Category Archives: Uncategorised

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

The Good Stuff. What a humorous introduction to autumn.

We Remember 9/11 via RADnursing‬. This post is a few weeks old now, but it was so good that I couldn’t resist sharing it with you anyway.

Pre-1800 Antiques. This made me chuckle.

Alchemy: Science or Magic? via AprilMunday. I’d heard of alchemy before, but this post went into much greater detail about it than I’d ever read before.

Coming Out As Gay In Elementary School. Incredible. This never would have happened when I was in elementary school. People kept this stuff pretty quiet even through high school, although that was probably less common in bigger cities back then. I’m so glad the world has changed for the better.

How to Buy Artwork From Your Family or Friends Without Being a Dick via PeevishPenman. This also applies to any other skill that someone might have.

What have you been reading?

Today’s post is a little off the beaten path, but it’s about something important.

The Canadian government has released a survey about self-care products and what kinds of restrictions you would like to see them put on how stuff like supplements, skin care products, and over-the-counter remedies for diseases like the common cold are advertised to the public.

They are currently thinking about changing the rules so that products are no longer allowed to make health claims that are not supported by real scientific research. Products that had a higher risk of harming people would be subject to a more strict set of rules. Other stuff that was less dangerous or that didn’t claim to improve your health would be given more leeway. The link that I shared above included several examples of this.

You do not have to be Canadian in order to fill this survey out. It is open to anyone who is willing to thoughtfully answer a few questions. The survey is open until October 24. It took me about 10 minutes to fill out, but I typed a lot.

Why does this all matter to me? Because I was once duped.

Years ago I bought a bottle of cough syrup on a day when I had a bad cold and felt absolutely miserable. It wasn’t until I’d taken several doses of that medicine that I read all of the fine print on it and realized that I’d accidentally picked up a homeopathic treatment. While the effectiveness of regular cough syrup is still up for debate, I never would have bought something that didn’t have any actual medicine in it at all.

Consumers deserve better than this. I hope you agree and that you’ll fill out the survey sometime in the next month.

What assumptions do you make when you look at this picture? Let your imagination run wild. I’d love to hear what you can come up with.

In the meantime, here’s is what I came up with:

The sepia tone makes me think that it all happened a very long time ago.

The spires look like something that would be added to the home of a wealthy family. You don’t normally see two of them placed so closely together, although the rest of the architecture reminds me of stuff I’ve seen on buildings from the 1800s.

The trees make me assume the property is rural and possibly quite isolated. I’m imagining a quiet and possibly lonely childhood in a house that was built to look after a much bigger family. Maybe this is a memory from someone who lost one or more relatives at a young age, or maybe the family has dwindled in size since the home was originally built generations ago.

The fact that the subject is looking at the home from what I assume is a spot in the woods is also interesting. Was there a small family graveyard out there that they liked to visit? Did they simply enjoy spending time in nature? Were they not allowed to remain indoors on nice days? Did they grow up to be an architect or an environmentalist thanks to their early experiences?

I’d like to think that they’ve finally been able to return to their childhood home and look at it with fresh eyes after a long and fulfilling life. Everything is smaller and slightly more worn down than they remember, but the spires are still as eye-catching as ever.

For a moment, they feel like a small child again in the best possible way.

A few months ago I blogged about how I learned to enjoy exercise after a lifetime of not-so-great experiences with it.

Today I thought I’d talk about weightlifting in particular.

My first brush with this type of exercise happened many years ago when someone I know was diagnosed with a disease that seriously affected her everyday life. She eventually recovered, but there was a time when she was too weak to do normal things like carry a bag of groceries. One of the many treatments her doctor recommended to her was lifting very small weights to build her strength up again. She started at one pound per weight and worked her way up from there.

I played around with the idea of weightlifting myself for years before I settled into a routine with it.

What made me start doing it regularly was a cardio routine I was using a few years ago that incorporated a few incredibly easy weightlifting moves in with it. I loved every other part of the video, so I started lifting cans of beans when I got to that part of the routine. At the time, I didn’t have a proper pair of hand weights. I figured something was better than nothing.

Once I had a pair of actual weights, that workout grew harder. My muscles would ache for a day or so afterwards, but I kept going. When that workout became too easy for me, I found new ones that were more challenging.

What surprised me the most about this process was how other things in my life changed. Soon I could carry heavier bags and boxes around without needing to take breaks on the way to my destination. The laundry basket started feeling lighter. Once I’d moved up to the next size of weights, even things like opening a stubborn jar of pickles was easier.

Originally I’d started exercising more to lose a little weight, tone up, improve my health, and gain some energy. Those things happened, but they didn’t turn out to be my motivation to keep going.

I like the feeling of accomplished I get when I graduate to a heavy set of weights. The ones I recently moved up to are making my muscles ache now, but I know that at some point in the future they will begin to feel as light as the set that I just outgrew.

I also like the satisfaction of learning a new workout. What used to be tricky is now something I can do in my sleep in many cases.

Some of the exercises I do involve balancing on one leg while lifting weights, so my balance has improved as well. The muscles in my legs and core are stronger and more used to keeping me upright than they used to be.

There is something incredibly cool about slowly seeing all of the results of your hard work like this.

If any of you are weightlifters, I’d love to know what your experiences with it have been!

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

Understanding Migrating Geese. This made me chuckle.

5 Ways Strength Training Boosts Female Power and Confidence via colleen_m_story‬. My experience with weight training has been absolutely wonderful. There are so many physical, social, and emotional benefits to this kind of exercise. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

World War II – Surviving the Hunger Winter of 1944.What a story. I wish I could say more about it, but I don’t want to give anything away.

When Every Angle Edges Up via AustinDetails‬. These snapshots were gorgeous. They made me want to go out and take some pictures myself!

When Kids Don’t Adopt Their Parents’ Beliefs. I don’t know Charles Duffie or his family, but this article makes me think that we’d get along well if we lived in the same neighbourhood. These are the kind of people that I gravitate towards.

To 10 Things That Murphy’s Law Taught Me via andre1begin‬. Situations that I’ve personally experienced on this list: 8, 6, and 1.

What have you been reading?

How I feel.

If we were in the same room right now and you didn’t know me exceptionally well, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell that my seasonal allergies have left me feeling a little grouchy today.

I’m pretty good at keeping this stuff under wraps.At most, you might wonder why I was suddenly even quieter than I usually am.

It’s bubbling under the surface, though.

As much as I enjoy the sight of flowers, bushes, and trees in full bloom, their pollen isn’t something my immune system agrees with.

I am beyond ready for autumn to truly begin now so I can stop sneezing. After a few nights of below-freezing temperatures, my sinuses and I will be good until spring.

This isn’t something that I generally spend a lot of time dwelling on, but today I’m itchy, annoyed, and uncomfortable.

Let’s talk about it.

What irritates you?

How do you handle these kinds of days?

Do you downplay them?

Do you only discuss the stuff that irritates you with certain people or at particular times?

Do you think you’re good at hiding it when you’re out of sorts?

Imagine what the world would be like if houses got sick right before they were about to be sold.

I really enjoyed the creativity of this short film. I hope you’ll like it, too.

We’re moving closer and closer to the sleepy time of year.

I’ve mentioned this on my blog before, but my sleep cycle is influenced by how much daylight there is at any given point in the year.

In the summer, I wake up early with the sun. This means that I’m up and ready to go at 5 or 6 a.m. in June when the days are long and sunrise happens early.

Now that we’re headed into fall and sunset is happening earlier and earlier every day, my sleep cycle is shifting again. I start feeling drowsy soon after the sun goes down and often go to bed an hour earlier than I would have a few months ago. I’m also waking up later in the day than I do in the spring and summer.

This happens regardless of if I’m sick or healthy. No, it doesn’t seem to be a sign of an illness or anything like that. Other than needing to catch a few extra winks, I feel exactly like my old self in every way I can think of. While seven hours of sleep is plenty in the summer, I simply seem to need more of it when the sunlight fades.

Due to the early sunsets and late sunrises we’re having now in Ontario, this means that autumn is the time of year when I am at my sleepiest. As soon as the winter solstice hits, I will start wanting less sleep again.

This is temporary, but I should probably never live in the Arctic Zone!

In the meantime, I like to joking refer to this as my hibernation period. 

It’s sleepy.

It’s cuddly.

It also makes me wonder how our ancestors slept in the past. I’ve read that it was common in some cultures to go to bed when it grew dark outside and then to wake up for a few hours in the middle of the night before going back to sleep until morning.
I’d love to know if any of my readers have noticed similar patterns in their sleep cycles. Have you noticed in changes in it from one season to the next? What is your bedtime routine like? How do you sleep?

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

The Dharma of Tea Towels via SatyaRobyn‬. Two things came to mind when I read this post. First, I completely understand how easy it is to overthink small annoyances instead of living in the moment. Second, I love folding tea towels because they’re so small and easy to work with. If I lived with Satya, she’d have to wake up pretty early in the morning to beat me to that chore. Ha!

The Sleeping Girl of Turville: The True Story of a Girl Who fell asleep for Nine Years. This was fascinating. I’m pretty sure it turned into a hoax at some point, but I’m still not entirely sure how the family was able pull it off.

The Eye That Floats Unblinking via illicit. I can’t tell you anything about this ahead of time without giving away spoilers. It was wonderful, though. 

What Flowers Need. Reason #2948 why dandelions are my favourite flower.

Unfit Like Dodos via brudberg‬. The imagery in this is wonderful.

Summer’s Last Gasp. Autumn and spring always pass by for me much more quickly than the other seasons do. This doesn’t exactly explain why that is so, but it did make me think of how I view the passage of time as I looked at it.

From Best Sisters:

What have you been reading?

But there was one surprising rule that the children wanted that their parents mentioned far less often: Don’t post anything about me on social media without asking me.

From Don’t Post About Me on Social Media, Children Say.

When I was a kid, people tried to keep their identities hidden online. It was an act of trust to show someone an actual picture of you, tell them your real name, or mention where you lived.

Those rules shifted over time, of course. Now it’s incredibly common to reveal all kinds of details about your life on various websites. I’m not saying this is a bad thing. I like getting to know people through their real names instead of thinking of them as Snowflake3485 or as a mental picture of whatever cartoon avatar they happen to use.

However, it does appear that the rules governing the Internet are shifting again.

I noticed this with my nephew long before the above article came out.

He was born in the Internet age and has never known any other way of living. Pictures of him as a baby and toddler were emailed and texted to relatives all over the world. As he became a child, he started to have strong opinions about what should and should not be posted online about him.

It makes me cringe when people share graphic details about the lives the children they love in public places on the web. A story about potty training woes or preschooler tantrums might be cute to some readers when the kid is little, but the Internet has a funny way of holding on these anecdotes forever. In hindsight, I’m glad that all of the stories shared about my nephew when he was too young to be asked were the innocuous kind.

Once any story is out there, they can’t be taken back. It will exist forever, and there is a high chance that someone who wasn’t supposed to know about it will stumble across it anyway.

If it’s a kind story about a baby taking her first steps, it probably won’t be a big deal. There are a lot of things that kids don’t necessarily want the entire world to know about, though.

This is the biggest  reason why I almost never share stuff about my nieces or nephews online. When I do mention them, it’s rarely by name or with a photo of them attached. Even then I never say anything embarrassing or too identifying about them.

Kids deserve privacy just as much as adults do. When they turn 8 or 10 and start setting up their own social media accounts,  their Internet histories should only include things that they were okay with being shared.

If it wouldn’t be an acceptable thing to say about your spouse or your best friend when they’re having a hard time, it shouldn’t be okay to say about a kid.

The kids profiled in the article above are giving us a glimpse into the future. Ten years from now, I suspect it will be much more common for parents to keep all references to their young children off of the Internet. I know a few people who are doing this now, and I predict that it will only become more popular as the generation that was raised on the Internet grows up and tells us what it was like not to have any say in how their early lives were recorded online.

If you have children in your life, how much do you share about them online? Where do you think the line should be drawn? If you do tell stories about their lives, have you ever thought about how they’ll react to that once they’re old enough to pay attention?