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How to Keep Your Step Count Up During the Cold Season

monday-blogs-2As I’ve mentioned on this blog before, one of the first fitness goals I set for myself a few years ago when I wanted to get back into shape was to walk at least 10,000 steps a day.

Reaching this goal was much easier for me in the beginning when the weather was nice. A long, leisurely walk in autumn or spring could easily get me halfway or more to my goal before I even realized what was happening.

The cold season was an entirely different story, though. It was difficult at first to find ways to stay active when the streets were covered in icy slush and the outside temperatures were frigid.

This is a tricky time of year even now that my daily goal is much higher than 10,000 steps. With winter only about five weeks away, it’s time to start dusting off some of these tips again and preparing to stay active indoors until spring arrives again.

Today I wanted to share some of the tricks I’ve discovered over the last few years that help me reach my step count goals even when the weather is frightful. I hope that you’ll find them helpful, too. Let me know in the comment section below what you think of them.

Break Big Shopping Trips Into Smaller Ones

The cool thing about aiming for a specific step count goal is that every single step you take counts toward it. You definitely do not have to break a sweat every time you want to add to your tally.

One of the things I liked to do when I first started counting my steps was to chop up big grocery shopping trips into smaller excursions. I might have picked up milk, produce, and canned goods on Monday, and then gone back to the store on Tuesday for bread, meat, and frozen stuff.

It especially helps if you don’t shop for stuff that is all located in the same area of the store for that day’s trip! If you’re able to stick to your shopping list, this can be a great way to increase your step counts while still staying within your food budget.

Depending on how close your store is to your home and how many aisles you walk up and down, you could add several hundred to several thousand steps every day.

monday-blogs-1Go to the Mall

Malls are temperature-controlled, well-lit, and usually pretty safe places to visit.

There are almost always many other people around, especially at this time of year when the Christmas shopping season is starting to pick up speed.

While I strongly prefer to exercise outdoors, I can’t deny the fact that malls give people a convenient and casual gathering place if they’re looking to add more steps to their step counter or do some window shopping.

I know people who absolutely love walking around in this environment as well. If you haven’t tried it yet, I highly recommend doing it once if you live near a mall.

You may love it. You may be like me and not enjoy it so much. The only way to know for sure is to give it a shot, though.

This usually add two or three thousand steps to my count.

Pace Around While Doing Chores

If you’re waiting for a pot of water to start bubbling, walk around in circles in the kitchen.

If you’re waiting for the washing machine to buzz so you can switch your clothing over to the dryer, walk back and forth at your laundromat or in your basement until it’s finished.

If you’re vacuuming, dance a little jig to add in a few extra steps when you turn the corner or pull the vacuum to another room.

These are only a few of the many ways to add small amounts of movement int your life while you’re doing other things that also need to be accomplished.

They might not seem like they’d add up to much individually, but I’ve been surprised by how much they add up at the end of the day.

I generally add one thousand to three thousand steps to my tally on the days when I use this trick.

monday-blogs-4Walk to a TV Show

This is by far my biggest tip for people who seriously want to increase their step count but who’ve come to the end of their day without getting as much accomplished as they’d hoped.

Be sure to put down a yoga mat or something similar to that if you have hardwood floors before you try this one.

What I do is I march in place while watching whatever show it is that I’ve been looking forward to seeing today. You can do it as slowly or as quickly as you desire.

At a slow march, I can add three or four thousand steps this way in forty minutes or so. If I pick up the speed, I can double that number.

The right show will suck me into the storyline so completely that I barely even notice that I’m walking at the same time.

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What are some of your favourite ways to add more movement in your day when the weather outdoors isn’t great?

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Suggestion Saturday: November 12, 2016

saturday-blogsHere is this week’s list of paintings, poems, essays, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

For Bradie. I shared a different Klara Bowman painting next week, and I’ll share another with you all next week. Look at all three of them before you google her, though.

Here Are the Reasons Why I Think Prostitution Should Be Legalized via wendygarfinkle. I couldn’t agree with this more.

A Conversation with a Woman Who Walks via LindaKSienkwicz. While I’m a big fan of both walking and reading, I never would have thought to combine them. Have any of my followers ever tried this?

Duck, Death, and the Tulip via brainpicker. This is the best book review I’ve read in my entire life.

A Poem to Get Rid of Fear. Watch this even if you’re not generally a fan of poetry. I couldn’t get the video to embed in this post, but the imagery and message in it were truly fantastic.

Hate Trumps Love via dorothysnarker. What a difficult thing to write.

From Twenty-First Century Victorians:

But the Victorian ethos is not dead, not by a long shot.

It lives on, manifesting itself in our contemporary upper middle class’s behavior. While some aspects have gone the way of the waistcoat, the belief that the bourgeoisie holds a place of moral superiority over the other classes persists.

What have you been reading?

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Pictures That Need an Explanation

Photo by William Crochot from Wikimedia Commons, license # CC-BY-SA 4.0.

Photo by William Crochot from Wikimedia Commons, license # CC-BY-SA 4.0.

I have a folder full of pictures that I’ve found online at various points.

Today I wanted to share some of the unusual, funny, and unique ones with you.

If you’re a writer and you find inspiration in one of them, feel free to grab it. I’d love to see what story or poem ideas you come up with for it.

All unlabelled images are stock photos and can be used for any purpose. William Crochot’s picture can be used, too, as long as you credit him and Wikimedia Commons as well as include the license number above.

The Statue Guy

The statue guy above has been running through my imagination for months now.

My first thought when I saw him was, “how long does it take to scrub all of that makeup off?”

My second thought was that sniffing a flower just might be the first thing that a statue who suddenly came to life would do!

Everything would be so new and unfamiliar to him that it makes sense for him to stop and marvel at the small things for a while.

pexels-photo-159885-largeThe Abandoned House

Abandoned homes make me sad.

I think about all of the years people spent living in them. There was a time only a few generations ago when many folks spent their entire lives in the same area.

Were they happy years or miserable ones?

Did the people who lived there ever wish to move elsewhere? If they wished for it, did their wish come true?

How many babies were born in that house?

How many people died there?

Why was it abandoned? Are the owners still alive?

If you stepped inside of it, what secrets would the walls whisper to you?

thursday-blogs-2A Woodland Sacrifice

This picture makes me shudder.

There is something unnerving about the juxtaposition between the bare skull and the healthy, young woman who is holding it up that I don’t like to dwell on.

Did she slaughter the animal who once used that skull?

Is this some kind of ritual?

Is she going to be blamed for something that wasn’t her fault?

The possibilities are endless. I haven’t been able to come up with a satisfying story to explain what is going on here, but maybe someone else can.

Sad Cat in a Gift Bag

pexels-photo-141496-largeThis one is just plain silly.

Cat owners, can you explain it?

I would expect a cat to be thoroughly pleased by the presence of a gift bag.

It seems like the perfect place to hide while you’re waiting to swat at anyone who wanders too close to your sharp, little claws.

Why, then, does this cat look sad?

Does she need more tissue paper to cover herself up with?

Has someone refused to give her any treats today?

Or is she actually happy? Is this simply how her face and ears developed?

thursday-blogs-3Lick My Lips

Finally, let me bring you lips covered in sprinkles.

This one makes me feel hungry.

My first thought was, “did the model get to lick the sprinkles off of her lips once the photoshoot ended?” I sure hope she did!

If this were a book cover, I’d expect it to be a young adult romance novel.

The protagonist would be fifteen and falling in love for the first time with a mysterious, new neighbour.

The rainbow sprinkles might be a subtle hint that this story has a lesbian, bisexual, or transgender protagonist. I would not expect her sexual or gender identity to play a big role in the plot, though. She’d be whoever she was, and everyone would be okay with it.

One possibility for the actual conflict in the plot could be the main character conquering an eating disorder. The storyline could open with her trying to eat desserts again without feeling horribly guilty about it.

I would definitely pick this imaginary book up and read the blurb. It caught my eye right away.

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What were your first thoughts when you saw these pictures? How do you think the stories hiding in them should be told?

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3 Yoga Breathing Exercises for Anxiety

You don’t have to have anxiety to find this video useful.

I like it because the host gives her audience many opportunities to customize the breathing exercises for our own bodies. It was really nice to make those little changes as I followed along.

This is something I’ve been using regularly this autumn. It’s incredibly relaxing.

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5 Reasons Why You Should Be Watching Glitch

Glitch is an Australian sci-fi show about a small-town cop named James Hayes who is trying to figure out why six people have risen from the dead in the local cemetery. None of the dead remembers their previous identities, and all of them have come back in perfect health.

I’ve seen three of the six episodes of this show so far, and I absolutely love it. If you haven’t checked it out yet, here are five spoiler-free reasons why you should be watching Glitch as well:

monday-blogs-1It’s Brutally Honest About the Past

The people who came back from the dead didn’t all pass away in the same year or even in the same era. Some of them were gone for a long time before they suddenly came back, and the writers on the show never ignore that when they show these characters adjusting to life in 2016.

I can’t go into any further detail about this aspect of the plot without giving away spoilers about the episodes I’ve seen so far, but I can say that I absolutely loved how the huge cultural differences between the past and the present were handled when they came up.

The Dead Aren’t Scary

No, they’re not zombies, ghosts, or vampires. They’re human beings. Just like us, they eat, sleep, feel emotions, and breathe.  The fact that they can’t remember who they are or why they died is a huge mystery, but it’s only part of who they are as individuals.

As I get to know their personalities better, I become even more eager to figure out why they were brought back and what will happen to them next.

The Living Are Empathetic and Kind

I have to admit that seeing nude people who were covered in dirt crawl out of their graves would freak me out.

This is one of the reasons why I was so impressed by how James and the other residents of the town responded to finding the dead wandering around in a graveyard in the middle of the night. They were quite understandably shocked and confused at first, but they also quickly began rescuing the dead and finding a safe place to take them.

After giving up on a few other science fiction shows partially due to how poorly their characters behaved in a crisis, I was pleased to find one that shows people helping each other in an uncertain situation.

People Make Sensible Choices in This Universe

Do they always make the right decision? No!

They do have common sense, though, and so far they have been pretty good at learning from their past mistakes when something goes wrong.

This is the sort of thing I love finding in a TV show. It’s completely possible to have a great deal of tension in an episode without relying on a character to ignore something that happened five minutes ago in order to get them to wander into the wrong area or trust someone that they know they should be wary around.

The Opening Credits Are Visually Stunning and Important to the Storyline

Let me be honest here. I usually don’t pay a lot of attention to the opening credits of the TV shows I watch. Most of them are simply replaying scenes from the show that I already know. They’re fun to watch a few times, but the repetition eventually makes me lose interest in them.

This isn’t the case for Glitch.

While the opening credits are deceptively simple at first, they do give away some important information to anyone who pays attention to what’s going on in them. Without giving away spoilers, they’re also incredibly beautiful.

So do pay attention to them if or when you watch this show!

 

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Suggestion Saturday: November 5, 2016

saturday-blogsHere is this week’s list of comic strips, pleas, poems, paintings, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Who Are the Undecided Voters? Too funny.

Good Riddance to October Rain via jdubqca. I thought this was a very appropriate and interesting way to say goodbye to the month of October. Wouldn’t you agree?

Discreet. An entire story unfolded in my mind when I looked at this painting. If you tell me how you imagined the next scene playing out, I’ll share my version with you as well.

Dabbling in Doubt: A Plea to My Church via SbethCaplin. I would have loved to find a church that allowed this kind of stuff back when I was a Christian. Would it have kept me in the faith? No idea, but it sure would have made my life easier as I wrestled with the big questions.

Neuroscience Says Listening to This Song Reduces Anxiety by Up to 65 Percent via vlb. Is anyone else interested in testing it out? It was quite soothing to me.

From Why Are Presidential Elections So Close?

I plotted the top two popular vote-getters in every U.S. presidential election since 1824, using data from The American Presidency Project. The top two contenders, typically a Democratic and a Republican, but occasionally a Whig, have danced closely around the 50-50 mark for nearly 100 years.

What have you been reading?

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Old Is a Relative Term

Someone I know recently celebrated a birthday. They were a little surprised by their new age because it is one of those years that can be associated with belonging to a different demographic. There are perks to reaching this age, but it also changes how companies market to you and what kinds of perks you can get from certain parts of society.

Old at 20?

That conversation reminded me of the first time I felt old. I was 20, and I’d just started working at a movie theatre. Nearly all of the other employees there were high school students.

thursday-blogsHigh school was still fresh in my mind, and I didn’t feel like I’d changed all that much in the two to three years since I’d graduated. It was surprising, then, to realize just how little we had in common. I don’t mean this in an egotistical way at all. I liked my coworkers quite a bit as individuals, but we were living in two completely different worlds.

They talked about parties, who was dating who, and where so-and-so got that new shirt. I studied for finals during the slow periods and wondered where I’d go after I graduated from college in the near future. I’d started thumbing through the resources at my campus career office to see what kinds of options were out there.

Obviously I wasn’t objectively “old” at 20, but working with people who have a completely different outlook on life can definitely make you feel out of place.

Old (and Young) at Every Age

I know a few people who have been old at every age since I first met them.  They talk about their age negatively and use it as an excuse for for why they can’t do something. Every ache and pain is noted and shared in great detail with everyone they know. A pulled muscle or passing headache is given as much attention as a serious and potentially life-threatening illness like cancer or diabetes.

They refuse to try new things. Their knowledge of pop culture fell off of a steep cliff decades ago, and they have little to no interest in learning about anything after that era.

When I first met one of them, I genuinely thought she was twenty years older than her actual age. It took me quite a long time to realize the truth.

On the flip side, some people stay flexible. They accept the genuine limitations that may be placed on them based on their health or other factors, but they don’t use those things as an excuse to avoid trying new things or enjoying the stuff in life that they’re capable of doing.

Sometimes they feel young.

Sometime they feel old.

It all depends on who they spend time with and how they interpret the things that happen to them. You definitely can’t control all of it, but I do think there’s something to be said for remembering that being old is a relative term.

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Guest Post: Suicidal Thoughts and Addiction

fruitSuicidal Thoughts and Addiction: Preventing Tragedy During Recovery

Many people who find themselves suffering from an addiction will find themselves experiencing suicidal thoughts. People who abuse substances are more likely to attempt suicide, particularly if they have a mental health condition.
Taking measures to prevent or treat suicidal thoughts during addiction recovery, instead of focusing solely on the addiction itself, is a wise approach to your recovery. While your treatment plan should have aspects that cover mental health, there are some things you can do to keep your spirits up and depression at bay.
Learn to Meditate
Meditation is a very powerful tool to have at your disposal. The ability to calm your mind and quiet negative thoughts can be what gets you through this difficult period of recovery. People who meditate daily have been found to be happier, less stressed, and more mentally sound than those who do not meditate or only meditate in the face of difficulty. If you can incorporate meditation into your daily routine, you may be surprised by how much better you feel.
Eat Well
Changing your diet and coping with suicidal thoughts may not seem connected. However, when people suffer from nutritional gaps, their mental health can suffer greatly. By altering your diet to include all the important nutrients, you are boosting your mood and limiting your risk of depression.
Find an Enjoyable Hobby
Hobbies are wonderful distractions that allow you to keep your hands and mind busy. By having an enjoyable activity to turn to when your mood goes south, you are cultivating a healthy coping mechanism and teaching yourself to feel better rather than spiraling into the realm of suicidal thinking.
Crafts such as crocheting, scrapbooking, quilting, and whittling are all fun ways to keep yourself feeling positive. Of course, there are many ways you can improve your mood. In fact, some therapy plans will utilize art therapy as a way to recover.
Exercise Regularly
When you’re feeling down and out, it’s often difficult to convince yourself to get up and exercise. But if exercising is a normal part of your routine, you may find it easier to reap the benefits of exercise when you need them most.
Exercise produces positive endorphins that improve mood and limit stress. It’s one of the things you can do to help yourself through recovery, and it’s even used as part of some therapy groups. Pick something you enjoy that gets you active such as yoga, hiking, or swimming.
Finding ways to improve your life go hand in hand with coping with suicidal thoughts. Positive lifestyle changes such as exercising, eating better, finding a hobby, and meditating are all excellent ways to ensure that your mental health stays strong throughout the recovery process. There are many other ways you can tackle suicidal thoughts, and you should always inform your counselor of any depression issues you are having. They should be addressed in your treatment as well as at home. However, it is never a bad idea to learn to help yourself when your recovery gets tough.
Image via Pixabay by Mittmac.

Steve Johnson has written two guest posts for this blog: 4 Key Recovery Concepts for Suicide Prevention and Combating Depression and Is Your Work Life Out of Balance?

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Is This How Ghost Stories Begin?

monday-blogs-2Everything I am about to tell you is completely true.

Some of the older residents of my apartment building like to tell stories about the people who have died here.

One person was young and died suddenly for reasons that I’ve never been able to tease out. There is a hush that comes over the conversation when the elders mention that death.

Someone else is rumoured to have died of smoke inhalation when he made the mistake of evacuating during a fire. According to people who have lived here a long time, that man passed away in the stairwell. They say he would have survived if he’d stayed in his apartment and put a wet towel by the crack under the front door to keep the smoke from wafting in.

The lights in our building flicker a lot. Sometimes the hallway outside of your apartment is brightly lit, and sometimes it’s dim. Lightbulbs burn out quickly, too.

Sound carries in strange ways here. I’ve heard what seems to be hundreds of marbles bouncing around on the floor above me. It’s also common to hear loud thumps and crashes that seem to be coming from every direction at once.

Speaking of sounds, I occasionally hear someone laughing just as I’m about to fall asleep for the night. It is so loud and clear that I could almost swear we were in the same room, but I never see anything when I open my eyes.

Sometimes a breeze whips around the corner of the lobby and prompts the elevator door to open again two or three times just when it was about to close and start moving up to your floor. There are times when that breeze has been so cold that it made me shudder and wrap my jacket around my body more closely.

Human and canine footprints regularly appear on the floor after it’s been mopped.

When the custodians put up the Christmas tree in the lobby, candy canes and old-fashioned ornaments always show up on it within a few days. I’ve never seen anyone place them there, and no one I’ve spoken to admits to adding to the decorations that the people who work in this building had already hung on the branches.

monday-blogs-1These anecdotes could be easily remixed into a modern haunting. There could be a man trapped in the stairwell who is forever trying to reach the bottom floor. Maybe he would be the one who was blamed for the flickering lights, cold breezes, and elevator doors that open over and over again.

The half-formed story about someone dying mysteriously could easily be expanded to include a pet whose footprints appear alongside hers, explain why our local ghost is so obsessed with the annual Christmas tree, and mention why she laughs so loudly at night.

Of course, there are logical explanations for all of these things as well.

A building full of people is bound to have the things breaking down regularly, including lightbulbs and elevators. When the population density is high, there will be folks dropping all kinds of things as they tidy up, do-gooders adding to the festive decorations without wanting to be noticed, children playing with noisy toys on wooden floors, and people who don’t realize how loud they are when they come home late after bar hopping.

It all depends on how you look at it.

Regardless of how you interpreted stories like these, I hope you have a wonderfully spooky Halloween!

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Suggestion Saturday: October 29, 2016

halloweenHere is this week’s extra large list of comic strips, short stories, essays, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Nearly all of today’s links are about Halloween in some way because this is my favourite holiday of the year!

Must Try October Pumpkin Recipes via Remocam. These recipes are making me drool. The french toast sounds the best to me.

What 100 Calories of Your Favorite Halloween Candy Actually Looks Like. Nearly every year I buy a container of candy corn and chow down on it. What kind of Halloween candy do you like the most?

Trick or Treat.  The twist at the end was wonderful.

When Tomatoes Were Blamed for Witchcraft via atlasobscura. What will future generations shake their heads about when they read twenty-first century history? This question floated in the back of my mind as I read this article.

Deer in the Headlights via srkbear. I’d especially recommend this post to those of you who live in rural areas where there are a lot of deer.

There Are No Monsters. This made me chuckle. It’s totally what I would do if I had kids. Haha!

What’s the Origin of Jack-O’-Lanterns. While I read this article I wondered how future generations will reinterpret the things we’re creating in the twenty-first century. The meaning of something can change a lot over the course of a few hundred years.

From Gone Forever via GeoffreyDWest:

The receptionist was very nice, but she explained that there was no chance of seeing anyone. But as I walked away, I think she must have somehow sensed how I was feeling, so she said, “Look Mr Henderson, no promises, but if you’d like to wait, I’ll try and have a word with one of the doctors and see if they can fit you in.”

From The Family That Would Not Live:

In the bar the stained ­glass portraits of William Lemp, Jr., and his first wife, Lillian Lemp—the Lavender Lady—flicker to life from the lightning outside with disturbing fre­quency, the accompanying thunder coming fast afterward. It is the perfect night for a ghost hunt: the air already electric, everyone already a bit on edge.

What have you been reading?

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