Category Archives: Playtime

Tale As Old As Time

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Oooh, the new Beauty and the Beast movie is out! I can’t wait to see it! I say this in theory, in reality it will probably be months before I actually see it. Revised statement: I can’t wait for it to be on Netflix so I can watch it in the comfort of my own home with a glass of wine!

I really loved the original movie, although I was sixteen when it came out. I loved the bookworm, BRUNETTE heroine, I loved the music, I loved the whole story. Although, when you think about it, it is an incredibly bizarre story. Woman saves her father by agreeing to be a prisoner for life in a giant castle filled with kitchenware and various inanimate objects that are somehow alive, woman develops Stockholm Syndrome and falls in love with her captor, who appears to be some kind of buffalo, and her love is enough to transform him from buffalo to heartthrob. Oh, and he’s royalty. Buffalo royalty!

Not to mention there’s a fading rose that is basically the beastly-buffalo version of a female biological clock.

But despite the weirdness of the story – like most fairy tales, I guess, there isn’t really a fairy tale that is not crazy-town-bananapants – I love it. I find it frankly hilarious that there is some kind of uproar about poor, gay LaFou, and his unrequited crush on Gaston. THAT is the controversy, here? I mean, a woman falling in love with an English-speaking buffalo probably counts as bestiality.

All of which reminds me of the winner of the 1976 Governor General’s Literary Award, Bear, by Marian Engel. Known as the most controversial Canadian novel ever, it is a story about a librarian in Northern Ontario who is lonely and ends up in a sexual relationship…with a bear. An actual bear, not a big, hairy man.

“Shocking, erotic.” “The unthinkable.” Well.

On a completely different note, I have had two odd things break lately. The first was my trusty pair of tweezers. I guess that’s not a totally different note; without my tweezers I would be somewhat bear-like in appearance. Certainly in a furry sort of way, anyway. Did you know that tweezers can just stop working? Well, they can. I suppose this is what happens when you cannot even remember how old said tweezers were. I do not even remember purchasing the tweezers; perhaps they just materialized one day, I don’t know. All I know is that I do not remember purchasing tweezers EVER, in my lifetime. Suffice it to say that my tweezers have been with me for a long time, keeping control over my Martin Scorsese eyebrows for decades.

Well, a few weeks ago I went to tweeze my eyebrows and lo, I couldn’t. I kept wondering what was wrong with me. Did I suddenly lose what little hand-eye coordination one needs to tweeze one’s eyebrows? Was I actually drunk at 6:45 in the morning? I didn’t THINK so. Then it occurred to me to try to grab a hair from my head, and I couldn’t. That’s when I knew. RIP tweezers. You lived a long, productive, busy life.

Strangely enough, shortly prior to this I had discovered via Mimi Smartypants that a new technology exists and is for sale in your local drugstore: tweezers equipped with a small UV light for illuminating what you may have thought were invisible hairs. What an age we live in.

I was perusing the tweezer section at Shoppers’ and lo, there was the exact item. Revlon has a UV-light-equipped set of tweezers, and although it was more expensive than I thought a pair of tweezers should be, I purchased it. After all, my old tweezers lasted decades, so I’m guessing that this pair will last a while. I hope, at least.

The problem is that when you shine a UV light on your face to illuminate hairs, it is very disconcerting, to say the least. You will discover all sorts of hirsute horrors. I mentioned this to a friend of mine (HI TARYN) and she wisely suggested that no one in society is walking around shining a UV light on other people’s faces, so we are all probably safe. However, you cannot un-know a thing, such as having a beard’s worth of chin hairs.

The other thing that broke was my ice cream scoop. Again, I have no idea how old my ice cream scoop is, but I likely bought it somewhere around the time I moved out of my parents’ house. Again, this is some time ago. However, I wasn’t even scooping ice cream that was particularly hard; it was a (homemade, god, I love my ice cream maker) vanilla with (homemade) caramel swirl. It was pretty soft, really, and when the scoop ended up in two pieces Jake and I looked at each other with shock. I mean. How does that happen?

I guess I liken it to those stories you hear about people injuring their backs or shoulders or knees doing absolutely normal, non-strenuous activities. I bent over to pick up a shoe and my back went out, or I was walking down the street and suddenly I collapsed in pain. Maybe my poor ice cream scoop had been having issues for years and finally snapped.

If only my life were a Beauty and the Beast kind of situation, with animated kitchen ware. Oh, the stories my appliances and utensils could tell.

Penne for Pi Day

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Happy Pi Day everyone! This year the grade sevens were really learning a lot about pi, and calculating circle area, and discussing how pi is actually calculated and how for every circle – every one! – pi is equal to the circumference divided by the diameter, every time, and isn’t that amazing? It is amazing. My grade seven student was pretty into it so I must say the apple did not fall far from the tree in this case. I don’t mean to brag, but I was known in certain circles as the Conics Goddess when I was in Grade Twelve, because of my conics calculating skills, I casually mentioned to my husband, who responded by saying that was the nerdiest thing he had ever heard in his life. But it’s true! I swear!

Anyway, I’m not making a pie for Pi Day because it’s Tuesday, and who has the time? Also, we are having penne, which is a cylinder of sorts, so that’s how I’m going to celebrate. Penne for Pi Day! It could be a new trend.

I am in a fabulous mood today; the hideous weather finally broke and everything is gloriously melty. Even wiping up Barkley’s constant muddy paw prints cannot bring me down from this cloud. I went to move the garbage bin back to its usual spot today – my life is extremely glamourous – and I noticed tiny green shoots where the yarrow grows wild. Tiny green shoots! What could be more heart-warming than that?

I also got a good, heart-warming laugh out of these pants that my friend Julie (HI JULIE) had posted on Facebook this morning. Although I must add that THIS IS NOT A JOKE, PEOPLE. These pants are available at Nordstrom and are called, hilariously, “Topshop Clear Knee Mom Jeans.” Since when are we using Mom Jeans as advertising? Also, not one mom I know actually wears Mom Jeans, so I’m wondering if this is a new trend with the youth of today, although I can hardly imagine that it is. Guys, let’s wear the least flattering pants ever! Oh, know what would be better than cropped, high-waisted, stone-washed jeans? Cropped, high-waisted, stone-washed jeans with plastic panels in the knees. It’s like ripped jeans, but waterproof if we kneel down in a puddle somewhere.

What do I know, though? Maybe it is a trend with Young People These Days; I am certainly not one of them so I can’t say. I certainly had my own share of unflattering pants back in the day, when everything was high-waisted, belted, and tucked-in. Hugely baggy jeans that were tightly rolled or pinned at the ankles was the big trend when I was in junior high. In fact, everything about junior high was terribly unflattering. It’s almost like someone said Let’s make a style that will cause everyone to look back on it and cringe. Okay, those jeans, giant tucked-in t-shirts, and while we are at it, let’s get all the girls to spiral perm their hair and tease the bangs into free-standing walls. Yes, that should do it. No wait, wait. Let’s add a crimping iron to the mix.

I mean…

You guys, I just realized that those Clear Knee Mom Jeans are $133! That is USD, my friends. That is nearly one hundred and eighty dollars in Canadian funds. Plus shipping! Who is exactly the market, here?

Well, there’s no accounting for taste, as they say. Judge not, says she who had a giant sweatshirt with Garfield’s Zodiac on the front, and wore it often. Judge not.

Sweatin’ to the Oldies

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I was driving home from yoga on Tuesday when I heard on the radio that Southern Alberta is under an extreme cold warning; Calgary is NOT included in this warning. I looked at the dashboard and the temperature read minus 26. What does a city have to do to get an extreme cold warning around here?

It’s already started to warm up, thankfully, and the streets are merely a mess of mushy snow and frozen-over ridges, which is much better than the sheer ice/ snow piles that they were. This morning I decided to wrap up warmly and take Barkley to the dog park since it was minus 15, which is my personal cut-off. I regretted the decision upon arrival but powered through, because this fuzzy little face was so happy.

Who’s a good doggy? Barkley is! Barkley’s a good doggy!

The grade seven gym class, having completed the Dance Unit, with their foray into the Cadillac Ranch and Cotton Eyed Joe line dances, are now in the Cardiovascular Health unit. Yesterday they participated in Tai Bo. Tai Bo! With Billy Blanks! The general consensus was that the video used was “creepy.” Creepy or not, I would have loved to be a fly on the wall to see 12 and 13 year old kids doing Tai Bo.

I do not know how the curriculum is created, but it seems to have a very large Nineties push. I wonder if step aerobics will be next. Oh, how I loved step aerobics. I would probably still love step aerobics, given the chance. I remember going through the group workout schedule in university and being able to attend such classes as Step and Pump, Interval Step, and Boxercise. Those were the days, when I would don my sports bra, shorts, and – inexplicably – ball cap for a workout between actual academic classes.

I just now remembered why I wore a ball cap to work out in. It was because of my extremely layered Rachel haircut; it was impossible to keep the hair out of my face otherwise.

Continuing with the video workouts, perhaps Sweatin’ to the Oldies will have a chance to make a comeback. I earnestly, and without irony, like Richard Simmons. Although for these kids, “The Oldies” could be defined as anything between 1995-2005, songs which often seem to me as “just released.” Maybe he has a “twerking” workout. A twerkout, as it were.

Discovery: the entire collection of Sweatin’ to the Oldies is available on Amazon for $282.53, which seems like a lot, but there is only one left in stock, so I guess Amazon knows what it’s doing.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! Stay warm. xo

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Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl

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This morning I heard Copacabana on the way home from yoga, and it set the tone for my whole day. I have been doing the merengue and the cha-cha all day, humming about yellow feathers in my hair and a dress cut down to there. At least I know all the words to Copacabana, which makes it a little less crazy, unlike the time I had Fancy by Bobby Gentry stuck in my head. I only really knew the words Here’s your one chance, Fancy, don’t let me down so I basically had that on repeat for a few days. I would much rather sing about the hottest spot north of Havana.

My friend and I were walking our dogs and talking about the vast amount of food our sons consume each week. We joked that food preparation, in a house with pre-teen and teenage boys, is the equivalent of a part-time job. Since I have the irritating personality trait of needing to empirically quantify any such claim, I actually started noting down how much time I actually do spend grocery shopping, planning and preparing meals, baking, doing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen. The number of hours I spend doing those things per week was actually astonishing and I wish I hadn’t had the urge to do the math.

For one thing, I realize that this job is just going to get bigger and bigger for several years, and then, when the boys leave home, it is going to be gone, completely GONE, and I am going to be left in my empty kitchen, singing Landslide softly to myself while wondering what to do with all these cookies.

That, right there, is the reason I cannot wish away time, even if every single Tuesday I think to myself What? It’s only Tuesday? I don’t want to wish my life away. It’s already the end of January and life often feels like it’s a cartoon of pages flying off the calendar.

Anyway, with all the awful, terrifying, and disheartening things happening in the world, I am choosing to focus on my own backyard. There are lots of opportunities to make the world a better place, and as I said to my neighbour the other day, efforts that seem small in the grand scheme of things are actually not small at all to the people being helped. It’s a good reminder.

I am also focusing a bit on my literal backyard, because this happened:

 

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We have a huge backyard and when the kids were small they would spend hours out there, playing with Barkley and shooting water guns and running around. They are past that stage now, and I convinced my husband that a trampoline would be the cure for all that ails us.

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It arrived in pieces on Friday and my husband and I spent four hours on Saturday putting it together. FOUR HOURS. It was well worth it though, since it has been fairly mild for the past couple of weeks. We’ve all enjoyed it so much already and I’m looking forward to summer, when our house can become the neighbourhood hangout. I’m sure my kitchen time will increase substantially with a group of teen boys in my backyard, but it will be well worth it.

Be well, friends. xo

If it’s not Scottish it’s crap.

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I have been browsing through a Facebook page for a brand-new, just-opened-in-November, Mexican resort. On the page are the sort of reviews one might expect: terribly bitter complaints about some small bit of incomplete construction or a delay in service on opening week, complaints about having to walk fifty steps from the pool in order to obtain nachos and margaritas, anger over the Teen Club being restricted to 13-17 year-old people when one’s son is 10 and wanted to enter said Teen Club to play video games, and extreme disappointment in the resort upholding a dress code for the fancy restaurants despite said dress code being clearly indicated on the website.

However, this morning I came across this glowing review:

“Our group has experienced many resorts and this is by far the best for me, lots to do…food is great, room service food is good, food at the restaurants is good, top shelf booze, pools are amazing. Put your anxiety and worries away, you’ll love it. If you need anything the brown shirt people will help you with almost anything to make your stay as enjoyable as possible.”

Ah yes, put your anxiety away because the brown shirt people are there.

I feel that this review could have been better worded.

Today was Parent-Teacher Interviews for the junior high, and believe me when I say that there is no injustice faced like that of a grade six student heading off to class with the knowledge that his brother is home for the day. Life, as we all know very well, is not fair. In an attempt to assuage these resentful feelings, I whipped up a batch of cherry muffins, to be eaten warm when the long-suffering sixth grader came home.

Small digression: I have, on many occasions, poked fun at my old copy of the Lutheran Ladies’ Family Favourites, particularly because of their truly astonishing variety of Meat and Macaroni Jello Salads – an actual section in the book – and also their head-tilting casserole recipes, such as Vera’s Wiener Pie. The latter is a melange of cream sauce, a variety of root vegetables, and a package of wieners and a pie crust. It is hard to take a recipe seriously when the main ingredient is a package of wieners, in an unspecified size and quantity. Well, it’s hard to take it seriously when the main ingredient is a package of wieners, period.

But I will tell you this much: when it comes to baked goods, the Lutheran Ladies do NOT fuck around. I have yet to try a muffin, square, slice, cookie, or sweet loaf that has not worked out well. The beleaguered sixth grader had gone through it and marked off every recipe he thought we should try out, and one of those was Cherry Muffins. I was all for it until I read the recipe; it was bizarrely complicated and involved immediate pan inversions. It seemed more like an upside down cake, in muffin form, and so I took Dorothy’s Basic Muffin, added some vanilla and a cup of frozen cherries and voila! Cherry muffins. They have been pronounced “great!” and so my work here is done.

As those of you of Scottish heritage will no doubt know, this Wednesday was Robbie Burns Day. Actually, I forget it every year, and am reminded by my father, who texted me to wish me a Happy Robbie Burns Day. Since I was chaperoning a field trip to the Astrophysics Observatory with fifty-seven fifth-and-sixth graders, which was an interesting and informative trip but sadly involved over ninety minutes on an overheated and stinky school bus, sitting beside a student who had little to no concept of personal space, I did think my dad’s suggestion of a dram of single malt did not seem amiss. However, the day passed mostly unmarked, since I do not actually like Scotch. It tastes like burning.

However, I did consider my Scottish heritage as I was faced with the unmistakable fact that my life has been greatly improved by three small things: a vegetable peeler, garlic press, and spatula. I purchased all three of those things, at the absolutely lowest cost, in the late Nineties, when I moved out of my parents’ house. For the most part, these humble kitchen items were a lesson in You Get What You Pay For, as the blade often popped off of the handle of the vegetable peeler, the garlic press was mediocre at best and the white, probably-carcinogenic enamel had started to chip off, and the spatula? Well, the spatula was fine but after nearly twenty years of use the rubber had cracked, rendering it fairly useless.

My mother, probably at the end of her rope watching me with my substandard equipment, bought me a new peeler and garlic press and people, PEOPLE. The difference is obscene. I feel like a super-fancy lady, peeling even butternut squash with ease and using the reverse-action to get the weird garlic remnants out of the press. It’s the most luxurious thing and I had the sad realization that I could have done this earlier, I could have purchased these items years ago and thus would have been living my best life.

And the spatula? For less than four dollars, I am now living the life of luxury, spatula-wise. Things are scraped out of mixing bowls with ease, the last tiny bits of cashew cheese are easily removed from the Vitamix. I feel like I’ve entered into a new era: my post-crappy-kitchen-utensils era. I am now looking around the kitchen for items that I bought on the cheap for my first apartment and maybe, MAYBE by next Robbie Burns Day I will replace them.

I’m still half-Scottish, you know.

People are people

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A cold snap has hit the city and it’s hit me especially hard since I just got back from a week in Florida on Sunday night. The past day and a half have been an absolute blur of writing, working, yoga teaching, housecleaning, grocery shopping, and laundry. Dear lord, so much laundry. A week in Florida was the longest time I’ve gone without doing laundry, and there was an absolute mountain of it. Today I put the fuzzy flannel sheets on the bed, making for an even six giant loads in the past 36 hours.

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But it was all worthwhile, this thudding back into reality. It was a great vacation which I’ll write about in more detail a little later. I don’t want to forget a thing.

I love travelling and I love coming home; I love meeting people and talking to people and people watching, and then I love coming home to my cozy little house filled with Christmas music and yummy, non-fried food. It’s really interesting, the people you see when you travel far from home. I mean, some people are more interesting than others, like the very drunk man who got escorted out of the Disney resort with no shoes nor shirt, only shorts that he had urinated in. I was outside reading, waiting for the Disney Magical Express to take me to the airport, when I noticed him being held upright between two Disney employees clad in white pants and brightly coloured shirts. It was 1:15 pm and you have to wonder, was he drinking at the Drop-Off Bar at the Big Blue Pool? How does one get that drunk at a Disney resort? Yes, there is a cacophony of children and tinny music, but is that any excuse to pee your pants? Sir, focus on making better choices.

On the other end of the spectrum was the emotional and heartfelt employee at the shop in the Orlando airport. My husband had given the person in front of us a penny (they still have pennies in the States!) so she could receive an even amount of change back, and the employee was so touched by his “generosity” that she discussed it with us for two solid minutes. I don’t mean to take away from his penny, but her gratitude exceeded what I thought was appropriate. Then, while I purchased breath mints and fruity Mentos, she chatted with me for several minutes about my accent (“Are you from Scotland or Ireland?” she asked, and seemed a bit disappointed when I said Canada.), my trip to Disney World, and her impending head cold. Meanwhile, the lineup behind me was increasing rapidly. The next person in line got similar treatment so I think that woman was in her element, working the cash register in the shop where she could meet and chat with people from all over the continent, and maybe even the world.

As a sidebar, I was purchasing breath mints and fruity Mentos as a last resort, as what I really wanted was gum for the flight. But – fun fact – there is no gum for sale in the entire Orlando International Airport. Gum cannot be acquired for love or money. The reason, as I found out from listening in to another conversation that the employee was having, is that there is carpet. Were people spitting their gum onto the carpet? I guess so. It must have been a large enough problem to do away with gum altogether.

All of which is to say that if you’re travelling in that area and you want gum, bring it from home. Just don’t bring any Kinder Surprises, if you know what I’m saying.

Speaking of contraband items, one of my very favourite things about Disney World and Universal Studios is that they really make sure no one is packing heat in the parks. I don’t know about you, but I find that incredibly relieving. Disney does a thorough bag check AND “random” checks with metal detectors. It’s not really random because both my husband and I received those checks on Wednesday night after we were running from the bus to the park entrance, so as to not miss our Fast Pass window. Our Fast Pass for Space Mountain expired at 6:50 and we got to the park at 6:35 so we were sprinting past the scooters and slow-moving foot traffic. Do not do this if you don’t want to seem like a suspect. I was happy to comply, of course. I’d happily go through a physical pat-down if it meant I could enjoy Big Thunder Mountain without worrying that there was a disgruntled/ angry/ unstable armed person around. Universal Studios does not do random checks – everyone goes through the metal detector, just like at the airport.

Another thing about Disney is that they issue “Magic Bands” to wear on your wrist, that can be synced with all your personal information, your phone, your passes, and even your credit card. It’s an incredibly efficient system, but at times it is a little startling. I was in line for Expedition Everest, when one of the signs that they change to keep things interesting flashed “Welcome Nicole!” It was both Big Brother-ish and kind of nice. I mean, it’s nice to be welcomed.

The elderly lady sitting next to me on the plane ride from Calgary was a little worried about not being welcomed in the Orlando airport. Her husband was behind her, a lesson for everyone to just pay the $10 so you can choose your seats, and she kept craning her neck around to shout conversation starters at him, which he did not seem to respond to. I don’t know if she was brand new to flying, or just super excited to get free refreshments, or both, but every time the cart came around she would order three different drinks, a hot one, a cold one, and water. When asked if she wanted cookies or pretzels she said both, every time, and then stashed them in her purse with an expression that showed her joy in scoring such treats at no cost. Throughout the flight she kept shouting to her husband “Three hours left!” and I would look at my watch and see that there was only two hours, but not think much of it.

The pilot announced that we were starting the descent into Orlando, and the lady went OFF. The flight was an hour early! Why was it so early! She checked her ticket and the time was WRONG on the ticket! The time of arrival was supposed to be 4:45 and here it was only 3:15! The airline messed up and now she was going to be waiting for AN HOUR at the airport because no one would be there to meet them! This went on for some time until her husband finally shouted back that it was 4:15 and she must have set her watch wrong when they landed in Calgary.

Oh.

I later saw them at the luggage carousel, happily with people who I assumed they were staying with. It’s nice when things work out like that.

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The Friday before we left, I came home from teacher training to find that the boys and my husband had brought up the tree and ornaments from the basement, so we could decorate before leaving for Florida. It was the best surprise ever, and now my house feels wonderfully Christmassy. We bought a new tree this year, after several years of my husband putting the tree up and saying “We need a new goddamn tree, this one is terrible.” We couldn’t decide on white lights or coloured, and so we found one that has a white light setting, a coloured light setting, and a setting that cycles between the two. I love it so much.

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Oh, what’s that I’m holding? My teacher training certificate! It’s official now, and I’m as happy as can be. Plus, get a load of the tree! It’s gorgeous. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some laundry to fold. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: It’s The Little Things Edition

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We said goodbye to my father-in-law this week. He passed away after a long illness and will be very much missed. To many people he was a larger-than-life character, the life of the party, a legend, but to me he was the man who welcomed me into the family with open arms. He and I spent a lot of time sitting together on the deck, sipping Palm Bay and chatting. Sometimes we would just sit in companionable silence.

So it’s been a sad and stressful few weeks. Have you ever noticed that when you’re having a sad and stressful time, it’s the little things that do you in? Silly things like discovering that the boys’ non-jean-pants were all three inches too short, and that I accidentally put a hole in my brand-new black medical grade support stockings were enough to make me want to curl up in a ball on the floor. It’s funny how the little things can get you down when there is a world of much bigger things going on.

But just like little things can get you down, little things can also lift you up, and so I’m concentrating on all the happy, joyful, and ridiculous things that are going on in my world, right now.

How Much Are The Posters

It feels like a lifetime ago, but the Book Fair was just last week and we raised $3600 for the school library, as well as the ELL and home reading programs. Even more notably, the New Book Fair Lady did it all herself – I only had to work a couple of shifts and count money – and she did a fabulous job (HI HAYDEE). This is my second last book fair, and, happily for me, the shifts I worked were extremely poster heavy. It seemed everyone wanted a poster, but more importantly, they wanted to know how much were the posters. Haydee had put up signs all around and yet I was asked the question an incredible amount of times. Perhaps Scholastic has been reading this blog, because they sent three times as many posters as they normally do, and so not only was I asked was the kitten poster five dollars too, what about the one with doughnuts on it, and the one with Rey from Star Wars, was that five dollars too, I also had to search through three giant boxes to find the appropriate one. Not that I’m complaining. I’m going to miss those questions one day. Maybe.

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Notice the slightly passive-aggressive wording – “EACH!” – at the bottom. Yes, each. Each poster is, in fact, five dollars.

 

A Celebration of Superior Workmanship

My friend Lynn (HI LYNN) wrote a post wondering if shopping at Costco does indeed save you money, and oh, Lynn. How much time do we have? Not enough. In short, I shall direct you to my post from nearly three years ago, The Stages of Costco, which is something all of us membership holders need to go through. I STILL have the plastic wrap I refer to in that post from January 2014.

But what I really wanted to talk about was the fellow who packed my cart, the last time I was there. In the spirit of there are no small parts, only small actors, I appreciate very much when someone puts their all into their job, no matter what that job might be. And so I say bravo to the Costco employee who packed my cart in such an amazingly efficient way that I not only complimented him on a job well done, but also pointed it out to the elderly fellow who checked my bill upon leaving. Longtime readers might be amused to know that the bill-checker at the door was the same one who flirts with me by saying that redheads are his favourite, and he loves my smile. Aw. Flirting with elderly men while shopping for groceries is my favourite too!

Look at this cart! It’s a thing of beauty. Well done, sir. Well done.

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Sailors Take Warning

This time of year can be a wee bit depressing, what with the sun setting at 4:30 in the afternoon and not rising until after eight in the morning. But occasionally the sunrise will make up for it all. Now, even in the midst of summer I am up before the sunrise, but there’s something about the cold winter morning sunrise. The other day the entire world was bathed in pink – sidewalks, frosty lawn, it was all pink.

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Do I Need A Title?

I have been very very good about not buying myself anything since Kondo-ing my house, but I am still of the old-school people who use paper agendas, daytimers, and calendars. While I was Christmas shopping a few weeks ago, I saw this and decided I needed it to hang by my desk for 2017.

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We learn from the horses, people. Strength does NOT come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. Let us all learn from the yogi horses.

Usually I have a Canadian landscape calendar by my desk, but that was before I knew about Horse Yoga.

Get Your Asana In Gear

I am a mere 36 hours away from becoming a Registered Yoga Teacher, and to celebrate, my husband bought me two t-shirts. I wore this one to Yoga for Stroke Survivors yesterday, a class my friend Sharyl (HI SHARYL) has been teaching, and that she has graciously allowed me to assist with.

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Honestly, it is my New Favourite Shirt Of All Time.

New Toothpaste (Not An Ad Nor Sponsored)

You know what’s ballsy? Buying toothpaste at Costco. Well, let me rephrase that: buying NEW, UNTRIED toothpaste at Costco. It’s a real commitment; you could find yourself brushing your teeth for the next four months with sub-par toothpaste. I have done that before, suffered through a toothpaste flavour I abhorred just because I had four tubes to work my way through. Thinking of it now, I should have just donated to the drop-in centre or food bank, but hindsight is 20/20 people. Anyway, I usually buy a four pack of Crest 3D Whitening, because coffee, but I rolled the dice and purchased this:

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It is like having my teeth massaged by minty fairies. It’s like having a haven of freshness and white teeth and unicorns and happiness, all in one little tube. I mean, do these look like the teeth of someone who regularly drinks 8 cups of coffee each morning, plus red wine on the weekends?

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Ah, it’s the little things. I have also been trying out a new eye cream, but that is a whole other post. For now, I’d like to know what little things make YOU happy? Tell me everything. xoxo