Earlier this year I started a new series of posts on this blog about Twitter accounts that share the same theme.

This week I’m going to be recommending accounts that tweet about health, nutrition, and fitness.

To be honest with you, I’m quite picky about which Twitter accounts I follow when it comes to these topics.

They need to be scientifically accurate (as best as this non-scientist can tell), upbeat, friendly, and full of helpful information.

If they happen to offer a product or service, they should never be pushy about it. In fact, you’d have to dig somewhat deeply to find out more information about that at all. They are fellow humans first and foremost, and that’s why I like them so much.

A dash of humour is always appreciated as well. Luckily, all of the tweeps I’m about to talk about passed this test with flying colours. I would heartily recommend all of them to anyone who is looking for some support and encouragement as they try to live a healthier lifestyle.

If you have suggestions for  specific accounts to recommend or topics for a future post in this series, I’d be quite interested in hearing about them.

‪@CluelessCurl‬.

If you’ve ever thought about eating a (mostly) vegan diet or otherwise improving your health by living more simply, CluelessCurl has many tips, tricks, and articles to encourage you.

On a more personal note, I love reading all of her off-topic tweets and blog posts about the various places she’s visited. She seems like the kind of person that would be a great deal of fun to go on a trip with.

@FoodlandOnt.

I have found so many interesting recipes from this account. All of them are based on using Ontario-grown food as much as is humanly possible, so this is the perfect time of year to check out their tweets and get some new ideas for future meals.

The other interesting thing about this account is how it changes depending on what’s currently in season in Ontario. I make a valiant effort to eat food that’s in season as much as possible, and I’ve gotten a lot of wonderful tips on how to do that from them.

‪@ChristyBarongan‬.

Having good mental health is just as important as having good physical health. Christy is a clinical psychologist who blogs and tweets about mental health. She often uses examples from her own struggles with mental illness to illustrate her points. I really like her honest approach to this topic.

‪@rachel_pilates‬.

Rachel is a pilates instructor who tweets about working out, eating a balanced diet, and enjoying life. Her tweets make me wish I lived near the beach, and I admire her sunny personality.

@Algonquin_PP‬.

This is the official account for Algonquin Park, Ontario’s oldest and most famous provincial park. You might be surprised to hear how many national parks have social media accounts these days! If you don’t live in Ontario, there’s a good chance that a national park closer to your home is also on Twitter.

The pictures this account tweets are absolutely gorgeous. They make me want to run outside and exercise every time I see them, and that kind of motivation is worth its weight in gold some days.

‪@FitnessBlender‬

There are hundreds of free workouts in the archives of this account and on their Youtube page by the same name. One of the best things about this series is that it doesn’t have any background music. All I hear when I’m working out to a FitnessBlender video is the instructor telling us how to move next. I appreciate that.

This is one of my favourite ways to exercise other than taking long walks.

@PopSugarFitness

And this is my other favourite way to exercise as far as free online videos go. This is where I’d recommend starting if you haven’t worked out in a long time, although there are more advanced PopSugar and more novice FitnessBlender options if you dig through their archives.

Previous posts in this series:

Who to Follow on Twitter If You’re Into Science Fiction and Fantasy 

Who to Follow on Twitter If You’re Into Mindfulness and Meditation 

This post includes spoilers for “Jezebels” (Season 1, Episode 8) of The Handmaid’s Tale. As usual, the link on the left has full summaries of all of the episodes that have aired so far. 

This week’s episode was another unusual one. The plot returned to focusing on Offred, but Moira was definitely competing with her for this viewer’s attention.

For anyone who needs a refresher, Moira (pictured on the left) was June/Offred’s best friend before the Sons of Gilead rose to power. Both women were found to still be fertile, captured, and forced to become Handmaids. While June sort of accepted her fate, Moira fought against it at every turn no matter how badly she was treated as a result of her rebellion.

I didn’t talk about this scene in Faithful, but Moira and June attempted to escape the Red Centre. June was captured early on in their escape, while Moira’s fate was never verified.

These characters did meet up again in the book at a brothel where Moira was sent to work after she was captured again. While I’ve been avoiding spoilers for this show, I had a feeling that we’d see Jezebels at some point and find out for sure what happened to Moira. In order to talk about that, though, I have to first talk about why Offred ended up visiting Jezebels in the first place. It’s not a place that wives or Handmaids are allowed to go.

One of the things I like about this show the most is how it has handled The Commander. There was a time in the beginning of the series when I was a little concerned that they were going to paint him as a good guy who was either misunderstood or had been swept into this new society without having any input into it.

He wasn’t a good guy, and no one pushed him into anything. This week’s episode only gave us more reasons why this was true, starting with the Commander’s creepy urge to pretend like Offred was willingly having sex with him. The scenes where he sexually abused her were hard to watch, but they were completely necessary in order to understand how this character thinks. Women aren’t people to him. They’re possessions. So if the Commander wanted to shave his Handmaid’s legs, obtain illegal makeup and clothes for her, and then smuggle her into a brothel for a night, that’s exactly what he was going to do.

The sexist and disgusting way the Commander treated women has never been more clear to me than it was this week, especially when it showed the death of the previous Offred. Some of the other discussions I’ve read about this episode have wondered if her suicide was at least partially the result of the same abuse the Commander is now dumping on our Offred. I don’t know whether or not I agree with this theory, but there were at least three small hints pointing in this direction: our Offred’s dress was at least a size too big for her; the makeup wasn’t quite the right shade for someone with her skin colour; Nick gave the Commander a hard stare when the previous Offred’s body was being taken out of the house.

The only redeeming part of the strange excursion that took up most of the screen time was that Offred and Moira finally got a chance to have a quiet discussion about what happened the night they tried to run away. Sadly, we didn’t get many details about what happened to Moira after she was captured. All we know for sure is that her spirit has been broken and that her only other choices was to go work in the Colonies until she succumbed to radiation poisoning. She was not the same extroverted, confident person she used to be. She was quiet, sad, and resigned to being hopeless. The only sparks of life I saw in her were when she noticed Offred and when Offred later told her that Luke was still alive.

They were small sparks, though, and I could see how they would be easily extinguished. With only two episodes left in this season, I’m not expecting to see Moira again. I’m hoping we’ll revisit this character next year. Maybe she’ll get to have an entire episode dedicated to her point of view the same way Luke did last week? I don’t know if this is too much to ask from the writers, but I’d sure love to know more about what’s happened to her and if or how she’ll escape. It was wonderful to see Moira again, but I also felt like we didn’t get enough details about what her life’s been like.

Her body language was perfect for this episode. I simply would have liked a little more storytelling to go along with it.Let’s keep our fingers crossed for next week! We still have two more episodes to go in season one, so anything can happen.

Previous posts in this series:

5 Things I Want from The Handmaid’s Tale

Introducing Offred’s World

Gender Treachery

Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum

Faithful

A Woman’s Place

The Other Side

This post includes spoilers for “Faithful” (Season 1, Episode 5) of The Handmaid’s Tale. As usual, the link on the left has full summaries of all of the episodes that have aired so far. This post is my reaction to what happened. 

I was happy to see the pacing pick up this week after the slower storytelling we saw in Nolite Te Bastardes Carbundorum. Offred was finally back to her usual routine after her long punishment.

This episode has been my favourite one so far. None of the storylines have ever felt discordant, but they were woven together especially beautifully this week.

I particularly enjoyed seeing Offred run into Ofglen at the grocery store. Ofglen – who is now known as Ofsteven thanks to her reassignment to a new home-  wasn’t a character I was expecting to see again so soon after her clitoridectomy, so it was pleasantly surprising to have her suddenly show up again.

We knew there was some kind of underground resistance to the society that Gilead created, but this week we got to learn its name: Mayday. Now that Ofsteven is considered too risky for them to use to pass around information anymore, I’m guessing that Ofglen will take her place if she can figure out who else is part of Mayday and how to get an invitation to it. No, I haven’t been reading spoilers for future episodes. I avoid them as much as is humanly possible. This is pure conjecture on my part.

Speaking of Ofsteven, her character development was excellent. She was so quiet, stiff, and subdued in her first few scenes that I never would have guessed the violent turn she’d take later on in the storyline. After she stole the car of one of the men guarding the market and ran over another guard, I remarked to my spouse that I thought this was a suicide attempt instead of an escape. There was nowhere for her to go due to the tight quarters of the market, and she didn’t seem calculating enough to get away even if there had been a convenient side street for her to drive down.

I liked the contrast between Ofsteven and the new Ofglen. (I will call her Ofglen2 to make this less confusing). I never would have guessed that any Handmaid would be content in her position, much less be desperate to hold onto it. Ofglen2’s story about being a prostitute who had to scrounge up a few dollars to afford fast food after turning a trick was brutal. Was it true, though? At first I honestly wondered if she was an Eye who had concocted this story as part of a plan to gain intel on Offred. Offred has already been questioned and tortured, though, so at this point I’m going to assume that Ofglen2 is telling the truth until or unless new facts emerge.

The Ceremony was as brutal as ever this week. I genuinely don’t understand how Commander Waterford can perform sexually with a Handmaid who doesn’t consent and a wife who looks traumatized every time it happens. These aren’t scenes I ever want to watch again, but the acting in them is brilliant.

While I already knew that Offred’s husband was married to someone else when they first began dating, seeing them together in flashback scenes gave me mixed feelings. She is a character I’ve grown to love, but watching Luke cheat on his spouse with her made my stomach turn. They were so flippant and unapologetic about it. They also had a lot of chemistry. If that act hadn’t been a violation of Nick’s vows, I would have been cheering for them.

I’m hoping that this will be explored in more depth either in this season or in a future season. Will we get to meet Luke’s first wife, Annie, and maybe even find out what happened to her? I sure hope so.

My thoughts about Serena Joy remain as complicated as ever. She is stuck in what seems to be a pretty joyless marriage,  she hasn’t been able to get pregnant (although I’m pretty sure that the Commander is the infertile one at this point, not her), and she seems incredibly bored and frustrated with her life.

And yet she treats the other women in her household so coldly. Based on how she’s spoken down to and treated Offred in the past, I get the impression that she’d turn on anyone in an instant if it benefited her. There is no real sense of camaraderie among any of the women in the house unless you count Serena Joy arranging for Offred to sleep with Nick, the family driver, in an attempt to make a baby. Even this act was selfish, though, and would never have been allowed if Serena couldn’t gain something priceless from it.

The sex scenes between Offred and Nick were my last surprise of the week. I winced during the first one because Serena Joy decided to stay in the room while it happened. I suppose she did it to protect them from anyone who might have come to talk to Nick while he was inseminating her, but it made the whole thing almost as awkward and creepy as the Ceremony itself.

Then there was their late night tryst. After 5 episodes of Offred being raped, it was bizarre to see her having consensual sex. I also thought this scene was a nice complement to the first time she slept with Luke. Both of those experiences would have gotten her in deep trouble if anyone had discovered them, and yet both of them gave her a lot of pleasure.

We are halfway done with season 1 of this show now. I am so grateful that there is a second season in the works. As much as I like what they’ve done with it so far, I get the impression that there are going to be many loose strings remaining after the season finale.

Previous posts in this series:

5 Things I Want from The Handmaid’s Tale

Introducing Offred’s World

Gender Treachery

Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum

This is the final post of On the Other Hand. The last six years have been wonderful, but it’s time for me to move on to a new website and a different approach to blogging.

Effective today, I will be blogging at lydiaschoch.com. There’s a post there explaining why I made the move and what you can expect to see from me next.

I hope to see all of you over there!

Why Your Next Move Should Be to Orange County

Orange County, CA is best known for its many tourist attractions. It is home to Disneyland, Downtown Disney, Huntington Beach, and Laguna Beach. Some would consider it a surfing mecca while others come to see the cities themselves.

Whale watching, sunbathing, hiking, shopping, and events are all awaiting every tourist that enters Orange County. However, OC might just be your next home if you’re an active, social person with a love of events, mild climates, and beautiful natural scenery. Here are a few reasons you should make your next move Orange County.

The Local Culture is Diverse and Vibrant

Orange County is home to a wonderfully diverse community of people. The internationality of the area is celebrated by its many festivals and events, the largest of which being Orange County International Street Fair, the Tet Festival, and the Irvine Global Festival. While both the Irvine Global Festival and the International Street Fair celebrate all of the cultures found in Orange County, the Tet Festival is the largest Vietnamese Lunar New Year Festival in the U.S. and is well worth a visit.

The Climate is Perfect 

The mild climate of Orange County offers plenty of sunshine without the excess heat of other sunny locations. These lovely temperatures allow year-round dwellers to enjoy outdoor activities all year long, including sunbathing, swimming, surfing, boating, and hiking.

Of course, this also means beaches. Orange County falls on a coastline with 45 miles of beach along its edge. Living this close to the ocean would give you an excuse to spend day after day soaking up the sun, catching some waves, exploring tidal pools, and even building bonfires in the shoreline coves.

Natural Beauty Combined with City Life

While Orange County may be full of cities, city amenities, and city populations, there is also a component of natural beauty for the nature lovers. A Californian version of the Grand Canyon called Red Rock Canyon, can be found just down a leisurely trail while the county’s highest peak, Santiago Peak, is always available for the more rugged climbers. State parks and wildlife reserves are plentiful, featuring the native plants of both the shoreline and forested areas.

Meanwhile, in the cities, you continue to enjoy things like aquariums, museums, events, and even tourist attractions such as Disneyland. Things such as First Thursday Art Walk in Laguna Beach or the Elvis Festival can be on the agenda for one day with a full day of hiking the next.

Moving to Orange County may seem a little preposterous at first with its famed tourist population. But Orange County is a bright, colorful place to live that permits the city dwellers their activities and comforts while simultaneously satiating the needs of the avid outdoors-lover. Between state parks, wildlife reserves, hiking trails, festivals, museums, and the famed Disneyland, even a quick vacation to Orange County may end with you never wanting to leave. So take the leap. Move to the bustling Orange County and experience life in a way you may have never thought possible.

Image via Pixabay by larsen9236

Vee Cecil is a wellness coach, personal trainer, and bootcamp instructor. Vee is passionate about studying and sharing her findings in wellness through mynewwell.com. 

1. It gives you a hopeful vision of the future.

As I’ve mentioned on Twitter, my spouse and I have been slowly watching Star Trek: The Original Series over the past few months.

One of the things I appreciate the most about this show is its unbridled optimism. The characters live in a time and place where no humans go without the stuff they need to survive.

Everyone always has enough food, shelter, clothing, medical care, and education. Regardless of who you are, you have a chance to explore the deepest galaxies. Nothing will hold you back from fulfilling your potential if you’re willing to work for it.

To run a society otherwise is completely unthinkable to them.

If anything is possible for Captain Kirk and his fearless crew, the same might be said for us as well one day.

2. It warns about darker times ahead.

Not all science fiction series are cheerful or hopeful, of course. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

The world Offred lived in before the Sons of Jacob took over was nothing at all like the quietly terrifying life she lead a few years later as a citizen of Gilead. She’s lost her partner, her only child, her name, her identity, and her ability to make even the smallest decisions about how her life turns out.

I like the fact that this genre switches between warning us of the dangers of fundamentalism in any form and giving us tantalizing glimpses of what could be in store for humanity if we uncouple work from money and learn to stop discriminating against people for things that should have no influence how they contribute to society.

We’ll need both the lure of the carrot and the rightful fear of the stick to have any chance of creating a better world.

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3. It defies your expectations.

Not everything in life is always as it seems.

Think about the opening scene in Buffy the Vampire Slayer where late one night a teenage girl is followed into a deserted alley by a menacing stranger.

In most shows, this would end with her being attacked or killed.

Buffy isn’t like other teens, though. Without giving away too many spoilers about a nearly 20-year-old show, she isn’t the one who should be worried about what could happen when no one else is watching.

As soon as I saw this scene, I couldn’t wait to find out what would happen to her next. I’d never seen a female character like her before, and I was thrilled to imagine a world where a girl doesn’t have to worry about who might be following her or what their intentions were.

4. It teaches skepticism.

One of my favourite things about watching The X-Files episodes back in the day was trying to figure out what would happen to the victim of the week when he or she ran into something or someone that defied explanation.

You had to be pretty intelligent and resourceful to survive one of these encounters. There was little room for self-doubt or for going back to get a second glimpse of whatever it was that sent a shiver down your spine.

The mainstream media wasn’t necessarily something to count on, either. How it described a situation after the fact was almost never correct.

You had to rely on your own observations instead of what they wanted you to believe. While this isn’t always the best way of figuring out the truth, I’d much rather have people think critically about what they’re told than swallow everything hook, line, and sinker.

In Conclusion

Science fiction is such an important and unique genre.

It pulls us away from the dangers of fanaticism.

It pushes us to imagine brighter futures for everyone, not just a select few.

It challenges our preconceptions about what life should or could be like.

Humanity will need more of all of these things in the coming years. I, for one, will be reading a lot of science fiction and dreaming about all of the futures that could be in store for us. Only time will tell if it will be closer to Gilead or to the Federation.

Do you have a favourite sci-fi show that wasn’t mentioned in this post? Tell me about it in the comment section below! I’d love to hear from you.

Here is this week’s list of paintings, confessions, advice for setting boundaries, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

It’s extra large this week because I couldn’t bear to cut anything out. Everything was important, so I hope you enjoy all of the bonus links.

Confessions of a Dirty Shoe Dancer via maryanne_pope. Let’s start off with something lighthearted and funny today. The photo on the left captures the feeling of this link beautifully, I think.

On Fire. I wish Klara Bowman was still with us. I would have loved to talk to her about the meaning of this painting. Isn’t it gorgeous?

Approaching the Holidays with Trump-Supporting Relatives. The advice in this post doesn’t only apply to US politics, by the way. I’ve used and will use them for all kinds of sticky situations. The first point that the author made was the most important: you are under absolutely no obligation to spend time with someone just because they’re related to you. It’s always okay to RSVP “no” if they’re being nasty.

Why We Write at Times Like This via LindaWonder. Stories are such an important part of life for many different reasons.

Rainy Mood. The sole purpose of this site is to play recordings of thunderstorms. If you find them as relaxing as I do, enjoy.

Too Rich to Be Poor, Too Poor to Get By. My thoughts jumped from “the system is broken,” to “Wow, I need to donate to the food bank way more often than I already do,” to “no one who works that hard should suffer that much” while reading this.

This Is Not My Beautiful House. Keep reading this one until you reach the end. The last sentence is 99% of the reason why I’m recommending this to you.

5 Self-Care Tips During Recovery from a Suicide Attempt via iamsteveaustin. This was a very good article.

What have you been reading?

Photo credit: Tony Hisgett.

Lately I’ve been scouring the web for distracting and silly news stories.

One of the nicest ones I’ve come across so far was the semi-official announcement of Canada’s national bird.

The link above shares facts about grey jays as well as discusses why they were selected for this honour.

It also talks about the other species of birds that were being considered for this position.

I am not the kind of person who spends a great deal of time thinking about national symbols.

I’m not against having them. They simply don’t strike me as particularly interesting or important.

So I was surprised by how many people had strong feelings about this decision when I read what folks were saying about it on Twitter.

Some of them had some incredibly strong opinions both for and against this idea.

A few of them were genuinely offended.

What really made me giggle, though, was the thought of asking grey jays themselves what they thought of becoming our national bird.

They’re birds!

They don’t care what humans call them.

In fact, they wouldn’t understand the conversation at all.

Yet people still argue over this.

I don’t know why this strikes me as so funny, but it does.

What are some of the offbeat news stories you’ve been amusing yourself with lately?

Karma – Brandyn Burnette from Minhal Baig on Vimeo.

This short film includes a brief scene from something horrifying that happened in the U.S. recently. I don’t normally like to give spoilers for the stuff I share here, but I think this warning is vague enough to brush away if you don’t mind violent scenes while also specific enough to pay attention to if you are triggered by such things.

The message of this film was fantastic, though. I can’t recommend it highly enough.