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My Face Says I’m Disappointed, But My Heart Says I’m Happy

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Well, hello there! So much has happened in the last two weeks; my husband took time off work and we Vacationed Like Nobody’s Business. First of all, the boys finished off their week of karate camp with a mini-tournament, and all I can say is that I really get Aly Raisman’s parents. I really do. I cannot imagine the nervous breakdown I would have in the highly unlikely event that my children were Olympic medal contenders, because I find myself sweating, with heart palpitations, just watching the karate kids sparring in a fun-tournament-that-has-no-real-consequences. Johnny, you’re a cream puff. It’s not just for my kids, either; I find myself all tied up in knots watching ANY of the students.

Happily, the mini-tournament went well, and the boys did not have to compete against each other too much, which was a huge relief. They are in the same belt and age group and so this has happened in the past; it is just as much fun as you might imagine.

Just as a quick side note: the only summer Olympic event I actually am interested in watching, albeit briefly, and never very closely, is women’s gymnastics, and unfortunately this is the only summer Olympic event my husband is NOT interested in watching. This means there is a lot of Ooh, look at that! kind of commentary, followed by total disinterested silence from the other spouse. Occasionally there will be a polite Ah! in response, but those Ah!’s are few and far between.

After karate camp, my husband took the boys Camping For Real, which meant that I stayed home and made avocado fries and kale chips and watched back-to-back episodes of NYPD Blue before falling asleep at 8:45. I also tried to soothe Barkley, who had apparently fallen into a deep depression after hearing the truck being packed up and being left behind. Poor puppy. Who can blame him? NYPD Blue isn’t everyone’s taste. He sat outside in the backyard, staring at the garage for hours, until I tempted him in with treats, only to go back outside again. It was like a less-sad version of that movie where the dog waits for his deceased owner at the train station until death finally releases him from this heart-breaking hopefulness.

God, now I’m depressed.

Vacation! Back to vacation. We spent a few days at my parents’ place, and the weather cooperated enough for us to not only go boating, but for the boys to go tubing and swimming as well. My dad snapped this photo of me, and it cracks me up.

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I look like I am Deeply Disapproving of all this Fun In The Water, but really, this is just what my face looks like in repose. I was fully approving of the aquatic good times, I swear.

We then spent eight days at my in-laws’ place, where we had not one but two lovely dinners with friends, I enjoyed a Girly Afternoon With The Girls complete with mani-pedis and lunch, the boys went swimming several times, my husband and I took not-sad-anymore Barkley for long walks along the creek, and we went bowling twice.

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Notice anything about this photo, other than my saucy bowling shoes? My shirt – which I chose while shopping with my mother, who thinks I wear Too Much Black – is not only colourful, it is long sleeved. It seems the below-average temperatures like to follow me wherever I go this summer. The chilliness didn’t really kill my summer buzz, but I would like more opportunities to wear my cute summer clothes before fall sets in.

To be honest, it kind of feels like fall has already set in; soon we’ll be doing things like wearing socks and sweaters and non-flimsy scarves. August is a bit of a funny month for me; for example, I spent this morning at the orthodontist, and next week the boys have appointments with both doctor and dentist. I need to make optometrist appointments, and I have to buy a LOT of clothes. I had the boys try on every clothing item they have, only to discover that Mark has zero pants that fit. Jake now has three pair of Mark’s old pants – the only ones that weren’t worn completely out – and nothing else. There’s only three weeks left of summer vacation!

Well, I need to cram some fun times into these final three weeks, as well as all the important health-and-clothing related business. Maybe I’ll take the kids to the amusement park, so I can look Deeply Disapproving there.

Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

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Not all news is bad, people. Today I learned that you can make crispy pan-fried chickpeas on the stove top! Just like amazing, addictive, roasted chickpeas, but without turning on the oven! This is an incredible breakthrough in chickpea technology and I, for one, am going to try it out as soon as possible.

This week has been very fun for the boys; they have been enjoying karate camp immensely. Every day they wake up excited for what’s in store, and then every afternoon I pick them up and they are filthy, exhausted, and very happy. Meanwhile, Barkley and I have reverted to our usual school-year routine. When everyone is home Barkley finds it hard to relax: there is always someone around and who knows what adventures the day will bring? But when it’s just me and him, well. We go for a walk and then he sleeps the day away, waking only when he hears food being prepared or when he decides he’s had enough of his dog bed and goes outside to sleep in the sun.

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The corner of the deck also works for napping.

Passed-out dog aside, there are so many interesting and beautiful things in the world, if you just keep your eyes open. In the words of Ferris Bueller,

Pardon my French, but Cameron is so tight that if you stuck a lump of coal up his ass, in two weeks you’d have a diamond.

Whoops, wrong quote.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Here are some of the things I’ve seen when I stopped and looked around.

Cherry’s Got Back

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We can’t understand why our enrollment numbers are down.

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A Perfect Avocado: Next I’m Going To Find A Unicorn

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If I Eat Any More Strawberries I Will Have To Make Friends Called Lemon Meringue and Huckleberry Pie

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One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others, One Of These Things Just Isn’t The Same

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I’m Not Talking About Moving In, And I Don’t Want To Change Your Life, But There’s A Warm Wind Blowing, The Stars Are Out, And

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So stop what you’re doing, look around, and see the amazing things in the world. xo

Bundle up, it’s summer!

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It seems our unbelievably mild winter and early, hot spring has melted into a typical Calgary summer: cool, rainy, grey, and windy, topped off with inexplicable daily thunderstorms. How can we get so many thunderstorms without daytime heat? I don’t know. In any case, looking on the bright side, I don’t have to worry about watering my garden. Yesterday we went for a family bike ride and the wind was so cold that I actually wished I had earmuffs on my bike helmet.

I’m taking this as a sign to take things easy today, to just spend some quiet indoor time with the kids. Well, “quiet.” I keep seeing recipes that are “beat the heat” this and “no-bake” that, and meanwhile I’m considering a marathon baking session today, wearing an apron over my wool sweater. Last week I faced my pastry fears and baked my very first pie.

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I don’t eat pie, but by all accounts it was excellent, despite being very, very ugly. Facing my fears via pie crust is the topic for a whole post in itself, however, so I shall not bore you with the details at the moment. I’ll bore you with them later!

One benefit of kind-of-crappy weather is that outdoor attractions are not at all busy, so the boys and I bundled up to go to the zoo last week. We even got to see the new baby gorilla, nursing and riding on her mother’s back. It’s very heartening to see babies in captivity doing well, and I laughed to see one of the males beating his chest to no one in particular and getting in the mother’s space, only to have her scamper away with the baby on her back. Every time the male came near her, she left, and if she could speak English I’m sure she would be saying Get away from me, you loser, and rolling her eyes. Finally he gave up and went to munch on some lettuce.

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Pants, sweater, a jacket…the perfect summer outfit!

In other exciting news, my husband and I are going to a concert on Thursday night. I haven’t been to a concert in over two decades, so it should be very fun. The kids are going to Camp Grandma for a couple of days, so the going will be very tough for them, I’m sure. It’s going to be non-stop goodies and marathon sessions of Simpsons’ Clue.

Remember when concert tickets were less than $20 apiece? I sure do, and I’m not one to lament times gone by but those were the days, were they not? My girlfriends and I saw tons of great shows all for the price of a few hours’ babysitting. Actually, now that I think of it, I made about $2/hour babysitting, so I guess those concert tickets were pretty hard-earned after all. But I am looking very much forward to this concert, and it is during Stampede so I’m contemplating what to wear. Will it be hot with all the people and (presumably) dancing? Or should I dress for the chilly weather outside? Should I put on layers, or will that be too risky in terms of losing clothing articles? I mean, there probably isn’t going to be a mosh pit or crowd surfing or anything at Zak Brown Band, but the fewer things to keep track of, the better.

Many years ago, I was at a concert at the university, when my friend’s boyfriend did some drunken crowd surfing, and ended up with one shoe, in the middle of winter. We looked and looked, to no avail. We even went back to the Economics Undergraduates Society office, where I was the president, and made drawings of shoes on pieces of foolscap, captioned “Have You Seen Me?” but we never did find that shoe. The guy had to walk/ hop through the snow to the designated driver’s car, with his soggy foot. I wonder if that was the last time I was at a concert.

What was the last concert you went to? What was the first? I don’t remember my last one but my first was INXS in 1988. Good times.

Everything is rosy.

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Has it really only been 10 days since the end of school? It seems like much longer, but in a good way. There’s been a lot of activity around here, and I know it’s on-trend to claim that we are just going to let the kids fend for themselves and kick them outside for the whole day like we did when we were kids, but that’s not really my M.O. these days. I mean, they do spend time just wandering the neighbourhood with friends, bringing the whole crowd back here for snacks, but I’m doing a lot of activity planning as well.

This is what has happened in the Boyhouse over the past week: pool afternoon with two other boys, which ended abruptly with the appearance of lightning and subsequent whistle-blowing and Everyone out of the pool-ing by lifeguards, a morning at the amusement park, two nights at my parents’ lakehouse, which included two boat-rides and tubing for the boys, bike rides, a parade and Canada Day celebrations, and an evening watching Finding Dory in those awesome new reclining theatre seats. I also feel the need to mention that, while at my parents’ for two days, I rode 47.5 kilometers on my bike and it’s still a bit sore to sit down.

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My husband had a few days off and we finished staining the deck (I say “we” but it was less “me” than it was “him”). He also replaced all the steps and railings, to the amazement of the boys’ friends. The steps were non-existent when they were over on Tuesday, and completed when they were over the following day.

What are you doing this summer? My plan is a mix between semi-lazy days and semi-vigorous activity, it seems. I’m allowing my kids screen time for a few hours each day while I get some work and writing done, and then it’s time to go outside. We have passes for the local amusement park and the zoo, and I’ve managed to score free passes to the science centre as well. I’m also hoping to get the kids out hiking in the mountains once a week or every two weeks, weather depending. The unseasonably hot weather has melted into usual-Calgary-summer-weather, which means highs of about twenty degrees with late-day thunder showers.

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However, that unseasonably hot weather, combined with our mild winter and early spring, means that my garden looks amazing. My roses, in particular, are taking over.

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The smell is incredible, and I feel like it is a beautiful omen for the summer. How did you spend the long weekend? Tell me everything. xo

PMS or Dreadful New Personality?

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One of the interesting things about being in my forties and starting the slow boat to periomenopause is that I have only the vaguest idea of when my Ladies’ Holiday will land, which means that I have the alarming experience of not knowing if My Mood is the result of the upcoming aforementioned Holiday, or if I have this whole new awful personality.

Now, before I get to what I am going to call The Coleslaw Incident, I feel that I need to digress a moment. Because of the vast amount of time I spend in the kitchen, both because a) I enjoy it and b) I am a food blogger, my family has become terribly spoiled, like one of those wretched turn-of-the-21st-century Park Avenue children, but with food. Examples: a) my children are surprised that you can purchase items like Caesar salad dressing and spaghetti sauce already made, b) there are no fewer than five homemade ice cream flavours in the freezer at any given time, c) they think store-bought ice cream is a depressing imitation of homemade, and d) when we are out of homemade jam, Jake refuses to eat any at all, preferring plain peanut butter toast to the apparent atrocity that is a spoonful of Smucker’s. But for every rule there is an exception, and in this case, it is coleslaw.

Coleslaw is something I do not eat. I don’t like it, I don’t like the texture, I don’t like the taste. My husband and kids, however, love it but have had problems trying to land on the perfect recipe. They’ve tried cookbooks, the internet, and my mother-in-law, but have been unable to get the perfect coleslaw dressing. That is, until we were at a barbeque at a friend’s house. My husband asked the hostess how to make the dressing on her coleslaw, and her response was, “Are you serious? It’s PC brand from Superstore.”

So here we were coming up to Father’s Day weekend, and my husband decided on Thursday that he wanted to spend his Father’s Day cooking a brisket for eight hours on the charcoal grill, and he would also make a coleslaw to go with it. I’m not sure why he wanted to spend all day grilling but hey, it’s his day. I eat neither of those things, but it’s not my special day, so whatever floats the boat. The kids were thrilled with the prospect of grilled meat and coleslaw.

Thursday night I came home from my yoga teacher training, and my husband asked if I had happened to pick up a bottle of coleslaw dressing. Now, in my defense, I had no notice that this was needed and also, it was almost 9:30 on a Thursday. Those who know me well know that it isn’t well advised to talk to me after nine o’clock on any day. I’m basically in a coma by then, or extremely put out that I am still vertical. Since I had just gotten home, it was the latter.

My husband suggested that I could maybe pick up a bottle, since no other kind would do. Normally, I would say okay, and pop out to the store as soon as it was convenient. But as I said, I was exhausted, it’s nearing the end of June, there are teacher gifts and end-of-school celebrations, I am busy with teacher training and staining the deck every spare moment, and as always, there is much to do keeping up with the one million things that come up in a household and when working from home. Going to Superstore to get coleslaw dressing seemed to be a bridge too far. And for some reason, in my sleep-deprived mind, this seemed less like a request than an Accusation That I Am Not Properly Running The Household Because We Are Out Of Coleslaw Dressing And All Is Ashes. As I melted down a little, my husband suggested that I must be kind of tired, and maybe should go to bed.

The next day, I was cognizant of my over-the-top irritation but that didn’t stop me from being irritable. My husband suggested that perhaps my Ladies’ Holidays were due, which led, as you can imagine, to MORE irritation. Sadly, in retrospect, he was wrong. It is just my horrible new personality.

But I carved out a few extra minutes in my Friday, and decided to run over to Superstore for the dressing. After all, I thought, with just one item I could pop in and pop out, and in total, including driving time, it would be thirty minutes out of my day. I could spend thirty minutes to make three people in the house very happy, especially with it being Father’s Day and all. So I drove over, ran in, grabbed a bottle of dressing and four pounds of strawberries – I am not made of stone, who among us can go into Superstore and get only one thing – and then hopped over to the 12 Items or Less line. There were only three people in front of me and not one had more than four things, so it seemed to be the place to be.

In retrospect, I should have been suspicious that people were avoiding that line.

It turns out the fellow at the front of the line had been there a while. By the time I had set down my items, he was in the midst of debating credit card usage, wondering why they didn’t take Visa, contemplating an application for a PC Mastercard, asking about PC Points, and thinking seriously about The Deal of the Day. Finally he finished buying his Romaine lettuce and box of crackers, asked for cash back, and slowly made his way out of there. The woman in front of me looked at me, rolled her eyes, and sighed loudly, which summarized the scenario quite nicely. The next guy? I knew we were in trouble when he brought out a flyer and started pointing to specific pictures and loudly asking questions.

I like to think of myself as a fairly patient person. If I am behind an elderly person who is fumbling with getting the exact change and who takes 20 minutes to buy a carton of eggs, I have all the time in the world; after all, we may all be that person one day if we are lucky. If I have a mother with small screaming children behind me in line I will always give up my spot for her because I was that person not so terribly long ago. But when I pop in to get one (okay, two) things at Superstore and someone is taking that much time in the express line because they are unaware of and are debating the store policy on credit cards, well.

I am happy to report that I did make it out alive, but not without doing some ujjayi breathing and thinking there will be a time after Superstore. And even more happy to report that my efforts were not in vain; the coleslaw was enjoyed by all. I also managed to catch up on sleep on the weekend and so was Much Less Irritable. Maybe I don’t have a terrible new personality after all.

Birdie Turf War

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Here we are, with less than two weeks left in the school year, and I can hardly believe it. I can hardly believe that 2016 is half over, I can hardly believe that, after seven years of Stampede Breakfasts at the school, last week’s was my second-to-last one, I can hardly believe that as of next Friday I will have kids at two different schools, I can just hardly believe the flight of time. I understand, now, how older relatives would never remember my age or grade when I was a kid, or would say things like “You’ve grown!” in a shocked way, because it’s really shocking, it is, how fast things go.

As I said, last week was the annual Stampede Breakfast, and it’s Mark’s last one. I compared a photo of the boys with one from their first breakfast, when they were in kindergarten and pre-K, and Landslide. That, coupled with the boys attending the city-wide Patrol Picnic, had me feeling very Sunrise, Sunset. 

The end of the school year always feels so poignant, doesn’t it? And I love summer, I love the fairly unstructured days and spending extra time with the boys – before they don’t want to anymore! –  but, of course, it comes with its own challenges too.

Speaking of challenges, there is something going on in my backyard. It’s like a gang war, or something, but with birds.

We have a number of large trees and big shrubs, and during the winter my spirea is always full of dozens of little chickadees. Unfortunately, every time I pass by the shrub to take out the garbage or recycling, they panic and fly away as a group, which gives me heart palpitations. A hundred little birds scattering loudly the second you pass by has that effect. Generally, by the time I’ve actually put the recycling in the bin, they have settled back down in the shrub. I pass by on the way back to the house and the scattering happens all over again.

Those little chickadees disappear in the spring, and happily enough, the robins take over. They’re so cute, hopping and flying around the yard, and I’m always happy to see them. There are a number of them usually, but last week I noticed that there were none hanging out in the yard. Instead, about fifty magpies had taken their place. They must have nested in one of our trees, because there were magpies on the lawn, on the fence, on the deck, on the garage roof, all screaming their scream-like chirps, from before sunrise to late evening. I’d watch from the kitchen window as two magpies sat on the garage and another dive bombed them, beak open, screaming all the time. They would chase each other and gang up on each other, and I wondered if there was some kind of turf war going on. It was like the Jets and the Sharks, but with fewer switchblades and more flying.

It was kind of unnerving, all these birds fighting each other for days.

Then I was headed out on an errand, and in my alley were two giant crows. Now, I am kind of terrified of crows, because a) they are huge, b) they are very smart, and c) I have seen The Birds. Who wants their eyes pecked out? Not me.

Anyway, these crows were dive bombing something in the alley. I looked and gasped. That “something” was a robin. People, that robin DIED right before my very eyes. The crows swooped and swooped, and the robin went from hopping to wing-twitching to dead, in less than a minute. Then the crows flew away, leaving me to wonder why. Why did they kill the robin, if they weren’t even going to eat it? My husband had the grisly suggestion that it was a warning to the other robins. Don’t mess with the crows.

And now his watch has ended.

Fortunately/ unfortunately by the time I returned from my errand, the robin’s little body was gone. Either some of the neighbourhood wildlife had a feast, or one of my neighbours saw it and cleaned it up; if I was a betting woman I would put my money on the former.

I was a bit nervous on a whole other level, though, because I thought if the crows could gang up on a robin, they could certainly take on the magpies. Then, theoretically, my yard could be rid of the magpies but filled with crows. I wasn’t loving the magpie gang warfare, but at least I could be fairly confident that I wouldn’t be pecked to death by them. If fifty CROWS decided my yard was the place to be, I think I would never leave my house again.

As suddenly as all this birdie drama started, it stopped. Suddenly, there are no magpies in the yard, nor any crows in the alley. A couple little robins are hopping around in the yard, and splashing in my neighbour’s bird bath. I put the sprinkler on the trees and garden, and was heartened by the sight of several robins enjoying the spray. I don’t know how this happened, but I am not asking questions. Maybe the crows WERE putting out a warning, but not to other robins; maybe it was a you’re next signal to the magpies.

A friend (HI STEPHANIE) told me that in the Buddhist faith crows are considered to be protectors. Maybe, in a bizarrely violent way, they were protecting the robins from the magpies, who, as we all know, are the assholes of the bird world. Perhaps I should make my peace with the crows. So long as they don’t peck my eyes out, they can hang out on my fence, or “Castle Black,” as I’m calling it.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: Beachy Keen, Jelly Bean

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We are having a heat wave! It’s hot and sunny and it’s supposed to break and be rainy just in time for the weekend. We are in the midst of re-staining our deck; I am doing a little bit every day to take advantage of the hot weather. Hopefully it won’t rain all weekend so my husband can get some staining done as well. It is so warm that I am wearing a ridiculous pair of booty shorts, along with an old shirt of my husband’s, to stain in. Fortunately none of my neighbours have come by to chat while I’m wearing what looks like just a man’s t-shirt. Maybe they are scared off by my (very bad) singing along to “80s Smash Hits” on Spotify. I can call you Betty, and Betty when you call me you can CALL ME AL. Oh call me Al!

But all this heat makes me think of the beach, which makes me think of an epiphany I had during spring break. No, I’m not going to talk about beach bodies or bikini bodies or any of that, although I admit I dislike the latest trend, which is to “get a summer body.” People. There is so much wrong with “summer bodies versus winter bodies,” mostly that this is a very unhealthy way of thinking. We should be thinking health and fitness rather than aesthetics, for one thing. I know that’s pretty rich, coming from me, for whom 80% of my weight loss/ maintenance motivation is to be able to wear all my clothes, but I like to think of that as more of a financial consideration than an aesthetic one.

But the other thing is, other than summer clothes being more revealing than winter ones, generally speaking, summer clothes are also much more forgiving and generous than winter clothes. At least, this is the case in my wardrobe. My summer clothes tend to be stretchy fabrics with elastic waistbands, whereas my winter clothes have a lot of buttons and zippers.

But I digress! I said I wasn’t going to talk about this and then I ended up talking about it. Let’s focus on health, blah blah, blah, but what I really wanted to talk about is BEACH WEAR.

Anyway, back to my epiphany. For years I’ve been buying bikinis at Old Navy; at the end of the season their mix and match pieces are incredibly cheap, and so I would stock up. Mostly what I would purchase was string bikini pieces, the kind that are basically two triangles of fabric with string, but this past spring I realized that I can no longer wear them. Well, I CAN. I can put them on and wear them, yes, but a) they are not flattering anymore, and b) with my children edging towards adolescence, I’m cognizant of the “embarrassing mom” factor.

Further to part a), one thing I have really noticed about being in my forties – well, and thirties, I guess – is that the girls just aren’t what they used to be. Gravity and, um, deflation has taken its toll and those $7 bikini tops are just not going to cut it anymore. I need something with significantly more engineering and lift; but not too much lift, as I found out the hard way after purchasing a Victoria’s Secret bikini. Too much lift means that wardrobe malfunctions can occur in a completely unexpected way, i.e., lifting oneself right out of a highly engineered bikini top.

Wardrobe malfunctions are also tied to part b) in which I do not want to be the embarrassing mom or one who scars her sons for life. And so, although I strongly agree that you should WEAR WHAT YOU WANT TO WEAR AT THE BEACH, EVERYONE ELSE’S OPINION BE DAMNED, I am no longer wearing my skimpy bikinis.

Which brings me to…

Nicole’s Favourite Things, The Beach Edition

The Elusive “Supportive and Sort of Modest” Bikini

Before I get to this, I should give a caveat: I realize not everyone likes or wants to wear a bikini. It is my bathing suit of choice for a few reasons: a) one piece suits never fit me correctly and I get appalling wedgies/ camel toe no matter what, not to mention that the thought of stripping down to absolutely nothing and possibly having my swimsuit touch the floor of a public washroom every time I need to use it makes me feel a bit queasy, and b) because I’m quite tall tankinis don’t fit me that well either, or they ride up in a bikini-like fashion while I am in the water. Therefore, bikinis are my choice BUT DON’T WORRY, I AM NOT SHAMING ANYONE FOR THEIR SWIMSUIT PREFERENCES.

Just wanted to make that clear, after my eyebrow post/ eyebrowgate.

So no more string bikinis, instead I have taken to wearing halter tops or bandeaux, because of greater coverage and less chance of slippage. I bought each of these pieces separately from La Vie En Rose Aqua, and I love them. This is what I wear when I’m actually going to be in the water, swimming or just splashing around with the kids. I have even worn them on a waterslide and wasn’t arrested for indecent exposure, which I will consider a major win.

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This suit I also purchased from La Vie En Rose Aqua, and I love it very much. The skirted bottom is perfect for (TMI ALERT) that time when you are due for a bikini wax and/ or perhaps didn’t have time for your regular grooming routine. If you don’t get waxes or have a regular grooming routine, that is okay too. No one is judging you. Please let’s not start a war about waxing our nether regions. Anyway. It’s a little more modest, and the top is an absolutely perfect fit. The straps come off if you’re into the strapless look, but as I’m concerned about possible flashing, I keep mine on.

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There are two issues I want to note about this suit. Maybe it’s the skirt, maybe it’s the crocheted fabric, but it is NOT ideal for swimming. If your modus operandi is to just hang out on the beach and read a book, like mine generally is, then this is the suit for you. The fabric/ skirt gets a little weighed down in the water and it is not comfortable. But, like I said, it’s the perfect hang-out-and-read-or-maybe-dangle-your-feet-in-the-water-bathing-suit.

Secondly, my husband HATES this look. Hates it. He thinks skirted bathing suits in general and this one in particular look “matronly.” It’s not like I need his approval on what I’m wearing to the beach, but I would prefer that my husband thinks “My wife looks super hot” rather than “My wife looks matronly” and so I note this as a potential downside. But hey, technically I am a matron, so there we go. I also think it’s a cute look and not at all embarrassing for the preteen/ teen boy set, which is my goal at the moment.

Big Floppy Hats

My other goal is to look as little like a raisin and/ or an apple doll as possible, and so I wear a big floppy hat at the beach. I generally do not like wearing hats but I make an exception for the giant floppy type. For one thing, it keeps the sun off my already-wrinkly face and shoulders, and for another, it is very cooling. I feel like I have my own beach umbrella on my head, in the best way possible.

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NOTE: This book is so good! Highly recommend.

This hat I purchased at Swimco, and it is specifically meant for travel. It is foldable, squishable, and looks good even after folding and squishing.

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This hat is neither foldable nor squishable, but I like it for trips to the pool or road trips to my in-laws’ house. It’s actually bigger than the black one, so I get even more shade with it. Got to protect that skin!

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Cute Cover-Up

coverup

Further to sun protection, this lightweight cover-up is perfect for the beach. This is as bohemian as I get, style-wise. I purchased this from (whisper) Venus, which in hindsight I probably wouldn’t do again due to customs fees that I didn’t anticipate. Still, it’s cute. I saw a girl on the beach wearing a lightweight oversized white men’s shirt, with the sleeves rolled up, and I desperately wished I had done that. It was an adorable look and once this (unexpectedly expensive) cover-up gives up the ghost, I think that’s what I will do.

Beachy Keen Reads

As I said I love reading while the kids and husband play in the water; The Big Short is, as noted above, excellent, but some lighter reads are fun too. I just finished a book that I had picked up at Chapters for $2.99 and it was worth all that and even more. I kid, it was really fun. It is “Love and Other Foreign Words” and I’m kind of suspicious that it might be a YA read, but it is very fun nonetheless. Look it up, it’s definitely a poolside/ beach book. Other favourite beach reads are “Why Not Me” by Mindy Kaling, “Memoirs of a Geisha,” and, for some reason “The Godfather.” Seriously, I take “The Godfather” with me on every vacation. I do not know why.

godfather

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This was my first “Favourite Things” since Alison passed. This one’s for you, Alison. Lots of frivolity, lots of love. xoxo