoga Shala holiday market buys old sweaters at thrift stores and transforms them into a skirt-like item, the bum warmer, and then uses the remainder to make headbands and mittens. You would not believe the difference this makes, warmth-wise! I have three of them but this is my festive season set. I top off the look with legwarmers and a toque, and I am cozy and toasty and ready for the outdoors. It’s very hygge, and also very ecologically friendly.

You Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone

To think I took something as mundane as the mail for granted for almost my whole life. I didn’t realize how much happiness sending and receiving mail gave me, particularly during the holidays, until the Canada Post strike shut it all down last year. I am a little scarred from that experience, and have been frantically writing out my cards in order to get them into the mail, just in case the current rotating strikes turn into a full-blown one.

On a recent episode of The Girl Next Door podcast, one of the hosts talked about her secret fear of getting a paper cut on her eye, and while I don’t share that particular worry, I am always concerned that I’m going to get one on my tongue while licking envelopes. Anyway.

I loved pen pals when I was younger and it’s a thrill now to have my own grown-up ones. Sometimes it’s more than a postcard or a note; last week I received a parcel from my friend Lisa (HI LISA).

Imagine my surprise when it contained a SIGNED copy of Wreck! I almost fainted. Lisa! Talked to Catherine Newman! And she signed a book just for ME! I could die. Have I read it yet? No, because I still have eleven library books that need reading. But I cannot WAIT. Thanks Lisa!

Outfit of the Month

In the spirit of shopping my closet, everything in this outfit is at least seven years old, with the exception of the jeans. It’s a whole thing with Jean. Please don’t make me relive my Jeans Crisis.

The lined coat is from lululemon, circa 2013, and the sweater is from the same place but a few years later. The boots are lightly lined and perfect for this weather right now – not too warm, but warm enough.

What are you doing to stave off the Novemberies? I know my dear friend Michelle (HI MICHELLE) is celebrating Gnomevember, but I would posit that every month is Gnomevember in the Boyhouse. Tell me all your Favourites this month, I would love to hear them. xo

A Moroccan Adventure

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Hi friends! How are you? I am back from my adventure – actually, I got back Wednesday evening but I have been SO busy! In the days since I have been back I have a) line read Inhale Exhale AGAIN, this time in order to approve the layout, and there were some small changes that were needed in terms of spacing, of all things, which meant a very careful read was needed, b) caught up on all the domestic things like laundry and groceries, and c) threw a party for thirty-five people to celebrate my husband’s 60th birthday.

Further to a), the instructors of the creative writing course I took prior to writing Inhale Exhale reinforced that the number one audience of my book is ME, because I am going to be reading it over and over again, and wow, is that true. Fortunately, I DO love this book, so it’s not a chore to read it. I can’t wait to share it with all of you! Further to c), the party was a lot of fun and went off without a hitch. It felt like a bit of a stretch to host dinner and drinks for thirty-five only three days after getting home, but it turned out great.

But where have I been? Well, if you follow me on Instagram you will know that I spent the past few weeks in Morocco, by way of Paris. It was an absolutely incredible trip and I cannot say enough about it. We booked a small group tour with Intrepid Travel, which I would really recommend. They are a company that really commits to responsible tourism, they hire local guides and give back to the community, and they arrange all the transportation and accommodation, which makes travel very easy. We had booked a premium tour, which meant that the accommodation was very nice, and that lots of meals and activities were included. Travelling with a group, particularly filled with people who are strangers, is always a bit of a risk, but we all – well, almost all – bonded immediately. There were twelve of us to start with, but two had to go home to Australia mid-trip due to a medical emergency, and all of us got along great. Except for one person, but there is always one in a group, isn’t there?

Here is a photographic overview of our trip:

Casablanca. This is where I will say that the first night in Casablanca, I wondered if we had made a grave error. Casablanca is a big, busy, bustling city, and the transfer from the airport to our hotel was the most terrifying vehicular experience I have ever had, and I have been in a car accident. The only thing that kept me mentally together was the thought that we were in a nice car owned by the driver, and surely the driver would not smash it. Let’s just say the automatic braking system kicked in several times, and beeps from the side sensors about being too close to other cars kept sounding. But – spoiler alert – we did not die, and I felt a lot better after meeting up with our group, eating a tagine dinner accompanied by live traditional music, and taking a nice long shower.

A huge benefit of this fancy tour was that we were able to go into the Hammam of Hassan II Mosque before the actual opening hours. This is the only mosque in Morocco that allows non-Muslims to enter, and it was incredible that there were so few of us there in a space for twenty-five thousand.

After our tour and discussion about peace, love, and Islam with the guide, he said An American cruise ship is docking in five minutes. If you want to use the WC, you should do it now. Tour over! As we made our way back to the bus, swarms of people were flowing in, so I was very happy to have that quiet, peaceful experience.

Rabat. This is the new capital of Morocco and it’s very beautiful, right on the sea.

Meknes. I loved this small city so much. We had the option to go for a group dinner, but I really wanted to explore the square, so my husband and I opted out. We walked through the shopping stalls, had a bite to eat while listening to music and watching dancers, and then bought sparkling juices and took them to the rooftop of our riad, where we admired the night sky and listened to the call to prayer.

Chefchaouen. All of the above happened in just one day, so I was happy to spend two days in the famous blue city, Chefchaouen.

On the way we stopped to see the Roman ruins of Volubilis.

Fes. I loved this city, with the palace and the old medina.

Erfoud. After Fes we had a very long travel day to Erfoud, a little oasis on the edge of the Sahara Desert.

Merzouga – The Sahara Desert! This was an absolute highlight of the trip, riding camels into the desert and spending a night there. We watched the sunset and the full moon rise, and it was magical.

After the sunrise the next morning, we hopped on our camels and headed back on the road.

Dades Valley. We drove through the Atlas Mountains to spend some time in the Dades Valley. We toured a very small village with a local guide, and were welcomed for tea with a family who lived there. It was so wonderful hearing about village life, and how the community all works together and takes care of each other.

Road of A Thousand Kasbahs – Ait Benhaddou. Have you ever felt like you were in a movie? I did when our bus started on the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs, and our guide put “Rock the Casbah” on the stereo.

We ended up at Ait Benhaddou, which was where certain scenes in Game of Thrones, as well as Gladiator, were filmed. My husband and I opted to “climb” to the top and then to the panoramic viewpoint, both of which were just simple walks that took less than ten minutes.

Ouirgane. After being at a pretty big hotel in Dades, we ended up in a family-owned riad in Ouirgane, which is quite remote, and we had a local guide walk us around the village.

Marrakech. We participated in a very fun cooking class with a women’s collective outside of Marrakech, and then ended the trip with two days in Marrakech.

Oui Oui, Paris. On the way to and from Morocco we spent some time in Paris as well. Between France and Morocco, I had ample opportunity to practice my French!

All in all, it was an unforgettable trip and an incredible experience. Morocco is a country of many different landscapes, culinary traditions, and languages, and it is filled with people who are warm, welcoming, and hospitable. I am so grateful I got to experience so much!

As of this moment I have 252 unread posts in my blog reader, so it may take me a bit of time to catch up with all of you. Meanwhile, tell me: what’s going on with you, how have you been, what have you been doing? Tell me everything. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Fall Follies Edition

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I was at the dog park last week, walking in my usual loop, when I passed by a man I see quite frequently. He’s probably in his 70s, and he has two dogs, one of them a very young puppy. This is against the rules – dogs less than four months are not permitted in the dog park – but I am not The Dog Park Rule Enforcer, so I usually just nod and smile. I was doing that, when he said Have you ever heard of grounding? I had my earbuds in, and wasn’t sure if I heard him correctly, so I politely paused my podcast, raised my eyebrows and tilted my head.

It’s when you stand on the ground with bare feet, facing the sun, he said, and of course I DO know that, but it was such an unexpected question from such an unexpected source. Oh yes, I have heard of th…I started to say as I looked down to see that he was indeed standing with his face to the sun, shoeless. Bare feet. In the dog park.

I blinked behind my sunglasses and then said You’re very brave to do that in the dog park! Brave? Or crazy? At that very moment, his puppy ran up to me to show me the sandal he had in his mouth, and then ran off again as the man admonished him to return it.

I kept walking.

By the time I left the park, ten minutes later, the man was still chasing the puppy, wearing only one sandal. Then I heard him call to someone that the puppy had left his sandal in the long grass and he couldn’t find it.

I hope he was able to disinfect his foot when he got home. Either that or amputate it.

I’m not saying that was one of my Favourite Things, it’s more of a PSA. If you want to ground, maybe don’t do it in a dog park.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Fall Follies Edition

Grapes of Wrath

Almost all of the grapes on the vineyard behind our house are for wine, but the four rows directly behind our house – which we own – are concords. Once those grapes ripen, the air smells like grape juice, and I cannot even begin to express how wonderful it is to walk outside and be hit by that delicious scent.

This past month, until the grapes were all harvested, I would just walk outside and pick a bunch to snack on. Just before the harvest, I snipped off three bowlfuls to enjoy for a little longer. I don’t think I will ever not love the ability to have such fresh fruit right outside my door!

A Pear Affair

Speaking of fresh fruit, the pear crop has been incredible this year as well. My son requested a pear cake for his birthday, and I was happy to oblige.

I used my friend Julie’s (HI JULIE) recipe, and I will note here that I cut the sugar in half, and it was plenty sweet that way. I followed the recipe exactly for the penuche frosting, and it made at least three times as much frosting as one could possibly pile onto the cake.

I have made this recipe before, but I hadn’t noted this down at all, so I don’t know WHAT happened. I do know that I ended up throwing out a lot of frosting, because what else could be done? I suppose I could have frozen it for later use a) when was that going to be, b) chances are I would forget it was there and then later have to chisel frozen penuche out of a container, and c) OMG IT WAS SO MUCH FROSTING. Anyway, the cake was delicious, but I have noted: cut sugar in half, make 1/3 the amount of frosting.

These Shoes Are Made For Walking

Back in my running days, I was very choosy about my footwear, and would spend quite a bit of money buying the fancy Asics Gel-what-have-you shoes. But when I stopped running, I started to buy less expensive shoes – the Skecher Go Walks. I don’t know why I thought I didn’t deserve expensive footwear anymore, particularly since I walk a minimum of five kilometres a day, often more, but that’s what happened. Even without all that walking, I STILL DESERVE DECENT FOOTWEAR.

A few weeks ago, my left foot started hurting, a lot. No problem! I had bought a pair of Skechers on sale and was just waiting for my other pair to wear out before taking them out of the box. I donned my new shoes, went for a walk, and was in pain by the end of it. Worse, the pain started in my heel, and ominous music started playing in my head. I know what heel pain means: planter fasciitis.

No! My feet are my fortune! Or, at least a very important part of me. I fretted and fretted, rolling my foot on yoga balls and massaging it and generally feeling kind of stressed about it. Not only am I on my feet for hours every day, we are going on a vacation that requires a GREAT DEAL OF WALKING very soon! I can’t not be able to walk!

My husband not-so-gently suggested I was being cheap and immediately found me a pair of Asics trail runners, appropriate for the gravelly and sometimes rocky trails that Rex and I favour.

Foot pain – gone. Let this be a lesson for us all: cheap footwear is just not worth it. And this is also a lesson in why I didn’t do another no-shopping challenge! Sometimes needs must.

Progress Not Perfection

I read an interview in Cup of Jo, and as I was looking at the photos, I thought damn, that woman has great hair. Wouldn’t you know it, she happened to mention the hair product she uses: Living Proof’s Perfect Hair Day 5-in-1 Treatment.

I ordered some, thinking it would be a good item for travel, cutting down on the many products I usually use. And friends, it worked like a dream. A DREAM!

Not only that, but my hair still felt great the next day – without washing or adding more product.

Jane, Meet The Dollhouse

I have mentioned my friend Michelle’s incredible and uplifting blog before (HI MICHELLE), and in particular I have mentioned her absolutely delightful dollhouse. Every single post is more wonderful than the last – it just gets better and better. Well, I don’t know how she is going to top this one, because she obtained a Jane Austen doll. Jane Austen! With the gnomes in the dollhouse! I am surprised I didn’t spin right off this planet.

I’m not going to steal any photos from her, obviously – you’ll just have to go to look for yourself! But in honour of her, I wore (one of) my Jane Austen tees, which is also a Favourite Thing.

Outfit of the Month

This exact outfit has been an OOTM before, but since I am shopping my closet these days – with the exception of this month’s shoes! – I thought it deserved to shine.

Yesterday my husband and I were invited to a tour and tasting at a very fancy, architecturally incredible winery, and this was the perfect choice. Sorel boots for walking and standing, tights because wineries can be really cold, and my favourite lululemon t-shirt dress. Perfectly comfortable and cute!

And now, as alluded to, I am off on an adventure! I will be taking a blog break and will see you all on the other side. Take care of yourselves, friends. xo

Bounty and the Bust

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Who Loves You?

I was listening to an interview with Anne Lamott, who is a writer and person that I very much admire. She was talking about the concept of self-care, and how her entire life these days is based on self-care, which felt quite resonant to me. Recently someone asked me what I do with all my time, now that I’m neither teaching yoga nor raising children, and I was quite puzzled. I fill it? It seems like my days are all full and busy and very little of my time feels wasted. But I think the better answer is one like Lamott’s, in that my whole life feels like one giant self-care project at this stage in my journey towards the grave.

Lamott spoke of everything she does as a radical act of love towards herself, stating that if she so much as makes herself a cup of peppermint tea or eats a cookie she thinks Someone is taking care of me and loving me, that “someone” being her own self. I’m going to start thinking this way. Someone loves me so much that they made me this hummus, I’ll think at lunch, eating my own homemade hummus. Someone is taking care of me by making me sit on the deck and read for an hour, I’ll think. After all, one cannot be a writer without being a reader, and so it’s career development as well as self-care.

Is It A Robot?

I have a real aversion to AI and Chat GPT and other things that are destructive to our environment and also to our collective intelligence. I realize – YES I REALIZE – that there are benefits to the medical community and research, sure. But also? It is making us collectively stupider. I am sure you can, for example, develop a travel itinerary using AI, but you know what else you can do? Google. It’s already supremely easy to access information about literally everything in the world, I do not think we need to make our brains lazier, particularly given the environmental damage AI wreaks. Do not even get me started on AI-created pictures or writing.

This aversion did not, however, stop me from listening to a podcast about Chat GPT romances. Did you know this was a thing? I certainly did not. There are a lot of lonely people out there who are embarking on romantic, and even sexual, relations with a chat bot. And if you, like me, were thinking how do you have sex with a chat bot, then you are not thinking outside the box enough. It would be similar to phone sex, let’s put it like that.

So this is a thing now. I listened to an interview with a man who, apparently, has a REAL LIFE GIRLFRIEND but also a chat bot one, and the reason for the latter is that – wait for it – his girlfriend doesn’t understand him. To quote Miss Cornelia, ISN’T THAT JUST LIKE A MAN? This “relationship” started when his actual human girlfriend was uninterested in watching the lunar eclipse with him, and so he now goes to his chat bot girlfriend for all his astronomy conversation-based needs.

If you’re thinking woof, that is fucked up, then you are in the exact same mental space as I was, until I started giving it a bit more thought. It’s not much different from chat rooms of two decades ago, or even those 1-800 numbers to talk to “singles in your area,” but the difference is that there is not a human on the other end of it. Which brings me to my question: which is worse, finding out your spouse is cheating on you with a robot, or finding out your spouse is cheating on you with a random stranger in a chat room? Or paying for phone sex? Or – and I actually think this is the worst of all – having an online affair with someone on social media?

Bounty and Bust

A vastly better use for our planet’s water is for food production, I think we all can agree. Which brings me to a long-overdue garden update!

This was my harvest last weekend, before I started shutting the garden down. It’s a little early for it, but we are going on vacation soon and I’d rather get things done in the beautiful September sunshine than later, when it might not be so lovely. The tomatoes and raspberries are, improbably enough, still going strong. I have enough squash and zucchini (omg, so much zucchini), to last me all year, and I have more onions and jalapenos than I can possibly use, so I have been sharing them with the winery staff.

Not everything has been so bountiful, though. I have six gorgeous bell pepper plants that have, through the summer, been absolutely covered with beautiful, perfect peppers. Despite this, I have harvested only seven peppers in total, because every time one starts to ripen and change colour, I go to inspect it only to find that it has been nibbled on. Worse, sometimes the peppers look amazing and then disintegrate when I pick them up, because water has gotten in through the nibbles and rotted the pepper from the inside out.

The only possible explanation is that it is a squirrel, and indeed, I have seen those little bastards zipping around the garden boxes. We have a tall deer fence, and there isn’t anything else that could be getting in. Squirrels! They have been my gardening nemesis since my Calgary days, when those assholes would merrily dig up all my plants for no good reason or chew all the wires on our outdoor Christmas decorations. One year, squirrels ate the entire hat off of a light-up wire snowman, and another year they dug up and ate all 150 fall bulbs that I had painstakingly planted. As we all know, the Eastern Grey Squirrel is not even native to Calgary, and I will tell you that once Barkley caught one and tried to kill it and I did not feel bad about it. Me! Animal loving me! I was like FUCK THAT SQUIRREL, GO BARKLEY.

Anyway, next year I shall sprinkle cayenne in my pepper beds to keep the (actually native) squirrels out. If that doesn’t work, I give up. I will just buy from the farm market.

The other bust was my fall planting of spinach and kale. I enthusiastically planted seeds in mid-August, like I did last year, and then we had warmer than normal temperatures. The heat stunted the germination process and now, a month later, I have only the smallest scatterings of seedlings. I suppose I could try again now, but as I said we are leaving for vacation soon and it feels like it will be a wasted effort.

Weekly Reading

Not a wasted effort? This week’s reading. One of these things is not like the others!

I Who Have Never Known Men. Rex’s face says it all. I read a dystopian novel and I liked it. I think it was because it is an entirely character-based novel that takes place entirely in the narrator’s head, the narrator who is not only unnamed to us, but unnamed at all. She is known as “the child,” as she was taken as a child to the underground bunker with thirty-nine women. One day a siren goes off and the guards disappear immediately. The women escape to discover they are all alone in the world, whatever world they are in. This book asks such interesting questions: what happens to a person brought up in isolation from the rest of the world, how does a person make sense of the world, what is the nature of hope and when is hope lost?

Bad Summer People. Do you love juicy, gossipy, scandalous stories about rich people behaving badly? Me too! This was so much fun to read; we start with the discovery of a dead body and then the story backtracks from there. There are multiple (read: SO MANY) points of view and characters, and I was here for every single one of them. What a ride! Also, I love the kind of intensity that something like a low-talent tennis tournament can bring about, that’s all I’m saying.

The Identicals. I recently started listening to Elin Hildebrand’s podcast Books, Beach, and Beyond, in which she – given her own star power – interviews absolute literary stars and talks to them about their writing process. Recently she mentioned that her books follow a formula and she does not deviate from this formula, and I have to say, when you’re right, you’re right. There is something SO lovely about reading a book which you KNOW will end happily, and as you read it, you can see those happy things taking shape. This is a book about estranged identical twins living on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, and they basically trade places for the summer. Capers ensue, everything turns out perfectly, I loved it, the end. A perfectly lovely beach read that I read with the actual beach in view.

Today is the first day of fall! It’s fall, fuckfaces! And so it is the start of Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers, and also – in Canada only! – Decorative Gord Season.

I mean, that will never get old. You’re either ready to reap this freaky-assed harvest or you’re not. Let’s go! xo

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

If I Had A Billion Dollars

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If you had asked me one month ago what I have in common with Mike Vrabel, head coach of the New England Patriots, I would have stared into space for a moment before responding that we are both humans living on the planet at the same time, but nothing else. That was before my husband, a longtime Patriots fan, sent me a reel in which Mike Vrabel was asked what, outside of football, makes him nuts. His response was twofold: able-bodied people who park in handicapped zones, and PEOPLE WHO LEAVE THEIR SHOPPING CARTS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PARKING LOT. Mike Vrabel, I salute you. He went so far as to say he actually confronts those people and wishes that he had a car boot to immobilize their vehicles.

Never have I felt so seen, particularly by a football coach.

Earlier in the summer I found myself reading about a certain multibillionaire who rented out Venice for his $50 million dollar wedding, and at the time I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I have so many feelings about the current distribution of extreme wealth in general and this wedding in particular, none of them positive, and I am sure you can well imagine.

But I couldn’t help thinking what I would do personally in the extremely unlikely event that I attain such massive wealth. I find it fascinating to think that, if I had a net worth of $224 billion dollars, I could give away 99.7% of it and still be a billionaire. I could give away 99.9% of it and still be fabulously rich. I could bring clean water everywhere, I could end food insecurity, I could house the unhoused, I could END DEATH BY TUBERCULOSIS. I could do all those things and still have money to fly business class everywhere I want to go.

It’s an interesting thought experiment: what would I do differently, had I so much wealth? Let’s say, in the manner of Steve Martin with his holiday wish for world peace, that I’ve already given away 99.7% of this theoretical wealth and made an enormous positive impact on the world, let’s say I’ve already bought a house for each of my children, let’s say I had a billion dollars and I had to – HAD TO – spend it on myself. What would I do?

For something that is in all likelihood never going to happen, I spent a lot of time thinking about this. I love my home and wouldn’t want to buy a different one, or a vacation house, and I wouldn’t want a new car or even a new piano. I wouldn’t travel more than I do but, as I said, I would definitely fly business class only.

I came up with an idea that I felt was absolutely brilliant, and I raised the topic at the dinner table. My family immediately and without hesitation conjectured that I would a) hire a chauffeur and b) employ a personal chef.

Well, damn. I do want those things! So I guess I have three things I want, the third being my own personal busker. If I was insanely wealthy I would hire a busker to follow me around, anticipating my moods and playing all my favourite songs.

To say my husband and sons were unimpressed with this idea would be an understatement.

I stand by it, though. Can you imagine how fun that would be? The soundtrack of my life brought to life!

All of this was before I knew about Mike Vrabel, though. So now I have a fourth thing I would do if I had a billion dollars to burn: I would hire a Mike Vrabel-sized man to go with me everywhere, in my personally chauffeured car, to confront shopping cart and disabled spot violators, and to use car boots with impunity.

My fantasy expenditures are now getting unwieldy. I’m imagining myself with my personal chauffeur, chef, busker, and Mike Vrabel all going to Superstore to fetch ingredients for the week. I might have to get a bigger car in this scenario. And maybe a second house just to shelter all of my employees. And do I want one busker or two? Or more? I want to be a good employer and maybe I’d have to have these guys work in shifts so they can rest a little between sets. Ah, the stresses of being a make-believe billionaire. First I’d have to save the world, and then I’d have to figure out the sleeping situation of my staff.

Weekly Reading

The Thing Around Your Neck. Oh, this author is so talented! I loved this collection of short stories about Nigeria and its people, gorgeous and brilliant slices of life. There is such a variety of points of view and even a few stories written in the second person. I loved every story.

We All Want Impossible Things. I first read this in 2022 and decided, after hearing Catherine Newman interviewed on a podcast, that it deserved a reread. I have read and loved everything Newman has written, since her days as a Babycentre blogger, when my oldest was a baby. She inspired me to start my own blog! I really love this book about a woman caring for her best friends in her last weeks of life. It’s about grief but so much more than that – it’s about love and friendship and the complicated beauty of hospice. Newman has a new book coming out next month and I cannot wait!

Single, Carefree, Mellow. I read this in 2021; I loved it then, and I love it now. Katherine Heiny is a gift to the world, and this collection of short stories is brilliant and hilarious and thoughtful and witty, and is everything I want in a book. A few of the short stories have the same characters, which is delightful in every way, and every one of the stories is a little slice of life with the most wonderful characters you can imagine. And so funny, she is SO funny. One of my favourite lines in the book – although basically the whole book is my favourite – “She collects garden gnomes…You had an affair with someone who collects garden gnomes.” I laughed until I cried.

I had such a fun and busy week filled with friends, and I am looking forward to more of the same this week. I also received a mock-up of my book cover design, and I cannot WAIT to share it with you. So many people have very kindly asked about details regarding its release, and I don’t have those details yet but believe me, the Boyhouse readers will be the first to know! Take care this week, friends. xo