Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (a meal plan)

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I had the most delightfully social week, with visits and connections and gatherings every day, culminating in the most wonderful girls’ night out on Friday night: a candlelight tribute to ABBA, as played by a string quartet. I love music generally, almost all genres, but I really love disco, and ABBA specifically. We all dressed up in our most disco outfits, and when the audience was encouraged to sing at the last song, Mamma Mia, we got it started. Actually we might have been the only ones singing. It was a fun concert followed by snacks and rose at my friend Joy’s house (HI JOY).

Joy’s kitchen, photo by Joy!

In a move that I did not see coming, and was not mentally prepared for, my older son is not moving home for the summer. I’m luckier than most in that he lives fairly close by, and comes home every Sunday night for dinner. On occasion, he’ll text me to say he’s coming by for dinner on a weeknight; my friend Sam (HI SAM) was driving me home on Friday, and we were talking about this. She asked if on those random weeknight visits I make him a special dinner, but that’s not the case. I have a meal plan, and I rigidly stick to it; he knows this and is happy for pretty much anything I make.

Do you meal plan? I don’t know how I would live without one; the thought of not knowing what to make for dinner at 5:00pm gives me waves of anxiety. I meal plan, I shop accordingly, almost nothing is wasted, except for the occasional mini cucumber that goes mushy. Why is it only one cucumber? You’d think I’d be able to account for this by now. In any case, here’s what we ate last week.

Monday

This was a stir-fry with rice stick noodles, tofu, cashews, broccoli, carrots, and the lone half pepper that was left in my fridge.

Tuesday

Wednesday is grocery day, and by Tuesday things were getting a little Mother Hubbard-y. I made coconut rice with roasted sweet potatoes and the last of the broccoli. The guys also had air fryer chicken breasts.

Wednesday

I baked a loaf of the no-knead bread that I mentioned last week and served it with The Big Salad. It’s a big salad! With lots of stuff in it!

Thursday

This was a very busy day and so I made one of the easiest and quickest meal around: black bean tacos!

Friday

Since the ABBA concert was early, I had my favourite meal – Greek salad with pita and hummus – all by my lonesome at 4:30pm, just like the senior citizen I aspire to be. My younger son made breakfast for supper for himself and my husband; this is their standard Guy’s Meal, since it isn’t a meal that’s great for me to eat.

Saturday

Another quick meal as my husband and I were out drinking wine with friends in the afternoon (well, I was drinking wine). Crispy cauliflower fajitas with red pepper and the only bit of the CRAPPY AVOCADO I could salvage. Friends, I have had the worst time sourcing avocados since we moved here in 2023. The farm market is a good place, but they are not open in the winter. Costco has been nothing but a disappointment; every bag of avocados I buy ends up being completely unusable, and if I wanted to throw away $12.99 I would not choose to do so while hoping to have guacamole. This particular avocado came from Superstore, which is a hit and miss avocado source. Local friends, help! Or should I just give up my dreams and wait until the farm market opens in May?

Sunday

Sunday dinner is the only one that actually centres around meat; I made a roast beef dinner with lots of veggie sides that I can enjoy. Asparagus is in season right now, so we are enjoying that in all its roasted glory, along with roasted potatoes, roasted broccoli, and homemade Caesar salad.

Sunday is also my day to make a dessert, and I decided to make frozen strawberry daquiri pie, made with evaporated coconut milk. Typically I don’t hoard food anymore, but I had grabbed several cans when they were on sale at Christmas, and I’m glad I did as Superstore is no longer carrying them. I’m hoping this is a seasonal thing and I will have enough to keep me going until next Christmas. Just when I thought I was out of the hoarding habit, they pull me back in.

Weekly Reading

Didion and Babitz. I have long admired Joan Didion’s writing, which is what attracted me to this book. I knew next to nothing about Eve Babitz, also a writer and a visual artist, and wow, now I know too much. I did not like this book AT ALL. The author proclaims that she is obsessed with, loves and adores Babitz, and that bias comes out wildly in this book that is supposedly about a feud-like, frenemy relationship between two writers. Instead, it reads as a confusing narrative about a 60s party girl who lived the messiest life you can imagine, and who died in extraordinary squalor. Babitz accidentally set herself on fire, is what I’m saying. There is little about Didion and what there is, is mean and scathing and tends toward body-shaming. The author says of Didion’s grief after the death of her husband and child, that it was disingenuous and unfelt, as an example. Mostly, though, this book is incredibly hard to follow because there are so very many names involved, randomly dropped here and there with zero context about who these people are. I found this boring and confusing and honestly, so biased and mean. I would have DNFed but the part about Babitz having sex with Jim Morrison (while he was with Pam, god, the Sixties were a gross time) and being a “regular at the clap clinic” was semi-interesting, so I kept going. I wish I hadn’t. 

Her First Palestinian. This short story collection, by a Canadian author born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents, has some really great stories, and some that really didn’t do it for me. For the ones that I didn’t enjoy, it was the writing style that did me in; the author’s attempts at creative POV and styles just did not work for me. However, the stories that hit really hit, and all of the stories were extremely interesting in concept, if perhaps not in execution. They centre around Palestinian immigrants and refugees, the difficulty of living a life in which your existence is questioned, and the experience of working in an unnamed but powerful kingdom in West Asia (Saudi Arabia, perhaps?). It’s well worth the read; the last story in particular is very nuanced and moving.

Isola. I think that historical fiction is the most difficult genre to write; it’s so rare that an author can really capture the time and place in a way that is captivating and realistic. This is one of those rare novels. What an incredible work; this compelling page-turner is based on the true story of Marguerite de la Roque, who in 1542 is coerced into leaving France with her guardian, sailing to New France (now Quebec, Canada) in search of riches. She angers her guardian by having a romance with his secretary; her guardian then MAROONS the two of them, plus Marguerite’s servant, on an island between what is now Newfoundland and Quebec, just south of Labrador. The island is deserted and they have few supplies; and if you know that area at all, well, winters are brutal even if you DO have shelter. She survives for two years, eventually all alone. It is an incredible story and an epic work of art. This was definitely worth the hype!

I’m looking down the barrel of a much quieter week, which will be great for my writing. For those of you who have asked, thank you! It’s going well, I’m on my third draft of my novel – still as yet unnamed, I’m hoping I can figure that out soon – and am in the thick of revisions and edits. I also wanted to check in with everyone who is participating in Yoga Club! I hope to get a new little video up soon but in the meantime, keep doing your one (or more) pose a day, keep practicing loving-kindness toward yourself, and remember that we are all in it together. xo

Five For Friday: The Pandemic Habits That Stuck Around For Five Years Edition

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Yesterday marks the five-year anniversary of the first of many Covid lockdowns. I have been reflecting on the pandemic a lot lately because of this; for me as for most, it was a time of despair, depression, anxiety, and fear. I have also discovered that I have a lot of shame and embarrassment due to my unspoken, but strongly felt, feelings of judgement towards others who did not behave the same way I did, or made different choices during that time. It seems my propensity for empathy and compassion took a leave of absence, and for that I am ashamed. The world, after all, is a wild tapestry of lived experiences and situations, and I feel that my silent judgement only contributed to feelings of fracture and polarization that still exist today.

But, as Ma Ingalls said, there is no great loss without some small gain, and to that end I would like to focus on something very positive that resulted from this time of fear and sadness: five long-lasting habits that have improved my life vastly. Had the pandemic not happened, I would likely be the same person I was five years ago, doing the same things, living the same life. But it did, and here are the habits that I kept and love.

Rex, second guessing his decision to be an emotional support dog after listening to me talk about the pandemic.

Practice At Home / Sweet Home Workouts. I recall seeing a commercial for Peloton circa 2019, and at that time I said to my husband that is the stupidest idea I ever heard, a spin class for one? Who would do that? Who indeed. Prior to the pandemic I was a gym devotee, using the treadmills and going to spin classes, and in May 2020 I ate those words I had spoken a year before. Maybe a Peloton WOULD be a good idea, I mused aloud, Except we don’t have the room. My husband had a Hold My Beer-style response, and immediately ordered one and reorganized our basement to make space. This is both a commentary on our consumption styles – he’s All Action – and on what it was like to live with a gym-free me. Spoiler alert:

The Peloton was, of course, the best purchase we made in 2020, maybe even ever. I use it almost every single day and am currently on a 1538 day streak.

Our home gym, including Nicole’s Cardio Corner.

In addition to going to the gym, I would get up very early every morning and head to the yoga studio to practice Mysore-style Ashtanga with a whole community of similarly-minded people, and if you watch that video, I’m the one in the bright pink pants. Five years ago today I switched my practice to a home one and I have never looked back. I miss my yoga people, but I love my quiet little practice at home. This week I have been watching the waxing moon as it falls; I suppose this is an upside to Daylight Saving Time as this happens very, very early in the morning.

I still wear the Shala merch, even though my Shala is now my living room.

Write On. It’s hard to even fathom, but I used to write blog posts whenever I felt like it, any time of the week. When the world shut down and I was faced, Virginia Woolf-like, without a space to write in, I became laser focused. I would write for twenty minutes before starting yoga, I would write on the weekends, I would write whenever I possibly could. I started a count of the weeks we were locked down, and published every Monday, with a Favourite Things every month. I feel like that period of time constraints was so helpful for me to structure my writing, and looking back it gave me a detailed journal of that time. I don’t have the same constraints now, but I kept the structured habits.

I now have a room of my own to write in! Rex is a good writing partner.

I also think that the blogging community really came together during the pandemic; you all showed up! So many new blogs were created, and I made a lot of new friends in that time. I think the blogging community is stronger than ever before, and I will never stop being grateful for all of you who are here, reading this right now.

Hair Affair. When I think of all the money and all the time I spent over the years, getting my hair professionally cut and coloured every five to six weeks, I want to die. Faced with my roots about a month into the pandemic, I purchased a box of Garnier hair colour and just went for it, and I have never looked back. Does it look like a professional job? No. But it costs $10 and I can just colour my hair whenever I feel like it, without blocking off an entire afternoon.

Fresh hair colour, Mexican humidity.

We Will We Will Walk You

I have loved walking since I was very young, but in March 2020 I started to become very intentional with it. In addition to my long-in-duration-but-short-in-distance, slow-boat-to-nowhere strolls with Barkley, I started Nicole Walks, a brisk-paced, five kilometre minimum every day, in any weather. These days, of course, I am accompanied by Rex, which means my brisk pace has slowed to allow for a whole lot of sniffing and people stopping me to admire my giant cartoon-dog-come-to life.

I don’t mind the slower pace; I can take in the fresh air and beautiful surroundings, I listen to podcasts, and I sketch out writing ideas in my mind while getting steps in.

No News Is Good News

I remember exactly when I decided to stop reading the news: it was January 2022. That month was an absolute low point in my life. Prior to that I would, ridiculously, spend massive amounts of time refreshing data on the “curve” and “case numbers” and “new restrictions in place.” In January 2022 there were no home Covid tests available, “case numbers,” were mere estimates, and it turned out that vaccines weren’t the silver bullet we thought they were, as vaccinated people began falling ill. School had been shut down, again, diploma exams were cancelled, and my kids’ mental health took a hit, given all they had lost during their precious high school years. My mental and emotional health was also pretty fragile. The constant scrolling was nothing but another negative impact in my life, but at least it was one that I could control.

I still don’t read the news, although I did break my own rule recently and went into a tailspin about whether or not my country would be annexed. The scrolling that resulted clearly showed the negative impact the news has on my mental health, and so I have implemented a new rule: I look over news headlines one time a day, for a maximum of five minutes. When it comes to news about Canadian politics, I look to my friend Darren, who gives balanced information from an economic and non-partisan perspective (HI DARREN).

Ma Ingalls was right. There is something good in everything and these long-lasting habits have been incredibly positive for me. Another thing the pandemic gave me was gratitude for the everyday things. Every time I hug a friend or share a meal, every time I board a plane to explore our vast, beautiful world, every time I go to the grocery store and encounter people without suspicion that they are vectors of disease, I feel incredibly grateful. But, to misquote the Four Non-Blondes, I pray, oh my god do I pray, I pray every single day for us to never walk this path again. May we never. xo

Feeling Salty

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Grumpy McGrumperson

How are we all doing with the transition to Daylight Saving Time, I ask as I drink my third cup of coffee and glare angrily off into the dark morning? I swear to god, I swear to GOD that the next person who says “we do this for the farmers,” I will murder that person. Straight up murder. Stab stab stab right to the heart. THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK, PEOPLE. How would fucking with the clocks benefit people who work WITH THE SUN? You know who doesn’t change time? Saskatchewan. So do not come at me with such stupidity. DST started in World War I to save electricity. Today we live in a world of automation and blue lights, and I would challenge anyone to prove that any electricity is being saved at any time due to this ridiculous clock changing construct. WHEN WILL THE MADNESS END.

Unsolved Mystery

Speaking of madness, I was very surprised to receive a renewal notice for my driver’s license; I have had this license for less than eighteen months, when we moved here from Alberta. I made a renewal appointment for last week and I will say that it was as quick and painless as anything government-related could possibly be. I did ask the woman why my license expired so quickly, and she said it was because it was my first BC license. Okay? But also, no one in my family has a license expiring this year, and we all got them at the exact same time. Granted, my husband would have had a BC license thirty years ago, but this doesn’t explain my sons’ licenses. It’s a mystery, and not one that I plan to investigate further. I simply paid my $75, got my jowly, unsmiling photo taken, and went on my merry way. I look like such a bitch, I said to the woman who took my photo. We all do, she replied.

Money Money Money

The licensing fee felt like a cash grab; just one more cash grab in a world that is going broke. Last week alone I spent over a thousand dollars on groceries, which feels absolutely insane, as there are only three of us in this house. Almost eight hundred of that was at Costco; I hadn’t been there since January, and my staples were all at Desperation Levels, which explains a lot.

But I do wonder how people with limited means make ends meet. I am not a person with limited means, and I find my grocery bills to be insane. We don’t eat out or get takeout, and with the exception of a bottle of Reactine and a bag each of my favourite popcorn and my husband’s favourite granola, the thousand dollars of groceries was entirely made up of what I would call ingredients. I’m not walking around making it rain in the grocery store, and yet I spent A THOUSAND DOLLARS. Other than the occasional lone mini cucumber softening in the produce drawer, we consume everything I buy, I don’t consider myself to be a wasteful or even a spontaneous shopper – I have a Meal Plan and a List and I stick to both rigidly – and yet our grocery bills are wild. How is everyone managing this? I have no idea.

Five Long Years

I am feeling a little extra sensitive this week as I realized that this Thursday marks the five-year anniversary of the first pandemic lockdown. I am glad I have this blog to look back on, because otherwise it would be very hard to recall and believe the details. Even with the blog it’s hard to reconcile, everything was so weird and dystopian, and we all know how I feel about dystopian fiction, let alone living in it. I was scolded online for patronizing the library, once it reopened, as the virus could be living within the pages of any book at any time. THE VIRUS COULD BE ANYWHERE was the general feeling, and it’s enough to make a person spiral into madness. It was such a grim, terrifying time that then turned into a divisive, despairing time. How depressing it was, how we were all trying to keep our spirits up while life as we knew it devolved into chaos. Remember when people were putting paper decorations in their windows so that neighbourhood children would have something to look at on those walks of desperation that we were all on? In my neighbourhood, someone had a sign that said And the world came together as the people stayed apart and wow, did that turn out to be untrue. Spoiler alert: the world did the opposite of coming together.

Pandemic Hobbies, Five Years Late

On the topic of things people did in the pandemic to pass the time, last week The Squad (HI GIRLS) took a class on how to make sourdough bread. This was one of those pandemic hobbies I never got into, and I can with confidence say that I never will. Friends, making sourdough is complicated! There are so many steps! Then again, I am a person who for the past fifteen years has been baking no-knead bread, which is quite possibly the laziest bread-making methodology ever. The class was really fun, though, and should I ever want a loaf of sourdough, I will just buy it from the woman who ran the class. I think what did me in was the reveal that remnants of the dough, stuck on bowls or whisks, cannot be washed down the drain lest it block up the plumbing. I instantly imagined our entire septic system being clogged up from attempting to bake bread, and abandoned ship immediately.

Plus, I don’t think I could make anything as pretty as this:

My skills in the hand/ eye coordination department, not to mention the visual artistic department, are limited to say the least; see below.

Blast From The Past

One of the best books I read that featured the pandemic was called Unravelling, in which a woman talked about the efforts she went through to knit herself a sweater. She sheared a sheep, spun the wool into yarn, dyed the yarn, and so forth until months later she had herself a sweater. It was a very enlightening and eye-opening look at what goes into the creation of clothing, a statement on fast fashion, and a history of women’s undervalued but extremely important work.

If ever my value to society was determined by my skills in the fibre arts, well. It would be disastrous, is the short version. I am quite possibly the least competent person in the world when it comes to anything that requires hand/eye coordination, particularly in this realm. I famously almost failed home economics in junior high – and I was a very high-achieving student – because of my complete inability to sew. I swear the teacher passed me out of relief of never having to see me again. I took that class for three years and every single day saw me ripping out stitches and trying to rework them. Whereas my friends had tees and shorts that they could theoretically wear – not that any of them did, but they COULD – my projects had been ripped beyond repair. I have three clear memories from those days. The first was in seventh grade, when I had to borrow bright green ribbing for the neckline of my pale pink t-shirt from my friend Elise (HI ELISE), because my own matching pink ribbing had been destroyed from constantly taking out the stitches that had sewn the neck hole shut several times. The second was in ninth grade, when I would chattily sit beside my friend Tara (HI TARA) as the sewing machine whirred beneath her competent hands and I ripped out stitches, again and again. The third memory is how we junior high girls – for we were all girls – tormented our teacher, Miss Herget, by unthreading the serger. Someone would walk casually past the serger and then stealthily swipe their hand through, unthreading it, which would result in Miss Herget having a mini-breakdown. Every single class: WHO unthreaded the SERGER? she would scream, while we all silently assumed expressions of innocence.

To this day my husband will not let me near a needle and thread. I cannot even tie a knot in a thread; it ends up being several knots, not unlike a string of tiny anal beads. The last time I tried to sew a button on a pair of pants, back in 2001 or so, my husband found me bent over, sobbing, as I had somehow cut a giant hole in the seat of said pants. Was this karma for unthreading the serger? Who can say.

Weekly Reading

The Woman Who Stole My Life. Isn’t it great when you discover a well-established author? I don’t know where Marian Keyes has been all my life, but I do know she has a whole catalogue and I am going to read it in its entirety! I loved this book about a woman who is diagnosed with the very rare Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which results in her entire body being paralysed. Unable to talk or move, she is confined to her bed while her family resumes life as best they can without her. She ends up having a special connection with her neurologist, which leads to a whole new life in a whole different country. This book was so clever and so witty and so intensely thought-provoking, all at the same time. It’s about karma, and communication, and connection. Every single character was a complete delight. As a side note, I was both surprised and not to go on goodreads to discover that this book had a LOT of very poor reviews. This kind of tracks for me as any book I really love often has a low rating, and vice versa. I never a) look at goodreads for ratings and reviews, and b) take said ratings and reviews seriously. I am my own woman! And I loved this. Can’t wait to read more. Over 500 pages, and this book didn’t drag ONCE. 

All In Her Head. We all know, or should know, that the medical community has long been misogynistic and has disbelieved or dismissed women and their health concerns. This book explores the long and dark history of how women’s health has been mismanaged, destroyed, or ignored by the largely male medical community. Yes, things are getting better, but vestiges remain, as seen very recently. Traditionally women have not been included in clinical drug trials because of our pesky old hormonal cycles, which is alarming to say the least. Drugs were not tested for female bodies, and then when those drugs didn’t work as they did for men, the it’s all in her head attitude prevailed. In any case, it’s just one more thing in a long list of things in which women’s concerns and lived experiences have been minimized and dismissed. This is an interesting and enraging book, and it sure shows that men have been really worried about women and masturbation. Hoo boy, masturbation was historically blamed for everything from nervous conditions to scoliosis. Thanks to Stephany (HI STEPHANY) for bringing this book onto my radar.

Friends, I hope you are all taking care of yourself, this week after time change. Drive safely, get your sleep, treat yourself gently. xo

Books, Books, and More Books: Vacation 2025 Reading

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On my recent vacation to Mexico, I got so much reading done; even for me, it was a lot. There are a few reasons for this: a) I get up way earlier than anyone else in our group, and so I read until breakfast and then I read until our friends finished breakfast, b) we had one day of rain and wind, and the best thing to do was to curl up on our sheltered balcony and read while our friends did some work, c) uncharacteristically, I wasn’t really interested in getting into too many involved conversations with strangers, and d) we had a lot of travel time. Shortly after we got to the airport in Kelowna the prescribed two hours prior to takeoff, it was announced that our flight was delayed two hours. Since the flight itself was six hours long, I basically spent ten straight hours reading. Similarly, on the way home, we arrived at the airport a stunning three and a half hours prior to takeoff, as the road traffic was unusually light, and then we sailed through security in under ten minutes.

I also read books that were not difficult or overly involved, and mostly quite short. I also had three – THREE! – DNFs, which is a new record for me. Two of them – The Good Part and The Seven Year Slip – involved magical time travel, which is a hard no for me. The third – Just Haven’t Met You Yet – was not interesting to me. Why I downloaded these books on Libby in the first place is somewhat of a mystery, but I’m proud of myself for just saying no.

Winter in Paradise. This was exactly like reading a soap opera! A woman gets a call to discover her husband is dead, at which point she learns a) he has a $15 million dollar villa in the USVI, and b) he has another family. So that’s where we start and there’s lots of details to uncover, but the ending is clearly setting up for a series and you know what, I was not into it. It was fine for the plane though, but I’m not tempted to read more.

All The Lonely People. This had all the elements of a good read for me: sympathetic characters, a lonely elderly man who wants to make friends before his daughter visits him, so she won’t be worried, a theme of community and different generations coming together to combat isolation and loneliness. HOWEVER. There was a twist near the end which was SO VERY STUPID that it completely wrecked the book for me. Honestly, it was so dumb that I wondered how on earth it even got published. Sometimes I despair thinking of all the lonely writers out there who are desperate to get published, and then I read something like this, and it pushes the despair into white-hot rage.

Small Things Like These. I had not heard the term Magdalen laundry before; these were institutions run by the Catholic Church in Ireland, for unwed mothers. It’s unknown how many babies and young women died in these institutions, but it’s thought to be in the tens of thousands. This book is about one such place, and a man who is living the very saying “there but for the grace of god go I.” It’s a very thoughtful little book, well written and moving.

What Alice Forgot. I’m continuing my revisiting of Liane Moriarty! Imagine suddenly having every memory for the last ten years erased; that’s the premise of this book. It’s a reread for me and it was a good one! A woman suffers a head injury and wakes up to discover her life is unrecognizable – she has three children and is the midst of divorce. Think of what your life was in 2015, imagine you couldn’t remember anything from the last decade. I mean, some things I would rather forget, it’s true, but still. Wouldn’t it be bizarre to wake up and discover what had happened even in the last five years? You’d never believe it if someone told you about the pandemic, for example. I really like this book and it was definitely worth the reread.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I had heard about this book for decades and hadn’t yet read it. It was worth the wait! I really enjoyed this book; it was written from the perspective of a 15 year old boy with autism. In trying to find out who killed the neighbourhood dog and why, he discovers a lot more. The writing style is so interesting and compelling.

Just As Long As We’re Together and Here’s To You, Rachel Robinson. Recently Sarah (HI SARAH) mentioned these books and I had to go back and reread them. I downloaded everything Judy Blume I could, including Blubber, which is still a wildly upsetting book, but it only took me about forty-five minutes to read and contains the great line “It’s pretty hard to be on the other side, isn’t it?” Truth. These books about a trio of friends were perfect for a poolside read. Judy Blume was really the master of empathy and showing that people can be many different things. Also, we are all carrying burdens that no one else can see.

My Darling Wife. Thrillers are not usually my jam, so I have no idea how or why I downloaded this from Libby. Are we sensing a theme here? Was I drunk when I loaded up my Libby prior to vacation? I don’t remember doing that, but I guess I wouldn’t, WOULD I? Or maybe someone recommended this? I DON’T KNOW. Anyway, I’m not generally a fan of thrillers but this was diverting enough. It follows a married couple who seem to find murdering young girls an aphrodisiac. They try to pin these murders on a serial killer but things, as they are wont to do, go askew. It’s pretty creepy and twisty, so if that’s your thing, you’ll probably enjoy this. It was too creepy for me, but maybe that’s a selling point for you thriller lovers out there.

I’ve got some great, non-vacation books to talk to you about next week. Don’t forget that Daylight Saving Time starts THIS WEEKEND JUST KILL ME NOW. Honestly, there are currently hundreds, perhaps even thousands of things that we could all rage about every minute of the day, but this is the hill I am going to die on today. WE NEED TO STOP THE MADNESS. If you have ten minutes, listen to the episode of the Wirecutter podcast, entitled “How To Survive Daylight Saving Time.” Lots of helpful advice, as well as empirical evidence that affirms what I have always believed, and that is that DST and time change is terrible for our health and well-being. RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE! It is possible I am projecting my feelings about the international situation, such as it is, on to the concept of time change, but so be it. Take care of yourselves, friends. Reading is a great distraction; tell me if you’ve read anything good lately, or bad, or ugly. Any DNFs? Tell me everything. xo

Forward March

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It’s a strange phenomenon that, no matter how long I’ve been away, it always takes the same amount of time to catch back up on life, which is two solid days. Three weeks, one week, four days: it’s all the same. It’s similar to Rex’s reaction to my return whether I’m picking him up from the pet resort or I’m coming back from grocery shopping: the extreme excitement is just the same.

Speaking of grocery shopping, I was at Superstore this week, and in the deli section I spotted Arlene. Arlene and her friend Adele walk three times a week on the same route that Rex and I often do; they are older ladies who always have a bag of dog treats with them for the pups they encounter. Of course, they adore jolly old Rex, and so I have had many interactions with them over the past year or so.

I approached Arlene to say hi, and she looked at me blankly. I realized that this was an out of context meeting, and so I said maybe you don’t recognize me without Rex! She had a strange look on her face, and said no, that’s not it. She reached out and touched my hair very gently and said you just look so…different. Your hair…

I started to laugh, realizing that she had never seen me post-shower, with clean hair and a full face of makeup. Normally she sees me in a toque, with only a swipe of mascara and tinted lip balm, because that is the minimum makeup I will leave the house in.

Someone else looks different around here, and that someone is Rex. It seems we have been catapulted into spring around here: we left in the snow and came back to spring weather, which is lovely. It also means that we are now firmly in Mud Season. Rex hadn’t been groomed since before Christmas, and because this is not my first Pet Resort Rodeo, I had booked him in to the groomer’s the day after we got back. That was not a minute too soon as he was, to put it mildly, filthy. But now he’s soft and velvety, and his paws were a pristine white for a new record of 15 hours.

Since we got home very late on Tuesday night, and since there is a three-hour time difference between here and Cancun, and since I really didn’t get a whole lot of restful sleep on my vacation due to continuous over imbibing of fun beverages, I was dragging last week. It reminded me of a question posed to me by Suzanne (HI SUZANNE), which is Do any eye creams/anti aging serums actually WORK? Or I guess I should ask you which ones do YOU use because you look fabulous. Well, colour me flattered, my friend! I will take that compliment happily, even though last week I felt much less than fabulous. Much, much less. In any case, I have a lot of thoughts about this question.

I think the word “work” is kind of relative, and that there are three big things to remember: a) as my older son told me a few months ago, you cannot stop the forward march of time, b) there is nothing that you can apply to your skin that will reverse what lack of sleep, lack of hydration, or too much hydration in the form of alcohol will do to your skin, particularly that under the eyes, and c) no cream will ever be the same as a surgical or cosmetic procedure. I will never forget the fancy retreat I was at with my husband’s work: I was speaking to a couple of lovely women who were from Houston, and when they revealed that they were five to ten years my senior, I gasped. Your skin is so fabulous! I said, Do you use a retinoid? Or something else? They looked at each other, and then at me with extreme pity. Oh honey, one said, Creams? Don’t waste your money. What you need to do is go to a doctor’s office.

So those are the caveats to what I’m about to discuss. I’m not interested in going to a doctor’s office, and while I drink a ton of water and prioritize rest, I am not going to give up my weekly wine or cocktail. And of course time takes its toll on us all. However! I do think there are some products that do help slow down the progress toward Apple Doll Face or, as I sometimes feel, The Crypt Keeper.

First – and I never think this needs saying, but then I hear anecdotal evidence that it DOES – wash off your makeup every night. Never go to bed with makeup on, it ruins your skin. It doesn’t matter how, it just matters that it is done.

Second, use a night cream. I currently use three different ones: Neutrogena Retinol Pro Eye Cream and Night Cream, and Cerave Hydrating Serum. These retinols mean business, and advertise that they are “not for beginners.” What I’m saying is that these are probably not appropriate for sensitive skin, but there are thousands of such products out there, the key is putting something on consistently each night after washing.

I am about to blow your mind. I recently discovered that the optimal way to apply undereye cream is to work from the OUTSIDE IN, using only your ring finger. I know! I had always gone from the inside out, but I do think it makes a real difference. It is not like the lines will disappear entirely, but as esteemed beauty editor Val Monroe so elliptically said, the lines around my eyes are the least unbeautiful ones. I will leave you to unravel that sentence.

Third, apply something for daytime. I like The Ordinary Caffeine Solution for under my eyes; it supposedly helps with puffiness and dark circles, and I think that’s moderately true. I also use The Ordinary Matrixyl 10% for my forehead and marionette lines. Doesn’t “marionette lines” sound so much nicer than the reality? I have recently switched from Smashbox’s Original Smooth and Blur primer to Resurface Smooth and Renew. I haven’t used it long enough to really report back on any changes or improvements, but what I have been using for at least three years now is Ilia’s Super Serum Skin Tint in SPF 40, and I love it.

Does any of this do anything for my skin? Empirically it’s impossible to tell as there is no control factor here; I’m not doing half my face to see how it fares compared with the product-free half. But it does make me feel good about myself. Yes, I look like I am almost fifty, because I am.

Speaking of the forward march of time, my husband and I watched the movie Conclave on the weekend, and this is remarkable for a number of reasons. I rarely watch movies because I am almost always bored or I fall asleep halfway through. I was interested, though, since we were recently in the Vatican, and also my husband read the book and enjoyed it a lot. This in itself is a weird role reversal, as he knew the entire plot of the movie; typically he is a person who wants to know nothing at all that is going to happen, whereas I need every spoiler possible. But it was a really good movie and I enjoyed it immensely.

How this ties in to the forward march of time is that in the first scene I gasped is that Ralph Fiennes? He’s such a good actor, but my main memory of him is from The English Patient. It’s strange to think how many times I watched that movie, given its length. What a sexy movie it is, filled with actors who I had – and still have – immense crushes on. Colin Firth! Willem Dafoe! Naveen William Sidney Andrews! And, of course, Ralph Fiennes, who had played such an intense and sexy character, hoo boy. His performance will flood the basement. I always thought, and still do, that Count Almasy would be great to have a hot and steamy fling with, but terrible to be in a relationship with. Imagine! You’d ask the guy to pick up the kids from school and he’d stare at you intensely; you’d be like oh GOD, we cannot have sex right now, the kids need to be picked up from school. “Honey, can you fill out these forms for the school?” “I do not WISH to write my NAME.”

Anyway, it was odd to me to have a picture of Ralph Fiennes in my head and then be faced with Ralph Fiennes now, thirty years after The English Patient. It would be like if I time travelled from 1995 to now and looked in the mirror, expecting a line-free face with a few errant pimples, a dark brown Rachel haircut, and super perky breasts to see myself now. Imagine how startling that would be.

Also startling was the music at the resort we were at last week. There were so many boppy dance remixes of beloved songs, like Eye in the Sky, for example. I love the Alan Parsons Project but it was a bit bizarre. The strangest by far was a cheerful dance remix of Wish You Were Here. Imagine Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage, but with a fast paced techno beat. I think the only song that would be stranger remixed in such a way would be Everybody Hurts.

I got so much reading done on that holiday, between humming along to the dance remixes of Your Song and Both Sides Now, so look for a book post later this week. Until then, happy March everyone! Take care of yourselves. March forward. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Entering My Tankini Era Edition

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About four months ago I was purposefully striding down the hall with my arms full, heading for the donation bags I had set up in the laundry room. My older son was home at the time and observed my unusually stern expression. Whatcha doing, Mom? he asked and when I informed him that I was DONATING all these BIKINIS that don’t SUIT me anymore, his face became a study of concern and compassion. Oh, he said, oh MOM. Are you okay?

Well, I was okay and I am okay and the wonderful thing about having an emotional breakdown over one’s wardrobe and donating over a third of it in November is that, as my husband pointed out in an uncharacteristically Pollyanna-ish way, Black Friday and Boxing Day are both right around the corner.

Technically speaking, all the bikinis do still fit me. I could wear them, I could. I strongly believe that anyone who wants to wear a bikini should wear a bikini, but the thing is, I don’t anymore. I just don’t feel comfortable in them, and I don’t want to expose my softened and expanded midriff. I kept all the bikini bottoms except two tiny scraps of material which historically toed the line between swimwear one can swim in and exposure hazards; both items have not only edged over that line, they have gone off the high dive and are now at the bottom of the proverbial pool. I prefer not to exit the water showing everyone in my vicinity the sugaring job on the old honeypot, and so those bottoms went into the donation bags, along with about ten little tops.

My go-to store for swimwear is La Vie En Rose, and they were indeed having both Black Friday and Boxing Day clear outs, and I ended up buying six tankini tops, a couple of very high-waisted bottoms to replace the Danger Zone ones, and three coverups, all for less than $160. Can you believe it? Huge bonus, La Vie En Rose is a Canadian company, which is something I consider very seriously these days, the aggressive international political situation being what it is.

Speaking of which, I returned very late Tuesday night from a week in Mexico, for which I was motivated to acquire the aforementioned swimwear. I feel a kinship with the Mexican people and all things Mexican for reasons which I am sure you can discern. Of course it was a wonderful trip, and I enjoyed myself immensely, but something in the air felt very tense and awkward. I wasn’t poolside chatting with many strangers, let’s put it that way.

Anyway, you didn’t come here to listen to my unwritten but intense anxiety about my country being annexed and what would happen should that occur. You came here for Favourite Things, and Favourite Things you shall have.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Entering My Tankini Era Edition

Colour Me Beautiful

As everyone knows, my go-to colour, in swimwear and everything else, is black. To that end I did purchase mainly black tankini tops in different styles, but I did bravely branch out at the sight of two handkerchief tops for $10 each, one in green and one in a green and blue pattern. I’m not about to start dressing in jewel tones, or patterns for that matter, but I did feel very pretty in these two items.

Black is still my favourite, though.

It occurs to me that you might be wondering why not a one-piece? and my answer to that is simply no. One-pieces never fit me well and I find them extremely uncomfortable, in a wedgie/ camel toe way, not to mention the washroom problem, similar to that posed by the wearing of a jumpsuit. How does one use the washroom in a one-piece without the one-piece touching the disgusting floor beside the toilet? It’s untenable!

Caribbean Queen

A good swimsuit is key for me, as I do like to swim in the ocean. I like pools too, but the ocean! The Caribbean is absolutely perfect for swimming; it’s warm and gentle and perfect.

But You Can Leave Your Hat On

I love the heat but I don’t love being in the sun; I am very careful about my skin, particularly on my face. I took two big floppy hats with me; they both are easy to reshape after being folded up or crushed into a beach bag.

They both feature chin straps, which come in handy if that ocean breeze means business.

Black Hole Sun

I use sunscreen – Neutrogena 60 Dry Touch – even in the dead of winter, and so you can imagine how careful I am about application while in the tropics. Since we are Carryon Only people, I need to be smart about packing liquids. Stick sunscreen is an incredible invention, and I have two that I’d like to mention here.

Shiseido is absolutely great; it goes on so clear that I only applied it in front of a mirror to ensure I didn’t miss any spots. The downside is that it’s very expensive for this teeny tiny stick, and it feels like way more plastic than I like for the amount of sunscreen that I got.

My sweet friend Joy (HI JOY) works in this great little environmentally responsible store, and I saw this when I went to visit her. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this is the best sunscreen I have ever used, in terms of efficacy and scent. It is mineral but it doesn’t leave much of a white cast once it’s rubbed in, which is really remarkable. The container is plastic-free as well, so I feel like this is a little-known winning product.

Winner, Winner, Avocado Dinner

One of the many activities offered by the resort is a guacamole-making class. Although we both have made guacamole many, many times, my friend Jen and I thought it would be fun to join (HI JEN). At the end of the class, we were all given chips and asked to present our guacamole in an artistic way, and after the judging we would be able to eat it. Here’s what my plate looked like:

Who knew that my humble offering would be the winner of the Great Guacamole Contest? Certainly not me, but it was.

I think I won for two reasons, neither of them to do with actual guacamole. First, I was the only person attempting to speak Spanish. Second, Jen and I were the only people who weren’t obnoxiously yelling during the lesson, and then complaining about having to wait ninety seconds to eat their guacamole, or just eating their guacamole after saying that they weren’t going to wait for anyone or anything. Nevertheless! It doesn’t matter what the metrics were, I WAS THE WINNER!

After the class Jen and I enjoyed our guac, and washed it down with our favourite mango margaritas.

Outfit of the Month

As I have mentioned before, a huge percentage of my Little Black Dresses were victim to the Great Closet Purge of 2024. Happily, I found some cute ones in the November/ December sales, and this one is my favourite:

It feels very sexy and swishy and, crucially, it isn’t tight in the waist. It came from Ricki’s, another Canadian company, and I paired it with my extremely comfortable, extremely cute Skecher sandals.

I am the early bird of the group, and every morning I got up in the dark to find us all poolside lounges and to watch the sunrise. Most days looked like this:

But on our final morning, the sunrise was so startlingly beautiful that I almost couldn’t stand it.

I hurried down to the beach to watch the colours reflect off the water.

It was like Mexico was saying goodbye to me. How grateful I was to be able to experience that.

Speaking of gratitude, my sweet friend Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH) asked me to write a guest post on just that topic; I would love it so much if you checked it out. It would be my Favourite! I hope you were also able to find a lot of Favourites in this month; I know it’s been hard lately. I hope you are all well. What did I miss when I was gone? Tell me everything about your lives. xo

Reseating The Theatre

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I listen to a lot of podcasts; if those podcasts were audiobooks I’d probably be able to increase my Yearly Books Read by at least 100. Alas, they are not! I walk a lot and also do a lot of boring household things, like laundry and chopping vegetables, and podcasts entertain me while I do that. One of my favourites is Were You Raised By Wolves, and a couple of years ago it introduced me to the concept of Reseating The Theatre.

The idea is this: your life is a theatre, and everyone in your life is somewhere in the theatre and its vicinity. You are the star, and you are on stage. Perhaps there are one or two other people onstage with you, but perhaps not. There are a few people who are backstage, and then there are a few people in the front row; those people are the most important in your life. There are people in the orchestra and people in the mezzanine. Some people are in the balconies, and maybe there are a few balcony tiers. Some people are wandering around in the lobby and still others are not allowed in the theatre at all.

The brilliance to this is that not everyone gets full access to the show that is your life; of course they don’t, imagine how exhausting that would be. But the theatre metaphor is perfect because it allows me to prioritize my time and energy; the people in the front rows and backstage are my ride-or-dies, and I give those relationships a lot. I get a lot out of them too. People in the mezzanine and balconies are welcomed and even cherished in my life, but they get less personal attention, and some people are more like friendly acquaintances who I’d happily chat with, but who I wouldn’t be necessarily hanging out with.

I like to think that everyone has a theatre, and just like they have a seat in my theatre, I am seated in theirs. An important thing to note in this metaphor is that circumstances can change and people can be reseated.

I truly believe in the old saying about friends coming in to your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. How this relates to the theatre is that seasons change, and people can move from the balcony to the orchestra, or from the front row to backstage, or from the mezzanine to the lobby, depending on the circumstances. If I realize that I have been reseated in someone’s theatre, and not in a growing in importance kind of way, then I can feel free to move them back in mine, and not feel obligated to expend more energy.

It’s so important to meet people where they are in life, but also to put them where they need to be.

Recently Elisabeth asked (HI ELISABETH) what personality trait do you absolutely require in a friend? This question, frankly, stumped me, probably because I have a very wide and flexible definition of the word friend. The people backstage are obviously my closest friends and confidantes, but I also consider the people on the third tier balcony to be friends, just in a less intense way. There are friends that I do fun activities with, friends I feel comfortable travelling with, friends that I read with and talk with about books, friends that just sit and talk and listen as I pour my heart out. Some friends check all those boxes, some check just one. There’s room for everyone in the theatre, is what I’m saying, but obviously not everyone can be everything.

I have a few lifelong friends (HI TARA, HI ELISE), women who have known me since my very awkward early teens, and even earlier, and who have loved me this whole time. That’s really saying something! I mean, I went through a period of obsession with Jim Morrison, who had been dead for decades by that time. Also, ew. On the flip side, I have some friends who I have known only a short time, but they have quickly moved from mezzanine to the front rows; these are women I love to spend precious time with. Some previously close friends have slowly lost touch with me over the past couple of years, and so I have sadly moved them back in my theatre. Very, very occasionally, I will find myself no longer with anything in common with a person, or at a place in which I find myself to be in constant disagreement with every decision that person makes, when that person is just too toxic and too difficult. That situation requires a move to the lobby, or maybe even outside the theatre.

I am very grateful for the friends who do not let distance stand in the way of our relationships. I can think of at least four friends who live far away but who I consider to have front row seats. One of my dearest friends, Hannah (HI HANNAH) could not live farther away from me without leaving the country or falling into the ocean, and yet we chat several times a week. My friend Nicole (HI NICOLE) has never failed to keep our monthly friend date since we started them in January 2018; since I moved we call each other every month. Allison (HI ALLISON) lives in Ottawa but when I saw her last spring for the first time since 2014, it was like no time had passed. And Jen (HI JEN) will be sipping poolside margaritas with me next week; she is a sister to me, except that we never fight.

All of these friends are so different, but the common thread is that they always have time for me, they always are supportive and loving, and I always know where I stand with them. They always make me feel uplifted and fill me with positive energy.

Speaking of being uplifted and filled with positive energy, I hope you all had wonderful Galentine’s and Valentine’s Days! Galentine’s for me was such a special day: the morning with The Squad, an afternoon writing date with Laura (HI LAURA), and an evening at the theatre with my relatively new, but already very dear, friend Sandi (HI SANDI). Look at this incredible spread of goodies! It just doesn’t get any better than that.

My dear friend Sammi (HI SAMMI) made this cake. You know how I feel about cake!

I did make my own cake for my Valentine and Valentine-adjacent sons, and also for myself, because we all need more heart-shaped cakes in our lives.

Weekly Reading

It was a reread week around here!

The Husband’s Secret. This was the first of Moriarty’s books I had read, back in 2017. It got me hooked on her style – twists and turns and very complicated characters. I loved it in 2017 and I loved it now, this story of secrets and choices and how they affect our lives. It’s such an interesting thing to think about: if you made a different life choice, where would you be right now? Who would be around you? It’s fascinating and so well written; it’s an unputdownable read.

The Burgess Boys. This was historically my least-favourite Strout – the bar is high, though! – but I thought I would reread it, after Bob Burgess featured so heavily in the new, and much-loved-by-me, Tell Me Everything. I liked it so much more on the reread, although it would still rank last in all the Strouts. It is a very bleak and grim story, and all the characters are either absolutely abhorrent or really pathetic. But I did find it to be a good reread and things resonated with me differently this time around, particularly the character of Helen, who is mourning her empty nest. (hashtag: landslide, relatable). I think that the story line, which centres around what appears to be a hate crime but might just be a crime of stupidity, is absolutely relevant today, with its theme of xenophobia and distrust of immigrants and different cultures.

It snowed this weekend! We have had so little snow this year that it is remarkable and exciting when it happens. It snowed just in time for me to leave it! I am off on a little adventure that will feature sunshine, beaches, and a whole lot of mango margaritas. I’ll see you all on the other side; take care of yourselves. xo