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Swimming in a sea of flowers.

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I just finished taking care of a fundraiser for next fall’s Grade Eight Quebec trip. Is my thirteen-year-old really going across the country without me for a week, with no contact whatsoever? Yes, he is. No phones are allowed and so I will not even have TEXTS from him. It’s like we are back in the Nineties! What’s next? Overalls and flannel? Oh, wait.

 

Images from Forever 21.

Deep breathing.

Small digression: it’s funny how the least-flattering clothing can come back into style, like we have learned nothing from the past. History is doomed to repeat itself, etcetera. The other day my husband was watching Jimmy Fallon and Giselle Bundchen was the guest, wearing very high waisted cropped pleated pants with a tucked in blouse and high heels, and even SHE didn’t look great in it. People, if Giselle doesn’t look good in an outfit, it should NOT be in mainstream fashion, because what chance do the rest of us have? But saying that, I remember clearly – from my own high school trip to Europe – wearing a very similar outfit, minus the heels. HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF.

Anyway, back to the fundraiser. It involved selling (and in my case, buying copiously) spring plants, and thank you so much to all my beautiful friends who supported it. This is, I kid you not, the first time ever I had a fundraiser in which I had to ask my friends to buy something from me. How did I make it this long without having to sell chocolates or raffle tickets or what have you? I don’t know. I do know that I was relieved to be actually selling things that people (and myself) actually wanted and could use.

I went to pick up the plants to deliver them all around the city on Wednesday, and was distressed to hear that there was an issue with the fundraising company, in that the petunias and geraniums did not arrive. I had six flats of petunias and geraniums on order, but have been assured that they will arrive on Monday.

I was quite put out at the thought of having to come back for the missing plants but in retrospect, it was quite fortuitous that they were late. As it was, my friend who was helping me take the plants to the car looked at me and asked if I was sure I was going to be able to fit them all in. My minivan was full, absolutely full, with planters and flats of vegetables and herbs. I had every square inch covered with plants, including the seats. Had the other flowers arrived, I would have had to, I don’t know, make a second trip. Quelle disaster!

So begins gardening season. My tulips might be a raggedy hot mess, but everything else is popping out of the ground, filling me with that beautiful feeling of springtime hope. Every few hours I am sending my husband all-caps texts such as THE HOSTAS ARE UP and I THINK THE CLEMATIS IS STARTING and THE MAYDAY IS IN BLOOM. The Mayday has gone from leafing out to being in full bloom within the span of a week, god help those with seasonal allergies, but I am enjoying it. The lawn needs to be mowed and I am preparing to edge the gardens, cutting out my customary extra few inches in the quest to eventually have more garden than lawn.

Side note: my husband asked how much lawn I was going to cut out this year, to which I replied austerely that as grass grows, so it needs to be trimmed back, and my annual garden edging is merely maintaining the status quo, to which he replied that I might lie to myself, but I shouldn’t lie to him.

My husband, in Betty Draper form.

I can think of no better way to spend Mother’s Day weekend than planting – and possibly tearing out more lawn to make way for omg-how-many-plants-did-I-buy number of flowers. Have a wonderful weekend everyone, and Happy Mother’s Day to all you mamas, step-mamas, aunties, and lovely women. May you celebrate however you like best! xo

Mercury in retrograde plus Costco equals misery

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If you have been feeling like things are a drag, if you’ve been feeling tired or if it seems like your plans have been constantly foiled by external factors, I have some great news for you: Mercury is in retrograde! And it ends tomorrow! All will be well soon, my friends, or as well as it can be, I suppose.

To tell the truth, I haven’t really noticed; all has been fine around here. The only thing is that last night I slept really well – I fell asleep just after nine and slept solidly until 4:10. Normally I wake up a few times in the night; often I wake up at 3 and then just doze off and on after that until I get up for the day at 4:30. I never think this affects me, other than I seem to be in a semi-coma by evening. But waking up today I felt so incredibly refreshed, so able to take on anything, that I am a little alarmed by my regular, everyday feeling.

I decided to read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, being that I am 42 and all, and I will tell you right now that I loathed it. I didn’t even finish it, and I normally soldier my way through most things. Last night, I read another ridiculous chapter and then decided that life is too short and time is too precious, and quit. Maybe that’s why I slept so well; who knows?

I am no busier than anyone else, but this week my schedule is a bit strange; filled up with a lot of one-offs. However, I really needed to go to Costco for some specific, much-consumed items that I can only get there. Side note: all my free time these days seems to be consumed by grocery shopping and laundry, the two Sisyphean tasks in my life. Anyway, this afternoon I had a small window, and though I try to avoid Costco in the afternoon, I ventured forth. Winding through the parking lot, gazing at all the carts strewn everywhere but the cart corrals, I started to regret my choices. I did manage to park, grab an orphaned cart, and shop.

People. I forgot that one of the reasons I don’t shop in the afternoon is because Costco has the sample tables out by then. I tried to deep breathe and think of it as a lesson in patience, but it is very irritating to not be able to maneuver through the aisles because of all the lineups at the sample tables. I mean, by all means, line up for ten minutes to get your free cracker, but we are not all so eager to try the new sweet potato flavour, so please let me pass. I promise I am not going to cut in line.

Not everyone dawdled however; one woman zoomed by a sample table, grabbing a tiny paper cup and sauntering off. The sample lady must have been having a DAY – and who can blame her? – because she started speaking in a very loud, passive-aggressive voice, about what exactly was in the cup. IT IS BLACK BEAN SAUCE SERVED ON BASMATI RICE AND THE SAUCE IS $3.97 A BOTTLE AND YOU CAN PICK ONE UP AT MY TABLE OR IN AISLE 103. AISLE 103!

She said this in the direction of the woman who was seemingly obliviously munching on her black bean sauce and basmati rice, and me, because I was right behind her. I smiled at the lady, nodding; although I did not have a sample it was good information to have. The black bean sauce did look good and maybe the sample people are required to give their pitch, regardless of whether the samplers stay to listen. She stared at me with daggers in her eyes. Perhaps I should have taken a sample, but at that point it seemed weird.

I do get it. The worst job I ever held was that of Beer Sample Girl, which, as you can well imagine, has its own trials. One of them was not the sales pitch because giving out beer samples means that you will have many, many people conversing with you about many things, including the beer sample itself. But I do get it.

Also: Mercury is in retrograde! Shopping at Costco is a bit seventh-circle-of-hell-like at the best of times, especially for those of us who don’t love crowds or the possibility of being crushed to death by towering items. This is not overly an exaggeration; longtime readers will remember the time I narrowly missed being crushed to death by tampon boxes at Costco. 

Okay, that was also an exaggeration. But! Moving on! Mercury in retrograde and harried Costco shoppers can take their toll on the most pleasant of souls. The cashier who checked my items through had a look on her face that exactly matched what most people probably felt like, a “Lord, deliver me from this hellhole and all the idiots inside it” kind of look.

The one exception was the girl who packed my cart. She said in a very, very enthusiastic and excited way, “Thank you SO MUCH for bringing your own bins today!” I was a bit startled by this outpouring of enthusiasm but was incredibly appreciative of her positive attitude and, frankly, amazing cart-packing skills. I mean, this was a thing of beauty. I commented on her mad skills and she shrugged cheerfully. “It’s just my job!”

Well done, Costco girl. And hold on for one more day, because things are going to change, they’re going to go your way. If you just hold on for one more day.

Book Review: Stress Less, or Walking the Walk is Hard

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If you have been reading this blog for, well, any amount of time, you will probably be aware that I am a person who really strives to live a life of calmness and mindfulness. It doesn’t always work that way, of course, but life is a journey and we are all works in progress, tomorrow is fresh new page in our own personal Book of Life, etcetera, etcetera.

The other thing you may know about me is that I love books and reading, and I love my friends, and sometimes those two things overlap in the Venn Diagram of Nicole’s Life. My friend Kate Hanley wrote a book called Stress Less, and when I heard that I could get a free copy in exchange for a blog review, well, I jumped at the chance. Stressing less is my jam! Reading books my friends write is also my jam! This is a win-win situation.

Here’s the part where I disclose, in case you were unable to read the above paragraph, that I received a free copy of Stress Less by Kate Hanley from the good people at Simon and Schuster. I was not compensated in any other way, all views are my own, etcetera, etcetera again.

Stress Less is a lovely little book with 100 mindfulness exercises for calmness and clarity, which means that it is not a “chapter book,” as I would say to my kids. It’s more of a collection of daily meditations, each including an inspirational quote from everyone from the Dalai Lama to Dolly Parton. Don’t you just love an eclectic cast of characters? I sure do. The mindfulness exercises are easy to incorporate into everyday life, and I have introduced the book to my children as well. In particular, I brought their attention to Mindfulness Exercise #13, in which we learn to Listen Better. Most of the time when we are talking to someone else, Kate writes, we’re not truly hearing what they’re saying. Rather, we’re thinking about what we’ll say in response, or wondering when they’ll stop talking so we can speak. Truer words were never spoken, and I brought this up to the kids to say that not only could THEY work on this, but I really should as well. We all could.

So yes, I endeavor to live a life of mindfulness, but in that journey there are bumps on the road. Walking the walk is not always easy, as I will illustrate in the following anecdote.

Last week I had a phone call from a delivery company, to inform me that the stand-up paddleboards (yay!) we had ordered would be delivered the following day, between 1:00 and 5:00. The driver would call me one hour prior to delivering the giant packages. Great, I said, but I will not be home until 1:30 because I am teaching a class. I also will not be able to answer the phone if the driver calls prior to that, because it’s a yoga class and my phone will be off.

No problem, the lady on the phone assured me that she would make a note of it and the driver would certainly be able to accommodate. NO PROBLEM AT ALL.

You see where I’m going with this.

The following day I finished my class, and was on my way home when the Bluetooth rang. It was, for those wondering, 1:25. The man on the other end was very, very angry with me. He asked if I would be home anytime soon for this delivery, and when I said I was about five minutes away, he informed me that he had already been waiting for twenty minutes and he couldn’t wait all goddamn day.

Well, I have to say I was pretty taken aback. I said I would be home in five minutes, and if he couldn’t wait, should we reschedule? I was flustered for sure, having come from the warm, lovely studio with a warm, lovely post-yoga feeling, and being, as I say to my children, Spoken To Sharply.

He said he’d call the dispatcher and then figure out what to do but in the meantime he’d called SEVERAL TIMES AND TEXTED and I had ignored all of those.

Of course I hit a few lights when I drove home, so I ended up pulling in front of my house at 1:32. A young man jumped from the delivery truck, smiling at me in a nervous kind of way. He asked if I could go open the garage so he could bring in the stuff, and of course I agreed.

I had a chance to peek at my phone as I was going to the garage, and sure enough, there was one phone call at 12:20 – with no voice message – and one text, at 1:18, reading that Steve had just pulled up to my house and had a delivery for me. 1:18, or seven minutes prior to the angry phone call. Not what I would classify as SEVERAL TIMES but we all have different standards, I guess.

I spoke with the smiling young man about where to put the packages, when Steve got out of the truck, looking at me like I was, if not the worst person in the world, then at least in the top ten. He asked me What I Had Said To Dispatch, and I explained, saying that dispatch had said she would put a note on my file. Steve said angrily that the Delivery Time is Between One and Five, and my schedule wasn’t His Problem, and meanwhile, I needed to not only sign for the packages, but also sign a form that said he had been waiting for me. He said, Someone has to pay for this! As far as the company is concerned, I haven’t been doing anything for all this time!

When I told my husband this part of the story, he asked in a worried sort of way if I had paid him anything. I had not. In fact, at this point I was so taken aback all I could do was stare at him and apologize for inconveniencing him.

But here’s the interesting part: the piece of paper he asked me to sign had written on it, in black Sharpie, my name and the words, Yoga Teacher will be home by 1:30 and will not be able to answer the phone before that time. It was very clear and bold. The other thing that was written on it was Steve’s scrawl that said Arrived 1:15, Customer Delivery at 1:45. 

Did I mention the first text was at 1:18 and by the time they had driven off – everything delivered and they were GONE – it was 1:37?

So here was my dilemma. As I say, I try to be mindful, calm, and kind, but in the moment, I kind of wanted to tear a strip off this guy. I mean, who did he think he was? First, he was a total aggressive jerk from the get-go. Second, he was asking me to sign something that wasn’t even true. Third, all the information was RIGHT THERE and he ignored it and then became irate with me! As I looked at the piece of paper, I wondered what to do.

My first instinct was to point out the error in the time, and snap at him, because at this point I had had enough. But I took a deep breath and remembered Mindfulness Exercise #10: Become Curious, Not Furious.

What if this has nothing to do with me?

In the few, probably very uncomfortable seconds in which I contemplated my reaction options, I tried to step into Steve’s place. Here was a guy, probably early sixties, driving a truck and delivering things to someone who appeared to be unconcerned with this schedule. Maybe the job really sucked, maybe he’d been doing this his whole life and was close to retirement, maybe he couldn’t retire. Maybe he was getting a divorce or his wife was sick or his kid was a junkie, I don’t know. I didn’t know one thing about him except that my not being home at 1:18 pushed him over the edge. Given the look on his young assistant’s face, this behaviour was obviously not out of the ordinary. If I refused to sign the sheet, or made a big deal about it, it would benefit me not at all but it would probably ruin his entire day, and that of his assistant’s.

In the grand scheme of things, did it really matter?

So I signed it. I looked him right in the eyes and said I am so sorry to have inconvenienced you. I hope you have a good weekend, now.

He grunted and grabbed the sheet away, getting back into his truck.

The young assistant smiled at me and wished me a good weekend, and although the entire exchange was less than satisfactory, I felt – and still feel – that becoming curious, not furious, was the best course of action. It de-escalated the situation, it allowed me to feel like I took the high road, and hopefully it made things easier for Steve and his assistant. I hope he really did have a good weekend, although I’m guessing he probably didn’t. But I did my best.

The Ship Is Not Sinking

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Yesterday my yoga friend mentioned this quote in one of her classes:

Ships don’t sink because of the water around them; they sink because of the water that gets in them.

This felt to me like the most profound and apt metaphor for life. This is my new mantra, replacing In The Depth of Winter I Found Within Myself An Invincible Summer, and Serenity Now.

As a sidebar, it is again the depth of winter since it apparently is never going to stop snowing. Well, it’s not currently snowing, but intermittent snowstorms are expected all week, along with freezing temperatures and high winds. Find The Invincible Summer.

They sink because of the water that gets in them, I said to myself several times yesterday as I spent ninety minutes with the internet service provider and then with the router support centre, trying to fix my desktop computer and the internet connection in our house, trying not to panic as I thought of the unfiled tax returns on said desktop. It did, eventually, get fixed and then I FIXED IT AGAIN, MYSELF after a crash immediately following hanging up with router support. Am I an IT person now? I might be.

All is well and my sanity is still intact, the water didn’t get inside my ship. I kept imagining waves of increasing violence slapping up against the starboard bow, as I breathed deeply and tried to calmly describe to the person on the other end of the phone that no, it says I have internet access but I do not actually have internet access. Yes, I did unplug it and then plugged it back in. No, it is still not working. 

After spending the entire afternoon on this issue, I sprinted through a quick cardio workout before grabbing the dog and the leash and heading out to meet Jake on his walk home from school. I was still wearing my workout clothes – athleisure, if you will – and my little ankle socks as I slipped on my waterproof boots, for the slushy walk. I wasn’t more than five steps out of the house before my sock started to slip off my foot, reminding me of that meme that says I Walk Around Looking Like I Have It All Together And Everything’s Fine But Deep Down, Inside My Shoe, My Sock Is Slipping Off.

I kept soldiering on, with my sock half off. The waves are slapping the port bow. 

I have been very much looking forward to my hair appointment, for good reason: I don’t know if my hair is in a super-fast-growth-stage or if I’m just getting more and more grey, but my roots are in an Emergency Situation. This, coupled with the Extremely Dry Ends and Orange Straw Hair has made me eagerly anticipate my rendez-vous with my Hair Therapist. I had written down in my agenda – I use a paper agenda and calendar because I’m an Old Fashioned Girl – that the appointment was for today, at one o’clock.

This morning I was in the shower, not washing my hair, when I thought, Hmm, it’s strange I didn’t get a confirmation phone call. I was putting on my makeup, with my unwashed hair in a bun, and I thought, Hmm, it’s strange I made the appointment for a Tuesday. I always try to book for Wednesdays. Do I even need to say the punchline? I found the little card that I write the appointments down on, that I keep in my wallet, and it said, very clearly, April 26 1:00. I had written it down incorrectly. I had written it down incorrectly and now I was forced to go about my day with dirty hair for no reason.

The truth is that having an appointment today would have been a bit inconvenient; traffic was a snarl all day what with the incessant snow storms, and I was busy all morning which meant I would be out of the house all day, which isn’t great for Barkley, and also Mark had – strangely – an early dismissal day and would be home all afternoon. All signs point to Wednesday Is The Superior Day For A Hair Appointment and yet, I have felt off all day. I am trying to embrace the admittedly much happier situation, but I still feel all weird and unmoored, not unlike a ship out to sea on a stormy day. BUT THE GODDAMN WATER IS NOT GOING TO GET IN.

Clearly, my mental flexibility is a work in progress.

42: The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything.

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42 things I’ve learned in 42 years:

  1. Karma always works, for better or for worse.
  2. A good mascara and the right shade of lip gloss can make you feel like a star, even when you feel like a burned-out black hole.
  3. Mom was right, my face did freeze like that.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
  4. There is only one cure for Bitchy Resting Face, and that is a smile.
  5. When you keep a smile on your face to keep the BRF at bay, people will talk to you a lot.
  6. It’s fun to flirt with elderly men at the grocery store; it makes me feel young.
  7. Bloom where you’re planted.
  8. Ketchup chips may taste amazing, but they make me feel the opposite of amazing.
  9. The best way to keep from eating junk is to only buy healthy food.
  10. Spinach smoothies keep energy up even when wake-up time is 4:30 am.
  11. It turns out that that peri-menopausal thing that wakes you up at night is handy for us super early risers.
  12. Unfortunately it also means that I am in a coma by 9 pm.
  13. I do not like the nightlife, but I do like to boogie.
  14. Foregoing lots of fun things and paying off debts early is the best for long-term financial stability.
  15. Money spent on travel is better than money spent on stuff.
  16. If you have friends that you travel with and still love them after traveling, cherish them, because they are the best.
  17. Instead of saying “I don’t have time to do x,” try saying “X is not a priority to me.” If that doesn’t sit well, change things. “Bringing a dish to the potluck is not a priority” has a different ring to it than “Keeping up with my friendships/ health/ marriage/ kids is not a priority.”
  18. Priorities change, embrace it.
  19. There is zero value in arguing with people on the internet.
  20. I miss the days when no one knew the way other people voted, and it was considered impolite conversation.
  21. It’s often better to be kind than to be right.
  22. When people lash out at you, it might have nothing to do with you. It might be that they are having a bad day or have issues that have nothing to do with you.
  23. On the other hand, sometimes it does have to do with you – own it and fix it.
  24. Cake is one of life’s great joys.                                                                                                                                                     
  25. If you are happy, your happiness radiates around you.
  26. Wine is divine.
  27. Whenever Leonard Skynyrd says to turn it up, I do.
  28. A good eye cream is worth the money.
  29. My children bring me more joy than I ever thought possible.
  30. So does my husband.
  31. Despite what I thought for the majority of my life, it’s really easy to make your own bread.
  32. Ditto with jam.
  33. It turns out that cardiovascular exercise is really important.
  34. A walk with Barkley can turn the day around.
  35. You can decide your destiny, and you can change when things change.
  36. There are few things more wonderful than shopping for plants.
  37. Things usually work out in the end, even if they are uncomfortable or painful in the moment.
  38. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is sit down and put your feet up.                                                       
  39. Yoga is magic.
  40. So is kindness.
  41. Friends are the family you choose; surround yourself with good people.
  42. If the tiara fits, wear it.

Indoor Versus Outdoor Egg Hunts

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I know you were all on the edge of your seat, wondering how those fake eggs worked out, in terms of colouring. I think they turned out very well:

They were a bit messier than working with traditional put-the-colour-tablet-in-the-cup-of-water-and-dip-the-egg-in variety, since there were plastic bags and liquid dye involved, but nothing has been permanently stained, and it was pretty fun, so I’ll call that a win.

Saturday night we went to our friends’ house, and as we were driving there we noticed little flurries in the air; by the time we left it was full-on snowing. We woke up Easter morning to this, which, although it isn’t unusual, it is still a bit of a downer:

It’s funny; when I was growing up our Easter egg hunts were always indoors. My husband, who did not grow up in this godforsaken frozen hellhole, had never even heard of indoor egg hunts. Since having kids we meld traditions by having a chocolate egg hunt, complete with rhyming couplet clues for a treasure hunt, which I take all the credit for because poetry is hard, people, indoors. We then hide the eggs for the kids to find outdoors, and then they hide them for us. We had to wait until late afternoon when the snow was 98% melted in order to do that this year, but it was still fun.

This is where having fake eggs really came in handy. We started with 24, but by the time my husband and I did the hunt there were only 23. The kids couldn’t remember where the last one was hidden and it remains a mystery to this moment. Had these been real eggs, I would be having a nervous breakdown at the thought of the dog finding it and suffering the inevitable consequences. As it is, he could care less about dyed compressed paper.

I hope you had a lovely long weekend. Mine seemed to have inordinate amounts of time spent at appointments and doing taxes, both equally lovely tasks. Well, and cooking a ton, and not just for Easter dinner. For reasons I don’t understand, I felt the need to make jam on Friday, after spending two hours at the optometrist’s office with the boys. There’s probably some kind of Freudian connection here but I can’t seem to make it at the moment.

Today the orthodontist office was open, so I had optimistically booked an appointment, thinking how smart I was to book on a no-school day. You already know the punchline to this: there were a lot of Smart People who had booked their kids in there today. Sigh.

Well, it’s all done now, and I have much more to share with you – including the best-ever carrot cake recipe, which I had made on Sunday in honour of the Easter Bunny. But, with the terribly glamorous life I lead, I have a pile of laundry to fold, dinner to make, and a Roomba filter to empty. So I will leave you with that cliffhanger – next time! xo

 

Fun Alternative To Easter Eggs (“Dairy Eggs?”)

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It’s not like I didn’t realize that Easter was this weekend, but I’ve been putting off any preparations for it. We were out of the country for Easter last year, and so missed our traditional egg hunt/ chocolate feast. Since we don’t take the children to church and are significantly – how shall I say this – lapsed Lutherans/ Catholics, Easter feels less like a big religious celebration and more of a time just to enjoy the more secular enjoyments that come with it.

I didn’t think the kids would miss our little traditions last year, but they really did. For several years now I’ve copied my friend Jen’s idea (HI JEN) of having a treasure hunt for chocolate eggs: I write little clues on a piece of paper and the kids have to decipher the clues to find the treats. It’s quite hilarious and often indicative that the kids have very little idea where I keep my makeup, for example. “Mom uses this every day to make herself prettier!” – this caused much confusion around hair dryers and coconut oil.

The kids still like to colour Easter eggs, and then hide them for my husband and I to find in the backyard, as a reverse Easter Bunny thing. Some years have been snowier than others, which makes things interesting. Traditionally we’ve used hard boiled eggs for this hunt, but I don’t like it. There are a few reasons: factory egg farming is gross and I don’t want to support it, yet I also don’t want to spend a lot of money for fancy organic free-range eggs that are just going to go to waste. And no, please don’t give me your ideas about what to do with hard boiled eggs, since my husband is the only one who will eat them and I feel like it’s not a good idea for him to a) eat a dozen or more hard boiled eggs, b) eat a dozen or more hard boiled eggs that have been coloured with what is probably something toxic at the worst and kind of icky at the best. I also worry that Barkley is going to find and eat one of those hard boiled eggs and we would all suffer as a result.

Cute, but kind of stinky.

I also don’t like to use those plastic colourful eggs, filled with non-chocolate treats. I don’t like having that much plastic end up in the landfill, and also the kids are way too old for stickers and such that could be contained in such eggs.

But then this morning I was in Wal-Mart, buying chocolate eggs and also dish soap and sink cleaner, and I saw this:

Hot damn. 100% recyclable, colour-able eggs. Finally, someone thought of it! Although, I’m not sure what they mean by “dairy eggs” and slightly alarmed that “no cooking required” needs to be clarified on the package. Are people really picking up these 100% recyclable pretend eggs and thinking that they are EDIBLE? Well, I’m going to let that slide. Ethical dilemma solved!