Category Archives: Blog Hops

December 13, 2023 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Gifts for People Who Are Hard to Shop For

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 closeup of a blue box wrapped in a dark blue velvet piece of cloth and tied wih a medium blue ribbon. It’s been a fun year with all of you as always! Thank you for being such an interesting group of people to talk to each week.

Here are my ideas for gifts for people who are hard to shop for:

1) Experiences

For example, you could give a gift certificate for their favourite restaurant, a massage from a professional massage therapist, or tickets to a play, concert, sporting event, museum, or some other event that suits their tastes.

2) Donation to a Charity They Like

I have relatives who sometimes buy a goat or chicken for each other through certain charities in lieu of giving physical gifts for the holidays because they honestly already have everything they need.

(That is to say, you give the charity X number of dollars, and they use that money to buy a goat or chicken for a family living in a developing country who can use that animal as a recurring source of food and/or income. If your budget is huge, you could even buy someone an entire cow.)

If I were going to do this one, I’d be tempted to buy a little plastic or cloth chicken or goat to include with the certificate that says what sort of animal you’ve donated in that person’s name.

3) Time 

You decide how you give the time. Think a night of free babysitting so parents of little ones can have a break;  doing home or car repairs for them; deep cleaning the homes of those who can’t physically do all of that lifting, bending, and scrubbing anymore for whatever reason; organizing photos (and noting who is in each photo, roughly what year the photo was taken, and how everyone knows each other!); researching genealogical records for their family tree; sitting down to record stories from their life for future generations; or whatever else it is they’d appreciate that you have the time and energy to do.

 

4) Gourmet Food and Beverages

You could bake them some fancy homemade cupcakes, share your top secret family recipe for a dish they love, pick up a nice bottle of locally-produced maple syrup or wine (or whatever delicious food or drink your region is known for), or surprise them with favourite candies from other countries that are hard to find where you live.

I’ve done this one a lot. It’s a very economical way to give a physical gift that, allergies and medical issues aside, just about everyone loves.

 

5) Teaching Skills 

Not everyone knows how to crochet, troubleshoot a malfunctioning computer, run a professional social media account, create a thriving garden, speak multiple languages, fix a car, or do any other number of useful things. If they’re interested in learning and you know how to do X, this could be a great gift that also gives you a fabulous excuse to spend some quality time together.

 

6) Hobby Supplies

This is one of those cases where asking exactly what they want is an excellent idea, but you could give all sorts of things that people use up while doing various hobbies: yarn, paint, coloured pencils, canvases, ballet slippers/tap shoes, sports or hiking gear, tools, empty notebooks, heirloom seeds, a cutting or seedling from a plant you’ve grown that they’ve admired, fancy pens, shelf-stable baking supplies,  rolls of film (for traditional photographers), a higher quality or limited edition version of X that you know they would never splurge on themselves, etc.

 

See you all in January!

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December 12, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books On My Winter 2023-2024 To-Read List


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

 

Three white pillar candles are sitting on a stack of four antique hardback books. The candles are of varying lengths from short to tall. The books have grey, red, green, and blue covers respectively. As I mentioned last week, winter is a time of year when I often get a lot of reading done.

I love the outdoors in spring and autumn, but I don’t spend as much time there when I have snow, ice, and freezing temperatures to think about.

Thank goodness there are countless books out there for all of us to rely on for entertainment until it warms up again! (Or cools down again for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere).

Here are some of the upcoming titles I’m curious about and why I want to read them.

 

 

 

Book cover for Escaping Mr. Rochester  by L.L. McKinney. Image on cover shows a drawing of Jane Eyre wearing a red, 1800s style dress and the first Mrs. Rochester wearing an off-white 1800s style dress. They are both young black woman who have determined expressions on their faces.

Escaping Mr. Rochester  by L.L. McKinney

Publication Date: January 16

Why I Want to Read It: Jane Eyre is one of my favourite classics novels, but I always thought Jane should have chosen not to marry either of the men who proposed to her. I am intrigued by a retelling that shows her teaming up with the first Mrs. Rochester to make better lives for themselves.

 

Book cover for The Warm Hands of Ghosts  by Katherine Arden. Image on cover shows a pair of painfully pale hands clasping a red rose. They have a bracelet with a small pendant on their left wrist, and both hands are partially covered by the leaves and branches that are concealing the rest of this person’s body.

The Warm Hands of Ghosts  by Katherine Arden

Publication Date: February 13

Why I Want to Read It: While I normally shy away from fiction set during either World War, I love ghost stories and enjoyed the Small Spaces quartet enough to see what Ms. Arden is planning to do with Flanders field and life during the First World War.

 

 

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December 6, 2023 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: My Winter Holiday Traditions

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.

Content warning: mental health

To be perfectly honest with you all, the winter holiday season is something I do not look forward to at all.

Frozen red fruit covered in a thin layer of frost and hanging from a bent tree branch. the background is blurry but shows many other tree branches covered in snow and frost. I get the winter blues every year, so the lack of sunlight at this time of year dampens my mood in and of itself. (Seriously, Ontario. Why must you be such a cold and dark place now? Ha.)

I used to work in a field that was horribly busy during the winter holiday season. This meant that I worked weird, late hours, couldn’t eat meals at the same time every day, was often sleep deprived, and had a much higher chance than usual of running into impatient, furious, and unkind customers multiple times every single day. (The vast majority of our customers were perfectly lovely people, of course, but the bad apples made an already difficult time of year so much worse).

The relatives I wish I could spend the holidays with live far away. This can be a lonely time of year to be so far away from them.

So when the holidays start threatening to roll around again, I need an action plan to deal with my low mood, bad memories, and loneliness. My goal each year is to find the joy in what I can and do everything I can to minimize or eliminate anything that fills me with a sense of dread.

What sorts of things do I like to do?

 

1) Look at Christmas, New Years, Chanukah and other holiday lights. Toronto is filled with them, and it makes me so happy.

2) Splurge on delicious food. For example, I might go out to an upscale restaurant for one night or buy that fancy cut of meat, vegan advent calendar, or non-local type of fruit or vegetable at the grocery store that I’d usually be too thrifty to add to the grocery cart.

3) Send care packages to loved ones. Shipping to the U.S. from Canada is expensive, but it’s so worth it to get their excited texts when the goodies arrive. There’s nothing like the joy of giving.

4) Play Christmas music. This is kind of funny because I don’t really celebrate Christmas otherwise. Some of those carols are beautiful and have really stood the test of time, though!

5) Celebrate the Winter Solstice with a walk and special meal. I’ll do the walk outdoors if the weather permits it, but the food is always eaten indoors because December is so cold and dark. The menu changes around most years but often includes pie because that’s such a delicious dessert. No, I’m not pagan….I’m simply always relieved to finally have more sunlight on the way, and what better way to celebrate than with food?

6) Say no. I set aside the last two weeks of December as a time to rest. Unless it’s something mandatory, urgent, or a fun social event that I genuinely can’t wait to attend, I say no to a lot of things I normally say yes to. I simply don’t have the emotional energy now that I do in other seasons, and that’s okay.

7) Reread and rewatch classic Christmas and winter stories. I find it comforting to revisit tales like A Christmas Carol or A Christmas Story in December.

8) Choose kind and pleasant people. I can get along with anyone and have a history of bending over backwards to include folks that might not be included on many other guest lists for any number of reasons. With that being said, I trim down the list of people I’m willing to spend time with to folks who have a solid history of being wonderful and empathetic human beings when December rolls around and my emotional energy has worn thin. It doesn’t matter if we’re legally related or how we know each other. Anyone who is a joy to socialize with is happily invited to hang out with me now.

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December 5, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Things I Like About Winter and the Holidays


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Two years ago, I used the early December freebie post to talk about why winter and the winter holiday season is hard for me.

This year I thought I’d follow up to that post with a list of things I like about winter and the winter holiday season.  Some of these answers are bookish while others maybe not so much.

Photo of orange blister packs filled with pills. 1. Fewer Migraines

Last summer when wildfires were burning out of control across Canada and pollen counts were high, I had two to three times as many migraines as I normally would have because both pollen and air pollution are triggers for me. Combining those two things together was not good for my health at all.

I will still have migraines this winter as some of them are unavoidable for me, but they will hopefully be back to my baseline number of them instead of the rough few months I had over the summer.

 

An orange cat blissfully sleeping in a white cat bed. Its head and paw are resting on the side of the bed so that the viewer can see them. The rest of its body is hidden behind the side of the bed. 2. Better Sleep

With fewer migraines and no seasonal allergies to deal with, I’m going to be getting much more restful sleep this winter as long as I don’t catch any winter illnesses. There’s nothing like sleeping deeply and waking up refreshed!

 

 

 

Hardback books neatly lined up on a wooden desk that is sitting right in front of a large picture window. The window overlooks a snowy winter street where a pedestrian is walking down the centre of the road because the sidewalks are filled with snow. 3. More Time to Read

Yes, some people relish plenty of outdoor time on cold, snowy, slippery days…but I am not one of them.

When the weather outside is frightful, I stay home and catch up on my reading.

There are so many books I’ve been meaning to read but haven’t had the chance to dig into yet.

This winter could put a serious dent in my TBR list, especially if we get the heavy snowfall that some meteorologists say could happen for Ontario this year.

 

 

 

4. Warm, Hearty Meals

I love chili, stew, soup, spaghetti, cottage pie, and all sorts of other cold-weather dishes that aren’t very A close-up photo of a bowl of vegetable beef stew in a blue bowl. The bowl is sitting on a wooden surface. practical to cook or appetizing to eat when it’s 40 Celsius (100 Fahrenheit) outside and the humidity levels are  90%.

This time of year, though, is perfect for eating a bowl or plate of food that you know will keep your belly warm and full as the snow falls thickly outside and the temperature drops below zero.

 

 

A peeled mandarin orange has been broken into five segments. It’s sitting on a white surface next to the mandarin orange peel that once held this fruit.

5. Mandarin Oranges 

In related food news, mandarin oranges are in season again. I try to choose my diet based on what’s in season as much as possible, so citrus is a nice break from the apples and bananas that make up so many of my fruit servings over the winter.

 

 

A white woman who has brown hair and is wearing a chunky white sweater is reading a hardback novel as she sits next to a fireplace. The fireplace is in a circular fire pit in the centre of the room. You can see a stack of chopped wood next to it ready to add to the flame as needed. 6. Enjoying Winter-y Reads 

These past several years, I’ve read and reread winter-themed books over the winter.

It’s kind of fun to read books about characters dealing with snowy, slippery, and stormy conditions when many of us in the Northern Hemisphere will be doing the same thing for the next three to four months (or longer for folks who live in the far north!)

C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol are on my re-read list for this winter. I don’t yet know which other books fitting this theme I might also read or reread, but I’m sure I’ll find something.

(If you have suggestions for nonfiction, mysteries, or speculative fiction set during the winter, I’d love to hear them!)

 

 

A photo of a tree and car-lined street. There is a row of houses behind the cars. Everything in this scene is covered with a gorgeous layer of snow and possibly some ice that adorns everything in a flowery white covering. It looks almost magical because of how every little branch and bump of these things have been smoothed out.

 

7. The Beauty of Winter

This isn’t a photo of my neighbourhood, but it does capture just how pretty the world can be after a good snowstorm.

I love the way snow softens the harsh lines of everything and adds a gentle touch to what can otherwise be a relentless sea of black, brown, and grey colours over winter.

It’s also interesting to walk around outside during or after a snowstorm and notice how much quieter even the city can be when snow is muffling all of the noises that machines, people, and animals make.

 

 

A photo of a white cup filled with hot chocolate and six big marshmallows. the cup is sitting on a wreath of pine branches and brown autumn leaves that have been arranged around it in a circular pattern. There are three extra marshmallows on this wreath, and everything is sitting on a wooden table. 8. Seasonal Treats

I’m sure this is true just about everywhere right now, too, but November and December are when Toronto’s grocery stores fill up with all sorts of delicious seasonal treats. For example, there’s a specific brand of kosher chocolate I always keep an eye out for over late autumn or the winter because there are no milk products in it and it’s not available the rest of the year.

Now is also when I stock up on candy-cane flavoured stuff, dairy-free hot chocolate, and whatever else catches my eye when I’m buying groceries.

 

A photo of an incredibly content hamster sitting in a dark green mug and eating a seed. The mug is sitting on a dark red surface that has a string of white lights lying on it. 9. Winter Light Displays

You see them for all sorts of different winter holidays in Toronto.

I love the fact that I can walk around and enjoy them without being responsible for planning how to arrange them, putting them up, replacing their burnt-out bulbs, or taking them down again in January.

Thank you to everyone who has the time and creativity for these sorts of decorations! You make a lot of strangers who pass by and notice them very happy.

I’m sharing this photo mostly because it’s adorable, although it does fit the theme somewhat.

 

 

A photo taken of snow that has blown into straight, even lines. It looks like someone plowed the snow this way, but I think it happened naturally as a result of bumps and crevasses on the land the snow fell on. In the distance, you can see the blurry image of a hilll, some evergreen trees, and a few trees that have lost their leaves for the winter. 10. Quiet Days 

Years ago I used to work in jobs that were incredibly busy in November and December.

It was always a huge relief to make it to the end of December and know things were going to be much less hectic for the next few months. (Please be nice to everyone in the service industry this holiday season and always! They work really hard to help make your celebrations special).

I love the feeling of walking through quiet stores, neighbourhoods, or parks just after the holiday season ends and most people have returned to their regular daily routines. It’s such a peaceful moment in life.

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November 29, 2023 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Like or Dislike True Crime? Why?

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 drawing of a magnifying glass that has a dark yellow handle. The glass is magnifying three fingerprints that are on a white background. Content warning: domestic violence and murder. I am only including details that are 100% necessary in order to understand my feelings about this topic.

I dislike True Crime because of:

1) the way this genre can exploit the victims of violent crimes and re-traumatize their loved ones by sharing these stories without consent,

2) how some True Crime programs exaggerate or even make up details about certain cases to make them more interesting,

3) how some True Crime programs lionize murderers and abusers,

4) which victims are and are not discussed. That is to say, pretty, young, straight, white women are far more likely to be featured on them from what I’ve observed. It feels deeply wrong to me to overlook people from other races, sexual orientations, ages, sexes, etc. for these stories. The grief all of their families and friends feel is the same no matter what the victim looked like or how they identified.

Now to dig into a more personal reason why I avoid this genre.

Someone I attended high school with was murdered by her abusive ex (who was also a student at our school) in front of their small children a few years after graduation. He is still incarcerated so far as I know.  Their kids survived and are safe with relatives now.

What happened to my classmate and her family was horrible. I think of her story every time I overhear discussions about this genre. I’m sure it feels like a harmless hobby for many fans, but a lot of True Crime stuff can take on a sinister tone if you have personal experiences with the topic and see how uninformed and unkind some folks can be about the cycle of abuse and how dangerous it is when a victim tries to leave.

I cringe when I hear people talk about what they would have done differently in certain cases or how they thought someone should behave when faced with a homicidal ex. It makes me feel like they’re dissecting a book or tv show instead of talking about the tragic deaths of innocent people who could have easily been any one of us instead.

If you’re going to consume this genre, please speak respectfully about the victims and be careful about the assumptions you make about what you would or would not do in their shoes. You may know far more people who have been through something similar than you think. Kindness and compassion are key.

There’s so much important work that can be done to reduce suffering in these situations. I wish the True Crime community would focus much more of their energy on crime prevention, assistance for victims of abuse and their loved ones, and honouring the dead in whatever ways they have the time and/or money to do so.

Wouldn’t it be a relief to live in a world where the True Crime genre comes to an end because there are no new murders for them to talk about?

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November 28, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books Set During Thanksgiving


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A cornucopia set on it’s side and filled with pumpkins, squash, cabbage, potatoes, garlic, onions, and other late autumn vegetables. They are so many books out there set during Christmas that I continue to be surprised by how much less common it is to find books set during Thanksgiving. Let’s see how many of them I can find!

1. Over the River and Through the Wood by Lydia Maria Francis Child

2. Southern Fried Murder: A Thanksgiving Novella (Holiday Shorts Book 5) by Necole Ryse

3. The Diva Runs Out of Thyme (A Domestic Diva Mystery, #1)  by Krista Davis

4. A Zombie Thanksgiving by Anthony Renfro

5. A Great and Godly Adventure: The Pilgrims and the Myth of the First Thanksgiving by Godfrey Hodgson

6. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown by Charles M. Schulz

7. A Halloween Happening by Adrienne Adams

8. A Match Made for Thanksgiving (Holidays with the Wongs, #1) by Jackie Lau

9. Vegan Thanksgiving Dinner and Pies: All of your Thanksgiving dinner and dessert classics made vegan!
by Audrey Dunham

10. How to Bake the Perfect Pecan Pie by Gina Henning

Which holidays do you wish had more books written about them?

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November 22, 2023 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Bookish Memes That Make Me Laugh

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.

This week’s theme was “Memes That Remind You of a Favourite Book or Show.” I had so much trouble narrowing down my favourite media to just one show or book that I decided to tweak this topic a little and make it about bookish memes in general instead.

A grumpy orange cat sitting on top of an opened book. The text reads, “that’s not how it was in the book.”

I’m normally pretty forgiving of changes that are made to adaptations of books so long as there are good reasons for them and they blend seamlessly into the character and story development, but this meme still makes me laugh.

 

Aragorn from the film version of Lord of the Rings clasping his thumb and middle finger together in a circle and looking serious. The text reads, “one does not simply return from the library without a book.”

I 100% agree here.

 

A black woman who is grinning and wearing a white tank top as she reads the back cover of a book. The text reads, “when you find the next book of your dreams without even trying.”

It is so amazing when this happens!

 

Merida from Disney’s film “Brave” is sitting at a table and throwing her head back in sadness and annoyance. The text reads “when you get to an exciting part in your book but people keep interrupting you.”

My spouse has an uncanny knack for this. It’s a little irritating in the moment but kind of hilarious the rest of the time. How on Earth do they sense that I’ve reached an incredibly exciting scene so reliably, and can we somehow use this special power to make a lot of money someday? Ha!

 

President Obama making a surprised face. The text reads, “when you have to read a book for English and it actually turns out to be pretty good.”

This is such a great feeling. While I didn’t like everything we were assigned, there were a lot of books I ended up really loving and intentionally read more from those authors because of my positive first experience with them.

 

Photo of a person lying on top of a library bookshelf face down and with a defeated posture. The text reads “Google can bring you back 100,000 answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one. - Neil Gaiman”

I couldn’t agree with this one more. Librarians are incredible and deserve so much respect for all of their hard work.

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November 21, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Reasons Why I’m Thankful for Books


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A photo of the hands of a brown-skinned person who is wearing pink nail police and holding up a sign that says “thank you.” Here are some of the many reasons why I am thankful for books.

1. They’re an easy form of entertainment when I’m sick or injured.

2. They introduce readers to people from all walks of life. I’ve learned so much about other cultures from them!

3. They don’t come in arbitrary sizes that are somehow different in every single library or bookstore out there or require you to use a fitting room before selecting which paperback to bring home. (Can you tell I really don’t like shopping for clothes? Ha!)

4. They teach us about the world around us and how things work. This is especially true if you read nonfiction, but fiction can be educational as well.

5. They work when the power goes out. Unless you’re using an e-reader or listening to an audiobook, you never have to worry about draining the battery too much or charging a book up again.

6. They’re (often) soothing when you’ve had a bad day.

7. They (often) encourage readers to assume the best of others and work to make life more fair and harmonious for everyone…or at least many of the books I read do this!

8. They encourage the development of your imagination.

9. They introduce you to all sorts of lovely new people…just like the friendly folks I’ve met as a result of Top Ten Tuesday.

10. They’re a great bonding activity when you read a book aloud with kids or other adults.

11. They’re a free form of entertainment if you’re like me and also use your library card regularly. This is such an important thing for people who are lower income or who have a very limited entertainment budget for other reasons. I am so grateful.

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November 15, 2023 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Criticize Your Favourite Book, Show, or Movie

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.

Poster for the tv show The Last of Us. Poster shows the two main character, Ellie and My favourite pieces of media can shift a lot over time, but I will follow the rules and only give one answer this week. 😉

One of the shows at the top of my list is The Last of Us. You’ve all probably heard of it already, but if not it was a science fiction zombie show based on a video game that came out last winter.

The first zombies in this universe were created when they ate food made from (or were otherwise exposed to) flour that was contaminated with the cordyceps fungus (This was strongly hinted at in the first episode, so it’s only a mild spoiler).  In the real world, certain types of this fungus really do infect ants which still scares me a little.

Here are my criticisms of this show:

1) Normal human body temperature is too high for cordyceps to survive in. Some people literally eat this fungus as a dietary supplement or food, and it has no ill effect on them.

2) It’s rare and difficult for an organism like a fungus to learn to jump species, especially ones that are as wildly different as humans and ants. They would have probably had to learn how to infect many other species between us before people were ever in danger, so the characters should have had many generations to notice this was happening and stop it.

3) Given that the vast majority of people do not eat raw flour or raw dough, how did the cordyceps surviving the scorching heat of baking process and manage to infect so many folks nearly simultaneously?

4) The mycologist in one of the first episodes of this show say there are no treatments for fungal infections, but that’s false. Yes, some fungal infections can be difficult to treat, but this isn’t a completely new and unknown pathogen by any means. We currently have many different anti-fungal medicines, after all.

Basically, I wanted the scientific explanation of the origins of this disease to be more accurate. Apparently, I can believe that cordyceps could take control of the human mind and turn folks into mindless zombies in this universe, but I can’t suspend disbelief when to comes to the idea of anything surviving being baked in an oven for an hour. Ha!

 

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November 14, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Mainstream Popular Authors that I Still Have Not Read


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A close-up photo of a typwriter. Someone has typed the phrase “something worth reading” on the white sheet of paper that has been put into the typewriter. Thank you to Rissa for submitting this week’s topic.

I used this Wikipedia page to compile my list of mainstream popular authors that I still have not read.

These authors have not published anything that appeals to my taste in books so far, but obviously there are a lot of people out there who do love their work!

If they do ever happen to publish stories that fit my reading interests, I’d be happy to give them a try.

1. Tom Clancy

2. Dean Koontz

3. James Patterson

4. Barbara Cartland

5. Harold Robbins

6. Georges Simenon

7. Eiichiro Oda

8. Akira Toriyama

9. Corín Tellado

10. Masashi Kishimoto

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