Our Best Friends

Posted on by

As you might imagine, I very frequently get asked for book recommendations. As you might not imagine, I am almost as frequently completely at a loss for book recommendations.

I am loathe to recommend anything across the board, or really, anything at all unless I know a person well and I know their reading taste. Everyone is so different, and just because I love a book most certainly does not guarantee someone else will. In fact, my experience has been that, very often, books I love are met with dislike, boredom, or, at best, neutrality and polite confusion as to what I love about it.

And the same goes for me. I often find myself with unpopular opinions about popular books. I have a few friends who know me well enough to never recommend dystopia, for example, or fantasy. I sometimes enjoy a thriller but rarely a mystery, and horror books are far too scary for me to even contemplate.

But there is one book that I really do think every woman can benefit from. I first read it five years ago TODAY, and it completely transformed my life.

I picked up Your Body, Your Best Friend at the library in August 2020, and after I finished I immediately ordered a copy for my shelves. The author is a yoga teacher and a Zen Buddhist practitioner, and her life journey was so resonant and relatable that it felt like someone had actually looked into my soul and then written it into a book.

The book explores the concept of maitri, or loving-kindness, as practiced towards oneself. If we cannot practice maitri with ourselves, we cannot truly practice it with the world. We as women are conditioned to make ourselves small, to not take up space, and to punish ourselves or withhold joy if we don’t measure up to a certain standard. We are taught to compare ourselves to other women and to compete with them, as if the world is a cake with finite pieces, and we will only get a piece if someone else doesn’t.

I cannot overestimate how significant this book was for me. I looked at myself – really looked deeply – and realized that I had been unkind to myself lo those many years.

I have had a lot of personal growth in five years.

The moment I finished the book I vowed to never weigh myself again, and I still haven’t, five years later. That was the most concrete action I took; the rest of the lessons that I internalized were less obvious, until I reread the book this week. I have reclaimed joy in movement and joy in food, I have recognized the need for body intuition and for rest, and, crucially, I have realized that our bodies are always changing, along with our minds, our emotions, and our perspectives, and this is a beautiful thing.

Movement for joy!

Taking joy in food and movement, rather than seeing those things as punishments or rewards, is a really big thing.

Food is joy, full stop.

There was something else in the book that I found devastatingly relatable: the author’s height and age of puberty. I was also a tall girl and an early bloomer, and if you think that being 5’7″ and having a C-cup bra in seventh grade sounds good, think again. To this day when I see young teens who could “pass” for twenty, I close my eyes and say a little prayer for them, because I know what that is. I know the feeling of body hatred, I know the intense desire to be smaller, to be thinner, to be less curvy. I know what it is to wear giant sweatshirts and to walk with a slouch. I know what it is to be sexualized at a young age, to garner attention and not know what to do with it, and most of all, to feel shamed for it. I know that deep body shame.

I think we all, no matter what our experience, wish we could go back in time to love our younger selves, to wrap those shamed and self-hating girls up and keep them safe. It occurred to me that there is a way to do this.

It occurred to me that the menopause transition is very similar to puberty. In both cases, there are changes that are completely beyond our control, that make us somewhat unrecognizable to ourselves. Wild things are happening to our skin, our faces, our bodies. There are hormonal ebbs and surges, there are insecurities, and, of course, there is shame.

Until someone invents a time machine in which we can all hop on and hug our younger selves and reassure them that they are, truly, beautiful inside and out, why don’t we all do something radical and accept our truly beautiful selves as they are right now. Why don’t we all accept that our bodies are going to change as we journey throughout this life, and acknowledge that for the precious privilege that it is.

Just like we cannot truly show up for others until we show up for ourselves, let’s practice loving-kindness to ourselves NOW, as a gift to those young, insecure girls that we were, back when we were thirteen.

Weekly Reading

I am continuing to dissociate from the world by reading three books a week, so I have a couple I want to talk about in addition to Your Body, Your Best Friend. But first! Big news! I had a DNF! I started The Heart of Winter, but after reading This Is A Love Story last week, I just could NOT. I could not read about another long and tumultuous marriage that ends when one half of the couple gets a terminal diagnosis and dies. Instead, I read…

One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot. Instead of The Heart of Winter, how about a book about a 17-year-old girl with a terminal illness who befriends a similarly-dying 83-year-old in the hospital where they are both soon to meet their demise! CHEERFUL. But it is a lovely book about two friends who decide, in the hospital’s art program, to make 100 paintings for each of their 100 years, telling their life stories along the way. There are parts that you REALLY have to suspend disbelief – would a father truly just leave his 17 year old daughter in the hospital to die alone? would a nurse really be so mean to a dying teenager just because she wants to go to the chapel to visit the chaplain? how did Margot pay her bills if all she ever did was be an animal activist? – but it is just a sweet, cute book about cross-generational friendship.

Abigail and Alexa Save The Wedding. Continuing with this week’s unofficial theme – friendship – two very different ladies find themselves soon to be related via holy matrimony…in this case, they are the mothers of the bride and groom. One is a very West Coast Greek Single Mother, the other is East Coast WASP Of Reduced Means, and all is going pretty well until their children decide to CALL OFF THE WEDDING! No! Not after they’ve already secured the venue! And bought dresses! This cannot stand! The two women work together, along with a group of ladies called the Merry Widows, to bring the couple back together. Capers ensue! Let’s not overthink this, it’s just a fun, fast read.

I hope you have all had a lovely week! Mine has been filled with reading, obviously, and also a LOT of time in the garden. Lord have mercy, I have more tomatoes than I could have ever imagined. This year’s tomato is last year’s zucchini, let’s put it that way. And believe you me, I have a lot of zucchini. Lovely problems to have, for sure. xo

Enjoying What I Have

Posted on by

I am constantly striving to be really mindful in terms of consumption and shopping, to be thoughtful in my purchases and to buy only what I actually need. Lately, though, I have been sliding into Mindless Clothes Shopping Territory, and I feel that it should be curbed.

It started innocently enough. Out of necessity, I have bought a lot of clothes over the past nine months, post-giant-closet-purge. Since my body changed shape, and so much of my wardrobe no longer fit in the way I wanted it to, I replaced many items with more suitable ones. I don’t regret that or feel bad about it, but I do think that “needing new jeans” didn’t really need to translate to “I just bought six pair,” and yet here we are. Wanting a new little black dress didn’t really mean that I should buy three, and I probably didn’t need five pair of capri pants and several tees and workout pieces. But again, here we are.

My bid to love my clothes again has led to me buying a lot of clothes.

The thing is, though, I do love my clothes, especially my new ones, and the truth is that I didn’t really need to hang onto things that were almost twenty years old and were ill-fitting into the bargain. I can now say with confidence that I love everything in my closet, I would happily don anything in there and feel good about it. I’m pleased with the state of my wardrobe but the nine-month shopping spree needs to end.

It’s gotten to the point where I’m just mindlessly popping onto my favourite shops’ websites, Just To Look, which of course leads to Oh That’s Cute, which then leads to Add To Cart and Checkout, which is becoming a problem. How many tees does one woman need? I don’t know but probably not seventy-six. And that doesn’t even include tanks or yoga tops.

Clearly, my tops were not part of the Great Closet Purge, and also, it’s time to reign it in. I need a reset, but I’m not sure what form that will take, exactly. I do not want to do another no-shopping challenge, if only because my husband might leave me and my mother will disown me if I attempt that again. I don’t want to say I’m not going to buy anything for x amount of time because what if my body changes again? I mean, I hope not, because this could become a very expensive endeavour, replacing clothes constantly. But I didn’t see the changes coming the first time, so it’s possible it could happen again. Also, I want to feel free to buy a new parka, if needed, or winter boots, and not feel shame about it, the way I still feel about the 100-Day Challenge, even though I’ve played piano for more than 100 days this year, just not consecutively.

So it’s time to incorporate more mindfulness into my shopping habits. I am going to make a real effort, going forward, of shopping my closet before doing anything else. I have so many beautiful things, I really do not need more. Everything fits now, nothing needs replacing, I do not need one more thing no matter how cute it is.

A few months ago, Sarah (HI SARAH) casually mentioned that she was going to enjoy what she has and those words echoed in my mind; I have been thinking about it a lot since then. We all know how exciting it is to get a new little something, whether it be a lipstick or panties or even some kind of home good, but where does it end? I DON’T NEED SEVENTY-SEVEN TEES.

I was talking with someone about Swedish Death Cleaning, and while I don’t expect to die anytime soon – or, at least, I hope not – the last thing I want when I shuffle off this mortal coil is to leave behind a landfill’s worth of clothing items. Also, I just realized that I read that book in 2018, which is startling. I thought it was during the pandemic! What is time.

Anyway. I am going to try to retrain my brain, which has unravelled in the past nine months, and which USED TO BE good at mindful shopping, to just Enjoy What I Have. I have so much! I’m going to enjoy it.

Weekly Reading

Ruby-Fruit Jungle. I picked this up on a whim at the library, and I did not enjoy it at all. It’s a landmark lesbian coming of age book, but I found it to be a tedious and dull read. 

Dream Count. Wow. Wow. This novel was so beautiful, so heartbreaking, so moving. I thought about it constantly, even when I wasn’t reading it. At one point I was gasping for breath, it was such an incredible story with the most complex fleshed-out characters. It begins in the pandemic and ends in the pandemic, and in between are the stories of four African women whose lives are intertwined in different ways. When something terrible happens to one of them, we see how unfair the world is not only to the less-privileged, but also to those we “other.” I found the storytelling from four points of view to be absolutely engrossing and the character I liked the least in the beginning became the most interesting and sympathetic one to me. Many lines of note stood out to me, such as “I look at her and think that it isn’t about this particular rape. It is about any rape at all. Ahemen prefers men. In the face of any rape story, she will craft for men the most gorgeous of excuses, and for women her instinct will be distrust.” I absolutely have known women like this in my life. The description of early pandemic days, when we were all conjecturing as to what to do, how to avoid being ill, what news we all had, is so very real. If you, like me, enjoy character-driven books about complicated women, multiple points of view, and absolutely stunning writing, you will love this book.

This Is A Love Story. As a woman dies of cancer, she and her husband recall their life together. This book is very moving not because they lived an idyllic, romantic, perfect life, but because they didn’t. It is a very real story about a very real marriage with ups and downs: work stress, living a creative life, paying the bills, postpartum depression, an affair, and, above all, a very strained and distant lifelong relationship between the woman and her only son. The writing style is very unique and interesting; much of it is written in the second person, which is a rare choice, and the rest of it is told from a few different points of view. My favourite part about this was not the story about the couple, but the little snippets about all the people moving through the physical centre of this story, which is Central Park. I often look at the people moving around me and think about what their stories could be. We all have a story housed within us.

*******

Upon discovering my Great Tee Collection, I fielded a couple of questions from my family. From my younger son: do you WEAR all of them? The answer to that is yes, although some get worn more than others. From my husband: how long did it take you to amass that many? I would say about fifteen years; I hang all my shirts to dry and I try to buy nice quality items, so they last a long time. But the long and the short of it is that I am now on a self-imposed shopping hiatus! I hope I can keep to it, and that my bad habits haven’t stuck. I hope you all have a beautiful week. xo

Together Again

Posted on by

The Boys Are Back In Town

My husband and son have returned from their hiking trip in Scotland! They hiked the West Highland Way, which worked out to be 154 kilometres over eight days, and they enjoyed Edinburgh as well. It was quite the adventure, and it’s great to have them home.

After two weeks of eating out, they were pretty excited for some, as my husband put it, home cooking. For some reason that phrase feels like a weird sexual euphemism, I blame Paul Newman. In any case, both of them requested a Big Fun Salad, and I was only too happy to comply.

Salad Days

They had great timing, as it turned out, because I just cut what was the last of the kale and spinach. I have pulled the plants and will be reseeding in a few weeks, when the bulk of the hot weather has subsided for the year, and hopefully I will have a nice fall harvest.

I guess it will be farm market kale and spinach for me until mid-September, but in the meantime, I am not short of tomatoes or zucchini.

Zen and the Art of Gardening and Piano Playing

These vegetables don’t grow themselves, people. Well, the zucchinis kind of do. But the garden itself takes a lot of work and I spend at least an hour a day tending to it, the perennials, and my flower pots. I always leave my phone in the house and just concentrate on the plants, and it is a very zen practice. There is something so meditative about weeding, which, along with laundry, is one of the most Sisyphean tasks ever. Other Sisyphean garden tasks include picking tomatoes and zucchini, but those tasks at least result in yumminess.

I read The Connection Cure this week – more about that in the Weekly Reading section – and it sparked a lot of thinking about the things we do for our mental and physical health. Gardening is one of them for me, but I don’t know if I would say that I am always in the moment while doing it. More likely, while I weed or deadhead or harvest, my mind is wandering about what the hell am I going to do with all these tomatoes, do I have time to roast them later to freeze, and how long will it take to grate up all these zucchinis, and also what am I going to write about this week, and would anyone be interested in a deep dive on The Duchess, and how sexy was Ralph Fiennes, and I wonder if The English Patient is on Netflix and would it be weird to just fast-forward to all the sexy scenes, and how Lady Chatterley’s Lover was basically soft-core porn, and also they changed the ending, and oh my god, look at that butterfly!

Similar things happen in my brain when I’m walking or cooking or doing anything household-task-related, but almost never while I’m exercising or practicing yoga. The one time I can guarantee that I will 100% be in the moment is when I’m playing piano. I have seen people carry on conversations while playing, but I absolutely cannot. I don’t even think about the next note, I am only ever thinking about the note I am playing the second that I am playing it, which makes it, for me, the most Zen practice of them all. I mean, if I so much as thought of Ralph Fiennes I would lose my place in the music, let alone any idle thoughts about my husband pretending to be a gamekeeper on a large English estate, asking me if I would like coarser treatment.

Freshen Your Drink, Governor?

As I mentioned last week, I have taken the opportunity of alone time to watch several British period dramas, and they have not disappointed. Despite my general dislike of book-to-screen adaptations, I rewatched Sense and Sensibility, which, along with Emma and Pride and Prejudice, cycles in and out of being my Number One Jane Austen Favourite Book. I also watched the aforementioned Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which contains not only full frontal nudity but also such graphic sex scenes that I did wonder how they could possibly be filmed without actual penetration, or at least a massive boner on the part of the gamekeeper. I score pretty much zero on the Kinsey scale, and yet I never want to see full frontal male nudity on the big screen, even when the screen is just my TV. As Elaine Benes said, The female body is a work of art. The male body is utilitarian. It’s for getting around, like a Jeep.

Nudity or not, the movie was completely engrossing, as was The Duchess – so good! – and The Other Boleyn Girl, which, along with a rewatch of the first three episodes of Downton Abbey, completed my British Period Drama Fortnight.

There is a growing movement among streaming services to cater to what is called second-screening, which is the phenomenon of watching TV while being on a phone. Streaming services are creating shows that are meant to be watched while distracted, and so there will be a lot of repeated dialogue and summarization of events.

I put the blame entirely on the glorification of multitasking, which I consider to be an incredibly harmful and focus-fracturing concept. Just like I cannot talk and play piano simultaneously, no one, but no one, can actually put mental energy into two things at the same time. It’s just not possible! Sure, we are all listening to podcasts while folding laundry, but I would submit that folding laundry requires very little mental energy. The idea that we can scroll on our phones while watching a movie and absorb any information at all is ridiculous. Bring back single-tasking! Let’s just focus on doing one thing at a time! Including watching TV!

I’m Your Biggest Fan, This Is Stan

Something that almost always absorbs all my attention is a good book; I love that feeling of just sinking into a delicious state of reading. If you follow me on Instagram you know that I post all of my book reviews over there, and I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I want to be honest in all my reviews, but on the other hand, I don’t want to be mean or negative if I don’t enjoy a book. It’s a tricky balance, but on the flip side, I want everyone to know when I truly love a book, and if you remember from last week, I posted a glowing review about Standard Deviation by one of my favourite authors, Katherine Heiny.

I casually logged into Instagram to see that I had a new follower, and friends, I cannot be calm or casual about this: KATHERINE HEINY HAD FOLLOWED ME. Not only that, but she sent me a direct message saying that she was “flattered to be anyone’s writing goals, but you are very funny already.” OH MY GOD PEOPLE.

I might have passed out for a moment. Katherine Heiny! Sent me a message! I have all of her books on my Favourites Shelf! I am as starstruck as a person could be! Katherine Heiny, who I adore and whose writing is over-the-top incredible!

NO I CANNOT CHILL.

And speaking of books…

Weekly Reading

The Connection Cure. I heard this author interviewed on the Ologies podcast, and I found her so fascinating that I knew I would have to read her book. Social prescriptions are growing around the world, and address environmental factors in wellness; instead of asking “what is the matter with you,”’ the question is “what matters to you.” There is a growing body of empirical evidence that links positive health outcomes with movement, time in nature, artistic endeavours, acts of service, and a feeling of belonging. It is all very common sense, but still it was shocking to me to read about the loneliness epidemic, how it has increased since 2020, and the debilitating impacts it can have on health. An important note is that social prescriptions – finding a community, helping a person discover a feeling of belonging, or joy through art, along with movement practices and time in nature – are to be used in conjunction with modern medicines and therapies. Overall an interesting read.

How To Be Married. Jo Piazza is a pretty buzzy author these days, but this book – part memoir, part non-fiction dive into how marriage is viewed in other countries and cultures – came out in 2017, before the buzz. It’s been a while since I myself was a newlywed – in fact, I don’t really remember what our first year of marriage was like – but I found this to be an entertaining and touching read. The tagline mentions her “really hard” first year of marriage, and my thoughts ran to infidelity, dark secrets, and disagreements about loading the dishwasher, but the reality was much sadder. Four months after she was married, the author learned that she had the genetic mutation for muscular dystrophy, which had left her own father extremely disabled and her mother – his caretaker – to have a nervous breakdown from the stress and resentment that comes from being a caretaker. She also lost her job right after they signed a mortgage on a house in San Francisco, a notoriously expensive city. I found the book very interesting and the peek into other cultures to be fascinating. Apparently I am like a Frenchwoman, I learned, as I would never in a million years use the toilet with the door open. Some things, as the Frenchwomen said, should be private.

The God of Small Things. My friend Maya (HI MAYA) had mentioned this book and I was surprised that I hadn’t already read it, as it was published in 1997. It is a heartbreaking, beautifully written book about a family in Kerlala, a terrible tragedy, and the shocking aftermath. It concerns caste, family ties, and dark secrets, and it is so moving and absolutely compelling. The story jumps timelines which might be confusing to some, but I found I was completely immersed, and so I was able to absorb it in stride.

I’ve wanted to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat for thirty years, and on Friday I finally did! We were in the front row, which meant two of my girlfriends ended up receiving leis from one of the cast members – cue getting lei’d jokes – and it was a really great night out. As a child, the story of Joseph was one that was incredibly wild and disturbing to me – parental favouritism, selling one’s sibling to slavery, tricking another sibling into thinking he was going to be imprisoned or killed – but the musical itself is a hoot. I hope your week is filled with delight and music, and doing only one thing at a time. xo

Alone Again, Naturally

Posted on by

Time, Unspooling

Something I did not calculate in my recent time-tracking project was the amount of time that I spend in conversation with the people I live with, mainly my husband. I realized, as he has been on his Tour de Scotland, that a lot of time is spent talking, which makes many of my tasks longer than when the only thing I hear is the Sound of Silence or, technically, the Sound of Podcasts. The point is that my tasks this past week have all been completely uninterrupted, which, coupled with the fact that my novel is in for final edits, led to a lot of free time. I have filled some of this time with various long-neglected photo projects and with British period dramas. Mostly, though, I am reading and talking a lot to the dog, which are all obviously one-sided conversations, answered only with a wag. Who’s a good boy, who is, you are, you’re so good, you’re so good, ooooh I love you so much, are you a doughnut, yes you are, you’re my doughnut. Etcetera.

I Am Like A Dog

Rex and I have a lot of similarities: we both have big feet, we love walking, we look great in black, and we thrive on a fairly-rigid schedule. Another similarity occurred to me this week: we both can eat the same meals over and over without getting bored.

Sometimes I will come across a quiz that will have the question if you could eat only one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be? I never have trouble answering. For me, I could eat Greek salad with hummus and pita for the rest of my life, and I would never get tired of it. Case in point: I have, at the time of writing, eaten five Greek salads in the past seven days, and I will make more tonight.

Dinner for one.
I have to use up these tomatoes somehow.

I know plenty of people who need a lot of variety in their menus, and who don’t repeat the same meal within a thirty-day stretch. And then there’s me, who has had a green smoothie for breakfast every day for the past decade. Don’t get me wrong, I like many other things! But when it comes to making dinner for just myself, I revert to my favourite dinner, which is quick and simple and has freed up even more time in the day over this past week of Single Girl Living.

My son texted me last week to let me know he’d be popping by to make sure I wasn’t spiralling into insanity, and also to eat dinner. Rarely do I allow input as to what I’m making for dinner, but since I’d been alone for a while, I asked what he’d like to have.

The Colour of Gratitude

Several months ago I wrote a guest post on my friend Elisabeth’s blog (HI ELISABETH) about gratitude. One of the questions was if gratitude was a colour, what colour would it be? I skipped that question. I couldn’t answer it, I couldn’t think in those terms at all – until this past week.

I realized, as I chugged down my coffee just before my yoga practice, that I DID know the answer. For me, it’s the colour of the sky as the sun rises: pink and purple and pale blue. Our house faces west, and at this time of year the sun starts to rise during my yoga practice; as it rises behind me I can see the western sky change and reflect those colours. At a certain point, the mountains on the other side of the lake glow pink, and it never fails to flood me with gratitude.

STOP! BIRCHIE TIME!

Speaking of gratitude and blog friends, Birchie was here visiting me this weekend! I cannot believe she made such a long trip for little old me. (HI BIRCHIE!) We had a great time and got along like nobody’s business, just as I thought we would. We explored the downtown area and shops, we drank margaritas on my deck, we went for a wine tasting, we watched Dirty Dancing and When Harry Met Sally, we talked and talked and talked. Of course, she accompanied Rex and I for our long daily walks.

Weekly Reading

The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus. Canadian debut author alert! I love that this author has had this level of success – a Jenna Book Club pick! And I also really enjoyed that much of this story took place in Edinburgh and a country house in Scotland, because my husband and son are there right this second. So that was delightful. I enjoyed the octopus symbolism. I loved all the friendships and the details of university life in Edinburgh. But the truth is I wanted to like it more than I did. There were so many characters to keep track of, and it was written in third omniscient, which made it hard to connect to or care about any of them. I kept losing the plot, like literally, I kept forgetting the main driver of the plot. When the big reveal happened, I literally had forgotten the point.

Fifty Things That Aren’t My Fault. When I was young I loved reading the comics, or, as my dad called them, the funny pages. My three favourites were For Better or Worse, Garfield, and Cathy. Cathy! Ack! I used to identify with that heart-sweatered heroine a lot, and yes, I realize that sounds like the punchline to a bad joke. In any case, I was excited to read this book of essays by her creator. Now I think “did I hate myself?” Because so many of these essays are written with self-deprecating humour that slides into self-loathing, so many of these essays are about demonizing food and hating our appearance and nagging her daughter. I mean, I guess they could be amusing if you were in the mood for “ha ha, none of my clothes fit, and I just ate a container of ice cream so I hate myself” kind of humour, which I was not, honestly. There are some poignant thoughts about feminism, aging parents, empty nests, and the weird phenomenon of having bigger feet as we age, but most of it was cringe. I actually checked the publication date to see if this was written in the early 2000s, which would explain a lot, but no. It’s from 2019. Did we all hate ourselves in 2019? I don’t think I did.

Standard Deviation. After two mediocre books in a row, I needed a win, and so I went with this gem. I first read it in 2022, and it was one of those “books I read from the library but loved so needed in my collection.” Katherine Heiny is writing goals for me. Her books are kind of plotless, with all sorts of fun characters, and I love them. This is such a delightful and funny read about a couple raising a special-needs child who becomes really, really into origami. There is really nothing else to say about it except that it is a pure joy to read.

During our wine tasting, I discovered my new favourite wine from a very special, VERY local winery, Tantalus, that was just released on Saturday! We were one of the first to taste it. Birchie is leaving me today to continue on with her adventures, and so there will be many more British period dramas and Greek salads in my future! Have a beautiful week, everyone. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Bye-Bye, July Edition

Posted on by

First of all, thank you SO much for all your kind words with regards to my upcoming novel! I am so excited to share it and never fear, I will be updating everyone, all the time, with regards to all the details once I know them. It was truly fun to write and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I am just squeezing in under the wire, in terms of Favourite Things. IT’S THE END OF JULY, FRIENDS! I love summer and I have some fun things to talk about this month. Here we go!

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Bye-Bye, July Edition

We Can Do Hard Things, Although Sometimes They Are Not Hard At All

It all started when I casually mentioned that I wanted to get a headscarf for an upcoming trip. My friend Sandi (HI SANDI), who is always thinking of fun things to do, found a silk scarf painting workshop at a local winery. Of course I was in, but I had my doubts as to the final product, my skills in the artistic realm being, shall we say, limited. At the very least, I thought, it will be a fun afternoon with my friend, and so I practiced non-attachment while looking at the variety of colours and designs to choose from. I chose some blues and a heart pattern, all the while thinking that there was no way that my scarf would look anything at all like the example.

No one was more amazed and surprised than I was about the magic that is painting silk scarves. The teacher set us up with a long, shallow trough filled with agar, and showed us how to add the colours and make the patterns. It was so easy even I could do it, and that is saying something.

Once the pattern was ready, the teacher helped us lower a white scarf into the trough, and like magic, the colours transferred to it.

Isn’t that incredible? I’m so thrilled with the results and, frankly, impressed with myself.

It’s going to be perfect for my trip!

Sweaty, But Not Feral

I am not sure who, exactly, is here for perspiration content, but here we are. What better month to discuss it than July? I have talked at length at what a sweaty gal I am whilst working out; whatever sweatiness level you are thinking, quadruple it. After a workout I could literally wring out a puddle of sweat from my clothes; they make a wet thud when they hit the laundry basket, and if I was a person who weighed myself, I would not be surprised to see a significant loss of water weight each morning. Because I am sweaty from my scalp to my ankles, I see absolutely no reason to wear an antiperspirant for exercise, in fact, it seems wrong to me to stifle my underarms. Be free, little sweat glands! Do what nature intended! However, lest you conflate “sweat” with “stink,” let me rush to assure you that I do want to smell good whilst working out, and so I use Routine De-Odorcream.

I’ve talked about Routine before at length, I was into natural deodorant before natural deodorant was cool. I used to buy it in the playground from the founder, Neige, when our kids were in a grade one/two split class together, before she hit it big and had massive success with her products. I love supporting women entrepreneurs, especially when the product is a remarkable one. Routine is a natural deodorant, yes, and I am aware those words probably conjure up a feral hippie image, but it truly works. Listen, if I can smell good while being actually soaked with sweat, you know it’s a good product.

I use Routine every morning before exercise, and I love it, but it has a tendency to show up on clothing, which I don’t love. After my shower I use this new Dove product, which is also a deodorant, rather than an antiperspirant. It is magically invisible and the scent is lovely.

I mean, I’m not giving boardroom presentations or teaching yoga classes, so although I’m a sweaty mess earlier in the day, post-shower I am not. By now I’m sure I’ve given more than enough information about the state of my underarms, so let’s move on.

Living La Dolce Vita, Via Sparkling Drinks

When we were in Italy last fall, my husband and I decided that, after years of work and child rearing and being ships passing in the night, we would set aside a time each week for Cocktail Hour, which is a screen-free, book-free, television-free time for us to reconnect. And to drink cocktails.

Also in Italy, I fell madly in love not only with my husband (again), but also with Aperol spritzes. I could not believe that I went through my entire life without this delicious, refreshing drink in it. I am making up for lost time now, as we regularly have them for Cocktail Hour, on a warm summer day.

And lest you think that it’s all why don’t we get drunk and screw around here, I am also enjoying San Pellegrino sparkling water as a little treat now and then.

Recently Bijoux (HI BIJOUX) mentioned that when her kids were young she would have a mid-day treat of General Foods International Coffee while watching General Hospital, and I cannot stop thinking about it. Such a lovely ritual! We all need a mid-day treat, don’t you think? I decided I wanted to do something similar, and so a few times a week, in the middle of the afternoon, I take a break to read a book, with a flavoured sparkling water in a pretty glass. One might argue that my entire day is a treat, and it kind of is, but it feels really special to have a very intentional pleasure, a book and a pretty drink, mid-day.

Bye Bye Miss Strawberry Pie

Do you want a no-bake dessert recipe that will refresh and delight you? Of course you do! This is my latest iteration of our family favourite, frozen strawberry daiquiri pie. Make a graham cracker crust with about 1 1/4 cups of graham cracker crumbs and 1/4 to 1/3 cup of melted coconut oil (or butter!). Stick that in the freezer, and while it’s setting put 3 cups of thawed frozen strawberries, the cream from a can of coconut milk (chill it for a few hours to separate the cream from the watery liquid), a couple squeezes of lime juice, and maybe 1/3 cup of honey into a food processor and blend until smooth. Add a little more honey if you like it sweeter, and then pour that into the crust, freeze, and voila! Dessert!

I often serve this with homemade Magic Shell, which is created by heating together 1/2 cup chopped chocolate and 1/3 cup coconut oil. I usually squeeze a bit of honey and glug in some vanilla as well. It hardens – magically, like a shell – once it hits the frozen strawberry pie. A perfect dessert and you don’t need to turn on the oven!

Nicole-Coded Merch

I really try to reel in excessive consumption by not buying things I don’t need, but then sometimes I see something and I realize that yes, I do need that thing in my life.

Did I need a coin purse that says Fuck The Patriarchy? Technically no, who needs a coin purse these days? But it’s the perfect size to hold a few lipsticks. Is it weird I have lipsticks in Fuck The Patriarchy merchandise? I LIKE LIPSTICKS AND I CONTAIN MULTITUDES. Anyone having an issue with that can read this shirt:

I saw this on Redbubble and I could not resist. It goes nicely with one of my favourite mugs, and it’s how I feel often these days, particularly when reading the news.

Outfit of the Month

This is my summer uniform: a Lululemon skort and a tank top, generally black. I am of the mindset that when you find something that works, stick with it. I have a number of black tank tops and a number of skorts in a variety of colours and patterns. I very much dislike how I look in shorts and I very much like how I look in skirts, but I don’t want to expose my panties or nether regions to the world, so a skort is where it’s at for me.

I have been enjoying my Alone Time this week – “When the cat’s away, the mouse will play,” I thought as I ate my fourth dinner of Greek salad in a row and turned on another British period drama – but I am over-the-top excited to welcome a houseguest TOMORROW. Some of you may know her, and all who know her love her…it’s Birchie! Updates to come but suffice it to say her visit is definitely going to be one of my Favourite Things. Did you have a beautiful July? Tell me everything. xo

A Tour Of My Bookshelves

Posted on by

I started tracking my reading in 2017, and I have read an average of 131 books per year since then. From 2020-24, with fewer yoga classes to teach and very little commuting to studios and to the gym, plus that whole Quarantine Thing, that number bumped up to 145. I used the library to borrow most of these books because a) I don’t want to be broke, and b) I don’t want to drown in a literal sea of books.

But I still have a lot of books; some authors are automatic buys for me, and if a friend or an independent podcaster I admire writes a book, I want to support them. Sometimes I will read a book at the library and know that I want it for myself, to read anytime I want, and those books I will ask for as Christmas or birthday gifts. Almost all of the books on my shelves have been read twice, and most of them multiple times.

I have a very bad habit of becoming emotionally attached to my books, and I am extremely ungenerous and possessive with them. My dear friend Allison (HI ALLISON) lends books out freely, and told me that when she loans a book, she just assumes she will be rebuying it. Oh, how I wish I could be like that. How I wish I could be so easy-going and generous-spirited! Alas. I am not. I have exactly two friends, Sandi and Joy (HI SANDI HI JOY) to whom I feel good about loaning books, because I know that they are fast readers and the books will be back in my possession before I know it. It’s a big character flaw to be so attached to something that can, usually, be replaced easily.

But not all books can be replaced easily. There is no replacement for my copy of Diary of a Provincial Lady, which I purchased used in 1999 while my then-boyfriend and I were living in a downtown high rise apartment, and which I have read until it fell apart. There is no replacement for the copy of Little Women/ Good Wives/ Little Men that Grandma Fern had on her shelves when I was a child, and gave to me when I was an adult, because no one had read that book more than I.

There’s no replacement for the many books I received as gifts, that have the name of the giver written in the front, there’s no replacement for the old books that were Grandma B’s, there’s no replacement for the books I read to my children over and over again.

So you see how I can get so attached. Every book represents a part of my life, an era I lived through, and a deeply cherished memory.

How are we all organizing our bookshelves, friends? I have seen books arranged by colour and height, notably by my friend Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH). I have seen books arranged alphabetically by title or author, as per my friend Stephany (HI STEPHANY). One might not be surprised to know that I have a very strict organization method that only I am able to decipher. It would make sense to literally no one else, unless someone is actually living in my head, which…I hope is not a thing.

My favourite and most-loved books are all on shelves that are eye level, and then everything fans out from there.

The books on each shelf are either related thematically or correspond to a particular era in my life, although I must point out that the connections I see between books might not be visible to anyone else on earth.

Sedaris and the Norton Anthology of English Literature, together at last. How did Maya Angelou, the Berlin Stories, and the Kama Sutra end up on the same shelf? It makes sense to me, if to no one else.

Beloved books from my childhood and youth. The Murder of John Lennon, Go Ask Alice, and the memoir by Nancy Spungen’s mother are grouped with Sweet Valley High and the Bobbsey Twins, and that is NOT a mistake.

It’s an eclectic mix, to be sure. But it’s MY eclectic mix! I remember where I was and what I was doing in life when I acquired each book, and they are all a part of me.

Weekly Reading

Speaking of books, I had some real bangers this week.

The Safekeep. *this review contains a spoiler!* Something I never thought about before is what happened to all the real estate owned by Jewish people during the Holocaust. And what I found out – and what is the subject of this book – is that in the Netherlands, when Jewish people were taken by the Nazis to concentration camps, they (obviously) did not pay their mortgages, and so their homes and everything in them were repossessed and then sold to Dutch non-Jewish people. Imagine surviving the concentration camps and finally making your way home to discover you have no home, your home is now in someone else’s possession. I mentioned this in my writing date with Laura this week (HI LAURA), and she told me that not only did that exact thing happen during World War II with Japanese people in American internment camps, but it’s also happening NOW with people being deported. So. That’s depressing and horrific. I also discovered, reading this book, that Dutch people who hid and housed Jewish people (i.e., Anne Frank and family) were paid by the people that they were hiding. Which…okay. I can see that, there are risks and expenses. But it sure does change the narrative, doesn’t it? Anyway, this book is set in 1961, and involves an extremely unlikeable woman who is living in a house that we later find was indeed one of those houses, purchased for her and her siblings by an uncle. This is a beautifully written book, and the last third is particularly good. The subject matter is extremely upsetting and unsettling and makes me feel ill, honestly, particularly with the current wave of antisemitism that seems to be cresting. There is a romance component to this book that I thought was really strange, almost Stockholm Syndrome in nature, and that made the ending weird and dissonant for me. I guess it was symbolic – the book is rich with symbolism – but I really did not like it, I did not think the romance was realistic in any way. It detracted from the otherwise incredible story.

The Most. I really liked this book about a woman who, on an unseasonably warm November day, gets in the apartment complex pool and then doesn’t come out for the entire day. Her husband tries to no avail, and we learn about their marriage and the secrets that could destroy it. It’s a tight, moving book. Many thanks to Engie (HI ENGIE) who brought it to my attention and who agreed while it wasn’t a great read for her, it certainly would be for me. She was right!

Shark Heart. Several months ago when I first heard about this book, which involves a man who has a genetic mutation that causes him to turn into a great white shark, my immediate reaction was NO. Hard no. How stupid, I thought. But then my friend Swistle (HI SWISTLE) who knows my taste well said that I really should give it a try and it turns out that I was the stupid one for dismissing it so quickly. This is such a beautiful, compelling, interesting, and original book. It’s so creatively written and I feel it should be read with an eye to symbolism: how disenfranchised men can become incredibly dangerous, how lack of access and choice for women’s reproductive rights can be deadly, and how abuse and trauma are held in the body and transferred intergenerationally. But even without reading this symbolically, it is an absolutely captivating book. Two parts of note: Wren spent the day trapped in draining dialogues with chatty women, pretending to be interested in things like backsplashes and Bernedoodles. I feel attacked. The other piece that spoke to me, in a non-attacking way: I’ve been thinking lately, maybe we do get new performances of the same day, opportunities to be more accepting and loving. Maybe practice, rehearsal, is also the way to freedom. We can start over.

I will have a lot of time to read this week, for two reasons, both quite exciting. First, my upcoming novel, Inhale Exhale has been submitted to the publisher for FINAL EDITS!!! Much, much more info to come, but for now I have a little break from the manuscript, and I am going to use that break to read, and possibly to put twenty months’ worth of photos into albums. The former will happen for sure, but will the latter? Time will tell. The other reason that I will have extra time is that my husband and younger son left yesterday to hike the West Highland Way in Scotland. Some of you may remember that my husband and older son drove up the Dempster Highway to Tuktoyaktuk last summer, and this year it was my younger son’s turn to choose. He just finished his plumbing and pipefitting program last week, and was pretty excited for his first European adventure. The upshot of all of this is that it will be just me and Rex, although my older son told me he will be checking in frequently and coming by to mow the lawn and do other things that are not in my purview. I think he’s worried I will bring in all the gnomes for a dinner party, or that I’ll dress Rex up as a gnome. I CAN MAKE NO PROMISES. xo

How We Spend Our Days

Posted on by

I finally did it! Lest you think that the “it” in question is something interesting and exciting, let me hasten to tell you what “it” is. For the first time ever, I completed an entire week of time-tracking, of writing down the exact way that I spend my days.

I have tried to time track before, and failed on the first day. Truthfully, I have failed in the first few hours of the first day of tracking; for one, it is so boring. It’s boring and tedious to write down the number of minutes spent doing any given thing. For another thing, when I last tried this the boys were in junior high and I was teaching a LOT of yoga classes, and the sheer number of drudgery-and-food-related things that I recorded within the first few hours of the day was incredibly depressing. This is how I am spending my one wild and precious life? I thought, before abandoning the project.

But I was curious, for reasons I’ll get to later, and so I set myself up for success by creating a two-page-a-day chart that would record start and end times, and I cut down on the daily tedium by filling out in advance the first seven things that I do every single day without fail, thinking, correctly, that once the morning routine was recorded, the rest would be easier.

The results were not unexpected. A big swath of my week is devoted to yoga, exercise, and dog walking, and another to gardening. Writing takes up a good deal of it, as well as food preparation and household tasks, which feel less drudge and onerous these days, personal care, reading, and spending time with my husband, kids, and friends. Remember that old story about putting the big rocks in the jar first, and then allowing the little rocks to take up the spaces in between? At this point in my life, everything feels like Big Rocks, and, simultaneously, nothing does.

My days are pleasantly full, and while none of my daily activities feels optional, they all technically are. Even personal care, food preparation, and household tasks: strictly speaking I COULD really let things go in the hygiene and beauty department, I COULD allow the house to become a cesspool of filth or, more realistically, hire that out, and I COULD DoorDash all our meals or rely solely on frozen pizza and toast. I could! I won’t, but I could.

What I’m saying is that everything that occurs in my day feels Very Important to me. I am not a person who scrolls much, but I do like to check my Facebook and Instagram once or twice a day, and in no way does this feel like a waste of time. I love to check if it’s someone’s birthday, or if someone is on vacation or bought a new house or outfit, I love to see if someone’s kids are doing something interesting or if their pet is sleeping in a cute way. I want to see someone’s shoes or what they made for dinner. I am here for even the most mundane of updates: you want to talk about the new Zumba class you’re going to, or the shitty day you had at work, or the weird sign that was at the community centre? I AM HERE FOR YOU.

The upshot to all of this is that I am very nosy, and I cannot get enough details of other people’s lives.

It is this nosiness that brings me to the whole reason I did this time tracking experiment in the first place, and that is the blogging community. I always think about blogging as a hobby, but then my friend Pearl (HI PEARL) wrote about creating as a way of life, and blogging is part of that. It can take up as much or as little time as a person might want. It is important to me to put out a weekly post that is interesting, entertaining, and, most of all, polished, and so it takes hours to go from Idea to Published. It is also important that I respond to any and all comments; if a person takes the time to comment, I want to take the time to respond. I have time for people who have time for me.

This is a nice segue into the other side of blogging, which is community building. If a person reads and comments on my blog, I am going to read and comment on theirs; it’s common courtesy in my mind, not exactly a Quid Pro Quo, but more like a Keeping Up With My Correspondence. Plus, as I said before, I’m nosy. I want to know what’s going on in your life!

All takes time, of course, and that is a finite resource. I budget between 30-45 minutes a day for blog reading and commenting, and it was this time budget that was the reason I did the time tracking experiment in the first place. I wanted to see if I was, indeed, keeping within the budget. I did, clocking in at an average of 40 minutes per day. Most of this happens first thing in the morning while I’m drinking my coffee; if you’ve ever had an unhinged or incomprehensible comment from me, that’s why. It’s early! The coffee hasn’t kicked in yet!

How we spend our days is how we spend our lives, and I’m happy with how I fill my time. I wasn’t sure, moving here, how things would go. I wasn’t sure how my husband would handle retirement, I wasn’t sure how I would handle not having kids to take care of or yoga classes to teach, but, as we all know, worry is a waste of time. Everything worked itself out: my days are full and fulfilling, and I didn’t need a time tracker to tell me that.

Weekly Reading

Shopgirls. A beach read – but make it in a department store in the 1980s. This was a very quick and light read about a young woman who, despite her youth and her Salvation Army outfits, is the top salesgirl in I Magnin, a fancy San Francisco department store. It was cute and diverting, a nice easy read for a sunny weekend. Thanks to Bijoux (HI BIJOUX) for the recommendation!

Fun For The Whole Family. Dysfunctional families, childhood trauma, family secrets, complicated sibling relationships, estrangement – but make it light and fun! A lot of heavy topics in this very engaging and diverting read about four estranged siblings coming together in the middle of a North Dakota winter for the first time in years, but the book is not heavy at all. It’s sweet and lovely, a heartwarming pick-me-up, and another great summer read.

I have an important garden update! My perennial garden is in full bloom, including the butterfly bush.

The flowers are frequented by bees and butterflies, and I finally caught on camera the enormous yellow butterfly that has been zipping around lately.

It made me so happy, and reminded me of my friend Suz (HI SUZ), who is everyone’s favourite expert in butterfly husbandry. She had recently talked about HER butterfly bush, and I am heartened to think of us on opposite corners of the continent, enjoying the same things. This community – together but apart – is the one of the best things about blogging, and one I do not take for granted. Thank you, everyone, for being here and being a part of my life. xo