Category Archives: Suggestion Saturday

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

Why Do Fantasy Novels Have So Much Food? Who else has wondered the same question? I found the answer as practical as it was interesting.

On the Edge.This honestly isn’t something I’ve ever thought about ghosts doing, but it made me giggle.

Meghalaya Beyond the Living Root Bridge via NomadicThunker. The pictures this blogger took of Meghalaya were beautiful. I hadn’t known anything about it other than the existence of the living root bridge before I discovered this post.

What Not to Say to a Cancer Survivor via SusieLindau. Readers who have had cancer, what else would you add to this? I took a lot of mental notes while reading this post.

Adventures in Allergy Season via JamesLEtoile. On a lighter note, I adored this post about surviving allergy season. My pollen, mold, ect. allergies have been pretty bad this spring.

Summer Lovin’: Research Finds That We Have More Sex In The Summer. I find it amusing that researchers study stuff like this.

We Don’t Need Nearly As Much Protein As We Consume. This isn’t surprising at all.

You Can’t Just Put Homeless People in Tiny Houses. But this is. I would have assumed such a thing would be helpful for many people who are homeless.

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

Taste Test. I can’t stop giggling at this.

The Real Reason Representation Matters via JamesSabata. Yes, precisely.

Time Is Relative. The next time I go hiking, this is going to be rattling around in the back of my mind.

All of the Men Are Dead – Why Hollywood Needs Y: The Last Man via JRitchieAuthor. I couldn’t agree with J. Edward more when he says that there’s too much material in Y: The Last Man to be condensed into a movie. It would make a fantastic television show, though, and I sure hope Hollywood takes note of that soon.

Why It’s Good to Think Before You Speak via i_stuart88. This is excellent advice.

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. This made me chuckle, too.

The Longest Poem in the World. Bookmark this link, readers. The poem is regularly updated with unrelated tweets that happen to rhyme with each other.

A Tiny Scar, From Falling. Trigger warning: this essay was written by someone who was trying to reconstruct their abusive and neglectful childhood that included many years in the foster care system. They didn’t remember large chunks of it and wanted to see if they could figure out what happened and how they received a specific scar.

Here is this week’s list of poems, blog posts, volunteer opportunities, and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

Volunteer Bloggers Wanted at ‪MigraineMantras‬.  If you’re a writer who is living with migraines, chronic pain, chronic illnesses, and/or an invisible illness, Migraine Mantras wants to hear from you. They are currently seeking volunteer bloggers to write essays, stories, and poems for their site. Click on the links above to see what they’ve already published. Email Jorie at MigraineMantras@gmail.com for more information if this sounds like something you’re interested in.

Speaking of volunteers, Long and Short Reviews is looking for more volunteer book reviewers. You can contact them through the email address listed in the link above or read my blog post on the topic from last year. Neither of these opportunities should ever make you close a book vigorously, but today’s funny image in in honour of them.

Wrong. We need more fairy tales like this.

Can You Unplug for One Day? via JMLevinton. It would be hard for me to stay offline entirely for a day. I’d at least need a few minutes to check my messages. How do you all feel about this challenge?

Practicing Mindfulness from Dawn Until Dusk via CorinneBlogs. If you have any interest in all in mindfulness, go read this post. It was excellent.

Socialize Like An Ambivert via Fushiee_. I’m a deeply introverted person. Asking me to behave like an extrovert would be like asking me to decide to sprout a pair of wings and start flying around. Acting like an ambivert is something I can do, however! How about you?

What Stephen Hawking’s Final Paper Really Means. This was just plain interesting.

Why a Daily Habit of Reading Books Should Be Your Priority, According to Science. Yes, reading definitely is exercise for your brain. I’m always a little surprised when I meet people who never read anything at all. It’s like meeting someone who never exercises in any way (and who has no medical reasons for making that choice).

Happy Mother’s Day! I choose to believe that today’s picture is of a mother rabbit and her baby. Here is this week’s list of poems, blog posts, and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

Gay Dads on Mother’s Day via thegayadopter. This family adopted their children through foster care. I thought it was fascinating to see how they  handle the topic of Mother’s Day since the children no longer live with their biological mom and have two dads instead.

The Invisible Unmarried Mothers of Ireland. Fair warning: this link is a heartbreaking one.

My Mother, My Best Friend via ShilpaGupte1. What a beautiful tribute.

Mom – A Performance Review via MStenDeut. This was a very important list of questions for moms to ask themselves. If you’re my mom, know that you did an amazing job with your kids.

My MomZ via theotherblair. I’ve never met this blogger, but her relationship with her mom sounds so sweet.

Two Moms, One Ill Baby, and the Best Care. Fair warning: this one’s a tearjerker. (No, for anyone who is worried, the baby doesn’t die). I loved the final paragraph, though.

From Mother’s Day:

I passed through the narrow hills

of my mother’s hips one cold morning

and never looked back, until now, clipping

her tough toenails, sitting on the bed’s edge

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

National Adopt a Shelter Pet Day! via ‪FloBarnett1‬. If not for my allergies (and the animal allergies of many of my loved ones), I’d sure like to have a dog or cat. The second best thing to actually getting to go to the shelter and pick out your own new pet is to read about how other people have chosen theirs.

Look Stupid, Ask for Help. I haven’t been good at this in the past, but I’m sure trying to change that. How about you?

The Five Stages of Small Talk. If you’ve ever found small talk perplexing or irritating, this comic strip is for you.

Kindfulness, the New Mindfulness via littlelegsfit‬. Have you ever thought about the connection between being kind and being mindful before?

What I’ve Learned in Six Months from Two Backpacks and a Suitcase via NomadicThunker. I’m not the sort of person who enjoys traveling very often, but this post was a very interesting take on the subject from someone who loves it.

France Seizes France.com from Man Who’s Had It Since ‘94, so He Sues. This is just plain odd. I hope this man receives a lot of money for the theft of his site, if not the return of it entirely.

Why I Hate Talking on the Telephone. I have the same reasons for avoiding phone calls. Maybe it’s an introvert thing?

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

Americans Don’t Need More Money to be Happier—They Need to be Like Denmark. This sounds heavenly. I wish Canadian culture understood hygge, too. The picture accompanying today’s post reminded me of this link.

And They Lived Happily Ever After. You’re going to continue seeing links to this site occasionally in the future. I love its sense of humour.

Where Are My Fancy-Smancy Socks via ‪theakeman‬. A few years ago, I went through a period where I kept losing socks when I put them in the washing machine. (It was either due to spiteful sock gnomes or some sort of defect in the washing machine that allowed small items to get wedged in somewhere they weren’t supposed to be!) Lots of people have this problem, so it’s always amusing to see how other folks deal with it.

Quiet. I identify with this so much.

Designing a Website: Are You Excluding People? via JMLevinton. I had no idea that this could be an issue for some people online. Did you?

Nurse Life: The Pocketbook via ‪MckayHorst‬. Don’t read this if you are easily grossed out. Do read this if you can handle a slightly disturbing story about a patient who showed up at the emergency room one night to get help with a very unique problem.

Why Whales Got So Big. If you have any interest at all in whales or how evolution works for oceanic creatures, go read this.

Who Does She Think She Is? This week’s Suggestion Saturday post is ending on a bit of a low note, but this article has a lot of important things to say about sexism and the Internet.

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

The History of The Avengers via ‪maria_mckenzie‬. If you’re planning to see The Avengers sometime soon and you’re a new fan of this universe, this blog post gives a nice introduction to it.

Earth Day! What a creative use of candy.

The CottIingley Fairies – A Case Study in How Smart People Lose Control of the Truth via Mummified_Fairy. This was a fascinating read.

The Hype Machine on Fire – Why Katniss Everdeen Is Not the Empowered Woman You Believe Her to Be via JamesSabata. While I enjoyed this series a lot, I can’t help but to agree with many of the points James makes here.

Bats in Your Belfry. I think bats are incredibly interesting creatures both in real life and as symbols in horror novels. This post is about the former, and one of the reasons why I’m sharing it with you is so that I can also share the hashtag #AskanOPNaturalist with my readers. It’s amazing that we live in a time when ordinary people can have conversations about wildlife with naturalists and scientists. This isn’t the first hashtag I’ve seen that was designed to bring these two groups together, but I love seeing experts take the time to educate the general public.

Viral Rescue. Phages were something I’d heard of before, but I didn’t know what they were or how they worked. This article explained them beautifully, and it makes me wonder if phages won’t be something doctors will use more often in the future to treat antibiotic-resistant infections as the number of bacteria that don’t respond to antibiotics continues to grow.

How Not to Be an Asshole in National Parks. My first impulse was to say that most of these tips are common sense, but I was lucky enough to have parents who took their kids on hiking and camping trips where they explained this kind of stuff and modelled appropriate behaviour. People who didn’t have those same experiences think that feeding wild animals is a helpful thing to do or that it’s okay to drive through Death Valley without bringing emergency supplies.

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

Why I Love Maps via sbrown9710. Seventy percent of the reason why I’m including this link in today’s post is because my mother loves maps, too. She reads my blog, and there’s an excellent chance that this will be the first link she clicks on from it today. Hopefully, other folks will enjoy it as well.

Top Ten Dark Fiction Books via ajseftonauthor. Other than The Wasp Factory and Crime and Punishment, I’ve read everything on this list and agree that it’s good material for people who like dark stories.

Learn to Zoop! (Argument De-Escalation). This is excellent advice.

Life Was Not Always Better. Occasionally, I like to walk through old cemeteries and read the headstones I find there. It’s fascinating to see what names were popular decades or centuries ago that you don’t see being given to newborns these days. This post touches on another reason why walking through old graveyards is educational, and it has to do with what parents expected to happen to their children. Let’s just say that it’s only been in the last few generations that the vast majority of families in western countries could assume all of the children they brought into the world would survive to adulthood. I hope that this will someday be something that people in every country on Earth can assume.

The Creation of the Universe. Despite the title, there’s nothing religious or scientific about the nature of this link at all. It’s pure silliness, but it did make me laugh.

Honoring Earth Day by Saving Money via SLMarchisello.  I especially liked this blogger’s tips about food. I know I occasionally have trouble finishing everything I’ve bought before it goes bad.

What the Hospitals of the Future Look Like. Wow, this was interesting. I never would have guessed that the idea of convalescing at home with daily visits from your family doctor would come back into fashion. It seems like such an old-fashioned idea, and yet the reasons for going back to that kind of care do make sense.

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

How to Build Muscle as Age Tears It Down. If you’re not currently doing weight training exercises, this article might make you want to begin. If you’re already doing this kind of exercise, this article will make you smile.

Eat Like a Poor Person. I really like this method for determining what to eat because of how much freedom it gives to you to determine what your diet should look like. It can work well for vegans, vegetarians, people have food allergies/intolerances, picky eaters, travellers, and so much more. The recipe that’s included in the post looks good, too.

Kingston Book Festival 2018 – So Lit! via naditomlinson. I had to temporarily delay sharing this post with you because my Suggestion Saturday queue was so full, but I’m pleased to share it with you today. This book festival sounds incredibly fun!

Never Get Discouraged via MichaelTMiyoshi. This was such a good post.

How Lyme Disease Became the First Epidemic of Climate Change. And this article made me want to never walk in the woods again.

The Atheist Movement’s Future via ‪tmamone‬. My friend Trav wrote this, and I agree with every single word of it.

From Fixer Upper:

Now, keep in mind that we considered ten thousand planets for this season. Earth was by far the most messed up, and we think we could get some really great ratings out of it, but let’s be honest, the place needs more than a new lawn.

From Flow:

I walk like my father. He has a long, swinging stride with a bounce in the balls of his feet. A cheerful walk but not one that brooks much argument.