Author: Lindsay

A Christmas-y Weekend in Dressember

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I’ve had more fun with Dressember this weekend. I’d also like to thank the weather for cooperating with this Dressember experience – it’s been so warm! This weekend it hovered around freezing.

On Saturday, we went to a Christmas market, then set up the tree while watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (our annual tradition).

Yes. Our tree is tiny. Dress: Recycled button-up shirt dress from a store on Main Street on Vancouver (with American Apparel tank underneath) // Cardigan: Etnies // Jeans: Lucky

Today, we had a two-part Christmas party to attend – the first part was at a local historical attraction called Heritage Park, and then we went back to the hostess’s house for food and the rest of the party.

I tried the dress-over-skirt option today. I had never considered this, but saw some other Dressemberists doing it and thought it was interesting.

The outdoors version of my outfit. Dress: Joe // Skirt: No label // Scarf: My BFF made it for me // Coat: Bench // Tights: Joe (under), Codori Crochet Tights (over) // Legwarmers: from Sock Dreams // Boots: Keen

The kids at the party playing with a Lite Brite.

The indoor version of my outfit (wish it showed the tights!) Dress: Joe // Sweater: Roxy // Necklace: my sister’s from the 80s // Skirt: No label (Value Village) // Legwarmers: Button-up Legwarmers from Sock Dreams // Socks: Joe

The next few days of posts will be fun – terrarium building tomorrow; prayer flag making the next day; and Solstice the day after that!

A Downtown Holiday Adventure (And Dressember Day #16)

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We don’t have much time for spontaneous family days in December (it’s true!), but I’ve been taking mental note of downtown festivities as I see them pop up on Facebook and Twitter – a gingerbread replica of the beautiful Fairmont Palliser Hotel, ice sculptures on Stephen Avenue, carolers, fiddlers, and pretty lights, to name a few. I had decided it would be fun to take an afternoon and head down there to enjoy as much as we could all in one day, since I knew making it down more than once wouldn’t happen.

I looked up some of the attractions on advance and made it into kind of a scavenger hunt, so we could cross sights off the list as we went.

First was the gingerbread replica of the Palliser. Truthfully, I also wanted an excuse to go into the Palliser and see the Christmas decorations. Here is what the Palliser really looks like (today):

The real Fairmont Palliser

And here is Neko with the fully edible version:

We took to the +15 walkway system to get partway to TD Square, where we would find the fiddlers performing. On our way, we walked for a bit down Stephen Avenue, and came across the ice sculptures in front of Winners. I hear that other years, they’ve been destroyed really quickly, so we were glad to see them still standing and in perfect condition.

Unfortunately, even though the Downtown Calgary website said the fiddlers would be performing 11:45 – 1:15, and we got to the right spot at 1 pm on the dot, they were already finished and packing up their things. Too bad – I was disappointed.

Thankfully, we had Food Trucks to cheer us up. My YYC Food Trucks app told us that Alley Burger was parked down at Eau Claire, so we hoofed it down there to grab a couple. Good thing we walked so fast! After we ordered, the woman at the till told the next customer there were only four left. We were starved, and so glad to have our burgers and fries. We walked back to TD Square to sit and eat them.

YUM! Highly recommended.

A touch-up for my haircut at Ginger Group and a latte from Caffe Rosso were the perfect end to our adventure.

Tonight, we attended a Christmas party at a friend’s house, and I donned Dress #2 of the day. It’s too big – I nabbed it at a clothing swap earlier this month because I think it’s cute and I wanted another dress for Dressember.

Mid-Month Dressember Slump

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Ouch, pretty bad couple of days. Yesterday was really tough, as we had to bus to childcare and then I had to get from there to work, and then another bus adventure at the end of the day. At least that was the plan. I really wanted to wear a dress but, very long story with a lot of calculations short, I decided the easiest way to make the schedule work in the morning would be for me to run from where I was dropping Neko off, to my store. So…. I needed to wear something that I could run in, without any extra pieces to carry, warm enough for below freezing temperatures and layers so I could take off the inner, sweaty layers when I got to work and not stink all day.

I came up with tights, covered by tights, covered by yoga pants, with wool socks, a tank top with a built-in bra, a long-sleeved tee-shirt, and a light dress. And a light running jacket. Needless to say, I looked… interesting.

Dress: Joe // Shirt: Calvin Klein (Winners) // Pants: Karma // Shoes: Saucony

Yep, that’s right, there’s my entry for Running Dress.

It gets worse. I’ve been so tired this week, I haven’t put any effort into the outfits. I apologize to all you proper Dressemberists out there. I hope it’s just a mid-month slump, and that today I’ll be back on my game.

Dress: No label, Value Village // Shirt: Suzy Shier // Jeans: Lucky

A Conversation We Had Today

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On the walk home from the library tonight, Neko and I were talking about her impending 6th birthday. We discussed what she might get for presents, and whether she minds having a birthday so close to Christmas.

She said her legs were tired, and asked me to carry her. I said, “I’m sorry, you’re going to be six now. I can only carry you in emergency situations.”

“Sometimes I think about the old times, and feel sad,” she replied. “I wish I could still ride on your back.”

“I think about the old times sometimes and feel sad, too. Getting older can be exciting, but it can also be sad, because you have to leave some things behind. I loved carrying you on my back, and feeding you bubby (our word for breastfeeding), and snuggling you in our bed,” I told her.

“But we’ll always do that,” she said, “Even when I’m grown up.”

“What? Snuggle in bed?”

“Yes.”

“Of course. And when I’m old and frail, and can’t walk on my own anymore, you can carry me on your back,” I suggested.

“Mommy! No I can’t! I’m not carrying you on my back!,” she laughed.

“Oh, come on! I carried you around for years! You can’t carry your poor, old mother?” I pleaded with her.

“Who’s ever heard of someone carrying a grandma?!” she exclaimed.

“We can be the first,” I said. She giggled.

A few steps later, she told me, “Mommy, sometimes I get sad when I think about when I’ll be a teenager and I won’t love you anymore.”

Oops. We’ve told her that she won’t always listen to us like she does now, and that when she’s a teenager she probably won’t want to be around us as much.

I reassured her that she’ll still love us just as much, hopefully, but that she just won’t want to spend as much time with us, and she will probably think we don’t know much about anything. I told her that I hope we’ll have a good relationship and that even though she won’t want to spend as much time with us when she’s a teenager, hopefully she’ll still want to hang out with us sometimes.

“I’m going to keep living with you when I’m older, even if I save up enough money to buy a house,” she told me.

One day I’ll look back at this post and shed another tear like I did tonight.

Dressember Day #13 and a Michael Bernard Fitzgerald Living Room Concert

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Earlier this year, I saw local indie sweetheart Michael Bernard Fitzgerald live for the first time (after a close call at Folk Fest a few years ago when I missed him – boo.). I was pretty excited, not just because his music is super peppy and happy and fun, but also because he seems to always be surrounded by just downright adorable people. I love adorable people! I saw him at the Starlite Room in Edmonton in the spring, and it was a ton of fun.

Then, in September, two of my good friends, Megan and Matt got married, and as a special surprise for Megan’s stagette party, her friends hired Michael to play a private show at a theatre in Edmonton – even better! I bruised my hand at this one while clapping to Brand New Spaces. There was also much wine involved. This night was so much fun and so awesome. I felt lucky to be there!

But a third time in the same year? Nah, too much to ask. But no! Michael decided to do a series of living room concerts to benefit the Calgary Food Bank this Christmas, and my friends Janine and Nikki volunteered their living room for one of these.

Michael Bernard Fitzgerald performing old and new favourites in Janine and Nikki’s living room.

Janine’s kids, Micah and Vienna, were in attendance, so when Michael did his usual quirky mash-up of Low, The Thong Song and Baby Got Back, he changed the lyrics of the Thong Song to “Let me see that suggestive underwear.” Micah thought this was so hysterically funny that for the remainder of the performance, Michael inserted the word underpants into each song. He then wrote a new Christmas song on the spot – the lyrics being simply, “Santa don’t forget my underpants, peee-ew.” Micah was in stitches.

And, my Dressember ensemble for the occasion…

This dress has no label. I bought it at a music festival.

A Day in the Life#1: Unschooling (and Dressember Day #12)

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I’ve decided that periodically, on our days that are especially great (what’s that? You don’t want a play-by-play of the days where we run errands?), I’m going to post day-in-the-life posts showing what we do on a day of unschooling. Over time, these posts will show a variety of types of days, a range of topics, and hopefully a good cross-section of what unschooling an only child can look like.

Today is the first of these! Neko and I had almost a full day at home, and I had some plans of what I could work on with her (yep… that’s not true unschooling), so I thought it would be a good time to start.

We’ve cut out our morning ritual of Neko watching a few (usually at least semi-educational without ads) TV shows and having a glass of chocolate almond milk, as her behaviour has been going downhill lately with more whining, worse sleep habits, and some back-talking and rudeness. I feel Justan and I are at fault, not setting clear enough boundaries and setting Neko up to fail with the morning dose of sugar and screen time. For the past few days, there has been no TV in the morning, and the first thing to pass through Neko’s lips has been protein, or at least whole grains.

8 am We bucked the trend a bit here this morning, and I let her watch Nim’s Island on Netflix, as it was recommended to us recently.

9:45 am Neko did a mosaic craft that my mom gave her for her birthday. Just a bunch of sticky dots that you place on a template, but my thought is that it was useful for… math. And art. And fine motor skills. Oh, and we had breakfast at this point.

11 am I did laundry. Neko finished up her mosaic, and we snacked a bit in anticipation of going tobogganing. Also, Neko put a blanket on the cat. No educational benefit to that, that I can discern, but it was silly and looked cute.

Blanket-on-cat. Cute.

11:45 am Tobogganing! About six blocks from our house, there is a pretty big hill with a nice slope, and now that the snow deep enough and a decent quality, we’ll be over there sliding down that hill often! Last year we got a big, wooden toboggan and two plastic “flying saucers,” and we just got two Crazy Carpets (from the treasure hunt for Neko’s birthday party). This was our physical education for the day. Plus it was just fun. And we got some vitamin D.

Lots of hill climbing… unencumbered glee… and it’s a good sign when you’re laughing hysterically after falling off at the bottom.

This was tiring. And thirsty-making. So we walked home for treats. It was, by the way, nearly impossible to get Neko off this hill.

1 pm Cold drinks! I blended some lemon juice, homemade strawberry preserves (simply strawberries, lemon juice and sugar, simmered) and made us strawberry lemonade. Which, of course, called for fancy glasses. Which, of course, makes it appear that I was filling my daughter with strawberry margaritas. I wasn’t, by the way.

Oh yeah. And water.

Yum!

2 pm Things got pretty boring at this point when we cleaned out Neko’s bed. It’s a loft bed, and she has tons of books up there, and extra blankets, and random toys… anyway. It was gross. And messy. So we did that. (Also, I’m watching Louis CK as I write this and I apologize if it’s affecting my tone.) Neko then chose a selection of toys that she wants to keep on her bed which are, she says, “fake Pokemons.” She basically chose regular toys and assigned them special powers. I don’t get Pokemon. These are life skills of some sort, I’m quite sure.

3 pm As I had promised Neko earlier in the day, it was time for Just Dance 3 on the Wii. This is, for the record, also my workout for the day. That game gets your heart pumping! I also secretly (not anymore) hope it will improve my moves, you know, for the next time I’m at the club.

Hawt. We had a good time.

This, of course, was part two of phys ed for today. And the required daily pop culture lesson.

4 pm Here was my one, actually educational plan for the day: to print off a 10×10 chart so Neko could fill it in with the numbers one through 100. She’s been having trouble learning to count, and I thought a visual cue, and writing the numbers herself, would probably help her make the connection. So I made a ten column by ten row table in Pages, made the cells square, and printed the page. Then I had Neko fill in the bottom ten squares, left to right, one to ten. We then went across and did the teens. Then the twenties. Up until this point I was leading Neko through it, and she wasn’t totally understanding the pattern of the whole thing. But around 28, she saw the pattern. She started filling in the cells by herself, only asking for help once or twice per line. This was so cool to watch. Each time she figured out the name for the next ten spot, she was so very proud of herself. I honestly almost cried, watching her. I told her that once she had filled in the chart, she would be able to count to 100. She said, “I can only write to a hundred, I can’t count to a hundred mommy.” I explained that using her new chart, she’ll be able to count to 100 whenever she wants. Her eyes filled with excitement and she said, “I want to fold this up and put it in my pocket and keep it with me every day!”

Definition of the term “awesomesauce.”

After that, we called my parents so she could count to 100 on the phone for them (my mom is a kindergarten teacher, so she was thrilled to listen), and Justan came home and Neko showed him her number chart, and then she went to play with the neighbours for a while.

Oh, and today was Dressember Day #12.

Dress: Majora (Value Village) // Boots: Thrift shop

Dressember Day #11

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Visited a heritage breed show today. Neko and I loved the petting zoo and spent a lot of time cuddling ducks, hens, kids and bunnies. A little Polish hen made friends and snuggled me for about 20 minutes.

Here is today’s ensemble (comfy and warm for traveling), with a miniature donkey.

Dress: 725 (clothing swap) // Sweater: clothing swap (no label) // Tights: left at my house after a Rubik’s Cube party (yes, really) // Shoes: El Naturalista

Furoshiki: The Ultimate in Eco-Friendly Gift Wrapping

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We all remember the newspaper gift wrapping trend of the 90s. Anyone who was at all eco-conscious at the time was encouraged to wrap their gifts in newspaper or the Sunday comics – it looks fun! It’s reusing! Yay! That got old pretty fast, though. Since then, there have been a lot of ideas generated on the most earth-friendly ways to wrap our gifts. Recycled kraft paper; reusable cloth bags; and cloth such as towels are all fairly popular ideas. A few years ago, while researching an article to collect some of the best ideas for eco-friendly gift wrapping, I came across one idea that I’m still shocked hasn’t really caught on in the mainstream: furoshiki.

My furoshiki creations for this Christmas.

Furoshiki is a traditional Japanese method of wrapping and tying cloths to wrap gifts or transport items (such as library books). I’ve heard from some sources that the tying cloths were considered special and passed among families over time.

It’s really very simple. My furoshiki usually consists of just wrapping the cloth around the item and tying it in the way that intuitively seems to work best. That said, there are specific methods that work best for different sizes and shapes of items.

While there are websites where you can buy furoshiki cloths, and they now carry them at Lush (and the ones at Lush are really cute!), I mostly buy scarves for $5 or less at thrift shops and garage sales. I stockpile them during the year and when Christmas rolls around, I have quite a few and can usually manage to wrap a large percentage of my gifts in furoshiki. Many of them get passed back to me and I reuse them, though I hope it will catch on among my extended family and they’ll start using the cloths to wrap their gifts, too.

Top left: DVD wrapped in a plain green scarf (from a thrift shop) // Top right: book wrapped in another thrift shop scarf, with coordinating ribbon added // Bottom left: Lego set wrapped in a full sari (it’s twisted and brought back around at the bottom) // Bottom right: Notebook wrapped in a furoshiki cloth from Lush, with a tag made from wood paneling and painted.

Not a fantastic photo, but I love this gift. It’s a tartan scarf doubled and wrapped around a Contiga travel mug. I think the knot at the top worked out really well.

Another furoshiki cloth from Lush. I’ve already used this one to wrap gifts a few times. So cheery! This is a birthday gift for Neko.

Sometimes, I use an item like a playsilk, towel or scarf that I’m actually giving as part of the gift, to wrap another gift.

This is a large, rainbow playsilk that I bought for Neko for Christmas. I decided to make it do double duty and also use it to wrap her new wool jammies!

How fun is this? I get to skip the tape and scissors, be waste-free on Christmas morning, and they look so pretty! I also find wrapping this way much quicker than any other method I’ve tried.

Winter Festival and Dressember Day #10

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Early this morning, at 7 am, my alarm rang to tell me it was time to wake up Charlotte, Neko’s friend who had slept over last night for Neko’s birthday party, to take her outside to see the lunar eclipse. I went outside to see if it was even visible, and on seeing that it was, wondered to myself what to do. If I woke up Charlotte, would it wake Neko? Would she be really overtired then? If Neko didn’t wake up, what would Charlotte do until she did? In the end I fell asleep for a bit, then woke up at 7:45 and when I went back outside to see if the eclipse was still visible, Charlotte woke up and came out to see. I’ve been a zombie today, though I guess it was cool to see the eclipse (I hate to sound like a brat… but I’ve seen about four now… and I wouldn’t normally get up at 7 am to see one).

After Charlotte had gone home, we drove up to my parents’ place in my hometown. There was a winter festival happening tonight in my hometown, and I’ve always wanted to take Neko to it. This is the first year it’s worked out. First, we had cake and gifts at my parents’ house, as it’s our niece’s birthday today.

The festival had a hay ride, craft sale, free hot dogs and hot chocolate, skating, and Santa. The local shops were also open late. I ran into a few people I knew, which was neat (a couple of them I hadn’t seen since high school).

Neko finally got to see Santa and tell him what’s on her wish list!

I wore one of my favourite winter dresses, an organic cotton piece from a Vancouver designer. With tights and long wool underwear, a hat and mitts, and my Keen boots, I stayed warm outside for quite a while! Though, it’s also only about freezing, so quite warm.

Dress: Two of Hearts // Coat: Bench // Long underwear: Hocosa // Boots: Keen // Mug: Contiga

My parents have a lovely woodstove so afterward we took to the loft and watched the Doomsday Marathon on National Geographic. (And ate oranges.)

Neko’s “Fake Birthday” and Dressember Day #9

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All day today, Neko told everyone it was her birthday… her “fake birthday.” In reality, today was the day of her birthday party, which I’d be willing to bet is more like her birthday to her, than is the day of the anniversary of her birth. Ah, well. We started off with a “Chickadee Party” with Outdoors In, a local organization that teaches classes about nature and animals. Judy, the instructor, offers a lot of neat classes on seasons, survival, habitats, adaptation and so on to homeschooled kids, and given that Neko is really into nature and science, we go to a lot of these. Today’s class was on birds and different animals and how some adapt, some hibernate and some migrate during winter.

“Mice” hiding under the “snow.”

A mouse emerging from the melting snow in the spring.

The idea was that this was the “Christmas party” to end off the fall sessions of Outdoors In, so we ended with cookies and hot chocolate.

Here was today’s dress:

Dress: vintage store in Vancouver (gift) // Long underwear: Hocosa // Shirt: Old Navy

The evening was Neko’s birthday party. Neko turns six later this month, but given the proximity to Christmas, we try to have her party early. This year marks her first sleepover! We started off with Make-Your-Own-Sandwiches. The girls could choose toasted or untoasted; mayo, mustard or roasted red pepper hummus; ham or chicken; spinach, sprouts, tomatoes, pickles, onions, avocado or red pepper; herbed havarti, cheddar or emmental.

My chicken/hummus/pickle/tomato/sprout/avocado/red pepper/onion/havarti sandwich was EPIC.

Next, we had Make-Your-Own-Sundaes, featuring chocolate marshmallow swirl ice cream (Neko’s choice, but sickeningly sweet) with blueberry sauce, strawberry sauce, chocolate chips, cookie dough, coconut, cinnamon, maraschino cherries, pecans and cashews.

I made a photo treasure hunt, as most of the girls in attendance are just learning to read. This went over like gangbusters.

Going to the basement to find the treasure. Yes, I know how creepy our stairs look.

The treasure was Crazy Carpets! I couldn’t have guessed how well these would go over!!

I somehow managed to not take a photo of all of them playing Just Dance 3, which was the highlight of the night, and so cute and funny to watch. This was Neko’s early birthday gift. Two of the girls went home around 9 pm, while Charlotte stayed to sleep over. While Neko and Charlotte stayed up to read/look at books until 10:30 pm, once we turned out the lights, they were asleep in minutes.

Now, Charlotte has requested I wake her at 7 am to witness the lunar eclipse. That is about two hours earlier than I’m apt to wake up/come alive, so I’m not sure how the morning will look. I’m quite sure, though, that it won’t be pretty.