Nicole Recommends

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Toes and Tummy in the YYC

It has been very Empty Nest-ish around here lately; my older son has been working a lot, happily, and in his spare time he’s either at the gym or cultivating a social life. My younger son spent the weekend out of town with his wrestling team, and so my husband and I found ourselves together, just the two of us, for several dinners.

Why not a Date Night, I thought? I had gone to Jameson’s, a local pub for lunch with a group of girlfriends, known collectively among ourselves as The Brentwood Babes, the week prior and we had such a good experience; excellent service, but more than that, I had the Santorini salad. This salad has everything I have ever wanted in bowl form. I had never thought of putting hummus in a salad before, but now I can’t stop thinking about it. It looked like Friday night it would be just the two of us, which seemed perfect for a date.

Thursday morning it occurred to me that it might be difficult to get a table: Friday night, Irish pub, SAINT PATRICK’S DAY. Hmm. I stopped by after my class to naively see if there was any way to reserve a table, explaining to the bartender that my husband and I wanted to come for dinner. As I was speaking, the bartender was shaking his head, and when I finished he said, “No. You really don’t want to come here. It is going to be a complete shitshow.” Okay! We came the following night instead, with our older son – who is of age – in tow. I asked the sweet young girl who was serving us if she worked the previous night, and she said she had, and that it wasn’t that bad, with only one big fight right at the end of the night. She also mentioned that she worked until 4 in the morning, which did not sound great to me, but hopefully she made a lot of money in tips.

The Santorini salad was still delicious on the second time around, but they had run out of kale – was there a run on KALE on St. Patrick’s Day? – and substituted Romaine, which was not QUITE as good. Perhaps I should not have chased that dream.

While I’m on the topic of Things I Did Last Week, I had a pedicure at my local salon. If you are in the Calgary area, and specifically in the Northwest, Anna Nails is the place to go. Her prices are insanely good, and the pedicures are unlike anything I have ever had before. She uses orange peels for exfoliation, and included in a pedicure is a calf massage AND a hot stone massage. It is a bit of an obscure little place, and she doesn’t even have a website, but it will be the best pedicure you have ever had.

Peas in a Podcast

I listen to a lot of podcasts, and there are some episodes that I have particularly loved lately. I am a person who really likes a chatty, lighthearted podcast. I have spoken at length about Forever 35 – I love this podcast about “the things we do to take care of ourselves” and I think I may be in a parasocial relationship with Kate and Doree. They have recently started a “Product Recall” series that airs on Fridays, which discusses products from our past such as Sun-In, Biore Pore Strips, and St. Ives Apricot Scrub. If you are Gen X like me, all the products they talk about will have likely been a part of your youth.

Every Wednesday the women interview a different guest, and there have been two guests recently that have been absolutely fascinating. First: Chrissy King, who wrote a book called The Body Liberation Project, which I immediately put on my TBR list after this mind-blowing episode. Second: Bozoma St. John, who is a high-level executive at Netflix, and who is also a widow, a single mother, and a person who prioritizes sleep over everything. It was a really refreshing discussion about caring for oneself from a woman who is really remarkable.

Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend is a fun podcast that comes out twice weekly; I prefer the Monday episodes, which have one guest and interview, to the Thursday episodes, which feature multiple people and are a bit of a free-for-all. Recently I heard an interview with Tiffany Gabrus, who is an entertainment executive-turned-florist, and it was such a lovely episode. The way this woman talks about flowers is so uplifting and fun. She calls flowers her “ladies” and I am Here For It. Another recent interview that I enjoyed was Elizabeth Laime; the interview was just a fun conversation between friends. Also Here For It!

Speaking of Alison Rosen, she was on Celebrity Book Club talking about Priscilla Presley’s Elvis and Me several months ago. If you, like me, spent your entire seventh grade completely obsessed with Elvis in general and that book in particular, if you, like me, thought that the Elvis and Priscilla relationship was the most romantic story of all time and then looked back on it as an adult and thought “Wait, what the fuck? This is a horror show!” then this podcast episode is for you! It is not only my favourite Celebrity Book Club episode, it is one of my favourite podcast episodes EVER.

Oooohhhhh Listen To The Music

Speaking of listening to things, after last week’s Women’s History Month Peloton ride, I created a new Spotify playlist called Nicole’s Layyyyydeeeees. There is some overlap with my playlist of all-time favourites, Nicole’s Karaoke, and even a little bit with Nicole’s Workout, if anyone’s looking for some fun and upbeat sing-a-long songs. Those are some pretty eclectic mixes.

He’s Here, He’s There, He’s Every-Fucking-Where

You guys, Ted Lasso is back! One big upside to my phone not working as a phone and needing to be replaced is that I received three free months of Apple TV, which is PERFECT timing as the new season of Ted Lasso has dropped. We watched the first episode last weekend, but I ended up falling asleep on the couch so I missed the ending. And, possibly, the middle. I guess I should rewatch it.

Also on Apple TV is Eugene Levy’s new show, The Reluctant Traveler. It is a delight! Who knew that watching a man in his 70s – who never wanted to travel – explore new locales would be so much fun?

All Along The Internet Watchtower

You guys, I am so excited to tell you that Laura Bray (HI LAURA) has a Story Club; if you sign up for it, a short story will pop into your inbox every so often. You may remember her from The Sugar Thief, which I have mentioned before and is an absolute delight.

Erin Etheridge (HI ERIN) is always contributing smart and thought-provoking pieces to the internet world, and her latest, We Turn Away From Our Future Selves is a comparison of Erin Brockovich and a book called Hags, about aging women. It is brilliant, as always. The wonderful thing about Erin’s writing is that there is just too much to take in all at once; I usually have to go back and reread her pieces a few times.

Another interesting thing I read recently was this piece; I was fascinated to know that this family of three spent $668 TOTAL for all food in February, in New York City. I mean. How. How is that possible? My grocery bills are much, much higher than that; granted, I have two garbage disposal-like teen boys, but still. It was an interesting piece, with an ode to the joy of food, which I like.

I loved this post on Cup of Jo about a family relocating to England, and discovering that their life followed them there. Wherever you go, there you are. Although, I have questions. Just what are they doing with all those garbanzo beans? That’s a lot of hummus.

Circling back to my parasocial relationship, and also the garbage-disposals, Doree Shafrir wrote a piece about teens, and if they “hang out” in the same way we did. My answer is not really, but that’s not a bad thing. First of all, I think that teens in general – particularly teen boys – get a bit of a bad rap sometimes. Don’t get me wrong; they can be really stupid, as evidenced by the “drive through the snowy school field at midnight” event. However. I do think that teens still hang out a lot together, and although the nature of the hangouts might be different from what we Gen Xers did back in the 80s and 90s, they still are social beings who like hanging out at each others’ homes. There aren’t a whole lot of teen-friendly places – there weren’t when we were teens, and there aren’t many now – but I sometimes will see a pack of teens at the mall or roaming around the neighbourhood, and it makes me smile. I do think Doree makes a good point about kids having much more scheduled lives than we did, which does change teen friendships. I have also heard a lot about teens being on their phone too much, which is true, but also, have you been around adults? It’s not just teens having deep relationships with their phones.

So many interesting people creating so many interesting things, and yes, I include Anna The Esthetician and The Salad Station People In Jamesons’ Kitchen as Creators. And on that note, and also speaking of phones and the internet, THIS Creator is taking a bit of a digital detox. I’m going dark, if you will, but not in a hello darkness my old friend kind of way. Maybe I’m going more charcoal grey? In any case, I will catch you all on the flip side.

Take care of yourselves, and be well. xo

This One Goes Out To The Ladies

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Something that really changed for me during the pandemic was the way in which I wrote this blog. Prior to March 2020, I wrote a few times a week, when I had time, about anything that came into my mind. Once lockdown started, I, like an extremely privileged and much less talented Virginia Woolf, suddenly did not have a room of my own. We live in a 1962 bungalow, and the desktop computer along with the actual desk that I had always used was utilized first by my older son who, unlike my younger one, did not have a laptop to do schoolwork with. Later, when we had purchased him a laptop, my husband took over the desk, as opposed to the dreadful “stand desk” he had put together on our bed. Those were trying times.

Recently I was chatting with a friend about all the wonderful hobbies she has; she is very crafty and lately has taken up spinning her own wool and then knitting with it. I am hopeless at any kind of fibre art, or craft or visual art, really, and I was lamenting my lack of hobbies. But Nicole, she said, you have a hobby! You have written your blog for all these years. I immediately perked up because yes! I have written the blog for all these years!

When lockdown started I didn’t want my writing to go by the wayside, but at the same time, I had absolutely no opportunity during the workday hours to write, and if you know me at all, you know that writing in the evening is not an option; I’m basically in a comatose state by the time 8:30 rolls around. I suppose I could have purchased my own laptop and worked at the dining room table, but I didn’t want to spend the money at the time. Instead, I decided I would write a little bit every morning before my yoga practice, and just jot down ideas at other times during the day, polishing up the posts on the weekends. I decided that I would publish once a week; perhaps twice if I had the physical space and mental energy to do so, but certainly once.

I have my own laptop now, and also my husband only works from home a couple of days a week, so technically I could write at any time of the day, but I have continued with this early morning habit. My Monday morning posts are long and could certainly be broken up into multiple posts, but I don’t want to do that. I like creating, I like really thinking about the way I want to say things, I like crafting sentences and putting words to my ideas. This blog is very much a record of my life; I can see my voice changing as the years go by, and although it is a journal for me, I want it to be more than that.

It’s Women’s History Month, and I took a Peloton ride that was a WHM Epic Sing-a-long; it is exactly what it sounds like, with fun music by female artists, and the instructor encouraging the in-studio audience to sing. This particular audience was unique in that there were a number of other female Peloton instructors, and it was fun to see them go to town with P!NK and Kelly Clarkson numbers. At the end of the ride, the instructor said “We are powerful women! But more than that! We are women who lift up and support other women!” and let me tell you, I was here for that. It was so fun, and I was walking around humming the playlist, on a high all day.

A few weeks ago I read the book Girls They Write Songs About; while I was reading it, I was mesmerized, when I wasn’t, I was thinking about it. I have been thinking about it ever since. It’s a really incredible book about the choices that women make and also about class, New York City, and, crucially, female friendships and how they can endure and also end. I was thrilled to discover that the author, Carlene Bauer, was on a podcast I enjoy – Everything is Fine – which is also the podcast on which I heard about the book in the first place.

Bauer said what she wanted to convey in the book, among many other things, is that friendships can end due to female-specific envy. When two women are in a “have and have not” situation, their friendship cannot withstand that kind of envy, and this is also where judgement comes in, with regards to life choices and situations. Bauer said that when we are young, we dream with our friends about our futures; you cannot judge the people you dream with, and when you do start to judge them for their choices, you can no longer dream with them, and the friendship ends. It is envy, she said, that powers the judgement, and then the friendship crumbles.

My initial reaction to this was no, that can’t be true, but on further reflection, I realized that just because I don’t want something to be true doesn’t mean it isn’t. I thought about my own friendships; past and present, the ones that are strong and the ones that have ended. Does envy play a part? Probably. The friends that are the closest to me are also the friends who have made similar life choices, and who are in similar life situations. I want to be a person who unequivocally lifts up and supports other women in their choices, but am I in an echo chamber of my own making? I don’t know; it’s an uncomfortable thought. It’s pretty easy to lift up and support women who are just like me.

Female-specific envy is something that I think exists, and results from our patriarchal society. We have been conditioned to think that there is only so much room, there is only so much space, that opportunities are limited and competition for those opportunities is fierce. Obviously this is a construct, because life is not a pie in which we all get a little sliver or a giant slab, and once it’s finished, it’s finished. It might be an artificial construct, but the bindings of that artificial construct are tight and lasting.

I started this blog in 2008, because it was something I thought I could do. I have always enjoyed writing, and I had started reading blogs on the Babycenter newsletter – Catherine Newman’s, in particular – when my older son was born in 2004. By 2008, my younger son had started preschool, I had branched out to reading a few more blogs, and I had just gotten my bearings after the stunning years of having two babies less than eighteen months apart. Over the past fifteen years, the blogging world has changed many times – from so-called mommy blogs to monetization, and back again to personal blogs – and here I am. Here we all are.

I love writing because it gives me record of being here on this earth; I like to look back and see what I was doing at any given time over the past fifteen years. I want my history written down, no matter how mundane or tedious that history may be at times. But more than just that, as bloggers and readers, we have a community that is supportive and does truly lift each other up, regardless of circumstances or choices. A lot of negative things have been said about our digitalized world, but I truly think that there is a lot of beauty in it. How else would I have discovered all of you? I have met so many wonderful women here. Some of us have met in person, some of us may never meet in person. If you are reading this, know that you matter to me, that you are important, that you are worthy, that you are deserving of every good thing this world has to offer. We are a community – whether or not you are a blogger, whether or not you are a commenter, whether or not we have ever met – and we are in this beautiful, messy, complicated life together. Together, we can truly work towards breaking those bindings.

Weekly Reading

Remarkably Bright Creatures. I am going to tread very softly here, as I know many people love this book. I am not one of those people. I did start this right after time change, so perhaps I wasn’t in the best frame of mind. However, I figured out the big “twisty character connection” before the halfway mark and that was the only thing that kept me reading this, to see if I was right. I was. This was not the book for me. I found it dull, I didn’t like the voices, and the characters grated. Onwards and upwards.

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage.  love every word Alice Munro has written, and this collection contains one of my favourite stories: What Is Remembered, a story about a woman having a one-time affair and how her choices affect her life. 

Swimming Lessons. It’s the mark of a good writer that can make a reader feel very passionately about the characters, and let me tell you about the husband in this book: he’s not the very worst husband in the literary world, but he’s up there, Steve. I was in a constant rage while reading this, and also in my mind quoting Amy March “one does have a choice who one loves.” Word, Amy. Each chapter that went by had me internally screaming LEAVE THIS ASSHOLE, RED FLAG RED FLAG RED FLAAAAAAAAGGG. So, um, the book is well done? With a decent ending, but also RAGE RAGE RAGE. And another one of the characters, I kept thinking “this woman needs therapy, STAT.” Well written book but also, all the negative feelings.

Thank you to Stephany (HI STEPHANY) for participating in my Ask Me Anything with the following question: Why did you start your blog and what keeps you blogging year after year? That concludes all my questions – for now! If you have one, fill out the linked form.

Happy Women’s History Month, my friends. Take good care. xo

Three Years

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TIME CHANGE, AM I RIGHT?

It feels like every single March we are all stumbling around for a week like zombies, children crying and pets confused, people getting into accidents, all for something that is completely made up and useless. Every single March we are all shaking our fists at the people who could do something about this, but don’t. There are places in the world that do not change time, WE COULD BE LIKE THAT.

I wonder if, along with feeling furious about time change, every single March I will also think about the start of the pandemic. It has been exactly three years to the day since the First Pandemic Lockdown, and wow, what a weird time that was. At times I find it hard to believe what it was like, what we did, and all the strange things that started to feel just normal. Did we really not go anywhere at all? Did we really feel guilty if we forgot something at the grocery store and had to go out for a second time in less than a week? Was there really no toilet paper on the shelves? Did we really feel constantly panicked if another person got within our six-foot bubbles? Did I really come home after buying groceries and just sit and stare into space for a while? It was such a strange, disturbing time. I mean, some people were disinfecting their groceries and leaving them in a separate room for 48 hours before putting them away. Not me though; that was a bridge way too far.

Just before the Big Lockdown, my life was so busy, and although we had heard about this novel coronavirus in the news, I didn’t really think it would change anything for me or in my life. I was teaching ten classes a week, I was preparing for our spring break trip to Mexico, and I was frantically going to parent meetings and doing last minute fundraising for my younger son’s West Coast sailing trip, that he had been looking forward to for three years. Cue the ominous music; you already know how those vacation plans turned out. But at that time, I thought that other than needing to stock up on my husband’s blood pressure medication, all this in the news would turn out to be a whole lot of nothing.

Only a few days before March 13, 2020, two things happened that made me wonder if something was indeed about to affect me personally.

First, one of my students in Seniors’ Yoga approached me before class. This student was, and is, a Professor Emeritus in Epidemiology at the university. She cautioned me about my upcoming trip to Mexico, saying that I may want to reconsider. Of course I listened to her opinion, and although I still thought at that time I would go, her words did stay with me.

The second thing was my monthly coffee date with my friend Nicole (HI NICOLE) who is also a professor at the university, in chemistry. Nicole seemed very concerned with my Mexico trip as well, asking if I had access to a kitchen (I did not, it was a resort I was headed to) and generally giving off a Very Worried Vibe. She also mentioned that the university was going to close down, and there were rumblings that the schools would too. I was in disbelief about this; schools CLOSING? There was no way that could happen! That would be a disaster!

Honestly, it was a disaster, wasn’t it? Of all the pandemic mitigation strategies, I think that closing the schools was the worst. I remember feeling absolutely devastated that our schools were now closed indefinitely; I still think that the damage to our children and young people was extensive and will be long-lasting, from an educational, developmental, and mental health point of view. Online schooling, while it was the best possible option at the time, was just so detrimental in so many ways, particularly for children in vulnerable situations or in underserved communities. It was terribly detrimental to my own children, who are in no way underserved or vulnerable, and who have all the privilege in the world. We all need to be around peers, physically, and this is especially true for the young.

I often think that the pandemic was a zero-sum game; in order for one thing to be taken care of, other things had to give way. Of course we as a society have to care for each other; as of right now, nearly seven million people have died from Covid, and who knows how many people have been disabled or have had their quality of life severely impacted by the virus. There is absolutely no way to say what those numbers would have been like had there been no mitigation measures.

That said, the mitigation measures themselves have had harsh consequences; hence, my zero-sum game theory. It’s not just an entire generation of youth who have been developmentally stunted in some way, I also often think of the global mental health decline, the vast number of suicides and increased dependence on substances, the loss of people’s livelihoods and the decimation of entire industries. Clearly, we were – and are – all doing our best, everyone was just dealing with ever-changing information and regulations, but wow. What an awful and divisive time. I think it’s going to take a long time to heal in this new era that we have entered. Are we in a post-pandemic state? Covid is still around, people are still falling ill, but are we still considered to be in a global pandemic? I have no idea.

I have spoken before about psychological long Covid, but something else occurred to me this week. Back in the 70s, a comedian who shall remain nameless had a bit about cocaine usage, a pretend dialogue with a cocaine user. “It intensifies your personality.” “Yes, but what if you’re an asshole?” It seems to me that the pandemic, like cocaine, has intensified my personality. In some ways, that’s fine, perhaps even good, but in others, it is not great, Bob.

One thing I have noticed is that my dependence on routine and rituals for comfort has become less of a charming, cozy groove and more of a rut. I am a person who has always been quite regimented in my day-to-day life; I thrive with a routine, I love knowing what I’m doing on any given day. When the pandemic hit I took great comfort in creating new daily routines and rituals, and for the most part, I think they have been greatly beneficial. However. I think my comfortable routine is starting to veer into the “unhealthy dependence” category.

Don’t get me wrong; I happily give and accept invitations for visits, social events, and meals when possible. I enjoy all of those things but every invitation is met with momentary internal mental gymnastics – but I do X on that day! – and I am really, really working on changing this. I don’t want to be like Homer Simpson when Marge had plans on Saturday night. “Saturday night! But that’s our special night! What’s so special about…oh, I don’t know. A little so-called Dr. Quinn? Medicine Woman?”

I think the pandemic has tamped down my sense of adventure, which may have happened anyway with age – who’s to say? – and I don’t like it. It’s not like I’m turning things down, but I have moments of hesitation and worry about my schedule disruption, and I don’t want those moments to get any bigger, or to become consequential. There is a lot of joy and satisfaction in my ordinary day-to-day life, yes, but the memories I cherish stem from times that I broke out of my routine, when something new or different happened, when I travelled or saw a friend or experienced something I hadn’t before. I don’t want to live my life just plodding along, every week the same; I want to be able to appreciate my comfortable routine by breaking it, and then coming back. I want to reignite my adventurous self, while still finding daily joys in ordinary things. I need to spread my wings and find adventures where I can.

First, though, I need to get caught up on sleep. TIME CHANGE. Good lord, when will this madness end?

Weekly Reading

You Just Need To Lose Weight. Maintenance Phase is such a good podcast, and the co-host, Aubrey Gordon, is such a smart and articulate woman. This is her second book and it is educational, illuminating, and important. It will make you think about language we use and it’s implication, as well as the biases we as a society hold.

Dial A For Aunties. Omg, this was such a cute and funny book! It’s part slapstick comedy, part mystery, part romance, part love letter to the author’s mom and aunties. What happens when a woman accidentally kills a blind date? Her aunties help her with the body! But the family wedding business has a big event upcoming and putting the corpse in a cake cooler was not the best idea. This was so silly and funny and if you need a laugh and a light read, this book is for you! 

The Summer I Turned Pretty. I read this whole series when the guys were in Alaska in 2019, and so when I saw this at the library I thought I’d give it a reread. Fun fact about reading a YA romance when you’re 47? You really empathize with the parents.

My friend Lee (HI LEE) posted this on Facebook and I felt that this really sums up how I feel after time change:

All right, time to gear up for the week! Take care, friends! xo

March Madness

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Marching Into March

In many parts of the world, March marks the arrival of spring, but in Calgary, March is firmly a Winter Month. My birthday is in the last third of April, and I feel like that is the tentative start to spring, although it can certainly snow in any month of the year. Yes, you read that correctly. I have experienced snow – in the air, not on the ground – in both July and August. March is typically the snowiest month of the year, which has brought great joy to Rex, and a lot of lower back stretches to my classes, to alleviate any pain from shovelling. Most of my ladies outsource that job, but I think lower back stretches are always appreciated.

Calgarians have a strange tendency to disparage climates in other locations, probably to make ourselves feel better about our six, seven, eight months of winter. Any mention of typically beautiful cities with short winters – particularly cities in BC – will conjure up a “well, it’s horrible and cloudy there in the winter,” and while that may be true, and Calgary does have lovely blue skies often, it feels very much like sour grapes to me. Also, while we do enjoy a lot of sunshine, our winters are very long and very cold, and we also have a lot of this:

It’s cloudy here too, people.

All of which is to say that while I am embracing the season, friluftsliv, hygge, et cetera, I am also enjoying photos of spring in other parts of the world. It will be a while before my garden boxes are green, and in the meantime, I need to break Rex of this very bad habit:

All By Myself

It has been a bit of a strange weekend, here in the Boyhouse. My husband was out of town for the first time in months, my older son was working closing shifts Friday and Sunday, and my younger son was at the high school wrestling City Championships. Friday night, it was just me and Rex at home for dinner, which felt very odd. I think the last time I was home alone for dinner was when the guys took a trip through Yukon and Alaska in 2019. I had my usual favourite dinner of Greek salad with pita and hummus, plus some red wine and tortilla chips and salsa, because I am a girl who knows how to enjoy herself. I topped it all of by watching the first two episodes of Season One NYPD Blue. I used to love that show, and I still do, but I wanted to see what it would look like thirty years after its release. It turns out, it is a great timepiece of New York in the early 90s, and the camera work is just as interesting as I remembered.

Now, these days I do not watch much television (do we still call it television? I mean shows in general) so let’s just take this observation with a grain of salt, but there really aren’t many non-beautiful people cast in TV or movies anymore. It seems like everyone on-screen now is gorgeous, and has perfect teeth, and boy, that was not the case back in the early 90s and prior. I think 90% of the cast of NYPD Blue is pretty average looking, if not downright unattractive, which is kind of remarkable by today’s standards. All these regular-looking people, living full – if dramatic – lives, having romances, friendships, successes and failures.

I feel like it was the advent of Friends that kicked off the whole We All Look Fantastic And We Have This Amazing New York Apartment; but before Friends, we had this:

Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon

Speaking of popular culture from the 90s, I watched Pulp Fiction with the boys on Saturday night. My older son had seen it recently and, hearing a story about how the first time I saw it I was on a date and I fainted during the scene where Mia gets an adrenaline shot in the heart (spoiler alert for an almost thirty year old movie), asked if I wanted to rewatch it with him. My younger son, exhausted from a full two days of wrestling, decided to join, asking first what the movie is about. We looked at each other for a moment and I said I don’t know. It’s kind of plotless? I still don’t know how to describe the plot but it really holds up. I am not a Tarantino fan, but this movie is the exception. What can I say, I’m a sucker for a hitman who has a spiritual awakening. Also, the soundtrack, as the kids say, slaps.

Memories of Barkley

I was at the library this week, and a young, lovely librarian lit up when she saw me. Hi! she said excitedly. How is your sweet dog? I must have looked a little blank for a moment, and she continued to chatter about the days of curbside pickup, and how she loved bringing my books out and seeing that cute brown labradoodle, I have a brown labradoodle, right, and he is just like a stuffed animal, so cute?

Oh.

You know that moment when you’re going to say something that will cause awkward feelings, but you have to do it anyway? Her face fell as I explained that he died, but I loved that she remembered him so well.

The very next day I was walking Rex, and to mix up his route I walked down a street that was part of Barkley’s loop to the library. A woman was shovelling snow and she stopped to ask if she could say hi to Rex. I didn’t recognize her but clearly she recognized me as she asked how long ago Barkley died, and how sorry she was, and how she always liked seeing the two of us on our walks.

It was really nice to hear these two women – both kind of strangers – talk about Barkley in such a sweet way. The last couple years of his life were so fraught; I walked him every single day to keep him ambulatory, and every single day a stranger would comment on his appearance, generally in a “what’s wrong with your dog” kind of way. Every single day. I had people stop their cars on the street, roll down their windows, and ask about him. I had people ask if I was aware he had a lump on his side, as if it could have possibly been missed. I had one man ask when I was going to put him down. It was all very hard, but these two women were so kind, and so sweet, that it really helped erase all the sad feelings I had about that time.

Library Thievery

The reason I was talking to the librarian in the first place was because I had gone in to pick up a book I had put on hold, and it wasn’t on the Holds shelf. I wondered if it was still on the cart, although I had received notification that the book was in the day before. It wasn’t, and this led to a lot of searching and typing on the computer, and the librarian sighed deeply. “It’s a popular book,” she said, “and sometimes people see these popular books on the cart, and they TAKE THEM.” I honestly was startled at the thought of looking at the holds cart, seeing a book with a name receipt to indicate the person who had put it on hold, and then, shrugging at the rules, taking the book out. Of all the places for breaking the rules, I never think of the library as one of them, but the librarian told me gravely that this happens all the time. It’s one of the issues with the self-checkout. WHO KNEW. Certainly not me! I am a rule follower generally, and so it would never occur to me to sneak a popular book off of the Holds cart that wasn’t for me. Consider me shocked.

Weekly Reading

This feels like a good time to segue into weekly reading. I had a couple of real winners this week!

Girls They Write Songs About. Oh wow, this book! I was mesmerized. I read this very slowly because I needed to absorb every single word, and I reread many pages a few times. But how to describe this? There’s not really a plot. But it’s a story about women, about choices and relationships and work and becoming. The narrator is around my age and the story begins in NYC in 1997, and I could see myself in this story, the multiverse version of me, that is. It’s just an incredibly written, beautiful, raw, dark book that is also affirming and uplifting, but very real. I was on a real high after finishing this book; I could not stop thinking about it, so I logged into Goodreads to see if there were others who felt this way. This was a big mistake. There were so many negative reviews that I immediately logged back out, because I did not want to be brought down. What I am saying, then, is that while I absolutely loved this book, it seems like many people do not, so, you know. Your mileage may vary.

The Marriage Portrait. I had put this on hold, but unsurely; historical fiction is a tricky genre for me as I feel it is so hard to do it well. Often I find that modern values will be placed in historical fiction, to the detriment of the plot, and the dialogue can feel very off. Also, there was a lot of buzz about this book and that doesn’t always translate to me to be an enjoyable read. I mean, sometimes it does, but often I am disappointed. I read the jacket before starting the book and two things stood out: I had read and enjoyed this author’s memoir about her multiple brushes with death, and The Marriage Portrait was an imagining of the life of the subject of the portrait in Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess. I, along with everyone else, probably, read and dissected this poem in university; I really liked it and at that moment, I was in. I did enjoy this book about a young Florentine woman married off to the Duke of Ferrara; and some of it was a little heavy-handed with the imagery, and I quibble with the ending, but for the most part it was a sweeping story that really hooked me in. I was in the perfect mental space to be transported by this novel.

Happy first week of March, everyone! I wish you all an abundance of blue skies, good books, fun shows, and maybe something growing in your garden besides a 95 pound dog. xo

Five For Friday: The Your Questions, Answered Edition

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I love how we all have Very Strong Feelings about desserts, and, to a lesser extent, potato chip flavours. I am here for the debate! Next up we will be discussing the use of top sheets.

Just kidding! We won’t. I am not wading into that discussion! For the record, I am Team Top Sheet, and it was only in the last few years that I realized that this isn’t the case for every other person, so consider me Sheet Sheltered. If you are not of Team Top Sheet: live your life! Do you! Be free! It is very unlikely we will be sharing a bed, so I am one hundred percent supportive of all your linen and bedding decisions.

Well, here we are in March, and I have not answered all the questions from my Ask Me Anything that I posted in December. Let’s remedy that, shall we?

  • Ernie (HI ERNIE) asked: Have you ever been to Chicago? Or what places in the US have you been to, and where in the US would you like to go, or re-visit? I have been to Chicago! It was for a work-related conference back in the fall of 2000, and I did not get to see as much as I would have liked of the city. I did, however, ride the train from the airport to downtown, which was an adventure. I was travelling with two work colleagues from the Houston office, and one of them, Warren, had lived in Chicago for several years. Warren, like me, was a quantitative analyst, and he was perhaps not great at deciphering social cues, but he was very enthusiastic about his time spent in Chicago. Warren gave me a rundown of every Chicago mayor over the past century, talking at length about both Mayor Daleys and all the changes they made to the Windy City. Honestly, I remember none of it, but I did drink a lot of sangrias at the tapas bar at which he regaled me with the stories. I had never been to a tapas bar before, and when he suggested it, I thought he was asking if I wanted to go to a TOPLESS bar, and when my mistake was revealed, hilarity ensued. Ah, I think of that time fondly, if a little fuzzily. I have been to many other places in the US: New York, Florida, Texas, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, North Dakota, Montana, Utah, Nevada, and – for an unexpected eight-hour flight stopover – Minnesota. I’m not sure if I should count that because I did not leave the airport, although I did consider taking a shuttle to go see the Mall of America. I have enjoyed all those places; no one beats the Americans for pure friendliness, in my mind. I would definitely like to explore more of the country.

This is, clearly, not Chicago. But it is Maui, which is in the US!

  • Kyria (HI KYRIA) asked: What was the most interesting thing to happen to you when traveling and why? There are so many incredible places in the world; I want to explore so much of it. I have been very lucky indeed to be able to see many countries and have many adventures, but I think the most interesting place I’ve been to is Egypt. I really loved my time there, back in February 2000, and of all the adventures I had – riding donkeys and camels, being on the overnight train from Luxor to Aswan when so-called undercover police burst in, wearing long white robes and carrying machine guns, and wandering through ancient ruins – I think the most interesting one was climbing Mount Sinai in at 2:30 in the morning, to be at the summit when the sun rose. I was brought up in a very church-going house, and to be at the top of Mount Sinai, looking down at a monastery in Egypt, was a really incredible experience. It was also a very cold experience; it took me three full days to warm up. Now, that is more of an interesting thing I DID, rather than something that happened to me, but I think it counts.
  • San (HI SAN) and Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH) asked: What is one thing you like best about yourself/ which of your personality traits is your favourite? This is such a sweet question! I am at the point in my life where I like most things about myself; the things that I haven’t, I have changed where I could and accepted where I couldn’t. I’m like a living Serenity Prayer. The thing I probably like the best about myself, and I have been this way for as long as I can remember, is my willingness to talk to anyone at any time. I have no compunctions about going to a party alone where I don’t know anyone, I have no problems walking up to a group of people and joining the conversation. I have, unsurprisingly, met a lot of friends that way. It never occurs to me to worry about being rejected; if someone doesn’t like me, no big deal. I mean, I’m not for everyone. But I am endlessly fascinated by other people and their stories; I want to know everything! Like Harry Burns, I want to know the story of your life. Sometimes this backfires and I end up, for example, distracting the Uber driver so that he misses the turnoff, but for the most part, I feel very enriched by the wild tapestry that is the world we live in.

HELLO DO YOU WANT TO BE FRIENDS

  • Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) and Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH) both asked: How did you meet your husband? The short answer is that we met at university; I was a fourth-year honours student, and he was just starting in the master’s program. One fact that you may or may not know about me and my husband is that there is a ten year age gap between us (once, when I was about 25, we were at a party and a woman, upon hearing the age gap mentioned, asked who was older. I have never forgotten that! If we learn nothing else, let’s not ever imply that a 25 year old woman might be 40.). Anyway, I was preparing to go to grad school, and he had spent years already working and travelling, before deciding to go back to university to get his master’s. We were friends for almost two years before we started dating (“dating;” I think you get my meaning). My husband is a pretty young-at-heart guy, and so for the most part the age gap is a non-issue, but not always. Sometimes, I do think about it, particularly as he edges closer to 60. He’s been my Shmoopy for twenty-five years, and I hope that will be the case for at least that much longer.
  • Stephany (HI STEPHANY) asked: If you could relive any year of your life, which year would you choose? The short answer is: none of them. This is not to say I haven’t had a wonderful life, because I have. I have had many fantastic years of my life which I look back on with love and fondness. But I don’t think I would ever relive them even if I could. The closest thing would be our family trip to Disney World and Universal Studios in November 2016. The only thing I think of, when I think of that trip, is happiness. I think of the joy, the sunshine, the fun. We have taken many fabulous trips as a family, but that one stands out in my mind. I would not, however, relive that year. 2016 was a wrenching, exhausting, and exhilarating year. That year my father-in-law died; in fact it was only a few weeks before we left for our trip. Watching his demise was very sad and not something I want to talk about, but it shows that wonderful times can follow wrenching times, and vice versa. It was also, needless to say, a terribly divisive and wretched year politically, but it was also the year I took my yoga teacher training, which was incredible. I would not relive that year, but those five days in Orlando were the healing and happy family time we all needed. The boys were the absolute perfect age for it – eleven and twelve – and we had been to Disney before, so we were prepared for the sensory explosion and crowds and magical feelings that I don’t think is possible to imagine otherwise.

Do you have a question for me? Feel free to post it in my Ask Me Anything! In the meantime, I would love to hear your answers to any and all of these questions. Happy Friday, everyone! I hope it’s lovely. xo

Getting Controversial In The Boyhouse

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It was so cold here last week, with an enormous dump of fresh snow; it looked really pretty, in contrast to my Walking Outfit, which was not so pretty. Snow pants! Toque! Giant fake-fur hood! Frosted-over eyelashes! Teenage me, who wore tiny skirts with tights that were Just as warm as pants, Mom, would have been horrified.

Speaking of horrified, I have a complaint. It may be more of a personal pet peeve, but it is something that bothers me greatly, and that is when people state subjective opinions as objective facts. Or, more accurately, when people state negative subjective opinions as objective facts. There is a big difference between saying I hate chickpeas, and chickpeas are gross. When a person states an opinion as a well-known fact, such as Alice Munro’s writing is boring, I get my back up: no, YOU THINK it’s boring. There is a big difference between a person’s perception and the actual quality of the item in question. You can think whatever you want to about whatever you want, but opinions aren’t facts.

And I love hearing other people’s opinions, even negative ones! But words matter to me, and hearing Top Gun is a terrible movie is not the same as I hate Top Gun. Hate away! Opine that it’s terrible! But that is not an objective fact. There are many things that I don’t like, but that doesn’t make them objectively terrible; for example, I dislike action movies and books by Jody Picoult, but objectively, those are not bad things. They are just things that I dislike. I might THINK they are bad, but they are not, objectively.

Interestingly enough, my impassioned opinion about opinions-as-facts does not encompass positive opinions. If someone said to me ketchup chips are the finest chip ever invented or dogs are god’s greatest creatures, I would not be offended, particularly since those are two opinions I share, but even if I did not share them, I would be happy that someone else found joy in weird Canadian salty snacks and puppers. Therefore, all you Cat People reading this might be thinking How dare! Cats are god’s greatest creatures! and although I won’t agree I will just be happy for you and your purring companions. Enjoy your kitties! I’ll be over here with my fuzzy favourite, who may be wondering if I am indeed somewhere inside all those layers.

Anyway, I was thinking of this – my opinion pet peeve – because in my not-so-recent Ask Me Anything, Stephany (HI STEPHANY) asked what controversial opinion do you hold? I thought about this for a long time, because I didn’t think I hold any controversial opinions. I believe that people are all equal and deserve to be treated as such, regardless of gender, skin colour, sexuality, religious beliefs, or abilities, and that all people should have autonomy over their own bodies and be able to make choices that best suit their own life journeys; these seem to be topics that generate controversy for reasons I cannot fathom, but to me, equality and autonomy are not a matter of opinion.

This weekend I realized that I do indeed have a very controversial opinion, and that is that I hate pie. Yes, all kinds. To me, pie is a grievous waste of fruit at best, and a flaky monstrosity at worst. Cake all the way, baby. Cake all the way. With the same passion that I hate pie, I love cake; yes, all kinds. I even love grocery store sheet cakes that are universally considered to be subpar, with frosting that is universally considered to be too sweet. If one of them was in my house right now, I would cut myself a giant corner piece just to get the extra frosting, and arrange it so I could get an extra frosting flower on my piece as well.

Usually when I voice this extremely controversial Anti-Pie opinion, someone will ask what about pumpkin, what about rhubarb, what about apple? No, no, no. And I am not yucking anyone’s yum, here, but the thought of biting into a soft piece of cooked apple makes me physically shudder. Listen, I love apples. There’s nothing like a fresh, tart Macintosh to make my heart sing. However. I do not love COOKED apples. I don’t like pastry in general, but the thought of eating a piece of pie with soft, mushy apple in it…I can’t. I have always been this way and probably always will be this way.

So I hate pie, but I love my guys, and they love pie, so I make one for them every so often, and one of those occasions was this weekend.

Many perfectly good apples were sacrificed in the making of this dessert.

Speaking of desserts and Ask Me Anything, my lovely friend Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) asked what are your top recommendations for baked goods? This was fun to think about because I bake something at least twice a week, often more. Usually that baking is a snack loaf or muffins for the boys, but sometimes I throw together a batch of cookies or a cake. I am absolutely loving Julie van Rosendaal’s cake cookbook, and her pumpkin snack loaf is in regular rotation around here. The Lutheran Ladies have an amazing banana muffin recipe that I use frequently, as well as an oatmeal chocolate chip muffin that I based this recipe off of.

I wrote a weekly food blog at YMC from 2013-2017, and I have all of the recipes, plus some that I wrote on this blog, listed here. It is split into sections and one of those sections is Baked Goodies; I think my favourites from that list are the Pot of Gold Cupcakes, the Chocolate Chunk Coconut Cookies, Old Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies, and, of course, my Grandma’s Gingersnaps. My mom’s Sugar Cookies never fail, and are a holiday staple around here.

I do love baking, but I should note that all of the above recipes are my own variations of the original. I never follow a recipe to the letter, because I am a wild rebel when it comes to baked goods. I mean, why limit ourselves to a teaspoon of vanilla when two teaspoons would be more delicious? Why use a whole cup of sugar when you can cut it to three-quarters and no one notices? Why not try coconut oil or add some extra chocolate chips? It’s a fun way to play with baking, and when the weather is dipping into the minus-a-lot, it feels like a nice, cozy activity.

Weekly Reading

Speaking of cozy activities, it was a good week for getting some reading and puzzling done.

Mary Jane. I was born in the year in which this book was set – 1975 – so I can’t say from experience, but it seems to me that people in the 70s were really separated into Establishment and Counterculture. This book – a sweet, cute coming of age story – deals with a young girl who is hired to be a summer nanny at a house that is definitely Counterculture. They smoke pot! The doctor is a psychiatrist, not a medical doctor! The wife doesn’t cook or clean and the house is a disaster! The girl is from a strict Presbyterian home that, inexplicably, has a framed picture of President Ford in its dining room. Anyway. The girl – Mary Jane – brings her mother’s housewifery skills into the chaotic household, and she learns what it is to be accepted, and becomes part of the family. It’s a sweet little book, although I found the dialogue to be stilted and contrived, but light and enjoyable nonetheless. One thing I really liked, which is quite unusual, is that at one point Mary Jane thanks her mother for teaching her all her skills, and says how much she values them. In my own life, I spend a great deal of time creating a calm household with lots of delicious food in it – see above! – and sometimes I wonder if this is time well spent. It was nice to see it valued in a book that was very tongue-in-cheek in name.

Navigating The Messy Middle. Many many years ago I read Ann Douglas’ Mother of All Pregnancy/ Baby/ Toddler Books, and I loved them. Canadian content! I feel like I’ve come full circle, reading her book about being a woman in midlife. Well, maybe not full circle; perhaps in 20 years I’ll read about being a woman in the golden years. Anyhoo. This is a book that is almost entirely made up of interviews with other women, and it is incredibly inclusive and diverse. Because of the interviews, it reads like a series of long-form old-school magazine articles, if that makes sense. It makes for a nice fast read. I don’t know if there’s anything particularly new or earth-shattering here, but it is such an affirming book. Because of the diverse viewpoints, it really made me feel both seem and like we are all on a journey, with different paths, but together. Very uplifting and encouraging: from being a sandwich generation to body changes! I really liked the sections in friendship, relationships, and “raising” young adult children.

BFF. When I started reading this, I thought this seems familiar, and that is because the author also wrote the memoir Group, and there are a few overlaps between the characters and stories in that memoir and this one, about the author and another women who lived their whole lives with a lot of difficulties maintaining female friendships, but who become very close friends. Here’s the thing: I didn’t love Group, and I didn’t love this book, which is probably on me – note to self: read the synopsis BEFORE blindly putting a book on my library list. I didn’t love BFF for the same reason that I didn’t love Group, and that was that I found the author to be incredibly frustrating. Yes, I realize that flaws and foibles are what makes for a good memoir, however, get it together, author. I guess her particular flaws and foibles were just especially upsetting to me. However, this wasn’t wasted time; there were some thought-provoking parts, particularly about female friendship triangles, and the end of the book had some really insightful thoughts about the pandemic and how it helped the author reconnect with long-lost friends.

You guys, Wednesday is MARCH! March! What a whirlwind life is, even when not much is going on. I hope you all have a cozy week, doing things you love, and maybe even eating some cake – or pie, I won’t judge! My aversion means more pie for all of you! xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Love The Skin You’re In Edition

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Last June, I attended the social part of a conference my husband’s company was hosting at the Banff Springs; it was my first Major Social Event since before the pandemic, and I was so excited to go, dress up, and talk to as many people as possible. It was so much fun, and Nicole The Hug Monster was unleashed, which was a little bit unnerving after the fact as my husband received notification that one of the conference attendees was Confirmed Covid post-conference, but I didn’t get sick and neither did anyone else on my husband’s team, including him.

My favourite part about events like this is the social aspect, but also, I love to get all dressed up. Quite frankly, I felt really beautiful in my nice dress and my dark lipstick and my heels, but as I chatted with the other women there – all of whom were around my age or a few years older – I couldn’t help but notice something: they all had really, really gorgeous skin. Dewy, glowing, and smooth, their faces were lacking in wrinkles, particularly, and crucially for me and comparisons with my own face, on their foreheads. Normally I try to refrain from commenting on other people’s appearances, but we were all several glasses of wine in by this time, and I plaintively said they were all gorgeous, their skin was gorgeous, and what was their secret?

At this point they all glanced at each other and started laughing. “Oh honey,” one of them said to me, “It’s Botox!” Another woman said, “Honestly, the doctor’s office is the only way to go.”

Ah! I see.

I am not a woman with low self-esteem in any department, and I am satisfied with and confident in my physical appearance, but I will tell you this: at that moment, I felt somewhat akin to the Crypt Keeper. I did not feel great about my Forever Furrowed Brow and Eternal Eye Bags. I have, at times, briefly considered consulting with a dermatologist, but have always opted for not consulting a dermatologist. On a practical level, I cannot imagine scheduling appointments every four months and then paying hundreds of dollars each time just because my forehead reflects a lifetime of over-exaggerated facial expressions. On a philosophical level, I am staunchy Pro-Aging, I believe every year is a gift, and, as the saying goes, Erase Your Lines, Erase Your Life. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to have a frozen face that doesn’t move with me and my hands when I talk excitedly, I don’t want to have the same face at eighty that I do now, I hate that the patriarchal society we are living in wants to make older women invisible or, at the very least, does not value our beautiful faces in the same way that it does women half our age. Fuck all that, with age comes wisdom, wisdom is beauty, our gorgeous faces showcase our lives lived.

I do, however, want to look just a little bit less haggard.

People contain multitudes and I am no different. I also am well aware that nothing short of medical intervention is really going to change my appearance, and, deep down, I don’t want to. Unless I start filtering all my Instagram photos and conduct all social interactions from inside my own home, never leaving the house, the face I have now is what I am going to present to the world. Since that evening in June, I started been using a few products that, while not significantly changing anything, has at least slowed down my wrinkly trajectory. I feel not like a crumpled up paper bag; I feel like a once-crumpled up paper bag that has been smoothed over. The wrinkles are there and always will be, but they feel slightly blurred. Blurred lines! But not the weird kind. If you know, you know.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Love The Skin You’re In Edition

Mirror Meditation

In the early 2000s, my mother-in-law gifted me a subscription to O Magazine, and I absolutely loved it. Remember magazine subscriptions? I was so happy to get something fun and shiny in the mail every month, and my favourite part of O – other than her Favourite Things, on which I have based this very series for the past decade plus – was the Ask Val column, with beauty editor Valerie Monroe. Imagine my excitement, then, when Monroe was the guest on not one but two of my regular podcasts. She is in her seventies now and is truly inspirational with respect to her attitude towards beauty and aging.

One thing discussed on both of these podcasts was the idea of Mirror Meditation: this is looking into your own eyes in the mirror, with love, as if you are looking deep into the eyes of someone you love. “As if” sounds a bit odd; of course you should love yourself in the same way you love others, but of course, we are our own worst critics. If you are a woman in this world, then you have most likely spent your life being socialized to be dissatisfied and unhappy with your face and body. Anyway, I have been doing this Mirror Meditation every day, looking at myself with soft eyes and a loving expression and I am here to tell you that it is really wonderful. Try it! Look at yourself without thinking oh, I should do something about those roots, yikes, what is with my eyebrows today, ugh, I look exhausted…just look at yourself and think I love you. Does it sound kind of weird and hokey? YES. Does it work? Also yes!

ROCing My World

Something I really appreciated about the Monroe interviews was her attitude towards beauty products; her thought is that if you like the way a product feels, and you can afford it then why not buy them, BUT there are very few products that do anything close to what they claim to do. In other words, clinically speaking, there are very few products that actually do help to smooth out or minimize wrinkling or other features of aging. One such product is a prescription retinoid or, for those of us unwilling or unable to obtain a prescription retinoid, its off-the-shelf cousin, retinol. I have been using retinol products for a long time now, and in June I added ROC Deep Wrinkle Night Cream to the list.

I thought of including a photo of a new tube, but I wanted to show you how long this small product lasts: I am nothing if not consistent in my skin care routine, using it every night on my forehead since mid-June, and I still have some product left. I think this is great value for the money and although it is not some kind of Botox-miracle-substitute, I do think it’s helped my Furrowed Forehead. In any case, my forehead has not gotten worse.

Face Facts

My whole life, I have had fairly oily skin, but perimenopause has really changed that, at least in the winter months. I have started using Ilia Super Serum Skin Tint and I love it.

It’s very moisturizing, with a dewy, natural coverage, and it has SPF 40, which is important even in the winter months. I spend at least ninety minutes outside a day, and that adds up, sun exposure-wise. The only thing I don’t like about it is that it has a strange, medicinal kind of smell, which I attribute to the sunscreen. It’s almost like old-school zinc, in scent, but it’s a price I am willing to pay for soft, even skin.

Pack Your (Undereye) Bags

I have never been a person to wear undereye concealer; I have always found that it creased or became greasy-feeling midday, causing my eye makeup to gravitate downwards, which wasn’t just pointless, it actually exacerbated the problem. Hello, Rocky Raccoon Eyes. I had heard good things about this Ilia Vitamin C Serum Concealer, so I thought what’s the worst that could happen?

Well, the first time I tried it, I thought yes, this is the worst that could happen. To paraphrase Bridget Jones, it was like I had smeared the entirety of the white cliffs of Dover under my eyes. The product was pretty pricey, though, so I didn’t want to give up just yet. I tried again, applying immediately after I had put on my Ordinary Caffeine Solution; it worked like a charm, blending nicely AND de-puffing my undereyes.

Here’s me at 4:15 in the morning, completely makeup-and-product-free:

And a few hours later, de-puffed and “brightened” under the eyes:

Who Cares About Eyebrows?

For those of you whose eyebrows lived through the late Nineties, and all the plucking that occurred, I see you. I feel you. I am you. I was born with super-thick Brooke Shields-like eyebrows, that due to my youthful obsession back then with being eyebrow-current, have been decimated. Some of you may recall when I was eyebrow-shamed on Instagram, but at any rate, my eyebrows are patchy at best, and also still like to suddenly sprout thick dark hairs just above my eyelid or below my hairline, randomly, without any thought to where eyebrows actually are. To top it off, I have some individual eyebrow hairs that are going white, and if you think I am going to pluck those white hairs and add to the general patchy mayhem that is my eyebrow area, you have another think coming.

The white eyebrow hairs are what caused me to look beyond my little beloved brow pencil, and into Cover Girl Easy Breezy Brow. It’s easy! It’s breezy! It works like a little mascara, but for your eyebrows!

A word of warning if you buy this: scrape the brush off really well before use, and use a VERY light touch for a natural look. The first time I tried it, it came out a little globby and when I tried to fix it, I ended up making it much, much worse. I do not understand the mechanics here. When I wash my face at night, the product disappears, but if I try to wipe it off either with a soap-and-water-moistened tissue or an actual cleansing wipe, it makes my eyebrows look like they belong to Uncle Leo. How or why I cannot say, but I have learned my lesson.

All I Need Is A Miracle

I think this is an Aging Thing, but it is also a Winter In Calgary thing: my nails are a crumbling mess. This doesn’t happen in the summer and didn’t happen in my youth, but this is what my nails look like without any polish:

Yikes. I have been adding Sally Hansen Miracle Cure as a base coat, before polish and top coat, and it has REALLY helped. I think that nothing can really combat Calgary’s frigid desert air, but it tries.

Outfit of the Month

Other than the last couple of days, when we got a pile of snow and it’s been in the minus 20s, it has been a pretty mild February. I have only been wearing my really heavy sweaters this week; the rest of the month have been Light Sweater Days. Light sweaters, layered onto long-sleeve tees and, on teaching days like this one, yoga tanks. So, a light sweater with two other layers, that sounds like a Mild Calgary Winter!

This long tunic sweater dates from 2014 or 2015; it is from long-defunct-but-much-missed Jacob. The boots are my “light” boots, and the legwarmers are my “light” legwarmers. Those yoga pants are BRAND NEW (brand new being relative, I think I bought them in 2019, but they FEEL new).

A very, very common aspect of perimenopause, and one which I am experiencing, is a softer, rounder tummy. There are a plethora of articles about the dangers of what I am going to call A Little Around The Middle, and even more articles about ways to eliminate it, but you know what? I am not worried. I am not going to eat less than I do currently, or change my way of eating, and I am not going to exercise any more than I already do. I am strong, I am in the best cardiovascular shape of my life, and I also like my weekly dessert and red wine. If my tummy is a little softer and rounder than it used to be, well, so be it. I am going to OWN it. LOVE THE SKIN YOU’RE IN! And also, I am going to enjoy my long, loose sweaters and my elastic-waisted yoga pants. Therefore, this is my outfit of the month, and I love it. I feel great in it, I can remove the sweater and boots to teach in it, I can curl up on the couch and read in it. What more could I ask for?

Those are my Favourite Things this month – whew, there were a lot of them! But I’m celebrating me and what I look like right now. We have all been told our whole lives that we are not enough, we don’t look good enough, there is something wrong with our bodies or our faces, and I am here to tell you that is complete bullshit. You are beautiful, I am beautiful, changing bodies and faces are beautiful, soft tummies are beautiful. Let’s love the skin we are in. If you have any favourites this month, why don’t you share them with me? I’d love to hear all about them. xo