Category Archives: Playtime

Nicole’s Favourite Things, January Blues Edition

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Last week I posted about being blue on Blue Monday, but today it was brought to my attention that TODAY IS BLUE MONDAY.  But I was sad last week!  I’m not sad today!  How can it possibly be Blue Monday if I am not sad?

I know.  I know.  It isn’t all about me.  Maybe some of you are feeling blue?  Well, you have come to the right place, because it is *cue Oprah-audience-like-screaming* Nicole’s Favourite Things, The January Blues Edition!!!

Squee!

January is SUCH a bear of a month, what with the comedown from the holidays and – if you live in a climate like mine – the thought that there is at least, at LEAST, three more months of winter, and often more.  Now that’s depressing.  But!  At least we don’t have to worry about the trains not getting through and grinding wheat and twisting hay to keep warm, am I right?  Plus there are lots of fun things that will help us get through this month.  So, let’s get started, shall we?

Nicole’s Favourite Things – January Blues Edition

I spend much more time outside in the winter than I would like.  I take the dog on long daily walks, I stand in the playground dropping the kids off at school, I stand in the playground waiting for the kids after school, I stand in the playground watching the kids sled and play in the snow and assure me that no, they’re not warm, in fact they are boiling.  In other words, I’m constantly freezing.  This year I bought legwarmers, and they have been life-altering.

Life-altering, I tell you.  They are not at ALL Flashdance-like.  They are long, and woolly, and cozy.  If I could, I would make out with them, I love them THAT much.

After I wrote this, a girlfriend told me about her favourite coat from Eddie Bauer.  She swore that she was warm walking her dog in minus 25 degree weather; she sent me the link noting that a) the coat was on sale for 25% off, and b) it was available in black.  SOLD.

It’s so long and warm, and as a bonus I do not feel like I’m an octogenarian while wearing it.  Plus it’s got a cute hood!

It’s faux fur, of course.  In the course of my winter coat shopping, my husband coaxed me to try on a Canada Goose coat, which he was highly in favour of.  That’s when I found out the grim truth – Canada Goose uses real fur on their coats!  Real fur!  Who does that anymore?  When I told the salesgirl that, sadly, this was a deal breaker for me, she informed me that Canada Goose only uses animals that have died of natural causes.  The bees are doing what now?  I have strong doubts about that.  How is that even possible?  Do they harvest their furs from roadkill?  Do they put animals on little treadmills until they die of exhaustion?  It boggles the mind.

Moving along.  Calgary is a dry, dry climate, and it’s much worse in the winter.  My hands have been known to snag my clothing, they can get so dry and chapped.  I bought this cocoa butter hand cream, and it’s a miracle.  I put it on at night because otherwise I’m not sure I could open door knobs.  The smell is wonderful; it reminds me so much of the cocoa butter stick I used on my giant pregnant stomach to avoid stretch marks.  It always makes me think of how happy I was while pregnant, and I always smile.  Cure for the blues, right there!

And I know, I know, I say something about Bath and Body Works lotion every time I write a Nicole’s Favourite Things, but, as I mentioned before, I’m a lotion addict.  The Brown Sugar and Fig scent is nice and warm smelling, perfect for a cold January day.

I like using shower cream instead of shaving gel; it leaves my legs softer and smoother.  This scent always makes me smile because I have a friend and yoga teacher named Harmony.  I like to think “Stop!  Harmony time!” in the manner of MC Hammer.  Also, it has a really pretty floral scent.

I have not yet seen Les Miserables, although I’m dying to.  I saw the play in the theatre years ago and immediately went out and bought the soundtrack, I loved the music so.  Now, I see movies in the theatre rarely but I’m hoping to make it out before it ends up on Pay Per View, but in the meantime I have been listening to the soundtrack non-stop.  Unfortunately, that means that I have At The End Of The Day perpetually in my head.  Remember that old episode of Seinfeld when George gets Master of the House stuck in his head and is worried about his eventual descent into madness?  It’s like that.

Of course, one thing leads to another, and then I start listening to The Phantom of the Opera.  This is terrible news for my children, as I sing all the parts.  Think of me, think of me fondly, when we say GOOOOOOD byeeeeee.
Speaking of the darling children, they have started karate.  “I know it’s a martial art,” I said to my husband, “But I’m surprised at how much they talk about potential attacks!”  He raised his eyebrows at me.  “You’re surprised by this?”

That last picture makes me nervous.  I mean, Mark is RIGHT by the stairs.  Well, they are all still in one piece, so it’s all fine.

Your turn, dear reader.  What makes you happy during this blue month of January?  xoxo

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PS Every Monday I will be writing about lunches, over at The Ladies Who (Make) Lunch!  I’m so excited about this, I just can’t hide it.  Go check out my first post, about coming home for lunch, and some nice memories from the 80s.

Such a cliche

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I don’t know if you could detect it, but when I wrote my last post, I was very low in spirits.  One might even say that I was blue.  I later realized that it was Blue Monday, the saddest day of the year!  I was sad on Blue Monday!  I’m a walking cliche. 

The tide has turned, so to speak, although I have a School Council/ Parent Association meeting tonight that I’m looking forward to in the same way I look forward to a pelvic exam, or perhaps tooth scaling at the dental office.  But – and maybe this is just the coffee speaking – I am feeling equal to the task.

Speaking of the school, yesterday was Dress As What You Want To Be When You Grow Up day, which is the WORST school spirit day ever.  It is the only spirit day in which I discourage participation.  It’s a terrible concept.  Unless a child wants to be something that requires a uniform, or that has a “typical” look, planning an outfit is simply an exercise in frustration.  For example, both of my children have the career goal of “wealthy businessman” and, let me tell you, there is no good way to accurately portray this with what they currently have in their closets.  Mark ended up opting out altogether, while Jake, after some thought, decided to dress up like a “wealthy businessman who is doing business on the golf course”, wearing khakis, a golf shirt, and his orange Ricky Fowler hat.  When I picked him up at lunch he changed back into his jeans, confessing that he felt the explanation would have taken too long, and so he did not tell anyone he was dressed up. 

My children’s obvious materialism aside, does this not seem like a ridiculous dress-up day?  When I was a child my career goal was to be a concert pianist.  How does one dress up like a concert pianist?  A long sparkly gown?  I was talking about this to a friend yesterday who suggested an appropriate outfit would be wearing something with musical notes all over it, to which I say NO.  No concert pianist would ever wear a sweater with musical notes all over it.  That would be perhaps an appropriate outfit for a retired music teacher, maybe.  Apparently my kids have inherited my tendency to want reality only when dealing with Dress As What You Want To Be When You Grow Up day.  Fortunately their lack of participation will only result in two less points for the Red Team, and therefore the world will keep on turning.

Who are we kidding.  The world is going to keep on turning, even if the stakes were higher.  I came across this piece by Anymommy which gently and beautifully reminds us that we all make choices:

I just don’t want to choose judgment over understanding. Because the minute we mark our choices as right by marking other choices as wrong, we lose the power of choice.
 
I loved this piece so much, and it said so eloquently what I’ve been feeling lately.  I have been bombarded with the Facebook equivalent of op-eds about the following topics: breastfeeding, cloth diapering, home births, the Waldorf system of education, hockey, native land treaties, veganism, co-sleeping, rescue dogs versus dogs purchased from breeders, vaccinations, gun control, the government fucking up the country, the government saving the country, and – my personal favourite – the failure to buy into a particular home business is equivalent to failure to care about one’s health or financial well-being.  And while I recognize that social media is a reasonable outlet for one’s personal opinions, i.e., this blog, I also vehemently object to its utilization as a stick of judgement with which to beat people.  I am going to choose understanding over judgement, and continue to resolve to remember that merely because something does not take great importance in my life, that does not mean that it is not greatly important to someone. 
 
In other words, I think I’m ready for the meeting tonight.

High Street Bingo

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Starting back to school on a Tuesday after a holiday virtually guarantees that I will be in a constant state of confusion for the entire week.  This week has been no exception.  Yesterday I had to keep reminding myself that it was WEDNESDAY and that the following day was THURSDAY and I had committed to volunteer in Mark’s class for the morning.  So today I spent the morning volunteering for what is known as an in-class field trip, or when the class brings a presenter with hands-on materials into the class.  It is a well known fact in my family that although I spend a vast amount of time doing volunteer work for the school, I WILL NOT volunteer for traditional, bussed, second location field trips.  I do not want to ride on the school bus.  I do not want to be responsible for a group of children that aren’t mine in crowded, unfamiliar settings.  Also, as my children have pointed out to me, I’m just not that much fun.

However, I’m here to tell you that this morning’s “The Amazing Race Alberta!” was a barrel of fun!  I learned a great deal about the boreal forest and the Canadian Shield.  The object of the game was to visit six stations that boasted facts about the different regions of Alberta, and in the end the group decided WHICH region was the best to build a brand new town in.  Also the group was tasked with naming the town, choosing a mascot and slogan, and deciding what industries would be represented.

Are you still with me?  It was actually way more fun than it sounds, possibly because this age group seems to be up my alley.  The last time I volunteered for one of these in-class field trips, I ended up spending a vast amount of time digging googly eyes out of glue sticks.  I much enjoy the non-crafty, brainstorm-then-write-it-down age group.

I found it somewhat interesting that the project was named The Amazing Race but there was no racing actually involved.  It reminded me of my fantasy Amazing Race team, which consists of myself and my friends Hannah, Beck, and Misty, the latter of whom is the only one in our group with a strong sense of direction, the ability to drive anything, and who can get through the day without bursting into tears.  The rest of us would have to rely on being fan favourites as the team that cries a lot and gets lost all the time.  We could possibly get sponsorship from a line of waterproof mascara.

Speaking of sponsorship, as you know, I’m not a “sponsored post” kind of girl, but I do often receive product pitches that, if I wrote about them, I would receive those products for free.  Generally, they are nothing that I – or you, dear reader – would be interested in reading about: mainly household cleaning products or television programming for very young children, and so they get deleted almost immediately.  However, the following came to my in-box the other day, and I saved it because it made me feel like I’ve finally made it as a writer:

Hi,
I am currently working for a high-street bingo client who is trying to get some articles live with links back to their homepage from websites and blogs just like yours.
What they are looking for is for bloggers to write the content in order for the articles to look natural on their site, you can do this by writing about topics such as:
– Personal Bingo experiences of yours or of a friend.
– Top three ways to relax when the kids are out of the house or finally fall asleep (only one of the three reasons has to be about on-line bingo)
-Stuff to do on rainy days..
Or anything like this…let me know if you can think of anything better.
Please not you will not be linking to some spammy site at the back of the internet, I am working for an actual betting company with shops in the high street.
I am very much looking forward to your response,
Best regards Jack
I do not even know where to start with the awesomeness.  Is it the references to a high-street bingo client/ actual betting company with shops in the high street?  Is it the assumption that I actually have personal bingo experiences?  No, I think it’s the request to write about the top three ways I relax without the children, and only one of those ways has to be about on-line bingo.
Only one?  I’m not sure how I got this pitch, but prior to it I did not even know that on-line bingo was in existence.  Insultingly there is no reference to compensation anywhere in that email.  Perhaps Jack thought that just writing about bingo would be a reward in itself.  Sorry, Jack.

I’m singing! And I’m in the post office. And I’m SINGING!

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Hey, what has two thumbs and just made it in and out of the post office in less than five minutes?  THIS GIRL.  I had to mail a package to my in-laws – because I’m such a fabulous daughter-in-law – and I was psyching myself up for total mayhem and trauma.  I was even ready to start singing Christmas carols loudly, in the manner of Buddy the Elf, in order to make the post office much less of a “go postal” kind of place.  But – and share this with your friends! – it appears that 1:00 pm is the greatest time to mail things.  I guess the elderly are all having their lunches and/or naps at that time.  There was only me and one other person, a younger fellow who I witnessed almost being run over by a car in the parking lot as the driver backed out of his spot with considerable, and inappropriate, speed.  The whole thing vaguely reminded me of a story my mother-in-law once told me about her beauty parlor; an elderly woman drove at full speed right into the beauty parlor, her Lincoln and the accompanying driven-through wall debris surrounded by screaming old ladies sitting with their curlers in those old-fashioned hair dryers.  When questioned about the accident, the elderly woman said that she thought she had put the car in reverse, which didn’t quite explain why she had the pedal to the metal, but in any case no one was seriously injured, by some kind of beauty parlor miracle.

But!  Parcels are mailed, no one actually got run over in the parking lot (cue music: Grandma got run over by a reindeer), a miss is as good as a mile, and here it is, only two weeks until Christmas Eve.  Squee!  The kids had a three day weekend since parent/teacher interviews were on Friday, and so we spent a great deal of time with gingerbread and icing.

I decorated the vast majority of gingerbread people myself, because it took the kids forever just to decorate one single cookie.  What they lacked in speed and efficiency they made up for in creativity and detail.  Here are Jake’s cookies:

The rest were promptly eaten. 


Hey, it takes a lot of strength to put icing on half an inch thick, am I right?  Here are Mark’s:

 
 
 
Once the gingerbread people were made, it was high time to get them a home, and so began our annual fugly gingerbread house creation.     
 
 
He’s so excited.  He just can’t hide it.  He’s about to lose control and I think he likes it.  As always, our gingerbread house is just the right mix of whimsy and what-the-fuck-happened-here? 
 
 
A melted Frosty the Snowman!  A gargantuan purple window!  Random candies mixed with “Merry Christmas” messages!
 
 
 
So, it was a lovely weekend, marred only a little by the vast number of people calling me to cancel or change their shifts at our giant casino fundraiser next week (please pass the sedatives) and the fact that Jake’s seatmate had the stomach flu yesterday and is IN SCHOOL TODAY (pass the booze to wash those sedatives down with, and also some sanitizer).  Hoo boy, I had to take some deep breaths just from writing that.  Focus on the gingerbread, Nicole.  Focus on the gingerbread. 

Men of Years Past, or Childhood Memories

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It’s the most wonderful time…of the year.  Not only is it the holiday season (well, almost the holiday season, I was singing Santa Baby in a slutty voice to myself this morning, so it totally counts) but it is also the Sexiest Man Alive season, as I alluded to in my last post.  Mark Wahlberg with no shirt on?  Hello nurse. 

I love the SMA awards (like the AMA awards, but sexier) not just because it is a thrill to see Patrick Duffy and Tom Brokaw make the list, against all odds I would think, but also because there is something about a magazine devoted to so many “hunks” (remember when people actually used the word “hunk”?  Actually I think my mom still does; “That Sam Elliott is a hunk.”) that gets my friends’ creative juices flowing.  Maybe that’s not the only kind of juices that are flowing.  Eeee.  I just squeamed myself out.  Sorry, everyone. 

In any case, for amusing commentary on the state of manly sex appeal, visit Hannah, Nan, and Beck.  Last year I wrote a list of the ten sexiest men, not including my husband, of course.  He would be top of the list, but you know what they say about writers who boast about their hunka-hunka-burning-loves, they are lame and boring.  Once I was having a purely theoretical discussion with some male co-workers about their “lists” – and in the context of this post I need not describe what such a list entails, readers will have to come to their own conclusions – and one co-worked informed us all rather righteously that there was one person on his list and that was his wife.  It kind of killed the mood, to be honest.  And so I will say right now for good form that my husband obviously on the top of my list, he’s super sexy and awesome and he looks like a cross between Jim Cuddy and Kyle McLaughlin, but in a good way, and he wears the hell out of a business suit.  Blah blah blah back to my SMA list.

I like my men dark, with strong jawlines, and a certain air of success and confidence about them.  But it wasn’t always that way.

Nicole’s List of Men Whom She Used To Crush On

1982 – Almanzo Wilder

I developed a huge crush on Almanzo as I spent my free time curled up with the Little House books, probably with my “Bookworm!” or my “I Heart Books!” bookmark by my side.  Oh!  How apt it was that his nickname was Manly, as he courageously battled minus forty temperatures and rising blizzards to save the entire town of DeSmet from starvation!  Oh, how my seven-year-old heart beat when Almanzo touched Laura’s mitten tip on the way home from church (when he was 25 and she was 15…but whatevs…).  Oh, the thrill when they exchanged name cards and went for buggy rides.  Remember when he surprised her by visiting on Christmas Eve, bearing gifts of a breastpin and oranges, and he asked, huskily, “Can’t you thank a fellow better than that.”  THEN THEY KISSED.  Old-timey romance; I’d rather not think about how after they got married they got diptheria, had crop failures and crippling debt, AND their house burned down.  Just look at this for photographic proof of pioneer sexiness.  Just don’t think about the one-bath-a-week thing.


1984 – Corey Hart

I was in the Corey Hart fan club.  I had posters and records that I would play over and over.  You can never surrender!  I’m pretty sure I have a xeroxed letter from him somewhere in my possession.  Sorry, younger self, I don’t really see the appeal here.

1985 – Gilbert Blythe

I know, he was on the list last year.  Every year at Christmas time I wish I had a VCR and the old cassette that I had recorded the CBC version of Anne of Green Gables on.  I wish I could still see those old Canadian Tire commercials.  I loved the books, and I just loved Gilbert.  I do still see the appeal, for a ten-year-old bookworm girl.

 
 
1986 – Judd Nelson
 
I watched The Breakfast Club a few years after it was released, and developed an enormous crush on Judd Nelson.  Bender!  This was the start to a long, unfortunate period in which I was very attracted to the Bad Boy.  No good can come of this, younger Nicole!  These are the guys that will end up dead or incarcerated!  Or at very best will be employed in dead-end jobs, still smoking dope at age 40.  Yet, it still is very cute when Molly Ringwald gives him her diamond earring.  EXCEPT NOW YOUR EARRINGS DON’T MATCH, DUMBASS.
 
 
 
1987 – Lou Diamond Phillips
 
Remember La Bamba?  And the Young Guns movies?  Yeah. 
 
 
 

1988 – John Cusack

Good taste, younger Nicole!  He’s still on the list!  “I’m an athlete so I rarely drink…what I’m saying is that you can trust your daughter with me for the next six to eight hours.”  God, I love that movie still.  And who can resist this?  Even my mom, when she watched this with me in the mid-nineties, got all uppity that Lloyd stood there with his boombox, unanswered.  “Go to him!  Doesn’t she go to him?”  Word, Mom.  What’s up with the sweatpants, though?  Oh, right.  Athlete.



1989 – Tom Hooper

If you are not a Canadian girl in her late-thirties to early forties, then you may not remember The Grapes of Wrath – the band from Kelowna, not the book.  Oooh, how I longed to run my hands through his curls.  Where is he now?  I have no idea.

1990 – Jim Morrison

I almost stopped the list at 1989 because of my deep shame and embarrassment at admitting that I had an enormous crush on a dead guy.  Not only that, but a dead guy who was crazy, wore leather pants, and drank himself to death at age 27.  But in the interest of veracity and full disclosure, I will close with the Lizard King himself.

And now that I have divulged my deep, dark, secret (or not so secret, really) crushes of my formative years, it’s your turn, dear reader.  Who did you crush on, back in the day when it was still all about VCR’s and records and writing notes in class?  Tell Nicole everything.  xoxo

Hot Carl

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Twice a year I find myself commenting that I am in awe that we, as a society, still deal with such an antiquated notion as Daylight Savings Time, and twice a year my husband tells me that I am starting to sound crazy when I launch a diatribe against it.  And yet, although my children are older and they actually DO sleep in if they are kept up late, I feel it is my duty as a mother, and in solidarity with parents of little ones who are now waking up at 4 in the morning, sobbing for lunch at 10, and practically disintigrating with exhaustion before dinner, to steadily rail against time change.  After all, when I’m a senior I expect to still pay education taxes even though my own children will not be in school, and so I expect that I will have something angry to say about time change for many years to come.  However, I have probably said it all already; you can read about my feelings on the subject here and here and probably elsewhere but I cannot find it.

My husband was away for a couple of days, and I don’t know what you do when your significant other is out of town, but I seem to drink a lot of wine, eat a lot of guacamole, and watch movies that, while excellent, generally don’t interest him.  This weekend I watched Little Women, which in addition to being an excellent portrayal of the book, also features two of the world’s sexiest men, at least in my opinion.  It also contains one of my favourite movie lines ever: “Over the mysteries of female life, there is drawn a veil, best left undisturbed.”  I think of this whenever I am doing some personal grooming or surreptitiously eating (the somewhat sad snack of) Snapea Crisps and rice-milk chocolate during my ladies’ holidays. 

I also watched Say Anything, which – not coincidentally – also features one of the world’s sexiest men.  I have been watching that movie on a semi-annual basis over the past 24 years, and I never get tired of it.  I never get tired of seeing that guy wearing shorts under his graduation gown belting out The Greatest Love of All.  I never get tired of the line “I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen.”  I never get tired of “Diane Court is a show pony; you, my friend, are a stallion.” 

I think I’m a show pony.

As a general rule I have a strong distaste for personalized license plates.  They remind me very much of Bruce from Sweet Valley High, with his license plate 1Bruce1.  Did you read those books when you were a kid?  I sure did, and I will tell you this: I had a very distorted view of high school based on those books.  In any case, due to my reading of the entire Sweet Valley High series in fifth grade, I have always thought that personalized license plates belong to douchebags, like the aforementioned Bruce.  However, parked in my neighbourhood is a vehicle with the license plate Hot Carl.  This has altogether changed my view, although maybe it’s more of an exception that proves the rule.  Hot Carl!  It’s fabulous on so many different levels.  I’m dying of curiosity; who IS Hot Carl?  I suppose camping out behind the vehicle to discover Hot Carl’s identity would be wrong, and would probably only serve to elevate my “crazy” status. 

SANTA’S COMING (in less than three months)

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Yesterday I kept hearing people say “It’s only three months until Christmas!” which got me to feeling like this:

SANTA’S COMING!  Of course, in three months from today I will be either a) taking down the tree and packing up the decorations because that is ENOUGH Christmas, or b) wishing I was taking down the tree and packing up the decorations and bitterly resenting those in my house who get in my way. 

I’m not sure why there seemed to be such a panic panic PANIC amongst my acquaintances when faced with the three months until Christmas thing.  After all, our answer to all Christmas problems came in August – the Sears Wish Book!

I have no idea why Sears sends its Wish Book out in August, but it sure did make for some enjoyable reading material.  When I was a kid, before there was so much child-directed marketing, the Sears catalogue was where our Christmas lists came from.  My favourite section – and it’s still my favourite section – was the “Gifts under $x”.  Some of those gifts, especially in the “under $10” category, are priceless. 

So I was flipping through the sections and, although my friends and I do not generally exchange gifts, I was immediately struck by an idea for my girlfriend who – and I say this with love – has a handbag obsession.  I found it!  The perfect handbag!  I think she’ll love it:

 
The only thing is I’m not sure what style.  Bunny bling?  Leo heart bunny?  No, I think etched leopard is the way to go.  Now, I shouldn’t be shopping for myself but…
 
 
 
mink collection plush cushion and throw?  YES PLEASE.  Again with the colour decision: pink seems more fun, but black seems more classy, no?  The satin sheets embossed with the Playboy symbol are also available, but satin sheets seem slippery.  It seems like you would be taking your life in your hands every time it was Business Time, you know?  Speaking of classy, here’s what I’m getting my husband for Christmas:
 
 
I can’t decide if he’d like the 1L glass or the 6-pack of shotglasses, so I’m getting him both!  Lucky guy.  Mostly for Christmas I think he’d like to get the real referees back in the NFL, but bikini babe glassware will have to suffice.  We can only control so much.  Speaking of control, have you ever been in a big snowball fight and just wished that your snowballs would be more uniform in size and shape?  Well, wish no more!  Perfect snowballs can be your reality for the low low price of $9.99!
 
 

It also features a long handle.  The Canada Survival Belt is what I’m going to get my father-in-law, unironically.  I think he would really like it.  It’s a fanny pack for beer! 

There are so many other items in the catalogue I would like to talk about – notably an interactive R2D2 – but they will have to wait for another day.  Well, okay, ONE picture of R2:


The kids really wanted this at first glance, but then I pointed out the excessive price tag.  “Well,” Mark said, “It IS a lot of money.”  “Yeah, we can probably get our own can of pop,” said Jake, before remembering, “But we aren’t really supposed to have pop anyway.  So it would be kind of a waste.  Hey, bobbleheads!”