Category Archives: Playtime

Nicole’s Favourite Things: Sears Wish Book Edition, Part 2 – the Old Lady Edition

Posted on by
Normally on Monday mornings when I’m asked about my weekend, I squint a little, trying to remember any pertinent details, when it dawns on me that really, I did nothing of note. But not this weekend! It was action-packed, baby! Kind of – Friday was a day off and so I took the kids to the dentist and then to Colour Me Mine, the unfortunately named paint-your-own-pottery place. Then I fancied myself up to go to my husband’s office Christmas party, which is not even a winter-themed holiday party, but an actual Christmas party where they say grace and everything, which makes me feel slightly scandalized. In any event, it was quite fun and I wore a dress that was not black:
 

 
Shout out to Banana Republic for excellent customer service. I would have never chosen this dress had the saleslady not foisted it upon me. I also learned that Banana Republic practices “vanity sizing” – either that or I lost a few dress sizes just walking into the store. I will say this about vanity sizing: it works. At least, it works for me. Even though I know, rationally, that I did not just magically change sizes, that it’s all just a ploy to make me feel good about myself, good enough to buy a dress and then keep browsing, well. I guess I’m so vain. There’s probably a song that’s about me.
 
When I was shopping for this dress, I saw a woman wearing a full-length mink fur coat, an actual real fur coat. The woman wasn’t elderly as one might expect, but instead a woman my own age. In a fur coat! I was startled by the sight because, well, one doesn’t see fur coats out and about much anymore. Well, unless it’s 1998 and there’s a Carrie Bradshaw sighting:
 
http://www.instyle.com/instyle/package/general/photos/0,,20364084_20365543_20781203,00.html#20781203
Photo from instyle.com. Click on it to read fun facts about this coat. “It’s raccoon, and it stank.”
 
After that I was flipping through my favourite magazine, the Sears Wish Book, and found an entire section devoted to faux furs, made to look like actual furs. In case you’re into the look but don’t want, you know, the real thing.
 
 
 
So many hats. So very many hats. To be totally honest I was a little surprised by the sheer volume of acrylic-polyester-made-to-look-like-an-honest-to-god-old-fashioned-fur-hat items. But then I remembered – the target market here are women that are going to get gussied up in outfits like these for Christmas parties at the home:
 
 
 
I’m totally going to be one of them, you know. Probably I will have the black one. Well, or this sweater with the built in brooch. It comes in black!
 

 
 
Slacks and pumps. Speaking of shoes, I have to say I really, truly love that there is something called shooties and I want this pair in black:
 
 

 
 I’m not being facetious in the least. Those shooties are adorable. So are those Mary Janes! But back to my wardrobe planning for my days as a Golden Girl in the Home.

 

 

 
Nothing says relax like Frankie and this selection of velour coordinates. “Pull-On Pant” is a fun descriptor. So is “velour tunic with detailed neckline.”

I tell you this, though. No matter what happens, no matter what I shall never wear a “Face Framer Fleece Sweater”.

 
I don’t care if it does come with a “Winter Wonderland Bird” motif. I shall not do it.
 
How about loungewear, though? I like to think I wouldn’t wear this:

 

 
But really, a velour caftan, one size fits most, seems really cozy right now. It does come in black. Perhaps we should embrace the Mrs Roper in all of us.
 
But here I am, focussing on gifts for me at some age when really, that isn’t the meaning of the season, is it? It’s all about giving, not receiving. I wonder what my husband’s reaction would be if I gave him this red plaid nightshirt.

 

 
I’m guessing it wouldn’t be joyful.

Husbands are so hard to shop for, aren’t they? But what about a little something something for some costume wearing, role playing fun?

 
I have a feeling that if I bought the bottom dress, the result would be no sex ever again. I’d probably have more chance getting lucky while wearing the raspberry coloured velour caftan. I COULD order a elf and/or Santa outfit for Barkley, but chances are he would eat it, and then we would all suffer. I would probably suffer the most.

 

Speaking of sexytimes, how about a sexy “Ultra-Plush High-Pile Animal-Print Velour Throw”? There certainly is a lot of velour in this catalogue, no? We love our velour. We want to be ensconced in velour, like a low-rent George Costanza. A low-rent George Costanza, hoo boy, that is something to aspire to. But who wouldn’t like an ultra-plus high-pile animal-print on their bed? Tiger? Panda? No, I’m too Canadian for those animals. Give me a snowy wolf or a deer any day.

I’ve never been in a drunken stupor, but…

Posted on by
Here it is, Wednesday of time change week and not one complaint has passed my lips. Not one! My husband, in years past, has generally adopted the traditionally masculine attitude that my vehement feelings against the observation of Daylight Savings Time and the subsequent semi-annual fuck up amounts to Nicole Making A Big Deal Out Of Something Very Minor And Unimportant. Yesterday, however, he admitted he was feeling quite tired and out of sorts and maybe it was due to time change. At this admission, I feel vindicated.
 
My children have been just fine; I guess they’ve reached the age where an hour here or there is No Big Deal At All. However, I stand in solidarity with all you mothers out there who are dealing with hot crying messes every evening and wide awake little people at ungodly hours of the morning. I shall not rest until the country has caught up with Saskatchewan, which is miles and miles ahead of the rest of us for their refusal to adopt Daylight Savings Time and its abhorrent spring forward/ fall back rituals. Also, please feel free to give a verbal dressing down to the next person who says that DST is “for the farmers”. Bitch, please. Do you have any idea what time farmers get up in the morning? The actual clock has nothing to do with it, so shut up, goddammit. If I was that kind of person I’d allude to a conspiracy theory cooked up by people who want to keep mothers down by totally fucking up their children twice a year. But I’m not. Still: DOWN WITH TIME CHANGE.
 
Speaking of fucked up, how about that mayor of Toronto? Wowza, is that embarrassing. I mean, we’ve all done silly things under the influence of alcohol or excessive Girl Guide cookie consumption, but smoking crack? In a drunken stupor? Listen, we all know how I love my red wine, and my cosmopolitans, and my margaritas, but I don’t think I’ve ever been in a drunken stupor in my life. I don’t like hangovers and I don’t like falling over. The closest I’ve come to that, lately, is becoming extraordinarily drunk at the Banff Springs Hotel with my husband and two people we met at the bar while listening to a blues guitarist. The couple was from Boston, and so they and my husband immediately bonded over the Patriots. 
 
So no drunken stupors for me, but I’ve done plenty of silly things after consuming one too many glasses of wine/ cosmopolitans/ margaritas.
 
1) I completed this Cosmo quiz and realized that the answer is “yes”.
 
 
 
 
2) At Blissdom Canada, I lay down on the hotel hallway and put both legs behind my head to show Allison and Hannah that I totally could. I blame Allison for being such a doll and bringing the peach daquiri mix and rum.

 
3) I bought hot pink yoga pants online.
 
 

4) I once danced the macarena in a Mexican bar wearing Daisy Duke shorts, high heeled sandals, and a crop top.

5) One Friday night when my husband was golfing, I live-tweeted my viewing of Top Gun. “Permission to fire, sir!” “Never fire unless fired upon.” GREAT advice.

 
6) I have, on numerous occasions, accidentally flashed my cleavage.
 

7) I was not drunk while making this gingerbread house! But the result was so depressing I had to comfort myself with a bottle of wine.

 
8) I was also not drunk in this photo! But I was fairly high on painkillers following varicose vein surgery. I was also super excited to eat the pretty fruit kabobs my friends had sent over.
 
9) I illegally brought drinks in glass containers down to the pool in Maui – in the dark! – and forced my dear, sweet friend Joanne to do the same. Everyone give some love to Joanne – she was my accomplice in illegal activities. And yet I look so INNOCENT.
 
 
 
10) I got pregnant! Hey, it was Stampede week. And then six to eight months later, I walked around looking like this:
 

I Dreamed A Dream

Posted on by

“Mom, do you have a dream?” Mark asked over breakfast the other day. I was only on my first cup of coffee so I wondered if he wanted to know what I dreamed about last night. I didn’t want to tell him I had a nightmare about a mouse crawling on the ceiling and then falling off into my bed, causing me to wake up with my sheets soaking wet with a freight train running through the middle of my head, or that I had a sexy dream about his father, and so I answered sort of vaguely. “No, I mean, do you have a DREAM. Like something you want.” He paused a moment, and then said quickly in a completely neutral voice “And please don’t say you want two awesome boys and wow, you already have them.” Jake chimed in, “Yeah! That’s what you always say.”

I told them that I always wanted a fluffy brown dog named Barkley, and they groaned. “Don’t you have a dream about doing something?” Mark asked. “Like, maybe making good caramel apples?”

That’s pretty rich coming from a kid whose attempt at making a bass guitar was a ripped kleenex box with a broken rubber band on it. On a related note, we had this conversation yesterday:

Mark: Guess who had the best social studies title page in the class?

Me: I’m guessing it wasn’t you.

Mark: You’re right. It wasn’t.

Jake: Me either! I suck at drawing.

Well, it’s good to have an accurate view of your strengths and weaknesses, no?

This has been a strange, very busy week. The kids had a PD day on Monday. Why, you may ask, why did they have the day off when the past Monday was Thanksgiving and why didn’t they have the PD day on the Friday before Thanksgiving the way they always do, why, why, why? Well, they did, and two four-day weeks in a row makes for a strange week. Besides, it’s the Halloween Family Dance tonight and it is, without a question of a doubt, the highlight of the school year for my kids. It’s all downhill from here, guys. I’ve been busy preparing for this as my girlfriend and I are coordinating a silent auction as a fundraiser, and in addition to the usual busyness that accompanies such an event, I’ve also been planning my costume. My friend and I are going as witches. But not like this:

Photo from partycity.com. This costume is on sale for FOURTEEN DOLLARS. A steal!


or this

Photo from partycity.com. This is the Sparkle Playboy Witch, which seems like an accurate name.

or even this.

Photo from partycity.com. Wear a good pair of panties if you wear this costume.

I’m not even sure that last one IS a witch. In any case, we will be regular mom-like witches tonight. At least for the dance…I’m thinking I might break out that $14 outfit for a little private Halloween party, if you know what I’m saying.

I kid. If I’m having a private Halloween party, I’m going to dress up like Fiona from Shrek.

Photo from partycity.com. I’m not kidding, you guys, this is Fiona from Shrek.
GO CHECK OUT THE PARTY CITY WEBSITE CLEARANCE SECTION. It’s a scream!

I love this time of year. It’s so much fun to look at costume websites and wonder just who is going to order them. They are almost always sold out of at least one size, so people ARE buying them. Clearly I don’t go to enough (or any, really) Halloween parties because I’m always amazed by the costumes. Can you imagine going to a party and seeing this?

Photo from partycity.com. This is $105!

MAYBE one might see this at a key party. Or hey, if you’re undecided this Marvin the Martian outfit is only $35!

Photo from partycity.com

Hilarious, yet kind of depressing, no? Go ahead and look at any costume website; the teen girl section is made up mostly of smaller versions of the skeezy looking women’s section. Whatever happened to getting your mom to make you a dress to look like Morticia Addams?

If I’m being totally honest, I would have totally worn some of those super short costumes when I was a teenager, if buying costumes was a thing back then and if I made more than $4/ hour working at Pizza Hut. I also would have probably given my father a heart attack, but then, that’s what teenage girls are for. Every single time my husband sees a teenage girl, he says “Somewhere, there is a dad going grey.”

What’s my excuse? Boy humour.

Posted on by

The boys and I were having dinner together this evening, and the topic that dominated most of the conversation was as follows: a friend of theirs hit himself in the testicles with his own Styrofoam airplane. The hilarity involved in relaying these details to me was immense. Apparently the only funnier than someone being hit in the testicles is someone being hit in the testicles by launching their own Styrofoam airplane and having it curve in just the right way. An unintentional groin shot to oneself by one’s own efforts? Evidently hilarious.

Some days, I find it difficult to string two words together. At times, my head feels like it’s going to explode with things like the Halloween Dance, and would tahini and chocolate go together, and what am I going to make for the bake sale and when, and why can’t I get “Don’t Stop Believing” out of my head? I think my intellect is FAILING, is what I’m saying, people. I’m sure we’ve all heard, by now, of that “What’s Your Excuse?” woman, and I have two things to say: a) she looks pretty awesome, and I like to believe that she set out to be inspirational, not condemning, and b) my excuse for my rapidly fading mental capabilities is dinnertime conversations about self-inflicted groin shots, punctuated by reminders to please not fart at the dinner table. Yes, that is a valid excuse.

The kids have been working on making musical instruments out of recycled materials at school, and some of their friends have shown me the items that they chose to make: a harmonica made out of popsicle sticks and rubber bands, a drum made out of a coffee can and waxed paper. Jake decided to make a guitar, because “girls like guys who play guitars”. True that, but they also like guys who have good jobs, so get that math homework done, sweetheart. Here is Jake’s guitar in all its glory:

Not bad, even if the tape on the fret (is it a fret? I don’t really know my stringed instruments that well) is kind of coming off. No matter! It’s a decent effort.

Mark brought home his instrument too.


It is a bass guitar. Allegedly. He did not specify if there were once other parts. He did not specify whether it looked differently at some point prior to suffering some kind of fourth grade destruction. He did not specify the level of effort put into this project. In the spirit of not asking questions to which I do not necessarily want to know the answer, I am not inquiring further about it.

All right STOP. Collaborate and listen.

Posted on by

My husband just phoned me to see if I was feeling somewhat normal, which I am, thank goodness. When he picked me up at the airport yesterday morning, I was running on four hours of sleep and had been a social butterfly all weekend. What would you do if you were at parties sponsored by Ontario wines? Would you not drink all the wine? Of course you would! And by “you” I mean “I”. What a fabulous and fun weekend. I learned something new about myself, something I had not realized before:

When Ice, Ice, Baby is playing, I will always do the running man.

It’s true. Just like I cannot listen to Bust A Move without obnoxiously rapping all the lyrics – she’s dressed in yellow, she says hello, come sit next to me you fine fellow – I cannot hear Ice, Ice, Baby without immediately breaking out the running man. I also discovered that I always want to join the conga line, and that I have a secret, show-offy wish for limbo contests. Sadly, no limbo contests manifested themselves this weekend.

Fine, I’ll have to just have my OWN limbo contest.

I feel pretty great today, in part because I made it back to the yoga studio, where my teacher, upon adjusting me, said “Hmmm. Too much wine?” MAYBE. Maybe it was the meal of BBQ rice cakes one evening, followed by peach daquiris, I DON’T KNOW. But I’m back on the mat, back in the groove, and immediately inundated by School Council/ Parent Association/ Book Fair things. Just another day in the Boyhouse.

Big thanks to Erica Ehm and the Yummy Mummy Club for getting me to Blissdom. Meeting everyone at YMC who I’ve known for years but have never met in person was truly incredible. Every single person I met this weekend was warm, kind, and some kind of wonderful.

I LOVE writing for this woman! If you’re vegan, vegetarian, or just interested in the occasional meatless meal, you should check out my recipe blog over at Yummy Mummy Club, if you aren’t already.

Speaking of awesome recipes….

 
 

Julie van Rosendaal, a.k.a. Dinner with Julie, is an absolutely amazing person. So fun, so warm, so generous and kind. I’m thrilled to call her my friend! Also, we share a love of lentils.

Speaking of friends (and lentils?) this is my favourite picture from the weekend:

What a blast to hang out with Allison and Hannah, who indulged me in my running man/ disco dance moves. We laughed all weekend long. I met so many wonderful people this weekend, I cannot even begin to name them all, but suffice it to say every person I met exceeded my expectations of awesomeness.

But, all that pajama partying left me kind of tired, which is to say I really needed a cup (or five) of coffee this morning.



Cute mug, right?

That’s my post shower, OMG I NEED A COFFEE I’VE BEEN UP FOR THREE HOURS AND IT’S ONLY 7:30 face. I’m happy to have gone, happy to be home, and now I need to figure out how I’m going to manage the after-school hour for the upcoming book fair…anyone?

This episode brought to you by The Simpsons

Posted on by

Did you check the traplines? is a question that my husband and I have been asking each other since Saturday, like we’re old-timey settlers trading furs at the Hudson’s Bay Company for blankets and tobacco. Happily for us, the answer has been they are empty which is good for both my mental state and for the general atmosphere of the household. My friend Julie reminded me of the scene in Little Town on the Prairie, before the Ingalls get a cat, when Pa’s hair gets nibbled off by nesting mice. I did not need for her to remind me of that, because I had already thought of that, which made me feel like this, substituting the word “boogeyman” for the word “mouse”.

But, we are happily mouse free, I say confidently and hopefully, and not at all in a traumatized way. I spotted a dead mouse in our backyard, and envisioned Barkley eating the dead mouse, and me having to deal with the aftermath of such a situation, and I went inside to talk to the boys. Boys, your mother is having a nervous breakdown. Mark, after assessing the situation, asked for me to fetch him the large shovel out of the shed, and then neatly picked the mousey corpse up and threw it out into the alley where a “car would flatten it”. I wasn’t entirely pleased with this conclusion, but I was pleased enough to not have to deal with it one way or another that I baked some chocolate chip cookies for him and Jake to take to school for snack for the remainder of the week. 

Tomorrow I’m heading to Toronto for the Blissdom Canada conference, and boy, am I excited. I’m especially excited because I’ve gotten all of my to-do items done, and also we have the vermin situation under control. These are equally exciting to me. I’ve been working hard to cross all of those things off the list, and at some point I was behaving exactly like this. I was a bit worried since a) this is the longest I will have ever been away from the children, yes I KNOW they are eight and nine years old, and b) I’ve never been away from the children during the school year. We all know things are much simpler in the summer, when there are no scholastic nor activity schedules to navigate. IT’S GOING TO BE FINE, I say to myself. What’s the worst that could happen? And then I come up with some strange worst-case scenario that makes me think I should just go ahead and open a bottle of wine.

The kids have had colds, and then my husband – who was possibly a wee bit run down due to work pressures and also sobbing hysterical wife pressures – came down with the cold, but in massive form, so that he basically looked like this, minus the sandwich. I have been so worried about getting sick before my very first blogging conference, and meeting all these people, that I have been sleeping over NINE HOURS A NIGHT and consuming possibly toxic levels of Vitamin C. Also oil of oregano, so much so that it’s not even gross to me anymore. Happily and knock on wood, I seem to have escaped the worst of it, only dealing with a tickly throat and fatigue.

But! I’m all packed (including a baggie full of Vitamin C packets, along with Advil Cold and Sinus JUST IN CASE) and for once I feel that I’ve packed just the right amount of clothing. Shoes, however. I have four pairs of shoes packed, not including the boots that I will be wearing on the plane, nor the fabulous hippo slipper-socks bought for the occasion. What is wrong with me? How can I possibly feel that FIVE PAIR OF FOOTWEAR is appropriate for a Thursday to Sunday trip? Well, there is no going back now! Tomorrow morning I’m going to be taking my well-heeled (literally, shoes, see what I did there?) self on the plane. And I’m going to read a book the whole way! And not think about what I’m making for dinner! Well, I MIGHT think about what I’m making for Sunday dinner….

13 Month Old Baby Broke The Looking Glass

Posted on by

Anyone superstitious out there? I am not, generally speaking, except for believing strongly in karma and the zodiac. Say what you will, all Leos I’ve ever met have been show-offs, and all Tauruses I’ve ever met (myself included) are stubborn as the day is long. But Friday the 13th? Meh. My friend Hannah will probably disagree with me, but I have no adverse feelings about it. If someone chases after me with a hockey mask and a chainsaw, I might change my tune but for now, it’s just the day Jake brought in three dozen cookies to school to celebrate his birthday, which is on Sunday.

Three dozen cookies. For his class. Because he has thirty-one kids in his class. I’ll leave it at that. I will not go into details about how I drilled my homeschooling friend Nan about the materials she uses and then promptly ordered them, not because I’m planning on homeschooling but because I’m planning on Tiger Mom-ing* the hell out of the kids since there’s no way they will be able to get what I want them to get out of school in a class of thirty-one. Mark has over thirty kids in his class too. But here I can feel myself working my way up into a frenzy again, and so I will let it go. OM SHANTI.

*I’m not really going to become a Tiger Mom, but I am going to have to supplement what they are doing in class, because as one friend said their math work seems like a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Yo Gabba Gabba. 5 x 6 = ___. Explain your work.

I need to get off this topic, quickly, lest I explode. Cookies. Here are the cookies Jake took to school – stars for the birthday star!

You know me, guys, I’m all natural ingredients and made from scratch and spinach smoothies and kale chips but when it comes to birthdays, I don’t fuck around. SUGAR COOKIES ALL THE WAY. They are made from scratch but they also have food colouring in them OMG. How else does one make “turquoise” frosting, I ask you?

I was doing some shopping earlier in the week. Mark’s idea for Jake’s birthday gift was to buy five of his favourite chocolate bars, wrap them up, and then hide them around the house. Clues will be given for this delicious treasure hunt. It’s very sweet, literally, and also I need to remember to put the dog outside for this activity.

I also looked in my favourite sleepwear/ lingerie store for new pajamas. The Blissdom Canada conference is coming up in less than three weeks, and on the last night they are having a wrap-up pajama party. PAJAMA PARTY SQUEE. I haven’t been to one of those in many years, but since my sleepwear verges on the ridiculous – pink and white pajamas with a hummingbird motif, recently – I thought maybe I should look for some new ones. This is what I look like on a typical Friday night, and yes, my husband is super lucky:

So I wandered into La Vie En Rose and walked out without pajamas – they were all either a) super sexy and therefore not really appropriate for a conference with women, at which I am going to try to maintain a somewhat professional aura while drinking copious amounts of wine, or b) kind of like the hummingbird pajamas, but with puppies, kitties, or ice cream cones on them. I did not go in there to buy hippo sock-slippers, but hippo sock-slippers I did buy.

It would take a stronger woman than me to look at those hippos and walk away, especially considering the emotional attachment to hippos around here. Poor Jake, yesterday he realized that next Tuesday would have been Foggy’s 48th birthday. There was much weeping and sadness, which was an inauspicious start to the day. I felt very, very sad for him as he cried softly into his Shreddies.

After I bought the hippo socks, I looked for a new lipgloss, and I found a shade called Wine Stain. I did not buy it. I feel that, while that may be a natural weekend look for me, I would rather have a lip colour that does not look like I’ve been a lush. I went for the cutely named Maple Sugar instead.

************************************************************

The winner of my giveaway is Lynn! Hope this gift makes you feel better about the whole ant/ hornet thing you went through this summer (the bug-phobic of you will not want to click that link. It will make you want to burn your own house down.) Lynn, I’ll send you your prize soon – if I survive the next week (details to follow if I survive it….) Thanks everyone for playing along! xoxo