Category Archives: Okanagan Life

Detoxing In Ovaries

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Happy September, everyone! Can you believe it?

We have been having the most gorgeous weather; the days are summery and hot, but the early mornings are cooler and lovely, perfect for walking and for wearing t-shirts. I considered a photo project featuring all seventy-six of my tees, but a) that sounds boring, and b) I would almost certainly lose interest after the second day. You’ll just have to imagine them all.

The weather is also perfect for gardening. Friends, I cannot even describe my tomato situation. I harvested my first tomatoes on June 25, and it has been an avalanche of ruby globes since then. I thought the zucchini situation last year was out of control, but that was before 2025, The Year of the Tomato. For at least a month I have been picking at least a big bowl of cherry tomatoes, plus 7-15 Romas, every single day. I am drowning in tomatoes, I texted my friend Sandi (HI SANDI).

Autocorrect, in its wisdom, changed it to I am detoxing in ovaries.

I am going to victim-blame myself by saying that I wasn’t wearing my glasses, but it just occurred to me this very second that maybe there IS some kind of “detox diet” for “ovary cleansing” that involves a lot of tomatoes. Is there such a thing? I don’t want to check, my algorithm is weird enough as it is.

In any case, one cannot live on tomatoes (or ovaries) alone – OR CAN WE? No, probably we can’t – and so I found myself, as I do every week, at the grocery store.

I love peeking into other shoppers’ carts. I feel like it is a vignette of a life, or at least a hint into that person’s weekend plans, as evidenced by the woman who had six bottles of wine, a sheet cake, and at least ten family-sized bags of potato chips. Madam, I salute you, and can I join?

I almost always get into a semi-involved conversation regarding cart contents with other shoppers, and sometimes those conversations are life-changing. For example, one long exchange in the Covid Era led me to abandon almond milk forever and embrace cashew. Another woman told me gravely, and without substantiating evidence, that one should never purchase Boom Chicka Pop from Superstore, only Costco, and since we were at the former, I felt like this was a stealth information operation. I didn’t even have any in my cart, and so how or why we embarked on that topic, I do not know. Maybe she was a mystic.

Last week a lady was behind me in line and I smiled at her, ready to engage in conversation, at which point she looked away quickly and took out her phone. It was a gentle rebuff, so I turned away, but not without checking out the contents of her cart, which consisted only of three 4L containers of sour cream, a bakery box of 18 chocolate chip cookies, and a leopard-print blouse.

Oh, the variety of things one can purchase at Superstore! I’m sure the contents of my own cart would be semi-interesting to someone as nosy as I am; at the very least, someone ALWAYS comments on the volume of bananas I purchase each week. But I found myself dying of curiosity – what does one do with so much sour cream? That amount can’t possibly be for condiment use only! Or can it? What recipe could require 12 litres of sour cream? Is this for a food truck? I have all the questions and no answers, but I hope the woman enjoyed her cookies and is wearing the leopard-print blouse with aplomb.

Weekly Reading

What a great week of reading I had! Winners all around.

Everything Is Tuberculosis. Everything I ever knew about tuberculosis, I learned from Alice Munro stories, the Bronte sisters, a variety of Victorian novels, and Val Kilmer’s Doc Holliday in Tombstone. I found this book, which dives into the infection that kills 1.25 MILLION people annually – yes, today – incredibly fascinating and also incredibly depressing. The author traces the fascinating history of this incredibly long-standing infection, showing how society’s view of it has changed dramatically. At one point it was considered the INHERITED disease of artists and poets, romantically claiming that as one’s body succumbed to “consumption,” one’s soul and mind expanded. Tuberculosis also influenced fashion and beauty standards, as the wasted, thin bodies of women would be paired with alabaster skin, rosy fevered cheeks, and wide glittering eyes. It reminded me of the “heroin chic” of the 90s. Interestingly, once it was discovered not to be an inherited disease but a contagious bacteria, TB’s PR took a dive, going from the disease of the upper class to that of poverty. And that it is, it is an infection that can be dormant until something like trauma, stress, malnutrition, and general impoverished circumstances hit. To this day it is a pandemic, one that could be prevented and helped but is not, due to general greed and lack of caring about things that are not in our faces. I started reading this on the same day I listened to Trolleyology -the science of ethics – on the Ologies podcast, and I can’t help conflating the two and the ethics around not stopping a preventable pandemic. And listen, caveat emptor: I loved this but I would never recommend this to germaphobes or anyone with any kind of health-related anxiety.

Audition. I loved this absolutely wild, mind-bender of a book, the likes of which I have never read before. This was one of the most original books I have ever experienced. It is made up of two parts with all of the exact same characters, same narrator, same point of view, but completely different narratives. I don’t even know how to describe it except that it is an exquisitely written character study of a woman’s life in two incredibly different realities. It could be interpreted in any number of ways but I think it shows the different paths a life can take, and a choice that can force one of those paths to be true. There’s lots of symbolism with regards to marriage, motherhood, and reproductive choices, and I would put another caveat emptor here: this isn’t a book for someone who wants a firm plot, lots of backstory and answers, and a logical timeline. It IS for someone who loves character books, little clues as to symbolic thoughts, and gorgeous writing.

Maggie; Or A Man and A Woman Walk Into A Bar. This was such a beautiful, delightful book about two non-beautiful, non-delightful topics: divorce and cancer. A woman receives a cancer diagnosis shortly after her husband tells her he is having an affair and is leaving her. She names her tumour Maggie, after the Other Woman. It sounds grim and it is – there are two young children involved, the affair comes out of nowhere, her mother died of the same cancer – but it is also strangely joyful and absolutely gorgeous to read. I loved it.

I hope you are all enjoying your long weekend, friends.

Typically there is not much difference for me with regards to long weekends – every weekend is a long weekend and no weekend is a long weekend – but we have had my older son here to stay for a couple of days while his roommate has houseguests and before classes start up again. My younger son started his new job working in the vineyard, so there has been a lot of excitement around here. September is such a Fresh Start Feeling month, even when there’s no Fresh Start for me personally. Have a beautiful week, everyone! xo

Together Again

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The Boys Are Back In Town

My husband and son have returned from their hiking trip in Scotland! They hiked the West Highland Way, which worked out to be 154 kilometres over eight days, and they enjoyed Edinburgh as well. It was quite the adventure, and it’s great to have them home.

After two weeks of eating out, they were pretty excited for some, as my husband put it, home cooking. For some reason that phrase feels like a weird sexual euphemism, I blame Paul Newman. In any case, both of them requested a Big Fun Salad, and I was only too happy to comply.

Salad Days

They had great timing, as it turned out, because I just cut what was the last of the kale and spinach. I have pulled the plants and will be reseeding in a few weeks, when the bulk of the hot weather has subsided for the year, and hopefully I will have a nice fall harvest.

I guess it will be farm market kale and spinach for me until mid-September, but in the meantime, I am not short of tomatoes or zucchini.

Zen and the Art of Gardening and Piano Playing

These vegetables don’t grow themselves, people. Well, the zucchinis kind of do. But the garden itself takes a lot of work and I spend at least an hour a day tending to it, the perennials, and my flower pots. I always leave my phone in the house and just concentrate on the plants, and it is a very zen practice. There is something so meditative about weeding, which, along with laundry, is one of the most Sisyphean tasks ever. Other Sisyphean garden tasks include picking tomatoes and zucchini, but those tasks at least result in yumminess.

I read The Connection Cure this week – more about that in the Weekly Reading section – and it sparked a lot of thinking about the things we do for our mental and physical health. Gardening is one of them for me, but I don’t know if I would say that I am always in the moment while doing it. More likely, while I weed or deadhead or harvest, my mind is wandering about what the hell am I going to do with all these tomatoes, do I have time to roast them later to freeze, and how long will it take to grate up all these zucchinis, and also what am I going to write about this week, and would anyone be interested in a deep dive on The Duchess, and how sexy was Ralph Fiennes, and I wonder if The English Patient is on Netflix and would it be weird to just fast-forward to all the sexy scenes, and how Lady Chatterley’s Lover was basically soft-core porn, and also they changed the ending, and oh my god, look at that butterfly!

Similar things happen in my brain when I’m walking or cooking or doing anything household-task-related, but almost never while I’m exercising or practicing yoga. The one time I can guarantee that I will 100% be in the moment is when I’m playing piano. I have seen people carry on conversations while playing, but I absolutely cannot. I don’t even think about the next note, I am only ever thinking about the note I am playing the second that I am playing it, which makes it, for me, the most Zen practice of them all. I mean, if I so much as thought of Ralph Fiennes I would lose my place in the music, let alone any idle thoughts about my husband pretending to be a gamekeeper on a large English estate, asking me if I would like coarser treatment.

Freshen Your Drink, Governor?

As I mentioned last week, I have taken the opportunity of alone time to watch several British period dramas, and they have not disappointed. Despite my general dislike of book-to-screen adaptations, I rewatched Sense and Sensibility, which, along with Emma and Pride and Prejudice, cycles in and out of being my Number One Jane Austen Favourite Book. I also watched the aforementioned Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which contains not only full frontal nudity but also such graphic sex scenes that I did wonder how they could possibly be filmed without actual penetration, or at least a massive boner on the part of the gamekeeper. I score pretty much zero on the Kinsey scale, and yet I never want to see full frontal male nudity on the big screen, even when the screen is just my TV. As Elaine Benes said, The female body is a work of art. The male body is utilitarian. It’s for getting around, like a Jeep.

Nudity or not, the movie was completely engrossing, as was The Duchess – so good! – and The Other Boleyn Girl, which, along with a rewatch of the first three episodes of Downton Abbey, completed my British Period Drama Fortnight.

There is a growing movement among streaming services to cater to what is called second-screening, which is the phenomenon of watching TV while being on a phone. Streaming services are creating shows that are meant to be watched while distracted, and so there will be a lot of repeated dialogue and summarization of events.

I put the blame entirely on the glorification of multitasking, which I consider to be an incredibly harmful and focus-fracturing concept. Just like I cannot talk and play piano simultaneously, no one, but no one, can actually put mental energy into two things at the same time. It’s just not possible! Sure, we are all listening to podcasts while folding laundry, but I would submit that folding laundry requires very little mental energy. The idea that we can scroll on our phones while watching a movie and absorb any information at all is ridiculous. Bring back single-tasking! Let’s just focus on doing one thing at a time! Including watching TV!

I’m Your Biggest Fan, This Is Stan

Something that almost always absorbs all my attention is a good book; I love that feeling of just sinking into a delicious state of reading. If you follow me on Instagram you know that I post all of my book reviews over there, and I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I want to be honest in all my reviews, but on the other hand, I don’t want to be mean or negative if I don’t enjoy a book. It’s a tricky balance, but on the flip side, I want everyone to know when I truly love a book, and if you remember from last week, I posted a glowing review about Standard Deviation by one of my favourite authors, Katherine Heiny.

I casually logged into Instagram to see that I had a new follower, and friends, I cannot be calm or casual about this: KATHERINE HEINY HAD FOLLOWED ME. Not only that, but she sent me a direct message saying that she was “flattered to be anyone’s writing goals, but you are very funny already.” OH MY GOD PEOPLE.

I might have passed out for a moment. Katherine Heiny! Sent me a message! I have all of her books on my Favourites Shelf! I am as starstruck as a person could be! Katherine Heiny, who I adore and whose writing is over-the-top incredible!

NO I CANNOT CHILL.

And speaking of books…

Weekly Reading

The Connection Cure. I heard this author interviewed on the Ologies podcast, and I found her so fascinating that I knew I would have to read her book. Social prescriptions are growing around the world, and address environmental factors in wellness; instead of asking “what is the matter with you,”’ the question is “what matters to you.” There is a growing body of empirical evidence that links positive health outcomes with movement, time in nature, artistic endeavours, acts of service, and a feeling of belonging. It is all very common sense, but still it was shocking to me to read about the loneliness epidemic, how it has increased since 2020, and the debilitating impacts it can have on health. An important note is that social prescriptions – finding a community, helping a person discover a feeling of belonging, or joy through art, along with movement practices and time in nature – are to be used in conjunction with modern medicines and therapies. Overall an interesting read.

How To Be Married. Jo Piazza is a pretty buzzy author these days, but this book – part memoir, part non-fiction dive into how marriage is viewed in other countries and cultures – came out in 2017, before the buzz. It’s been a while since I myself was a newlywed – in fact, I don’t really remember what our first year of marriage was like – but I found this to be an entertaining and touching read. The tagline mentions her “really hard” first year of marriage, and my thoughts ran to infidelity, dark secrets, and disagreements about loading the dishwasher, but the reality was much sadder. Four months after she was married, the author learned that she had the genetic mutation for muscular dystrophy, which had left her own father extremely disabled and her mother – his caretaker – to have a nervous breakdown from the stress and resentment that comes from being a caretaker. She also lost her job right after they signed a mortgage on a house in San Francisco, a notoriously expensive city. I found the book very interesting and the peek into other cultures to be fascinating. Apparently I am like a Frenchwoman, I learned, as I would never in a million years use the toilet with the door open. Some things, as the Frenchwomen said, should be private.

The God of Small Things. My friend Maya (HI MAYA) had mentioned this book and I was surprised that I hadn’t already read it, as it was published in 1997. It is a heartbreaking, beautifully written book about a family in Kerlala, a terrible tragedy, and the shocking aftermath. It concerns caste, family ties, and dark secrets, and it is so moving and absolutely compelling. The story jumps timelines which might be confusing to some, but I found I was completely immersed, and so I was able to absorb it in stride.

I’ve wanted to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat for thirty years, and on Friday I finally did! We were in the front row, which meant two of my girlfriends ended up receiving leis from one of the cast members – cue getting lei’d jokes – and it was a really great night out. As a child, the story of Joseph was one that was incredibly wild and disturbing to me – parental favouritism, selling one’s sibling to slavery, tricking another sibling into thinking he was going to be imprisoned or killed – but the musical itself is a hoot. I hope your week is filled with delight and music, and doing only one thing at a time. xo

Alone Again, Naturally

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Time, Unspooling

Something I did not calculate in my recent time-tracking project was the amount of time that I spend in conversation with the people I live with, mainly my husband. I realized, as he has been on his Tour de Scotland, that a lot of time is spent talking, which makes many of my tasks longer than when the only thing I hear is the Sound of Silence or, technically, the Sound of Podcasts. The point is that my tasks this past week have all been completely uninterrupted, which, coupled with the fact that my novel is in for final edits, led to a lot of free time. I have filled some of this time with various long-neglected photo projects and with British period dramas. Mostly, though, I am reading and talking a lot to the dog, which are all obviously one-sided conversations, answered only with a wag. Who’s a good boy, who is, you are, you’re so good, you’re so good, ooooh I love you so much, are you a doughnut, yes you are, you’re my doughnut. Etcetera.

I Am Like A Dog

Rex and I have a lot of similarities: we both have big feet, we love walking, we look great in black, and we thrive on a fairly-rigid schedule. Another similarity occurred to me this week: we both can eat the same meals over and over without getting bored.

Sometimes I will come across a quiz that will have the question if you could eat only one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be? I never have trouble answering. For me, I could eat Greek salad with hummus and pita for the rest of my life, and I would never get tired of it. Case in point: I have, at the time of writing, eaten five Greek salads in the past seven days, and I will make more tonight.

Dinner for one.
I have to use up these tomatoes somehow.

I know plenty of people who need a lot of variety in their menus, and who don’t repeat the same meal within a thirty-day stretch. And then there’s me, who has had a green smoothie for breakfast every day for the past decade. Don’t get me wrong, I like many other things! But when it comes to making dinner for just myself, I revert to my favourite dinner, which is quick and simple and has freed up even more time in the day over this past week of Single Girl Living.

My son texted me last week to let me know he’d be popping by to make sure I wasn’t spiralling into insanity, and also to eat dinner. Rarely do I allow input as to what I’m making for dinner, but since I’d been alone for a while, I asked what he’d like to have.

The Colour of Gratitude

Several months ago I wrote a guest post on my friend Elisabeth’s blog (HI ELISABETH) about gratitude. One of the questions was if gratitude was a colour, what colour would it be? I skipped that question. I couldn’t answer it, I couldn’t think in those terms at all – until this past week.

I realized, as I chugged down my coffee just before my yoga practice, that I DID know the answer. For me, it’s the colour of the sky as the sun rises: pink and purple and pale blue. Our house faces west, and at this time of year the sun starts to rise during my yoga practice; as it rises behind me I can see the western sky change and reflect those colours. At a certain point, the mountains on the other side of the lake glow pink, and it never fails to flood me with gratitude.

STOP! BIRCHIE TIME!

Speaking of gratitude and blog friends, Birchie was here visiting me this weekend! I cannot believe she made such a long trip for little old me. (HI BIRCHIE!) We had a great time and got along like nobody’s business, just as I thought we would. We explored the downtown area and shops, we drank margaritas on my deck, we went for a wine tasting, we watched Dirty Dancing and When Harry Met Sally, we talked and talked and talked. Of course, she accompanied Rex and I for our long daily walks.

Weekly Reading

The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus. Canadian debut author alert! I love that this author has had this level of success – a Jenna Book Club pick! And I also really enjoyed that much of this story took place in Edinburgh and a country house in Scotland, because my husband and son are there right this second. So that was delightful. I enjoyed the octopus symbolism. I loved all the friendships and the details of university life in Edinburgh. But the truth is I wanted to like it more than I did. There were so many characters to keep track of, and it was written in third omniscient, which made it hard to connect to or care about any of them. I kept losing the plot, like literally, I kept forgetting the main driver of the plot. When the big reveal happened, I literally had forgotten the point.

Fifty Things That Aren’t My Fault. When I was young I loved reading the comics, or, as my dad called them, the funny pages. My three favourites were For Better or Worse, Garfield, and Cathy. Cathy! Ack! I used to identify with that heart-sweatered heroine a lot, and yes, I realize that sounds like the punchline to a bad joke. In any case, I was excited to read this book of essays by her creator. Now I think “did I hate myself?” Because so many of these essays are written with self-deprecating humour that slides into self-loathing, so many of these essays are about demonizing food and hating our appearance and nagging her daughter. I mean, I guess they could be amusing if you were in the mood for “ha ha, none of my clothes fit, and I just ate a container of ice cream so I hate myself” kind of humour, which I was not, honestly. There are some poignant thoughts about feminism, aging parents, empty nests, and the weird phenomenon of having bigger feet as we age, but most of it was cringe. I actually checked the publication date to see if this was written in the early 2000s, which would explain a lot, but no. It’s from 2019. Did we all hate ourselves in 2019? I don’t think I did.

Standard Deviation. After two mediocre books in a row, I needed a win, and so I went with this gem. I first read it in 2022, and it was one of those “books I read from the library but loved so needed in my collection.” Katherine Heiny is writing goals for me. Her books are kind of plotless, with all sorts of fun characters, and I love them. This is such a delightful and funny read about a couple raising a special-needs child who becomes really, really into origami. There is really nothing else to say about it except that it is a pure joy to read.

During our wine tasting, I discovered my new favourite wine from a very special, VERY local winery, Tantalus, that was just released on Saturday! We were one of the first to taste it. Birchie is leaving me today to continue on with her adventures, and so there will be many more British period dramas and Greek salads in my future! Have a beautiful week, everyone. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Bye-Bye, July Edition

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First of all, thank you SO much for all your kind words with regards to my upcoming novel! I am so excited to share it and never fear, I will be updating everyone, all the time, with regards to all the details once I know them. It was truly fun to write and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I am just squeezing in under the wire, in terms of Favourite Things. IT’S THE END OF JULY, FRIENDS! I love summer and I have some fun things to talk about this month. Here we go!

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Bye-Bye, July Edition

We Can Do Hard Things, Although Sometimes They Are Not Hard At All

It all started when I casually mentioned that I wanted to get a headscarf for an upcoming trip. My friend Sandi (HI SANDI), who is always thinking of fun things to do, found a silk scarf painting workshop at a local winery. Of course I was in, but I had my doubts as to the final product, my skills in the artistic realm being, shall we say, limited. At the very least, I thought, it will be a fun afternoon with my friend, and so I practiced non-attachment while looking at the variety of colours and designs to choose from. I chose some blues and a heart pattern, all the while thinking that there was no way that my scarf would look anything at all like the example.

No one was more amazed and surprised than I was about the magic that is painting silk scarves. The teacher set us up with a long, shallow trough filled with agar, and showed us how to add the colours and make the patterns. It was so easy even I could do it, and that is saying something.

Once the pattern was ready, the teacher helped us lower a white scarf into the trough, and like magic, the colours transferred to it.

Isn’t that incredible? I’m so thrilled with the results and, frankly, impressed with myself.

It’s going to be perfect for my trip!

Sweaty, But Not Feral

I am not sure who, exactly, is here for perspiration content, but here we are. What better month to discuss it than July? I have talked at length at what a sweaty gal I am whilst working out; whatever sweatiness level you are thinking, quadruple it. After a workout I could literally wring out a puddle of sweat from my clothes; they make a wet thud when they hit the laundry basket, and if I was a person who weighed myself, I would not be surprised to see a significant loss of water weight each morning. Because I am sweaty from my scalp to my ankles, I see absolutely no reason to wear an antiperspirant for exercise, in fact, it seems wrong to me to stifle my underarms. Be free, little sweat glands! Do what nature intended! However, lest you conflate “sweat” with “stink,” let me rush to assure you that I do want to smell good whilst working out, and so I use Routine De-Odorcream.

I’ve talked about Routine before at length, I was into natural deodorant before natural deodorant was cool. I used to buy it in the playground from the founder, Neige, when our kids were in a grade one/two split class together, before she hit it big and had massive success with her products. I love supporting women entrepreneurs, especially when the product is a remarkable one. Routine is a natural deodorant, yes, and I am aware those words probably conjure up a feral hippie image, but it truly works. Listen, if I can smell good while being actually soaked with sweat, you know it’s a good product.

I use Routine every morning before exercise, and I love it, but it has a tendency to show up on clothing, which I don’t love. After my shower I use this new Dove product, which is also a deodorant, rather than an antiperspirant. It is magically invisible and the scent is lovely.

I mean, I’m not giving boardroom presentations or teaching yoga classes, so although I’m a sweaty mess earlier in the day, post-shower I am not. By now I’m sure I’ve given more than enough information about the state of my underarms, so let’s move on.

Living La Dolce Vita, Via Sparkling Drinks

When we were in Italy last fall, my husband and I decided that, after years of work and child rearing and being ships passing in the night, we would set aside a time each week for Cocktail Hour, which is a screen-free, book-free, television-free time for us to reconnect. And to drink cocktails.

Also in Italy, I fell madly in love not only with my husband (again), but also with Aperol spritzes. I could not believe that I went through my entire life without this delicious, refreshing drink in it. I am making up for lost time now, as we regularly have them for Cocktail Hour, on a warm summer day.

And lest you think that it’s all why don’t we get drunk and screw around here, I am also enjoying San Pellegrino sparkling water as a little treat now and then.

Recently Bijoux (HI BIJOUX) mentioned that when her kids were young she would have a mid-day treat of General Foods International Coffee while watching General Hospital, and I cannot stop thinking about it. Such a lovely ritual! We all need a mid-day treat, don’t you think? I decided I wanted to do something similar, and so a few times a week, in the middle of the afternoon, I take a break to read a book, with a flavoured sparkling water in a pretty glass. One might argue that my entire day is a treat, and it kind of is, but it feels really special to have a very intentional pleasure, a book and a pretty drink, mid-day.

Bye Bye Miss Strawberry Pie

Do you want a no-bake dessert recipe that will refresh and delight you? Of course you do! This is my latest iteration of our family favourite, frozen strawberry daiquiri pie. Make a graham cracker crust with about 1 1/4 cups of graham cracker crumbs and 1/4 to 1/3 cup of melted coconut oil (or butter!). Stick that in the freezer, and while it’s setting put 3 cups of thawed frozen strawberries, the cream from a can of coconut milk (chill it for a few hours to separate the cream from the watery liquid), a couple squeezes of lime juice, and maybe 1/3 cup of honey into a food processor and blend until smooth. Add a little more honey if you like it sweeter, and then pour that into the crust, freeze, and voila! Dessert!

I often serve this with homemade Magic Shell, which is created by heating together 1/2 cup chopped chocolate and 1/3 cup coconut oil. I usually squeeze a bit of honey and glug in some vanilla as well. It hardens – magically, like a shell – once it hits the frozen strawberry pie. A perfect dessert and you don’t need to turn on the oven!

Nicole-Coded Merch

I really try to reel in excessive consumption by not buying things I don’t need, but then sometimes I see something and I realize that yes, I do need that thing in my life.

Did I need a coin purse that says Fuck The Patriarchy? Technically no, who needs a coin purse these days? But it’s the perfect size to hold a few lipsticks. Is it weird I have lipsticks in Fuck The Patriarchy merchandise? I LIKE LIPSTICKS AND I CONTAIN MULTITUDES. Anyone having an issue with that can read this shirt:

I saw this on Redbubble and I could not resist. It goes nicely with one of my favourite mugs, and it’s how I feel often these days, particularly when reading the news.

Outfit of the Month

This is my summer uniform: a Lululemon skort and a tank top, generally black. I am of the mindset that when you find something that works, stick with it. I have a number of black tank tops and a number of skorts in a variety of colours and patterns. I very much dislike how I look in shorts and I very much like how I look in skirts, but I don’t want to expose my panties or nether regions to the world, so a skort is where it’s at for me.

I have been enjoying my Alone Time this week – “When the cat’s away, the mouse will play,” I thought as I ate my fourth dinner of Greek salad in a row and turned on another British period drama – but I am over-the-top excited to welcome a houseguest TOMORROW. Some of you may know her, and all who know her love her…it’s Birchie! Updates to come but suffice it to say her visit is definitely going to be one of my Favourite Things. Did you have a beautiful July? Tell me everything. xo

The Dying of the Light

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Hello Darkness My Old Friend

In grad school I was friends with a guy who always, after summer solstice, would remark that it was now all downhill from here until December, light-wise. It’s darker every day! he would say cheerfully, which I have thought of, with amusement, every single year since then. Probably people who get up at more socially-acceptable hours wouldn’t notice, but I get up at 4:00 am, and three weeks ago the sky was lightening up at that hour. Now, it’s completely dark until nearly 5:00. It’s the slow downhill trajectory of daylight.

Slow Bike To Nowhere

Speaking of downhill trajectories, I have noticed another one. Saturday marked the five year anniversary of the outcome of that time I mused that a Peloton seemed like a good idea, except we have no room, and it’s expensive. My husband, dealing with Pandemic Nicole, was like hold my beer.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to bore us all with my workout details, but I do want to note that the main metric for Peloton is “output,” which is a combination of speed and resistance, and is a completely objective number. I seem to have peaked, output-wise, in 2022 and, no matter how hard I try, I can never get anywhere close to those numbers. I truly enjoy my Peloton and use it almost daily, exerting myself to my absolute maximum, and yet no matter what I do, no matter how hard I work and how sweaty and breathless I get, my output is getting lower over time.

A Younger Me would have found this devastating, and even Current Me is slightly disheartened by my lack of progress, if we are measuring progress by a number generated on a bike that goes nowhere. Which, well, we shouldn’t. I am happy with my level of functional fitness generally: I can zip briskly up and down stairs and hills without getting out of breath or experiencing knee or hip pain, I can lift and carry moderately heavy things, I spend hours a week in the garden, bending and squatting and digging and twisting with zero issues. My VO2 max is in the 40s and my resting heart rate is in the 50s, and it is all of these things that are of significance. And yet.

It feels similar to my various creams and lotions and serums. None of them are actually making me look younger, but they make me feel better. I have an aging body – thankfully! The alternative is becoming compost, and I’m not ready for that yet! – and so I think it’s unreasonable to expect that it would perform in the same way that it did before I was deep in late perimenopause. Nothing can stop the forward march of time, after all. But that downward trajectory! It’s hard on the ego.

I think the universe is reminding me to practice non-attachment. I love the feeling of sweatiness and exhilaration from a workout, and so who cares what a number on a stationary bike says, no matter how fancy that bike is. The point is to keep showing up and to enjoy the journey, because the end result is the same: tree nourishment.

Fly High Free Bird

The other day I was Mrs Elton-ing in the berry patch when I heard a strange noise. On further investigation, I saw that there was a small bird caught in the netting on our strawberries. I have no idea, logistically, how that could have happened, and as I tried to figure out where the bird got in, with the hopes that if I found an opening it could go back out that way, the bird became more and more agitated. The more I tried to help the worse it got, to the point where its little head and a wing were now firmly stuck in the netting.

I could not have another dead bird on my hands, I just couldn’t. I ran to the house for backup, and moments later my husband came down to the garden armed with work gloves, scissors, and a general air of grim determination. Probably he was thinking that he could not deal with ME having another dead bird on our hands.

The bird kept flapping frantically until my husband picked it up and held it, at which point it immediately went still and calm, but for a darting eye. Either the bird was a high-level Zen practitioner who embodied surrender and acceptance and was not going to Struggle Against The Flow, or it had some kind of natural trauma response, in the Playing Dead method. I say yes to this experience, the bird might have said to me telepathically, in the spirit of Radical Acceptance, had I known to listen.

It took several tense minutes of net snipping while I stood around uselessly wringing my own gloved hands, but the moment the little bird was freed and flew away unharmed was one of the single greatest moments of this entire year and made me fall in love with my husband all over again. Unfortunately, that moment was somewhat ruined when not two minutes later, my mother-in-law walked over to the garden to let me know that earlier that morning, she had found a dead bird by the shed, and had disposed of it before Rex was able to get to it.

Weekly Reading

So Late In The Day. I loved this triptych of stories about relationships: a man jilted at the altar, a woman at a writing retreat encountering a bitter stranger, a married woman looking for an affair who ends up in a bad way. This author is so brilliant at evoking so much emotion and detail with such an economic use of words. I have loved all the books I’ve read of hers, but this might be my favourite.

How To Read A Book. Something I have thought about since watching The Shawshank Redemption, lo these many decades ago, is what happens to people after they are released from prison? How do they find work, how do they find a place to live, how do they live among society again after being conditioned to prison routines? This very difficult topic is the subject of this very warm-hearted and sweet book: Violet is released early from prison for good behaviour, and adapts to life on the “outside,” even though her family will have nothing to do with her. This is a 3-way POV novel that includes the woman who runs the prison Book Club, and the man who was widowed because of Violet’s drunk driving that landed her in prison in the first place. There were some little twists but it’s pretty clear how things will turn out in the end. I didn’t love this but it was a cute and ultimately satisfying read.

Orbital. One of my best memories of the kids’ elementary school days was a particular Music Monday in May 2013, when the children gathered on the hill behind the school to perform Is Somebody Singing, the song made famous by (Canadian!) Commander Chris Hadfield on the International Space Station. That was a magical time, when Cmdr Hadfield posted photos and videos from space to Twitter. Remember when Twitter wasn’t a cesspool of brutality and horror? My friend Florence (HI FLORENCE) and I sat together to watch the children, and we teared up together at the words There goes home. To this day I still tear up, thinking of that day, all the children singing the same song at the same time all across Canada. So sing your song, I’m listening…I can hear your voices bouncing off the moon. Anyway, even with all that emotion, I would have NEVER picked up this book had it not been for my friend Laura (HI LAURA), who pushed past my Is it about space? No thanks., and assured me I would like it. I did! It really reminded me of 2013, in the best way possible. If you’re a person who likes a thick plot, this isn’t that – there is no plot at all, just beautiful prose about our world.

One of the last lines in Desiderata is With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world, and I think about that nearly every day. It is a beautiful world, despite, you know, everything, and I hope that you all have a beautiful week. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Nourishing Edition

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How has June been treating you, friends? I hope you have all been enjoying my Nourishment series; I have certainly enjoyed putting it together. There will be a final post on Monday to wrap it up, and in the meantime, I want to tell you about my Favourite Things this month. They are all things that are nourishing for my physical and mental states, if we use the term fairly loosely. You know me, I like a theme.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Nourishing Edition

Strawberry Fields Forever

This is the second year for our strawberry plants, and they have been prolific! Almost every day I have a harvest of these sweet sweet berries. We have to net the plants to keep the birds from feasting, and when I’m crouched down underneath the netting, picking them, I’m reminded of Mrs Elton at the berrying party in Emma.

And check out this very funky specimen:

It was delicious, although I do feel like I snacked on Patrick from Spongebob.

The raspberries have also been showing up and showing out; we have several different varieties, so hopefully we will have berries from June to September.

Did you hear that? It’s ominous music playing.

AND SO IT BEGINS. Zucchini season is now, alarmingly, in full swing. I have already harvested eight zucchini, including an absolute monster that quadrupled in size from last Wednesday, before our road trip, to the following Monday. My husband and son are giving me the side-eye, after last year’s zucapocalypse.

Postcard from the incomparable Michelle (HI MICHELLE) for scale.

Like A Good Neighbour, Amanda Is There

The emotional and psychological issues I have around my hair could keep a therapist busy for decades, and probably buy the aforementioned therapist a vacation home on Maui, but such issues are not available for public consumption. I will merely say that fifteen years ago or so, my hair stylist put down her comb and scissors in exasperation, and said to me Nicole, will you STOP saying that. There is nothing WRONG with your hair. It’s just REGULAR hair. Stop telling me how weird and terrible it is. IT IS JUST NORMAL HAIR.

So. I have issues around my hair. I dislike having my hair cut not because I’m Samson or Rapunzel or anything, but because I fear negative commentary about it, although with few exceptions that is not something that happens. It takes me a while to build trust with a new stylist, so you can imagine the tizzy I was in when I moved here. And listen: my hair is not complicated to cut. It does not require precise styling. I know this and yet, I still feel stressed and worried whenever I go to get my hair cut.

My neighbour Amanda cuts hair out of her home, and it took me nearly a year of living a three-minute walk from her house before I got the courage to ask her to cut mine. She’s a busy mom with a full-time job, but she told me cheerfully that she cuts hair for friends and family! and I took MONTHS to contact her. Are we friends? Is this overstepping? If I ask her will she think I’m weird and presumptuous? Finally, after my husband told me to just call her already, and if she didn’t want to do it she could say no, I contacted her.

Friends, she is the sweetest woman around and she immediately set me at ease as I talked a mile a minute about my hair worries. She has been cutting my hair for almost a year now, the latest time being just a couple of weeks ago, when I had delayed getting it cut for a few months. The ends were, to say the least, not great, Bob.

Amanda told me gravely we would have to take off some length. She asked if I was okay, and then she asked again. She explained very carefully what would happen, what her plans were for future cuts, and then she proceeded to give me the best haircut of my entire life.

I might be getting over my hair issues! I love you, Amanda! (HI AMANDA, if you’re reading this)

Power Pants

I am about to relate an anecdote, but before I do, I want to note that the following occurred years ago, in 2011 or 2012, when it was considered not only appropriate but complimentary to comment on other people’s bodies, particularly when the other person’s body appeared smaller. I know, I know, we would never ever think this was okay to say these days, but I am setting the scene for you.

Picture it: it’s 2011 or 2012. I’m standing with the Circle Moms, so named because we all stood in a circle and chatted in the schoolyard when our kids sledded or built snow forts or played on the playground after school. As we were talking, a woman came up to a friend of mine in the circle, and asked her in a congratulatory, complimentary tone if she had lost weight. Nope! my friend said happily. I just bought bigger pants.

Several months ago, when I did a big purge of my ill-fitting wardrobe – mostly pants, but also a not insignificant number of little black dresses – Michelle (HI MICHELLE) congratulated me. It’s so empowering to have clothes that fit! she said, and she was right. It IS empowering! It IS a big deal to go into my closet and know I can wear all the things in it.

Here we are, in a new season – not just of life, but an actual season – and it’s really time to bust out all the crops and capris. I needed new pants. I needed bigger pants. And so I went to Mark’s, because it seems like this is where I get all my pants lately, and I bought three pair of very lightweight capris, and two denim ones. Friends, they are comfortable, I feel cute, and I AM EMPOWERED! Behold a few of my powerful pants!

It’s so simple. Putting on pants without shimmying or struggling, and just…doing them up? It’s the best. Our bodies change throughout our lives, shouldn’t our pants? Why try to squeeze into pants that are uncomfortable and most likely unflattering in their discomfort? JUST BUY BIGGER PANTS. Fitting my body should be the very least we ask for from pants, right after making me not be naked, and yet. And yet it’s revolutionary.

Stop Bugging Me

We had quite a bit of rain, which was desperately needed – I do not want to go through another August like the one in 2023! – and the rain was followed by sunshine and lovely warm temperatures. Glorious! And also? Perfect mosquito weather.

Something you may or may not know about me is that I am a person you want to invite to your parties, not just because I would talk to a chair if it looked marginally friendly, but also because I am a Mosquito Magnet. I am ABSOLUTELY IRRESISTABLE to the female mosquito population. They cannot get enough of my sexy, juicy flesh. And another neat thing to know about me is that I have the kind of allergic reaction to mosquito bites that makes people say Oh GOD, what HAPPENED to you? What on another person might be a slight annoyance is, to me, torture. Mosquito bites swell to enormous, hard, red lumps, and then turn into bruises, and that is not a look I like to embrace. Some topical ointments soothe somewhat, others give me a secondary reaction, it’s a wheel of fortune.

I want to be the type of person who just smooths on a little Skin So Soft, or spritzes on a homemade essential oil mixture, and then calls it a day, but I am not. I am just so sexy and irresistible to those rental houses for souls of the cruel, that I need The Big Guns.

Do I want to be spraying chemicals all over my body? No, I do not. But faced with the choice between that and having gigantic swollen itchy lumps all over my body, between that and praying for the sweet release of the bruising that follows, even though I look like I’ve fallen off a cruise ship, pinballing down, hitting a lot of railings on the way, well, I’ll take the Fresh Scent Deet every time. I leave it on the outside steps to spray on just before my walk, then I strut through the greenway like John Travolta with a paint can, while everyone around me is losing their minds and slapping the air and their own bodies.

Come Back With A Warrant(y)

The most-used small appliance in my kitchen is the Vitamix; it gets used by various people three to four times a day at minimum. So it really was no surprise when, several months ago, it finally gave up. It’s too much! the Vitamix would have said, were it sentient. Stop with the continuous smoothies already! The container blades seized up, started to smoke, and died.

This was an absolute crisis. The motor still worked perfectly, so we ordered a new container for it, making the huge and predictable mistake of purchasing a quick-to-arrive, much-less-expensive knock-off that was compatible with our motor. In what can only be described as You Get What You Pay For, the container worked perfectly for two weeks, and then developed a tiny leak. It still worked, but it would leave a teaspoon or so of smoothie on the motor. Over the course of a few months, that teaspoon increased to a few tablespoons, and every time I wiped up the resulting mess I could only think that this was not great, Bob.

The problem was that our model is no longer available, and so my husband called Vitamix to ask what he could purchase as a replacement, which is when we discovered that we have a seven-year warranty on all parts, expiring in August. Vitamix sent us a brand-new container, free of charge, and we are all happily consuming smoothies without having to clean up a little puddle afterwards.

Outfit of the Month

As I mentioned above, I was running low on little black dresses after The Great Closet Purge of 2024. The purge happened in November which, as my husband pointed out, was perfect timing for Black Friday. How or why Black Friday became a thing in Canada, I do not know, but I was grateful that Ricki’s – a proudly Canadian company – had such a sale. I picked up three dresses for $120, and I love them all.

I wore one a few weeks ago for a friend’s 60th birthday party, paired them with Skecher sandals, and posed with the best black-and-white accessory I have.

I hope you are all enjoying our first official week of summer! I’d love to hear about all your Favourites this month. Tell me everything. xo

Homegrown Salad Season Begins!

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For absolutely no discernable reason, for five days last week I had Slide by the Goo Goo Dolls intermittently stuck in my head. How this happened, I have no idea. I hadn’t heard it recently. I wasn’t thinking about anything that could trigger such a thing. I had not been on any slides and I hadn’t watched any slideshows and I hadn’t thought I’ll just let that slide. The source remains a mystery. Then on Friday, after five days of singing I wanna wake up where you are, I took a Peloton ride and near the end was the song Slide, the familiar tune coordinating with my already-there earworm.

The universe works in strange ways.

My own little universe has been very green lately as I have been sliding into homegrown salad season. We’ve had quite a bit of rain over the past month or so, and temperatures have been in the mid-to-high teens, which is ideal growing weather for green leafy vegetables. I had my first harvest of kale and arugula last week, which was celebrated by making a giant salad for dinner.

I harvested on Wednesday, and by late in the day Thursday I could barely see where I cut from. The greens are growing before my very eyes! A key lesson I took from last year is to stagger the plantings so that I’m not completely overwhelmed, and even so, even so I currently have an astonishing amount of spinach, kale, and arugula. Well, I like smoothies and I like salads, and I really don’t mind this problem at all.

Another key lesson from last year was to only plant one zucchini. I confess that I did plant more than one zucchini seed, and until last week I had two pretty healthy looking, sizable plants. My husband, upon learning this, grabbed a spade and dug one up. My baby! Murderer! After a short period of mourning for the zucchini that never was, I had to concede that it was for the best. I still, despite best efforts, have nine cups of grated zucchini in the freezer from last year’s bumper crop. I also still have friends, although those relationships may become strained if I tried to force zucchini on them like I did last year. I’m leaving these here, no take backs! I actually said at a girl’s movie afternoon last September. I was only steps away from leaving zucchini on people’s doorsteps before Nicki Nicki Nine Dooring myself out of there.

Maybe that could be a thing, but call it Nicole Nicole Nine Door, where a person answers a door only to find a pile of zucchini.

I’m getting ahead of myself, however, as it will be a few months before The Great Zucchini Season begins. In the meantime, my cilantro is coming up strong, which I am also stagger-planting, as I am the only person who eats it. I harvested a little last week to have on my stir-fry, and it was absolutely delicious.

In other garden news, the perennial garden is popping, the irises are irising, and in general everything is very fresh and green right now.

On one of our walk routes is a tree that is hung with dozens of handmade birdhouses, which is truly delightful. I have yet to see a bird in any of those birdhouses, or even in the vicinity of the tree, but no matter. It’s lovely to look at, even birdless. I don’t know the who, why, or how of it, but I enjoy it.

Weekly Reading

This Motherless Land. As mentioned last week, I reread Mansfield Park in preparation for This Motherless Land, as the plot of the latter is taken from the former, and I highly recommend doing that for a really interesting reading experience. This Motherless Land deals with two cousins, one in Nigeria and one in England, who due to tragic circumstances start living together, before another set of tragic circumstances separate them. It’s a story of finding home and belonging, and it contains a few of the most abhorrent, atrocious characters you ever did read. Fortunately for us readers, it all wraps up in a very neat bow, with a series of satisfying coincidences. Where Mansfield Park explores the British class system of the early 1800s, this book explores straight-up racism, which is pretty breathtaking, and not in a good way. It was a solidly satisfying read; I did not love it, but I liked it well enough, which is a lot coming from a person who has a strong tendency to dislike modern retellings of classic books.

Blue Sisters. What I am about to say is absolutely a Me Problem, not a Book Problem. The thing is, I have a very hard time reading about addiction, particularly hard-core drug addiction and alcoholism. I have a very hard time with the details about benders, physical effects, and the psychological behaviours and impacts. I blame Trainspotting for scarring me, back in the Nineties. Anyway, I know this about myself and yet I picked up this book that is about addiction, and wow, it was not for me. I almost DNFed it several times, but pushed on because I have so many friends who have read and loved it. But it was just too much for me. That said, it is well-written and contains a lot of other interesting themes, particularly about pain and how people cope with it, along with trauma, inter-generational and otherwise. So this book might be perfect for you! But it was just awful for me.

On that kind of downer of a note, I hope you all have a beautiful week ahead of you. Maybe with some homegrown salads? Or flowers? Take care of yourselves, friends. xo