Category Archives: Blog Hops

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Favorite Festival, Fair, and Holiday

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Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Why not answer all three possibilities this time?

Holiday: You all may remember that Halloween is my favourite holiday based on how many times I’ve blogged about it in the past, so I won’t go into too much detail about it today. I doubt this will ever change because of how much I love the creativity of it all as well as the candy.

 

Aerial photo of the Scarborough bluffs. The beach is tiny from this far away but the bluffs are still white and enormous. There is a forest growing on top of the bluffs and the lake below is calm. Fair: Did you know there is a Scarborough here in Ontario? I think of the traditional North English ballad Scarborough Fair every time someone here mentions going to Scarborough and hope that our version of this place will someday have a fair named after it. We could buy parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme there. 😉

In the meantime, look at how pretty the bluffs are out in that part of Ontario. They’re even more impressive in person, so I highly recommend spending a few hours out there if you’re ever in the area.

 

Festival: My favourite festival used to be VegFoodFest, a vegan food festival here in Toronto. It was cancelled this year, and we don’t know if or when it’s coming back in the future.

Why did I like it? Well, vegan food festivals are guaranteed not to have any milk ingredients in any of their food because that would obviously defeat the purpose of something being vegan.

This means that vegan food is a rare opportunity for me to pick just about anything I like from the menu instead of mentally eliminating all of the dishes that either include or may include milk in their ingredient lists and seeing what, if anything, is left over.

It’s not that it’s difficult for me to do this due to the fact that I’ve been thinking about food through the lens of my allergy since I was a kid, but it’s incredibly nice to genuinely be able to eat possibly* everything on a menu instead of hoping there will be a handful of safe dishes for me to choose from.

*I have a soy intolerance as well, but food intolerances are much easier to work with because a little soy in a dish is fine. So I generally only need to avoid dishes that use a lot of it like, say, having tofu as the protein component of a stir-fry.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Book Characters I Wish Were Real People

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Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

I would like to confess that I was not actually expecting Jana to choose this prompt, so now I must try to recall which characters I had in mind when I submitted it months ago. Consider this a friendly warning if you’ve also been sending her ideas for future Top Ten Tuesday posts to her. She just might listen to you! 😂

The last few books on this list were mentioned in my Top Ten Tuesday post last week as well.

When I came up with this idea, I was thinking of characters I might like to be friends with as I’m happily married and never dated much even back when I was single. Romance worked so much better for me if I could start off as friends first with someone and get to know them really well before deciding if we should escalate things.

It’s 100% fine if your selections were for romantic partners, though! We all have different needs and interests in life.

So who would I want to be friends with?

Book cover for Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery. Image on cover is a drawing of Anne wearing a yellow dress and sitting on the bench at the train station waiting for Matthew. Her hair is neatly braided, but she’s looking up nervously as if he may have just approached her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

Matthew Cuthbert. He was such an underrated character in this series in my opinion. I loved seeing how this shy and passive man learned to stand up for himself and get to know others better through his friendship with Anne while still remaining true to who he was as a deeply kind and compassionate human being.

Book cover for The Lost Girls: A Vampire Revenge Story by Sonia Hartl. Image on cover shows a young goth vampire who is wearing a spiked collar and has a little blood dribbling out of her mouth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. The Lost Girls: A Vampire Revenge Story by Sonia Hartl 

Holly. She is one of those unfortunate characters who stuck around in my brain long after I finished reading about her because she was manipulated into becoming a vampire in the 1980s by her much-older vampiric boyfriend, and it took years for her to realize how much he had stolen from her. Like Kristina who is mentioned below, she was deeply traumatized, but she was a lot further in her healing journey when the audience first met her. I admired her survival skills and thought she was a fascinating person.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers book cover. Image on cover shows a drawing of a robot, a person pedaling their travelling home, many plants, and winding paths on it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 & 4. A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

Sibling Dex and Mosscap.

Several of the characters on this list are dealing with intense personal circumstances (through no fault of their own, of course!), so I’d want to balance them out with two characters who are peaceful, curious, and (generally) quite happy.

Book cover for The Deep by Rivers Solomon. Image on cover is of a black mermaid with long dreadlocks swimming past a whale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. The Deep by Rivers Solomon

Yetu. She is another character who I think about a lot. She was courageous and had a firm moral compass, both of which are excellent traits to find in a friend.

Book cover for Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth. Image on cover is a 1950s-style black and white photo of three small white children who are huddled together outside in front of a large brick building. Their sweaters have been coloured blue, pink, and black respectively.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth

Sister Evangelina.  While this is a memoir, apparently some of the characters in it were either partially made up or composites of more than one real person The author knew when she was a midwife.

Therefore, I don’t know if Sister Evangelina was a real nun or not! I loved her assertive and hardworking personality, though. She was the sort of person who would make sure everything was done properly the first time which made a lot of sense once the books and TV series referenced the neglect (and possible abuse?) she experienced as a child. I think she’d make a great friend once you got past her gruff exterior as she did have a heart of gold.

Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor book cover. Image on cover shows a photo of a young Afrian woman superimposed on a tree and some robotic gear on her torso.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor

Fatima. She was a complex and interesting character that I’d love to invite over for dinner (once she gained better control of her powers, of course!)

 

Book cover for Grief Eater by Emma Osborne. Image on cover is a drawing of a zombie with green skin and long, wavy black hair who is holding her head up and back and looks like she’s yelling in pain. There is a little blood around her mouth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8. Grief Eater by Emma Osborne

Kristina. She survived a horrible childhood and was just beginning to heal when this tale began. It takes so much emotional strength to choose to fix something that was never your fault, and I’d love to cheer her on as she became a healthier version of herself if she lived in our universe.

 

Book cover for The Case of Elmwood Ranch by Deanna Grey. Image on cover shows two young black women st adding outside in front of a meadow and under some trees whose leaves have turned orange. They are both wearing sweaters and slacks for the chilly day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9 & 10. The Case of Elmwood Ranch by Deanna Grey

Rae and Octavia. I appreciated how kind and sweet these protagonists were to each other as their romance slowly blossomed. You can learn a lot about someone by paying close attention to how they treat a potential romantic interest, and I’d love to be friends with both of them

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Something I Always Thought Was True (But Wasn’t)

A laptop sitting on a wooden table. The text reads: “Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.”

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A young Asian girl holding onto an orange and white inner tube in a swimming pool. She has a happy expression on her face, and there are several other empty orange and white inner tubes next to her. When I was a kid, we believed that you had to wait an hour after eating before swimming. If you broke this rule, you might get stomach cramps so severe that you could drown due to not being able to swim to the edge of the pool or other body of water.

It wasn’t until I became an adult that I realized this advice is false.

According to the Mayo Clinic, there is no need to wait an hour (or 30 minutes, as some families apparently taught).

While it might be a little physically uncomfortable to swim vigorously if you’ve eaten a very large meal, even that isn’t dangerous. At worst, you might get mild stomach cramps, but if that were to happen they would not be severe enough to prevent you from swimming to safety if needed. (Or, you know, calling for help!)

The much more likely scenario, though, is that nothing untoward happens at all even if you swim after a meal every single day of your life. You simply have a good meal and a nice swim without any side effects.

I wish I had known this when I was seven and eagerly counting down the minutes until I could jump back into the pool or lake!

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Top Ten Tuesday: One-Word Reviews for the Last Ten Books I Read

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Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

I love seeing this theme repeated! It’s such a fun one.

Book cover for Seed by P.B. Cannon. Image on cover is a drawing of a double helix strand of DNA, presumably of the seed that mentioned in the story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Seed by P.B. Cannon (My Review)

My One-Word Review: Creative

 

(No cover available)

2. Blackie & Co: Blackbirds in my garden by Hockley Clarke

My One-Word Review: Gentle

 

Book cover for We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by Samra Habib. Image on cover is a series of menstrual pad-shaped items, each of which is a different colour like pink, orange, green, or dark pink.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by Samra Habib 

My One-Word Review: Intriguing.

 

Book cover for The Bloody Road to Castle Dracula - Explore the History of Vampires & the Inspiration Behind Bram Stoker's Masterpiece Author: Steven J. Rolfes. Image on cover shows a drawing of a castle on top of a hill. A full moon looms large behind the castle, and the sky is a disturbing shade of blood red.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. The Bloody Road to Castle Dracula – Explore the History of Vampires & the Inspiration Behind Bram Stoker’s Masterpiece by Steven J. Rolfes (My Review) 

My One-Word Review: Meandering.

 

Book cover for Catch-All Drawer Author: Manuel Sánchez. Image on cover shows a drawing of a white drawer filled with toys that looks like giraffes, tigers, and lions; a toy shark; two people behind bars holding a cellphone together so they can take a selfie; two people kissing and embracing; a Roman soldier; and a mummy still in its sarcophagus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Catch-all Drawer by Manuel Sánchez (My Review)

My One-Word Review: Varied.

 

Book cover for Always Matt: A Tribute to Matthew Shepard by Jason Collins. Image on cover is a painting of a roe deer standing in the desert just after sunrise. It is standing facing to the left but its head is looking at the viewer. You can also see a few small cacti and scrub brushes in this otherwise dry and dusty desert.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. Always Matt: A Tribute to Matthew Shepard by Jason Collins

My One-Word Review: Heartbreaking.

 

Book cover for Grief Eater by Emma Osborne. Image on cover is a drawing of a zombie with green skin and long, wavy black hair who is holding her head up and back and looks like she’s yelling in pain. There is a little blood around her mouth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. Grief Eater by Emma Osborne (My Review)

My One-Word Review: Perfect.

 

Book cover for The Case of Elmwood Ranch by Deanna Grey. Image on cover shows two young black women st adding outside in front of a meadow and under some trees whose leaves have turned orange. They are both wearing sweaters and slacks for the chilly day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8. The Case of Elmwood Ranch by Deanna Grey (My Review)

My One-Word Review: Slowly-paced.

 

Book cover for “Fallow” by Sarah Anderson. Image on cover is a drawing of a brown, black, and white cow who standing to the left of the scene but turning their head to look at the viewer with a suspicious expression on her face.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9. Fallow by Sarah Anderson (My Review)

My One-Word Review: Odd.

 

Book cover for A Curious Presence - an Exploration of Ghosts and People Who Haunt Them by Margo MacDonald. Image on cover is a drawing of a ghost wearing a blue silk robe. Their face and hands are white, cloudy, and obscured which makes them look like a proper ghost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10. A Curious Presence – an Exploration of Ghosts and People Who Haunt Them by Margo MacDonald (My Review)

My One-Word Review: Thorough.

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Favorite Memories From My Childhood

A laptop sitting on a wooden table. The text reads: “Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.”

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A spool of film that’s been unraveled. These photos probably can’t be printed now!Age 4 or 5. It’s spring and my family is walking through Goll Woods, a nature preserve in Ohio. Some parts of the preserve have dirt paths carved through them, but it is otherwise pretty close to how it would look if humans weren’t around. There’s no gift shop or bathroom. Just a gravel parking lot and a few trails that loop around for walkers. “Stay on the trail” my father said. It would be so easy to step off of it to see the new flowers in the woods, but I listen to him. The woods are one of the prettiest things I’ve seen in my short life, all covered in flowers after a long winter.

Age 7. We live in Wyoming now, and it is summer. The mountains are so filled with snow that we generally can’t drive up there between mid-autumn and mid-spring, but our summer day trips up there are mild and beautiful. I’m standing next to a crystal-clear lake in this memory and looking at the Rocky Mountains looming above the water. There is still snow up in the mountains even this late into summer, but there is no more ice or snow on the lake. It has melted, although the water is so ice-cold you wouldn’t want to swim in it even in July or August. We have a picnic lunch by the lake, and the world feels peaceful and happy.

Age 11. We have just moved back to Ohio because my father had just been hired to be a pastor there. It was a decent-sized church for a rural place, about 200 people or so. I’m thrilled to live close to my maternal grandparents again and am running around their farm to see what has changed since our last visit. The wooden swing down by the creek is gone now, probably because either the wood or the rope was too rotten to be safely used anymore, but the barn cats are still prowling around, Grandma’s garden is growing nicely, and there are a lot of pretty flowers growing in the woods and out behind the barn where my grandfather doesn’t mow due to how many old pieces of farm equipment have been stored there. In this memory I keep running until I’ve inspected every bit of the farm that children are allowed to visit alone there.

So many of my happiest memories from childhood involve nature! How about all of you?

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Top Ten Tuesday: Halloween Quotes

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Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Happy Halloween to everyone who celebrates it! Here are ten fun Halloween quotes.

A black cat sitting against a black background. Only the cat’s yellow eyes are visible as it stares out quietly at the viewer. 1. “If a black cat crosses your path, it signifies that the animal is going somewhere.”
― Groucho marx

 

2. The farther we’ve gotten from the magic and mystery of our past, the more we’ve come to need Halloween.
October Dreams: A celebration of
Halloween”
― Paula Curan

 

3. “Dear Great Pumpkin, Halloween is now only a few days away. Children all over the world await you coming. When you rise out of the pumpkin patch that night, please remember I am your most loyal follower. Have a nice trip. Don’t forget to take out flight insurance.”
― Charles M. Schulz, The Complete Peanuts, 1961-1962

 

4. “Most people will tell you growing up means you stop believing in Halloween things – I’m telling you the reverse. You start to grow up when you understand that the stuff that scares you is part of the air you breathe.”
― Peter Straub

 

5. “Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Christmas and the others can end up making you sad, because you know you should be happy. But on Halloween you get to become anything that you want to be”
― Ava Dellaira, Love Letters to the Dead

 

6. “Agatha, you dressed as a bride for Halloween.”
“Weddings are scary.”
― Soman Chainani

 

7. “I vant to zuk your blood.” He waved his black gloved hands above his head as he tried out his awful Transylvanian accent. “You vish,” She replied.”
― J.L. Bryan, Jenny Pox

 

8. “There wouldn’t be so many stories about vampires and zombies and other weird creatures if they didn’t really exist.”
― R.L. Stine, Zombie Halloween

 

9. “For some of us, Halloween is everyday.”
― Tim Burton , Tim Burton

 

10. “Pumpkins
in October,
as fat as the full moon,
they sit on our doorstep at night
and glow.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Being Bold: Quotes, Poetry, & Motivations for Every Day of the Year

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Reread Books or Rewatch Movies? Why?

A laptop sitting on a wooden table. The text reads: “Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.”

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

The phrase “the end” written in a cursive font against an old-fashioned film reel.

Yes, of course I reread books and rewatch movies.

This tends to be something that happens when I’m either not feeling well and don’t have the emotional or intellectual energy to try to guess the plot twists or when I’m feeling nostalgic for the past.

There’s something incredibly relaxing about revisiting characters you’ve read about or watched before. If I already know what’s going to happen, it doesn’t matter if my attention span wanders or if I fall asleep halfway through.

Some of my favourite things to reread include:

  1. The Anne of Green Gables series
  2. The Chronicles of Narnia
  3. Toni Morrison novels, especially Beloved and The Bluest Eye
  4. Old romance novels like Jane Eyre or The Blue Castle
  5. Poets like Maya Angelou, Shel Silverstein, Emily Dickinson, or William Carlos Williams

As for films, I like rewatching:

    • Teen dance movies like Dirty Dancing or Save the Last Dance
    • Comedic fantasy like The Princess Bride
    • Epic fantasy like Lord of the Rings
    • Nature or science documentaries, assuming it’s been at least a few years since I’ve last seen them.

 

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Top Ten Tuesday: Things That Make Up My Perfect Day

The text reads, “Top Ten Tuesday. www.thatartsyreadergirl.com.”
Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

 

I love it when Top Ten Tuesday goes a little off topic and asks about our personal lives!

My perfect day would include:

White towels folded up and stacked together. Lit tea light candles and a rose beside them. This sets the scene for a nice massage! 1. A full-body massage from a professional masseuse.

2. Getting a haircut. I find them quite relaxing, especially if the stylist also massages my head a little.

3. Visiting a bookstore and being able to buy as many books as I’d like to without thinking about money.

4. A walk in the park, particularly at this time of the year when the leaves are changing colour.

5. Time to write and read.

6. A hour or two of solitude with nothing on my agenda. Fellow introverts know how nice this is!

7. Lunch and dinner with my spouse and a few good friends.

8. A new dairy-free treat to try that turns out to be a favourite.

9. 30-60 minutes of more vigorous exercise: kickboxing, weightlifting, or dancing, please!

10. Falling asleep to the sound of rain gently pattering against my window.

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Prologues/Epilogues – Love or Hate Them? Why?

A laptop sitting on a wooden table. The text reads: “Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.”

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

 

Closeup photo of an antique book printed in Old German. I don’t know what the words say, but the font is beautiful. I love them!

My caveat, of course, is that I have mostly found them in high fantasy novels which is a genre I rarely if ever read these days. This means that I can’t really recommend recent stories that do this well as I am not familiar with the cream of the crop anymore.

Of the times I have read prologues or epilogues, I remember them feeling quite appropriate for the tone of their texts whether they was playful, serious, or read like a history textbook. (See also: J.R.R. Tolkien at times).

It would be interesting to see them used more often in other genres in lieu of writing sequels. Sometimes I finish a book and wish I could have just one more chapter about what the characters did after that final scene.

An entirely new novel about them would be too much, but a few to a dozen pages would be the perfect goodbye.

This could also be a way to soften that trend of dropping the reader straight into an action scene without telling us anything about the characters and plot in advance. Now don’t get me wrong. Sometimes that’s a great way to start things off, but it can also be a little to quite confusing if the conflict is a complex one or if you have five different characters whose names all start with the letter C or something.

A prologue could help ease reader’s confusion in cases such as that one.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Hygge Reads

The text reads, “Top Ten Tuesday. www.thatartsyreadergirl.com.” Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Thank you to Wordy Witterings for submitting the original theme for this week,  Book Covers Featuring Autumnal Colors. I’ve written many posts on this topic over the years, though, and so I’m picking something a little different that still have an autumnal vibe to it.

Hygge is a Danish word that refers to coziness, warmth, and well being. I don’t know about all of you, but my need for those things increases as the temperature cools down and those of us in the Northern Hemisphere prepare for winter to arrive.

Here are some hygge books I’ve deeply enjoyed and would recommend to anyone who is looking for something cozy over the next several months.

Book cover for The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. Image on cover shows a young white girl hiding behind a tree in a snowy forest. There is a fox peeking out behind a white tree trunk nearby her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.  The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

Book cover for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. There is no image on the cover. Just a brown stripe at the bottom, a dark green stripe on the left, and a light green background which shows the faint imprint of leafless trees in it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

 

Book cover for The Art of Racing in the Rain by Dave Manak. Image on cover is a blurry drawing of a brown dog who is peering at the viewer with a concerned expression on his face.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Dave Manak

 

Book cover for Hygge - Discovering the Danish Art of Happiness by Olivia Telford. Image on cover shows a small log cabin with lamplight glowing out of its window. There’s a thick layer of snow outside, the sky overhead is turning from dusk to dark, and there is a pine forest behind the cabin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Hygge: Discovering The Danish Art Of Happiness – How To Live Cozily And Enjoy Life’s Simple Pleasures by Olivia Telford

 

Book cover for I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. Image on cover shows the torso and arm of a living young woman who is wearing a white dress, holding a purple bouquet of wildflowers, and leaning against the wall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

 

Book cover for Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. image on cover shows a drawing of a young white woman. Her head is just out of the top of the drawing, but you can see her light orange sweater, arms crossed over her breast, and long brown skirt as well as a bit of her straight brown hair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

 

Book cover for A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1) by Becky Chambers. Image on cover shows a drawing of a wooden wagon driving down a winding road in the forest. Ahead one can see a robot waving in a friendly manner. The unique thing about this drawing is that it was drawn from above and gives an aerial perspective of all of this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1) by Becky Chambers

 

 

Which other hygge books could you recommend?

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