My woMAN Cave

At this very moment I am sitting in purgatory while my husband strings cable up through a vent in an attempt to save me.

Purgatory is the boys gaming/movie/computer room. To my left are 4 empty coke cans and the remains of a bag of doritos. To my right is a mouse pad with an anime girl’s face and boobs as the wrist rest.

This is my life. I live with four men ranging in age from 16 to 54. At any given point during the day I will look up and see a man walking around in naught but underwear, hear farting and/or belching, find abandoned socks or cutlery in between the sofa cushions, or discover (the hard way) that the bathroom is temporarily uninhabitable.

I am the lone female in a house of maleness. I need a fortress of heavenly solitude to which I can escape after enduring the daily grind at work and the gauntlet of duties being a wife and mother thrust upon me.

So, at this very moment my husband is stringing cable up through a vent because the spotty and unreliable wireless in my refuge is not conducive to my redemption. I can’t be sure if he is doing this because he has grown weary of my complaints about the inferior quality of the wireless in the south addition, or if the boys are tired of my presence in their refuge, or he is just really that gallant.

Which ever is the true motive, I’m getting a reliable internet connection so I can retreat back into my artroom/woman cave.

canada election fashion orange

Election Budget Blues (and fashion budget orange)

The writ has been dropped, Canada. Which is great, I am a huge fan of democracy, but the timing is so inconvenient. This is going to be the longest election campaign in Canadian history. Seventy-seven full days of electioneering, baby kissing, hair and beard dissing, and definition of risk duelling.

When I saw the flurry of political tweets come in this morning I gasped. How am I going to deal with this many of days of politics? Do I have what I need to get me through to the bitter end or will I need to stretch my resources and deal with the constant fear that my closet will be empty before the race is over? I would hate the success or failure of my election fashion to be determined by budget constraints. After All, here in Alberta orange is trending. I feel it is my patriotic responsibility to see that trend expand across the country.

So, as the journalists and pundits struggled to foretell Canada’s future in 140 characters, I leapt out of bed and threw open my (new) armoire.

Never fear! I am fully fashion covered for entire the election cycle.

I have several weeks worth of dresses from which to choose,

and will easily maintain my office fashion leadership.

I can switch it up and keep my image fresh as the situation evolves.

I can mix and match and play up or down my strengths and weaknesses to make just the right impression.

I am even all set for heading out into the cool fall weather, with outerwear:

and cool weather accessories:

I can even properly accessorize depending on what crowd I find myself in.

And I will stand tall; footwear…check.

I am so relieved.

Crisis averted, I will not suffer the election BLUES.

Burberry dress fashion Marni\Nanette Lepore Rubenesque size spanx Victoria Beckham Vivienne Westwood

The cost of contentment

I recently had to go shopping for a dress for my middle son’s high school graduation. Usually shopping is easy for me. I am a pro after all.

So, I cheerfully headed to the mall. I said a chipper hello to the shopgirls in my favourite store. (Naively as it turns out) I picked out a few frocks and skipped back to the fitting room.

Burberry, as the conservative choice.

Nanette Lepore as the traditionally feminine possibility.

Vivienne Westwood because… well, because Vivienne Westwood.

Victoria Beckham for a more modern option.

And Marni because I think I should wear Marni.

Imagine my shock when I got into the fitting room with my size 40 dress and discovered I couldn’t do the zipper up. My sales girl cheerfully brought me a size 42 but didn’t seem to fully grasp why I was not thrilled at the stroke of luck that they indeed had a larger size in the back room, and were able to accommodate my bulk.

OMG

Size 42?

How has this happened?

I bought the dress. Porky or not, I still needed a dress. Next I had to make a pit stop at the lingerie shop for some spanx. SPANX. I bought spanx. Needless to say, I was a touch forlorn when I arrived home to my doting husband.

To make it even worse, he got his hopes up when he saw the lingerie bag.

When, later that same evening, I was able to speak about the ordeal – standing next to our bed wrapped in my robe attempting to discreetly slip my Rubenesque figure under the covers without showing any bloated fleshy bits – my husband just laughed it off. He pulled me close and wrapped his arms around my rolly polly waist and declared he knew this would happen. “A happy woman always gains a few pounds,” he said, “I take your dress size as a compliment.” He called it the happiness premium.

What is that? What happiness? What, the joy at now being the proud owner of shapewear? Shamewear. I used to have my own shape, now I have to squeeze myself into a shape shifting device, put on a brave face and pretend my figure is my own.

I feel betrayed by my contentment.

armoire clothes dress fashion

I am a woman with two problems …

This spring has been a busy time for crafting first impressions and I have had to overcome a significant hurdle to my ability to do so with elegance, expediency and efficiency.

First, I was transferred to a new office at the beginning of May. In my last office I set a high bar. As testament to my success one particularly astute colleague took to referring to me as an elegant bag lady. Amazing how some people just get me right away.

Being keenly aware of how important is to maintain my fashionista momentum, I spent the long weekend before my first day going through the closet and pulling together outfits.

Skirt-top-cardi-mules-necklace
Dress-cardi-kitten heels-earrings
Slacks-blouse-cardi-pumps-earrings…

It was a fabulous way to spend a spring afternoon. I got 8 unique and fashionable outfits put together – then I had to stop.

Second, Alberta called an election. To show solidarity with my political party of choice I laboured to put together a string of stunning orange outfits. I had a lot to work with because, well, because I just have a lot of clothes to work with:

6 orange dresses
5 five orange tops and summer sweaters
4 orange cardigans
3 pairs of orange shoes
2 orange skirts
and 1 orange scarf

I started putting them together with accessories in affiliated colours. I didn’t even get past the dresses before I had to halt political panolpoly progress.

Why stop you ask? I was enjoying myself. I was getting organized. I was expressing my feelings and using my creative skills. Why stop? Because I had no place to hang my outfits. I literally RAN OUT OF ROOM to pull myself together. It was terribly sad.

This is a recurring theme in my life. Just when I hit my stride and feel able to express myself as a creative human being, the limits and parameters imposed on me by chance and circumstance appear. My closet was clearly designed by a person who envisioned nothing more than hanging 6 of the same white permanent press shirts and 6 pairs of pants in shades of charcoal.

Currently my clothes are packed together in a closets with no air, no freedom to move on the rod and no where to meet their true match. Every morning I face the daunting task of pulling together an outfit in a rush and sans caffeine.

But SOON this will be no more! Last night I went online and ordered a beautiful armoire for my bedroom.

I hope when it arrives all my fashionable problems with be over.

fashion spring

Fifty shades of beige

Just over a week ago it was 15 degrees above zero, sunny, and I could see my crocuses growing up through the soil. I was so happy. I wore a skirt with bare legs and some pretty MaryJanes. I put on a light jacket with my gauzy butterfly scarf and took a comfortable lunch time stroll through the downtown streets.

Then it snowed again.

Just a few days ago it was 18 degrees above zero, sunny, and I could see my tulips poking noses through the soil. I was so happy. I wore a skirt with bare legs and some pretty mules. I put on a light sweater with a fuchsia scarf and took a comfortable lunch time stroll through the downtown streets.

Then it snowed again.

This is killing me.

I am so done with winter clothes. I have no idea what to wear anymore. Every morning I stand frozen in apathetic inertia staring into my closet.

I am starting to actually habour awful, hateful thoughts about trousers that only a few brief months ago I was enamoured of. Just the suggestion that I re-open the drawer with my woolen tights sends me into a raging fit.

It has to stop. I have to feel pretty again. I need to feel pretty again.

The key to pretty is my legs.

I need light tights.

Between you and me, I am getting older. … No, really. … I am not a girl anymore. I need to dress with elegance and not with the quirkiness of youth.

In my desperation to emulate the bare leg look I crave – that spring-has-sprung natural calf that my husband anticipates with such glee each year – I went shopping for a pair of nude tights. Not panty hose, they don’t offer quite enough warmth. Tights.

Do you think I can find a pair of tights that match my skin tone? I have wandered through every store I could find and have identified 50 shades of beige.

Should I be bound by a predilection for unnatural hues and youthful patterns that the fashion industry sells? What about what I want? I am the demographic with disposable income. What if I just want to buy simple, uncoloured slightly insulating legwear? Is that old fashioned? To want my leg to just look like a leg?

I don’t want to be squeezed or reshaped.

I don’t want to shimmer. I don’t want straps or fishnets. I don’t want plaid, or poetry. I don’t need my legs to make a profound statement on the state of the economy or to act as a signal of my voting intention.

I want durable weight, ivory/peach tinted body hugging but not body altering tights that demurely whisper “Look at my face”.

I am on the verge of despair. I may have to call in sick until the weather improves.

clothes feminism wife woman

Never again, a gain

My darling gave up cigarettes and took on pringles last year.

To begin with you should know that he is not the average man. Firstly, he is a darling. That much is indisputable. He is intelligent. Stoic. Handy. Loyal. Affectionate. Reliable. Even tempered. Handsome. Tall. Broad shouldered. Considerably above average.

And now, thanks to cheetos and winter inactivity, he is also has an above average waist measurement.

I mean this with all respect. From inactivity alone I too put on 3 or 4 pounds and am finding my dresses slightly more form fitting than I like. But because I am a woman I have been conditioned all my life to avoid snacking in order to preserve my figure. My husband was not indoctrinated with any such waist preservation strategy.

So I, his loyal wife and ally, voluntarily opted to spent a Sunday afternoon shopping with him for new pants.

I don’t even know how many pairs of jeans we looked at. It blurred. In a desperate bid to locate the correct waist size I sorted through more piles of clothes than I did during my entire last shopping trip to New York.

I was never quite sure what to say when he grew more despondent and my flattery became more transparent.

I was tired, he was grumpy.

The whole experience involved the level of frustration and despair usually reserved for bathing suit shopping forays, with the same root issue. There isn’t enough fabric where the damned fabric is really needed.

We finally found a pair and immediately fled the mall. As earnest in our need to escape as if we had just robbed the bank, we squealed out of the parking lot and hit the freeway home.

Sigh.

I am not suited to companion shopping. I am a solitary hunter. I want to be supportive, I do. But when I shop for myself it is incidental to my life. Or, more accurately, a constant component of my life. I have never HAD to shop because I always AM shopping. In fact it has been suggested that I could stop – silly really, why stop when I am so good at it? I now realize it was the freedom that made it fun.

My enthusiasm is limited to personal shopping.

I fear that if I am called upon again to join a shopping expedition that my favourite pastime – the casual potential shopping foray – could lose all its joy. Nothing kills pleasure so much as when the freedom to discover becomes a mandated need to locate.

And so, it becomes the age old dilemma of womankind; to support her family or to seek her own fulfillment.

I cannot risk of losing sight of my true passion in life.

Impromptu blog – The Dress

Ok internets. I am a busy girl and don’t like to fixate too long on any one thing. But this dress thing, it is so fascinating. I have this kind of problem all the time.

Take this Cynthia Rowley Dress, straight from the 2015 spring runway.

What colour – white and black, or pink and brown? I just don’t know which I should commit to. I can’t decide. And if I decide, will it be the catalyst for some internet fueled debate? I can’t risk that.

Obviously I just have to buy one in each colour.

Thank-you internet.

Previously palatable

What to eat, not what not to eat. That was my quest.

Last Thursday the love of my life and I found ourselves childless due to a confluence of fortuitous circumstances.

My usual week night routine involves feats of dexterity rarely seen outside the circus ring. I juggle to accommodate and cajole to tame a motley crew of spurious and furious likes, dislikes, aversions and nutritional requirements for 5 people.

I take it with practiced grace now. When we first merged our households I was less adept and dinners were occasionally traumatic and sporadically dangerous.

During one ride home five weeks after I started cooking for everyone I was asked what I was planning for supper. I sobbed the rest of the way home.

There was, in the first six months, one tragic day when we all stood hungrily in front of the pantry considering our options. I offered to quickly prepare a tasty spaghetti arrabiatta, which was rebuffed with a slam of the pantry door and the gruff assertion that no meal was possible without meat. I assume they all had cold sliced meat sandwiches for dinner that night because I didn’t cook.

Last fall I found a recipe and attempted moose stew. I do learn the hard way sometimes. First of all, the raw meat was frightfully bleedy. Secondly cooking wild meat smells like grocery store meat times 100. The fumes alone caused a dysphoric agitation that took me three days to shake.

Oh, and there was the potato pie incident. Four large potatoes, a container of cottage cheese, fried onion, garlic and peppers, another cup of grated cheese with two eggs to bind it. The middle boy shoved it away and refused to even taste it, hastily declaring it frittata-non-grata. That incident sent me up to my bedroom for the night.

Anyway, back to my story. All the boys were out and I decided that was the perfect opportunity for a date night dining adventure. So we made our freedom count. We went out for dinner. Randomly, without a reservation or ANYTHING.

We wandered downtown and passed several cafes. Then I spotted a restaurant I had eaten in few months prior when a friend and I were famished from a long day shopping. There I had savoured my food. It was so tasty. It filled me up and set me right for the rest of the day. Just recalling the meal made me salivate.

I suggested this restaurant to my love.

It was a complete let-down. I mean, the food was good enough. It was freshly prepared. The presentation was certainly spot on. The service was excellent.

But it wasn’t as thrilling as I had remembered…suddenly I knew why. Hunger is the best seasoning. This time I wasn’t famished, I was just bored.

Opportunity wasted.

It really sucks that food tastes better when you are hungry, but when you are well fed eating is only a mediocre experience.

Foodie follie

You know I love my boys. I dote on them. I make sacrifices for them. I happily and willingly share my space with them, my time with them and my money catering to their youthful tastes.

For instance, I have a whole section of the fridge dedicated to lunch meat, cheese, and soda. I have a cupboard filled with cereal, instant noodles and goldfish crackers. I have ceded part of my freezer space to pizza pops and Haagen Dazs… nope sorry that’s mine … to pizza pops and frozen waffles.

That’s all well and good. These things are not to my taste, but because I am a naturally tolerant person I accept my gouda being placed next to the kraft singles, my granola next to the frosted flakes, and my premium ice cream brand next to frozen breakfast waffles. I believe that these two food views can co-exist peacefully.

This has never been an issue for me, until now. I had, of course, hoped that eventually my tastes would influence the boys. After all imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. What I had not considered was the real timeline on which this imitative effect might impact my real life.

Last weekend, after a hectic Saturday attending a civic speaking event, dinner at the hot new tapas spot downtown and then the opera in the evening, I looked forward to a relaxing stress free Sunday.

I slept late, and at my leisure wandered down stairs. I intended to make myself eggs benedict for brunch …

… and discovered we had no eggs or butter.

Then I thought – that’s ok. I opened the cheese drawer to fetch the aged cheddar for a grilled Panini sandwich…

… and it too was gone.

I moved to the next option, bagel and cream cheese. Nope. No bagel, no cream cheese.

I decided to just make myself an Americano…

… but the can of espresso was empty.

At this point I was quite flustered. I decided that before I further explored my options I needed to calm down, so I opened the fridge fully intending to retrieve a craft ale to sooth my nerves.

There wasn’t a can or bottle left in the fridge, although I did note there were several in the recycle bin.

So, what I did I get on my relaxing Sunday morning? I had what was left in the cupboard and fridge.

I had a rootbeer and ramen noodles.

And NO, you cannot see a photo of that.

love privacy renovation TMI toilet

Intimate instances, for instance (a tale of two toilets)

**TMI Warning**

I love my home. I have a beautiful library, five fireplaces and rooms with french doors. The house is in a wonderful neighbourhood close to my city’s beautiful river valley and cycling distance to restaurants and cafes and shopping. The comfort is real.

I also love my husband. We share the ups and downs of daily life. I laugh in front of him, I cry in front of him. We have a bond and a lifestyle that keeps outside issues from coming between us. Our joy is is real.

(Aren’t we cute?)

I feel a little bad picking at my bliss, but I have a serious problem.

There are intimate instances during which I do not feel it is necessary to keep the proverbial (or actual) beautiful french doors open between my love and me. For instance, any time that I need to use a toilet.

I have the world’s worst en suite bathroom. It makes me want to wail and tear out my hair. What epic idiot renovated this elegant traditional home with the confused theory that modern marital bliss was compatible with uncloseted toilets? It boggles the mind. One wonders if the architect was some alien being, unfamiliar with the uncommunality of the common commode.

When we first moved in I felt the pressure to be flexible, so in the middle of the night I would stumble quietly into the darkness, groping the walls on my way to the bathroom, and stealthily perch on the uncloseted toilet around the corner. It seemed like a workable situation for a while. Then the inevitable happened.

My husband, who will sleep soundly through the trumpets and clashing swords of the apocalypse, had a bladder full at MY usual hour. We have reached the point in our marriage where our bladders are synchronized, which may sound sweet – the world is full of serendipitists who find all togetherness tales endearing – but it created a situation fraught with peril.

You see, I had already rounded the corner in the darkness and was sitting in cognito on the un-private privy.

When my darling rounded the dark corner I saw his outline against the moonlit window and hissed “I am on the toilet!” He recoiled in alarm, swung his arms – nearly sending all my lotions and pill bottles crashing off my sink counter – and, spinning on his heels, lunged back to bed.

Had he taken his final two steps he most certainly would have emptied his bladder on the spot I, and the toilet, currently occupied. I narrowly averted being peed on.

Consequently, my new midnight routine involves a flight of stairs because I simply cannot risk a repeat of watercloset-gate.

I want a door on my toilet.

I need a door on my toilet.

I need privacy to pee, and one of these early mornings I am going to fall down the stairs and break my neck trying to discreetly make my way down to the main floor bathroom to take care of what I should be able to take care of in my en suite.

God grant me the flexibility to accept the things I cannot change,

the willpower to change the things I can,

and the budget for a private toilet.

darcysfirstworldproblems

It's lonely in the top (1%)

first world problems