Category Archives: Uncategorized

Finally Feeling Festive, and Universal Studios: Wilder, Faster, Scarier, and Wetter.

Posted on by

Normally I’m in full-on festive mode on November 1st, MAYBE November 2 if I’m exhausted from Halloween. But this year November didn’t feel very festive to me; too crazy, too busy, too sad. I was putting myself through the motions a little bit, but now after this weekend, I feel like myself again. It’s full on Nicole the Elf.

Friday was the first Friday night I have been at home since late August. So naturally, my husband had romantic plans for me: a trip to Canadian Tire. We bought a couple of strings of red Christmas lights to go with our icicles, light-up trees and animals, and other outdoor ornaments, plus two new extension cords. Woot. Then when we got home, he realized that we needed more clips for the lights, and recruited Mark to go with him. They came back with green spotlights, a light-up snowman and giant gift box, and eight glowing candy canes to make my lifelong dream of a candy cane lane come true. And they did get the clips as well.

My husband spent five hours arranging everything on Saturday, in the minus 25 degree weather, never once asking for my help, so there’s several stars on his heavenly crown. I made gingersnaps and we watched Love, Actually for the first time. Actually, I loved it!

Isn’t it funny how things like a movie or Christmas song can become combative and divisive? If you want proof that such things can be dramatically polarizing, just try mentioning Baby, It’s Cold Outside or Love, Actually. There are many arguments that Love, Actually is a terrible movie, and those arguments seem to be mainly based on the fact that it doesn’t show “real love” and isn’t “realistic,” has poor messages, etcetera. Have you SEEN the news lately? If anything is over-rated, it’s reality, and so when I watch a movie I want it to be as escapist as possible. I just want some good smooching scenes and a story line that doesn’t have anything to do with The End Of The World As We Know It, and therefore, I give Love, Actually two thumbs up.

Speaking of escapism, let’s talk Universal Studios!

We visited Universal Studios twice during our vacation, for a grand total of 18 hours and 29.6 kilometres of walking. Universal is, in the words of my husband, a lot more rock and roll than Disney. The rides are wilder, faster, scarier, and wetter. The big roller coasters: Hulk, RipIt Rocket, and Dragon Challenge all make Expedition Everest look like a children’s carousel. I am an intrepid roller coaster rider, and I actually thought I was going to black out on Hulk.

But the water rides, hoo boy. Last time we were at Universal, Mark went on a water ride called Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls. He went by himself because the temperature was about 20 degrees and overcast and no one else wanted to get wet. He talked about it a lot, and since it was 30 degrees and humid when we were at Universal, Jake and I decided to accompany him. In my mind I envisioned something like Disney’s Splash Mountain – a few big hills with some splashing. I was not prepared for what happened. Fortunately – foreshadowing! – my husband decided to sit it out and hold my bag. The boys and I were getting on the ride when I asked the employee where I could sit to minimize getting wet. He looked at me with great amusement and said “It doesn’t matter. You’re going to be soaked.”

This turned out to be only too true. After a few splashy downhills, I started to curse Mark for coercing me into this. Then, as we were heading up a tall hill in our little log, I saw it: a waterfall that we were going to go through. An actual sheet of water. By the time the ride was over, my hair – which was in a bun – was plastered to my head, I had mascara streaks down my cheeks and on my chin, leaving only a few spikes on my actual eyelashes, and I was participating in my own personal wet t-shirt contest, the ONE DAY I wore a white tank top instead of a black tank top. Believe me when I say it was the saddest wet t-shirt contest ever.

If you love being clammy and wet for an entire day, I recommend this ride. Otherwise – maybe take a pass. I did see some young girls going on all the water rides, smartly dressed in bikini tops and little shorts, like the Florida veterans they were. I am not normally a “Daisy Dukes, bikinis on top” kind of girl, also being 41, but I tell you that I envied them, as my tank top clung to me clammily as the sun went down.

comics

Universal has all sorts of Marvel Comic rides – like the aforementioned Hulk, and Spider Man. It did make me wonder what would happen to those rides, now that Disney has bought Marvel. At any rate, the Universal employee costumes are much, much better looking than the Disney ones, as you can see here.

spiderman

stanlee

One of my favourite parts of Universal was Krustyland. If you’re a Simpsons fan, this is very fun, and all the employees are dressed in Krustyland red-striped sideshow shirts.

me

That’s me BEFORE the water ride.

surly

duff

If you’re lucky, and you time it right, you can even fulfill your lifelong dream of getting your photo taken with Krusty the Clown and Sideshow Bob. I had to wait until the second day to do this, but it was strangely exhilarating.

krusty

Don’t I look excited?

Of course, Universal is home to Harry Potter land, and I will admit something right now: I’m not a Harry Potter fan. I mean, I’m not NOT a fan, but I have never been interested in seeing any of the movies or reading the books. I live with three fans, however, and they were enthralled. Hell, I was enthralled too. The detailing is amazing and if you have passes to both sides of Universal – both Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure – you can take the Hogwarts Express between the two. We did that many times and it was really special.

train

signs

hogwarts

The train takes you between Hogwarts and Diagon Alley.

diagon

My mother-in-law had given the kids money to buy wands at Diagon Alley, and it was a really special experience. You do not just walk in, grab a wand, and pay for it. There’s a whole wand ceremony, and throughout Diagon Alley are spots to use the interactive wands. If the wand-holder does the “spell” correctly, it activates a display – a water fountain spurts, a bird starts flapping its wings, a hat floats into the air. It is well worthwhile for fans and non-fans alike.

The 3D adventure rides – there is one at Gringott’s Bank and one at Hogwarts Castle – are a lot of fun but beware! I felt a little queasy and nauseous at the Hogwarts one, which has you flying through the air playing Quiddich. As I mentioned, I have a stomach of steel for roller coasters but this one did make me feel a bit off.

On the other end of the spectrum is the Who-ville Land, all gentle rides meant for the Dr. Seuss set. I forced the kids to go on a couple of those rides and we actually got stuck for a few minutes on the Cat and the Hat ride. We were stuck in the living room, on a ride shaped like a couch, for probably less than five minutes, but with the continuous loop of children’s music it felt like a lot longer. It reminded me of a colleague of my husband’s, who was once stuck on It’s A Small World for 45 minutes. This was what she looked like afterwards:

Anyway, if you have little ones it is a nice, quiet part of the park. Plus, at Christmas it’s all decorated up.

grinch grinch2

At five o’clock on most days Universal hosts a parade, and if you’re there at Christmas, it is a copy of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. We missed it by one day when we were there, but we had seen it on our previous trip, and it is a lot of fun.

snoopy

Ah, look at that outfit. I am currently wearing two sweaters, knee-length wool socks, jeans, and fuzzy slippers and I am FREEZING. It looks like it has warmed up to minus 13 (minus 22 with wind chill!) and I really should put on eight more layers to take poor beleaguered Barkley out for a walk. I also have teacher gifts to make (these, if you’re interested, and maybe some of this or this) because the last day of school is FRIDAY THE SIXTEENTH WHAT THE HELL SCHOOL BOARD. All of which is to say, my frozen fingers are signing off. xo

Disney’s Animal Kingdom, or “What’s a Yeti?”

Posted on by

Good grief, it is cold in Calgary right now, even by Calgary standards. Preparing the children for school feels a bit like that Hoth scene in The Empire Strikes Back – “My friend is out there!” – and all the dogs in the city are going slowly mad, stuck in the house. Spare a thought for the elementary school teachers who have nothing but indoor recesses as far as the eye can see.

On that note, I’m longingly thinking of last week, when I felt a bit too hot. I miss that feeling, and so I’m revisiting the Disney parks, one by one, in my mind.

Animal Kingdom is my favourite of the Disney parks, and it is also the most beautiful, with carefully crafted and wonderfully detailed homages to parts of Africa and Asia, and also a section called Dinoland USA.

Small digression: none of the costumes/ uniforms worn by park employees are in any way attractive or flattering. In fact, it’s almost as if Disney wants their employees to be as androgynous and sexless as possible, and selects clothing for that purpose. However, the costumes worn in Dinoland USA are by far the worst, as far as appearances go. Bright red blouses with blue sleeves and yellow collars are paired with yellow slacks with a green dinosaur motif and red dinosaur footprints on the butt. I found myself spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about the costume, and were the Dinoland USA employees disappointed when they were assigned such outfits to wear, and how many costumes were each employee assigned? If you were working at Dinoland USA did you have several of those pants hanging in your closet, or would you have to always be doing laundry? Because it would seem a bit depressing to open a closet to several of those costumes hanging there.

Then I started thinking about the employees’ welfare in general. Disney is by all accounts an excellent employer, but I wondered which job would be worse: working in the Florida heat and humidity all day, or being inside in a dark and loud, icily air-conditioned indoor ride? I can imagine it would be hard to work in the unrelenting heat all day, but I think it would be worse to never see the sun, only the artificial dim lighting in the indoor rides, along with the cacophony of screams and ride noises and terrible music. I started to worry about those employees and their Vitamin D levels, and if it wasn’t weird, I probably would have asked them if they were taking supplements.

Not to mention the air-conditioning, my god, the air-conditioning. Maybe it’s just my frozen Reynaud’s hands and feet talking, but the air-conditioning is something else. Floridians must really love their air-conditioning because it seems to be set on “hell has frozen over” at all times. Our hotel room, each time it was serviced, was turned down to 64 degrees Fahrenheit, and each time a door opened I was subjected to an icy blast. Tip: if you go, take a long-sleeved shirt with you to put on every time you go indoors, because it is shocking.

That was a long digression.

Animal Kingdom is truly beautiful, and if there is one thing Disney does well, it’s the details.

prettyanimalkingdom

harambe

See what I mean? The Kilimanjaro Safari is a very lovely ride, and we went once in the morning and once in the late afternoon, and both times were very different and wonderful.

flamingos

I loved flamingos as a child, because my favourite colour was pink. I still love them, and they are so funny to watch, because they are constantly turning their heads from side to side, like they can’t EVEN with things.

hippo rhinos

upside-down-tree

Animal Kingdom is home to my favourite ride of all: Expedition Everest. If you are a fan of wild roller coasters, this one is fantastic. Conversely, if you are not a fan, DO NOT GO ON THIS. Last time we were here, the whole family went on it and my husband and younger son had motion sickness because of it. But I loved it and went twice this trip; once on my own and once with Mark.

everest

There’s usually a long wait, and Disney makes the wait kind of fun, because of all the little details and story-telling along the way. The story is that you are in a museum dedicated to “Yeti research” and so there are little vignettes about the last expedition, and the cameras they found that had hairy blurred faces in them, and so forth.

insideeverest prayerflags moreyeti yeti

img_6280

So it’s all yetis, all the time at Expedition Everest. Every single display tells a yeti story, so I found it quite funny when I was almost at the front of the line and it became apparent that not everyone shared my joy in soaking up the little details. One of the little displays had a giant cast of a “yeti footprint” and the woman behind me said to her teen daughters, “Oh look, that must be a big beehive or wasp nest or something.”

One of the girls rolled her eyes and the other said “MOM, it’s supposed to be a footprint? Of a yeti?”

The mother, who apparently had not taken in anything in the previous twenty-five minutes, said “What’s a yeti? Did you girls learn about this in school or something?”

I wonder how she felt about the ride itself, which features a shadow play of a yeti ripping the train track off in front of you, and then has a giant animatronic yeti growling at you.

moreprayerflags   monkey

We spent nine hours at the park and walked 14.3 kilometers, and it was worth every step. My kids and husband would probably want me to tell you that their favourite ride was Dinosaur, which is kind of fun and features a video preamble with Phylicia Rashad. That got me thinking about her, and wondering about her life as Mrs. Huxtable, because standing in line a lot will do that to you. What do Phylicia Rashad and Dinoland USA have in common? They occupy Nicole’s thoughts a lot at Animal Kingdom, I guess.

On that note, I’m off to bake bread and make lentil stew, because if there is something that is missing at Disney World, it’s lentils. I may be the only person who noticed their omission though. Have a beautiful weekend, and stay warm. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: It’s The Little Things Edition

Posted on by

We said goodbye to my father-in-law this week. He passed away after a long illness and will be very much missed. To many people he was a larger-than-life character, the life of the party, a legend, but to me he was the man who welcomed me into the family with open arms. He and I spent a lot of time sitting together on the deck, sipping Palm Bay and chatting. Sometimes we would just sit in companionable silence.

So it’s been a sad and stressful few weeks. Have you ever noticed that when you’re having a sad and stressful time, it’s the little things that do you in? Silly things like discovering that the boys’ non-jean-pants were all three inches too short, and that I accidentally put a hole in my brand-new black medical grade support stockings were enough to make me want to curl up in a ball on the floor. It’s funny how the little things can get you down when there is a world of much bigger things going on.

But just like little things can get you down, little things can also lift you up, and so I’m concentrating on all the happy, joyful, and ridiculous things that are going on in my world, right now.

How Much Are The Posters

It feels like a lifetime ago, but the Book Fair was just last week and we raised $3600 for the school library, as well as the ELL and home reading programs. Even more notably, the New Book Fair Lady did it all herself – I only had to work a couple of shifts and count money – and she did a fabulous job (HI HAYDEE). This is my second last book fair, and, happily for me, the shifts I worked were extremely poster heavy. It seemed everyone wanted a poster, but more importantly, they wanted to know how much were the posters. Haydee had put up signs all around and yet I was asked the question an incredible amount of times. Perhaps Scholastic has been reading this blog, because they sent three times as many posters as they normally do, and so not only was I asked was the kitten poster five dollars too, what about the one with doughnuts on it, and the one with Rey from Star Wars, was that five dollars too, I also had to search through three giant boxes to find the appropriate one. Not that I’m complaining. I’m going to miss those questions one day. Maybe.

posters

Notice the slightly passive-aggressive wording – “EACH!” – at the bottom. Yes, each. Each poster is, in fact, five dollars.

 

A Celebration of Superior Workmanship

My friend Lynn (HI LYNN) wrote a post wondering if shopping at Costco does indeed save you money, and oh, Lynn. How much time do we have? Not enough. In short, I shall direct you to my post from nearly three years ago, The Stages of Costco, which is something all of us membership holders need to go through. I STILL have the plastic wrap I refer to in that post from January 2014.

But what I really wanted to talk about was the fellow who packed my cart, the last time I was there. In the spirit of there are no small parts, only small actors, I appreciate very much when someone puts their all into their job, no matter what that job might be. And so I say bravo to the Costco employee who packed my cart in such an amazingly efficient way that I not only complimented him on a job well done, but also pointed it out to the elderly fellow who checked my bill upon leaving. Longtime readers might be amused to know that the bill-checker at the door was the same one who flirts with me by saying that redheads are his favourite, and he loves my smile. Aw. Flirting with elderly men while shopping for groceries is my favourite too!

Look at this cart! It’s a thing of beauty. Well done, sir. Well done.

cart cart2 cart3

Sailors Take Warning

This time of year can be a wee bit depressing, what with the sun setting at 4:30 in the afternoon and not rising until after eight in the morning. But occasionally the sunrise will make up for it all. Now, even in the midst of summer I am up before the sunrise, but there’s something about the cold winter morning sunrise. The other day the entire world was bathed in pink – sidewalks, frosty lawn, it was all pink.

img_6097

img_6098

Do I Need A Title?

I have been very very good about not buying myself anything since Kondo-ing my house, but I am still of the old-school people who use paper agendas, daytimers, and calendars. While I was Christmas shopping a few weeks ago, I saw this and decided I needed it to hang by my desk for 2017.

img_6092

We learn from the horses, people. Strength does NOT come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. Let us all learn from the yogi horses.

Usually I have a Canadian landscape calendar by my desk, but that was before I knew about Horse Yoga.

Get Your Asana In Gear

I am a mere 36 hours away from becoming a Registered Yoga Teacher, and to celebrate, my husband bought me two t-shirts. I wore this one to Yoga for Stroke Survivors yesterday, a class my friend Sharyl (HI SHARYL) has been teaching, and that she has graciously allowed me to assist with.

img_6133

Honestly, it is my New Favourite Shirt Of All Time.

New Toothpaste (Not An Ad Nor Sponsored)

You know what’s ballsy? Buying toothpaste at Costco. Well, let me rephrase that: buying NEW, UNTRIED toothpaste at Costco. It’s a real commitment; you could find yourself brushing your teeth for the next four months with sub-par toothpaste. I have done that before, suffered through a toothpaste flavour I abhorred just because I had four tubes to work my way through. Thinking of it now, I should have just donated to the drop-in centre or food bank, but hindsight is 20/20 people. Anyway, I usually buy a four pack of Crest 3D Whitening, because coffee, but I rolled the dice and purchased this:

toothpaste

It is like having my teeth massaged by minty fairies. It’s like having a haven of freshness and white teeth and unicorns and happiness, all in one little tube. I mean, do these look like the teeth of someone who regularly drinks 8 cups of coffee each morning, plus red wine on the weekends?

img_6091

Ah, it’s the little things. I have also been trying out a new eye cream, but that is a whole other post. For now, I’d like to know what little things make YOU happy? Tell me everything. xoxo

Comfort Reading

Posted on by

Last week I received a notice in my mailbox that on Friday – Remembrance Day – there would be work going on with our street’s sewer system, and between 8 and 4 we were all to drastically minimize our water usage. Our home sewer system could hold a small amount of drainage, but any extra use of water would result in our system backing up and sewage flooding our house. If there is a more effective way to discourage people from allowing waste water to go down the drain, I do not know what it is. Sewage flooding our house.

Two things: Does it seem strange to anyone else that major sewer work was scheduled on Remembrance Day? It seems kind of disrespectful, and also, kind of inconvenient being that the boys were home from school, and there was much panic from that corner, should someone in the house need to defecate. What to do! What to do! The boys came up with all kinds of solutions, including possibly walking over to the swimming pool and fitness centre specifically to use the washrooms. But, inconvenience and preteen panic aside, it seemed to me to be mostly disrespectful.

Secondly, in the manner of you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, I really didn’t realize how much of my daily tasks result in waste water going down the drain. No washing dishes, no laundry…well, I guess that’s mostly it. Oh, no rinsing vegetables and fruit either. Is that really what takes up the bulk of my day? In any case, I seemed to have a lot of time on my hands.

Slight digression: while Christmas shopping last week, I saw a number of signs advertising “Remembrance Day Sale! 25% off everything in store!” Which…what? Remembrance Day SALE? What’s next? Lest We Forget, Buy One Get One Half Off? We Remember And We Have Great Deals In Store?

Moving on.

I have been comfort-reading for the past week. Has it been only a week? Anyway, for the past week I’ve been reaching for those warm, fuzzy, feel-good books on my shelf. My usual go-to is Diary of a Provincial Lady, but I had read it recently, so I am devouring my childhood favourites Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom. I have always loved Louisa May Alcott, and I probably have read those two, plus Little Women, fifty times each. LOVE.

I do admit to seeing them through very different eyes these days. If you have ever read anything about Alcott’s life, you will know that her father was very close with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, and he eventually left his teaching career to study philosophy. By that I mean that he walked away from a paying job to ONLY study philosophy and, I suppose, “live deliberately,” which resulted in, of course, financial ruin for the family. Alcott’s writings managed to get the family out of debt, along with a roof over their heads and food on the table. Thanks, Father. Reading Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom, which centre around a beautiful, kind, philanthropic heiress, is a little sad when you think about that.

But they are great books, even if one of the central themes in Rose in Bloom is which cousin will Rose marry? I mean, it’s not even a subtle underlying theme; it is discussed often and in great detail. Guys, they’re first cousins, maybe you want to look outside the gene pool, rather than focus on keeping her extensive property in the family? However, weirdly incestuous courtships aside, there are some really nice warm and fuzzy messages in there, which is why it is one of my comfort books. For example:

“Ah! But we do know, and if our silence and civility have no effect, we ought to try something else and not encourage wickedness of any kind…Each must judge for herself. I shall follow Aunt Jessie’s advice and try to keep my atmosphere as pure as I can, for she says every woman has her own little circle and in it can use her influence for good, if she will.”

Of course, this conversation was about shunning a certain young man who was “wild” and “fast” – meaning, I guess, that he drank and was a little too handsy with the ladies – but I think that it can be applied in a broader sense. We should all follow Aunt Jessie’s advice, except maybe about the part about getting it on with one of our cousins.

Being Unikitty*

Posted on by

This morning I woke up feeling disheartened and stunned, but I’m taking this opportunity to practice compassion and understanding, even when I don’t understand, really. And, in the words of Eckhart Tolle: Accept, then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.

We can change the world one step at a time. And with that, I will focus on what has been going on in my own world, over the past few days.

*********************************************

It is Day Three – DAY THREE – of having Please Come To Boston stuck in my head, and honestly, I don’t even know what to do anymore. It is taking over my life. How long will this continue?

Other than that, I have been KILLING my to-do list lately. November is the month I like to get the majority of my Christmas jobs done – shopping, cards, etc. – so that in December I can focus one hundred percent of my festive attention on baking things and watching Christmas specials and movies. In the past few days I’ve done the following: had our family photos taken and edited, ordered Christmas cards, put together and ordered photo calendars for the boys’ grandparents, finished Christmas shopping. I know! My schedule is pretty hectic over the next few weeks and so I was extremely motivated to get it all done.

Next week is the Book Fair. Have you noticed I haven’t even mentioned the Book Fair? Well, that’s because I have passed the reins to the amazing new coordinator (HI HAYDEE) and so I’m not even a little bit stressed. I only have two Book Fairs left, so I wonder if I’ll start getting emotional when the kids ask how much the posters are, or if they can eat that delicious looking eraser. I will keep you posted.

We have been having beautiful, absolutely unseasonably warm weather, and I love it. Any day in November that it’s not snowing or freezing is a day I will enjoy. Winter is long enough here, so I love any respite we get. If the obese squirrels busily scrounging in my yard are any indication, we are in for a long, cold one. I feel like Pa Ingalls, looking at an extra-thick muskrat den and then deciding to lay in an extra supply of hay. Barkley seems to think, even more than usual, that these pudgy little beacons of productivity are there as his personal buffet, and I have to be very vigilant with him. No one wants to clean up a squirrel corpse – or at least, I THINK no one does – and I especially do not want to deal with the digestive fallout associated with squirrel eating.

It is a glamourous life I lead.

Speaking of glamour, I have had so much spam and telemarketing phone calls lately. Several times a week my inbox is subject to really gross sounding pornographic emails, and I get at least one porny/ do-I-want-a-job-as-a-secret-shopper text a day. It’s probably a sign of our poor economic times that someone is always calling or knocking on my door. I never answer the door, by the way, unless I can clearly see it’s one of my neighbours. There is no upside to answering the door; at the very least someone is going to use pressure tactics to ask for money, and at the worst, I could get murdered.

But the phone calls I have been getting lately! I had one fellow phone me TWICE IN THE SAME DAY. I don’t know if he was just going through the phone book, or what, but he asked for both Mrs. My Last Name and Mrs. My Husband’s Last Name, which are obviously not the same last name. I always know it’s a telemarketer when I get Mrs. My Husband’s Last Name, but I will admit that I always, always, always hand the phone over to my husband when they ask for Mr. My Last Name. Yes, you MAY speak to Mr. My Last Name! I will say giddily, while my husband rolls his eyes at me and answers the phone with his “what the fuck do you want” tone.

Anyway, this guy who phoned me twice was representing a painting company, and he wanted to know if I wanted my house painted. Inside or out, he was happy to do either. Now, as far as cold-calling potential customers goes, this one strikes me as bizarre. Who makes a decision about house painting over the phone? Who doesn’t look for a recommendation from a friend, or at least on Facebook, for something like that? Besides which, would you really say yes to someone who called you to ask if he could paint your house? Does it not seem extremely imprudent to give out your address to someone who has called you on your landline because he allegedly has a painting company? Recipe for disaster/ being murdered/ getting robbed if there ever was one.

*****************************************

*Title inspired by my friend Maya (HI MAYA), the original Unikitty.

Keep on keeping on, my friends. xoxo

God Bless The Bus Drivers

Posted on by

For weeks, it seems like everyone around me has been sick with this weirdly debilitating cold that’s been going around. Everywhere I go, there’s coughing and sneezing and nose-blowing. So far I’ve been able to stave it off with my signature trifecta of near-obsessive hand-washing, over-the-top vitamin intake, and homeopathic hoo-ha. Today Jake is home with it and I feel an impending sense of doom, like my healthy days are numbered. In the meantime, I will continue to scrub my hands like I’m going into surgery, all the while downing weird concoctions with a side of Vitamin C.

Things feel a touch gloomy because it’s completely dark and snowy outside, although I’m pretty relieved that the snow held off until today. Yesterday Mark – along with the entire Grade Seven body – went to the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, which was, from all accounts, EPIC. It meant a four hour round trip on the bus, however. God bless those parent volunteers, is all I can say. Not to mention the teachers and bus drivers.

Mark told me that a few kids screamed hysterically, in that Grade Seven Humour kind of way, every single time they saw a dinosaur statue, so we should have all probably invested in ibuprofen stocks prior to this field trip.

In any case, yesterday was warm and sunny so it really was a good day for a field trip. I took under-the-weather Jake for his own field trip, to Superstore, for groceries, pumpkins, and Halloween candy. Somehow we have ended up with 250 little chocolate bars, which will surely be more than enough for the eight to ten Trick or Treaters we are sure to have.

Speaking of which, the guys set up all the decorations on the weekend, and although they haven’t yet put up the animatronic ones, I have noticed a number of people stop and look at our creepy, creepy house. I have gotten used to it, but at first I was pretty startled every time I would go to the living room and see this out the front window:

view

Gah! There are two of those guys in our front yard.

scaryguy

Not to mention zombie dogs:

zombiedogs

A number of bats:

dsc_0657

In this house, we bury our secrets:

rip

And we hope no one is arachnophobic:

spider

At least we have pity for the poor mail carrier who has to make his way through all our festive creepiness. He only really has to deal with this guy, swinging in front of our mailbox.

pumpkinhead

This is the first year that I haven’be been really involved in the creation of the kids’ costumes. They are making some kind of weird mash-up (a MONSTER MASH, perhaps? It was a Graveyard Smash!) of old costumes and by old, I mean things they wore when they were in first and second grade. I’m not one hundred percent sure what the result will be, but most likely they will be wearing their parkas and toques to Trick or Treat anyway.

I wonder what the reaction will be to them Trick or Treating. Most of our street is filled with elderly people who have, by and large, known the boys since they were small, and they usually give out tons of candy. However, I know some people have a problem with older kids Trick or Treating, particularly those whose costumes are somewhat suspect. Personally, I don’t even care if someone is dressed up or not, or is a toddler or nearly-legal. I have 250 chocolate bars in my house, and you can be damned sure that I am going to give away as many as possible. Especially since one box contains Wunderbars, which are one of the greatest chocolate bars ever invented, in my humble opinion. I don’t need that kind of temptation just sitting around in my cupboard.

At least I had the fortitude not to buy Rockets! That would have been debilitating in every way, and since sugar is bad for immunity, I would be sure to be on death’s door by next week. As it is, I JUST sneezed! Time for an orange and some more of that weird echinacea tea. Have a great weekend, everyone! Happy Halloween. xo

Howard/ Nicole The Duck

Posted on by

One benefit of keeping an old school blog for the past eight years is that I can easily see patterns in my own life. For example, every single fall I feel like I’m careening off the rails a little bit, in terms of busyness, and yes, we are all busy and tired and whatnot, no one wants to hear about how busy we are, but it is nice to see a pattern and recognize that I feel this way every year.

In related news, October is almost over, and I feel like it should still be mid-September. But no. Sometimes I feel like I’m a duck, gracefully gliding through the water on the pond, but what is not visible to the eye is my pair of little feet-flippers going like mad, just to keep gracefully gliding.

All is good, it is, even though I have bags under my eyes that require their own postal code. Several months ago I wrote something for YMC called “Confessions of a Pulled-Together Mom” and I braced myself for the blow-back. I was expecting trolls to come out of the woodwork to criticize my vanity at the expense of neglecting my children, but I only really received one such comment. The rest were more of the “me too” variety, which was completely surprising. On discussing it with the YMC Editor-in-Chief, I realized that this generation of young moms is much more comfortable with the concept of self-care than MY generation. This is a very very good thing. When I had babies, lo those many years ago, it wasn’t the done thing to admit that you showered every day, put on makeup, and blow-dried your hair. Back when my kids were babies, many of my peers were into that martyr thing: I was so busy I didn’t brush my teeth all weekend, and I haven’t had a shower for days. Hygiene, oral and otherwise, was frequently scorned because my generation seemed to be made up of High Powered Career Girls Who Are Now Putting 100% Energy Into Child-Rearing And Have No Time To Spare On Vanities. Not everyone felt that way, of course, but motherhood did feel a bit like a Project back then. I mean, I had a book – which I have since donated – about how to raise smarter babies, and another one that was all about brain-enriching and sensory-stimulating activities to do with your baby. Such activities included making a pulley system for teddy bears, to illustrate cause-and-effect, and the concept of impermanence. And I actually did those activities. Now, thinking about how my children enjoy such things as Grand Theft Auto and jokes about farting and people getting hit in the testicles, I cannot help but smile at my younger, optimistic self.

But I digress. The only negative comments I had from that Pulled-Together piece were that, in the photos, I didn’t appear to be wearing makeup at all. I had several such comments, and I was taken aback by it a little, because YOU GUYS, if you could see me without makeup. HOO BOY. In particular, today, when I have eye bags under my eye bags, well. I promised my husband I wouldn’t post any more unflattering photos of myself on this blog, but you can see a few here and here. And those are from two years ago, so as you can probably imagine, I have aged somewhat since then. Anyway, I love the thought that some people think I’m all au naturel when really, the opposite is true.

eyebags

Eyebags with a side of grey roots.

Speaking of oral hygiene, a few months back there was some kind of expose about Big Dental and the Flossing Conspiracy. Did you know we’ve all been conned into thinking that flossing is beneficial, when in fact there has been almost no empirical evidence to suggest that it prevents cavities and gum disease? Quick, everyone burn your dental floss!

Just like that, but with floss.

Fun fact: I had that fish without a bicycle poster on my office wall when I was in grad school, along with a copy of the Feminist Manifesto.

Anyway, I think I’ll keep my floss, since I’m not a fan of having decaying bits of food between my teeth, studies be damned.

There have also been a number of studies saying that vitamin supplements are essentially useless, and you may as well set your money – along with your dental floss – on fire. Well, I will say this: you will tear my bottles of vitamins out of my cold, dead hands. Especially my Vitamin D, since it has been grey and gloomy and foggy here like you wouldn’t believe. Yesterday my friend and I were walking our dogs at the off-leash, and it was so foggy we could barely see twenty feet in front of us. It was very eerie, like something in a horror film. Maybe it’s just the lead up to Halloween (YOU GUYS, HALLOWEEN IS ON MONDAY! MONDAY!) but it was really creepy.

On that note, I have things I need to cross off my to-do list, and if I start talking about my love for vitamin supplements, or how virtuous I feel because I haven’t yet bought and eaten several boxes of Halloween candy, I’ll be here until the cows (or children) come home. Signing off, xoxo.