Nicole’s Favourite Things: The “Isn’t Nature Wonderful” Edition

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I have taught hundreds of yoga students over the years, and I don’t like to play favourites – as my dear friend Tara (HI TARA), who teaches kindergarten once said, they’re all my favourites. But if I am being completely honest, I will paraphrase George Orwell and say that some students are more favourite than others, and one of those was a woman in my senior’s class named Judy.

Judy was in her mid-eighties when she joined my class, and she became a most devoted student. I looked forward to seeing her every week because she embodied my entire Life Goals: she brimmed with positivity and light, she was always happy to be there, and when a new student would join she would go out of her way to talk to them and make them feel welcome. She would come to class with her lipstick on, wearing a cute little yoga outfit, and she’d always be a bit early to chat with me about her orchids, her garden, her life. I adored her, and more than that, I want to be her.

One day we were chatting: it was early April in Calgary, which can be nice sometimes, but often it is cold and snowy, and that is exactly what it was like that day. I mentioned to Judy the very hopeful news that I saw a rabbit that was brown; it had lost its winter coat, which meant that warmer weather was coming soon. “Oh,” she sighed with pure delight, “Isn’t nature wonderful?” Ever since that day, which was five years ago now, I have thought isn’t nature wonderful at least once a day, but now, in the spring, it’s more like a dozen times a day.

Every single morning when I’m out walking I notice something new; every morning the world is a little more green, the trees are a little more leafed out, and something new is blooming. Isn’t nature wonderful?

My whole life this week has been overtaken by a different type of nature: the yard is being landscaped. The end result will be so exciting: lush grass for Rex to roll in, big beautiful garden beds to be filled, and the colourful plants that will fill them. The journey to this result, however, is wild.

Within a day, our lawn was ripped up, giant piles of dirt taking its place. Every day there is immense progress, and I am very much looking forward to this journey’s end, a beautiful new yard. That’s a week or so away, though, and until then, I will just revel in the wonders of nature.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The “Isn’t Nature Wonderful” Edition

Ready For Veggies

When my husband retired, I received an enormous amount of unsolicited advice about this event; most people I talked to spoke in worried tones about what my husband was going to do all day. I find this amusing because since the beginning of February I feel like I’ve hardly seen him. He’s been working on this:

Isn’t it amazing? He built the whole thing by himself: measuring and cutting wood, shovelling gravel and dirt, rototilling the ground, and putting up the fencing to keep out the deer. We are going to be very busy this weekend with all the planting. Stay tuned for many, many updates on the harvest.

What Did I Do Again

There are lots of details in my day to day life that I think I will never forget, but I do. I bought this five-year garden journal to keep track of when I plant, how the plants grow, and when everything is ready to be harvested. It has grid pages for planning, and lots of room for details about the varietals of the plants. For example, some of the raspberries need to be completely cut down in the fall, some in the spring, and some only need old wood pruning. There is zero way I am going to keep all of this straight without a written record.

World, Meet Friedrich

While we were at the garden centre, my husband noticed a display of gnomes. I love all gnomes but I really want one to speak to me in order to bring it into the fold. He held his hand over each gnome until I nodded, and now I have Friedrich.

Garden Fashion

My husband gave me this tee for Valentine’s Day, thinking that it would be the perfect gardening attire, what with all the gnomes.

It’s Asparagus Season, Bitches

Asparagus used to grow wild on this property, years ago, when they used a different irrigation method. It’s too dry for that to happen now, so I am just enjoying the asparagus at the grocery store.

All the local gardeners have warned against growing Brussels sprouts, because they are magnets for pest infestation, so, like the asparagus, I am consoling myself by purchasing bags of them at Costco. Would you believe that I’ve never roasted Brussels sprouts before? I have always enjoyed eating roasted Brussels sprouts – and my friend Sammi (HI SAMMI) always cooks them in her air fryer and my god, they are amazing – but I’ve never actually made them myself. Why? I have no idea. But I did this month and drizzled them with a balsamic glaze, and they were delicious.

Outfit of the Month

I went to lunch with some girlfriends a few weeks ago, and it was a gorgeous day, perfect for just a light layer and some unlined tall boots. My boot collection is the reason I still love skinny jeans, despite them purportedly being very out of style. Also? I will be 49 in a couple of days, and I feel that my time for caring about what is in style is in the rearview mirror. Skinny jeans and tall boots for LIFE.

This long black sweater is from Lululemon, circa 2015. It’s a perfect sweater to wear out for lunch, but not really to wear around the house when anything practical is required, because the drapes and folds, while cute and fun, get in the way of everything. My friend Sammi, of air fryer Brussels sprouts fame, gave me that scarf for my birthday YEARS ago. In fact, I think Rex is the newest part of my outfit. Not that he was accessorizing me at lunch – there are many dog-friendly patio places around here, but the thought of taking my big galoompa to a restaurant is alarming – but he makes for a cute photo.

Speaking of cute photos, on our hike last Sunday I was trying to take photos of the flowers, when Rex snuck in front of me and sat down. I’m a flower! Take a picture of me! Well, who am I to say no?

Ah, nature. It really is wonderful. And so are you, dear friends. If you have any Favourites you’d like to share with me, I’d love to hear all about them. xo

Theme Songs

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Spring Has Sprung, The Grass Is Riz

Picture it: it’s 5:10 on a random weekday morning. My son and I are in the kitchen, silently but companionably together. I am drinking coffee and typing, and he is drinking his breakfast smoothie and staring off into space. Suddenly, I hear something I haven’t heard for a long time: birds chirping.

There are birds everywhere here in the winter; every day I see countless ducks and very scary Canada geese on my walks, there are families of quail cutely scurrying around our yard, there are magpies and hawks flying overhead and little chickadees darting around, there is even a bald eagle that I will sometimes see near the lake. There is no shortage of bird life, but last week was the first time this year that I heard the birds chirping in the early morning. I listened to them while I finished my coffee and rolled out my yoga mat, and then I watched the sky brighten into morning, and it felt very Mary Oliver.

But Now They Only Block The Sun

I always have a song running through my head, although it’s never a birdsong. Last week I had Jump by the Pointer Sisters stuck in my head for days. Days! And there are not a whole lot of lyrics involved in that song, and so my brain kept saying “Jump in! And feel my touch. Jump! You want to taste my KISSES in the NIGHT then” over and over, including, weirdly, the key change. This was a weird and sudden change from the song that was in my head previously, which was Total Eclipse of the Heart, thanks to astrological current events, but not the Bonnie Tyler version, the version from the Old School wedding scene.

The eclipse itself was a non-event for me; we aren’t in the path of totality, but even if we were, it was so cloudy and overcast that I didn’t see the sun all day. Clouds got in my way, people.

Girl, Put Your Spotify On

“Hey Mom,” my older son said the other day, “You know all those old hippies who left Spotify for moral reasons? They’re back!” I knew exactly what he was talking about, because Both Sides Now and Carey suddenly reappeared on my favourite Nicole Karaoke playlist. I have no judgement about this, only gratitude, as a) we all have a price and everyone needs to put food on the table, and b) I have no other way of listening to music anymore, and I really did miss Joni Mitchell.

As mentioned last week, I have been awash in nostalgia lately, and one of the things I was thinking about was how my – and all of our – music listening habits have changed over the years. There are many things to miss about the past, but I do not miss paying $20 for a CD to listen to one or two songs. We have a family subscription to premium Spotify, and so I listen to anything I want, all the time.

The only problem is that if Spotify ever goes down, I am going to be at a total loss. I have no backup. I have hundreds of hours of music and podcasts downloaded, I have mood mixes and workout We still have some CDs; they actually survived my purging and the move, but I do not know why. I have no way to play them, even if I did want to listen to all of Hall and Oates greatest hits. No shade to Hall and Oates, obviously.

Whoa Here She Comes

I thought I had shared this story numerous times, and perhaps I have, but I cannot find anything in the archives to indicate it, so I shall share it again. Many years ago my husband and I were hosting a dinner party. The guests were his work colleagues and their wives, and after several bottles of wine we pounced upon a topic of much interest to me, and that is that if you were to have a theme song that would play every time you entered the room, in the manner of Darth Vader, what would your theme song be? My husband chose Welcome To The Jungle and one of his colleagues went with Gangsta’s Paradise; the company that they worked for was quite a formal and conservative one, which made their answers all the more amusing. I imagined Slash’s wild guitar riff screaming as my husband entered a board room in his suit, and Coolio’s beats playing as his colleague swiped his card key to access the 33rd floor. One woman suggested Lose Yourself, which would be a great entry song for anyone, really. My choice was Maneater, and to this day every time I hear the start to that song, I lift my head a little higher and strut a little more. My song! I think, as if it’s actually happening, as if suddenly the world over hears Maneater every time they are in my vicinity.

We had a dinner conversation about this the other day, and my younger son said that he’d put a lot of thought into this very question over the years, and his theme song of choice is Come Out And Play. I agreed that it was perfect; my older son chose Pretty Fly For A White Guy, but was now questioning this, because could we really have two Offspring songs in the same family? My feeling was that it would be natural for two brothers, especially those that are close, to have songs from the same band, particularly since those songs exactly suit each of their very different personalities. The conversation got quite involved and a little heated, as if this is something that is really happening, that we are really living in a world in which music automatically starts playing each time someone encounters us.

Rex is indifferent to music, it seems, and I had unimaginatively assigned him Who Let The Dogs Out, but I think the more appropriate song is Are You Ready For This?

Weekly Reading

The Berlin Stories. Continuing on my nostalgia streak, and prompted in part by last week’s reading of The Women In The Castle, I dug out my old copy of The Berlin Stories, which was written in the 1930s, based on Christopher Isherwood’s time in that city. I first read this in 1994, if the stamp from the university used bookstore can be believed, and it was for a German history course I took, which was hands down one of the best elective courses I took in university. In 1994, though, a lot of this book was lost on me, and I have found now with more life experience (“my thesis is on life experience”) that I was fully able to appreciate this book, which requires a LOT of “between the lines” reading. It is a fascinating book on so many levels. If you don’t know, which I did not know in 1994, Berlin during the Weimar Republic was a city of personal freedom and expression, and a haven for what is now known as the LGBTQ+ community, of which, of course, Isherwood was a part of. In all of Europe, Berlin was open, welcoming, and accepting, and most of the book is about the people who Isherwood met and knew at the time. The cast of characters is wild and really shows what life was like at that time: from poverty due to the massive inflation to earned and unearned wealth, from showgirls and prostitutes to bartenders and yodelers, from expats to hustlers, this book really runs the gamut. Throughout the book are brief and passing references to political changes and the Nazis, and then near the end, those changes really ramp up in a pretty terrifying way. One of the most chilling anecdotes concerns a Jewish man whose family owns a very successful department store; he dies of “heart failure,” and there is a line about how there has been a lot of heart failure in Germany lately, hearts are known to fail when there is a bullet put through them. The book ends in 1932, and the last thirty pages or so are absolutely terrifying, not in the least because there are some really uncomfortable parallels that could be drawn between this period of time and the present. Listen, we all know I’m not an alarmist, or a politically dramatic person, but it is undeniable.

Woof, that is a pretty bleak note to end on, so I will tell you that I just had the loveliest weekend – it’s been warm and beautiful, and we hosted a barbeque to celebrate my upcoming birthday. What could be better than friends, wine, and cupcakes? Nothing, that’s what. xo

Sassy, Sea Breeze, Stationary, Smoking

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This week I read, and was completely absorbed by, a book that was set in 1998, and I think that is the reason I have been awash in nostalgia. I don’t know what you were doing in 1998, but I was in grad school, taking step aerobics classes, and crushing it during Name That Tune night at the graduate students’ lounge.

I was so good at that game back then, and I could still crush it now, probably, provided all the tunes would be pre-Y2K (remember Y2K?). Disco? I can get down on it. 1970s folk or classic or mellow rock? Take it easy. Anything with a synthesizer, guitar riff, or drum solo? Yes. Grunge, country, pop, rap, techno beats? I can name it all. But I’m pretty hit and miss once we get into the 2000s, and I’m much more miss than hit when it comes to anything at all from the past decade; unless it was featured on the Peloton, I probably haven’t heard it.

There is a Peloton instructor who frequently teaches 80s themed rides, in which she always says that she admires us Gen Xers, who left the house with only “keys and a dream.” It’s true; if you wanted to meet someone at a bar, you just had to use your home phone to call their home phone, and then hope for the best. You had to look up places on a map, and if someone failed to meet up with you, then they failed to meet up with you, and that was the end of the story. You might find out later what happened, or you might not, but in any case, there was no way at all to track down a person. Or hardly any way. I remember when I worked as a waitress, sometimes I would get a phone call for a person desperate to get a message across to another person who was ostensibly in the restaurant, waiting. I would walk through the restaurant, looking for a person of the description provided for me. Are you Cheryl? You are? Dave’s going to be late.

In 1998, I had had an email address for about a year, and mostly I was the recipient of really stupid jokes, chain letters, or erroneous information about how antiperspirants caused cancer. It’s not unlike social media, to be totally honest. I did use it in a pen pal kind of way, though, to keep in touch with people who had moved away.

I still use email in this way for my former yoga students; one octogenarian lady in particular sends me very long emails about my old classes and all the people in them, and I send her long emails back about my life now. There are gaps of a week or more between our emails, which makes it feel like those long-gone pen pal days; she even starts every email with “thank you for your long letter,” which I love.

I was always a person who had a lot of pretty stationary and a lot of pen pals; I would write to my cousin Nikki in California (HI NIKKI), and most of these letters were about boys we liked and our summer vacations. I wrote to all my camp friends; if there is anything more intense and bonding than a week of summer camp when you’re thirteen, I don’t know what it is. I kept up that correspondence for years, even if I never saw that person again.

It reminded me a lot of something I heard about on a podcast recently, about what the hosts called “Little While Friends,” people you have an experience with or are friends with for just a little while, but you end up having them on your social media forever. Around 2010 or so, any time I met someone new, I would end up adding them as a friend on Facebook, which means that a solid percentage of my Facebook feed is made up of people I barely know, but I feel like I know, because I have experienced their entire life journeys over the years. I know about their kids, and their divorces, and their remarriages, and an alarming amount about their dietary and fitness odysseys.

That said, I do love Facebook, there’s no better way to keep in touch with people from my past and present, people who I feel warmly about simply because we have shared life experiences. Some of those life experiences are less savoury than others, but they are what makes us who we are.

My friend Jen (HI JEN) sent me that photo, circa 1992, which made me think of a meme I saw lately, about our high school signature scents: mine was cigarettes and Vanilla Fields perfume. I haven’t smoked anything in well over three decades, and I feel low-level shame that I ever smoked at all, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who carried perfume and mints after hanging out at the smoke doors at school. Isn’t it crazy that there WERE smoke doors?

Does anyone else remember butane curling irons? It says a lot that we didn’t accidentally light ourselves on fire, with all the smoking and excessive hairspray that was necessary for those weird hairstyles of that time. And beyond that, some of us were bringing butane curling irons to school – not me, but I coveted one. I had to make do with scrunching my hair in the girls’ washroom and spraying it with Aussie Sprunch Spray, then setting it with Salon Selectives. Given that I always had a lighter with me, it’s incredible I didn’t just combust right there. It’s probably good that I never had a butane curling iron.

I just discovered, upon googling, that butane curling irons are still in existence!

One thing that I wish was still in existence, or, at least, that I had kept some of my copies, is Sassy magazine. Sassy was, and remains, the best magazine for teen girls, because it treated them like actual intelligent humans. One of the most impactful articles I ever read in my young life was the one that they put out to explain the Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm, an event that, naturally, caused me much stress and anxiety. This article detailed the war from all viewpoints, including the Iraqi people and, separately, Saddam Hussein. It was the first time I had ever read anything that showed anything other than a North American point of view, and it was absolutely eye-opening and formative, and made me realize that things were not always black and white, and that what I read in our media was not always the whole story.

In addition to increasing my information about the world around me, Sassy was instrumental in the creation of my skin care and beauty routines. Unfortunately, the girls of the 80s and 90s were sadly misled. Much has been said about the “Sephora Teens” of today, with their Drunk Elephant products and their anti-aging serum usage at age 17, but I think they have the right idea. After all, where they are moisturizing and pampering, we were scouring our poor faces with St. Ives Apricot Scrub, followed by the sting of Sea Breeze astringent; it’s no wonder we were plagued with acne and redness. Suz (HI SUZ) reminded me of that weird little product, the Buf Puf, which we used for EXTRA exfoliation, and we should all be in awe that we didn’t erase our faces altogether. Maybe this was the precursor to today’s Instagram filters, where girls and women filter so much that facial features become obliterated. We were just trying to obliterate our faces physically, rather than digitally. Or maybe that was what we were doing with those deep cleansing mud masks that would dry and crack on our dear little faces, leaving trails of whitish dust in our wake.

Weekly Reading

My Last Innocent Year. Wow, wow, WOW! I loved this book so much, I don’t even know where to begin. It is an exquisitely but sparsely written novel about a young woman in her senior year of college who enters into a relationship with a visiting professor. Tale as old as time, right? WRONG. This was just so well done, and so real, that I did something I haven’t done since I read (and loved) Girls They Write Songs About: I slowed down the last few chapters because I didn’t want it to be over. It’s set in 1998, which, coincidentally, is when I was in grad school, and so this book gave me all the nostalgic feelings. It was just so resonant of a time in my life which was brief, but felt like an age, when it was all about small classes and big camaraderie, hard work and thesis writing, and also parties and romantic interludes, when we all were on a first-name basis with all our professors and knew a lot about their personal lives, which seems wild now. This book, though. The time period details are spot on. 1998 was also when Monica Lewinsky was in the news, which I have a lot to say about, but I will keep it to this quote from the book: “Monica had become every girl’s worst nightmare, the equivalent of having your seventh-grade diary read over the school loudspeaker or walking into class with a period stain on your pants. We identified with her, which should have made us kinder but instead made us mean.” This book resonated with me so much and made me wonder about paths not taken; every single character is so well developed and complex. I wish I could go back in time before I had read it, so I could have the pleasure of reading it again for the first time. This will be a reread for me in the future, I am sure.

The Women In The Castle. When I first read this book in 2018, I really enjoyed it and found it incredibly thought-provoking in terms of divisiveness between people in society. I don’t know if you remember 2018, but it was KIND of a divisive time? I saw this at the library (in large print, no less!) and thought I could do with a reread. After all, since my first reading we went through a pandemic, which has to be THE most divisive time in my memory, and also, here we are, deep sigh. I will say I enjoyed this book as much or even more than before, maybe because I knew what was coming. I will also say that, generally speaking, I think historical fiction is one of the hardest types of book to get right: the language and dialogue is tricky, and it’s often overwhelmingly difficult not to insert modern sensibilities into the past. BUT this book does an excellent job on both fronts – it can be a little “explainy” at times, but I think it’s really well done. It’s about three German women and their families who come together right at the end of WWII, through the efforts of Marianne, the widow of a member of the German Resistance. She brings in the other two women, both ostensibly widows of the Resistance, to help care for them and their families. This book really shows how people can contain multitudes, how complex humans and society can be, how people can get swept up and find themselves in places they cannot fathom, and, most of all, how interconnected we all are, and how we are all responsible for one another.

Well, it’s been a fun trip down memory lane this week; this week is going to be full of lovely things like a trip to the garden centre, lots of writing, and, most exciting, not one but two events with my lovely girlfriends. I hope you all have a beautiful week ahead of you. xo

A Tuesday In The Life

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Whenever I read a post about someone’s day to day life, I find myself fascinated. I would like to say that I am highly interested in the everyday mundanity we all experience as a whole, the extraordinary in the ordinary, the details that make our lives unique, and I am, it is true. I also, I think, am extremely nosy.

But I do love those posts and I often think of doing one myself, but then, as I am going through my day, I wonder is this interesting in any way? Well. I have never regretted recording tiny details of my life, as I often look back on posts fondly and with great nostalgia. Did I really spend precious minutes of my day doing Halloween crafts with the children? Did I really make playdough, go to the park, stand in the playground for hours, cut out pieces of milk cartons to make birdhouses? Did I really teach yoga, grocery shop for hours, spend inordinate amounts of time slicing up fruit? It’s so fun to see these snapshots, and so I offer you one of this past Tuesday, where I do grocery shop, but none of the other things apply.

4:10 am. I wake up – no need for an alarm – and toddle downstairs to the kitchen. The very first thing I do in the morning is start the coffeemaker, which I have filled and prepared the day before. Recently Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH) was talking about everyone’s favourite kitchen appliance, and no one was saying coffee maker. No one, that is, except me. No coffee, no prana, as they say, or, more truthfully, no coffee, someone is going to get stabbed. Anyway, first I start the coffee, then I drink water, perform my morning ablutions – brushing my teeth and hair, washing my face, and moisturizing (ALWAYS with SPF!!!) – and then I get dressed in my first of many, as Big Edie would say, costume changes. This one consists of a yoga tank, cropped leggings, and a tee. Here’s a little Nicole By The Numbers Fact: I drink around 4 litres of water a day, half of which happens before 10:00 am. Also before 10:00 am, circling back to my first point, I drink an entire pot of coffee. What can I say, I like my liquids. I also brush my teeth at least six times a day; even when I had a life in which I was out and about a lot, I would keep a travel toothbrush and paste in my bag. I like a minty-fresh mouthfeel for most of the day, what can I say. Back to the routine, where I am not going to detail every last toothbrushing and glass of water, so as to not bore my dear readers. Just know that those things are happening in the background. Anyway! At this point I let Rex out for snuggles and to feed him, and then open up my laptop. This is my designated blog-reading time. I might read one or two posts at some other time during the day, but this is when I get the majority of it done. If you’ve had an incoherent comment from me, likely it’s 4:45 and my coffee hasn’t activated my brain yet.

It’s also the time where I read a poem before getting on my yoga mat, and I’m currently revisiting my favourite Mary Oliver collection. The baby redbirds, they don’t even know they have wings, and if you know, you know.

5:20 am. This is my time for yoga and meditation, interrupted only to say goodbye to my younger son, who starts work at 6.

6:15 am. Workout! On Tuesdays I do a little extra cardio, which means elliptical and Peloton, and I also do some stupid strength training for my stupid bones.

The gym! Nicole’s Cardio Corner is in the lower left corner.
All the weights, 90% of which I don’t use.

7:25 am. I look like this after a workout; not to be too gross, but you could wring my clothes out to make a solid puddle of sweat, so now it’s time to change my costume. Is this a function of all my liquid intake? Or do I need liquids because of my sweating problem? Who can say. I put on a non-sweaty yoga tank, full length yoga pants, a long-sleeved top, and my coat and light hikers, because it’s Rex’s favourite time of day – walkies! I puff on some face powder, swipe on some mascara and tinted lip balm, because I am a very vain person who does not leave the house with a bare face, even if it’s just to walk the dog. Tuesdays are the day I launder all the sheets, so I throw those in the washer before I leave. For today’s walk I decide to take us on a loop down to the lake, and to see the spring changes in this gorgeous weeping tree by a nearby pond. My son tells me that these trees may look pretty, but they are hell for the grounds crew at his golf course. Ah well, I neither am part of the grounds crew, nor do we have this kind of tree on our property, so I will enjoy it as such.

9:00 am. After our walk, it’s time for my smoothie; for anyone interested, it includes cashew milk and nut butter, a little cinnamon, a frozen banana, and about eight cups of spinach. Soon I’ll be using spinach from my new garden! I wash up the blender and the rest of the smoothie accoutrements; this will be the first of many times I do the dishes during the day. Yes, I do have a dishwasher, but I would never consider for a minute putting the blender in there, nor the plastic strainer I use to wash the spinach.

9:25 am. I put the sheets in the dryer, and throw a load of towels into the washer. Now it’s time to shower, moisturize (don’t forget the SPF!), put on makeup and clothes (Costume Change Number Three), and do my hair. I also give the bathroom a quick cleaning, put the sheets back on the beds (who has the energy to actually fold fitted sheets?), and go down to the garden to see what my husband is doing. He’s busy with landscape fabric and wood, and upon looking at the time, I hustle to the office for something very special.

10:45 am. It’s time to get ready for one of the highlights of my day – a writing date with Suzanne! (HI SUZANNE).

Rex is my everyday writing partner; he’s very helpful.

12:45 pm. After catching up with Suzanne, I manage to hit, and slightly surpass, my writing goal of 1000 words. The towels are done, so I fold them, and I go downstairs for lunch and hair supplements; I wash up the blender and smoothie accoutrements, AGAIN, and get ready for the next big thing on my list.

1:15 pm. It’s time for a Costco trip, and when I enter the store I experience an immediate sense of doom. There are people everywhere, the lineups are snaking all the way down the store, and it takes me several minutes to just work my way through the crowd to get to the aisles I need. I do manage it, and happily, by the time I finish my shopping the crowds have all dispersed and there is no lineup at all. Sometimes the Costco gods smile down at me. I think it was because I rescued an errant cart from the parking lot. I drive home, where both sons greet me – my younger son finishes work at 2, and my older son, whose university is close by, stopped by for dinner and to do his laundry. This is an unusual, but welcome surprise for a Tuesday. The boys bring the groceries in – my husband is still working on the garden – and I am faced with the overwhelming task of putting everything away.

3:15 pm. Everything is put away, and I start some dinner prep. I’m making Suzanne’s Fall Salad, with modifications, because it is a Suzanne kind of day; I spread out chickpeas on a tea towel to dry and candy some pecans. I take a break from food to brush Rex’s teeth and to give him his dental treat; while he’s outside chewing and probably rolling in the grass, preparing to bring the outside in, I chop up sweet potatoes and cook some quinoa, I make a maple-Dijon dressing for salad, and, for the guys, take some chicken out of the freezer to thaw. I prep the sweet potatoes, chickpeas, and quinoa to go into the oven, and I do the dishes. Again.

4:05 pm. It’s a really beautiful day, so I decide to pop out on the deck to do a little reading and Duolingo while the chickpeas roast. I catch Rex in the act of rolling, which means I’ll be sweeping up later.

I read for a while, and Rex keeps me company. I’m reading My Last Innocent Year, which is excellent so far.

5:00 pm. Time for a musical interlude; I play the piano for a little bit while the sweet potatoes and quinoa are in the oven. My general rule is three songs, of any length or style, unless I’m learning something new. After that, I sweep the floor, I HAVE NO IDEA WHY.

5:45 pm. I put the chicken in the air fryer, put the salad together, and slice the baguette. I also perform the very important job of filling the coffee maker for tomorrow. A few hours ago, my younger son, who was heading downstairs to work out, asked and answered his own question about what was for dinner, as he saw me prepping earlier. “Oh! The fun salad!” See how much joy Suzanne brings into my life? Dinner time is our time to catch up on everything that happened during the day; all our days are very different, so it’s a fun time. After dinner the guys do the dishes while I read for a little bit, before going upstairs for the final Costume Change of the day.

7:15 pm. I start my nighttime process; I put on pajamas, I brush and floss my teeth, I brush out my hair and apply a scalp serum from The Ordinary, I wash my face and apply retinol eye and night creams and foot lotion. Then I choose tomorrow’s workout outfit and take it to the bathroom downstairs, where I will start all over again tomorrow. I read on the couch for a little while, chatting with my husband as he watches TV. He worked for seven solid hours, laying landscape fabric and cutting wood for the fencing, and so he’s a bit tired.

8:30 pm. I’m tired! Time for bed. I head upstairs and nestle into my cozy bed, ready to start again tomorrow.

It’s April!

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It’s April! It’s not even an April Fool’s joke, it’s actually April. I do not know what it was, but, as I mentioned before, March felt like it was three months long; not in a bad way, this is not a complaint, but it seemed to stretch on and on. Maybe it was because we had a short trip mid-month, who can say. All I know is that it is April, my birthday month!

I don’t play favourites with months, because I anthropomorphize everything and I don’t want to hurt any months’ feelings, but I love April. I especially love it here, because GUESS WHAT IT IS ACTUALLY SPRING! I had a weird seasonal cognitive dissonance back in October and November; I felt like it was September during those months, and now I feel like it should be May or June. My mind is on its own strange Daylight Savings-esque journey; my mind is falling back in fall and springing forward in spring, but instead of an hour, it’s months. Forty-eight years in the Canadian prairies, forty-six of which were in Calgary, have conditioned me to never let my guard down in April, because snow can easily continue into late May. But here, that is unheard of, and so I am in full-on garden preparation mode.

This is our new veggie garden, do you love it? I am so excited about it. My husband has been working nonstop on this project for over a month now; he built all the garden boxes and brought in many loads of dirt, he rototilled the flat part, and last Friday, he rented an auger and he and my son drilled holes to put up a giant fence, very necessary in this place where the wildlife roam and eat everything.

I cannot wait to start planting. One of the boxes we are reserving for my mother-in-law, who has been starting her own tomato plants from seeds that she saves from the previous year’s tomatoes, something which she has done for decades now. The rest of the boxes are going to be filled with cherry tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers – my Greek salad garden! – spinach and kale and lettuces, and so many herbs. The flat part will be a berry patch, plus there’s room for some squash. I’m planning butternut, zucchini, and pumpkin. I’ve only ever grown zucchini, so I’m quite excited to try something new.

A friend very sweetly said that, given our over-the-top vegetable consumption, we would be saving so much money on our grocery bills, and while I agreed with that in principle, I also thought of the expense of the wood, and the drainage rock, and the soil, and the new miter saw to cut the wood, and the new rototiller. Will the garden pay for itself? Not in our lifetime, Clifford. However, there is nothing like eating fresh vegetables grown in one’s own garden, and seasoning one’s meals with one’s own herbs, to make a person feel like Ma Ingalls. An incredibly spoiled and privileged Ma Ingalls, but Ma Ingalls nonetheless.

The veggie garden isn’t the only thing we are undertaking; we are also overhauling the grass and having giant flower beds put in. We are actually consulting with a garden designer who specializes in this area, and who is well-versed in the problem of deer, and also knowledgeable about drought-tolerant plants. She has some really great ideas and I can’t wait; the gnomes are anxious to get outside into their natural habitat.

Salvadore is so bored with manifestos in general.
Slider and Fernando, looking out toward the window, wishing they were outside.

If it were up to me, I would have no grass at all, just one giant garden, but having a nice lawn is very important to my husband, and having a lawn, not necessarily a nice one, but an existent one, is important to Rex. He needs somewhere to roll around in so that he can track grass and leaves all over the house, after all. The grass around our house is just a complete mess from the construction; it’s patchy and bumpy and still has some gravel in it. But! In six short weeks from now, Rex will be rolling around in soft, green, all new grass; he will be chewing sticks in it and leaving little shards everywhere, and my husband will be happily mowing up those shards along with the grass.

Is this going to become a gardening blog? Maybe! Well, probably not, but you can certainly expect many, many plant-related updates in the months to come.

Weekly Reading

How To Be A Better Person. As many of you know, I like to read a little inspiring something something right before my yoga practice; typically this means poetry, but at the start of this year I thought I’d try something else – a reread of a book that was already on my shelf. I met Kate Hanley in 2014 at the Blissdom Canada conference (bring back blogging conferences, except instead of panels about how to monetize, let’s just have parties and cozy chats, who’s in?), and in 2017 she very kindly sent me both of her newly-published books to be reviewed. I haven’t read either of them since that time, and I thought it was time to revisit. This is a lovely little book with helpful ideas on how to make small changes to improve your life and the world around you. It’s so interesting, I had made many notations in this book about things I felt were very important, when I read it in 2017. Some of these resonated seven years later, and some didn’t. Interesting how life changes and evolves. 

Tropical Attire Encouraged (And Other Phrases That Scare Me). If you don’t know by now that Alison Rosen’s podcast is one of my favourites, well, then, you haven’t been listening to me! It’s a delight and so is this entertaining book of short essays. The fifth anniversary edition has five new essays, the remainder were written around 2012-14 I think? It’s a fun trip down memory lane (skinny jeans!) (I’m still wearing them). Fans of the show will love this.

None Of This Is True. I have been learning a lot lately about the craft of writing, and one of the keys to a successful novel – particularly a psychological thriller! – is to “plant curiosity seeds” and then “water them” throughout the book, so that readers are interested to see the plant in full bloom, so to speak. This author is really excellent at that; even though psychological thrillers are not generally a genre I reach for, I was hooked from the beginning and dying to know what was going on. I think this was a pretty good read; I had a few issues with a couple of the reveals and details, which I shall obviously not go into here because I don’t want to be a spoilsport, but this was a solid, engaging read. I liked the lead up to the climax better than the actual denouement itself, which I found a little flat, but, as I said, a very compelling read.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend, and even if it doesn’t feel like spring – hello, I love you, Calgary friends! – I hope you have a little spring in your step and sunshine in your heart. And maybe some chocolate? Do you have an Easter candy preference? I sure do; it’s Cadbury Mini-Eggs or NOTHING. Nothing, I say! Well, probably I would eat something else, but there is something amazing about those little shells. And aren’t these nests so cute? Happy April, everyone. xo

Recent Reads

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March has been so busy, and full, and fun, and I am surprised we are still in it. Typically, the months fly by so quickly I hardly realize that we experienced a month, but for some reason I feel astonishment that it’s still March. Two weeks ago I was packing for Vegas, and that feels like two months ago; our houseguests left on Sunday and that feels like it happened three weeks ago.

Part of my cognitive dissonance is that March in Kelowna feels a lot like May in Calgary, but with less daylight and snow. We got back from Vegas and I excitedly thought It’s almost my birthday!, forgetting that a) my birthday was at that point five weeks away, and b) we hadn’t yet celebrated my son’s March birthday.

I’m not complaining; time goes so quickly that it’s okay for once that March has felt like it’s several months long. I realized, though, that it’s been a while since I talked about books. In the past couple of weeks, I have read five really great books! And one real dud. One of these books was a reread, two were translations, and all of them were novels.

The Friend. I first read this beautiful book about a woman who, while grieving the loss of a friend due to suicide, finds herself in possession of that friend’s Great Dane back in April 2019, on the strong recommendation of my dear friend Suzanne (HI SUZANNE). And back then, in April 2019, I liked it a lot. I saw this on the shelf at the library and thought, hey, why not a reread? After all, this is about a woman in sudden possession of a big dog, and I myself also have been in sudden possession of a big dog. It is also about grief; the loss of this woman’s friend and literary mentor becomes very conflated with the care of the big dog. This book is very literary and has a lot of detail about the writing process and the general attitude that all writers seem to have, which is a lot of doubt about the worth and usefulness of their own writing, as well as numerous wonderful references to literature. But let me tell you how differently this book hit me, this read around. In April 2019 my life was considerably different than it is now, big dog notwithstanding. I was a very busy yoga teacher who was training for a road race, I had kids in junior high, it was a year pre-pandemic, life was ticking along nicely, and, importantly, my dear Barkley was still alive and very healthy. None of those things are true now. I was so incredibly moved by this book on so many levels this time around; not only did I like it a lot, I absolutely loved it, and it resonated so much with me. Anyone who has lost a friend, particularly to suicide, will find this incredibly poignant and moving. And anyone who has had an elderly dog, well, let’s just say I found myself devastated in a way that no book has devastated me before. If you know, you know. I considered not telling you that part, but as my son (who made me this bookmark, among others, for Christmas) said, It’s a book about a dog. Those never end well. Truth. That said, this book is absolutely beautiful and completely unforgettable, even if I kind of forgot what happened the last time I read it.

Whereabouts. This book is a novel, but it almost reads like a series of very interconnected short stories: each short chapter is a vignette into itself. It is a story of a woman living a solitary life amidst the bustle of an unnamed city, and it’s exactly the kind of thing I love: such an ordinary life, with all these extraordinary details. This is very much an internal development book, so if you’re looking for a thick plot or page turning action, then no, this is not the book for that. But it’s a gorgeous book of prose about an internal journey of a woman on her own. Fun fact: this was the first book Lahiri wrote in Italian and then translated to English. This language facility fascinates me!

Commonwealth. True confession: for the longest time, I had this book conflated with another from a different author, with a similar but different title, similar but different cover, and I did NOT like that book at all. So for the longest time, I thought “I love Ann Patchett…except for Commonwealth.” Then I read an essay by her that talked about Commonwealth as the most autobiographical of all her novels, describing the plot, and I realized that I HAD NEVER READ IT AT ALL. So I had to rectify that, obviously. This is SO good. It’s the story of a blended family and all the changes and gains and losses in life. It was breathtakingly good, and I was captivated by the Big Plot Twist in the story. I think anyone who wants to write or does write is VERY aware of how the people in their lives will take the fictional-but-based-on-people-you-know characters, and the Big Plot Twist was pretty amazing. I loved this so much.

An Available Man. When Edward’s wife is dying, she tells him that they will ALL come out of the woodwork now, and by ALL she means women. This is a book about a widower who is navigating the world without his wife, and whose stepchildren put out a personal ad just for him. It’s a really good read, with a delightful look into relationships and life. 

Breasts and Eggs. Have you ever wondered how a book gets on your library hold list? I know I put it there, but why? Did someone recommend this? If so, I am giving that person the side eye. Translations can be so tricky and I really feel like something was lost in the translation. Actually, I am going to be generous and say that something was definitely lost in the translation. This novel about two sisters, one who gets breast implants and one who considers donor-conceived pregnancy, two things that are viewed with a different lens in Japan, really fell flat for me. It read as clunky, repetitive, and way too long. I did not enjoy this and I kept reading to see how it would tie together. It…didn’t? Listen, I get that there are massive cultural differences between North America and Japan, particularly around donor conception, but wow, every chapter seemed to just reiterate the debate around it, in a terribly clunky way. Honestly I should have DNFed.

Mrs. Quinn’s Rise To Fame. This was such a sweet (literally! It’s about baking) and heartwarming book about a 77-year-old lady who enters into a televised baking competition (think The Great British Bakeoff). Listen, there are no surprises. There are no big twists. There is a reveal about a secret but I guessed it within the first third of this book, and you probably will too. Everything in this book is just lovely and cozy, every character is delightful, and if you need a pick-me-up escape from the fiery hellscape that is the world sometimes, I cannot recommend it enough.

I just picked up a giant STACK from the library yesterday; three holds came in and I was enticed by the lure of the “library recommends” shelf, and so I have four interesting books just waiting patiently for me to finish the one I have on the go right now. Is there anything more exciting than a good stack of books? Well, yes, probably, but there is nothing quite as cozy and joyful. Have you read anything good lately? Any duds? Tell me everything. xo

Various Views on Vegas

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Fly High Free Bird

The soul-crushing airline industry has completely ruined my idea of what is normal and what is not. To me, flight departure and arrival times are completely nebulous, an approximation at best. I just assume that no flight will ever take off or arrive on time, ever, which is why I will do almost anything to avoid flight connections. So you can imagine my surprise when not only did our flight to Vegas was on time, but so was our flight home. We arrived home at 4:00 pm, which meant that I could pick Rex up from the boarder’s, rather than waiting until the next day. “Our flight got in early!” I excitedly said to the woman at the boarder’s, and my husband reminded me that no, it wasn’t, but it was on time. I guess I just assumed 4:00 could mean anything from 5:00 to midnight.

We had booked these flights before I became incredibly spoiled by our recent, premium seat flight to Mexico, but we did have the exit row, which is quite comfortable for me and my swollen, badly circulated, here-are-the-warning-signs-for-blood clots legs. On the way there I was seated beside a lovely Australian woman who had been rerouted to Vegas in the strangest way: she was heading for Calgary, where she would connect to go on to Houston, but as she was driving to the airport she was notified that her Calgary flight was delayed for over ninety minutes, and she would miss her connection. Back in the day there were many flights from Calgary to Houston, but apparently not anymore, and so she was flying to Vegas, of all redirections, and then getting an evening flight on a different airline to Houston. It sounded exhausting and reinforced my deep distrust of airline connections.

On discovering that the woman was from Australia, the fellow in the window seat struck up a conversation, and continued the conversation for the entire three hour flight. I was in the happy position of being in the aisle seat, so I could eavesdrop easily but I could also just read my book. The conversation almost entirely consisted of his recounting of The Times He Got Drunk In Australia, along with one horrifying description of the Time He Tried To Barbeque Kangaroo Meat.

I had a brief conversation with this young gentleman when he arrived to his seat, and that conversation was about the Superiority Of The Airport White Spot as a Drinking Destination. “Their liquor license starts at 6:00 am, and there’s no difference in the price of a beer at the airport versus the White Spot on Harvey,” he said, “And no one has to drive because we are all getting on a plane!” He has a point. The flight attendant came by with the drinks cart and when he asked for a beer, she told him there was Molsen and Coors available. “The Silver Bullet!” he said happily. It was just after 9:00 am. I lost sight of him after deplaning but I feel sure he had a great time in Vegas.

My Milkshake Brings The Instagrammers To The Yard

For the second year in a row, St. Patrick’s Day completely fell off my radar and I didn’t realize until just before we left that we would be in Vegas for that occasion. I assumed that all of the pubs would be very busy, but either there is just a glut of pubs or people were partaking in the festivities elsewhere, because every pub we passed seemed pretty quiet. People were definitely partaking in festivities somewhere, as dramatically demonstrated by the fellow in a tall green hat and a shirt emblazoned with “Pat MeCrotch” falling into the elevator with us, followed by his apologetic wife, who was wearing a gigantic glowing green necklace made up of shamrocks and the words “Kiss Me I’m Irish.”

In any case, my husband and I had a lovely lunch at a pub at the Venetian, which is near the Sphere. We had tickets for the 2:00 show, and so we leisurely sat at the bar and had some really great pub food, including a vegan falafel burger. This was the type of pub that had a whole page of the menu dedicated to extremely decadent and extravagant milkshakes: the rims were coated with frostings and sprinkles of all sorts – Fruity Pebbles! Jimmies! Oreo crumbs! – and then topped with ice cream or whipped cream, with some kind of large baked good on top of THAT – a strawberry Pop Tart! A jelly doughnut! A cinnamon roll! – and then THAT was topped with, somewhat anticlimactically, a cherry.

I saw one such milkshake being delivered to a woman, around my age, sitting alone. It was bright red, with a slice of what appeared to be cheesecake on top, and I was filled with curiosity as to how someone would actually consume this. Would there be a side plate? Would this person just pick up the cheesecake and eat it with her fingers? I watched out of the corner of my eye to see what would happen.

First, the woman took several photos of it, which, well, is relatable. Then she started taking selfies with the milkshake, including one in which she was holding the cherry with a big, wide, open mouthed smile. I waited to see what would happen with the cheesecake slice, but then it was apparent that she was videoing herself with this milkshake – I could see her talking. Was this an Instagram reel? Was she posting on TikTok? I kept waiting for her to eat the cheesecake, or at least sip from the milkshake, but she just kept filming.

My husband chided me for creepily watching someone not-consume a giant milkshake, but to be honest, I didn’t think it was any creepier than watching an Instagram reel of a person I don’t know, the creation of which was more than likely what was happening. All I was missing was her handle. I never did see what happened with the milkshake because she still hadn’t partaken in any of it by the time we left to go see the show. I hope she enjoyed it.

Mars Ain’t The Kind Of Place To Raise Your Kids

As I alluded to before, we went to see Postcard From Earth at The Sphere in Vegas. The Sphere, in case you don’t know, cost two billion dollars to build and the outside consists of thousands and thousands of lights. It is really a feat of technology and engineering, the inside filled with all sorts of technological wonders. During the movie, the seats move and vibrate – no, not THAT kind of vibrate – and there is wind and scent and it’s a real sensory experience. I cannot even describe how amazing it is.

I loved 85% of the movie, which is about the glory of nature and our mother earth, the ways in which we honour her and the beauty of nature. It also shows how we have abused her, and how she is protesting via climate change and crisis, and I was on board with all of this, one hundred percent. We are in a climate crisis, I think that much is obvious, and it is our doing, as a global population. This, I think, would have been a great place to give the viewer practical information about the changes we all can make on individual and corporate levels.

However, this is where the movie took a turn. The solution to the climate crisis, said the movie, was for everyone to leave earth in order for it to heal. So, everyone on earth got to get into a space ship and go to another planet, presumably to fuck that one up as well, although that thought was left unstated.

Now, I know, as the man behind me said to his sobbing child who did not want to go to space, Daddy, it’s just a movie. But really? THAT is the thesis regarding the solution to the climate crisis? For us not to be here? Honestly, the film should have a warning on it for anyone suffering depression or extreme climate anxiety, because the thesis is that the world would be better WITHOUT US IN IT. Surely there could have been a better conclusion than that, but since space travel for seven billion people is exactly not a practical tool, the implication is that it’s just better if we don’t exist anymore. You can’t find a hotel room with a balcony or a window that opens in Vegas, so you’d think they would know that your existence is the problem isn’t maybe the best theme for a movie in that particular location.

Obviously there are no clear answers or quick fixes to the climate crisis, but maybe there could have been a lesson here about mindful, reduced consumption rather than let’s go to Saturn, it will be fine. Perhaps stop using single use plastics, or don’t buy into the fast fashion industry, or, maybe, don’t go to Vegas.

Las Vegas is probably right up there with the Disney resorts when it comes to environmentally disastrous tourist destinations, and I found it incredibly ironic that this movie would be shown in a two billion dollar, electronically powered, round theatre. It felt like getting a lecture from Leonardo DiCaprio about the environment just before he boards his yacht with all his buddies. So thanks, but no thanks, on the suggestion of flying to space and never coming back to earth ever again.

Glory Days, They’ll Pass You By

If you can believe it, I have been a mother for twenty years! Well, twenty years and two days.

It was a bit of a hectic weekend, what with cake baking and guests and a funeral and feeding people and just general life, but it was lovely all the same. And now we are looking down the barrel of a really normal week, albeit one in which we are busy gearing up for gardening season. Preparing to garden in March will never not be a novelty to me, after so many years of snow and ice.

I have many books to tell you about, but it will have to wait until later. I hope you all have a beautiful week, the first full one of spring! xo