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Joy, Pain, Sunshine, Rain (actually snow)

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We had an enormous snowfall last week; look how pretty our outdoor Christmas ornaments were!

We are in full-on winter mode now, with snow and cold and traffic snarls. Despite the enormous inconvenience and physical exertion that come with such snowfalls – traffic! shovelling! taking ten minutes to put on outdoor clothing for a twenty-minute walk! – I managed to spend some time reveling in the beauty of nature. “It’s so pretty, it looks like a Christmas card!” I said over and over, as I drove the kids to school. Maybe I am going to become one of those people who Find Joy In The Snow and annoy everyone who happen to have a normal, non-joyful reaction to a crazy weather event. Well, probably not. But it has been very pretty.

I am just feeling joyful in general lately; I have made some changes to my schedule that have left me feeling light and happy. “It’s like you’re an entirely different person!” my husband said, I THINK in a good way. I’m practically radiating cheer and love from every pore, and I hope this feeling lasts, because the sheer happiness I had from wearing a sweater I like was over the top. I love this sweater! I thought to myself, I love my life! I’m probably annoying everyone around me as I channel Cheer Bear, my spirit animal.

I was loving life slightly less last week, when I came into the backyard with my younger son, after we finished shovelling. Barkley was chewing on something; often magpies will drop garbage in our yards like the rats with wings that they are, and I figured it was something like that. Reader, how wrong I was. How unprepared I was for reality, as I forced Barkley’s mouth open and started to remove the object. It was a dead and very chewed up mouse. Now, Barkley is an old dog with a digestive system to match and so leaving him to it was not an option; instead, I kept pulling it out, all the while screaming my son’s name. He ran over and looked. “Oh, MOM. Oh Mom, I’m so sorry this happened.” Yeah, me too, buddy. Me too.

Have you ever had something happen in your life that you know you will just never emotionally recover from? I have been completely traumatized, and have wondered if it’s possible to get a new hand. Is a hand transplant a thing? CAN I JUST GET A NEW HAND, LIKE LUKE SKYWALKER. Or, at the very least, a skin transplant?

This weekend my husband finished the outdoor light display and we put up the tree and indoor decorations. Friday was a PD day, and it really is incredible how much I can accomplish without the regular morning rush. I decided I was going to bring out all the boxes of decorations out of the storage room, no small feat because everything is packed in there like it’s a life-size game of Tetris. I started pulling out the boxes, and then it turned into one of those If You Give A Mouse A Cookie situations, in which I was suddenly purging and cleaning and rearranging the entire storage area. My husband came downstairs in his robe and looked at me, surrounded by dozens of boxes, silently for a few minutes. “What are you DOING?” he asked. “Do you know it’s only 7:30?” Well, yes. By 7:30 I’d already had a yoga practice, breakfast, and several cups of coffee, and so “tearing apart the storage room” did not seem at all inappropriate. My answer to his question was why do we have so many duffel bags and do you need them.

Why DO we have so many duffel bags?

In any case, the decorations are up and the storage room is clean, so all is well.

I love all Christmas trees; I love the themed ones and the single-colour ones and the eclectic ones and the tacky ones. I have many friends who have beautiful, magazine-worthy trees with all coordinated decorations and bows and what have you. I also have a friend who has a tree covered in every tacky, weird ornament he’s ever come across. The “theme” of our tree is “throw on every decoration we have ever owned” and honestly, I think it’s the best. I have some decorations from when I was a swinging single girl, and some from when my husband and I were first together. The boys have been the recipients of many ornaments from my mother, and those ornaments were things that interested them at the time. It’s fun to see the little tractors and Cars characters from when the kids were little, graduating to superheroes and Scooby Doo, alongside ones we picked up on our trips or lovely classic ornaments. We add new ornaments to our tree every year; this year the boys had brought me a moose from their Alaska trip, and I had bought them a dog ornament that looks like Barkley and a Bob Ross one.

So I’m feeling very festive, writing up my Christmas cards and playing Christmas music non-stop. I haven’t started my baking and treat-making yet, but soon.

The boys were telling me that all of their friends’ houses have “signature scents” and sometimes – particularly in the more athletic households – those scents aren’t as, shall we say, flattering as one might hope. According to their friends, OUR house always smells like baking, and I can tell you that hearing that warmed my heart. Finally I’m getting the accolades I deserve from baking something every other day! Fridays are early dismissal days and more often than not, the boys have friends over for the afternoon, and much more often than not – as I mentioned last week – I make them a “special lunch” which is almost always cinnamon waffles.

This probably biases their opinion of the “signature scent” of our house, in a good way, because these waffles smell heavenly. They taste good too. This isn’t some exciting secret recipe, it simply came in the recipe book that came with my waffle maker. I like to make them because it’s a huge recipe and can feed up to eight teen boys, including a competitive gymnast who trains many hours a week and has an appetite to match.

Cinnamon Waffles

3 cups flour

3 tablespoons cornmeal

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon cinnamon

2 1/2 cups buttermilk (I use 2 1/2 tablespoons vinegar and then fill the rest with milk, to sour)

3 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla (original recipe calls for 1, but you know me, I always double the vanilla)

2/3 cup grapeseed oil (you could use any mild-tasting oil, really)

Mix it all together, let it rest 5 minutes before pouring into the waffle maker. Enjoy!

Now YOUR house can have a signature scent of baking! xo

Decades and Decades

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Last week I had a letter from the government regarding my taxes, and is there any other kind of letter that can strike so much fear in one’s heart? Oh my god, am I being audited? I thought, wondering where I put the brown paper bags and should I go get one now? Happily, I am NOT being audited, and a phone call to a very nice government employee was calming and reassuring; there was just a little information that was required, on my part, to provide to Revenue Canada. “If you could just fax that over to me this afternoon, that would be great,” said the very nice government employee, to which I replied that well, actually, I don’t have a fax machine. Because it’s not 1997, I didn’t say. Do people fax things anymore? Scanning and emailing was not an option offered to me, and so it was off to the post office. Actual literal mail! Fax machines! What year is it?

Recently there have been quite a few memes going around about there being only a short time left in this decade, and what have we all accomplished? I tell you what, until these memes came out I kind of forgot that we are starting a new decade. Yes, I do know what year it is and yes, I do know how decades work. The thought of “2020” just didn’t have the kind of importance to me that, say, the Nineties or 2000s did, other than it feels kind of cool to say 2020. Plus, what have I accomplished? I think we’ve all accomplished lots of things; for example, this weekend I helped my husband and son hang the outdoor Christmas balls in the tree.

After many hours of work, there is still much to do in terms of Christmas lights, which is less a reflection of my husband’s work speed and more that we have so many outdoor decorations, we are now rivaling Clark Griswold. “Now” rivaling is a bit of a misnomer as this has been going on for years, and each year my husband and older son go to Canadian Tire for “cords” and end up coming home with more light-up animals and snowmen.

We had the cutest light-up snowman who met an unfortunate demise this past summer. Due to its gigantic size, my husband was storing it on the covered back porch, where it was partially eaten by a squirrel. The squirrel not only ate all of its hat, it also chewed through the electrical wires, rendering it not only unattractive, but also dangerous and useless. Yet another reason why to loathe the squirrels.

I have a laughably eclectic library pile right now, and since Helter Skelter took me longer than average to get through – and no wonder, it’s well over 600 pages of fairly intense detail – I checked my app to make sure I’d be able to get them all read before their due date. They are all due the first week of December, which was startling to me. December! December is many weeks away! I thought, before looking at the actual calendar and realizing that no, it’s ten DAYS away.

I did finish Helter Skelter, and you might wonder why I would even read such a thing, given that I don’t watch the news, I rarely log into the sewer that is Twitter, and I have snoozed everything on Facebook so much that my entire feed is either yoga related or photos of vacations, kids, and dogs. Just how I like it! I myself wondered why I was reading Helter Skelter literally every time I picked it up, and I still don’t know. It’s something I’ve been thinking about reading for about thirty years, and let me tell you, my life has not been enriched by the experience. Not only is it incredibly disturbing on any number of levels, it got me thinking about the importance we place on decades, ending and beginning. The Sixties were a very strange time, what with all the communes and free love and youth runaways and my god, the venereal disease. This book contains a LOT of information about the latter; did you know that Charles Manson and his harem of girls lived for a while with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys? Wilson ended up spending a lot of money on penicillin for the “case of clap that never went away” and you know what, guys? Have a shower. Wear a condom. Good lord. That’s just a sidebar to the most horrific and unsettling details I’ve ever read, and as such I probably wouldn’t recommend this to anyone. Why did I read it? WHO KNOWS. Not to mention that every time I looked at the cover I would get when I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the SLIDE then I stop and I turn and I go for a RIDE in my head, over and over, which is not good for anyone.

Two books I would recommend, though:

Chop Suey Nation was so interesting, especially as I am a Prairie girl – those Chinese-Western smorgasbords are ubiquitous all across the Prairies. I’ll always fondly remember visiting a crude oil terminal in small town Alberta as part of my then-job; the guys at the terminal took me to the local restaurant. Over my plate of fried rice, I watched as Larry slathered Thousand Island dressing on his egg rolls. Fusion cuisine before its time! Larry was also the fellow who told me about hitting a deer with his truck on Christmas Eve; the poor thing was not dead, but badly injured, and Larry did not, as he often did, have his gun in the truck. He had to wait to flag down a friend, and after the mercy deed was completed, got back into the truck where his hysterical young children assumed that Daddy just shot one of Santa’s reindeer.

Well. That lost something in the retelling.

As a caveat, neither my cousin Karen (HI KAREN) nor my friend Julie (HI JULIE) liked The Farm. I loved it, though. It WAS a bizarre concept: girls kept on a “resort” to be surrogates for the uber-rich, but as page-turners go, it was excellent.

Why do we call them page-turners? Isn’t that just how books work? Anyway. You all know what I mean.

The season for socializing has started with a bang. Last weekend we had a lovely dinner and games night at my friend Denise’s (HI DENISE) and I will be thinking about those vegan mushroom/ cheese phyllo pastries for many weeks to come. We played Cards Against Humanity, which I had heard much about and had never done before, and it was an absolute riot. Now all I want to do is play the game and eat vegan phyllo pastry. My favourite Q: Why does my back hurt? A: Feminism.

Tomorrow I’m going out with the moms of my son’s friend group; last week a few of the friends were over at my house for our Customary Friday Afternoon Cinnamon Waffles. I said to them, “I’m going out with ALL of your moms next week! Mom’s Night Out! Woot woot! It’s going to be lit!” and all of the boys just stared at me silently for several seconds, before turning their gaze waffle-ward. Not one of them responded, although one gave an awkward smile before shoveling waffle into his mouth.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend; I shall report back on just how lit Mom’s Night Out was. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Tiny Secret Festive Edition

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Next week parent-teacher interviews are held at the junior high, and I had a notification from the school that booking for said conferences started today. I knew that already, of course, and had it marked on my calendar. The usual start time for booking is 7:00 am, but in the notification it said that bookings opened at 12:00 am. I thought it was probably a typo, but I opened up my computer this morning at 5:45 just to check. It was not a typo. Dear reader, there are people who are even more insane than I, because many of the bookings were already filled. Fortunately I ended up with the bookings I wanted, but still. Who is getting up at midnight to book conferences? I asked this of my husband, and he suggested that it was less likely that people were getting up at midnight; rather, they were still awake at that time, implying that not everyone has been passed out in a coma for three hours by the time the clock strikes twelve.

It’s always startling to realize that there are people for whom there is an eleven o’clock PM. I was having coffee with a friend (HI CATHRYN) and she mentioned that she had a swim class at 8:30. EIGHT THIRTY AT NIGHT? I asked, in the kind of shocked tone you might reserve for discovering that your friend of a decade is really a hard-core heroin addict and has turned to prostitution as a way to finance said addiction.

On that bizarre note, after a brief hiatus, it’s time for Nicole’s Favourite Things! As you all well know, the holidays are one of my very favourite things; even when I see strange things like Christmas trees for sale at Costco in July, I still smile. I mean, to everything there is a season, and for me July is not the season to start stockpiling Christmas decorations, but you do you, Costco people. I don’t judge when people get excited for their pumpkin spice lattes in August, and so I do find it odd how upset people get when you start talking about Christmas in November. Mention Christmas on November 1, and it’s like you admit to kicking puppies or throwing garbage out the window or driving drunk, the judgement is so strong.

I obviously don’t do any of those things, and I don’t decorate in early November, nor do I play Christmas music. However, I do have some tiny, secretly festive things that I love at this time of year. These are little things that no one except me would notice, and they make me happy. It’s like the early stages of pregnancy, when you don’t tell anyone but you walk around with a secretive smile on your face; that’s what this feels like.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Tiny Secret Festive Edition

My Christmas Bracelet

I’ve had Pandora bracelets for years, and so for years I have been given Christmas-themed charms from my parents and my guys. Last year my sons gave me a Christmas-themed bangle with a little ornament on it, and I put all my Christmas charms on it. On November 1, I swapped out my usual Pandora bangle for the Christmas one, and I plan on wearing it daily until the New Year.

Isn’t it cute? The flip side of that little house shows the inside: a tiny little tree, strings of lights, a fireplace, and two wee little gifts.

Christmas Pajamas

My husband gave me these jammies last Christmas, and they make me feel appropriately festive. Coincidentally, they match the slippers my parents gave me.

So cozy!

Festively Scented Hand Soap

As someone who spends a really excessive amount of time in the kitchen, I wash my hands a lot. I like to swap out my regular hand soap for a festive scent, and this peppermint vanilla one is perfect. Note: last year I bought the Live Clean Gingerbread scent and this was a BIG MISTAKE. It…did not smell good. I guess gingerbread, although wonderful, is not a good scent for hands. Despite the off-putting scent, I used it all up, because, well, Scottish.

Oranges

I know! I can buy oranges any time of the year! But, I don’t. There is just something lovely about Mandarin orange season; not only do I love looking at a bowl full of beautiful oranges, I also love eating them. Three out of four of us love them too, and it makes it more special because we don’t have oranges at any other time of year.

Note: since taking this photo yesterday, the bowl has been depleted by a third.

Sugar Cookie Dough

For those of you wondering what you could do to ease the pre-holiday baking stress, making and freezing dough is an excellent idea. I have done this for years as when the kids were small, the thought of making dough, chilling dough, rolling out dough, baking dough, and then waiting for the cookies to cool before decorating ALL IN THE SAME DAY was completely exhausting and overwhelming. However, if you make dough ahead of time, then it’s not too much to do the latter three. Any dough that needs to be chilled can be frozen; I make batches of gingerbread and sugar cookie dough in November. It’s so easy! Yesterday I made a batch of sugar cookie dough and it took me less than fifteen minutes from start to finish, including washing the dishes and wrapping up the dough to be frozen. If you haven’t made my mom’s sugar cookie recipe, why not? It’s right here. I make them several times a year to mark holidays, and they are the favourites of my kids and their friends. They are NO FAIL, unless you forget the baking powder, like I did once, leading to all the cookies spreading together in one big holiday mess. So don’t forget the baking powder.

Sugar cookie dough, getting friendly with the frozen Kaiser rolls we use for lunches.

Festive Notepads

As you know, I write all my lists down on paper. Very old-school. I like to swap out my usual pretty notepad for a festive one; every time I write down a needed item for my grocery list, it makes me smile.

More Favourite Things to come, when I turn fully into Nicole the Elf! What are your favourite things about this time of year? Do you have any secret festive traditions? xo

In the cold November…snow

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Today and yesterday have been beautiful and mild, but they are the exception: in general, it is now the season of cold, dark, and snow. I spent no small amount of time yesterday putting fuzzy flannel sheets on the beds and laundering and storing the regular sheets, my heavy-duty winter coat is getting much more use than my cute, stylish one, and since the time change (WHY DOES THIS STILL EXIST WHYYYYYYY) it is dark at 5:00 pm.

Note about the cute, stylish coat: I bought it many years ago at Lululemon and it is the most flattering, pretty winter coat you could ever imagine. It was advertised as the warmest coat that Lululemon sold, and I’m sure it was. I’m sure it would be a perfect coat for winter in Vancouver. However, here, in Hoth, it is really only suitable for zero degrees and above. When it dips below that, I take out my Mountain Equipment Co-Op coat that is so big, it practically has its own postal code. It is close to having its own solar system. It looks like I put sleeves on an old-school giant sleeping bag, the kind of winter sleeping bags that existed way before microfibers and technical filling and what have you, and then added a belt in an optimistic, but essentially futile attempt to contain its bulk. That belt and its giant fake-fur hood are its only concessions to fashion. It is the orthopedic shoes of winter coats: I am glad to have it, it is comfortable and warm, but I’m not winning any beauty contests in it.

November, am I right? Cold, dark, and snow. When it snows in September or October, or even April or May, for that matter, my reaction is, Boo. Oh well. It will melt. In November, it’s a totally different ball game. It feels like winter is here to stay and I might as well get used to it. Some people think February is the bleariest month, but at least a) it is a short month, and b) the days get longer. In November, it’s just a slow but steady forward march to the day that the sun sets just after 4:00 pm and doesn’t rise again until 8:45 am.

I don’t find November depressing, despite all this, and that is because for me, November 1 is the start of the festive season. There seem to be three types of people in the world: those who also start thinking Christmassy thoughts in early November, those who think that’s far too early and who also are at the mall on Christmas Eve, and those who think that anyone who might start thinking happy festive thoughts on November 1 are terribly disrespectful people.

Well. In my Venn diagram of life, respectful and solemn observance of Remembrance Day can coexist with thoughts of joy, love, and giving. One does not preclude the other. My mental timetable is as follows: November 1-15, finish Christmas shopping, choose layout and order Christmas cards, create and order photo calendars for the grandparents, and start stockpiling ingredients for baking and treat-making. November 15-30, mail and deliver gifts that have a deadline (Secret Santas, my in-laws’), write and mail cards, and start making things that can be frozen for December elfing: cookie dough, chocolate bark, and other make-ahead goodies. December is the time to actually wrap gifts, bake and decorate cookies, and attend all the functions that come at this time of year. Our tree will go up November 23 or 24 this year, and the outdoor lights and decorations will probably go up next weekend, as it seems like it might be fairly mild and I enjoy having a non-frostbitten husband and sons, outdoor decorating being an overwhelmingly blue job around here.

You do you, is what I’m saying. I need to avoid the malls at all costs after mid-November, for my own mental health. Of course, this backfired last year when I accidentally arranged to meet a friend for coffee ON BLACK FRIDAY. Neither one of us realized it was Black Friday, which is unbelievably ridiculous, but here we are. I’m fine with being a happy little Christmas elf, and if you’re not, we can still be friends. This meme about Christmas describes me and my dear friend Sharyl (HI SHARYL) to a tee:

And yet somehow, we MAKE IT WORK. You do you and I’ll do me, and we shall all be fine.

Speaking of festive things, I must update you on the poinsettia fundraiser. After the big meeting at the school, I received the actual printout for the fundraiser:

I will admit to you right now, dear reader, I waffled for a bit after seeing the outdoor planters. You see, due to extreme pollen and pine allergies in our house, I cannot actually have such things IN the house, but an outdoor planter? I thought about it for a bit – maybe it would be nice! maybe I could participate! – and then actually read the accompanying letter. Each student participating is required to sell twelve items. Let me say that again. TWELVE. There is absolutely no difference, in the school’s eyes, between a $17 poinsettia and a $45 planter. My son could sell twelve poinsettias or twelve outdoor planters. Then, the trip cost decreases by FIVE WHOLE DOLLARS per item, regardless of the item sold.

What kind of communism is this? In what fundraising world is a $17 poinsettia equal to a $45 planter? HOW IS THIS A THING.

I have been wondering why I am so out of sorts about this fundraiser, as I had decided weeks ago to just pay the “donation” fee in lieu of fundraising. Normally I would make a decision and then move on; why can I not move on from here? Then I realized the reason: this makes me feel like I Am Not A Team Player, when, in fact, I am. I have had a long and enthusiastic relationship with fundraising: I have helped organize dances and silent auctions, I have sold bedding plants and supported all of my friends in their efforts, I WAS THE BOOK FAIR LADY FOR EIGHT STRAIGHT YEARS. I have no issues with fundraising! But this, this ridiculous exercise, this is my line in the sand. Not to mention I saw the very same outdoor planters at Superstore for twenty dollars less, and yet there would be almost NO benefit for me to buy from the school fundraiser. The cost of my son’s trip would not decrease, and I would have to go through the rigmarole of collecting the planter from the school, which would certainly not be organized, if the past is a valid indicator of the future.

Well. My son tells me that every single day, his homeroom teacher asks the class how the poinsettia fundraiser is going, and all I can say is that the deadline is next week, and so that will be the end of it. Time to move on! For real this time!

I finished my Christmas shopping yesterday, and while I was in the mall I spotted this:

All I can say is WOW.

Halloween Spirit Slightly Dimmed By Snow

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After declaring vehemently that they were Too Old Or Possibly Just Too Tall for Trick or Treating, my kids are now waffling a bit. In an unusually sensible and brilliant turn, the CBE has declared tomorrow to be a PD Day, which I think should be the case every year. Too long; didn’t read, my kids are planning to wander the neighbourhood with their gang – possibly Trick or Treating, but who knows, really – and then sleep over at a friend’s house, and all I can say to that is god bless that mother for allowing eight teen boys hepped up on candy and general feelings of Halloween festivity overnight. She’s a better woman than I.

My younger son headed to school today dressed as Slash, and I have to say that it is the single greatest costume to ever come out of this house. Perhaps it is the single greatest costume to ever come out of this city; who knows. When he was at the orthodontist last week, my son shared a photo of himself in costume. The young, hip, non-criminal orthodontist suggested that the costume would be Even Better With The Addition Of A Smoke, and so my son purchased a couple packs of Popeye candy cigarettes yesterday to complete the look. Of course, they are called “candy sticks” now, rather than cigarettes, but I think we all know the truth. Sadly he was unable to use either candy cigarette or sunglasses for his school costume, due to rules and dress codes. I’m sure all the candy sticks will be enjoyed by him and his friends this evening, and I will gladly accept my Mother of the Year award, thank you.

Mother of the Year got into the Full Halloween Spirit this morning before going to teach my Thursday class:

“I thought you were joking about the costume!” one of my students said, referring to my comment last week that the class should “feel free to wear costumes!” Sir, I do not joke about such things.

Meanwhile, there is one Halloween ritual that the Boyhouse is not participating in this year: carving pumpkins. No, it’s not because of the Great Pumpkin Shortage of 2019 that this city is experiencing and that has been reported on by several news outlets. I purchased two absolutely perfect pumpkins a couple of weeks ago, but my hyper-organization skills backfired, as it was MINUS TWENTY DEGREES WITH WINDCHILL on Monday, and the pumpkins are now a post-severe-freezing pile of mush that cannot be moved from the front steps without extremely gross results. The bitter cold and gusting winds also did a number on some of our decorations; last night was relatively mild and so my husband and sons were out in the front yard, in the dark, fixing them and putting up all our new ones. My sweet friend Denise (HI DENISE) even loaned us her fog machine for tonight, but right now it’s snowing again, so I’m feeling despair and dread that All Will Have Been For Naught. In addition to the full-sized chocolate bars, I have made up fifty little treat bags, and I have a feeling that if we get any Trick or Treaters at all in this weather, it will be greatly worth their while.

My husband JUST THIS SECOND texted me: “Calgary is an asshole.” He must have looked out the window.

Speaking of assholes, is Mercury in retrograde? Yesterday I went to Costco and then to Superstore, which is like the Extreme Boot Camp/ CrossFit of grocery shopping. It’s never a particularly fun experience to be in those two places back-to-back, but just like any exercise, while I might not be glad to be DOING it, I’m always glad to have DONE it. However, yesterday devolved from “not fun” to “omg what is even happening.” Usually there is something nice about Costco/ Superstore: occasionally I’ll see someone actually returning a cart, or letting a mom with a baby go ahead of them in line, or I’ll have a nice conversation with someone about an obscure item in their cart. Yesterday people were constantly merging their carts in front of me and then abruptly stopping in the middle of the aisle, blocking traffic in both directions, for no discernible reason. This happened at least twelve times, and at no time were those people actually looking at an item on the shelf or getting a Costco sample or even stopping just to let someone else through. No. This was just random stoppages FOR NO REASON.

I wondered if it was me, if I was just in an irritable mood or hyper-sensitive to the oddities around me, but no. In the parking lot I witnessed a person aggressively swing into a parking space another person was waiting for, even though there were MANY parking spaces available. An elderly man yelled at a woman packing up her groceries in Superstore, saying he couldn’t get past her and would she just MOVE already. As I unloaded my groceries into the car, a loud and long honk sounded, and when I looked up I saw a van rapidly backing out of a parking spot, missing by mere inches another car that was also in reverse.

I just checked: Mercury IS in retrograde, but starting today, so that doesn’t explain yesterday at all.

I feel like I need a Mercury-in-retrograde excuse to just allow myself to be exhausted and not do anything. The past four weekends have been jammed full of activity; actually, that has been the case for the past couple of months. Last weekend I was on the go pretty much constantly; all for good things and good reasons, but hoo boy, do I need a bit of a break. My husband asked if I wanted to do anything this weekend, and at the moment sitting on the couch and drinking wine while reading and possibly watching Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives sounds like a plan. I’m not even sure I have the attention span for something as intellectually challenging as Family Feud.

Happy Halloween everyone! Hope you have enough treats to indulge in some yourself! May I suggest some Rockets? xo

Maternal love = creepy clowns

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Time just flies by, doesn’t it? Next week is Halloween already, and then we are into the Christmas season! I know many of you think that November 1 is too early to start thinking of Christmas, but in this world I think we should all just take joy where we can find it, and meanwhile, I’m already halfway done my Christmas shopping. I should definitely be done before the first week of November is over, at which time I can start making lists about cards and baking and various elfing duties. I was at Costco this week – when AREN’T I in Costco, really? – and I picked up a pre-built gingerbread house and two Advent calendars. If there is one thing I’ve learned about Costco over the years, it’s that if you see something seasonal that you think you might want, you should carpe the hell out of the diem and buy it, because there is no guarantee that it will be there next time.

There are no guarantees in life, are there? Shopping at Costco feels like a metaphor for life, sometimes: carpe diem, be patient in the lineup, and be a good person by taking your damn cart back to the corral. Also, you will never regret buying the strawberries, they are always delicious.

Speaking of Costco, they were selling packages of 18 full-size chocolate bars, and I seized the day and bought them, despite having already purchased 240 fun-sized chocolate bars. I have always wanted to be the fancy rich lady giving out full-size chocolate bars on Halloween, and now I will have realized this dream. The only thing is that 18 far exceeds the actual number of trick-or-treaters that we have ever had in the past, not to mention 240, but hope springs eternal. I have some pumpkin-themed bags to package up the extra treats, and who knows? I entered our address in the community association’s map of the neighbourhood’s “Spookiest Houses,” so perhaps we will have a run on treats. I hope. Even though my kids are not – for the first time ever – trick-or-treating, my mom had dropped off a box of 50 fun-sized chocolate bars for them, plus 120 Rockets for me. In other words, if we don’t get a lot of costumed kids on the 31st, we are going to have a great deal of candy in the house.

Well, what else is new. My kids have often had leftover Halloween candy sailing into Easter, so it will likely be no different this year, given our stock.

After my Costco trip I went into Michael’s, which is not something I do often. I am not a crafty person, and I find myself to have the same reaction in Michael’s as I do in Bed Bath and Beyond – a feeling of being completely overwhelmed and also inadequate. What is it about that store? So many people who are bustling around getting their yarn and their craft supplies and their really interesting things that I have no idea what to do with, and then there’s me, standing like a deer in headlights as women – they are all women – swoop around to get their melting wafers and acrylic paints.

Anyway, I went in there to buy those little tiny Chinese take-out boxes, to put treats in for a yoga event I’m hosting on the weekend, and I did obtain them. However, for whatever reason Michael’s also had 50-70% off all Halloween and fall decorations and, although our house is super-spooky as-is, I felt like, as with many but not all things in life, more is better. After all, I’m trying to get us on the literal map. Therefore, in addition to our bats and ghouls, animatronic skeleton dogs and tarantulas, graveyard and skulls, and our pair of 17-foot reapers, we now have a 5-foot ghost who looks like it’s going to climb up our house, a crazy skeleton ghoul to add to the trees, and, as a show of deep maternal affection, a scary skeleton clown.

I LOATHE clowns, but the boys think that IT – both versions – is “hilariously funny” and they were so thrilled with the acquisition that it made up, somewhat, for my extreme distaste. Look at the sacrifices I make for you people. It’s crazy enough to me that they thought The Shining was a comedy of epic proportions, but the IT quotes come several times per day. If I have to hear “Pardon me, but do you have Prince Albert in a can? Well, you better let the poor guy out!” ONE MORE TIME, well. I don’t know what I’ll do. Probably nothing. I did manage to put a stop to them crazy clown-dancing around me, but there’s no stopping the Prince Albert In A Can joke.

GAH. That thing is awful.

Well, it’s almost the weekend and in addition to my yoga event I have many dozen Halloween cookies to be made. When the kids were little, I’d send enough for their classes, as well as contribute to the inevitable bake sale. These days their friends still love those cookies (“These are the greatest cookies EVER, Nicole”) so I make enough for the boys to share with their buddies. Wow. We are going to have a LOT of sugar in this house. All hail Halloween! xo

Passionate about poinsettias

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Every week, every single week, without exception, there is a day in which I think next week things will slow down and I won’t be so busy and even though I know it’s not true, it somehow keeps me going. I am currently in the pre-long weekend am I going to have a nervous breakdown? frame of mind. Why is there always so much to be done? Why is there a leak in one of my winter tires that is causing me to re-jig everything in my schedule so I can take the tire to the shop on the Thursday before the long weekend? Why did I think it was a good idea to add three more things to my to-do list when I should have subtracted five? Why am I the only one to care about gifts and cards for in-laws’ birthdays?

This last one I know is a bit of a sticky issue for many of my friends. Many – most? – of my friends are of the school of thought that spouses should be responsible for spouse’s family members birthday/ Christmas/ whatever kinds of cards and gifts. However, a) I do love my in-laws, and b) I like to ensure that people in my life should be celebrated on their birthdays. Putting a and b together means that c) I find myself responsible for cards and gifts, because the thought of people getting no cards and no gifts makes me sad, which is what would happen if I did not take responsibility for that task.

Marriage is all about harmoniously splitting up life tasks, isn’t it? Car things are strictly a Blue Job around here, which is why my husband put the winter tires on my car, and then realized that one of those winters has a leak in it. That tire was residing in the back of my car, waiting for me to drop it off at the tire shop, which is fortunately very close to one of the studios that I taught at today. Normally that would be a Blue Job too, but due to the long weekend and also it being Winter Tire Season, it falls to me.

Speaking of Winter Tire Season, we had a couple of very nice days around here, after the snow melted. Here is my back yard Monday at 12:30 pm (bonus Barkley shot!)

And here is my back yard Tuesday at 12:30 pm.

In other words, we are back to snow and absolutely dreadful frigid temperatures, which is depressing. Thank god for bobby pins, because a bun is the only possibility for my hair in this weather.

While I’m complaining about things, I will bring up a huge pet peeve of mine: crappy fundraisers. Last night I went to possibly THE MOST boring meeting ever for my younger son’s spring sailing trip on the west coast. Literally, all information at that meeting could have just as easily been emailed out, and would have saved me sitting in the gym listening to the principal, whose passion for this experience is both admirable and manic, talking about how the numbers have dipped and how we should all be pressuring other kids to join in. Listen, the pressure for kids to participate in this activity is insane; my older son did not participate as he went on the big Quebec trip back in eighth grade, but he was subject to constant pressure from the principal and a number of teachers. I wanted to say but did not that perhaps the reason numbers have dipped is that our province is in a recession, and has been for several years, and depending on what the next few weeks bring probably will be for years to come, and perhaps not every single parent in the school can afford to send their kids on a completely optional trip. Mystery: solved.

But the fundraising. The fundraising. I do not have a problem with fundraising using things that people actually need, want, and consume. The gift card fundraiser, for example, is fantastic. I also love the Growing Smiles campaign, which involves good prices on bedding plants, herbs, and vegetables, with quality products. The fundraiser the school has decided on, however, is my most-loathed one: the Christmas poinsettia fundraiser. I have an enormous problem with selling crap no one wants to my friends and family. I have also been pressured to buy poinsettias by all my friends for years and years. NO ONE WANTS THE POINSETTIAS. Each student is supposed to sell TWELVE POINSETTIAS AND YES, I AM YELLING.

Apologies to those of you who actually do like poinsettias. Let me know, I can hook you up with some overpriced flowers.

When it was question time, I asked how the raised funds were dispersed and if there was a fee for those “unable” (read: unwilling) to participate in said fundraiser. I received the highly unsatisfactory answer that twelve poinsettias were the minimum, and after that, the cost of the individual trip would decrease. The cost, by the way, decreases by about $5 for every poinsettia sold, after the first twelve. The principal started to move on but I felt the need to ask what would happen SHOULD a student sell less than twelve. It turns out that the school cannot actually levy a fee if one doesn’t fundraise, but they do suggest a “donation” to the tune of $150. DONE. I will be more than happy to do so if it means I don’t have to harass everyone I know to buy poinsettias.

Who knew I was so passionate about poinsettias?

Wow, I am in a MOOD. That mood was just exacerbated by the fact that I broke a nail opening up a bag of dog food. How did that happen? I’ve been taking biotin for my hair and nails and now I feel betrayed. I feel betrayed by Big Biotin.

Argh, I can’t end on such a complainy note. Oh! I know! The birthday party for my dad was a huge success; the worms and dirt were popular with the younger crowd, including my own kids who somehow managed to eat both layer cake and cupcakes, in addition to consuming about half a turkey between them. And speaking of which, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. xo