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One Thousand

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Can I Get A Witness

I can hardly believe this, but this is – get ready for it – my ONE THOUSANDTH POST. One thousand posts. Can I get a medal or something for this? Very few people old-school blog anymore, but I am glad to have this diary of my life over the past – get ready for it – DECADE. Of course, I could have just kept a regular diary, but what would have been the fun in that? It’s nice to have a witness to this everyday life. Can I get a witness?

The Winner, In A Landslide

As I’ve mentioned before, I often think of the Soundtrack of My Life; it occurred to me the other day that there are songs that are inextricably associated with other people, in my mind. For example, my friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) is linked forever and always with Some Kind of Wonderful, and so now that I have asked if I could get a witness, I will be a) singing that all day, and b) thinking of her. For fun I asked Facebook friends what song reminded them of ME and it was a very interesting experiment. A friend who knew me way back in elementary school mentioned Corey Hart (HI MELISSA), a friend from high school reminded me that we always sang Hello City when we were together in chemistry class (HI TRACY), a friend from university mentioned Total Eclipse of the Heart, the Old School version (HI ALICE), and there was a nice mix of interesting music from friends made in the past decade (HI EVERYBODY). The most common song, however, was Landslide, which is both unsurprising and apt, given this time of year.

This Is Me In Grade Nine

My BFF, who I met in grade nine, (HI TARA) said what reminded her of me was Light My Fire, stemming from that period in which I was obsessed – OBSESSED – with The Doors, and also wearing all-black-all-the-time. Well, my interest in listening to The Doors has certainly diminished to zero, but my all-black fashion statement largely remains.

This is me in grade nine, baby. Yes, my love of black and also excessive jewelry has remained, nearly thirty years after the fact.

Speaking of which, I have had This Is Me In Grade Nine stuck in my head for days – DAYS – because the start of school has ushered in a new era: my oldest is, indeed, in grade nine. I am assuming the same will be true next year at this time as my youngest will be there as well. Usually I have Back To School, Back To School, To Prove To My Dad That I’m No Fool from Billy Madison stuck in my head for days; this is preferable. I got a red leather tie and a pair of rugger pants, I put them on and I went to the high school dance.

This is further proof that my brain is needlessly filled with song lyrics and if I could just channel that brain power I could probably work for NASA.

Dogpression

Barkley knows what packed backpacks in the kitchen means, and he does not like it. Now that we are four days in, he has come to weary acceptance, so long as he can come along for school drop-off.

Winter Games

I have been using the silent house and also the free time before my new registered classes start next week to get a few menial, tedious, and annoying jobs done. These include but are not limited to calling the cable company to order a new remote, necessitating me looking up serial numbers and account numbers and clearing up last name confusion, registering myself and my husband to vote in the upcoming provincial election so as to not have to wait for an enumerator, and calling a certain government agency to ensure an issue that was not caused by anyone in this household but instead someone who we actually paid for their services and still makes me irritated to think about it has been cleared up. (Spoiler: it hasn’t!). Yesterday I was on hold for what seemed like an eternity, only to be redirected a few times before getting the correct person for the job, who ended up completely unable to help anyway. The interesting part of this story, at least to me, was that while I was on hold, the theme from the Calgary 88 Olympics was played. Two things: a) that really took me back in time, and b) is it just me or does that seem like a strange choice of music? The rest of the music was pretty neutral elevator-Kenny G-type music, and then wham! Bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah BAH BAH!

It’s Just Like New Year

September feels like a much milder form of January, doesn’t it? Everyone with their fresh starts and getting back to the gym and making crazy school lunches with bento boxes? I personally have a couple of resolutions for September and on, and one of them is to not use my phone when the boys get home after school. I instituted a “no screens” rule for myself and the boys, although it has since been amended to “no screens until homework, physical exercise, and something creative has been done.” For me, though, it’s no phone at all, unless someone texts or emails me. It’s really helping me be more present, which is an ongoing goal of mine, and also allows me more time to read and play the piano. In fact, it’s given me so much more time that I feel a twinge of shame about my (former) phone habits.

Only 1255 Pages To Go

I have had A Suitable Boy on hold from the library for some time, thanks to a recommendation from my friend Mary-Lynn (HI MARY-LYNN). Imagine my surprise when I went to the library to pick it up and discovered that it is almost 1500 pages long. Hoo boy. I have been keeping a spreadsheet of all my books read, in an attempt to be more like my bibliophile friend Allison (HI ALLISON), and so far this year I have averaged one book every 3.5 days. This is going to mess me up big-time. To add fuel to the reading fire, two more of my holds came in yesterday, so if anyone needs me, I’ll be over there, reading. I know, I know, it’s the journey, not the destination, but I like my current book-to-day average.

I Love Your Pictures

A few months ago, someone had posted on Facebook about how sick they were of seeing photos of other people’s kids, and no one cared, and just keep those photos to yourselves, you terrible attention whores. I’m paraphrasing, but only slightly. Then a friend told me that someone told HER that seeing back-to-school photos was the worst, and if your kids weren’t in kindergarten, then nobody cares. You terrible attention whores.

I am taking this opportunity – this One Thousandth Post opportunity – to say that I CARE. I love seeing all your photos, of your kids, of your pets, of your fancy drinks, of your houses, of your vacations. I love your selfies, your outfits-of-the-day, your bikini shots, your workout shots, your nature shots, I LOVE IT ALL. I want to see MORE updates about your lives, not less. What else are we on social media for? Outraged political updates? I think we have enough of those. After all, look how well all those political posts pre-US-election turned out.

I mean, I even love seeing photos of what you had for dinner, so long as it’s not already digested. Which brings me to this travesty:

You Know How I Feel About This Emoticon

People, this is a bridge too far. TOO FAR.

Stepping into madness.

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I work very hard to be a calm and zen-like person, but those who know me well know that I am, deep down, a controlling and Type A person. It’s not even that deep down, one only needs to load the dishwasher differently from me, or fold the tea towels in halves instead of thirds, to know this. I like to think that being controlling and Type A is not actually in opposition to being calm and zen-like, really; I embrace the adage that you cannot control external forces but you can control how you react to them.

With that in mind, it doesn’t take a psychology degree to make the connection between the end of summer, and the new school year as a demarcation of the rapid passing of time, and my embarking on a Project. Normally these Projects are of the Cleaning and Organizing Type, which is, to me, only a benefit. One year, you may recall, I completely Kondo-d my entire house, donating twenty-five garbage bags of clothing and household objects. Another year I embraced the Kitchn Cure, right down to my multiple fridges and freezers. No one is harmed in these Projects; they fulfill my need for order, and the house is better off for it.

The only exception was the year my youngest started kindergarten; the day before school started I decided to make birthday invitations for his entire class, which ended with an inexplicably broken printer and me, sobbing on the phone to the printer help desk. I cried so hard that the very kind gentleman on the other end told me everything would be all right, he would take care of everything, and maybe I would like to get a glass of water? He ended up sending me a brand-new printer at no charge, so I guess the house was better off for it, even if it was at the expense of my own nervous breakdown.

It started off innocently enough yesterday; I decided to make granola. The house filled with a delicious, maple coconut aroma, and I noticed that a couple of the kitchen cupboards were a little smudged. I decided to wash them, which is not an unusual occurrence. The cupboards are white and I do wash them down once a month or so. But yesterday, after washing the cupboards, I started washing down and polishing all the appliances, big and small. Then I took everything out from under the sink and began scrubbing. Then I noticed some smudges on the wall in the back entry, which resulted in my scrubbing down the entire entry and the stair railings. I couldn’t stop there; the stairs leading downstairs also seemed smudgy, and so did the back door.

This way leads madness.

I could actually feel myself spiraling out of control; I recalled that there were some toothpaste spatters in the bathroom which meant I was soon washing the walls there too. As I scrubbed out under the bathroom sink, I realized that if I didn’t stop soon, I would be tearing all the pictures off the walls and moving furniture to wash the walls behind it, which would probably lead to hours of cleaning that no one, save me, would ever notice. I vowed to just wipe down the hall cupboards and stop; it took every ounce of willpower to empty my bucket and put it down in the basement. As it was, my kids and their friends came in from the back yard to get snacks, and were tiptoeing around me as I washed the hardwood. Don’t worry Nicole, we can minimize the amount of feet on the floor, one of them said as he took enormous steps on his tiptoes. In an attempt to model normal healthy behaviour, I stopped cleaning after finishing the floors.

Many years ago, my mother-in-law told me that when she was first married, her mother-in-law washed all the walls in the house once a month. Once a month! she said to me. Really, that’s too much. Once a season is plenty. I remember staring at her, thinking once a SEASON? The walls in my house get washed a) when they are going to be painted, and b) piecemeal, when I notice smudges. And c) when I become obsessive at the end of summer, I guess.

This cleaning binge put me in mind of a book I just read and loved, David Sedaris’ Calypso. Are you a Sedaris fan? If so, this book is a must-read. It is, in my opinion, his best writing ever. Oh, to write like David Sedaris! Every sentence is gold. One essay in, and I was telling my husband that it was on my Christmas list – I knew I would want to read it over and over again, and I had only gotten it from the library. My husband’s response was It’s August but no matter. Gold. Several times my family asked what I was laughing at, and more than once I was doubled over, with that silent laughter that comes from the inability to breathe and make any sound, tears running down my face.

Calypso includes the essay Stepping Out, which is my favourite thing he has ever written, and also perfectly articulates why I cannot have a fitness tracker. Some of us cannot be trusted. My husband has a fitness tracker and he uses it like a normal person. He looks at his steps, calories burned, and whatever else a fitness tracker records, and then he goes on with his life. If it were me, all semblance of a normal life would go out the window and I would be welcoming Fitbit, My New Overlord.

In the words of David Sedaris, “…there’d be no end to it until my feet snapped off at the ankles. Then it’d just be my jagged bones stabbing into the soft ground. Why is it some people can manage a thing like a Fitbit, while others go off the rails and allow it to rule, and perhaps even ruin, their lives?”

See, this is the thing. Self-awareness is where it’s at, and given my propensity to spin off the rails, I can say with confidence that a Fitbit is not for me. Occasionally I will mention to my husband that it would be “interesting to have one,” at which he stares at me silently, probably imagining a life with a lunatic who is “just getting her steps in” to the detriment of everything else. I mean, I’m already at the point in my life where I scope out parking spots that are the farthest from the door, and I refuse to take an elevator for anything less than seven floors. And imagine what would happen during the last week of summer vacation? I would probably end up in a different province, pumping my arms enthusiastically. And with my terrible sense of direction, I may never make it back.

Another thing to delegate to the Blue Job Category

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I realized with a start that NEXT WEEK is the last week of summer vacation, and as always at this time of year, I am filled with low-level melancholy about the ending of my favourite season and the rapid passage of time, et cetera. Landslide on repeat, as it were.

The past few weeks have been characterized by two opposing forces: trying to squeeze in lots of fun activities – trips to the zoo, the amusement park, endless afternoons of the kids hanging out with friends – and trying to squeeze in all the non-fun activities like haircuts, oil changes, and back-to-school shopping.

Normally the boys only like to shop with their dad for clothes, as he is generally the Fun One and also I am less than patient when it comes to clothes shopping. I know! It doesn’t seem quite right, does it? But it’s true. A few weeks ago I had the boys try on everything in their dressers, and to pile on the floor all the things that don’t fit or that they don’t like. Does this shirt spark joy? I didn’t say to them, but that was my idea. The piles were enormous and the dressers were looking pretty scant. One child in particular had no pants; the other had one pair that was skirting the line between “acceptable” and this:

My husband took them pants shopping, to everyone’s delight. Well, “delight” might be a strong word. Still, who knew that I would one day delegate clothes shopping to the Blue Job category? Certainly not me. Maybe it would be different if I had girls.

I remember when back-to-school shopping filled me with utter joy; I’ve always enjoyed clothes and fashion and every August I would think about what my signature look would be for the upcoming year. I wrote about it here if you’d like to see all my favourite outfits of my teen years. Dreadfully enough, many of those outfits are making a comeback.

Pants aside, a few items still needed to be purchased, along with standard school supplies, and so I took a deep breath and prepared myself, vowing to be patient.

I took them school supply shopping at Walmart, which – Walmart. Walmart, am I right?

I joined a whole army of moms who all had eye-rolling teens in tow and who all sported looks of grim determination on their faces. We are all in this together, ladies. We whipped through the list pretty quickly, except for one item: paper. PAPER. There were several thousand different boxes of pencil crayons, glue sticks, and pens, and yet regular, lined paper was nowhere to be found. A woman beside me, grilling her teen daughter on her preference for pencil case colours – do you like this one? How about this one? For the love of god just PICK ONE – seemed like she had been there a while, so I asked her if she had seen lined paper. She hadn’t, and we looked at each other with perplexed expressions. It must be here somewhere, how can they not have paper? After searching for upward of fifteen minutes, which is fifteen hours in Walmart-time, I found the last two packages of foolscap. Do they still call it foolscap? I’m not sure how it’s possible to not have paper during the back-to-school shopping blitz, but I imagined being mugged in the parking lot for my two packages of paper. I mean, who is doing the ordering here? It doesn’t expire, people, just order some more paper.

I later saw that mom at a distance, still searching for items on her list, and presumably paper was one of them. I felt a little guilty for having the only two packages, apparently, in the store, but I did not approach her. When it comes to Walmart, it’s every woman for herself.

After that episode, I should have just called it a day, but no. I pushed on. There were still a few clothing items to be purchased and although I would have been more than willing to delegate, my husband has been working a lot, weekends included. After the paper-related guilt, my soul couldn’t take anymore, so I womaned up and went to the mall.

Mothers of teens, you know that moment you realize that kids’ clothing doesn’t really fit anymore and now you find yourself shopping in the men’s department?

We ended up, on my husband’s suggestion, at Bluenotes, which sells no children’s clothing whatsoever but focuses more, as the salesgirl said to me, on young adults. The salesgirl and I also had a spirited discussion about the ubiquity of what are commonly called Mom Jeans but I would pedantically argue that they would be better referred to as Grandma Jeans. After all, what moms do you know that wear Mom Jeans? I know of none.

Grandma Jeans might not sound like a sexy marketing slogan, but when you consider that Granny Grey is a hot new hair colour for the youth of today, maybe it could be!

Speaking of Grandma/ Mom, I was getting my hair coloured when I spied a People magazine, which I don’t normally read, but on the cover was an article about being a new mom at age 54. It was Bridgette Nielson, who just had a baby at age 54 and by no means am I one to take away someone else’s joy, but wow. I was exhausted just thinking of it. Of course, it’s very likely that Bridgette Nielson will be able to afford a staff to help out with those sleepless nights but still. I mean, just imagine back-to-school shopping when you are in your sixties! I need to lie down at the very idea.

A Confession

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Aretha Franklin is, without a doubt, my favourite singer of all time; what a gift she was to the world. I love every single thing she has ever done, but I especially love this clip from 2015 because wow. Talk about owning it. I love how she swans out in a gigantic floor length fur coat, 2015 be damned, dripping with jewelry and in that absolutely fabulous dress, to belt out Natural Woman. That voice, not dimmed in the least by her age, which was 73. In fact, her voice may have been better than ever. I love how she just drops the coat to just finish it off. What a goddess.

Sirius is honouring her by making the Soul Town channel into a tribute to Aretha for the next week. This morning I heard her renditions of Satisfaction and Let It Be, and she makes the Stones and Beatles sound like absolute hacks. Go home, boys, you’ve been owned. That woman was a queen, let’s not ever forget that.

Speaking of Sirius, a few weeks ago I mentioned that after years of my declarations that I Do Not Need Sirius In My Car, I finally acquiesced and my husband had it installed, just in time for our Epic Road Trip. I am so glad we did because I don’t think I could have listened to our Summer Mix 2014! CD one more time. The only blip came when my husband, whose musical tastes are much more contemporary than my own, refused to listen to Seventies Soft Rock or Pop Hits of the Eighties, two of my staple channels. I am extremely open-minded about music in general – I enjoy a wide and eclectic variety of genres – and so I let the doggy have his bone, so to speak. This went fine until the last long leg, when I snapped and declared that I Could Not Listen To “The Middle” One More Time. Deadlock had been reached, and we ended up compromising by listening to Bloomberg for four straight hours, which was both fascinating and kind of depressing, as this was exactly when the Chinese trade sanctions were starting.

The other day I was scrolling through my news feed and I came across this:

Never before have I felt so seen by an Onion headline, not since this one:

Oh, remember those days when the kids were small and a vacation was not at all a vacation, but rather a trip, and one in which all regular chores and drudgery had to be done, just in less convenient circumstances? Thank god that passed. When the kids were little our “vacations” were exclusively limited to “trips to visit my in-laws” and I remember the sheer exhaustion of it all. In fact, when the kids were two and three I remember saying to a fellow preschool mom that I couldn’t imagine ever PAYING to go on a vacation just so I could be exhausted in a different place. Clearly my sleep deprivation was affecting me deeply; obviously I am in a different stage of life now, one in which I can sit by the pool with a drink and a book for hours before wondering casually if the kids were hungry yet. It gets better Current Me wants to tell Past Me. Whenever I see a woman on a plane with little ones in tow, and the look on her face says why am I doing this I always give an empathetic smile and a silent prayer for her that she will get five minutes to herself.

But back to the Guest Offering Help With Dishes. This is a confession, you guys, which means I am not proud of this, but instead I am telling you something a little bit shameful, and that is that I really cannot bear to have help in the kitchen. Well, that’s not exactly true; my younger son is my dish drier, my older son is the table-and-chair wiper, my husband scrapes plates and loads the dishwasher and packages up leftovers (but only in containers that I have approved, because I am an insane control freak). Guests, though. I want my guests to just enjoy another drink and relax, or chat with me while I do the dishes, but I do not under any circumstances want help.

I know, I know, it’s terrible. In fact, I wonder if it’s some kind of pathological illness. Why wouldn’t I welcome help? It’s perverse! After all, I happily help in other people’s kitchens. But when it comes to mine…well. A few months ago we had dear friends visiting, and after dinner my sweet, sweet friend Sammi (HI SAMMI) started stacking plates. She took one look at me and said “You don’t want me to do this, do you?” I shook my head and we burst out laughing at my weird mental deficiency. Then she had a glass of wine while I washed the dishes AND I WAS HAPPY.

When we were staying at our friends’ place in Vancouver (HI CHRIS!) I was helping in the kitchen by drying the dishes. I asked my friend where to put a particular knife, and he said “Oh, anywhere. It’s a small kitchen, I’ll find it.” People, I stood there for several seconds in shock because I had obviously found Bizarro Nicole. What, you don’t have a specific nonnegotiable spot for every single kitchen item and when said item is put away wrong, you don’t silently plot the murder of the individual responsible? Huh. 

Well, the world is a rich tapestry. It takes all kinds, as Grandma would say. My husband and I were chatting the other day and I said that I was “easy-going.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “I am! I’m very easy-going!” I said defensively. He wordlessly went to the knife block and switched the knives around while my blood pressure skyrocketed and my eyes bulged out.

I’m easy-going about many things but the knife block is not one of them. Or the entire kitchen. Or the entire house. But otherwise! Very placid and carefree. Yes. Very.

The Boyhouse Takes An Epic Road Trip

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The clock in the kitchen has been two minutes slow for weeks now, and although there are two other clocks – on the stove and microwave – I always find myself glancing at that one. Yesterday I decided to seize the day and after changing the time, I hung it back on the wall. I did not, however, hang it properly, as evidenced by the smash and shatter that came a minute later. I knew that I would be constantly glancing at the bare spot in the wall, trying to ascertain the time of day, and so after dropping the kids at their swim lessons, I found myself at Bed Bath and Beyond.

What is it about that store? I have been very conscious about what kinds of things I purchase, and the quantities thereof – I don’t want to add to the landfill any more than I have to, and also I don’t want a whole lot of clutter in my house. However, walking into Bed Bath and Beyond, I find myself completely and immediately overwhelmed. Do I need a spiralizer? Do I need a floating cooler? How about Jelly Belly flavoured syrup? What about these throw pillows? What about a shower caddy that has a separate waterproof pocket for my phone? Does Barkley need a cooling bandanna? In the end I walked out with only a clock, thanks only to iron willpower. I was sorely tested though, even when I made it through the store. Near the checkout I was very tempted by a deal on streak-free stainless steel and granite cleaner, scented hand soap, and special pens for writing on glass.

Iron willpower, and maybe I am also a little shopped out since I crossed a new line this week: I bought so much at Costco that I could – and this is not an exaggeration – barely move the cart. I normally am at Costco every 2-3 weeks, but due to vacation it had been almost five, and I was into my backups of almost all my staples. The cart was so heavy that it was taking every ounce of strength I had to move it, and I briefly wondered if the slight incline in the parking lot would be the actual death of me. I pushed with all my might, inching through the lot, while cars zoomed past me, probably raging about the renovations at the gas station. The next day my back and shoulders were a bit sore and I wondered if that counted as the World’s Lamest Injury.

Speaking of vacation, I meant to write about it before now, but clearly I have been too busy breaking clocks and buying groceries to do so. It was, the kids said, our Best Canadian Trip Ever. Emphasis is on Canadian, I guess, because hey, Disney World. But we did have a wonderful trip, starting with a drive up the Icefields Parkway to Jasper.

Hoo boy, that was a cold hike! My husband and I went to the Athabasca Glacier on our very first trip together, way back in 1998, so it was very fun to see it with our kids, twenty years later.

We did lots of great hiking, and also went white water rafting for the first time. In the evenings we played board games and cards, and it was, all in all, fabulous.

Circling back to my shopping challenge, I purchased these boots in 1998. They have seen a lot of kilometers in the past twenty years. I was going to boast about them, how they are still going strong, but sadly the soles are coming off! I don’t even know if I can get them repaired, sad trombone. Anyway, twenty years is pretty decent for a pair of hiking boots, and they saw me through all the hikes we did in Jasper.

After Jasper we headed for the coast. I hadn’t been to Vancouver since I was pregnant with my oldest, which was fifteen years ago. I was Quietly Pregnant, and we stayed with the same friends we stayed with on this trip. We had a lovely time with our very generous hosts (HI CHRIS) and spent time at Kitsilano Beach, Granville Island, and the Seawall.

The original Lululemon! I did not even go inside because I was still on my shopping challenge, and a person can only take so much temptation.

After Vancouver we went to visit my mother-in-law, and a number of friends, in Kelowna. The four hour drive ended up taking seven and a half hours, due to – dramatically – a truck and trailer on fire a few kilometers in front of us. Other than that little blip, we had a great time enjoying the heat and the water.

Just as we were getting back into routine last week, I decided to take advantage of the hot weather and took the kids up to my parents’ place mid-week for a mini-vacation. We paddleboarded and boated, and the kids were getting a little hot so I encouraged them to jump out of the boat and swim to shore. It turned out to be a lot farther than I initially thought but hey, they did it!

So now we are home and back in the swing of things, with slightly tighter pants – sigh – and lots of great memories. A friend of my husband’s is very sick and it’s on my mind a lot, how time can be fleeting and at the end of the day, this is what matters most. I don’t ever wish to go back in time but I do wish I could slow it down just a little – the boys are back to school in less than three weeks, it’s mid-August! – but failing that, I guess we just need to enjoy the time we have together. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: July Is The Best Edition

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It has been another glorious summer week; summers are so short in this city that I feel like I need to soak up every moment outside. Hence, the writing of this at 6:30 am on a Saturday morning. I realized that I started this blog in 2008 which is a decade of having a whole lot to say about not a whole lot. My friend Lynn (HI LYNN) thought that maybe us “old-school mom bloggers” should now morph into “perimenopause bloggers” which, maybe we should. Speaking of EMOTIONS, the other morning I was practicing yoga and a girl rolled out her mat beside me. She had a shirt that said “When It’s Dark Look For Stars” and I got teary-eyed. Getting emotional over a tank top is probably one of those Change of Life things that no one talks about, UNTIL NOW.

And speaking of tank tops, only ten more days until my goddamn shopping challenge is done. Then I shall buy all the emotional tank tops I want. August 1st, lululemon sees a spike in sales like never before, analysts cannot explain it. It all seemed to come out of the Calgary area.

Truthfully though, I was in the mall yesterday to choose a hostess gift, and the tea store is just down from lululemon, and I am not made of stone. I thought I would browse the store and just make a mental shopping list for The Big Day. Reader, there was nothing I wanted to buy. Either the shopping challenge has fundamentally changed me or all the current styles and colours are unappealing, or both. I was gravely disappointed. I felt like Rip van Winkle but with clothes, like the whole world has moved on to crop tops and tucking things in and I just am not prepared for that right now.

Also, why so many things with an exposed back? As I said summer is brief here, and I will enjoy this six weeks of feeling warm but come August, I will be layering up again. I do not want my back exposed; in a similar vein, I also never embraced the cold shoulder look. I am already cold enough, thank you.

This post has taken a turn for the negative; let’s get back to the point which was…

Nicole’s Favourite Things: July Is The Best Edition

Sirius XM Radio

There is a pattern in my marriage, and it goes like this: my husband has an idea of something he wants to buy for me/ our family/ our house, and I resist it with all my might. We do not NEED that, I will say. This conversation, such as it is, will go on for any length of time; weeks to years of back-and-forth. Finally my husband will break down and buy it/ install it and I will end up loving it so much so that I cannot imagine life without it. Repeat, ad infinitum. The single time that I myself had to convince my husband that we needed to buy something was when we purchased the trampoline.

I am a dream to be married to, believe me.

A small list of the items that have been purchased in this way are: Roomba, my stand mixer, my super-fancy dehydrator, the juicer, the Vitamix, my Yamaha piano, the elliptical machine, and Sonos. We have had Sonos, with Sirius XM Radio in the house for years, and my husband also has it in his car for his commute to work. I have steadfastly refused the installation of Sirius in my minivan, although mine is the vehicle that we take on long road trips, meaning that once we lose local radio stations, we end up listening to the same mix CD’s over and over. Some of those mix CD’s were made years ago and there is only so much of Gangnam Style one can listen to on one road trip. Finally my husband put Sirius in my car and people, I cannot ever go back to regular radio. I can listen to 70s soft rock without hearing commercials for Grey Power Insurance or Nurse Next Door or even My Pillow Dot Com. I already bought the damn pillow.

There’s also a Yacht Rock station, and the 80s on 8 frequently plays “on this day in 198x” countdowns. When I was driving to pick up the kids from my parents’ place, I was delayed by a big accident, and listening to the top songs of July 1986 made everything better. I had my own little karaoke party with The Greatest Love of All.

Breville Food Processor

I don’t know how long I’ve had my old Cuisinart food processor – since 2011 maybe? Or 2010? I don’t know. All I know is one day I was going to pulse some tomatoes into my guacamole and instead of pulsing the processor just kept going. It wouldn’t turn off until I unplugged it. I still used it like that for a while, plugging it in when I needed to process something, but it felt weird and dangerous. I thought I would just get another Cuisinart but my husband – who used to get Consumer Reports back in the day – had been researching it and thought I might like to try a Breville.

Oh, baby.

It was like all those years I was driving a Ford Focus, and now I have a Maserati.

It processes much better – the Cuisinart always left little chunks where the blade didn’t touch the bottom – and it is also so easy to clean! The Cuisinart had a rubber seal and lots of little crevices that were impossible to keep clean, which felt a little gross. This is my new bae. I’d make out with it if it wouldn’t slice my face to a pulp.

These Old Jeans

Thanks to Facebook memories, this photo popped up in my feed the other day.

It was from exactly ten years ago, and you might be thinking awww, what cute little guys. I am thinking that too, but I’m also thinking, hey, I’m wearing those jeans right now. Yes, these old jeans are at least a decade old – I don’t know when I bought them – and I’m still wearing them. Now that I’m looking at that photo, I realize that I still have and wear those shoes.

My god, August 1 cannot come soon enough. Although, it is a testament to how I buy things that last. No one could say that I’m a “disposable fashion” kind of girl, that’s for sure.

Dog Calendar

My mom gave me a Labradoodle calendar for Christmas, and every month features an absolutely adorable dog. Not as adorable as this one, mind you:

Look at that FACE. WHO’S A GOOD DOGGY. WHO’S THE BEST DOGGY.

But the month of July features this dog:

It puts me in mind of a 1980s glamour shot. It makes me smile every time I see it, which is good because…

Neutrogena Rapid Repair

This photo of me was taken exactly forty years ago:

I love it so much, not just because of my great fashion, but because I so clearly am thinking I will pet this sheep but I will not enjoy it and you cannot make me. My friend Janet (HI JANET) mentioned that I still make this face, which explains a lot regarding my perpetual Bitchy Resting Face. No wonder I have such an epic case of BRF, I have been working on it my whole life.

Several months ago I posted about my favourite Growing Old Gracefully things, and one of those things was Neutrogena Rapid Repair Night Cream. My friend Liv (HI LIV) mentioned that she uses the one that is SPF 30 and meant for day use. Liv has perfect skin so I thought I would try it as well, and people, my skin has never looked better. It is truly amazing. I still, of course, have BRF – no amount of retinol is going to reverse 43 years worth of that face. Nothing, short of massive plastic surgery, is going to do that. But it’s a fantastic cream and I highly recommend it. I also recommend looking at glamour dog shots frequently to keep smiling, keep shining.

That’s also my favourite sunscreen, for the six weeks of high UV index that we get per summer.

So that’s that. What are you loving this July, tell me everything. xo

We’re all going to die

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Every morning when I drive home from my yoga practice, I see a sign that would be a balm for weary travelers. Travelodge: Your Room Is Waiting For You. What a nice slogan! Alas, it is meaningless, since the motel was demolished months ago, and now the sign advertises for an empty lot. It feels like there is some kind of symbolism there but I just cannot seem to make the leap.

Today I heard that the house featured on The Brady Bunch is up for sale in Los Angeles, and also that it is “one of the most photographed homes in America, with 30-50 visitors every day.” I guess we all have different interests, and the world is a rich tapestry, but still, that number surprises me. I am surprised that anyone at all visits it, but I must remind myself not to be close-minded. After all, I am a person who has a strong desire to see the Jungle Room at Graceland, and also the stained-glass peacocks.

Also, I do not think I have seen even one episode of The Brady Bunch.

We have been having such a beautiful summer, with great weather and lots of sunshine. I was writing down the date for one of my class sign-ins, and I had a small crisis when I realized that July was more than half over. The days are long but the years are short is something people say when you are home with little kids, but now it just seems like life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. (Thank you Ferris Bueller).

Speaking of life moving fast, I just finished reading this book:

This is a very silly title. We all have 100% chance of death; P=1. WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE.

Semantics, yes. But of course, the book isn’t about living eternally, or even Yoda-like, it’s about using nutrition to assist in the staving-off of premature-death-causing diseases. It is a very interesting book and written in a fairly compelling way, and for some of us who have been following plant-based diets for years, it’s a bit like preaching to the choir. I will say this though: the alarmist use of non-statistics is my least favourite part of the book, and that makes up a large part of this book. It’s quite misleading, and I say this even as a person who is plant-based. Statements like studies show that even one serving of egg per week can increase your chance of x disease by 30% are very misleading if you do not tell the reader what the original chance of x disease is. For example, if your current risk of, say, kidney cancer is 2%, and you increase your chance by 30%, then your new risk is 2.6%. Maybe it is the econometrician in me, but that kind of statement makes me crazy. Most people, I am sorry to say, do not have a particularly good understanding of statistics, and this kind of writing does not help. AND I AM SOMEONE WHO AGREES WITH THE WHOLE PREMISE OF THE BOOK.

The premise is decent, and I think that no matter if you eat an egg serving a week or not, we could all stand to increase our intake of fruits and vegetables, plant-based proteins, and flaxseed. My god, the author of this book is obsessed with flaxseed – that, and turmeric – so much so that you might wonder if he was being paid by Big Flaxseed. Or Big Turmeric. Well, I like and consume both of those things, so I guess I’m okay.

We go through a lot of fruit and vegetables in this house. I love vegetables and I have a big appetite for them; I personally can eat an entire head-and-a-half of roasted cauliflower at one sitting, and I do this weekly. I have been known to consume a full head of kale at a time, and once when I was preparing Sunday dinner my husband came into the kitchen and stared at me.

Mr: Nicole, no. NO. This is insane. No one can eat that much asparagus!

Me: Hold my purse.

All of which is to say that I eat a lot of produce personally, and so does the rest of my family. However, even for me reading the recommendations for the “Daily Dozen” was overwhelming. Like, I just don’t think I can fit all those things into my life. How much flaxseed can one person eat?

Well, as I said, it’s a good premise and eating more whole foods, fruits, and veggies are better than eating highly processed things of dubious nutritional value, if you can. It reminded me that I wanted to tell you about my favourite green smoothie, which is a really good way to get more leafy greens into your diet, if that’s something of interest.

Nicole’s Favourite Green Smoothie

I have one of these every single day, except when I am out of town and have no access to a blender. I usually have this at lunch, but I think most people would enjoy it more as a breakfast food. I, however, tend to have very little time for lunch, so this fits the bill. I use eight cups of spinach for this recipe, but I don’t recommend anyone new to green smoothies starting with that. Maybe start with ONE cup, then work your way up.

Someone once said to me, in a very unkind way, that they do not enjoy smoothies because they are not infants and prefer to chew their food. Hey, I like chewing food just fine. However, I usually have 10-15 minutes to eat lunch, and I just don’t think I could eat 8 cups of spinach in that amount of time. Plus, I LIKE this smoothie. I can chew food at the two other meals in a day. My jaw is not atrophying, believe me.

Anyway, here is the recipe!

8 cups baby spinach (this is a lot of spinach! I’m like Popeye. Start small and work your way up, or you will be completely grossed out.)

1 cup almond milk

2 tablespoons almond butter

1 frozen banana

a whole lot of cinnamon

The ingredients! Do NOT give me a hard time about the tetra-pak almond milk. Maybe when I have a lot more time in my life, I will make my own almond milk, but today is not that day. Note the red moose in the background – my older son made that in Industrial Arts class. It poops out gumballs! Although we have no gumballs so this is theoretical.

I’m strong to the finish ’cause I eats me spinach, I’m Popeye the Sailor Man.

Almond butter = food of the gods.

Mmmm. Liquified spinach. So, first blend the spinach with the almond milk and butter. THEN add the banana and cinnamon. Trust me on this. GET THE SPINACH BLENDED FIRST OR ALL WILL BE ASHES. I keep bananas individually frozen for this purpose, and I always break the banana into pieces before freezing. You don’t want to not do this, unless you want a blender tragedy, or even just unblended chunks of banana.

I have no idea how much cinnamon I add. I just shake it on until the top of the liquid is all covered, thickly. I like a lot of cinnamon. Hey, it’s anti-inflammatory!

This may not look appealing to you but it’s making me hungry.

So there you go! Even though every day we are one day nearer to dying, and I am on that slow journey to death just like everyone else, I swear that these green smoothies make me more energetic and healthy. Are you also a green smoothie lover? If you try this, let me know, I’m DYING to know what you think. Dying. Ha! xo