Category Archives: Playtime

Festivus, But Without Grievances

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So, an anti-Festivus?

One week ago today I finished the second draft of my novel. It was my goal in 2024 to write one draft, and now I have finished two, right in time to enjoy the holidays and a break before my revising and editing course starts in January. To say I’m pleased with myself would be an understatement. It’s something I’ve wanted to do my entire life, write a book, and I did it! My goal in 2025 will be to have a manuscript that I feel comfortable sharing with beta readers, so stay tuned.

In my recent Ask Me Anything, which is still open should you have any burning questions, Pearl (HI PEARL) asked What is the book you’re working on about? In its current evolution, it’s a story about a single mother in her fifties who becomes involved with a widower. Her ex-husband delivers some surprising news that affects their daughter, and our protagonist finds herself navigating a new kind of life.

Years ago when I was in yoga teacher training, I was talking to my friend Jo (HI JO), who was a very established teacher at the time. We were talking about teaching yin and she said something that stayed with me: If you want to teach yin, you really need to have a yin practice. Jo and I were and are both Ashtanga practitioners, and I took that to heart, teaching what I knew.

When I first set out to write this book, I had in mind a romance, but for middle-aged people. The thing is, though, romance comprises only about a tenth of what I read. To paraphrase Jo, If you want to write romance, you really need to read romance, and in that vein I would say my novel veers toward a character-driven literary fiction. I wanted to write the book I would want to read, and I am doing that.

Engie (HI ENGIE) asked What is the best year of your life? As you know, I suffer from recency bias, but I really do think that 2024 was one of the best years in my life, particularly coming on the heels of 2023, which was an absolutely crazy year of wild change and upheaval. I have had many wonderful years in my life, absolutely, but this past year was filled with travel and gardening, friends and family. My sons are both doing well and are establishing themselves, my husband is so relaxed and settled into retirement, everyone is in good health, I have a beautiful home and garden, and I wrote a book! Life is uncertain and things can change on a dime at this stage of the game, so I am living in the present and feeling gratitude for all these incredible gifts.

Another incredible gift in my life is, of course, Rex. When our beloved Barkley died in June 2022, I was extremely vocal about Never Again Having A Dog. Never! My older son gently said to me But Mom, we are a dog family, but no, I said. No no no. Well, we all know how that turned out, when Rex arrived to our home in October of that same year. Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH) asked Did Rex come to you named Rex? and the answer is yes. His full name is Tyrannosaurus Rex Stegosaurus, which should tell you a little bit about his original family. I would like to go on the record to reiterate that Rex was NOT a rescue dog. We were chosen by his original family – speaking of gifts, that one was massive – who were incredibly loving and caring but who could no longer keep him. He was a year and a half, and perfectly trained and already full-grown, and some days I cannot even believe my luck that we were chosen to be his family.

Engie (HI ENGIE AGAIN) also asked What’s the best thing about having a dog? I read in a book recently that getting a puppy is a one-way ticket to eventual heartbreak, and while that is technically true, the absolute joy of having a dog far outweighs that. There are so many wonderful things about having a dog, but the best is probably the feeling of love and joy that emanates from them. Dogs are so in the moment, they miss you the second that you are gone and are so happy the second you come back, even if you were just in the shower. They are just happy to go somewhere, as long as they go with you. We are just not worthy of dogs, honestly, they are such incredible creatures and I for one feel so lucky to have not one but two fuzzy balls of love in my life.

Of course one of the best things about having a dog is walking them, although I will say that while I adored and loved my sweet fuzzy Barkley to the moon and back, walking with him wasn’t exactly a joy, even when he was young. He had a terrible tendency to eat tissues that had been dropped on the sidewalk, and as an aside, do you have any idea how many tissues are dropped on a sidewalk in a semi-inner-city neighbourhood? It’s a lot. He knew that tissues were the only thing I wouldn’t remove from his mouth because god, how gross. From the time he was a puppy until the day before he died, I would have to be on the lookout for tissues and redirect him before he snapped them up and ate them, and I was only successful maybe half the time.

While I’m on the topic, once I was walking with him as a puppy – and the boys were little enough to be in the Chariot stroller, this is how long ago it was – and he snarfed up a CONDOM that was on the sidewalk. A condom. I had terrors as to what would happen if he actually swallowed it, because certainly it would be injurious to his little digestive system, and imagine having to tell people that your dog died because he ate a condom. So there I was prying a condom out of my puppy’s mouth while the little boys asked mama whatcha doin wif Barkley’s mouf and I was praying, friends, I was PRAYING that the condom was just used in a silly way by neighbourhood kids, like blowing it up as a balloon, and not for its intended use. I am pretty sure I used up an entire bottle of hand sanitizer after I fished it out of his mouth, as well as a year or two off my lifespan.

I was thinking about this when Michelle (HI MICHELLE) asked her question: I know you go out walking a lot, and I wonder if you’ve ever found anything interesting or strange that was dropped on the side of the road? Well, Michelle, how’s that for an answer? A condom on a busy sidewalk near the elementary school. Oh wait, I just horrified myself anew on a number of levels.

We did come across a dead coyote a couple of weeks ago, but I’m not sure if that counts as “interesting” or “strange” or even “dropped.”

One thing that I always find interesting is when there is a single shoe, which reminds me of a story of long ago. When I was in university, my friends and I were at an on-campus bar listening to live music, and one of my friends had brought her boyfriend, an incredibly nice but dull-witted fellow. The dance floor soon turned morphed into a mosh pit, and shortly after that the extremely inebriated boyfriend stumbled over to us, missing a shoe. Eventually we had to leave, with our one-shoed fellow, but before that I needed to stop in the Economics Society office to pick something up. I was the Economics Society president, hashtag bragging, and while I was in the office our Shoeless Joe drew all over the white board: a number of single shoes, with the caption “Have You Seen Me?”

Since that day, anytime I see a single shoe abandoned on the sidewalk, I think of him, walking home with one shoe on that snowy winter night.

Weekly Reading

The Wedding People. From start to finish, this book was an absolute delight. It was just perfect! It was so smart, and so funny, and so uplifting and life-affirming and heart-warming. The premise sounds a bit off: a woman heads to a hotel to kill herself, and finds that there is a six-day wedding going on at said hotel, and she is the only one there who is not part of the festivities. Themes of friendship, support, and happiness are interspersed with true humour and excellent Mrs Dalloway references. The backdrop is post-Covid, and there are some really interesting thoughts about the pandemic and what it did to all of us, and our relationships. A quote that really hit me: ‘”But life is strange, always thinking this one thing is going to make you happy, because then you get it, and then maybe you’re not as happy as you imagined you would be, because every day is still just every day. Like the happiness becomes so big, you have no choice but to live inside of it, until you can no longer see it or feel it. and so you start to fixate on something else – you want a child, and then the child is here, and that happiness is so big it begins to feel like nothing. Like just the air around you.” Until it is gone, of course.’

The Plot. There is an Alice Munro story called “Family Furnishings,” in which a writer takes details from a relative’s life and creates a story from it. It addresses the question about who can tell a person’s story. I think that most fiction writers take details and experiences from their own lives and the lives around them, and create from them new stories. I was thinking about that Munro story when I was reading The Plot. To whom does a plot belong? This book follows a washed-up writer who is a teacher at a writing residency; one of his students tells him the plot of a book he’s writing, and the plot has an incredible twist. A few years later, he finds out that the student had died without writing the book. So what’s a writer to do? He uses the plot to create a book that becomes a bestseller, optioned for a movie, etc. But, like the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart, he starts to unravel when the heartbeat he hears is a troll on twitter, accusing him of plagiarism. It’s an interesting premise for sure but after a slow start I guessed the twists and could see the “surprise” ending coming, and I found the last couple of chapters terribly explain-y. Still, a solidly diverting read. 

Piglet. This book is brilliant from a literary point of view, but whoa, is it ever uncomfortable to read. I think it needs to be interpreted symbolically, as in a woman wanting more, more, more, and never being really satisfied. Of course this is shown as excessive eating, and I will say the food descriptions are Off The Hook. If you, like me, enjoy a good food description, hold onto your hats. Or forks. It’s a very moving story about a woman from humble beginnings whose wealthy fiance tells her about a terrible betrayal by him, only two weeks before their wedding. In case you, like me, find yourself reading this and thinking that you missed something, no, you didn’t. The betrayal is never revealed to the reader, which is a Real Literary Choice. You know that couples therapy scene in Old School, where Frank is talking about fantasizing about a waitress’ panties? “Probably they’re just plain white cotton. But then I thought, what if it’s lace? What if it’s a thong? What if it’s something really cool I don’t even know about?” The Betrayal is like that. Probably it’s just adultery. But what if it’s something really cool we don’t even know about?

Santa Claus Is Going To Town On Me. Well, you knew this was coming. Heh. Of course I couldn’t let the holiday season pass me by without reading this, after it was mentioned by Bad on Paper. I mean, it’s basically porn, but with Santa. If you have ever wondered what Santa’s dick looks like, this is the book for you! You may be saying to yourself, omg Nicole, of course I haven’t wondered that, NO ONE NORMAL has wondered that, and that is probably true as I myself never thought about Santa in any kind of sexual way before reading this. But what has been seen cannot be unseen, friends. I can never think of Santa in the same way again (tinsel-like pubic hair). To paraphrase Jessica from Drinks With Broads, STOP MAKING SEXY SANTA A THING, HE SHOULD BE COZY. Anyway, the whole thing took me maybe 45 minutes to read and I discovered that a) Mrs Claus is dead, b) Sexy Santa prefers to be called Claus and is maybe Finnish, c) he doesn’t live on the North Pole but instead in some other planet, and d) he has no elves, Sexy Santa is a Lone Wolf. It’s a lot more plot than you might expect from Santa porn, honestly. Quote that sums up the entire book: “I’ve always hated Christmas, but this year will be different, because this year, I’m going to fuck Santa Claus.”

On that very unsettling note, I should end this very long post, which will be my last one until the annual Year in Review. Wishing you all a very happy holiday season! Your readership is a gift to me, and one that I cherish. xo

Six Wildly Random, Semi-Related Things

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Gnot Cool. I enjoy the podcast Decoder Ring, and this past week they had an episode about The History of Lawn Ornaments, and the first half of it was about garden gnomes. I am here for this content! Earlier, CCR (HI CCR) sent me this article about a group IN KELOWNA called the Gnome Restoration Society. At first I was charmed by this idea, then I read it closely and realized that the society TOOK a man’s gnomes, repainted them, and returned them. Doesn’t that feel a bit presumptuous? If I looked out my window one morning and my gnomes were gone, I would be absolutely furious, and/or depressed. Then to return them, all repainted? Keep your hands off Salvadore, Gnome Restoration Society!

What Could It Be? At least twice a day I think about an interview I heard months ago of a woman who is in an open marriage and wrote a book about it; it was one of the wildest, and kind of saddest, things I have ever heard. During the interview she spoke about her husband; she said there was one thing that she would NOT do, sexually speaking, that her husband wanted her to do, and so he enjoyed his part of the open marriage with someone who would do it. My question is, what could this possibly be? She had already talked about her enthusiasm for the following: three-ways and multiple partners at a time, pansexuality, oral, anal, BDSM, spanking, sex toys, dressing up, being tied up, tying her husband up, pornography, filming and being filmed. What else is there? The reason I think of this at least twice a day is that the product that she recommended for the listeners is a waterproof, wipeable dog blanket that is used to cover furniture to protect it from muddy paws, dog hair, and the like. She, however, does not have a dog. She uses it as her sex blanket. I mean. Okay? I guess there are a lot of fluids involved for her, maybe more than I generally think there are. Anyway, I guess I was influenced, not for a sex blanket, but for my actual dog, and not for furniture, but for my car. I found something that covers the back seat and keeps it clean because wow, Rex is pretty dirty after our walks, particularly now that he cools his paws in the creek and then walks on the dirty, sandy paths. But seriously. WHAT ELSE IS THERE?

Hitting The Floor. Listen, it’s not his fault. Rex has giant furry paws and he cannot help being so filthy. Well, it’s partly his fault, because when I’m gardening he rolls down the bank beside the garden, over and over, and that bank is not watered, so he ends up constantly covered in dead grass, which ends up all over the house. This is in addition to all the dirt and sand that gradually falls out of his paws during the day post-walking; well, I feel like I could hire someone to vacuum five times a day every day, and that might keep our floors clean. MIGHT. As it is we are all constantly grabbing the vacuum or broom in a vain attempt to keep from being ankle-deep in filth. We have a very clean and tidy, organized house with the exception of our floors. Our Roombas just are no match for this, we have to do it manually. Well, I remember when Barkley died and the floors were clean; I don’t want that trade-off, so I guess we will all just keep cleaning in the hopes that the floors wills stay clean for more than 30 minutes.

Attack of the Killer Squash. I have never grown a pumpkin before and the plant is literally taking over the garden. Every single day it’s extended its tendrils a little further, and has a few more flowers and tiny tiny pumpkins on its extensive greenery, and I know what I should do is trim it down, but I don’t want to. I want to see what happens. Also, I’m not Almanzo Wilder here, I am not going to start feeding a pumpkin milk so I can win the blue ribbon at the county fair; if I end up with dozens of tiny pumpkins, well, it will be perfect for the upcoming Decorative Gourd Season.

My zucchinis and butternut squash plants are massive as well; all of these were grown from seed and they seem to be in a battle with the pumpkin.

Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma. It was serendipitous timing that this book came up on my library holds, because there has been a very upsetting revelation recently with regards to someone I deeply admire. If you know me at all, you can probably guess to whom I am referring, but please, I beg of you – I AM ACTUALLY BEGGING, FRIENDS – do not broach the subject with me. I do not want to discuss it, not now, and possibly not ever. But I did find this book extremely helpful for me to process my very complex, very private feelings, as it deals with separating art from artists. Can we separate the art from the artist? If we can, should we? It’s a very nuanced and thoughtful book, the thesis of which is that there is no one answer, and every individual person’s history will inform their reaction to such behaviour, which feels like an obvious conclusion, and yet it was one I appreciated. The author is a memoirist, and can’t seem to help herself – this nonfiction book took a memoir turn in the latter third. I wasn’t surprised to see that the examples of women who were “monstrous” were those who sacrificed their maternal and familial duties for their art, as she drew parallels with her own life, which, okay? In terms of the book, that seemed like a real choice, particularly since the examples of men were true examples of monstrous behaviour: rape, violence, pedophilia. Perhaps the author is making a statement on how men and women are viewed in general by society, and how judged women are for things like not paying enough attention to their children, and how venerated men are for being manly geniuses, who cares if they are violent, mean, and abusive – Picasso and Hemingway are two main examples. It is sad, of course, that Sylvia Plath neglected her children and then killed herself, but that does not seem to be even close to being on par with, say, the actions of Bill Cosby. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s the whole point. Anyway, this book was well worth the read, for me, and gave me a lot of things to think about.

It’s Belle. I had one of those magical Costco trips, wherein I entered the store to complete chaos: lineups snaking down the store, aisles crammed with people waiting for samples, an inability to get from one aisle to the other without cart road rage, until I finished shopping, at which point there were no lineups at all. I sailed over to the checkout and the fellow who was boxing up my groceries said, in the most genial way, “Hi! Who’s your favourite Disney character?” It reminded me of an interview I heard recently where a woman talked about her hatred for small talk and social niceties like asking how are you? This should, in the mind of the interviewee, be abolished. It is useless, she said, and she related a story about how she used to hang up on and threaten to break up with the man she eventually married, until he stopped asking her how she was. It struck me as terribly pretentious and also, we live in a society? Asking other people about themselves, even in the most banal of ways, shows that you are not a narcissistic asshole? However, I will concede that there is only one real answer when a stranger asks how are you, whereas there are many answers to what’s your favourite Disney character, so I think this guy might be on to something. After all, he would probably see thousands of people a day. I related this to my husband later, and he wondered if it was only Disney movies, or if the entire Disney universe is included – Star Wars, Marvel, Muppets – in which case I might have to amend my initial response to include Miss Piggy.

Take a Break! Run Away With Me For The Summer. It’s time for my Summer Blog Break! Take care of yourselves, friends, and I will see you in a couple of weeks. xo

What Have I Become?

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One thing I didn’t realize would happen, with a retired husband and children no longer in the public school system, is that long weekends don’t really register for me anymore. Every weekend is a long weekend, therefore no weekend is a long weekend.

This is not to say that the Canada Day weekend was really affected by the school system, but since the school year finishes at the end of June, July 1 always felt like the big start to summer. We have a young houseguest – our dear friends’ son, who is himself a very good friend of my sons’, particularly my oldest, with whom he shares a birthday – and when my son mentioned he was coming, I thought oh yeah, I guess that IS a long weekend.

Personally, living in this beautiful climate, I feel like summer started weeks ago, so this holiday feels like a bit of a non-event. Interestingly, though, since Kelowna is very much a tourist town, I have noticed things like increased traffic and a lot more beach-themed items for sale in shops and stores. My new favourite bookshop was displaying all the beach reads, Ogopogo stuffies, and such items that are beloved by tourists, like a new cookbook written by my husband’s family friend, which pairs wines from the Burrowing Owl winery with menus using seasonal, local produce.

Speaking of which, I am still working my way through Julie’s cake cookbook, and this weekend, in honour of our guest I decided to make chocolate stout cake, with the single Guinness I had left in the fridge. I had more, but my son and our guest decided on Friday night to make stout floats using some of the homemade ice cream in the freezer. We didn’t have vanilla, so they improvised with mint and reported that it wasn’t very good. You don’t say? Mint and Guinness are NOT a winning combination? Colour me surprised. Well, the cake WAS very good, although it completely sunk in the middle. I did wonder why Julie had indicated that the batter was to be divided between two loaf pans; I thought that sounds silly, I’ll just pour it into an 8×8. Joke’s on me. Well, it tasted great, even if I flipped it over to hide the sunken middle.

As everyone who knows me even marginally knows, I love being outside. In good weather, particularly summer, I have low-level feelings of resentment for every moment I spend indoors. I think this is partly due to living almost my whole life in Calgary; if the weather is good, you had better enjoy it, because it could abruptly end at any moment. Any time the weather is nice, I just want to spend all my time outside.

At night, though, I like a bed, and walls, and the incredible modern inventions of running water and flush toilets, and so I am not a person who has incorporated camping into my life. Imagine telling our foremothers that, instead of hauling water from a well or creek and then heating it painstakingly on the stove, which has been fueled with wood chopped by hand, just so someone could take a stab at being some semblance of clean, that we have clean water at our fingertips, and not only that, we can choose the temperature? Imagine how exciting that would be for them, and then imagine telling them that we shall eschew this modern miracle to go hang out in the woods and be swarmed by mosquitoes at every turn?

So my stance on camping has historically been a negative one, but my husband found a loophole in my “bed, walls, toilet, and running water” argument by purchasing a camper. I am sure he’d love it if I said “our camper” but really, it’s HIS camper. I’ve been very pleased that he has used it with the boys, and was a bit startled to be asked to go with him and meet up with another couple this past Friday.

My first instinct was to Shut This Shit Down, but after a calming meditation, I realized that a) this was not in keeping with my current Live Your Life With Arms Wide Open mantra, b) the other couple was being really kind and welcoming, and were proposing so many accommodations and fun activities for me, c) sometimes marital harmony is preserved through compromise, and d) it was only for one night.

And you know what, friends, it was actually pretty fun! My friend brought an extra kayak and lifejacket for me, knowing that would be something I would love, my husband packed lots of wine and coolers, and my friend’s husband brought an entire cake and encouraged me to eat two pieces. I felt like the subject of Tonight’s The Night, but in a non-sexual way; like I was a terrified virgin who needed smooth jazz, soft words, and some wine to get things going.

Several of my camping friends, on hearing the news, congratulated me enthusiastically, saying that I would love my new life as a Happy Camper. I would not go so far as that; I cannot with any honesty use the word “love” and “camping” in the same sentence, but it was pretty fun. I did love the kayaking and the walks the girls did with the dogs while the guys went fishing, I did love the cake and the wine and sitting by the fire until I was overcome with mosquito bites.

The happy result as far as my husband is concerned is that I have agreed to go annually, on my one night only condition. I know! What have I become? Someone who is dousing themselves in witch hazel, that’s what.

Weekly Reading

One Star Romance. I expected this enemies-to-lovers book about a man who rates a woman’s debut novel one star, and then the two of them find themselves as best man and maid of honour at their friends’ wedding, to be a light and fluffy read. It was not! It was so much more involved: it is a romance, for sure, but it’s also a book about friendship and family and growing up. I really liked it! It definitely took me by surprise, it’s a very clever and thoughtful book with some great character arcs.

1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide To Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive Year Round. I heard this woman being interviewed on a podcast; she created the 1000 Words of Summer, which is a motivational group for writers. The key is to write 1000 words a day for two weeks in the summer. This was intriguing to me because 1000 words a day, four to five days a week was exactly how I wrote my first draft. This book is about the craft of writing, but is mostly meant to be motivational and inspirational, including short essays from a number of very accomplished authors.

What did I just say? First draft? I had a goal, very quietly kept close to my chest, of writing a first draft of a novel in 2024, and on June 5, I completed that goal! I finished the reread last week and am preparing for the second draft now. I will have much more to say about it, I’m sure, in the coming weeks.

Happy Canada Day, friends! Here’s to July! I hope you all have a beautiful week. xo

Sassy, Sea Breeze, Stationary, Smoking

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This week I read, and was completely absorbed by, a book that was set in 1998, and I think that is the reason I have been awash in nostalgia. I don’t know what you were doing in 1998, but I was in grad school, taking step aerobics classes, and crushing it during Name That Tune night at the graduate students’ lounge.

I was so good at that game back then, and I could still crush it now, probably, provided all the tunes would be pre-Y2K (remember Y2K?). Disco? I can get down on it. 1970s folk or classic or mellow rock? Take it easy. Anything with a synthesizer, guitar riff, or drum solo? Yes. Grunge, country, pop, rap, techno beats? I can name it all. But I’m pretty hit and miss once we get into the 2000s, and I’m much more miss than hit when it comes to anything at all from the past decade; unless it was featured on the Peloton, I probably haven’t heard it.

There is a Peloton instructor who frequently teaches 80s themed rides, in which she always says that she admires us Gen Xers, who left the house with only “keys and a dream.” It’s true; if you wanted to meet someone at a bar, you just had to use your home phone to call their home phone, and then hope for the best. You had to look up places on a map, and if someone failed to meet up with you, then they failed to meet up with you, and that was the end of the story. You might find out later what happened, or you might not, but in any case, there was no way at all to track down a person. Or hardly any way. I remember when I worked as a waitress, sometimes I would get a phone call for a person desperate to get a message across to another person who was ostensibly in the restaurant, waiting. I would walk through the restaurant, looking for a person of the description provided for me. Are you Cheryl? You are? Dave’s going to be late.

In 1998, I had had an email address for about a year, and mostly I was the recipient of really stupid jokes, chain letters, or erroneous information about how antiperspirants caused cancer. It’s not unlike social media, to be totally honest. I did use it in a pen pal kind of way, though, to keep in touch with people who had moved away.

I still use email in this way for my former yoga students; one octogenarian lady in particular sends me very long emails about my old classes and all the people in them, and I send her long emails back about my life now. There are gaps of a week or more between our emails, which makes it feel like those long-gone pen pal days; she even starts every email with “thank you for your long letter,” which I love.

I was always a person who had a lot of pretty stationary and a lot of pen pals; I would write to my cousin Nikki in California (HI NIKKI), and most of these letters were about boys we liked and our summer vacations. I wrote to all my camp friends; if there is anything more intense and bonding than a week of summer camp when you’re thirteen, I don’t know what it is. I kept up that correspondence for years, even if I never saw that person again.

It reminded me a lot of something I heard about on a podcast recently, about what the hosts called “Little While Friends,” people you have an experience with or are friends with for just a little while, but you end up having them on your social media forever. Around 2010 or so, any time I met someone new, I would end up adding them as a friend on Facebook, which means that a solid percentage of my Facebook feed is made up of people I barely know, but I feel like I know, because I have experienced their entire life journeys over the years. I know about their kids, and their divorces, and their remarriages, and an alarming amount about their dietary and fitness odysseys.

That said, I do love Facebook, there’s no better way to keep in touch with people from my past and present, people who I feel warmly about simply because we have shared life experiences. Some of those life experiences are less savoury than others, but they are what makes us who we are.

My friend Jen (HI JEN) sent me that photo, circa 1992, which made me think of a meme I saw lately, about our high school signature scents: mine was cigarettes and Vanilla Fields perfume. I haven’t smoked anything in well over three decades, and I feel low-level shame that I ever smoked at all, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who carried perfume and mints after hanging out at the smoke doors at school. Isn’t it crazy that there WERE smoke doors?

Does anyone else remember butane curling irons? It says a lot that we didn’t accidentally light ourselves on fire, with all the smoking and excessive hairspray that was necessary for those weird hairstyles of that time. And beyond that, some of us were bringing butane curling irons to school – not me, but I coveted one. I had to make do with scrunching my hair in the girls’ washroom and spraying it with Aussie Sprunch Spray, then setting it with Salon Selectives. Given that I always had a lighter with me, it’s incredible I didn’t just combust right there. It’s probably good that I never had a butane curling iron.

I just discovered, upon googling, that butane curling irons are still in existence!

One thing that I wish was still in existence, or, at least, that I had kept some of my copies, is Sassy magazine. Sassy was, and remains, the best magazine for teen girls, because it treated them like actual intelligent humans. One of the most impactful articles I ever read in my young life was the one that they put out to explain the Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm, an event that, naturally, caused me much stress and anxiety. This article detailed the war from all viewpoints, including the Iraqi people and, separately, Saddam Hussein. It was the first time I had ever read anything that showed anything other than a North American point of view, and it was absolutely eye-opening and formative, and made me realize that things were not always black and white, and that what I read in our media was not always the whole story.

In addition to increasing my information about the world around me, Sassy was instrumental in the creation of my skin care and beauty routines. Unfortunately, the girls of the 80s and 90s were sadly misled. Much has been said about the “Sephora Teens” of today, with their Drunk Elephant products and their anti-aging serum usage at age 17, but I think they have the right idea. After all, where they are moisturizing and pampering, we were scouring our poor faces with St. Ives Apricot Scrub, followed by the sting of Sea Breeze astringent; it’s no wonder we were plagued with acne and redness. Suz (HI SUZ) reminded me of that weird little product, the Buf Puf, which we used for EXTRA exfoliation, and we should all be in awe that we didn’t erase our faces altogether. Maybe this was the precursor to today’s Instagram filters, where girls and women filter so much that facial features become obliterated. We were just trying to obliterate our faces physically, rather than digitally. Or maybe that was what we were doing with those deep cleansing mud masks that would dry and crack on our dear little faces, leaving trails of whitish dust in our wake.

Weekly Reading

My Last Innocent Year. Wow, wow, WOW! I loved this book so much, I don’t even know where to begin. It is an exquisitely but sparsely written novel about a young woman in her senior year of college who enters into a relationship with a visiting professor. Tale as old as time, right? WRONG. This was just so well done, and so real, that I did something I haven’t done since I read (and loved) Girls They Write Songs About: I slowed down the last few chapters because I didn’t want it to be over. It’s set in 1998, which, coincidentally, is when I was in grad school, and so this book gave me all the nostalgic feelings. It was just so resonant of a time in my life which was brief, but felt like an age, when it was all about small classes and big camaraderie, hard work and thesis writing, and also parties and romantic interludes, when we all were on a first-name basis with all our professors and knew a lot about their personal lives, which seems wild now. This book, though. The time period details are spot on. 1998 was also when Monica Lewinsky was in the news, which I have a lot to say about, but I will keep it to this quote from the book: “Monica had become every girl’s worst nightmare, the equivalent of having your seventh-grade diary read over the school loudspeaker or walking into class with a period stain on your pants. We identified with her, which should have made us kinder but instead made us mean.” This book resonated with me so much and made me wonder about paths not taken; every single character is so well developed and complex. I wish I could go back in time before I had read it, so I could have the pleasure of reading it again for the first time. This will be a reread for me in the future, I am sure.

The Women In The Castle. When I first read this book in 2018, I really enjoyed it and found it incredibly thought-provoking in terms of divisiveness between people in society. I don’t know if you remember 2018, but it was KIND of a divisive time? I saw this at the library (in large print, no less!) and thought I could do with a reread. After all, since my first reading we went through a pandemic, which has to be THE most divisive time in my memory, and also, here we are, deep sigh. I will say I enjoyed this book as much or even more than before, maybe because I knew what was coming. I will also say that, generally speaking, I think historical fiction is one of the hardest types of book to get right: the language and dialogue is tricky, and it’s often overwhelmingly difficult not to insert modern sensibilities into the past. BUT this book does an excellent job on both fronts – it can be a little “explainy” at times, but I think it’s really well done. It’s about three German women and their families who come together right at the end of WWII, through the efforts of Marianne, the widow of a member of the German Resistance. She brings in the other two women, both ostensibly widows of the Resistance, to help care for them and their families. This book really shows how people can contain multitudes, how complex humans and society can be, how people can get swept up and find themselves in places they cannot fathom, and, most of all, how interconnected we all are, and how we are all responsible for one another.

Well, it’s been a fun trip down memory lane this week; this week is going to be full of lovely things like a trip to the garden centre, lots of writing, and, most exciting, not one but two events with my lovely girlfriends. I hope you all have a beautiful week ahead of you. xo

Various Views on Vegas

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Fly High Free Bird

The soul-crushing airline industry has completely ruined my idea of what is normal and what is not. To me, flight departure and arrival times are completely nebulous, an approximation at best. I just assume that no flight will ever take off or arrive on time, ever, which is why I will do almost anything to avoid flight connections. So you can imagine my surprise when not only did our flight to Vegas was on time, but so was our flight home. We arrived home at 4:00 pm, which meant that I could pick Rex up from the boarder’s, rather than waiting until the next day. “Our flight got in early!” I excitedly said to the woman at the boarder’s, and my husband reminded me that no, it wasn’t, but it was on time. I guess I just assumed 4:00 could mean anything from 5:00 to midnight.

We had booked these flights before I became incredibly spoiled by our recent, premium seat flight to Mexico, but we did have the exit row, which is quite comfortable for me and my swollen, badly circulated, here-are-the-warning-signs-for-blood clots legs. On the way there I was seated beside a lovely Australian woman who had been rerouted to Vegas in the strangest way: she was heading for Calgary, where she would connect to go on to Houston, but as she was driving to the airport she was notified that her Calgary flight was delayed for over ninety minutes, and she would miss her connection. Back in the day there were many flights from Calgary to Houston, but apparently not anymore, and so she was flying to Vegas, of all redirections, and then getting an evening flight on a different airline to Houston. It sounded exhausting and reinforced my deep distrust of airline connections.

On discovering that the woman was from Australia, the fellow in the window seat struck up a conversation, and continued the conversation for the entire three hour flight. I was in the happy position of being in the aisle seat, so I could eavesdrop easily but I could also just read my book. The conversation almost entirely consisted of his recounting of The Times He Got Drunk In Australia, along with one horrifying description of the Time He Tried To Barbeque Kangaroo Meat.

I had a brief conversation with this young gentleman when he arrived to his seat, and that conversation was about the Superiority Of The Airport White Spot as a Drinking Destination. “Their liquor license starts at 6:00 am, and there’s no difference in the price of a beer at the airport versus the White Spot on Harvey,” he said, “And no one has to drive because we are all getting on a plane!” He has a point. The flight attendant came by with the drinks cart and when he asked for a beer, she told him there was Molsen and Coors available. “The Silver Bullet!” he said happily. It was just after 9:00 am. I lost sight of him after deplaning but I feel sure he had a great time in Vegas.

My Milkshake Brings The Instagrammers To The Yard

For the second year in a row, St. Patrick’s Day completely fell off my radar and I didn’t realize until just before we left that we would be in Vegas for that occasion. I assumed that all of the pubs would be very busy, but either there is just a glut of pubs or people were partaking in the festivities elsewhere, because every pub we passed seemed pretty quiet. People were definitely partaking in festivities somewhere, as dramatically demonstrated by the fellow in a tall green hat and a shirt emblazoned with “Pat MeCrotch” falling into the elevator with us, followed by his apologetic wife, who was wearing a gigantic glowing green necklace made up of shamrocks and the words “Kiss Me I’m Irish.”

In any case, my husband and I had a lovely lunch at a pub at the Venetian, which is near the Sphere. We had tickets for the 2:00 show, and so we leisurely sat at the bar and had some really great pub food, including a vegan falafel burger. This was the type of pub that had a whole page of the menu dedicated to extremely decadent and extravagant milkshakes: the rims were coated with frostings and sprinkles of all sorts – Fruity Pebbles! Jimmies! Oreo crumbs! – and then topped with ice cream or whipped cream, with some kind of large baked good on top of THAT – a strawberry Pop Tart! A jelly doughnut! A cinnamon roll! – and then THAT was topped with, somewhat anticlimactically, a cherry.

I saw one such milkshake being delivered to a woman, around my age, sitting alone. It was bright red, with a slice of what appeared to be cheesecake on top, and I was filled with curiosity as to how someone would actually consume this. Would there be a side plate? Would this person just pick up the cheesecake and eat it with her fingers? I watched out of the corner of my eye to see what would happen.

First, the woman took several photos of it, which, well, is relatable. Then she started taking selfies with the milkshake, including one in which she was holding the cherry with a big, wide, open mouthed smile. I waited to see what would happen with the cheesecake slice, but then it was apparent that she was videoing herself with this milkshake – I could see her talking. Was this an Instagram reel? Was she posting on TikTok? I kept waiting for her to eat the cheesecake, or at least sip from the milkshake, but she just kept filming.

My husband chided me for creepily watching someone not-consume a giant milkshake, but to be honest, I didn’t think it was any creepier than watching an Instagram reel of a person I don’t know, the creation of which was more than likely what was happening. All I was missing was her handle. I never did see what happened with the milkshake because she still hadn’t partaken in any of it by the time we left to go see the show. I hope she enjoyed it.

Mars Ain’t The Kind Of Place To Raise Your Kids

As I alluded to before, we went to see Postcard From Earth at The Sphere in Vegas. The Sphere, in case you don’t know, cost two billion dollars to build and the outside consists of thousands and thousands of lights. It is really a feat of technology and engineering, the inside filled with all sorts of technological wonders. During the movie, the seats move and vibrate – no, not THAT kind of vibrate – and there is wind and scent and it’s a real sensory experience. I cannot even describe how amazing it is.

I loved 85% of the movie, which is about the glory of nature and our mother earth, the ways in which we honour her and the beauty of nature. It also shows how we have abused her, and how she is protesting via climate change and crisis, and I was on board with all of this, one hundred percent. We are in a climate crisis, I think that much is obvious, and it is our doing, as a global population. This, I think, would have been a great place to give the viewer practical information about the changes we all can make on individual and corporate levels.

However, this is where the movie took a turn. The solution to the climate crisis, said the movie, was for everyone to leave earth in order for it to heal. So, everyone on earth got to get into a space ship and go to another planet, presumably to fuck that one up as well, although that thought was left unstated.

Now, I know, as the man behind me said to his sobbing child who did not want to go to space, Daddy, it’s just a movie. But really? THAT is the thesis regarding the solution to the climate crisis? For us not to be here? Honestly, the film should have a warning on it for anyone suffering depression or extreme climate anxiety, because the thesis is that the world would be better WITHOUT US IN IT. Surely there could have been a better conclusion than that, but since space travel for seven billion people is exactly not a practical tool, the implication is that it’s just better if we don’t exist anymore. You can’t find a hotel room with a balcony or a window that opens in Vegas, so you’d think they would know that your existence is the problem isn’t maybe the best theme for a movie in that particular location.

Obviously there are no clear answers or quick fixes to the climate crisis, but maybe there could have been a lesson here about mindful, reduced consumption rather than let’s go to Saturn, it will be fine. Perhaps stop using single use plastics, or don’t buy into the fast fashion industry, or, maybe, don’t go to Vegas.

Las Vegas is probably right up there with the Disney resorts when it comes to environmentally disastrous tourist destinations, and I found it incredibly ironic that this movie would be shown in a two billion dollar, electronically powered, round theatre. It felt like getting a lecture from Leonardo DiCaprio about the environment just before he boards his yacht with all his buddies. So thanks, but no thanks, on the suggestion of flying to space and never coming back to earth ever again.

Glory Days, They’ll Pass You By

If you can believe it, I have been a mother for twenty years! Well, twenty years and two days.

It was a bit of a hectic weekend, what with cake baking and guests and a funeral and feeding people and just general life, but it was lovely all the same. And now we are looking down the barrel of a really normal week, albeit one in which we are busy gearing up for gardening season. Preparing to garden in March will never not be a novelty to me, after so many years of snow and ice.

I have many books to tell you about, but it will have to wait until later. I hope you all have a beautiful week, the first full one of spring! xo

Five For Friday: The Ask Me Anything Edition

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Thank you to everyone who submitted questions for my Ask Me Anything! Today I have quite a variety to answer; I love how different these all are.

  • From Bijoux (HI BIJOUX): As I like to travel, what would be your Canadian not-to-be-missed sights? I considered putting off answering this question until May, when I will be back from a trip to Ontario and Quebec; I am sure there will be many not-to-be-missed sights that I will discover. Then I thought that no matter what I see on that trip, my number one answer will not change, and that is the Canadian Rockies in general, and Banff in particular. I think there is no place on earth quite as beautiful and as special. The town of Banff is very expensive and touristy, it’s true, but that is because it is so beautiful and special. The Canadian Rockies are an absolute feast for the eyes in every way; the colours, the mountains, the trees.
Prairie Mountain, Kananaskis
Lake Louise
Lake Agnes
Me and Lake Louise
Hiking in Kananaskis
One foot in Alberta, one foot in BC, which seemed to be the theme of 2023
Simpson Pass
Galatea Lake
The iconic Banff Springs – worth the splurge, I swear
View from the Banff Springs
  • From Kate (HI KATE): Do you plan to teach yoga in your new town? Do you ever go to a studio class, or only practice on your own? I don’t currently have plans to teach; we have a lot of travel planned this year, and so I did not want to commit to any classes, only to have to find substitutes. I would be willing to teach one-off or event-style classes, but I don’t want a firm commitment. I also get extremely attached to my students and I miss my Calgary ones so much; I’m not quite ready for that again. As to the second part of the question, the short answer is no, I don’t go to studio classes. For thirteen years I did practice at a studio; I practiced Mysore-style Ashtanga, which is very individual and student-led; there is a set sequence of postures that each student practices at their own pace, with a teacher available to assist and also to teach the next posture in the series. My friend Lucas (HI LUCAS) made a video of this practice at our studio back in 2012, and if you watch the video, I am in the bright pink pants. At about the 2:20 mark, you can see the wild backbends I used to be able to do. Anyway, I was so grateful to have this kind of daily practice established because when the pandemic hit, I continued with it, just at home, and without a teacher. One or two days a week I take a restorative or yin practice, again, at home. I did take one led class last year, as my friend Sara (HI SARA) was giving a special class at an art studio; I enjoy this kind of thing once in a while, but generally I prefer a practice which is more of a moving meditation than a led class.
From 2015
Practicing in what is now my kitchen, before it was my kitchen
A fancy studio shot, 2019
Another studio shot, 2019
Current yoga setup
  • From Steph (HI STEPH): Do you think you will eventually work again or are you and and your husband both retired for good? This question also answers Coco‘s question (HI COCO) who asked what does your husband do? Steph’s is a very interesting question, because I always think of “work” as the days when I worked in an office, on a trade floor, which I quit in 2004 after having my first baby. Of course, I have had various little jobs, including teaching yoga, since then, but I guess I don’t think of them as work that one retires from, exactly. So the answer to that question is never say never! I have a few ideas and projects, but whether or not they will result in any monetary compensation remains to be seen. I can confidently say my husband is definitely retired; he is enjoying the retirement life immensely. Currently, he is in his workshop building me cedar garden beds, so I can also say we are both benefitting from his retirement.
Work in progress
  • From Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH): What is your least favourite food item in the world? No contest: celery. I loathe celery. Everything about it is disgusting to me: the smell, the taste, the weird stringy texture. I clearly remember a kid bringing ants on a log for shared preschool snack, and the absolute horror it inspired in me. I love peanut butter. I love raisins. WHY MUST WE PUT THOSE DELICIOUS THINGS ON A PIECE OF THE DEVIL’S GREENERY? Close second to least favourite food: onions. I don’t mind onion flavour, so a dehydrated onion flake or onion powder is fine. But the texture of onions, particularly raw onions, gives me a full-body shudder. Not as bad as celery, and if there was a gun to my head I’d probably eat one, but that gun would have to be loaded. Obviously I don’t eat meat or seafood ever, and I don’t like to eat eggs either, although if an egg is in a baked good that you presented to me – especially if that baked good was a cake – I would eat it.
My husband made me this for Christmas!
  • From Engie (HI ENGIE): Do you think aliens exist? I am an Alien Agnostic: I just don’t know. I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t exist. The universe is big, and no one has the answers, so why not? As an alien aside, I have always had a terrible fear of E.T. I was seven when E.T. came out, and all of my little gal pals both loved the movie and loved E.T. as a concept; they were all getting E.T. stuffies and shirts and backpacks, and the horror, the horror. He’s so cute they’d say, while I would try not to cry. Look at him hiding in the stuffed animals, they would say, while I would panic, thinking about my own stuffed animals and what I would do if there was an alien among them. I have never once seen the movie the whole way through; I always have to stop it before curling up in the fetal position in a corner. I have a real visceral reaction to the whole thing. Many years ago my husband gently tried to get me to face my fears, saying in a calming voice “It’s really a nice movie, E.T. just wants to go home to his family!” and at that I started crying uncontrollably, and he probably wondered if he should return the ring, or just go ahead and face life together with a grown woman with E.T. trauma.
My Cheer Bear, without an E.T. I believe in the power of the Care Bear stare!

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Leap Year Edition

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Happy Leap Year, everyone!

Our last Leap Year was in 2020, and thinking about it now, how strange that time was, having an extra day just ahead of being locked down and going through a global pandemic. When I look at my blog from February 2020, it is all very cheerful and clearly I had no idea what was about to occur. I also, it seems, did not mark the leap day in any way at all.

Well, I shall not make that mistake this year! I have had a really lovely month filled with good things, so why not extend it a day?

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Leap Year Edition

The E is for Environment

One of my favourite podcasts, Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend, has a new segment called Podcast Pals Product Picks, and as you can imagine, I am here for this kind of content. One of the guests talked about E Cloths, which to my mind means ELECTRONIC cloths, but the E in this case stands for Environment. Anyway, they are special microfibre cloths that use only water for cleaning, and by the time the podcast guest finished talking about the streak-free shines on all of his glass and stainless surfaces, I was scrambling to order them. Here, take my money. We have a lot of windows in this house, not to mention mirrors and my shiny lacquered Yamaha piano, and I am never able to get them really clean. I will THINK they are clean, and then the sunlight will come in a certain way, and I will feel the kind of despair that accompanies what one thinks is a job well done, but was actually wasted time and effort.

NO MORE!

Listen, I do not know what magic is involved here, but all I can say is that they really work. Apparently these cloths are somehow antibacterial and antimicrobial and require no extra cleaning supplies, but that is a bridge too far for me. I may use hippie cleaning products, but I still want to use cleaning products. I’m happy to shine my glass and stainless appliances with just water and E Cloths, but I’m not relying on them to, you know, wipe up food-related messes or clean the bathroom.

The Big Ass’k

I have been on a lifelong quest to be less dissatisfied with my hair, and I honestly don’t think I will ever actually love my hair. I have issues, is what I’m saying, for many reasons which I will not go into here so as to not bore and depress us all. Nora Ephron once said that not worrying about your hair anymore is the secret upside to being dead, and when I read that, I finally felt very seen in a way I never had before.

My lifelong quest means that I am always on the lookout for new hair products. I bought this Cake volumizing product on a whim, and also because it was called The Big Ass’k, and honestly, I feel that the name called to me. My anaconda don’t want none unless…

Anyway. I like this product a lot, it’s really great for non-shampoo days to add volume, and it smells fantastic.

Look at that shiny clean mirror!

Actual Cake

I think I bought Julie van Rosendaal’s cake cookbook back in January 2023, with the eventual resolution to make every recipe in the book. My younger son sternly reminded me of this resolution a couple of weeks ago, chastising me for falling down on my goals. To that end, I tried a recipe that I have been wanting to try since obtaining the book: the Jos Louis cake. I have never had a Jos Louis in my life, and neither had anyone in my family, so we could not compare this to the original. Mine was not as pretty as Julie’s, but wow, was it a delicious cake. It might be the best cake I’ve tried from that cookbook to date.

Now, I want to note that this is not a simple recipe. There are many steps and it takes a while to get assembled. Also, I have no idea how one would cover the cake in ganache without it spilling all over the sides of the platter, but no matter. As they say in Beauty and the Beast, true beauty is found within.

Let My Lust Open The Door

I have a new favourite podcast called Bad On Paper; the two lovely young hosts are authors who talk about their writing processes, as well as about books and life in general. This checks every box for me! For Valentine’s Day they had an episode about – wait for it – obscure erotica. One of the hosts talked about a book concerning a pansexual Abraham Lincoln who – again, wait for it – has a penis fight with the Emperor of Japan to see who will – wait for it – colonize the moon. I could not be less interested in such a storyline BUT the other author brought up a book called Unhinged: An Erotic Door Romance.

The host said, “If you’re wondering ‘Is this a book about a woman who fucks her door?’ well, you’d be right!” and at that moment, I knew I had to read it. After all, let’s never forget I read the Governor General Award-winning book Bear about a woman entering into a sexual relationship with a bear – and not, as my son asked, a big hairy gay guy, an actual bear. Upshot of that, for those of you who don’t remember, bears give great oral but are maybe not so good with intercourse. Or, as I like to say now, intercoursing. Anyhoo, back to the door. This little piece of door-related erotica was well worth the $1.30 on Kindle plus the 45 minutes it took to read. I mean, not to spoil anything, but this is no ordinary door. It was made from wood from a tree that – wait for it – Zeus, Greek god, fucked. You read that right! Zeus Harvey Weinsteined an oak tree and bam, we have a sentient – and, apparently sexy – door. More spoilers! The door can sometimes take on a human form! Sexiness ensues!

But wait, there’s more!

The host of the podcast mentioned that Squeak, erotica having to do with balloon animals, was her second choice in books, and, hilariously high off of the image of a doorknob wearing a condom, I bought it on Kindle for another $1.30. Sadly, this one was disappointing. I mean, it wasn’t really entertaining to read, it was just mostly confusing. There’s a three-way? And two of them are partially balloon animals? But they maybe also turned the woman into a balloon animal by having sex with her? But I’m not sure? In a different kind of universe? I really don’t know, but it only took me about 25 minutes to read so it wasn’t a huge investment or anything. Funny thing to note: the author is clearly using a pseudonym, but there is a real photo of her and a description that she lives with her husband, seven cats, and two dogs in North Carolina and you know what, I like this level of author detail. I also appreciate her level of creativity because doors and balloon animals are not items that I have ever thought of in a sexual way before, but now I’m looking at my doors for a little too long. They seem to be getting uncomfortable.

Girl, Put Your Snowshoes On

Let me tell you, the best thing about having a retired, active husband – other than afternoon delight wherein I pretend he is a door – is the willingness to do fun things any day of the week, and the best thing about having my specific retired, active husband is that he likes to buy accessories for us to do such things. In the fall he bought us snowshoes, which I frankly thought would be a waste of money. After all, we had just bought cross-country skis. This is probably why the snowfall has been so low this year, I’m sorry, everyone. Anyway, after kind of a hectic month of not doing anything winter sport related, we decided to give the snowshoes a whirl last week, and let me tell you, I am obsessed.

It’s hiking in the mountains, but with snow!

If it wasn’t a 45 minute drive to get to snow, I would snowshoe every single day, this is how much I love it.

Outfit of the Month

I had a real Ladies Who Lunch experience with my girlfriends a few weeks ago; we went for a nice lunch downtown and then poked around in various expensive boutiques in the area. When we walked into one store called, appropriately enough, The Little Boutique, I had no intention on purchasing anything. I was just along for the ride; the clothes all seemed pretty expensive and nothing seemed to call out to me. That is, of course, until I saw a soft, drapey black sweater on the sale rack.

One might argue that I needed another drapey black sweater like I needed another leg, but I felt the material and it was so incredibly soft. It was also originally priced at $509.

I mean, who would pay that? Not me, but it was marked down to $119, which is still a lot for a sweater I did not need. But then it was 25% off of that price, and you know what, I am not made of stone. $85 for a sweater that was originally $509? Who could say no to that? NOT ME.

Something has been happening to my body lately that is just out of my control. I am in great shape, I am strong and flexible and healthy, and I am also losing my waistline. It is just…disappearing. Where is it going? I don’t know. I am developing the menopausal woman’s waistline, which is to say no waistline at all. My torso is turning into a rectangle; this is a fact, and it’s one that I have come to accept, and so having a long, drapey sweater that skims that rectangle? Yes. I’ll take it.

I debuted The Expensive Sweater at my Galentine’s party, paired with my old faithful Lululemon City Sleek pants, which have been on the Favourite Things many times already; they are actual pants that feel like yoga pants. What could be better? Other than getting an expensive sweater for 16% of the original price, of course.

I hope you all had a wonderful February full of lovely things – if you’d like to tell me about them, I’m all ears. xo