Category Archives: Uncategorised

Sometimes I give advice on this blog. Today, though, I’m going to ask you for it.

I’ve found myself so settled into a routine that I’ve gotten into a rut. I eat the same kinds of food and do the same sorts of things week in and weekend out. While a routine can be a good thing in smaller doses, it’s high time for me try something new.

To be honest with you, it’s hard to know where to start because one decision leads to another. Before I know it, I’ve repeated the same steps I followed last week even when I’ve tried to switch up a few things for variety’s sake.

How have you gotten yourselves out of a rut in the past?

What should I try?

What shouldn’t I try?

Is there a specific area in life that you find easiest to change when you feel yourself growing restless or bored with what you’ve currently been doing?

Is anyone else feeling this way? Part of me thinks it might be a mild reaction to how little sun Ontario gets this time of year. I do remember having similar responses to long, dark days in the past. If this is the case, the good news is that I only have about five or six more weeks until the winter equinox.

Talk to me!

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

The Surprising Downsides of Being Clever. Fascinating.

Staying Mindful This Autumn via LondonMindful. This is something I struggle with during the cold, dark months of the year. These were helpful tips, though, and I will be using them this autumn and winter.

How Not Drinking Soda Has Changed Me via JamesSabata. I’ve had a similar revelation with sugary foods. Now that I’m not eating them very often, a lot of things I used to like have become unbearably sweet.

DIY Dentistry via nazmaniatweet. My mom accidentally cut her head once when she was a little girl. He father cleaned the wound and then stitched it up. It healed well. I thought about this family story while reading this post. Sometimes humans are a lot tougher than you’d think they would be (although I’m not planning any DIY medical care of my own anytime soon. Haha).

From The Long Rain:

From My Lief Living “Midwestern Nice”:

We should start with what it isn’t. It isn’t the feigned kindness of the South, where people sipping bourbons at cocktail hour reserve the right to boot-heel you when you turn your back. It’s not the abrasive honesty of the Northeast, where everyone speaks, as Don DeLillo once put it, in the same nasally, knowing cynicism. It is genuine, Midwestern Nice.

What have you been reading?

The idea for this post came from RageMichelle’s post 8 Things I Am Too Old For. She asked her readers to add to this list in her article, and I am more than happy to oblige that request.

I am too old to:

Wear makeup. There are excellent reasons why I stopped wearing it so soon after I started. It’s not something I ever plan to wear again. Life is so much nicer without it.

Stop for street hustlers. Toronto is full of people who want to introduce you to a new religion, collect donations for dubious charities, and sell you anything from used books to pencils to artwork. I have no time or energy to listen to any of these spiels.

Debate strangers online. Some people seem to thrive on getting into endless arguments about all kinds of topics online. I’m not one of them. I’ve never seen anyone’s mind change as a result of one of these fights. If anything, it seems to solidify whatever position you’ve already chosen regardless of what the topic is or what the evidence says. This isn’t even to mention that there are so many other ways to spend your free time. I’d much rather learn something about another planet that I hadn’t known before or make a new friend instead.

Explain things to people who don’t want to listen. Not everything in life needs to be  explained in full detail. Sometimes no is both a complete sentence and a final answer.

Accept gender roles I never signed up for. For example, I’m not a big fan of cooking fussy holiday dishes at all. I definitely don’t make them on short notice or simply because it’s expected of me due to the fact that I’m a woman. Cooking is only something I find enjoyable when I’m doing it without all of the added pressure to be a “proper” woman that can accompany big holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas.

What are you too old to do?

I’ve seen all sorts of unexpected things on public transit, but none of them can compare to what happens in this short film.

It’s come to my attention that at least one person has had trouble getting Disqus to work on this blog. Has it stopped anyone else from leaving a comment?

Please let me know if you’ve been having trouble. I seem to be able to use it just fine, but if multiple people are having issues I’ll look into switching to another commenting plugin.

If you’re having trouble and you can’t leave a comment, email me at postmaster @[this blog’s url].com instead.

Photo by Fredrik Matheson.

I’m going to be going into a social hibernation period soon. No, it won’t be absolute. There are a handful of exceptions I’ll be making for it, but for the most part I’ll be enjoying a lot of peace and quiet for the rest of the autumn as well as this winter.

There are several different reasons why I’m doing this. If any of them sound familiar to you, you might want to consider hibernating as well over the next few months.

1. My brain craves the downtime. I may come across as a social butterfly online sometimes, but I’m actually deeply introverted. It feels really good to me to have multiple weekends in a row when I don’t have any plans to see anyone at all. This has nothing to do with how much I enjoy my friends and everything to do with my inborn need for a lot of time alone. This autumn has included more socialization for me than normal, so I’m really looking forward to finding a better balance this winter.
2. I have mixed feelings about the holidays. Explaining why this is so would take up far more writing space than is available in this post. I might talk about it in detail in the future, but this isn’t a time of year I look forward to. One of the best tools I’ve found for making it a more pleasant experience for myself is limiting what I do participate in. I’d much rather do one small thing joyfully than ten things begrudgingly.
3. There’s not enough sunlight. Remember last spring when I blogged about waking up at 5 a.m. with the sun? Now I’m getting sleepy much earlier in the evening than I used to. My brain doesn’t quite understand that one can stay up hours after the sun sets, and that makes it difficult for me to go out in the evenings. (This makes me glad I don’t live in the Arctic circle. I would not be able to handle the non-traditional sun activity they have there at certain times of the year!)
4. My Netflix queue is full of fascinating shows. I want to watch all of them, and this time of year is a great time to do exactly that.
5. I don’t feel particularly social. No, I don’t mean this in a depressed or anxious sort of way at all. There are seasons for everything in life, and right now I’m in a place where I’m not really craving that kind of interaction. And that’s okay.

This won’t last forever. It never does.

For now, though, I am looking forward to all of the peace and quiet that comes with the short, cold days ahead.

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

She was beautiful, but not like those girls in the magazines. She was beautiful, for the way she thought. She was beautiful, for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. She was beautiful, for her ability to make other people smile, even if she was sad. No, she wasn’t beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She was beautiful, deep down to her soul. – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Apple Varieties. What I found most interesting about this list is how much time people must have put into finding out which varieties of apples are best for everything from making applesauce to eating raw. This isn’t even to mention all of the time and effort they had to put into creating these different types of apples.  I like the Macintosh and Granny Smith varieties. None of the other kinds are that appealing to me unless they’re covered in sugar and spices and baked into a pie. Ha!

Self-Acceptance is the Key to a Healthier Self-Image via JeffreyGuterman. Jeffery specifically recommended this article to me a while ago after a conversation we had about what it means to be a good person on Twitter. It was a fantastic piece. Go read it for yourself.

Delete What No Longer Serves You via Jessica_A_Walsh. I absolutely love this advice.

Blogging: Look – You’re Simply Not Good Enough via GlasdragonFly. This is one of those links that you shouldn’t know anything about ahead of time, although I’m guessing that at least some of my readers have it figured out already.

In a Tiny Universe, Room to Heal. What a heartbreaking and fascinating story.

From Everything Doesn’t Happen for a Reason:

And then he utters the words. The words that are responsible for nothing less than emotional, spiritual and psychological violence:

Everything happens for a reason. That this was something that had to happen in order for her to grow.

That’s the kind of bullshit that destroys lives. And it is categorically untrue.

A friend of mine has been giving away free copies of two of her books. Go check them out if you like mysteries or science fiction. The giveaway ends tomorrow, though, so download them today if you’re interested!

What have you been reading?

   Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Guy Fawkes and his companions
Did the scheme contrive,
To blow the King and Parliament
All up alive.
Threescore barrels, laid below,
To prove old England’s overthrow.
But, by God’s providence, him they catch,
With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
A stick and a stake
For King James’s sake!
If you won’t give me one,
I’ll take two,
The better for me,
And the worse for you.
A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,
A penn’orth of cheese to choke him,
A pint of beer to wash it down,
And a jolly good fire to burn him.
Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!
Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!

Happy Guy Fawkes Day.

Are any of my followers planning to celebrate it? Ever since V for Vendetta was released, I’ve seen a slow uptick in the number of people who either know this poem or do something to celebrate this holiday.

 

This is a short film by Florent Rubio and Xin Zhao about a man whose electric razor stops working when he’s only half finished shaving his face. He has to figure out another way to get ready for his date.

I can’t tell you anything else about it without giving away spoilers. Go check it out for yourselves!

Birthday parties are for kids.

Balloons, crepe paper, silly hats, and extremely sugary desserts are loads of fun when you’re eight.

As an adult, though, I don’t want any of that.

A quiet, celebratory dinner with my spouse where no one sings Happy Birthday off-key? Sure.

Making a big fuss over every single birthday for adults doesn’t make sense to me. One of the reasons why birthdays are so exciting when you’re growing up is that people change incredibly quickly over their first two decades. A three-year-old is mentally and physically able to do all kinds of things that simply aren’t possible for a two-year-old. Every time I see my niece and nephews, I’m amazed by how much they’ve matured. It’s fascinating to see kids go through this process, whether they’re seven weeks old or a senior in high school.

Unless we’re talking about lower car rental fees, you can’t say that about two people who are 24 and 25 years old. They are indistinguishable from each other in every way but this one, and it only matters on the rare occasion when they actually need to rent a car. It’s not something that affects the other 364 days of their lives.

The older someone gets, the fewer exceptions like this one you’ll be able to find. Adults usually change so slowly that all of their years blend together. A decade makes a difference for us. One year generally does not.

So it surprises me a little bit when adults want to celebrate their birthdays in big ways every single year. It would make more sense if they weren’t expecting to make it to their next birthday or if it was a milestone birthday.

Every year without exception, though?

I don’t get it. To me that’s kind of like celebrating your 357th month anniversary with your significant other and then counting down the days until your 358th month anniversary.

It’s not that I find it unethical or anything.

It’s just kind of odd.

To each their own, of course.

But this isn’t something I understand.

Do you?