Bits and Bobs, June-Style

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Happy June!

Here Is The Envelope, And I Am Pushing It To The Max

June 1st is typically considered Calgary’s Safe Day To Plant Out Tomatoes And Other Delicate Plants, but Danger Is My Middle Name and so I planted out mine on May 31.

I do like to live on the edge, and so does Salvadore; he has been moved into the garden, specifically, into the zucchini patch. It has been so much fun, the past two months, as he has magically moved every single night after I go to bed. I never know where he will end up; I could open up the cupboard to grab my coffee cup in the morning, and his cute little face is peeking out at me, or he might be behind the television or hiding behind the yoga frogs. Last weekend I noticed the paper towel roll unravelling on the countertop, and I went to fix it, only to find Salvadore ensconced in paper towel.

Zucchinis For Days

I started zucchini plants from seeds this year, and the thing about me is that I have a quirk wherein I get very attached to all of my plants, but particularly the ones I start from seed. I start to refer to them, and I am not joking here, people, as My Babies. “Look at My Babies!” I will say to my actual children, who know I would never refer to them as my babies. What this means is that I have a very hard time thinning plants, which is why I decided to use seed tape for my lettuce and carrots this year. Last year I thinned exactly zero carrots, and the result was a lot of extremely tiny carrots.

Wouldn’t that be nice if that’s what baby carrots actually were, rather than whittled down regular carrots? Just smaller-than-normal carrots that were never thinned in the garden because the gardener was a little bit crazy? Instead, baby carrots are just manufactured out of regular carrots, which begs the question: what happens to the whittled off part of the carrots? Does it go through a grater and end up in bagged salad mixes? Does it just get thrown out? If so, how wasteful. I guess I could look it up but honestly, I feel like I have already given this too much brain space and I should really move on with my life.

Anyway, I ended up with six very healthy looking zucchini plants. If you have ever grown zucchini, then you know how prolific they are, and if you know me, which you really should by now, you will have deduced that I planted every last one of them and I am going to have a lot of zucchinis this year. I mentioned this to my friend Hannah (HI HANNAH), and she suggested I just grow All The Zucchinis and then give away or donate the ones that I cannot use, rather than killing any of My Babies. This is a brilliant idea as there is a Little Free Food Library at the end of my street, which empties out daily.

Flower Power

For the past several years, I have ordered plants from a fundraiser, first for my own kids and then for a friend’s. Don’t get me wrong, I still go to the garden centre, but I love getting big flower planters for my front yard from the fundraiser: they are great quality, well priced, and I can just get them loaded into my car directly rather than awkwardly maneuver through the garden centre balancing six large planters on one cart, which is a recipe for disaster. This year the plants arrived the day after my son’s grad, because why not do everything on one weekend? It was well worth it; the plants are gorgeous and my front yard makes me so happy.

I usually buy one other thing from the fundraiser, just for fun, and this year I bought a ten-pack of assorted vegetables. The pack included four different types of tomatoes, a cucumber, a Romaine lettuce, two peppers, and…a zucchini.

Hurry! Only One Day Until The Next Sale

My son had his grad photos taken back in January, and I was so excited to get the proofs – both emailed and in the actual mail – shortly thereafter. In the envelope there was a coupon code for 30% off photo packages, which was perfect; I wanted a big package for the grandparents, his aunts and uncles, and to have some for our home and for Christmas cards. I immediately ordered, they arrived, I framed most of them, I was happy.

Ever since that day I have been bombarded constantly by Limited Time Offers, both over email and on little postcards that end up in my mailbox every few weeks. Hurry! Order your grad photos now! I am not sure how many photos the company wants me to have, perhaps they think I should wallpaper my house with my son’s smiling face and cap and gown, or maybe send wallet-size photos to everyone I have ever met? In any case, I can’t unsubscribe because this company took photos at the recent grad ceremony, and I have been waiting for those to arrive, and I am way too anxious to take myself off their mailing list because I want the ceremony photos.

I realize that this would never happen, a company that sends out physical mail as well as an email every other day is not going to forget about me when it comes to possibly selling me more photos in a different capacity. But what if they do? I don’t want to miss out! Also, there will almost certainly be another, probably meaningless, coupon code. If everything is always 30% off, doesn’t it indicate a lack of mental capacity on my part if I actually ordered something at full price? The discount is always there, therefore, meaningless.

Step One: Cut A Hole In The Box

The house next door has had a new crew working on the exterior for the past couple weeks; they have been putting up stucco by hand. It is a very arduous process, and very quiet; the only sounds emanating from the house are from the softly-playing radio and from occasional communication between the crew members. They have been working long days; normally they start before six, and they are still at it when I go to bed at night, which, granted, is rarely past 8:45.

The other morning I was opening up the windows to let in the fresh breezes, and I could hear their music playing. I recognized the song. It was Dick in a Box.

I was kind of startled as I don’t think I have ever heard that song unaccompanied by video, but there it was. Hey girl, I got something real important to give you.

When I was in grad school, I was friends with a Norwegian girl who told me that she perfected her English by watching musicals and noting down words she didn’t know, to look up later. She told me she learned the word “devoted,” by watching Grease, from “Hopelessly Devoted To You,” among, obviously, other words. From hearing the crew speak, I know that English is not their first language, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they subscribe to the same methodology, and if so, well. “What does Backstage at the CMAs mean?”

Weekly Reading

Such Big Dreams. This was a very enjoyable debut novel about a Bombay street-kid-turned-office-girl for a human rights law office. The author so skilfully weaves themes of caste, corruption, slum life, paternalism, and the role of NGOs and foreigners in India. It’s a fascinating POV and very unique. 

My Life In Full. I saw this woman speaking on BNN and I immediately went to put her memoir on hold. It’s fascinating! Indra Nooyi was CEO and chairperson of PepsiCo and under her leadership, the company transformed ethically, environmentally, nutritionally, and as a more family friendly workplace. This is an incredibly honest memoir that details her struggles with work-life-family balance, her work ethic that allowed her to rise through the corporate world, and her early life growing up in a multigenerational home in India. She never fails to credit her support system and her luck, but she also worked incredibly hard. It was really interesting to read so soon after Four Thousand Weeks; it was a completely different perspective. It was also really fun to read about PepsiCo’s transition from 1994 to today, all the inner workings of the company. For example, the logistics of shipping chips to different locations is incredibly complex, and if the company wants a sales boost, they introduce a new and For Limited Time Only flavour of chips, which I found fun to think about.

Tired As F*ck. I picked this up solely based on the cover, and so I didn’t realize this was a memoir; it’s really a series of essays that read like blog posts, so very quick and easy to read. This poor woman suffered years and years of physical and mental health issues, including a horrific dental problem and subsequent surgeries that made me shudder. Anyway, it’s about dealing with minor trauma and how stress can give your body a domino effect of problems. I liked it okay; I had her other book on my list but I think I’m going to pass on it for now. Why do I keep reading memoirs by very young women when I cannot relate to them at all? I don’t know.

First Darling of the Morning. This was an interesting collection of stories about Umrigar’s early life in Bombay, from her childhood in the 60s to her adolescence during the Emergency, to her activism in college and departure for America. I enjoyed this very honest and raw account.

This is my last week of classes, my kids’ last week of classes before finals, and it has been raining for the past two days, so everything is lovely and green. I hope you have had a happy start to June! xo

1/4000, But Hopefully 1/5200

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Since about July of last year, my mom has been asking me if a) I thought my older son would have a graduation ceremony, and b) if so, would they be able to attend. Every time she asked, I had to shrug and say I had no idea, because honestly, who could tell anything that would happen more than a week in advance, if that? Earlier this year, when I received information that there would be a ceremony, and after that, a banquet, I could hardly believe it. For a long time I kept the idea that anything would really happen at bay; after so many cancelled plans, I didn’t want to pin my hopes on anything.

But Friday, they DID have a graduation ceremony, and there WAS a banquet and a dance, and it was absolutely wonderful. The ceremony was very long, as there were 698 students in my son’s graduating class, but for the entire three-plus hours, I kept thinking, this is amazing. This is amazing! Look around, look around, how lucky we are to be alive right now. Friday was a very long day, I was up and going for almost twenty hours, with the morning graduation and then the banquet and dance in the evening, but it felt absolutely incredible. If there is anything that has come out of the pandemic, for me, it’s an intense feeling of gratitude for things I would have taken for granted previously. Yes, my feet hurt in these heels, yes, I’m exhausted, but I’m here, and I’m experiencing this incredible thing that so many people have not. My sons have, like everyone else, missed out on so much during these past two years. They have missed so many things in their high school experience that can never be recovered, but this evening, with crazy dancing and loud music, was wonderful.

I was in awe of all the beautiful girls in their gorgeous dresses and shoes at the banquet. Every single one of them was beautiful, and I’m sure every single one of them doubted their beauty. I made a point of complimenting every girl I encountered, and I’m glad I did, because when I was in the washroom I overheard girls complaining about their “fat arms” and girls, no. No. Girls this age just have no idea how beautiful they all are, in that full glow of youth; I wish they did know, I wish they did appreciate it, but I guess we were all the same. We are probably still the same, just maybe without that full glow of youth.

It seems like sometimes books come to me at exactly the right time; this week I read Four Thousand Weeks, the title of which is derived from the number of weeks we have if we live until age 80, which means that if things go the way I hope they will, I will have fifty-two hundred weeks. Anyway, this book is excellent and I would recommend it to everyone. One of the theses of the book is that we can’t possibly get everything done in our life – our four thousand weeks – so we need to just accept that and do the best with the time we have. You cannot do it all, so don’t even try or waste your resources stressing about it, is what the book says.

I mentioned this book to one of my son’s friends, casually in passing, and he said “Four thousand? That doesn’t seem like very much.” Truth.

This week was an incredibly full one; at one point I thought Tuesday was Thursday, if that gives you any idea. In addition to the graduation day and all my regular weekly obligations and frantic May gardening, I spent part of an afternoon taking photos of my son and his friends in casual settings with their caps and gowns, I watched my son’s Drama Fest, which was the first onstage performance at the school since 2019, I attended a funeral, I taught a chair yoga class for a Senior’s Health and Wellness afternoon, and our family went to see Maverick, which was absolutely tremendous and well worth the two years that I’ve been waiting for it to be released. None of those things seemed possible to me a few months ago, and here they all happened in the course of a week. Even in a non-pandemic time this would seem like a full week, but every time I started to feel a little frazzled, I thought of Four Thousand Weeks. Things will get done, or they won’t, but these are important and prioritized and I’ll do what I can. And you know what? Everything got done that I wanted to get done, and here we are in a fresh new week.

For a few years now, I have been actively replacing the words “I don’t have time to do that” with “That is not a priority” to see if changing the words is comfortable for me. For example, if I say “A visit with my friend is not a priority” instead of “I don’t have time for a visit with my friend,” it doesn’t feel right, and then I make the time. Changing the wording in my mind has absolutely changed my behaviour. After all, four thousand to fifty-two hundred weeks is a precious, miniscule amount of time in the cosmic sense, and I want to spend it as best I can.

Speaking of precious time, today is Barkley’s birthday! When you have a dog who is the human equivalent of ninety-eight, every single day is precious.

Pandemic Reading

Four Thousand Weeks. This book is so balanced and smart and does something that not many books do – it acknowledges implicit privilege with regards to how we spend our time. I loved that the author referenced Richard Scarry’s Busytown as a bit of a busyness utopia – everyone has plenty to do, but they aren’t stressed or unhappy and they finish their workday when they finish their workday – as those were my favourite books when I was a kid. This book got me thinking a lot about how I spend my time and mental energy, especially this busy, busy week.

There is a large chapter on time saving devices, and how they do not actually save time at all because they just encourage us to add more to the pile and to be impatient, which is something I genuinely think about a lot. Washing machines, dishwashers, microwaves, EMAIL, my god, especially email, all of these things are supposed to be liberating and time-saving, but we just try to do more, more, more, and not only that, we have unrealistic expectations on how fast we do things. It’s like things are supposed to be instantaneous now; I had to recognize that in myself this week as I turned on my Peloton. It took maybe five to ten seconds to boot up, and I found myself becoming completely unhinged and impatient in those five to ten seconds. What is wrong with me?

Another part of the book, which I really liked, is about living a meaningful life, and what that entails. I find myself to be a little bit sensitive on this subject at times. There is a woman who is in my life, and who will always be in my life, and each and every time I see her she makes mention about how I have “wasted my education.” Now, I generally feel I can rise above such comments, considering the source, but it’s still THERE, it still pokes. I do not think this, by the way, I do not think that it was a waste in the slightest; I worked in my field and the financial rewards were very good, I am satisfied with my accomplishments and I don’t have any regrets from leaving that field, either. But still. It’s hard to hear this a few times a year for years and years without it affecting me at all.

I ran into a dear friend this past week; this friend gave up corporate life to take a job with a lot of flexibility, but not much in the Status Department. He mentioned all the intangible benefits to doing this for the past several years: greatly improved health indicators and being able to help out with his mother, who suffers Alzheimer’s were the most significant. But, he said, it was hard to check the ego at the door, because when you meet new people one of the first things they ask is What do you do? I told him I related to this one hundred percent. When I left my job on the trade floor to be a stay-at-home mom, it was pretty much a conversation-ender. No one wants to hear about that at a party.

But the truth is that we all have a purpose, and only a very small number of people in the history of the world are going to accomplish things that will never be forgotten. Does that mean the rest of us are insignificant and forgettable? Maybe in the cosmic sense, but what matters is now. Maybe a meaningful life is one that just leaves the world a little bit brighter than before.

On that note, I hope you all have a bright and happy week ahead, as we forge into June (JUNE!). xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Daily Glow-Up Edition

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You’re already beautiful; the makeup is just for fun. This is what my friend Dan Thompson used to say, and it’s so true. Makeup, to me, is fun, but I have a small confession to make: I actually don’t feel like ME without makeup on.

It’s not that I don’t believe that I’m beautiful without it, and it’s not that I hate the way I look, barefaced. It’s not even that I prefer the way I look with makeup on; it is that I honestly do not feel like myself without it. I don’t feel like my best self without it, either.

There’s probably a lot that could be said or conclusions that could be drawn about me, given that statement, but it is absolutely true. I put on makeup every single day, every SINGLE DAY, regardless of my activity or who I see or don’t see, because the truth is that wearing makeup is for me and for my own mental benefit. Illness is the only thing that keeps me from putting on makeup, and even then, I have to basically have one foot in the grave to not at least brush on a coat of mascara and a dusting of powder.

I have been writing about my Favourite Things for almost ten years now – the first Favourite Things was written in July 2012! – and the point of it has never been to tell anyone else what they should be doing or using. Nicole’s Favourite Things are NICOLE’S Favourite Things, things I love and things that work for me, and if they work for you or you want to try and enjoy them, then that is a bonus.

I know what it feels like to have someone disparage something you love, or cast aspersions on you for enjoying something, and I never want to make anyone feel that way. I never want anyone to feel that they should be doing something or that they have to do something or shame about what they do or like. If you’re a person who prefers to go au naturel, for whatever reason, I celebrate and support you! After all, we ARE all beautiful, and makeup is a fun frivolity that I do not want to live without. I COULD live without it, of course, but I do not want to.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Daily Glow-Up Edition

First, let me show you what we are working with.

This is me at 4:10 am on a Thursday morning; my face has been washed and my hair has been brushed, but I am pre-yoga, pre-workout, PRE-COFFEE, all of which are things that de-puff my puffy morning face. I have no makeup on, nor any moisturizer. This is just me.

Serums and Primer

I have spoken before about my love for The Ordinary serums – I like the caffeine 5% for under my eyes, and the argireline solution for my forehead lines. Both are under $10 each and they last about four months. I mean, you cannot go wrong. I also use Smashbox Smooth and Blur primer, although I don’t think it smooths or blurs, but it does help my makeup last all day. In the summer and on warm spring days I put on Neutrogena sunscreen – it goes on before the primer, but after the serums.

This is me post-shower, post-yoga-and-workout, post-coffee, post-serum-and-primer.

BB and CC Cream

If I am not wearing actual sunscreen, I like IT Your Skin But Better CC Cream because it contains SPF. You can sustain sun damage any time of year, people, yes, even in Calgary, even in the winter. I am outside a minimum of an hour a day, regardless of weather, and much more than that in actual nice weather, so SPF is a must. If I am wearing the afore-mentioned Neutrogena sunscreen, then I use Garnier BB Cream, which I like but doesn’t have anything in the way of SPF.

Small note, if you decide to try IT CC Cream: it is quite heavy. Use about half of what you think you might need, otherwise you may end up with a Kabuki-like face. I also like a dusting of pressed powder; Revlon Photoready Blurring Powder is my favourite. Does it blur? It does not. But it helps “set” my makeup for the day.

The Eyes Have It

Longtime readers will recall that I have been a fan of Maybelline Falsies Lash Lift for many, many years. Honestly, I have tried many more expensive brands of mascara and I always come back to Maybelline, which is available for about eight dollars at the drugstore.

There’s nothing like a mask and car lighting to showcase the eyes:

In addition to the most ridiculously-named-but-so-good mascara (FALSIES, WHAT), I use an Annabelle eyeliner and brow pencil. Here’s the thing: never in my life did I think I would need a brow pencil. I was born with what can be kindly described as Luxurious Eyebrows, but were, in my teen years, something more akin to a cross between Martin Scorsese and Bert from Sesame Street.

However, due to greying and, apparently, balding eyebrows, I have had to fill in – gently, don’t want to channel Uncle Leo – my brows for the past year or so.

I also add just a tiny bit of blush to the apples of my cheeks.

Smooch

Lip colour is just so transformative. I like to have lots of options; I still wear a mask to most places, but if I’m outside walking or meeting a friend, I always put on some lip colour. Even just around the house, I like to at least put on tinted lip balm. Calgary is a very dry climate and I find lips can get chapped or cracked very easily, and O’Keefe’s is great for nighttime treatment or on the rare occasion that I want an untinted lip balm.

My favourite Cover Girl Semi-Matte lipstick in the Trending shade has been discontinued! Don’t you hate that? I guess it’s time to find a new favourite among the million other lipsticks around.

So there we have it; my daily glow-up routine. I enjoy Putting On My Face, as the senior set says, and these are all my current favourite products. I hope you enjoyed my transformation! If you have favourite makeup products, let me know what they are – I love hearing about such things! xo

A Week of Spring Outfits; 114 Weeks In

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The other morning after class I complimented one of my ladies on her cherry-red top. She always looks good in one of her several red, pink, and purple tops, but that morning she looked particularly glowing and lovely, and I told her so. She thanked me and then said, “Well, Nicole, you know, I’m a Spring.” I smiled at that, and she followed it up with her theory that even if you don’t get your Colours done officially, you can tell what season you are by what clothing you gravitate towards. Her theory said that we naturally choose the clothes and colours that suit us best, and you know, I think she’s right.

I know for myself, I gravitate towards what I recently heard referred to as the New York Rainbow – black, grey, and white – and simple cuts and lines. I read The Curated Closet this week, which is all about discovering and cultivating your personal style and esthetic, one that works with your lifestyle, without succumbing to trends that are unsuitable or fast fashion, so it’s fitting that this week’s post is all about clothing.

As a note, I recognize that fashion trends are not aimed at me or my demographic. I know! I know. The trendsetters are not putting together lookbooks with the 47-year-old Calgary woman in mind, but wow, this season’s fashion trends are not at all suited to me or the esthetic I aim for. Let’s just forget about the bright colours and patterns that I don’t feel comfortable in, let’s just forget about how SHORT all the tops are this season, which are not flattering for my perimenopausal figure, let’s just talk about about cut: everything is ruched and ruffled and the puffy sleeves are enough to satisfy Anne Shirley’s deepest desires. Everything is ruffled! Everything has ruching! Sleeves are all puffed and shoulders are expanded upon! Needless to say, this isn’t an esthetic that works for me, which, on the upside, means that it’s pretty easy to refrain from mindlessly shopping.

One of the topics in The Curated Closet is the Uniform; not an actual uniform, but the type of clothes a person wears daily. Do you have a Spring Uniform? My Spring Uniform is not too dissimilar from my Rest Of The Year Uniform, which is to say fitted pants – yoga leggings or skinny jeans – and longer, often flowing tops, with lots of layers. Layers are key when you live in a climate like Calgary’s – spring is incredibly and wildly volatile, and temperatures, precipitation, and wind speeds can and do change hourly. Also, we had windchills below zero this week with icy cold rain and, yes, snowflakes in the air, which, well, I’ll just be over in the corner crying softly, thinking about my garden.

My dad told me that he read that this spring is the coldest Western Canada has had in…I forget what he said, actually, but whatever it was I found it weirdly comforting. I had started to lose all perspective and just accept that we lived in a frozen hellscape where summer will never come, never. Ah! This isn’t normal! Sometimes it IS warm! It gave me a weird sense of hope.

Anyway, back to clothes. While I’d like to showcase seven days of light springwear, this is not my reality. Instead I give you seven days of clothes while dealing with crazy weather fluctuations! Please note that while two of the pants are new within the last year, most of these pieces are several years old, some more than a decade old. When I buy a piece, I want it to last a long time and I want it to incorporate into my wardrobe smoothly. Not to anthropomorphize my clothing or anything, but I want all my pieces to get along and play nicely together. I love getting dressed in the morning; putting together the Day’s Costume based on my activities and the weather is always fun for me. One of the reasons I love Marie Kondo is her Sparking Joy concept; my clothes spark joy and they all have a role to play in my life. Okay, maybe I anthropomorphize my clothing. But what of it? It’s not like I think they have a secret life and are enacting little dramas and romances when I go to bed at night. (But what if they do? That would be fun.)

One Week of Spring Outfits

Thursday

The week starts on a Thursday! Thursday is a teaching day, and this is a pretty typical teaching outfit for me: yoga tank and leggings with a tee. The fitted tank is essential, because tees tend to ride up during things like downward dog, and I prefer to keep my midriff covered at all times. It’s hard to tell from the photo but the tank is a black and charcoal camo print, and the tee matches the charcoal. It’s all about the little things.

This is a little thing but I left the house with just a sweater and scarf! No coat! No boots! No gloves! As mentioned above, with our weather this is NOTABLE. Most people associate scarves with fall, but I associate them with spring and jauntily strolling around with only a light sweater as protection against the elements.

Friday

This was hands-down my favourite outfit of the week. The jeans are new and a perfect fit, which is miraculous because I bought them online during Black Friday sales, which is risky! The risk paid off! Sweater, tank, and scarf are all many years old, and the shoes are the cutest and comfiest little Skechers. Well, not little. My feet are pretty big. But I’m wearing SHOES without SOCKS and not BOOTS. Spring!

Saturday

We have been trying to go bowling at our fitness club as a family as often as possible, and the last time we went, there was a young girl’s birthday party going on and it was glow-in-the-dark bowling with a dance competition on the big screen! So much fun. I have moves like Jagger, people. Anyway, these jeans were also part of my online Black Friday purchase, and this top, well, I love it. I bought it while shopping with my mom in her small town, probably seven years ago now. It doesn’t get much wear because it’s so lightweight, the weather has to be warm, but not too warm, to wear it.

Saucy bowling shoes courtesy of the club.

Sunday

Gardening day! It was warm enough to be in the garden, and so I was out there for a long time, edging and weeding and basically spinning around with happiness.

The jeans date from 2008 and have, clearly, worn right through the knees. The tee was a $5USD purchase from Maui in 2015 or 2016, and it always gives me happy tropical memories. Those shoes are my gardening shoes; they are Skechers with a flower motif.

Monday

Monday is a teaching day, so my uniform of tank, tee, and tights is the order of the day. This was the warmest day of the week, and so my tights are capri-length, and again, shoes with no socks!

Tuesday

Well, nothing can last forever, and this was the day the weather changed for the worse. No more shoes without socks, no leaving the house without a coat.

I have to tell you about this coat: I bought it when the boys were in preschool. PRESCHOOL! And this week my son graduates high school. I love it just as much as when I bought it; it’s a little “off-brand” for me colour-wise but I love it. It’s lined, it’s waterproof, it has a hood and is long enough to keep me warm on these chilly spring days.

Underneath: a sweater, but a light sweater, paired with a tank and the most comfortable pants you can imagine. These pants are from lululemon, and they are actual pants with a button and zipper, but they feel like yoga pants. It’s magic.

Did you know Sorel makes non-winter boots? They do! These are cute and comfortable AND water-proof, so good for snowy/ rainy spring days that are not below freezing. Did I just type that sentence? Yes, I did.

Wednesday

Wednesday is grocery day, and so I need something akin to workout wear. I mean, this was my haul from Superstore and Costco last Wednesday:

It took 52 minutes to put everything away. Forget carry-out service, I need a service to help me actually put the groceries away in my house.

Anyway, this Extreme Workout requires comfortable clothes that I can move around in, and that means yoga tank and pants, and this cute light sweater that cannot be worn without something underneath because it’s roomy and moves around a lot, if you know what I’m saying.

That’s it for the outfits, now for the books!

Pandemic Reading

These Precious Days. OH. I don’t think I can adequately express how much I loved this. I have read many essay collections and none have affected me like this. Everything resonated. Everything moved me. I feel a kinship and connection to the author that is incredibly strong. I loved every single word. I’m a fast reader but I slowed down because I didn’t want this to be over. It was such an incredible read for me and I cannot say enough about it.

The Curated Closet. As I mentioned above, this was a perfect book for my Week of Spring Outfits! This was so much fun to read! It’s all about discovering and establishing your own personal style and aesthetic, with helpful hints on how to shop mindfully, look for quality and fit, and detox your closet. Very fun and really well laid out and photographed. It has inspired me to go ahead with a Big Project that I have been turning around in my mind for the last few months.

Honor. I pride myself on being honest in my reviews, and this is painful for me to say. I have been looking forward to reading this for months; I was so excited when it came in at the library. I love this author and I was so interested in the very important story and theme. I want you to know that, to know just how much I hate to say what I’m going to say: I am disappointed. I found the characters to be one-dimensional and it was difficult to care about them, the dialogue is stilted, and the narration seemed contrived and heavy handed. It pains me to say it. Based on the author’s other works, I expected to be transported and amazed, but I wasn’t. It lacked the nuance and subtlety I love about her other books. It’s a decent book, it’s worth a read, but it’s not incredible or transformative and that is what I expected. It might be just me, and having high expectations, but this was a let down. 

I have a hugely busy and exciting week ahead, the sun is supposed to shine (mostly), and so I am feeling great and optimistic! I hope you have a wonderful spring-y week! xo

You Could Stuff A Throw Pillow With That Chest Hair; 113 Weeks In

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I was planning to post a Week of Spring Outfits, but this is what it looked like at the beginning of the week:

Although the week ended in a spring-like fashion, I thought the early part would overlap too much with my Week of Winter Outfits, what with my winter boots and warm sweaters. But I’m dying to talk to you about clothes and fashion for spring! Maybe next week.

You know what’s fun to do when you’re wearing your winter boots and it’s 5 degrees and snowy in May? Go to the garden centre! It sounds like I am being sarcastic, but believe me, I am not. I prefer to shop at less busy times; this sounds like a Pandemic Thing but it’s really just a Nicole Thing. I have always hated shopping at busy times; once, pre-pandemic, I went to Costco on a Sunday afternoon and my thought was this is how it ends for me, I guess.

When the sun comes out and the weather feels more May than March, it’s almost like the entire city remembers that a) it’s spring and b) gardens exist, and the garden centres are abuzz with activity. But with weather like we’ve had, well, I’m not saying I had the whole place to myself, but it was pretty easy to socially distance.

I texted my modest haul to my husband, who marvelled at my plant-buying restraint. What he didn’t know was that I have six flower planters and a ten-pack of vegetables on order from a fundraiser arriving in a couple of weeks, and what he does know but doesn’t always remember is that the majority of my gardens are filled to the brim with perennials, and so my plant needs are not so large. Also, after my garden centre trip I went to Superstore, where the gift with purchase was…a flower planter! What I’m saying is I’m pretty excited to get in the garden and get as much as I can out of our very short growing season. You can expect many, many garden updates from me over the next few months.

On a non-garden note, here’s an exciting update for you: I have finished watching Season One of The Golden Girls! At this rate I’m going to finish the series by 2026. Season Two opened up with two fantastic episodes: Blanche thinking she’s pregnant, but is instead going through menopause, and the ladies becoming mistaken for sex workers and ending up arrested. There is a guest appearance by the man referred to throughout the episode as Mr. Burt Reynolds, and I actually laughed out loud with delight when the gentleman in question appeared at the door with Sophia. Sorry, spoiler alert for a 37 year old TV show.

Anyway, it got me thinking two things: first, this might have been one of the very first mainstream television shows to discuss The Change, even if there are plot holes you could lose your house in. I mean, who thinks pregnancy at age 55? And also, in the history of the world is there one woman whose periods just naturally stopped with no other changes at all, and that was her menopause? But I cheer the effort to address something that women then, and sometimes now, seem loathe to address.

Second, heartthrobs in the 80s were very different from heartthrobs today. They were so much hairier! No chest waxing for Mr. Burt Reynolds (do guys still wax their chests? Or did that go out with the 40 Year Old Virgin?) I will tell you, people, when I saw that giant moustache, tanned skin, and brown leisure suit walk into the Golden Girls’ home, well. It was a look.

It reminded me of our 1987 family trip to California. We did all the usual things, including the most boring viewing of the Spruce Goose, which only served to make me appreciate the casino episode of The Simpsons. Anyway, one of the things we did was go to Universal Studios, and I don’t remember a single thing about it except that there were life-size cardboard cutouts of then-current heartthrobs, notably Tom Selleck, which you could get your photo taken with to trick your friends into thinking that you had your photo taken with the ACTUAL Tom Selleck. The 80s! Such a quaint time. My mom did have her photo taken with “Tom,” his arm floating a couple of inches above her shoulder. I myself had my photo taken with one “David Hasselhoff.”

It was an odd choice to be sure; I have never in my life seen an episode of Knight Rider, and certainly I wasn’t interested in David Hasselhoff at that time. My celebrity crushes in 1987 were limited to Iceman and Maverick (NEW MOVIE COMING OUT SOON OMG), Corey Hart (I was in his actual fan club), and, weirdly, Ralph Macchio from the Karate Kid Part II.

Another odd choice is my Garfield zodiac sweatshirt paired with a collared shirt but again, it was 1987 and I felt pretty hip. Also, there’s no need to ask “What’s your sign” when it’s in Garfield form on your body, for all to see.

Pandemic Reading

Before I get into the books I read this week, I am going to tell you about something I did that I never do: I took a book back to the library without reading it. A friend had highly recommended a book and I immediately put it on hold, without any other information, and when it came in I was distressed to see that it was a memoir about addiction. Addiction memoirs are right up there with sci-fi and dystopian novels for me, in the category of Things I Don’t Want To Read. Not only was this an Addiction Memoir, but it was also a Parenting With Addiction Memoir. I kept putting it off and renewing it, and finally I decided I would flip to a couple of pages to see what it was like. The very first line I read concerned putting a child to bed and then doing a line of coke, and I was like that NOPE octopus gif.

Here is what I did read this week:

Black Widow. I heard this woman on a podcast and I knew I had to read her book about being suddenly widowed at age 44.  It’s such a compelling and touching read but also extremely witty and somehow funny. 

The Great Gatsby. CONTROVERSIAL OPINION ALERT. I first read this 25 years ago and HATED it. Like, I have a visceral reaction to even the title. But my younger son is reading it for English, so I decided to reread it. I didn’t hate it. I didn’t like it but I can appreciate it as a social commentary, a time capsule, a voice of a generation, etc. Still. My son suggested I don’t like it because it’s written by a man and the main character is a man, and you know, he’s probably not wrong. I find it dull, although the ending is decent. I know, I know, I am in the massive minority here, everyone loves it and it speaks to them, but that is the great thing about literature, we can all like what we like. And I don’t like this – but I can appreciate it.

Everything Must Go. I almost quit this book before I began: the very first paragraph, THE VERY FIRST ONE, deals with putting down a much loved dog riddled with cancer. Um, that sucked. I immediately checked the book jacket to see if this was a major theme in the book – it wasn’t – and then continued reading. The dead dog was only tangentially in the story but TRIGGER WARNING for those of us with elderly, cancer-ridden dogs. Anyway. The book is about a woman dealing with her mothers dementia, written from both points of view. The author’s signature seems to be light and easy books about heavy and difficult topics, and that’s how I’d describe this. DEAD DOG THOUGH YOU GUYS. It’s fine. It’s fine. Barkley’s still here. I’m fine. Everything is fine. This book is fine.

More than fine? My new kale patch! I felt a little nervous, putting actual plants in, but kale is pretty cold tolerant so I think it will be fine. I hope you have a More Than Fine week, my friends. xo

It’s All Right, I Think We’re Going To Make It; 112 Weeks In

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A couple of weeks ago our neighbourhood had an outage with our internet service provider; the outage went from 10:30am to after 5:00pm. It’s really amazing how many things are attached to our internet service: TV, the landline, the Peloton. The boys came home after school and were shocked – SHOCKED – that there was no internet. What is this, the nineties? It was actually a bit of a problem since most of their homework is done online, but luckily, my son had an actual paper worksheet for his chemistry homework. My husband was in the office that day, very fortunately, and came home to immediately turn on the NFL draft. I reminded him to show gratitude to the universe that the internet was back on and he could actually watch the draft, after hours of the outage, but I don’t think he absorbed that same feeling.

Of all the things to go out – power, water, etc. – the internet is by far the easiest to deal with. It’s ingrained in our lives but it really is a luxury. However, I still had a low-level sense of worry that happens anytime I have the smallest blip in one of the many incredible services in my life: what if it NEVER comes back on. How will I file my taxes?

Luckily I had a number of podcasts downloaded, so I could listen to my Little House on the Prairie recaps without any issues. Priorities, people.

If the outage had happened this past week, however, I may not have noticed much: it’s been beautiful and I’ve been so busy outside. Oh, you guys, I have had such a good week. It’s amazing what a week of sunshine and warm weather will do for me. Am I solar powered? Maybe. In any case, we had a stretch of five glorious days, and I spent the majority of them frantically working in the yard and gardens, knowing, in the back of my mind, that the beautiful weather is fleeting and colder temperatures and precipitation, possibly of the snow variety, are right around the corner.

Which is, of course, what happened, but at least I got the back perennial beds all cleaned up and the backyard raked. The weekend was chilly, there was snow on the ground when I woke up this morning, and we have more snow flurries forecasted today, but I am unbothered because at least I had last week.

My pretty new gardening gloves that I got for my birthday, on the road to being filthy.

Soon I will be relocating Salvadore to one of my garden beds. He is still MAGICALLY moving around every night. Last week I woke up to him being engrossed in my book about tree care, written by our arbourist.

I guess he’s really interested in trees! It makes sense, he’s a woodland gnome.

My mom’s birthday is this week (HI MOM) so we celebrated on the weekend and I baked this cake:

It occurred to me that at this time last year, my sister-in-law and I had been planning a celebration for my mom’s birthday/ Mother’s Day, but Covid numbers went through the roof, we went into a lockdown, and it was a very scary time. It feels strange that was only one year ago; it feels like an age. Vaccines were just starting to be available at that time, I was teaching only on zoom, and cases were reported in the news, daily. We all waited for the daily numbers, and for me, I had hope that with the vaccine rollout, we would be THROUGH the pandemic by Christmastime.

People are really amazingly strong. I think if anyone told us what we would be going through, back in 2019, none of us would have believed it or, importantly, thought we could handle it. I think if, in May 2020, I was told that there would be fully another two years PLUS of the pandemic, but things were going to get progressively weirder, I would have just shriveled up into a little ball. But we just push through, don’t we? What are we in now, the sixth wave? And there is no way to know “daily numbers” anymore, at least not here, and even home rapid tests are less than accurate for all the new changes.

My kids mentioned that one of their friend’s dad is quite sick with Covid, so his whole family is currently staying with his grandma to allow him to isolate in their home. I said “I thought they all had it at Christmas?” and immediately the boys jumped on me. “That doesn’t MATTER, Mom! You know you can get it again, right? You can have Covid more than once!” Which, true; also, that doesn’t feel great, but at this point, what can we do? Do we just shrivel up in a ball? Or do we adjust the way we are living, and try to live our best lives in the healthiest, safest way possible?

In any case, I am glad to have celebrated my mom’s birthday with her. I have seen my mom, obviously, but this was the first time in two years I saw her for her birthday, and if there’s one thing that has come out of this pandemic, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the – checks title – past 112 weeks, it’s to not take anything for granted or to think there’s always next time, there’s always next year. Live in the now, as Garth says to Wayne. And in the now, I’m reading a lot of books and doing a lot of gardening.

Pandemic Reading

Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born. When Stephany (HI STEPHANY) mentioned this book, I knew I had to read it. I’m fascinated and horrified by the history of medicine, and this history of birth, midwifery, and obstetrics is fascinating and horrifying. A few times I felt faint reading some descriptions of obstetric procedures, and frequently I found myself inadvertently Kegeling. But it’s a great read – and I’m glad I read it AFTER having babies. I really liked reading about the changes in attitudes towards birth, how they were affected by social changes, and since it was published in 2006 it ended with the attitudes I remember from my own pregnancies and births. I’m sure things have changed now too, but that ship has long left the harbour for me. Perhaps one day I’ll have daughters-in-law who might let me share their experiences, if I am very fortunate.

How To Be Fine. I am a fan of the By the Book podcast, and so I really enjoyed reading this book about the authors/ hosts and what they learned from self-help books, what they hated about self-help books, and what they wished self-help books talked about. It was published in 2020 so I would be very interested to read a book where they tackle the books they read and lived by during the pandemic. How To Be Fine In A Pandemic? That would be a fun sequel. If you like that podcast you’ll love this book.

Bright Lights, Prairie Dust. There’s a lot more to Karen Grassle than just her role as Ma Ingalls: she was a theatre actress in the 60s and has fought for women’s rights for decades. Still, it was fun to read about Little House – spoiler, Michael Landon was an asshole – and life in New York in the 60s. I didn’t love this book though; it wasn’t laid out that well and it ended abruptly. Also she struggled with alcoholism and mental illness and that is a very large part of the book – it’s a bit hard to read at times. Still, glad I read it. 

I hope you all had a lovely weekend and cheers to the week ahead! May the snow flurries be few. xo

Maybe She’s Born With It, Maybe It’s Maybelline; 111 Weeks In

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Very frequently, of late, I have looked into the mirror and noticed what I thought was mascara smudged under my eyes. Each and every time, I try to remove the smudged mascara only to realize that it is not smudged mascara at all: it is just my skin, and that is how it looks now. Since this happens almost daily, you would think that I wouldn’t be surprised by this, but you would be wrong. I am surprised, every time.

My undereye circles are a bit more pronounced this week; I have been just a little short on sleep for several nights in a row. It turns out that those fifteen or twenty minutes each night start to add up, and I’ve been feeling just a little bit tired.

There was a parent meeting for my son’s club wrestling, and it was in person. I was so startled by this turn of events, I hardly knew what to do. I was waiting for information on a zoom link, and when the information came that the meeting would be in person, at the university, you would think that someone would have told me that I was slated to perform an interpretive dance in front of an audience of 1000. What do I do, where do I go, what do I wear, how is this going to work? It was fine, of course, although it has been over two years since I have been in a room with thirty other people. It has also been almost 25 years since I was at that part of the university, and it was very fun to walk by the fitness centre and the racquet centre, places I used to spend considerable amounts of time at, and that have – not surprisingly – changed a great deal.

There are lots of changes afoot. The people that bought the house next door, and are renovating it completely, are so nice and I am so looking forward to having them as my neighbours, not just because I think they will be a lovely addition to our neighbourhood, but also because that will mean that their renovations will be complete.

I see the gentleman a few times a week, on the occasions that I happen to be outside when he’s checking on the progress of the renovation. We always have a quick chat and he always says, in the most amiable way, “I hope the noise isn’t bothering you too much!” to which I respond, perkily, “No, no, it doesn’t bother me at all!” And that’s true! Mostly.

I am a person who can easily absorb loud noises and just go on with life; it’s almost like the sounds of hammering and beeping and what have you becomes white noise to me, with the exception of the afternoon that they jackhammered out the front steps and walkway. When that happened, my whole house shook intermittently for two hours, and my nerves, people. I kept repeating my favourite coping line, stolen from Allison (HI ALLISON) a decade ago: there will be a time after this. There will be a time after the jackhammering.

But mostly, it’s been just fine. I don’t have any babies or small children for whom the noise might disturb their sleep schedules, and the dog is almost completely deaf, so he is unbothered. The only problem came last weekend, when it appeared that the workers were on some kind of deadline, perhaps to coordinate trades for the week ahead. For five days straight they worked until 10pm.

For normal people, I am sure that wouldn’t be an issue, and if you were standing on the street, you probably wouldn’t have noticed, but the side of the house they were working on was the one nearest my bedroom, and 10pm is over an hour past my bedtime. I lay awake, hearing the hammering of…pipes? I don’t really know what they were doing. There will be a time after this. This is temporary. It took me a long while after they finished work to fall asleep, and I repeated my sleep mantra, which is My body is resting, even if I don’t sleep I am still resting my body. I generally find that soothing enough to fall asleep without becoming stressed out and anxious that I’m not sleeping enough.

The construction is temporary, the neighbours are not, right? I like all our neighbours; I cannot stress enough how important it is to me that the neighbours and I get along. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by a feud between neighbours; I will do anything to keep the peace, including never saying anything about workmen being noisy right up until the bylaw deadline. After all, over the past 22 years our neighbours have been wonderful, and that includes the times when we have had swarms of children in our yard, jumping on the trampoline and screaming, and also my son’s daily drum practice. I feel grateful to have had such fantastic people of all ages and personalities living nearby, and I just know our new neighbours are going to be lovely.

And the more work they do on the house, late in the day, the faster the renovation will be done. Right? Right. In any case, I got a little more sleep last night, downgrading my undereye circles from Raccoon to Lightly Smudged Mascara.

Pandemic Reading

The Ex-Boyfriend Yard Sale. When a broke actress finds herself in major credit card debt, she tries to think of ways to raise money: what if she sold the items given to her by ex-boyfriends? The idea of valuing such items turned into a one-woman stage show, and then, obviously, this book. She enlisted the help of mathematicians and economic theorists to create a formula for valuing gifts from exes, and the value the exes brought to her life. The economic theory and math was fun to read, and for me, it made this book a worthwhile read. However.

Listen, we have all had our share of bad relationships and made our share of bad decisions. What would it be to read a memoir in which no bad choices were made and everything was just fine. AND YET. I found myself constantly frustrated with and disappointed in the author. MAKE BETTER CHOICES, MY GOD. If a man has sex with you for three years, and yet refuses to be called your boyfriend, that is not just a red flag, it is an entire skyscraper ensconced in red velvet. If a man tells you he doesn’t want to be in a relationship with you, don’t keep trying to be in a relationship. Even if he does “give you six orgasms” or an orgasm that “lasts three minutes” every time you have sex (which, what?). There is a part where she tells him everything she wants in their relationship, and people, this is THREE PAGES LONG and lists everything from “spending every holiday together, just the two of us” to “never letting our sexual desire fade” (understandable, given the six-orgasms-per-sexual-encounter), to “buying a sectional for snuggling.” After this three page monologue, the guy says that he doesn’t want any of those things, and he cannot give her any of those things, AND YET SHE PERSISTS IN TRYING TO HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM. Girl, this is a booty call. He is not spousal material. The whole time I was reading this, I kept thinking, girl, no. Just no. Stop calling him. I don’t know, maybe I’m just getting too old to read these kinds of memoirs.

Whoa, that was a long review. I have feelings, I guess. Moving on.

The Story Hour. I enjoyed this book about the relationship between two women; one from India, the other her psychiatrist. Midway through I thought I knew where it was going, but it turns out I didn’t at all. I like that. The major theme was the mistakes that we make, how we atone for them, and can we forgive others’ mistakes as well as our own. Thrity Umrigar is a real talent; her ability to craft characters that are multi-dimensional is breathtaking. It also made me think about the judgements we make about people, and how there is always so much more to their stories than what we see.

It’s been a more social week than usual; lots of visits with friends, so I’m feeling happy coming into May. May! Already! Every month it feels shocking to change the calendar. Happy May to you, my friends. xo