Category Archives: Suggestion Saturday

Suggestion Saturday: August 11, 2018

Here is this week’s list of links from my favourite corners of the web.

Yesterday I met a nice man named George McNeese on Twitter who is looking for other short story writers to connect with. Click on the links in the last sentence and say hello if you write short stories in any genre or if you know of anyone else who does. I’m hoping we can form a friendly community online together in the future.

The Most Relaxing Vacation You Can Take Is Going Nowhere. Totally agreed. Staycations are the best.

How to Manage Chronic Pain Through a Minimalistic Lifestyle via achvoice. I never would have thought to make the connection between these two things.

My Voice Got Deeper. Suddenly, People Listened. Drop everything you’re doing and go read this now.

How Almost Dying Showed Me That I Wanted to Live via dlhampton. This link includes references to a suicide attempt for anyone who needs a trigger warning. I thought the author did a wonderful job of explaining what was going on in her mind at the time and how she’s changed since then.

From Default People via bjornlarssen:

The price I paid for being openly gay (as opposed, I suppose, to people who are openly straight) was high – I lost contact with a large part of my family. The reason? Wanting to bring my boyfriend to a family celebration.

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Suggestion Saturday: August 4, 2018

Here is this week’s list of blog posts and other links from my favourite corners of the web. I did have a photo to include with it this time. There’s something whimsical about framing a shot in such a way that a cloud looks like a scoop of ice cream in a cone. Also, it matches the first link below perfectly.

Deprivation Is NOT the Key to Wellness via CorinneBlogs. I couldn’t agree with this more.

Middle Grade Fiction Readers via MichaelTMiyoshi. If you know anything at all about middle grade fiction or how preteens like to read in general, go click on this link and see if you can give Michael some advice.

Gratitude for a Quiet Man via AbeLopezAuthor. This was a beautiful essay that I think my readers are really going to like.

Made in Canada. There is a growing trend among many Canadians to buy as many products and services from Canadian businesses as possible.I already buy as much locally-grown food as I can, especially during this time of the year when so much produce is in season.  I don’t buy other stuff very often, but I’m going to aim for Canadian products first the next time I need a new spatula or something. If any of you are also interested in doing this, go check out the list of Canadian-made products. It’s much bigger than I ever would have imagined!

August Morning. Raise your hand if you think this captures warm August mornings perfectly.

The Biggest Lie We Still Teach in American History Classes. Those of you who have taken history classes in countries other than the U.S., do you think history courses in those places have the same issue?

Science Fiction and Fantasy Readers Make Good Romantic Partners. Yes, I did share this on Twitter a few days ago for those of you who are wondering. It was so good that I had to share it with everyone who isn’t on Twitter as well.

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Suggestion Saturday: July 28, 2018

Here is this week’s list of comic strips and other links from my favourite corners of the web. There’s no photo this week because I couldn’t find one that went well with the articles I’d found for all of you.

Dark Secret. I’ve shared quite a few comic strips from this site over the last three months. This will (probably?) be the last one I share for a while, and I thought it was a nice way to end my linking streak to that site. If you’ve enjoyed the strips I selected for my readers, do go check out the rest of them as well.

Why Doing What’s Best for You is Good for Everyone via AuthorKristaLyn. Honestly, this is something that would have horrified me a decade or two ago. Now I see the value in it, especially for those of us whose first tendency is to put everyone else’s needs before our own.

Why Chronic Pain Can Be a Good  Thing via notebksglasses. People who live with chronic pain, what do you think of this post?

Can We Just Get Honest About Rejection? via catherinelanser. Ooh, this was a good post.

Why This Painting of Dogs Playing Poker Has Endured for over 100 Years. Art aficionados, look away so you don’t get horrified. I actually really like the paintings mentioned in this post. There’s something endearing about them.

The Case for a Habitable Moon. This makes me wonder if we’re going to discover evidence of life on another planet sooner rather than later.

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Suggestion Saturday: July 21, 2018

Here is this week’s list of comic strips and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

Bed Bugs. While I did see the clever twist coming ahead of time, it still amused me.

The Joys of Repurposing via stuffoholics. While I think of myself as slightly better than average on this part of life, this blogger takes repurposing to a whole new level. I was so impressed with all of her creative ways to save money and reduce the amount of stuff she sends to the landfill.

Pain and Aging via drdavidspinner. Over the past several years, I’ve met people from many different age groups who are dealing with chronic, and often severe, pain. This was a very interesting look at some of the most common causes of pain that can crop up as someone grows older. I hope this blogger eventually writes a follow-up post about other types of pain as well.

A Post About Coffee You Don’t Want to Miss via FrostieMoss. This post made me wish I didn’t have a caffeine sensitivity. Greek coffee sounds delicious.

Do One Good Thing. I’ll be participating in this. Will you?

How Tolkien Created Middle-earth. Go read this even if you weren’t a fan of Lord of the Rings. There’s something fascinating about learning how an author creates an imaginary world from scratch. It makes me wonder what else he could have written if he’d had more time to focus on his writing.

From The Food of My Youth:

We ate quickly and with our hands. Raised plates to our mouths and made a trowel out of chopsticks. We lived as people without money do, with a sense of impending doom that everything as we knew it could end at any time. Despite the end-time anxiety, we ate as often as possible.

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Suggestion Saturday: July 14, 2018

Here is this week’s list of short stories, articles, and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

Dust to Dust. This is one of those short stories that works best if it’s read on a hot, dusty summer day. Enjoy!

Walk to Your Health via CorinneBlogs. It’s always nice to find other people who walk as part of their exercise routine.

We Want to Have Fun Like You, But Here’s What It Takes via achvoice. If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to live with an invisible illness, go read this.

Free Horror Book Promo. My friend Jan is giving away free e-books of two of her horror novels from July 13 to July 17. Click on this link for more information. If anyone who is reading this will be putting their own books on sale in the future, I’d be happy to share a link to your site.

The Bullshit of Busy via seanpaulmahoney. I couldn’t agree with this more. There’s something incredibly odd about bragging about how busy one is.

From To Be Resilient, Face Tragedy with Humour and Flexibility:

Rather than seeing themselves as victims of a terrible and mindless fate, resilient people and groups devise ways to frame their misfortune in a more personally understandable way, and this serves to protect them from being overwhelmed by difficulties in the present.

From The Rise of Adblock Shaming:

The internet looks very different if you are using software to block advertisements. Use it for a long time you’ll forget how much junk a user has to slog through to read or watch anything.

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Suggestion Saturday: July 7, 2018

Here is this week’s list of comic strips and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

All Beauty Must Die. This comic strip is a littler darker than the ones I normally share on Suggestion Saturday posts, but it did make me laugh while I was also shaking my head. (Don’t worry – there’s nothing gory about it).

The Kindness of Strangers in Mizoram via NomadicThunker. What a heart-warming post.

Summer Festival Calendar. This really should have been expanded to include the entire summer. How funny.

Yolk. I’m not sure how to explain why there should be a trigger warning on this without giving away spoilers other than to say that something very sad happens to an infant in this tale. If that’s something that would bother you, skip this link.

It’s Not Only Words via CorinneBlogs. I know I shared a different post from Corinne’s blog here a few weeks ago, but she keeps writing such amazing posts that I couldn’t help but to link to her again today. Go read this post. If you enjoy it as much as I did, be sure to scroll through her archives as well.

How to Use Social Media to Change the World via authorkristalyn. If everyone behaved this way, the Internet would be a heavenly place. Until that happens, I’ll continue doing my part to make it a friendly place.

From Why Eight Hours a Night Isn’t Enough, According to a Lead Sleep Scientist:

To see how much sleep you really need, my professor suggests that when you go on vacation, try to stick to your normal bedtime and then see what time you wake up. With no stressors or time to get up, you’ll just fall into a natural pattern, and that’s probably how much sleep you actually need.

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Suggestion Saturday: June 30, 2018

Happy Pride! As a member of the LGBT community, it was especially fun for me to put together this week’s list of pie charts, blog posts, and other LGBT-themed links from my favourite corners of the web.

Things You Should Never Have to Do. All of the sections in this pie chart were beautifully true, but I liked the one about never apologizing  for your sexuality the most of them all.

How the 18th-Century Gay Bar Survived and Thrived in a Deadly Environment. Wow, I never would have guessed that gay bars existed  in the 1700s.

Love and Rockets. What a beautiful sentiment.

Do Algorithms Reveal Sexual Orientation or Just Expose Our Stereotypes? This was a long read, but it was worth it.

Pride Around the World via KatyGilroyBlog. I loved this description of Pride Parades around the world. Warsaw’s Pride Parade sounds particularly fun.

What It Means to Be Queer via quirkandfolly‬. This was such a detailed explanation of why this author chose to label herself as queer.

The Story Behind Gay Bob, the World’s First Out-and-Proud Doll. Have you ever heard of this doll before? I hadn’t.

Jeremiah, Opera Singer, Vancouver via TheGayMenProject. Honestly, all of the interviews on this site are interesting, but Jeremiah’s is a good place to start.

I Chose to Be Gay Just Last Week. Yes, this title is tongue-in-cheek. I included this link especially for the heterosexual followers of this site. If you’d like a small taste of what it’s like to be part of the LGBT community, this post is a hilarious and accurate representation of some of the bizarre things people say to us sometimes.

Cornwall Gay Pride via ellen_hawley. This blog post compares what modern-day Pride parades are like to how they were decades ago. I only wish this blogger had turned this into a series. It was so good.

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Suggestion Saturday: June 23, 2018

Here is this week’s list of comic strips, short stories, and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

Lifeguard. This was good.

7 Practices for Finding Quiet in Chaos via CorinneBlogs. The more I read from Corinne, the more I like her posts about mindfulness and meditation. You’ll see a few additional mentions of her site here over the next couple of months.

Wonder Woman – The Hero Our World Needs via JRitchieAuthor. I’m not a big superhero person in general, but Wonder Woman is cool. This essay about her is making me want to rewatch that fantastic Wonder Woman film that came out last year.

Beast of Breath. This story reminded me why I love the fantasy genre so much. I hope you all enjoy it, too.

It’s the Allergies That Are Annoying, Not Me via mydangblog. This was one of the funniest things I’ve read in ages.

From A Different Kind of Place:

“I love this town,” she confessed to Wendy the next night, over a bottle of cheap red from the local Spin Thru. Not the one her father had driven past, but the Chester one. “But Jesus Christ: they voted down the wall. Carla was telling me she won’t vaccinate her kids against zombiesm, and Principal Jenners told me the vaccine rate was likely barely half.”

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Suggestion Saturday: June 16, 2018

Happy Father’s Day! Here is this week’s list of comic strips, poems, and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

I’m Not a Father, so Stop Acknowledging Me on Father’s Day via AmberLeventry. Humans sure are strange sometimes. I can’t imagine making this mental leap. Can you?

Why Scientists Once Used Taste Tests as Paternity Tests. I honestly thought this was a joke when I first read the title. Humans sure are creative.

Why I Celebrate My Uncles on Father’s Day via theotherblair. This was a touching tribute to this blogger’s uncles.

Two Dads Adopt a Son with Autism. I love a happy ending. Don’t you?

How to Be a Caring Father via 04fsbryntin. Bryntin is a blogger I discovered a few months ago after a friend of mine retweeted something he said. He has a tongue-in-cheek writing style that I think is hilarious. I hope you like it, too.

A Father’s Duties via notquiteold. Being a parent doesn’t end when your child turns 18. It was interesting to see how this blogger’s relationship with her dad evolved in an emotionally healthy way well into adulthood.

From My Father’s Hats:

Sunday mornings I would reach

high into his dark closet while standing

on a chair and tiptoeing reach

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Suggestion Saturday: June 9, 2018

Here is this week’s list of comic strips and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

Fairy Scapegoats: A History of the Persecution of Changeling Children. Trigger warning: this article includes descriptions of what we would consider to be physical and emotional abuse. At the time, they were thought to be the only ways to convince the fairies to take the “changelings” they’d left with the humans and  bring back the children they’d stolen. This is an ugly part of European history, but it’s also an interesting one. I struggle to imagine what it would be like to be so unaware of uncommon genetic diseases that one would assume a child who was born with one of these illnesses was actually a fairy.

A Human. To be fair, this is probably exactly how sentient but non-primate aliens would react to us if they ever discovered Earth.

Reflections on Cross-Cultural Living via Fushiee_. The world would be a better place if more people were able to experience moving to a different country and/or becoming immersed in a new culture. Canada and the United States are incredibly similar to each other in many ways, but I still had a minor period of adjustment when I moved up north. There are important differences between those countries. Learning to navigate a different set of rules changed me for the better.

I’m the Sun. As silly as this was, it still made me laugh.

Auto-Correcting Linguistics via isthismundane. This is one of the most interesting things I’ve read this week. The human mind is such a complex thing.

The Pattern of Friendship via bardicacademic. One of the things I like the most about spending time on Twitter is learning about stuff I’d never heard of before. For example, earlier this week I read this post about a painter named Eric Ravilious who made some really beautiful stuff.

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