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It’s humid out there.

Are you sure you want to stand in the sun for two hours?

These were some of the thoughts bouncing around in my mind yesterday as I wondered if I should attend a free tour of Yorkville, one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Toronto.

The Royal Ontario Museum has a series of these tours to teach people about the history and architecture of various parts of our city. I’d been curious about them for a long time but hadn’t actually tried one yet.

You might really like it.

This was the thought that convinced me to go.

Our guide was incredible. She pulled us back two hundred years in the past as she described how the town of York was first built. There are high-rise buildings and roads full of traffic where there was once a little cemetery at the outskirts of a community that was so small they had to scribble down names from the graveyard in order to look like they had enough citizens to become incorporated.

Turn the clock back a few decades before that, and it was a toll road that farmers tried to avoid to save some money. The people living back then had to periodically change the location where they collected tolls to catch the sneaky farmers.

I felt like I’d travelled back through time during the tour. I could all but hear the sounds of bleating animals being lead to market and see fireman from long ago sticking their heads out of the tower on top of their hall to see if any of the houses in the surrounding community were on fire. It’s hard to imagine this part of Toronto ever being that small and rural, but it sure was!

The building with the blue doors at the beginning of this post was another highlight of the walk. It was once a Congregationalist church, but is now the home base for a society for creative women.

While I was definitely nice to go home and cool off after it ended, I’m so glad I took the tour.

It can be very easy to talk yourself out of trying something you’ve never tried before.

There’s always other stuff to fill your day with instead: chores, volunteer commitments, kids, pets, social media, work, and other obligations.

Sometimes, though, you’ve got to make space in your life for new experiences.

Don’t listen to that little voice in your mind that lists all of the things you should be doing instead or all of the reasons why you shouldn’t try it.

You can stop if you really don’t like it.

But at least give it a chance first!

After all, you might love it as much as I loved this tour.

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

I Can’t Correct That via VHughesAuthor‬. It’s fascinating to me to hear about some of the things that at least one person in this world finds scandalous.

What’s In a Name? via SabeehaRehman‬. This post reminded me of the one directly above it. Once again, it’s not something I would ever think twice about, but it obviously does bother some people. So interesting!

Event Review: Pride Month 2016 via azambakides‬. I’ve never seen someone review Toronto’s Pride events before. It was pretty cool to hear what this reviewer had to say about them.

America’s Gun Control Logic Applied to Other Laws. Hopefully this is expanded into a series of posts. It was fantastic.

Why Pokémon Go Players Are Going to Keep Finding Dead Bodies. What a grisly thought, but I can’t disagree with it.

From A Remarkable Life: One 95-Year-Old Shares Her Hope For Fellow Trans People:

“I’ve decided that humans have to do this: You must live as long as you can live, no matter what the conditions are. You must live. So no, I don’t have any fears about living.”

What have you been reading?

We're hosting our first #AMA this morning so ask us anything! https://t.co/VU0slp4uBh @markhamlibrary @mississaugalib @pickeringpublib

— Toronto Public Library (@torontolibrary) July 14, 2016

Beginning in a few minutes at 11 a.m., The Toronto Public Library is going to be answering questions on Reddit. (I will update this post as soon as the official link goes live. The above link is now correct).

If you’ve ever wanted to ask them a question, now is your chance!

The people who run the social media accounts for the Toronto Public Library are witty and friendly, so I’d highly recommend checking out their answers even if you don’t live in the area. They regularly make me chuckle on Twitter. I can’t wait to see what they have to say in a more intimate setting.

Does your local library have a strong social media presence? Share a link to it if they do. I’d love to check them out.

The watermelon one and the one that showed you a creative use for cookie dough were my favourites. They both seem like they’d work pretty well, although I haven’t had a chance to try them yet.

Have you tried any of these hacks? How well did they work?

July is a sweltering time in Toronto. We’ve been under heat advisories regularly over the last few weeks. While I’m lucky enough to have home air conditioning, there are still plenty of places in this city that don’t have that luxury.

Or, if they do, they don’t particularly work well during a heat wave.

The place where I do our laundry is one example of this.

Imagine trying to cool a place where a few dozen washers and dryers are nearly always running from early morning until very late at night. Usually there are people in there waiting for an empty machine, chatting with friends, or folding their laundry as well.

It’s comfortably warm in the winter, but it’s a sauna there in the summer even with fans blowing and doors left open to catch any stray breeze that might stop by for a visit.

By the time our loads were washed and dried, all of the stuff I was wearing was soaked with sweat and sticking to my still-wet skin. Even with the water breaks I took while our clothes were being laundered, I was hot and terribly thirsty by the time I arrived home again.

Laundry days like this one make me really grateful to be back in air conditioning again. I drank as much water as my stomach could stand and prepared to go outside for the first time today. Given how miserable the laundry room was, I assumed it would be even worse outside.

There were things to do out there, though, and it was better to get them done early before the heat and humidity grew any worse.

So imagine my surprise when I stepped outside and felt a warm but not stifling breeze on my face. It was humid, but much less humid than it had been in the place where I’d done laundry. The temperature outdoors felt 10 or 15 degrees cooler than where I was earlier as well.

Once I thought about all of those hot machines running nearly all of the time in a small space that isn’t particularly well-ventilated it made sense. All of the heat from the warm bodies of people moving around in there and the washers and the dryers that they use has to go somewhere. I could see it building up very quickly.

But it was still interesting to realize that it’s not always as hot as it seems.

What have you learned lately that surprised you?

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

Overtime, It’s a Killer via ColleenTews‬. This post about addiction and all of the forms it can take in someone’s life was excellent.

Personality Can Change Over A Lifetime, And Usually For The Better. I was a little surprised by the claims made in this article. Have you noticed these kinds of changes in the people around you?

July 8, 1917 Epilogue via TTLastSpring‬. This is the final chapter of Tom Thomson’s story. I’d strongly recommend checking it out to anyone who enjoyed my post about him a few months ago.

No One Knows Why a Lot of Tourists Keep Showing Up to This Random British Village. There isn’t much I can say about this post without giving away spoilers, but I sure hope this happens to Canada at some point.

The Value of Self-Care in Troubled Times via LinsFischer‬. A great reminder for anyone who is overwhelmed by the news recently.

What have you been reading?

This is the first in a series of posts I’ll be sharing about the authors and books that have influenced my writing style in some way.

When I was a kid, my uncle gave me a copy of The Hobbit as well as copies of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It took a couple of years for me to grow into The Lord of the Rings, although I loved The Hobbit immediately.

Hobbits seemed like my kind of people. They were peaceful, bookish, and loved even the simplest meal as long as it was hearty and filling. They weren’t particularly interested in glory or in being the centre of attention. I often daydreamed about how much fun it would be to live among them.

What I liked the most about Tolkien’s stories, though, were the details. He’d stop in the middle of a scene to describe the long history of the building the characters were visiting or exactly what the land around them  looked like.

While I’ll admit that this strategy did slow down the pacing of the plot in some places, it also gave me extremely clear mental images of the settings . Even today I can close my eyes and see exactly what those places looked, sounded, and in some cases smelled like. It’s as though I’ve visited them myself instead of read about them in books, and that’s pretty amazing considering how long its been since I’ve read those passages.

As an author, I don’t include as many details about the setting in my stories as Tolkien did. I prefer to let my audience imagine certain details for themselves, although I do try to pick a few specific things to focus on when I’m describing where my characters are. There’s definitely something to be said for taking a moment away from the main conflict of the story to show what the main characters are sensing at that exact point in time. It can be a very powerful way to draw a reader into the conflict and help them empathize with the characters they’ve been following.

This is something I do in real life as well. Some of my strongest memories of certain events exist because I took a minute to emotionally step away from what was happening and absorb all of the sights and sounds around me.  It’s amazing to see what kinds of things you’ll notice when you take the time to pay attention to everything that’s happening around you.

Have you ever tried to drink in every sight and sound around you in a particular moment?

The Leafcutter from Art&Graft on Vimeo.

This is a gentle short film that I loved.

I spent a lot of time watching ants march around outside after my assignments were finished during the years when I was homeschooled. They are fascinating little creatures.

I’ll be back later on this week with a full post. Today I’m recovering from a weekend full of various Pride and Canada Day events. They were a ton of fun, but my mind and body are drained from all of the sunshine, crowds, and hours spent walking around. (I logged 24,000 steps yesterday alone!)

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this video. I absolutely love seeing this kind of gentle ribbing from one country to another. It’s funny to me to see how the relationship between the U.S. and Britain has evolved over the last 240 years.  The U.S. was once like a rebellious child in certain ways, and Britain was like an overly-strict parent. Now they’re more like siblings who remember how much they used to bicker but can’t remember why those old arguments were ever that important.  Isn’t it interesting how that works?

Hopefully Canada will get to join in on the fun next time!

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

I Quit Showering, and Life Continued. I’m simultaneously grossed out and fascinated by this article.

5 Ways to Respond When Others Tear You Down via JoleeneMoody. Number 4 is the best one in my experience, although the rest are also helpful.

How to Love Yourself via KathyB5710‬. This was really good. Now I just need to start putting the tough ones into practice. Ha!

The Bisexual Dilemma. I know about how this works all too well.

From Why Do We Glorify Running Around Like a Headless Chicken? via ArguablyHonest‬:

It’s very fashionable these days to say “I don’t have time for anything” or “I’m too busy to do xyz”. But why? It’s not healthy, it very rarely makes us happy, not allowing us time to live a life and enjoy it.

This is for the Americans:

And this is for my Canadian readers:

What have you been reading?