Category Archives: Pro-Aging

Knocking Off The To-Do List

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Thank you all so much for your commiseration about the wildlife situation around here; I am happy to tell you that since the neighbourhood collectively locked up their garbage, Baloo seems to have moved on to greener pastures, hopefully one that has natural, non-garbage food to eat. I know things will be different once fruit season kicks in, but for now, I’m breathing a sigh of relief. Now, am I low-level on the edge in the morning, obsessively checking the windows before going outside or letting Rex out? Yes I am. Did my heart rate increase by fifty on hearing a suspicious noise as I prepared for my yoga practice, only to discover that it was my mother-in-law innocently moving her recycling bin? Also yes. I thought you were the bear! I scream-whispered at five in the morning.

Just to add to the excitement, Rex and I have taken what I call “urban walks,” as opposed to our walks along the nature paths or up Knox Mountain, four times over the past two weeks, and each time we have seen coyotes. One even followed us down the sidewalk for a while, as Rex barked and barked and I used every ounce of strength to hold him back. Do I find that incredibly unsettling? Yes I do.

This park bench is on our urban walking route, and it brings me so much joy, I cannot even. Looking at it makes those coyote encounters feel worthwhile. It’s like there is an entire story written in just one sentence; I feel like Lloyd’s bench is a book that is just waiting to be written.

Speaking of books, I have one of those five year, one line a day journals, and now that I’m on my third year with it, I’m really seeing the payoff. I consider this blog to be a journal of sorts, but the one line a day is such a good way to capture, briefly, what was going on in my life, and I can see at this time last year, I was basically having a nervous breakdown.

One of the many things causing my breakdown was the uncertainty of basically everything to do with the move, and more specifically, the change in medical care. Last Wednesday, I went to note in my journal that I had, with pride and excitement, accomplished something I have been working on for more than six months, and on that very day, one year before, my husband had received some pretty devastating medical news. Now, before we all hit the panic at the disco button, let me reassure you that my husband is still alive and thriving, but at the time, we didn’t know what was going to happen. He needed a medical procedure, and we were six weeks out from moving to a new province. We didn’t know if he’d be able to get it before we left, and if he wasn’t, what were we going to do? Come back? We’d already sold the house, the movers were booked, and once a person moves to a new province, there can be a huge, sometimes indefinite delay in getting a doctor and finding medical care.

Things worked out fine for him, ultimately, but we were still doctor-less until just this week, and quite frankly, that was sooner than I could have even hoped. I’m thrilled to check “find a doctor” off our collective to-do list. Just this week we also found a dentist, due to my son somehow cracking his retainer in half and needing a new one, and started the process to renew all of our passports.

Why is dealing with anything government-related so tedious and painful? Remember the last time I had to renew the boys’ passports? At that time I dealt with the most competent government employee who had a zest for his job that I have never seen before or since, and it was still a process and a half. I am steeling myself to go to Service Canada today, thoughts and prayers greatly appreciated.

My dad, in the most dad way possible, has gifted my husband and I, along with our sons when they started driving, motor association memberships every Christmas of our married life, and one of the perks of the membership is the ability to get professional and discounted passport photos, so off we all went to cross this task off our to-do lists. Is there anything less flattering and more distressing than a passport photo? It’s worse even than a driver’s license photo. I pulled my hair into a bun, remembering the last time, when I had to smooth and sleek my hair into oblivion, and prepared myself mentally to see myself as others see me, face in grim repose.

What I didn’t prepare for was the ego-crushing admonishment that I was “too shiny” and had to use blotting papers not once but three times before the photographer was satisfied, and then I had a “there’s something on your face” that turned out to be just my face. Fellow Gen X ladies: it is very hard to unlearn the Matte Or Death lessons of our youth, but in the interest in not looking like one of those dried-apple dolls, I have been using products that are meant to mimic the dewy glow of youth. Am I comfortable with the dewiness? No, I am not. However, I recognize that matte products, on Women Of A Certain Age can exacerbate the physical signs of aging on the skin and YES, I EMBRACE MY AGING PROCESS, and YES, I AM PRO-AGING, but I would also like to not look completely like the afore-mentioned dried-apple doll. And so here I am, using non-matte tinted serums with all the hyaluronic acids and whatnot, and I get a stern talking-to by the passport photographer that I am JUST TOO DAMN SHINY. One cannot win. And then, even with all that shine, my age is vastly apparent, like a dried-apple doll that has been brushed with olive oil. My neck, in this photo and probably in life, resembles a narrow, striated tree trunk, and my facial expression toes the line of sociopath. Well. As I said, there is no good passport photo, and I will continue to never use filters on my regular photos, to lessen the shock value of reality.

Weekly Reading

Open Secrets. After my run of meh books last week, I felt that I had to break the streak with a reread of one of my favourite Alice Munro collections. Well, they are all my favourites, how can a person choose? I have wholeheartedly loved every single story she ever wrote. RIP Alice Munro! As a side note, celebrity deaths almost never affect me, I either think the person has already died, or else I just don’t feel anything at all. But Alice Munro! She was such a gift to the literary world; she was such a beautiful talent and I feel sad she is not in our world anymore. Anyway, this collection is absolutely marvellous, two of the stories – The Albanian Virgin and Carried Away – are stories I think about literally all the time. Can anyone ever say enough about Alice Munro? I know I can’t. I love her so much, and I am sad she is gone. 

Capote’s Women. I have been fascinated by the story of Truman Capote and how he betrayed the high-society, uber-wealthy women who took him into their confidence for years. Side note: there is a TV show about this, the second season of Feud, which I haven’t watched but believe me, I will! Someday. I am not a good TV watcher. Anyway, I was excited about this book because it’s a pretty wild and fascinating story; there are some very juicy details about Babe Paley and Lee Radziwill, who I have been interested in since becoming obsessed with the book What Remains. Imagine being Capote, social climbing and being a bit of a wunderkind, and then writing a book that essentially is a lightly-veiled tell-all of these women’s lives, and then wondering why he became a pariah with them? Imagine being these women, whose whole job is just to keep marrying rich men? How could this book be anything but great? Well, I am sorry to tell you that I really disliked the matter-of-fact writing style and much of it was somehow dull and boring. Oh well.

In garden news this week, not only have we had many salads, but all my smoothies have been made with spinach from the garden and it is a life-changing event. I cannot even tell you how amazing they are. More amazing is that we have already had four ripe strawberries! The first one I photographed like one of my French girls, in several luscious positions. It was delicious.

I hope you all have a delicious week! With all my harvesting, I have been thinking a lot about food, and meal planning, and, most of all, desserts, so I’ll be sure to share all my Yummy Related Thoughts soon. xo

More Weeding, More Reading

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This is probably a strange thing to admit, because I know that generally it is a task that is dreaded and disliked, but I actually kind of love weeding. Like the laundry, or cleaning the kitchen, or really cleaning anything at all in my house (I’m currently looking with a side-eye at my fuzzy companion, due to whom we never have clean floors for more than thirty minutes), the weeding is never done. It reminds me so much of Newman’s meltdown about the mail, how it never stops. That’s how it is with weeding, the weeds just keep coming and coming.

But maybe that’s what I like about it, that there is always something that needs tending. I also find weeding to be very meditative; typically when I’m performing dull, repetitive tasks I listen to podcasts or music, but when I weed I leave my phone and earbuds in the house, and it’s just me and the weeds, with the sounds of the outdoors around me. There’s something so calming about feeling the warmth of the sun with my hands in the dirt. It’s absolutely a meditation.

This week I found myself meditating a lot on friendship, and the role of social media in our lives. I have been reminding myself of the platitude that friends come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. What is interesting to me is how social media has changed that in some ways; people who we lose touch with decades ago can come back into our life via the miracle that is social media.

I think of one of the closing lines of Desiderata nearly every day: With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. This sentiment could easily be manipulated to be applied to social media: With all its sham, fakery, and advertisements, it is still a beautiful thing. So many incredible people have come back into my life and I have met so many people on social media channels who make my life richer and more interesting.

In a way, it’s changed the for a lifetime part of the platitude, because although I might not be intimate with my childhood best friends or my group from junior high, I still feel like I know them. I know their children’s names and what they look like, and sometimes I even know what they are eating for dinner or where they are travelling to. I love that. It’s an incredible way to stay connected, and I don’t think that I would be connected with these people were it not for social media.

I fully understand the pitfalls of social media, of course, but as a woman my age I’m pretty much over comparing my life to anyone else’s. I like to celebrate when others are celebrating, I want to commiserate when others are sad or in mourning, and I really do like to see what other people are eating for dinner. I know that mindless scrolling can be not only a waste of time, but also detrimental to my attention span and general wellness, and so I apply boundaries to my Instagramming and Facebooking and I stick to them.

There is one part of social media that I fall prey to, though, and that is the advertising. Wow, am I a soft touch. It’s kind of embarrassing to admit, but I have purchased – and, I hasten to add, absolutely loved – at least three products that were marketed to me on Instagram, and although I don’t buy a lot of things, I definitely look at the advertising reels and think about them intensely. You should see my algorithm, you guys. It’s almost entirely makeup and skincare for “the older woman,” plus shapewear. The other evening I was glancing at my feed and I accidentally mused out loud Miracle Balm, hmm, do I need Miracle Balm? The responses from the men in the house was immediate and emphatic.

My younger son: NO.

My husband: What? How many products do you already use every day? Forty? You don’t need forty-one.

My older son: You can’t stop the forward march of time, Mom.

Well, they are probably right, other than my husband’s conjecture about the number of products I use. I don’t know exactly how many I use, it depends on the day, but surely it’s less than forty. Surely. In any case, it’s true, you can’t stop the forward march of time. No matter how miraculous the balm.

Weekly Reading

There are two things I wanted to tell you before I get to the two very excellent and entertaining books that I read this week. The first is that I guest-posted over on Engie’s blog (HI ENGIE), and I talked about twenty favourite books that I have each read at least three times. Technically there are twenty-two, since I slipped Heidi and Deenie in at the end. Anyway, I wrote it a few weeks ago but since I was travelling, I wasn’t able to link up. Here it is, I hope you enjoy!

The second thing I wanted to say – and this is notable since I rarely do it – is that I DNFed a book this week. I have been trying to do this more, as I have a tendency to push through with books I am not enjoying, which is a waste of time, really. A woman in my writing group had strongly recommended a Japanese series, the first of which was Before The Coffee Gets Cold. She was so enthusiastic that I just put it on hold without looking up what it was about. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered it was all about time-travel; longtime readers will remember how I loathe time-travel as a literary device. I started it all the same, slogging through the first forty pages, and then I remembered my resolution to DNF if I am not enjoying a book. Freedom!

After I Do. Friends, I could not put down this book about a young married couple who fall out of love. It was one of the most intensely readable books I have had in a while! It was all about the little quirks that we have that are endearing, but maybe on a day to day basis become really irritating to our partners, and vice versa. It’s also about how small resentments (think: arguments about where the car is parked) can become fury-inducing, and how a lack of communication can tank a relationship. I mean, who among us hasn’t felt Hulk-level rage at something ridiculous like a toilet paper roll not being put in the recycle but instead left on the bathroom counter for all eternity? Anyway, this couple takes a year separation to see if their marriage can be saved, it’s a circuitous route that struck me as odd, but such a satisfying and engrossing read. I was so invested in these characters. Interesting note: this was written in 2014, and the author has gone on to have massive success. I have read a few of her very popular books and I didn’t enjoy them half as much as I did this. 

Happiness Falls. I don’t know what I thought this book would be like, but it wasn’t this – and I LOVED IT. What an incredibly written book with such a unique and original voice. A father goes missing and the only one who has clues to this is his autistic, non-speaking fourteen year old son. The rest of the family, along with the police, try to piece together what happened and if the son is at all to blame. As a side note, the father has been researching the notion of happiness, trying to quantify it in terms of baselines – if you come in from a cold, rainy day and warm up, you’re happier than if you never left the house, for example. It’s given me lots of fascinating things to think about. If you read this, be sure to read the author’s note on how she came up with the idea, because it’s very interesting.

Don’t worry, I won’t be exclusively writing about weeding for the next five months. OR WILL I? Will weeding become my new grocery shopping, in terms of blog topics? Stay tuned! xo

Miner Miner Forty Niner

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Yesterday was my birthday, and I turned 49. My last birthday in my forties! I have really loved my forties, and I hope this last year before I can say that I’m nifty and fifty will be just as great.

I love birthdays. This isn’t news to anyone who has known me even tangentially – I love my birthday, of course, but I love everyone else’s too. I mean, it was the day you arrived on the planet (and blinking, stepped into the sun). I hope we all have THAT song running through our heads now. Mind songs aside, birthdays are a wonderful time to celebrate people for just existing; you don’t need to do anything, you just need to be here.

I get more ponderous about life than I typically do around my birthday, which is to say very ponderous indeed. Years ago, in one of my senior yoga classes, a student said something about how this aging thing is for the birds, and another countered with at least we’re on this side of the grass. I would say that not being dead is a pretty excellent part of aging; that sounds sarcastic, but just last week I heard that a very beloved and popular yoga teacher in Calgary passed away at age 52. This is just one more example in a long line of examples of people I know whose lives have been cut too short, and I for one will never not be grateful for just being here.

I was listening to a podcast the other day, and the interviewer said something that really stuck with me: When we say “I don’t feel old,” what we are saying in essence is “I don’t feel irrelevant,” or “I don’t feel invisible.” The language that we use around aging is absolutely fascinating to me, and I thought about this all week. Our culture uses very positive language around youth, and negative language around aging – “antiaging” products to obtain a “youthful” glow, for example – and I don’t want to subscribe to that. Let’s put a little pin in that for now.

Something that is very interesting to me is how we ascribe a certain look to a certain age; for example, one will frequently hear the refrain “She doesn’t look X years old” or “She doesn’t look a day over X.” But how do we know what X looks like? There are just so many variables. Let us never forget that Rue McClanahan was 51 when she played Blanche on The Golden Girls. So who is to say how old someone looks? There are no rules anymore.

A key characteristic of being young is being unaware of the beauty that is present in ourselves, merely by being young. It is a fact of life that one does not realize just how beautiful they are simply by possessing that special glow of youth; instead, we realize it much later, at some point in the future. We are just so socialized to be constantly unhappy with our physical appearance: our weight, skin, hair, clothes, and features are all subject to criticism and are a source of deep unhappiness. How many of us were satisfied with our looks at 16, 18, 22? I would say probably none. And yet, and YET we were all beautiful, in the way that the young are always beautiful, and in twenty years we will be looking at photos of ourselves as we are right now, thinking how young and beautiful we look. I mean, why wait the 20 years? Why not appreciate ourselves right this minute?

I have been having a bit of an epiphany over the past several months; I have tried to condition myself to really lean in to the physical signs of aging. After all, I’m in a different life stage, no different from when I was pregnant and was constantly fascinated by and in admiration of my own body. Now I’m just on the other side of the fecundity spectrum, and why should that not be a time of fascination and admiration? Have I started developing jowls, and do I have loose skin under my chin that can only be described as a wattle? Yes. But short of surgery, there is nothing to be done about it, so why not appreciate my kind of melting face? Sure, I’m discovering why ladies of a certain age prefer elastic-waisted pants due to my figure becoming rectangular, and sure, my neck is rivaling Nora Ephron’s, but this is my stage of life, and I am just going to lean all the way in. Look at my beautiful grey roots!

Okay, maybe I’m not leaning THAT far in. I’m still going to colour my hair. I’m still going to use my retinol creams, my products to prevent hair thinning, all my makeup. But the point is I’m on the right side of the grass, and I’m not going to waste one more moment of my wild and precious life being unhappy with my looks.

A few months ago, someone – with, I’m sure, the best of intentions – told me, very helpfully, that every Thursday at Shopper’s Drug Mart is Seniors’ Day, and I could therefore receive a 20% discount on all purchases. I am not exactly sure what my facial expression looked like, but the person quickly said not to worry, the definition of senior is someone over 55, not 65. Now listen, there is nothing stigmatizing about being over 55, but a person wants to actually BE over 55 to be assumed that they are over 55, even for those of us working on our positive language around aging. It took me a moment, but I managed to say that I was not actually eligible for this discount, and then the conversation took what can only be described as a weird and awkward turn: they started to guess my age, going backward from 54. I stopped them when they got to 51 and said I was 48, at which point they said “Oh wow, really?”

So.

Maybe that’s when my epiphany started. Because believe you me, this conversation was not at all pleasant to me at the time, but looking back on it, it’s pretty funny. It’s also interesting, circling back to stigmatizing language, and how we assign an age a person looks versus the age that they are. This is what 49 looks like!

It looks different for everybody, of course – one woman’s 49 is another woman’s 55, evidently – but I for one am celebrating another turn around the sun.

Weekly Reading

The Whispers. I could NOT put this book down. Wow, what an incredibly told, compelling story about a child who suffers an accident and his mother who feels intense guilt about that accident. There are so many twists and surprises, and an intense, gloriously satisfying ending. This book is a real statement on the incredible complexities of motherhood, about neighbourhoods and relationships. I read and enjoyed this author’s first book, The Push, but let me tell you, this book leaves that one in the dust. It is SO well done and I am obsessed with it. What a ride!

Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock. I’m very mixed. On the one hand, the author’s research and intelligent points about time – how it’s measured, what is a clock and where did it come from, how do we utilize our time – are impressive. On the other hand, the writing style is very thick and tedious to me. It was a drag to read, honestly, and I don’t feel like what I got out of it was worth the time it took to read this. It was a slog.

Pete and Alice In Maine. When I heard this premise, I thought “Lucy By The Sea!” But friends, this is definitely not Lucy By The Sea, even if it is a story of a couple whose marriage is in trouble who flee New York with their two young children to their summer house in Maine, in early 2020. Now. A couple of things. It is a very real portrayal of the actual things people went through – children suddenly isolated from their friends, the inability to get toilet paper, the massive fear and sudden loathing of other people who are not behaving in the same way we are. So it is very realistic, except for the dialogue, which is ridiculously unnatural. Ridiculously. Every time a character spoke, it took me out of the story. The characters are all completely unlikeable – maybe a commentary on how people were at that time, I don’t know. The social commentary is pretty heavy-handed too. The ending is ambiguous which I usually like, but in this case it just seemed abrupt and strange. All in all, not an enjoyable reading experience for me, but who knows, maybe it will work for you.

I had a really wonderful birthday; we planted the garden, with the exception of tomatoes and peppers, I had a nice morning hike with Rex, and then the guys and I went out for dinner, coming back home for an epically delicious cake afterwards. I am so lucky.

In other news, I am taking a bloggy break for a couple of weeks, and when I’m back I will have lots of adventures to share with you! I look forward to catching up with all of you then, and so for now, take care of yourselves, my beautiful friends. xo

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

That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be

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Many years ago I was in the playground with a friend and our children; she had an older daughter who at the time was in first grade, and so was not at the playground but instead in school. My friend said something to me that has stayed with me for years. Her daughter, she said, “…has a whole life now that I don’t know about, there are so many hours a day I don’t know what she’s doing or who her friends are. It’s just a whole life separate to me.” At the time, my children were 3 and 4 and it would be difficult to overestimate how deeply those words affected me. My life and my children’s lives were so intensely intertwined: they were in preschool three afternoons a week, it was true, but I knew every child that they knew, I knew those children’s mothers and where they lived, if they had a playdate I went with them, every single moment of every day I knew where they were and at least approximately what they were doing.

Life continues on its trajectory and here we are. It was university Reading Week, and my older son came home for it which was, of course, delightful. Fifteen years after that playground conversation, and my son has a life that I only vaguely know about. He makes his own appointments and does things that I have no idea he’s doing, like snowboarding and rock climbing, I only have a very cursory idea about his schedule and classes, I don’t know any of his friends, and I have seen where he lives only once, for three minutes, while he moved in. His entire life is completely separate from me.

Well, that’s the goal, isn’t it? Fly, little birdie.

A few years after the playground conversation, I was speaking with the grandmother of one of my son’s friends. She was a lively and vibrant woman who took care of her grandchildren while their parents worked. I was telling her that I was nervous to leave the kids with my parents for three nights while my husband and I went away for his birthday. I’d never left them for so long before, and I felt anxious and guilty.

She patted my arm and said it was good to do these things, after all, she said, time goes fast and one day I’d be looking across the table and it would just be my husband. She told me that she remembered exactly when that happened, she said Oh, it’s you. Hello.

That isn’t quite the case here yet, but I can see it in the distance.

Marriages and long-term partnerships are so interesting and, snowflake-like, no two are the same. I was thinking a lot about that this week while reading Carly Simon’s memoir. Now listen, I have always been a fan of James Taylor, but I think that after reading this that I kind of hate James Taylor? He sounds like an absolute nightmare to be married to; I mean, to be fair, he was an addict, addiction is a disease, but also he was one of those guys who really wants a mommy in his wife – he is Sweet Baby James, after all – and who seems to have deeply resented the time and energy Carly spent on their children, particularly their very young son who was very ill with a kidney deformity. That’s probably all I need to say to paint the picture, but of course, he was also having affairs six ways to Sunday, and whenever Carly would confront him with this, he’d say “It has nothing to do with you.” OH REALLY, JAMES TAYLOR. I mean, he had to get tested for chlamydia a number of times during their marriage, so it kind of does have something to do with her? What was incredible to me was that Carly took to heart something her father said, which was that the true meaning of being rich was being able to give, and not being concerned about receiving. If that is the case, then Carly Simon was incredibly rich in her marriage, and even in 2015, decades after it ended, she still writes about him with love.

Getting back to James Taylor and his many venereal diseases, I was really puzzled by something: how was it working? And by “it” I mean his penis. I am no expert here, but he was whacked out on heroin much of the time, and so how was he having sex with all these women? I assumed that there would be performance issues associated with so much drug use, but here he was, contracting the clap left and right.

I am loathe to imagine this, honestly. James Taylor and his skeevy 70s moustache and greasy hair is not someone I want to picture intercoursing, as Detective Mettavoy once said in NYPD Blue and I have been waiting all these years to repeat. But I guess I am loathe to imagine anyone in a sexytimes situation; recently Stephany (HI STEPHANY) commented that no one talks about long-term partnered sex, and it’s true, no one does. I’m not going to delve into my own details about intercoursing here, mostly because my mom and several members of my extended family read this blog and I would like to have our future interactions not shadowed by extreme awkwardness. But I would like to circle back to my initial thought about marriage after the kids are grown and out of the house; this is the time to shine, in that department. Hello, it’s you.

Weekly Reading

Boys In The Trees. As mentioned above, this is a VERY juicy memoir written by Carly herself, and it is beautiful and lyrical, as could be expected from such an esteemed poet and songwriter. I knew going in that she had a stutter as a child, and her mom encouraged her to sing instead, which helped immensely, but what I didn’t know is she developed a stutter after being sexually exploited as a small child by the teenage son of a family friend. This exploitation went on for years and probably explains a lot about her later life. Also something that explains a lot: she was third born after two sisters, and she was “supposed” to be a boy named Carl, disappointed, her parents added a “y.” Do not even get me started on how enraged I am at the idea of “trying for a boy/ girl,” I have to actually do some ujjayi breathing just at the thought. Anyway, her parents did have their longed-for (RAGE RAGE RAGE) son after Carly, but they didn’t want him to GROW UP GAY in a house full of females (MORE RAGE) so they hired a male companion to teach him manly things. Where was her father, you may ask? He was busy. You see, Carly grew up in incredible wealth and privilege – her father is the Simon of Simon and Schuster! She grew up in New York and summered in Connecticut, spending a few weeks a year in Martha’s Vineyard, where, as a child, she met a young James Taylor WHO WAS ALSO GROWING UP WITH IMMENSE WEALTH AND PRIVILEGE. Honestly, I had no idea. Anyway, this male companion ends up a) fucking her mother to the point that she had an adjoining room with him while her father was just on another floor of the house, and b) spying on Carly and her sisters as they use the bathroom. So perhaps all of this explains Carly’s mellow attitude towards her nightmare of a husband, later on. There are many juicy details about the many sexy notches in her belt later in life, notably Warren Beatty, who really knew what was what in the bedroom, and Mick Jagger, with whom she had EXPLOSIVE chemistry, and who also sang backup on You’re So Vain. Who knew? Here’s what she had to say about that song:

Aha! So it’s more of a compilation of vain men. God, I love that song. Long-time readers will recall that this is my go-to karaoke song.

Hagitude: Reimagining The Second Half of Life. Speaking of birdies flying and the nest becoming empty, my friend Laura (HI LAURA) said the other day that she felt like when she became a mother, something shattered in her creativity, and now, as her daughter is away at college, she is at a stage where she is picking up those shards and putting them back together, rediscovering her creativity. I thought of that image a lot, reading this book. This is an interesting time of life for a woman. “…what we should be doing during menopause is gently and consciously letting go of one period of our lives, and slowly and mindfully easing the progression into another.” So says the author of Hagitude, an uplifting book drawing on European mythology about the elder period of a woman’s life, the vitality and meaning that can come from becoming a crone, a hag, a wise old woman. This is a dense book full of imagery and reclamation.

Here we are in the last week of February! Time just keeps its forward march, and here Friday is actually March. I’m hoping for a lamblike start to the month for you all, in every way. xo

People Who Watch People

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The world is such an interesting place, isn’t it? It’s wild that a person can go from this:

To this, in only a matter of hours.

It has been very grey and foggy this week, but it’s so mild and windless that I don’t mind it at all. Our snow is basically all gone, except for piles in parking lots and along the walking paths where it had been shovelled. Those piles are a source of great joy to Rex, who likes to roll and slide down them, and then starts to eat them. His penchant for eating snow is pretty cute, and so I’m trying not to be horrified when he shoves his face into filthy parking lot snow. I mean, he is a dog, so I am assuming his digestive system can handle it.

After what felt like a long run of books that ran the gamut between Good and OMG Boring, last Friday I read a really fabulous collection of short stories, entitled Today A Woman Went Mad At The Supermarket, and if that title does not pique your interest, then you are living a very different life from me.

Hilma Wolizer has been around and writing for decades – most of these stories were written in the 1970s, one as early as the 1966 – and so I am puzzled as to why I haven’t heard of her before this. All the stories are interconnected and deal with my favourite genre: ordinary, everyday things written in an extraordinary way. The last story has to do with the pandemic, written in 2020, and I mention it as a warning for anyone who is not in a mental space to read about the early days of Covid, specifically how it affected elderly people living in New York City.

The foreword of this book is written by Elizabeth Strout who, as you know, is one of my favourites and who also really writes the Slice Of Life books that I adore. In the foreword are two quotes from Wolitzer, which resonated with me so much and made me want to call her up and scream ME TOO into the phone.

Everyone’s face was fascinating to me, and I would wonder what their lives were like.

I don’t believe there’s such a thing as ordinary life. I think all life is extraordinary.

I cannot even begin to explain how seen I felt after I read that; I felt a deep kinship with this 90 year old writer.

On our trip to Mexico, I spent a lot of time by myself at the pool; I am the early bird of our group, so I would lounge around waiting for my husband and our friends to arrive, reading and soaking up the surroundings. I tend to chat with anyone within ten feet of me, but on this trip people were mostly swimming by me, or in large groups, and so instead of chatting, I’d just imagine what their lives were like. How long had that couple been married? What was it like to look exactly like the guy who talks about the O Face in the movie Office Space? What does the man swimming early-morning pool lengths do for a living? Where did that woman get that fabulous hat?

One afternoon I was reading while my husband and our friend were floating around in the pool, drinks in hand. They noticed a couple who was in the pool beside them; this couple was involved in what can only be described as An Extensive Makeout Session. The guys couldn’t believe I didn’t notice the couple, because, as I mentioned before, I am always people-watching, and so they were shocked I missed the estan caliente teenage-like making out and, if you will pardon the extremely crude expression, but nothing else comes close to describing this accurately, dry-humping that was happening in the pool right in front of me. How did you not see it? our friend asked, puzzled at my obliviousness. The guy got out right in front of you and he had a massive boner, how could you miss that? my husband told me, with his usual delicacy of manner.

How indeed?

Nevertheless, it wasn’t long before I started seeing this couple everywhere, though, and always in a similar state of semi-clothed in flagrante: in the lobby bar, standing next to the pool, in a single pool lounge next to the pool. From what I could see the man was probably in his fifties, and the woman a couple of decades younger. Their level of passion was truly inspirational, although if continued to completion, I would assume that there would be a lot of chafing and possible cystitis involved in this holiday.

I did, of course, wonder what their story was. I concluded that if they were married, it wasn’t to each other, and before long I had an entire Harlequin-like romance written in my head about them.

Speaking of marriage, my husband and I were wandering through the resort one night; our friends had gone back to their room, and we were enjoying the full moon and the music that was coming from a wedding reception being held nearby. One of the songs was Baby Got Back, which I love, but which also seems like a strange choice for a wedding reception. In any case, there we were, getting our groove on, when my husband was swarmed by a group of young women in an advanced state of inebriation. Josh! Josh! they squealed, to our bemusement.

It turns out that these lovely young women had mistaken my husband for an actor named Josh Duhamel, who I had never heard of before, but who has the distinction of being from Minot, North Dakota, which is not far at all from where I was born, in Saskatchewan. These girls were slightly disappointed that my husband was not the star of a Transformers movie, but were extremely sweet and cheerful. We saw you by the pool today! they said, then turning to me. We just thought he had gotten remarried! Well, that was cute, but there are two things that I found out later: Josh Duhamel used to be married to Fergie, of Black Eyed Peas fame, and is now married to a former Miss World America.

I do not have low self-esteem or lack for confidence, but I admit I did feel a bit strange at this exchange. The tables, they had turned. My people-watching had ricocheted back to me; me, with my giant sunhat and streaks of mineral sunscreen on my legs and bikini, with my slightly-bloated margarita tummy and fuzzy, out of control beach hair. Did these women really think that Josh Duhamel, one-time star on All My Children, left Miss World America for ME? Were they making up their own mental stories about people around the pool generally, and me specifically? I cannot imagine such stories would cast me in a very flattering light. Listen, I would like to believe that we live in a world in which women of all ages, visages, and bodies are embraced equally by ex-soap stars, but let’s be realistic. The most likely answer is that these women’s vision was blurred by unlimited day-drinking; in fact, I think that is probably my best-case scenario. Maybe they thought you WERE Miss World America, my husband ventured, to which I answered with a look only. He shrugged sheepishly. When a couple has been married for a few decades, sometimes non-verbal communication is the best kind of communication.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Gnomevember Edition

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I don’t usually leave my Favourite Things until the last day of the month, but here we are! November is an underrated month, in my mind. It’s the month of Tiny Secret Festive Season and Christmas shopping, it’s preparing holiday cards and baking gingery things. It’s Mint Chocolate season, which is my favourite of all the flavours, and it’s the month to start playing holiday music with abandon. There are so many happy things, that without further ado I bring you:

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Gnomevember Edition

Gnomevember

One could argue that any month in the Boyhouse is Gnomevember, really, but if every month is a specific celebration of gnomes then perhaps no month is a specific celebration of gnomes, if you know what I mean. So when Michelle (HI MICHELLE) started talking about Gnomevember, I was clearly going to be all in. One of my favourite things this month is that Michelle’s dollhouse has now been overtaken by gnomes, and it is the most charming thing I have ever seen.

A few weeks ago I was getting the mail and there was a little package in there labelled Tiny Secret Festive Season, from my dear friend Allison (HI ALLISON). She had sent me this little guy, who lights up, which is a desperately needed thing as the sunset is now at 3:59 pm. 3:59 pm!!! What will happen by Winter Solstice? I’ll be lighting this guy a lot, that’s what.

He was in a plastic bag, with a note “Help, help, I can’t breathe,” which was the most delightful little surprise. Obviously I saved him.

The very next day my sweet friend Sammi (HI SAMMI) came by for a visit, and with her came this guy:

If I wasn’t overwhelmed enough with the kindness and love of my dear friends, this arrived in the mail from the beautiful and talented Suzanne (HI SUZANNE).

And, of course, my old Christmas gnomes have set themselves up on the kitchen windowsill.

Am I actually living in a full-sized version of Michelle’s dollhouse? MAYBE! Dreams do come true, people, and my home is happily gnome-tastic.

Brace Yourselves

I had received a number of questions about my bracelets, and so I wanted to show you my Christmas one. I wear it from November 1 to January 1, and it just brings me so much joy.

The bangle itself is engraved The Best Is Yet To Come which is a really lovely sentiment. A few of the charms are also engraved: the gingerbread man says Life Is Sweet, the mistletoe says Meet Me Under The Mistletoe, and the snowflake scene says, appropriately enough, Merry Christmas. Each charm was a gift from either my husband, the boys, or my parents.

A few years ago, I had trouble with the clasp spontaneously opening up, and sometimes I’d find that a charm had slipped off it, usually, and kind of depressingly, into my dish glove. But December of 2021 I was out shopping; there was a ton of snow, I was wearing my warmest coat and gloves, I was in and out of the car with my mask on, and everything felt just uncomfortable. I don’t wear a mask anymore, but I clearly remember the awkwardness of it, especially in winter with all the clothing layers and going in and out of the minus 20 weather. Anyway, I got home from groceries and errands, and noticed that my bracelet had unclasped and my cute little snowman charm, a gift from the boys, was missing.

It was December 2021, people. I think we all remember what that time was like. Everything felt challenging and depressing, it was the second pandemic Christmas, we were heading into yet another lockdown, my kids’ schooling was weird and constantly interrupted, and my missing snowman was the last straw. I sat on the floor and sobbed. I sobbed like a small child forced to sit on Santa’s lap against her will. I sobbed like a small child forced to interact with a clown at a birthday party, and then later losing the balloon that said clown had foisted upon her to reduce the sobbing.

I retraced my steps, including those to the snow-covered London Drugs parking lot, to no avail. And you might think there is a happy, snowman-charm-related ending to this story, but you will notice that there is no snowman on the bracelet. This is not about the snowman. My favourite thing is that my younger son, aged 16, went to the Pandora store in the mall on December 23 of that year to see if he could replace it. The thought of him, with his friend who was just our houseguest two weeks ago, being at the Pandora store looking for a snowman charm for his mom brings me more happiness than even that charm could. He was unable to replace it as the snowman charm had been, as they say in Pandora-speak, retired. Over the past two years the guys have looked for a snowman multiple times, only to be told either no longer exists, or that they could buy the snowman from the movie Frozen, which, I am sorry to say, is a subpar snowman and one which I do not wish to have.

Anyway, I love this bracelet for the two months of the year that I wear it, it brings me so much joy and happiness, and I will just hold the snowman memory in my heart.

Drink And Be Merry

With the exception of 2020, we have seen my husband’s cousin and her husband (HI DARCY AND DEREK) around Christmas every year, and they share my great love for Christmas Vacation. Last year they gave me these fabulous stemless wine glasses:

Years ago, knowing also my great love for Buddy the Elf, they gave the boys each a mug with hot chocolate mix and marshmallows; I have coopted these for my morning coffee:

Play That Christmas Music, White Girl

Almost universally, I love Christmas music. I love the classical and instrumental, I love churchy hymns, I love modern pop songs, midcentury ones, and everything in between. The only song I really strongly dislike is Wonderful Christmastime, which puts me on edge like you would not believe. My son would also like to tell you, dear reader, that in the Boyhouse we also loathe songs that feature out-of-tune children, such as Two Front Teeth, but I am pretending that such songs don’t even exist.

One song that I love so much that I have an entire playlist devoted to the original and all of its covers is Last Christmas. I play it on the piano. I sing it to myself in the shower. I can never, ever get enough of it.

Other favourites include Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, Santa Baby, Baby, It’s Cold Outside (I KNOW BUT I LOVE IT), and Driving Home For Christmas. I always, always cry when I hear White Wine In The Sun, so may I recommend it to anyone who would enjoy a nice cathartic holiday cry? Ditto with River.

On the more modern side, I absolutely LOVE N’Sync’s Merry Christmas Happy Holidays. Although, now that I have said “modern,” I should probably check when it was released…okay, well, it looks like it came out in 1998. Huh. I also love Underneath the Tree by Kelly Clarkson, and that was released in 2013, so I’m within a decade. THAT IS MODERN ENOUGH.

Here Baby, There Mama, Everywhere Daddy Daddy

I have an important hair update for you! This past weekend marked exactly one year since I started taking Nutrafol for hair loss, and I can tell you it has made a huge difference. My hair no longer falls out in big clumps. I am no longer cleaning handfuls of hair out of my hairbrush or unclogging the drain. I wish I could say this was a sponsored post because that shit is EXPENSIVE, but alas, I am paying for it myself. The expense is worth circumventing my eventual nervous breakdown due to balding, and so I will keep it up.

I do have one teeny tiny grievance about this Favourite Thing, and that is my roots. The first week after I colour my hair, I am in love with myself and my reflection. The second week, as my white roots come in and I have a halo around my face, I toy with the idea of just letting it go, colour-wise. I think about my many friends who have embraced the grey and who look absolutely fabulous, and I think, hey, that could be me! The third week, I begin a descent into despair, becoming increasingly unhappy with not only the colour, but also the texture of my roots. Before four weeks have passed, I have a headful of hair colour and a timer set.

The problem, as I see it, is that my perimenopausal menstrual cycle is now, and has been for a while, three and a half weeks at best, and somehow this has synced up with my hair colour cycle. My extreme dissatisfaction with my hair and general appearance perfectly correlates with the days leading up to my period, and although I would like to break this cycle, I cannot. I am trapped in a problem of my own making. I am a snake eating my own tail.

That said, as with all the privilege in my life, I feel I cannot complain. Can a person take an incredibly expensive supplement for hair growth, and then complain about the hair growth? No. That is ridiculous. So I embrace my boxed hair colour. In any case, if you are curious, Nutrafol really has worked for me, and I had a grandmother who actually wore a wig, so let me tell you, genetics are not on my side, people.

Outfit of the Month

Some families have matching pajama sets on Christmas Eve, but in the Boyhouse, we have WWE Christmas sweaters for Decorating Day.

If you haven’t been around for the past two Christmases, I will fill you in: the guys bought WWE sweaters post-Christmas 2020 for 80% off, and I resisted strongly getting one of my own, for reasons which I feel are obvious. However, as the year went on, I started to feel a little left out about it, and so my husband looked into buying me a sweater. By that time, there was only one woman’s sweater at 80% off; the rest were at regular price, and regular price was far too high for me to want to spend. The one discounted sweater was cute enough, but it was only available in a size that was six sizes larger than the one I normally wear. My choices were a comically large but inexpensive sweater, or one that fit properly but was ridiculously costly. I suppose I could have gotten a men’s sweater, but I believe in lifting up other women, even if the women in question are lifting each other up only to body slam them in the ring.

You can clearly see my Scottish heritage, in my extremely oversized sweater. Anyway, the point is that Decorating Day is a Big Deal, and so we all wear them for the festive occasion.

It’s been a really great November – STILL NO SNOW, YOU GUYS – and now it’s time to bring on December! Do you have anything you’ve loved this month? Tell me everything. xo