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Nicole’s Favourite Things: The “Yes, I Am Still Talking About My Feet” Edition

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Last week I stepped into my Sorel boots and immediately got a very wet sock. It turns out that, after nine years of service, they have given up the ghost. There was a big crack in the sole of the boot; farewell, Sorels.

I actually checked the blog to see when I purchased them and, indeed, it was January 2011. Even though these boots were perfect for just stepping into, making them ideal for wearing to and from the gym and yoga, I am not that sorry to see them go. They were heavy – like walking with 1980s-style ankle weights – and due to their age, not even very warm anymore. Plus, they are extremely unattractive, which in a way was a bonus: no one would ever voluntarily steal them from the gym or wherever. Who would want such ugly, heavy boots? That said, my friend Taryn (HI TARYN) is attempting to fix the sole so at least they can be donated, as the thought of just dropping them into the garbage was a bit too much for me. Maybe someone will indeed want them.

I can really understand, as I age, how old people end up with substandard things they have had for decades, just because they are “too good” to throw out. For one thing, time goes by so quickly – we are more than a third through February, people, wasn’t it just New Year’s a minute ago – and so things purchased years ago can still feel “new.” I just bought new towels, the old ones going to our “vacation house” (it’s a LONG story that I might get into sometime), and the difference is night and day. How have we lived this long with what essentially feels like burlap, when we could have been enjoying these new towels that feel like I am drying myself off with an actual cloud? Well, those burlap towels were purchased when we renovated in 2012, and they probably felt like clouds at the time too, but that was EIGHT YEARS AGO. Things wear out, like towels, and Sorel boots, and flannel sheets, which currently also feel like burlap and which are, as we speak, on sale at Costco for $49.99 per set. But my sheets are perfectly fine and serviceable, I think, I just bought them. Probably also eight years ago, at the least.

Anyway. I may work myself up to new flannel sheets at some point, but right now, maybe because of my Sorels, maybe because of my panic-at-the-disco about gel pedicures, I want to talk about feet. I promised you all that I would talk about my favourite foot care products, and I do not disappoint. Whether you do your own pedicures, or you are looking for some nice products, or you are just actually interested in the state of my feet, I have recommendations for you. Without further ado…

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The “Yes, I Am Still Talking About My Feet” Edition

Soak Them

The first thing I do when giving myself a home pedicure – if I have time, that is – is to soak my feet in (usually very) hot water, with a sprinkle of the Saje bath salts below. I am not sold on Saje bath salts over any other bath salts, but I a) do not take baths* and b) a student gave me this giant bottle of salts, and so I like to use them. They are a lovely lavender scent, and they are “yoga” brand so, fun! But, you know, use whatever you like.

*I feel weird saying I do not take baths, because it makes me sound like an unwashed barbarian. I’m sure you all assume that to mean that I only take showers.

Anyway, I soak my feet for 5-10 minutes or so, depending on how much time I have, and then I painstakingly remove my nail polish. I say painstakingly because I have worn red nail polish on my toes since I was sixteen years old, with no breaks, and so my natural toenail colour is, shall we say, unattractive.

After soaking, if time permits, I quickly file any dry, crusty parts off of my feet with the file above. I have no idea where that file came from. Did I buy it? Did it come in a gift pack? I have no idea. I just know it’s been in my bathroom drawer for many years and it is a very good quality foot file.

Spa Ritual Polish

Honest to god, this is the best nail polish ever. It’s what they use in the fancy salon I frequent with my mom on Mother’s Day for our annual pedicure. I usually buy a bottle while I’m there, and it lasts me pretty much the whole year. This colour is Soulful, which makes me smile. The polish advertises as being vegan and cruelty-free, which is nice, but it also makes you wonder how a nail polish could NOT be vegan. It’s probably best not to think about it. Anyway, this is a super-long-lasting polish, and the pink colour in the above photo is what I use on my fingernails. It’s a nice natural colour, called Idyllic. Idyllic and Soulful, that’s me.

Don’t Forget The Top Coat

The white bottle in the group photo is the official top coat for Spa Ritual, and it does make the pedicure last a long time. However, I haven’t noticed a significant difference – other than price, hoo boy, the price – between that top coat and good old Sally Hansen:

I don’t think I’ve ever used it as a base coat. Maybe this accounts for my hideous natural nail colour.

O’Keefe’s Foot Cream

I have tried every single foot cream/ foot balm/ foot “rescue” that you could possibly imagine, and they all worked in a fair-to-middling kind of way. My husband was swayed by an O’Keefe’s commercial to try their dry skin cream and reported it to be better than anything he had ever tried, including Gold Bond. I thought I’d try the foot cream, and was almost put off by the cost, but I soldiered through.

People, this is the greatest foot cream of all time. It is like a literal foot miracle. Dry skin, cracked skin, crusty skin, all GONE. I was braced for it to smell medicinal and old-people-ish, but it is actually light and minty scented. I cannot say enough about this cream; for once the commercials do not lie. Just a word of warning, as with any foot cream, be sure to put socks on after use, and it’s probably best to use it at night and not right before you put on shoes or sandals. Unless you like footprints on your floor and sliding out of your shoes.

 

It’s been almost two weeks since my last home pedicure – not bad!

Feel free to share your favourite foot products with me, and have a happy Monday! xo

Maybe they are “regular”

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I am absolutely a morning person, and yet I’ve had a few strange occurrences over the past few days that have caused me to figuratively tilt my head and raise my eyebrows at myself. On Saturday I started the coffee without noticing that the pot was on an angle, and by the time I finished washing my face, brushing my teeth, and feeding the dog there was half a pot of coffee that had spilled out on my countertop. Half a pot of coffee is a lot of coffee on a flat surface; it took me many minutes and many dish clothes to clean the mess up. I had to move all the small appliances and twenty-five bananas out of the pool of coffee and, of course, the angled pot had pressed up onto the filter and so there were grounds all through my coffee maker as well. My coffee maker was in need of a vinegar cleaning anyway – I am not sure if I’ve EVER given it a vinegar cleaning, and I have had this coffee maker since at least 2012 – but still. It was not, I thought, the best way to start a new month.

Then, this morning I went to yoga practice with my pants inside out. I didn’t even notice until I was two-thirds of the way through; if they were black I’m sure I would have never noticed, but they were blue, with a black gusset, and so it was fairly obvious.

Despite these two occurrences, February seems to be off to a good start. Saturday my husband and I had a date to The Casbah, where I had the single best meal of my life. I am not exaggerating. It was epic. If you are in Calgary, you really must go. Not only is the food incredible – I’m serious, it was the best meal I have ever consumed – the atmosphere is wonderfully romantic and lovely. I have always wanted to visit Morocco; one day I will and I will eat all the chickpeas and tajines and couscous you can imagine.

Then yesterday, in addition to being a palindrome, Kansas City won the Superbowl, which I was excited about. I also made a delicious dessert that I hadn’t made for a while, strawberry daiquiri pie. It’s the easiest thing in the world: a few days before, put two cans of full-fat coconut milk in the fridge. Scoop out the thick and creamy part to use, whirl it in a food processor with three cups of sliced strawberries (I used thawed frozen ones), two tablespoons of lime juice, and 1/2 cup honey. Pour it into a graham cracker crust (1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs with 1/4 cup melted coconut oil). Freeze, eat with magic shell chocolate (2/3 cup coconut oil melted with 1 cup chocolate, add 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1 tablespoon honey).

Most importantly, though, today my son went back to school. Hurrah to the end of exam break, all is back to normal in the Boyhouse.

So February is great so far, and I am happy to report that I am no longer hearing Honky Cat on a loop in my head. I was talking to the boys about this and my younger son pointed out it was excellent that I didn’t have Bennie and the Jets stuck in my head, because no one knows the words to it. I realized with a start that this was true. I don’t know the words to Bennie and the Jets; I would venture to say that no one does*. I would say that the entire population might know “Hey Kids,” followed by a great deal of mumbling, then “She’s got electric boots,” more mumbling that culminates in “B-b-b-bennie and the Jets.” But nothing else.

My son told me he had looked up the lyrics and it was worth doing; if you are interested you should do this because whoa nelly, none of those words a) make sense, and b) sound like anything at all in the song.

Speaking of things that don’t make sense, I had to go to Walmart for a few Walmart-y type things, one of which was Advil. The Pain Relief aisle is the same as the Family Planning aisle – huh, let’s not think too much about this – and there was a man there, talking with one of the employees. The employee – who was, I feel it is important to mention, female – had a box of condoms in her hand and was reading it.

Employee: This says “Extra Large.”

Man: No, no, that’s not what I need. Is there an “Extra SMALL?”

At this point I seriously considered browsing through the KY jellies and multiple personal lubricants just to hear the rest of the exchange. Mostly, though, I was impressed with this man. I mean, who has the confidence to ask for extra small condoms in a normal, non-whispery voice? Who has the confidence to actually go to a physical store to look for extra small condoms, rather than special order them online? May we all hold ourselves in such esteem.

Also? I’m pretty sure they DON’T have extra small condoms. I am pretty sure that the condom companies would never market them that way. It’s probably like in Starbucks, where a small is a Tall.

Well, there’s no good way to segue into this, but look at what I saw in the Co-Op the other day:

CANNED HAGGIS. Who knew there was such a thing? Not me, that’s for sure. As if haggis itself isn’t gross enough – “I think all of Scottish cuisine is based on a dare,” Mike Myers – CANNED haggis? Who would buy this? Let alone who would pay $13.29 for a can of haggis? No Scottish person, that’s for sure. If there is one thing that unites us as a people, it is frugality.

As a note I have never actually eaten haggis, canned or no, and I never will. But I just can’t imagine it being good in any capacity, even if I wasn’t vegetarian. Note the mushy peas next to it. Shudder, shudder, shudder.

I have decided that I WILL challenge myself to wear a different outfit every day in February. Let’s see how this goes. Today is cold and snowy and grey, which is a very February kind of day, I think. So why not brighten it up by digging through my closet to come up with different things? If there’s one thing I love, it’s clothes. And Moroccan food. And Elton John.

Here are my first three outfits of the month: date night, my only football-themed top for Superbowl Sunday, and a very typical “teaching day” outfit.

*Technically it is not no one; other than Elton John, my friend’s husband does actually know the words, which is a very excellent party trick in my opinion.

Until I saw your city lights, honey I was blind.

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I tend to avoid bragging about my kids; not that they are not braggable, but because I think it’s bad form. However, this all changes now. I am here to tell you that their knowledge of Elton John lyrics is second only to my own, which is to say, excellent. In point of fact, their knowledge was close to besting mine, as there was some involved discussion whether or not the line was I miss the earth so much, I miss my wife or life. It turns out that we were both right, as the line is “life” in the movie, but “wife” in the OG version, as the kids say.

I realized their lyrical knowledge had skyrocketed from Fine to Astonishing when we watched Rocketman on Saturday night. It was so much fun to watch with them; the three of us singing heartily throughout the movie. I’m not sure if my husband, the lone non-singer, found it quite as charming, but whatever. I can’t wait to watch Bohemian Rhapsody with them: I see a little silhouette-a of a man…

The sole issue from our fun singsong party-of-three is that I have had Honky Cat stuck in my head, on a loop, ever since. If I was to list my top ten Elton John songs, Honky Cat would not make the list. I don’t even think it would be in my top TWENTY. But here I am, nearly a week later, singing snippets of it all the livelong day. Get back, Honky Cat, better get back to the woods…at what point do I declare myself insane? Soon, I think. Living in the city ain’t where it’s at…

While I’m bragging, on Monday two unprecedented things happen. Now, before I go into those things, I will say that my boys are very helpful around the house; they have set chores and those chores are always done, they always are willing – usually cheerfully – to help out with any household/ yard/ snow shoveling task when asked, they keep the house and all the areas they inhabit in the house very tidy and clean. However, and I know every woman out there can relate to this, they often don’t See Things That Need To Be Done The Way I See Those Things, and I could get into a whole thing about Emotional Labour but I will not. Anyway, two things on Monday happened that have made me singing Looks Like We’ve Made It, interspersed with, of course, Honky Cat. I quit those days and my redneck ways… 

Monday morning I was writing at my desk and I could hear the clanking of dishes and silverware from the kitchen (YES IT IS WEEK THREE OF EXAM BREAK, LET US NEVER SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN). When I finished what I was doing, I realized that my older son (EXAM BREAK OMGGGG) had eaten his breakfast, realized that the dishwasher was finished its cycle, UNLOADED THE DISHWASHER and then PUT HIS OWN DISHES INTO IT. Yes, of course my kids always put their dishes in the dishwasher when they are finished with them, they are not barbarians, but to unload the dishwasher without being asked? UNPRECEDENTED.

Later, that very same day, my younger son changed the roll of toilet paper; this is nothing new, the guys always do this, it is unremarkable in and of itself. But he took the empty roll out of the bathroom and put it in the recycle bin, rather than leave it on the countertop in the bathroom. Also unprecedented! And just as astonishing!

So I am bragging about my wunderkinds; even if neither of those things ever happen again, well, we will always have Paris, so to speak.

Thank you all for your comments regarding gel pedicures; especial thank-you goes out to Samantha (HI SAMANTHA) for her comment about gel polish being bad for the nails. Long time readers will remember the time I got a manicure when I was stuck at the car dealership for many, many hours. That was a gel manicure and a few weeks after getting it, the polish peeled off, leaving my nails thin and weak. It took a long time for my nails to get back to normal; thank you, Samantha, for reminding me of this. I ended up cancelling my pedicure; I considered taking in my own polish, but that felt weird and overly controlling. I also considered getting no polish, but, to be honest, my feet are not, as my friend Taryn (HI TARYN) says, “manky,” so it felt like a waste of money just to get them soaked and scrubbed, which I can do at home. I figure I can Support Local Business in other ways. For example, waxing. A hirsute girl such as myself can well keep a business going.

Non-manky but Reynaud’s purple.

Oooh, maybe the next Favourite Things will be all about foot products. Sorry to keep you all on the edge of your seat! But you will have to wait.

I cannot believe tomorrow is February, this is the fastest moving January in all history, or at least in all of MY history. There are a few really good things I want to tell you about, to round the month off.

Sweater Discovery

I was rearranging the top shelf of my closet, where I keep things my gym sweatshirts and lesser-worn but much-loved items such as sweater dresses. Behold, underneath my pile of sweater dresses was this sweater:

It has pockets!

This is a significant discovery – the sweater, not the pockets – not only because I’ve had this sweater for many years and love it, but I completely forgot about its existence. When did I last wear it? Who knows! I LITERALLY forgot that I owned it. It was like finding something brand-new, although this sweater is the opposite of brand-new. What an exciting discovery. The very fact that I found something that a) I haven’t worn in years, and b) I love, made me think, once again, that my Sweater Situation is Ample.

Maybe I’ll do a February Challenge! Maybe I’ll try to wear a different outfit for each day in February, sweater-wise, at least. February is a short month, I should be able to do that. Obviously there will be some repeats in the form of jeans or black yoga pants – I have a number of those, too, but not enough to get me through the month without re-wearing.

Cilantro

I gave my little herb garden a break for a month or so, when I discovered fruit flies (fruit flies! In November!) that were infesting my cilantro. Or maybe they were aphids? I don’t know, but I did not want to eat infested cilantro. I don’t think that’s vegetarian. Also, gross. As you know, I cannot – CANNOT – go back to grocery store cilantro, so I have been doing without. I decided all was fine now, bug wise, so I planted some cilantro seeds, but it was just before the extreme cold snap. Even with the grow lights, it was too cold for the seeds to really sprout. Well, happily they are sprouted now and I am only a couple of weeks away from harvest. I can’t wait! The pleasure will be all the greater for the waiting, as old-timey suitors might have said about a reticent lady friend who finally agreed to an engagement.

Winter Fashion

It’s been so mild that on three occasions in the past ten days, I’ve worn my cute, stylish, flattering, lightweight winter coat. Don’t worry! I haven’t put away my sleeping-bag-with-sleeves, and in fact, I’m wearing it more often than not, but I have felt like a Winter Fashion Plate on those three occasions. I have paired my coat with a big blanket scarf and my tall, lace-up-but-with-a-zipper-on-the-side boots, and have felt like a Very Fancy Lady, one who lives in a much less harsh climate, who can look forward to “winter.” Or maybe one of those high class ladies down in New Orleans…

Photos courtesy of my older son who – have I mentioned this already? – has had NO CLASSES FOR THREE WEEKS THREE WEEKS PEOPLE. Cue up:

It’s like trying to drink whiskey from a bottle of wine…

It’s Friday, people! Let’s drink wine from a bottle of wine (or whiskey, I won’t judge) and enjoy the weekend. xo

Happy Thoughts and Pedicure Stress

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January is usually such a drawn-out drag of a month; I don’t know WHAT is going on, but this January is just flying by. I mean, it is the LAST WEEK OF JANUARY and it feels like I only just put up my puppy wall calendar, admiring the photo of the cute golden retriever puppy with a stick in his mouth. In just a few short days there will be a new puppy to look at and I cannot believe it. Could it be because since the polar vortex broke, it’s been beautifully pleasant outside? Could it be the bizarre three weeks of no classes my older son has been experiencing, for his alleged Exam Break? Could it be my busy new schedule of classes that makes the week speed by? Who can say?

I’m currently reading a historical fiction book about Zelda Fitzgerald, and I have been thinking about all the Women Who Have Come Before Us. Sometimes, when I think I’m having a bad day, I think of my grandmother who was widowed with six children under the age of 12, with literally no money at all. I think of her working at night so that the older boys would be home with the toddler twin girls, I think of her taking in boarders to make ends meet, I think of her walking a two mile round trip to milk her neighbour’s cow so that the girls could have milk. I have a wonderful life, full stop, no caveat necessary. Yes, life in this day and age has its peculiar challenges, but really. Really.

All of which is to segue into something that is bizarrely giving me a low-level anxious feeling, and it is the most Princess Problem of all Princess Problems. It’s right up there with my tiara is slightly too tight and this diamond ring is too heavy for my finger. Here is the issue, if we can even call it an issue: I have a pedicure booked for this Saturday. I am a person who does her own pedicures, with the exception of my annual Mother’s Day treat when my mom and I go to a fancy spa to get one done. I keep my toenails polished and my feet pumice-d and lotion-ed. My feet are on display almost every day because of my job, and so I like to keep them looking nice. Well, that’s not entirely true, the job really doesn’t have much to do with it. I’ve always kept my feet looking nice; it’s like wearing pretty underwear, even if I am the only person who knows about it, it gives me a boost.

So back to the Princess Problem. There is a cute little day spa that opened up in my neighbourhood, and I have fully switched from my usual place where I get waxes to this new place. This spa charges half the amount the other one did for a wax, the job is just as good, and I can walk there in five minutes. I really like the esthetician who does my waxes, and I impulsively booked a pedicure with her, even though I a) do my own and b) it isn’t Mother’s Day.

At this point you are probably wondering where I’m going with this. What is the big deal? Well, the thing that is causing me low-level anxiety is that the new cute day spa only does gel pedicures, and I normally get regular polish.

Who even cares, you might be thinking, but the thing is I’ve never had a gel pedicure and I don’t know what I will do if a) the polish chips or b) how to even remove the polish if it starts to grow out and look weird. I’ve seen ladies get gel polish removed at the spa and it seems like such an ordeal: toes wrapped in foil, some kind of buffing tool, etc. Now that I’m writing it down, it looks like possibly the stupidest blog topic ever, and that includes the time I wrote about buying the wrong scent of bathroom cleanser. 

Well. I guess I’m worried that it will chip and I won’t be able to fix it on my own and I will have figuratively thrown money out the window. Even though the price of the pedicure is 52% of the price of a pedicure at the fancy spa, it’s still money being spent on something completely frivolous and will it be wasted due to a polish chip? I guess we will wait and see. I’m also worried I’m going to love it so much that I will be one of those people who stops doing her own pedicures and becomes addicted to having them done and then I will be wasting money left, right, and centre.

I COULD just call and cancel, I guess, but I’m in a Support Local Business Mode and I do, I really DO want to be that kind of person that Supports Local Businesses. Plus, as I said, I like the esthetician on a personal level, and well. I have probably spent more than enough brain power thinking about this. Moving on!

What if they don’t have the kind of red I like for…NO, I AM MOVING ON FROM THIS TOPIC.

This morning Swistle asked her readers what they think of when they wake up in the middle of the night; good things, soothing things. If you are not a person who is experiencing peri-menopause and you sleep solidly through the night, congratulations and I am envious! I think most women of my age have some sort of sleep interruption, and usually when I find myself awake I try to focus on my breathing (INHALE….EXHALE….) but I also remember something I read that even just lying in bed is resting my body. Instead of looking at the clock and frantically thinking If I fell asleep this minute I would still get five and a half hours of sleep…okay now it’s five hours and twenty-nine minutes, I think Even if I don’t fall asleep, my body is resting. My body is getting rest. I find that soothing enough that I usually do drift off.

Most days I find myself awake a good half hour before I need/ want to be, and we all know that the worst thing is falling dead asleep just before your alarm goes off, rendering you disoriented and useless. So when I do find myself awake, I think happy things about the day ahead (not, apparently, about pedicures). The happy things I focus on are: what I’m making for dinner that night, according to my Unchanging Eating a Rainbow Meal Plan (tonight: pasta and cauliflower!), what dessert I am going to make for upcoming Sunday dinner, what class(es) I am teaching that day and which students will be there (Yay, I get to see the seniors! Yay, we are working on lower backs!), and, if it is a Planned Workout Day, what that workout will be. If I find myself awake near a weekend, I think about what wine I will have on Friday and Saturday, and I will think about any plans we might have. It all helps to keep me from falling disastrously back asleep and gets me excited about the day ahead.

Oh, that reminds me! My Saturday morning spin class fell on Robbie Burns Day, which inspired our instructor to add BAGPIPE MUSIC to our warmup. It was strangely invigorating. Also included in the class playlist was The Pointer Sisters, Neil Young, Bruno Mars, and – even more invigorating than the bagpipe music – a dance remix of many classical songs, including Ode to Joy and the Hallelujah chorus from Handel. I do like a good eclectic playlist, but my own will have to wait for another day. I need to go start the pasta sauce (it’s Monday!) before I go teach my afternoon class (backbends!). Happy Last Week of January, everyone. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Keeping Warm Edition

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Today is Blue Monday, the statistically saddest day of the year, and yet I am feeling excited and invigorated. The extreme cold weather has broken, and the ten day forecast calls for what I think of as Very Pleasant Winter Weather. Mall walking is fun and all, but I like to actually be able to take my dog out, and to not feel that “my face is dead” feeling that one gets when one is outside for more than ten seconds. This is not an exaggeration, for those of you who have never experienced such temperatures. I have a personal ranking system for winter temperatures: up to minus 10, Pleasant Winter Weather, the minus teens are Still Functioning But I Don’t Like This, minus 20-25 is This Is Bad, minus 25-30 is Everything Is Terrible, and lower than minus 30? Why God Why.

Anyway, as I said everything is lovely right now, and today I noticed for the first time that mornings are getting lighter. I tend to notice longer days in the afternoon right away after Winter Solstice, but I find the mornings take a while. Winter sunrises are so glorious, and are probably the best thing about the extreme cold: the sunrises seem to be more beautiful, the more frigid it is. I am always – even in summer – up before the sunrise, so I consider myself somewhat of an authority on this.

We still have a lot more winter to go, even if it is a pleasant week, and so it is time for…

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Keeping Warm Edition

My Cozy Buns

I encountered My Cozy Buns at a holiday market, and it is such a fabulous idea I have been sharing it with everyone I know. A local woman repurposes old sweaters by making them into “bum warmers,” a skirt of sorts that fits perfectly over yoga pants, leggings, or even just pants. Not only are they environmentally friendly – textiles being a huge problem in landfills, etc., etc. – they make a significant difference in warmth. When I walk the dog, I wear legwarmers and my calf-length coat and thick boots, but I had no idea how much warmer I would be with my bum warmer. Plus, LOOK HOW CUTE!

Cute and practical, such an elusive combination when it comes to winter wear.

Poor Barks, dying to go for a walk. Alas! Minus 30 is too cold for arthritic old dogs.

The bum warmers can also come with matching mittens, made from the sweaters’ sleeves.

Legwarmers

I talk about legwarmers every year, I know, but they make such a significant difference to me, a person who wears yoga pants most days. I won’t walk the dog without legwarmers, and my mother-in-law has knit me several pairs for that purpose. They are not the most attractive, by any means, but winter is the time of the year where practicality always prevails over prettiness. Unless we are talking about bum warmers.

I teach two classes a week at a community centre, and believe me when I say that the linoleum floor is like ice, even in the warmer months. When it drops below a certain temperature outside, the floor is unbearable. I bought these legwarmers with stirrups at lululemon several years ago, and they are perfect suited to this situation. Toes and heels are unfettered, so I’m not sliding all over as I teach, but the extra layer keeps me warm.

These cuties also came from My Cozy Buns; they were sleeves, I think. They are a little shorter so not as warm as the others, but still a nice layer for just kicking around the house in.

Giant Socks

Still with the “keeping my legs covered” theme, I love these “Savasana Socks” from lululemon. I have several pair of thigh-high socks for pulling over my yoga pants, but these ones have grips on the bottom, like you might see on socks for small children. You can never have too many giant socks, in my mind. Plus, they are kind of cute, warm without being too bulky.

Long Sweaters

I’m sure this particular sweater has made it into Favourite Things before – oh look, it has – but it’s nice to have a socially acceptable way to essentially wear a bathrobe in public.

I’m wrapping myself up in my cardigans of cozyness. I have a number of – mostly black – very thick sweaters that make their appearance when the temperature drops below Winter Is Cold, Everything Is Fine to Are We Living On Planet Hoth.

Baffin Boots

Last year my wonderful, warmest boots got accidentally stolen. Someone must have had the same boots as I, as one day when I went to grab my boots at a studio, I noticed they were in a different space than I normally put them. Then I noticed that I couldn’t fit my feet in comfortably. Then I noticed a small hole at the top of the boot and realized these are not my boots. It happens, sometimes, I guess. I was left with a pair of boots that to the naked eye looked exactly like my boots, but they were a half size smaller. I kept hoping that my old boots would show up, but I guess the person who took them figured their feet had shrunk, or maybe, they didn’t notice they were half a size larger. I suppose I can understand, but I got the (literal) short end of things, as wearing boots slightly too big is possible, but slightly too small? No. Long story short: I had to buy new boots.

Blessings in disguise, am I right? Because the boots I ended up buying claimed to be warm up to minus 40. Minus 40! I was extremely skeptical but I thought, fine. I’ll try them. Let me tell you, people, these boots are life changing. They are warm, yet light, unlike my old Joan of Arctic Sorels that feel like I’m wearing 1980s style ankle weights. They are comfortable too – at Christmas my husband and I took an 8 kilometer walk in the snow, in minus 15, and my feet were warm the whole time. For someone with Raynaud’s, this is unheard of. Sure, they are not the most attractive, but they are not the most unattractive either. They were a bit pricey but I don’t think footwear is where we want to pinch pennies.

And there we have it, my favourite things that are helping me get through the winter. What are yours?

It’s tiny cauliflower season

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The day after – literally, the VERY NEXT DAY – I posted about misreading Gental Fitness as Genital Fitness, the sign was changed. I was driving my son to school and exclaimed that the sign now read Gentle Fitness, to which he expressed relief that I would no longer be alluding to elderly men doing something mysterious to strengthen their genitals. Are the people at the fitness centre reading my blog? Or did someone show up at the fitness centre hoping to alleviate incontinence, only to be introduced to aquasize and low-impact aerobics? We may never know the answer.

Oh, you guys, it is SO COLD around here; dropping the kids off at school, my car reads minus 30, and that is without windchill. “It feels like minus 39!” the weather person on the radio said. This should never be a surprise in January, and it isn’t, not really, but it’s quite dreadful. I always think I should re-read The Long Winter at this point in our own winter journey because it SHOULD make me more grateful and thankful to be living in the modern age. I mean, what do I have to complain about, really? That it’s difficult to walk the dog? I have a beautiful, warm, cozy home, I have many warm items of clothing, I have a garage so my car doesn’t freeze. I’m not snowed into some isolated town waiting for the trains to come in with food and supplies and – spoiler alert – those trains never arrive. Sure, my hands hurt, but am I sitting in my dark lean-to in below-freezing temperatures trying to frantically twist hay into little sticks just so I don’t literally freeze to death? Am I grinding seed wheat in an old coffee grinder in the hopes that I will stave off starvation, literal starvation? Am I spiraling into madness because I have been stuck in a tiny dark house for months with nothing to listen to but the howling wind outside? No I am not. My biggest issue is that there was no cauliflower at Superstore.

It’s tiny crappy expensive cauliflower season, which isn’t my favourite but which illuminates something about myself and that is that I cannot – or will not – go without cauliflower for a week. There’s a limit to how much I will pay, because there is always a limit, it is not infinite, but I am willing to pay some pretty high prices for pretty tiny cauliflowers. My demand curve is, shall we say, price inelastic. Am I an addict? Do I have a problem? Probably. There are worse things to spend money on, in my humble opinion.

It is exam time at the high school, and so after one full week back at school my older son now has three weeks off. Well, he has a couple of exams to write in that time period, but really. Three weeks! He doesn’t go back to class until February 3, making my younger son insane with envy. He will get to experience this excessive time off next year, as Thursday is his high school orientation day. Two kids in high school! The children, they get older. I’m getting older too. 

Speaking of getting older, ladies, lean in. The perimenopause thing? A couple of years ago I asked my mom when she stopped getting periods, as that is the number one indicator as to when it would stop for me. When she replied I couldn’t believe my ears – it indicated another full decade of these ridiculous symptoms. Well, what can you do. The symptom I am finding the most difficult to deal with is breast swelling and tenderness. 

“Tenderness.” That seems like a bit of an understatement. It used to be a day before my period my breasts would be slightly sore. Now it’s a week to ten days of my entire chest hurting and my breasts swelling to my pre-kid glory. Even if I do manage to fulfill my New Year’s Resolution of buying a new bra, I’m going to have to hang on to these old ones just for premenstrual comfort. It’s silly, really, my cleavage goes from “bra is gaping around my deflated breasts” to “spilling out of my bra like an old-timey centrefold.” The other day my husband’s eyes bugged out when he walked in on me getting dressed; it probably gave him flashbacks to when we first met.

I for one do not want to relive my Glory Days, the sheer relief I feel when I actually get my period and my yoga tanks go back to fitting properly and I don’t feel like my sports bras are actively trying to kill me softly with their song is immense.

This too shall pass; there will be a time after this.

I had my hair appointment on Friday so once again I feel relatively youthful, at least for another few weeks until the roots start coming in. Life is a roller coaster, I swear. I had a roller coaster emotion as I gazed into my Daylight 10x Magnifying Mirror, and noticed that one of those black chin hairs has turned…white. You know those chin hairs, the ones that are nonexistent in the morning but somehow are an inch long by evening. I’m mixed on this development because a white chin hair is infinitely less noticeable than a black one, and yet. I have also noticed white hairs in my eyebrows, which, I do not know what to do about it. If I start plucking them out will I eventually be bald above my eyes? Do I start using an eyebrow pencil? I just don’t know.

Anyway. It is going to be an odd few weeks; my schedule is exactly the same, or a bit busier as I’ve scheduled some appointments for my older son in during this time. One child at school, one child at home save for the three exams…as I write this I am listening to some amped-up electric guitar as someone is taking a study break. Everything feels a bit unsettled. This week has been too cold to even walk the dog; poor puppers hasn’t had any exercise since Saturday. Since I’m having my ladies’ holidays, AND it’s insanely cold, I’m doing restorative yoga in the early mornings instead of going into the studio. This would be lovely except that I keep forgetting to leave the dog in his crate until after I’m done, which means that he thinks I’m dead or injured, and need to be roused.

With the cold, I wondered how I was going to get my steps in, on non-exercise days. Yes I am a slave to my Garmin watch, what of it? Monday I had to run an errand – at the mall – and noted all the elderly and also moms with strollers, desperate to get out of the house. Hmmm…they are on to something. Yes, I lapped the mall a couple of times before making my purchase, which feels like it goes nicely with the white chin hair. Hey, it was an extra 5000 steps, that was worth it.

That was startling

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My husband, with no effort whatsoever, lost four pounds over the Christmas holidays. I feel I could close out this post without saying anything else. It’s like one of those one-line stories; an entire story captured in just a sentence. Men, am I right? But the real issue here is that our household is apparently a zero-sum game as I gained that same amount over that same time period. One cannot expect two weeks of unbridled culinary hedonism without some consequences, however, sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a man.

Add that to the fact that, while shopping for protein powder, the salesman asked if I was fifty-plus. On the one hand, there are many whose lives were cut short, who would love to be fifty-plus. Life is a gift, every damn day is a gift, we must celebrate each year that we are on this planet. On the other hand, I’m forty-four.

In his possible defense, I was at the end of my hair colour cycle and with each passing month the contrast between my now-almost-white roots and the rest of my hair is more and more pronounced. See?

It’s even more pronounced because today my hair appointment got rescheduled to Friday; I was torn between feeling, well, GREY, and also feeling excitement at having a couple of unexpectedly unscheduled hours. Unfortunately, a lot of that happily unexpected free time ended up getting consumed by the discovery that our scanners have mysteriously stopped working, right in the middle of my paperwork for insurance renewal.

My friend Janet (HI JANET) was telling me that at her Hollywood peak, Marilyn Monroe had her roots touched up weekly. WEEKLY. Imagine having the resources to do that. Imagine having the TIME.

As it is, I spent the first part of Monday morning at the orthodontist’s office, where I thought we were going to be able to book the braces-coming-off appointment but were instead told that it could be a few more months. It felt, very much, like a January piece of news. I had been holding off booking a dental cleaning for my son with the thought that he would be braces-free very soon, but alas. After the orthodontist I spent a solid 45 minutes on the phone booking various dentist and doctor appointments for both boys, trying to juggle my own schedule with their schedule with the doctor/ dentist schedule, and let me tell you, after that I thought a little bit about day-drinking. Only a little bit though. It was like my old linear programming days, where if you added too many parameters and restrictions prior to solving for x, you would end up with no feasible solution.

Back in those days, the computer programs took forever to run, and it would feel so disheartening to do so much work and wait so long – the computer would often time out or die while calculating – to get the response no feasible solution. The first full week of January feels similar, not to mention that the really cold weather has arrived. The weekend lows are in the minus 30s and the highs in the minus 20s; just going out to get groceries or to take the kids to school feels like an epic feat of strength. I’m living in my legwarmers and layers, and it takes a great deal of willpower to get undressed and then into the shower, and then great willpower to get OUT of the shower, and even more willpower to just put clothes on afterwards. That’s a lot of mental energy and willpower, considering that doesn’t take into account leaving the house.

I am trying not to be too bitchy about the cold weather; this is where I live, cold weather is part of life, let’s just move on. However, my Raynaud’s is in full-blown weirdness; I was driving home from class – with gloves on, of course – and by the time I got home this is what my left hand looked like.

That finger still hurts, and it brings to mind what my doctor said, that the only real cure for this is to live in a warmer climate. Maui? Where my fellow Renaud’s sufferers at?

Well. There are many lovely things about January. Be present, cherish the moment, I chant to myself, over and over like I’m institutionalized a la One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Not out loud, though. Speaking of this, something I really dislike about our society today is the ubiquitous Bluetooth. I cannot even begin to count the number of times I have heard someone speaking, and, thinking they were addressing me, I turn to answer only to discover they are talking on their Bluetooth. It startles me EVERY TIME. I was mentioning this to one of my seniors and he said that he has a different perspective. When he hears someone ostensibly talking on Bluetooth, he avoids eye contact in a stay away from the crazy person kind of way. I mean, I probably shouldn’t judge as I am a person who sings out loud in the grocery store. Perhaps that’s why people avoid eye contact with me? Just kidding, I have yet to notice people avoiding my gaze as I ask them random questions as regards the items in their cart/ how old their baby is/ have they ever tried this before?

SPEAKING of that, I have been meaning to mention these “kalettes” I found at Costco a few months ago.

There were several of us women milling around the display in the giant refrigerator, all of us asking each other if anyone had tried them? And if they were good? No one had so I volunteered as tribute and grabbed a package. Later, in the lineup, a woman asked me about it. Well, for all of you wondering, THESE ARE DELICIOUS. I have bought them every time I have been to Costco ever since; they are glorious roasted with olive oil and balsamic. I’ve also made them with nutritional yeast, which was also good.

They don’t LOOK that appetizing, but believe me. BELIEVE ME THEY ARE DELICIOUS.

Circling back slightly to Things That Startle Me Constantly, there is a sign in my neighbourhood for a fitness centre that offers Gentle Fitness. The only thing is, Gentle is misspelled; the sign actually reads Gental Fitness. Every Single Time I drive past it, I am startled anew at the idea of Genital Fitness. I mean, what is that? Kegels? Pelvic Floor Exercises? Something Else I Am Not Aware Of And Probably Don’t Want To Be? All that goes through my head within a second, and then I remember, oh. They mean GENTLE.