Category Archives: Blog Hops

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: A Funny Animal Video

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Close-up photo of a little brown baby bunny sitting in a patch of dirt outside. Its ears are perked up as it listens for anything nearby. One of my favourite types of amusing animal videos involves rabbits squeezing through spaces the humans thought were far too small for them to fit through or hopping further than anyone thought they should be able to.

If you’ve never held or otherwise been near a rabbit, know that a lot of their volume can be taken up by their fur and that they hop over and around all sorts of barriers.

Their bodies beneath all of that fluff are smaller and more flexible than you might think, especially if they’re sporting an especially fluffy coat or if it’s the right time of year for their winter fur to grow in.

Here is a short video about a baby rabbit who squeezes thought a cage.

Here is another one.

And a third and final great escape from a so-called rabbit-proof fence. (I do not think anyone consulted the rabbits before deciding to call it that!)

This is a baby bunny who has been temporarily placed in a laundry basket that is much too high for them to jump out of….right?

The tale of a rabbit in a large glass cage.

All of these videos are short. They are a few minutes long at most, and some are more like 20 to 30 seconds of footage.

I adore seeing tiny little rabbits outwit humans. It’s so funny.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Posts I’ve Written That Give You the Best Glimpse of Me


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Stock photo of a white person peeking out at the world through white blinds. I think stories about people is a great way to get to know their personalities, so here are some of the stories I’ve told about myself over the years.

1) Keeping the Pipes Clear

This is how my grandfather found a safe way to involve his young grandchildren in digging ditches and keeping his land from accumulating too much water.

 

2, 3, and 4) Three Fun Facts About Myself

In which I talk about my heart murmur (which is not at all serious or anything, just interesting),  share how I saved a turtle, and graciously responded to a vacation that did not go the way I was hoping. These three things are not at all related to each other, by the way.

 

5) Non-Bookish Hobbies

Did you know I’m trying to become fluent in Spanish and love weightlifting, for example?

 

6. A Review of Reading Breaks

A glimpse into my silly sense of humour as well as an explanation of why I sometimes take breaks from reading.

 

7.  The Pet Fish I Almost Had

I still think about this little fish and hope he or she had a long and happy life.

 

8) Things I Love About Halloween

It’s my favourite holiday of the year!

 

9) A Photo Essay in Memoriam of a Tree

In which I get sentimental about a sick tree I was really hoping would survive but sadly did not. It was so gorgeous when it was alive. Click above for photos.

 

10) What I Do When I’m Not Feeling Well

A lighthearted look at dealing with minor illnesses like the common cold and how I handle them.

 

 

 

 

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: A Book I Wish Were More Popular

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A gorgeous black woman dressed in a mermaid costume and sitting on the sand at the beach as the waves roll in. Her bra is metallic purple, her fin is light green, and her hair has been braided with red extensions. She’s lovely and looks very happy to be there.

It was so tempting for me to list five or six stories today, but I did follow the rules by narrowing down my choices to books that have been published in the last five years that I think should have been far more popular than they were.

My answer for this week’s theme?

The Deep by Rivers Solomon. That link will take you to the Goodreads page for it, and this one will show you my review of it from 2020.

What is it about? Without giving away spoilers, it’s about black mermaids who bear little to no resemblance to Disney’s bubblegum representation of mermaids. Their meaning is much deeper and thought provoking than that.

What I love about this novella are all of the layers readers get to unwrap as they discover more information about Yetu and her people. My impression of her changed several times as I read this book, and I keep hoping someone will finally turn it into a film or TV show.

Other themes in the storyline include intergenerational trauma, the lingering effects of racism, figuring out how to heal from the past, accepting love (both romantic and platonic), and, interestingly enough,  the many differences between aquatic and land-based organisms.

Obviously, humans in their current form cannot live in the ocean. It takes a lot of alterations to make such a thing possible and some of them created opportunities for amusing misunderstandings, so keep an eye out for those moments as they appear.

The world-building leaves a lot of space for readers to come up with our own ideas of how certain things worked or what happened in the time periods Yetu does not have knowledge of as well. This is yet another reason why we need more readers for this book and for an on-screen adaptation to happen.

I need more folks around who would like to discuss the possibilities of this world and what might happen next to the characters!

 

 

 

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Top Ten Tuesday: Fictional Animals I’d Want to Meet


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Photo of an blond English Cocker Spaniel puppy sitting on a dirt trail in a forest. She is looking up lovingly at the human who is holding her leash just out of view and to the right of this photo. The forest is lush and looks as green and vibrant as it should in July or August when summer is peaking and everything is growing furiously. You can barely see anything of the sky because of how tall the trees are!If only it were possible to meet all of them!

1. Enzo from The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

2. Wilbur and Charlotte from Charlotte’s Web
by E.B. White

3. All of the friendly rabbits from Watership Down (Watership Down, #1) by Richard Adams

4. The Velveteen Rabbit from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams Bianco

5. Mole, Water Rat, Badger, and maybe even Toad from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

6. Bambi from Bambi (Bambi, #1) by Felix Salten

As some of these answers included multiple characters, I think this will suffice.

Which fictional animals would you want to meet?

 

 

 

 

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Things I Wish More People Talked About Openly

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This week’s prompt was interesting because I’m a pretty private person. Theoretically, I am all for people sharing details of whatever is going on in their lives, including topics that previous generations tended to keep to themselves.

A photo of four different phones. From left to right there is a: 2000s-era black cellphone, 1980s-era green landline, 1960s-era white rotary phone, and 1940s-era black rotary phone. That does not mean that I am equally comfortable sharing everything about myself in great detail, though! I need time to get to know someone first to see what sort of character they might have and whether something small I share privately with them is going to be spread to every single person they know in the world by tomorrow morning. 😉

So what do I wish people talked about openly more often?

Their Average Days. Social media can often be a highlight reel of the best times in life…but what about when you’re not doing anything out of the ordinary? What do those days look like?

Small Accomplishments. We all have different strengths and weaknesses. I love listening to or reading about people doing little things that are difficult for them but may be easy for someone else like making a phone call or trying something new. There’s nothing like cheering someone on for something that most folks would probably overlook if it wasn’t pointed out.

What They’re Grateful For. I believe that gratitude is often an underrated virtue, so it’s wonderful to see what someone is grateful for today even if it’s something minor like watching a gorgeous sunset.

Compliments. Everyone needs a nice compliment now and again.

How about all of you?

 

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books About Trains


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Photo of train tracks going through a forest. There isn’t currently a train on them, but you can see the sun setting in the distance and the dark, evergreen forest on either side of the tracks. It’s a quiet and thoughtful moment. Thank you to Cathy @ What Cathy Read Next for this topic idea. I’m narrowing down “Planes, Trains & Automobiles/Books Featuring Travel” to just books about trains as I think travelling by train is just about the nicest ways to get around. 

Canada doesn’t have as much train service as I wish we had, but you can still travel between most of the larger cities this way. It’s so relaxing to sit in a soft, comfortable seat and surf the Internet, eat some tasty food, or watch the countryside fly by. I much prefer it to driving or flying!

Here are some books about trains. Interestingly enough, they are all for children.

1. The Boxcar Children (The Boxcar Children, #1) by Gertrude Chandler Warner

2.The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg

3. Ghost Train by Paul Yee
4. Bear on the Train by Julie Lawson
5 .A Sea So Far by Jean Thesman
6. The Runaway Train by Jane Flory
8. Bob the Railway Dog by Corinne Fenton
10. Lackawanna: A Novel by Chester Aaron

What is the train system like where you live? Can you hop on a nearby train when you need to travel, or do they only carry stuff like livestock or bulky goods?

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Funniest Advice I’ve Received

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The word advice is written in block letters with chalk on a chalkboard. I began working on this post in March and will slowly add to it until the publication date arrives.

Sometimes advice is funny because it’s horribly wrong and should never be followed by anyone.

In other cases it’s amusing because of how it makes you see the world or the way it plays with our expectations of what might happen among many other reasons.

I tried to come up with a mix of these types for my replies.

Piece of Advice #1

“Stop taking your antibiotics once you’re feeling better! That way you’ll still have some antibiotics to take the next time you’re sick.”

This is something a relative who does not understand science, medicine, public health, or how antibiotics work said a few years ago. Please do NOT follow her advice. The last thing we need in 2024 or beyond are more antibiotic-resistant superbugs getting passed around and causing life-threatening illnesses.

 

Piece of Advice #2

“Never do anything you wouldn’t want to explain to the paramedics.”

And, honestly, I think this is an excellent litmus test to apply when deciding whether to take a specific risk.

 

Piece of Advice #3

”Leave Canada geese alone.”

I had multiple Canadians tell me this when I first moved up here, and it’s something everyone should listen to. Yes, they’re beautiful birds, but they can also be quite territorial and aggressive, especially during breeding season. It’s best to give them a wide berth and admire them from afar.

 

 

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Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Favorite Books from Ten Series


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There is a stack of about five books sitting with their spines faced away from the viewer on a white desk and in front of a white wall. Only the edges of their pages are visible, and these give no clues about their contents.<br /> On top of the books are three toy wooden dinosaurs: a white brontosaurus, a brown stegosaurus with red horns, and a third orange dinosaur with a green spine on its back whose proper name I can’t identify. It is standing on its hind legs.

Thank you to A Hot Cup of Pleasure for submitting this theme!

Here are ten of my favourite books from series I’ve read. I had to dig deeply to come up with a sufficient number of answers because I almost never read series these days and only read them occasionally when I was younger.

That is to say, most of these titles were published many years ago.

For the sheer fun of it, I will include a brief, spoiler-free description of why I picked each one in this post.

1. The Giver (The Giver, #1) by Lois Lowry

Why: The world-building left readers plenty of room to come up with our own theories about what happened next.

 

2. The Girl with All the Gifts (The Girl With All the Gifts, #1) by M.R. Carey

Why: There is a fantastic twist in this book that takes a little while to fully reveal itself to the readers.

 

3. Flowers in the Attic (Dollanganger, #1) by V.C. Andrews

Why: This series begins with a wild premise that I will allow other readers to discover for themselves. I thought it worked best when it was first introduced because of how unusual it was.

 

4. The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis

Why: There are a lot of Easter eggs here about things that were discussed in books #1-5 – especially The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe – so that is why I strongly recommend reading this series in publication order instead of chronologically. You need that previous knowledge to fully understand why certain scenes are so thrilling.  This is my favourite Narnia story because of its beautiful descriptions of how Narnia was created and how many different ways characters could find themselves in that magical land.

 

5. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Why: It worked perfectly nicely as a standalone story, but it also sets up and foreshadows so many important elements of the Lord of the Rings trilogies. I also thought the pacing in this one was much stronger than later instalments in this series.

 

6. Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse, #1) by Charlaine Harris

Why: Look, I adored Sookie and though this was a fun universe…but she also tended to make the same mistakes over and over again. This became repetitive later on, but it was endearing when I first met her. If you’re in the market for vampire romance novels, the first few books in this universe are the best ones.

 

7. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Why: It was such a zany introduction to these characters!

 

8. Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery

Why: This was a period of Anne’s life when so many of her dreams began coming true. I loved seeing her finally have the chance to attend college and enjoy her youth.

 

I’d say eight answers is pretty good considering my strong preference for standalone novels!

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Would I Stay in a Haunted House? Why or Why Not?

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A black-and-white photo of a cobweb-covered staircase in an old house. On vthe right you see the stairs up to the landing. To the left you see the railing for the next flight of stairs up to the next floor, but you cannot see the stairs themselves due to how the staircase curves after the landing. I have already stayed in a haunted house! One of my relatives owns a townhouse that used to have shadow people in it a few decades ago.

The shadow people were never dangerous or violent. From what I’ve been told, you’d simply see them out of the corner of your eye or maybe catch a quick glimpse of a dark shadow walking across the room and then disappearing into a wall.

Sightings of these creatures stopped after a cleansing ritual was done many years ago.

While I did hear someone walking up the stairs there a couple of times when nobody was actually using the stairs, it was probably just the the sound of neighbours walking up their own stairs that echoed through their shared walls.

To make things more interesting, would I stay in a house with a more active supernatural presence?

Some places might have reputations as being haunted when they actually have raccoons or other creatures scurrying around in their attics and knocking stuff over or some other rational explanation for occasionally odd events. I’d stay there once all of the furry little intruders had been taken somewhere else, the squeaky hinges had been fixed, and all sources of cold drafts  wafting through the house had been repaired.

Other houses might be haunted by mischievous spirits who open kitchen cabinets at night but otherwise keep to themselves. I might be willing to stay there if that was the extent of their shenanigans. Honestly, sometimes I leave kitchen cabinet doors open by accident, too, so the ghosts would be in good company (and/or would be annoyed that this human is stealing their thunder).

If we’re talking about a genuinely haunted house that has any history of entities causing harm to the living, no thank you. I am not at all interested in fighting over real estate with anyone, supernatural or otherwise. There are plenty of other places in the world to live.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Wish Had Fewer Pages


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Several hardcover books have been opened and left in an overgrown grassy field. Their pages are spreading open as the sun shines down upon this scene. One of the interesting ways my reading habits have changed since I was a kid or a teenager is that I’m much less interesting in reading long books these days. If something is more than 200 to maybe 250 pages, it generally needs to be a story I think will be a five-star read for me in order for me to finish it.

I’m glad I read much longer books when I was younger and had more time for such doorstoppers as some of them did have excellent storylines, but I can also see the value in trimming down side quests and lengthy descriptive passages in order to make the reading experience a faster one.

Here are some books that I think would have been better if they were shorter. Some of them are classics as books from roughly 100+ years ago were often more verbose than what is published today due to how English has evolved since then.

1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (as well as the sequels, of course!)

2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

3. The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1) by Ken Follett

4. The Stand by Stephen King

5. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

6. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

7. The House of the Seven Gables  by Nathaniel Hawthorne

8. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

9. Paradise Lost by John Milton

10. The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

 

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