Lydia Schoch

My grandparents have had a large garden for decades. This is the time of year when their kitchen is filled with all kinds of vegetables that will soon be frozen, canned, sauced, juiced, or otherwise preserved for the long, cold months to come.

Preparing for winter isn’t only for people who have gardens, though. Now is the perfect time to start thinking ahead about all kinds of needs that you and your family will have over the next six months or so.

First, Start Making the Lists

Clothing. Is there anything you currently own that no longer fits and should be donated to charity? What would work perfectly well if you replaced a missing button or sewed up a torn seam ? What will you need definitely to replace before the season changes?

Transportation. If you own a car, does it need snow tires or routine maintenance? How long are you planning to ride your bike before switching to public transit when the snow piles up? Will your winter boots last another season?

Gifts. Who are you planning to buy holiday gifts?  Does this list need to be culled or expanded this year? What is your budget for all of these gifts?

Now jot down a few quick gift ideas for anyone who is easy to buy for. If you’re planning to make or buy anything that isn’t easy to find, think about how much time you need to spend on it as well.

Health. Do any of your vaccinations need to be updated? It’s good to find out early when and where to get any boosters you might need. The health department in Toronto starts giving out free flu shots in the autumn, for example, but the lines can be very long for people who put it off.

Go through your cabinets and look at the expiration dates for all of the medications and vitamins you find there as well. Make a note of any medications that are running low or expiring soon. Cold and flu season is around the corner. It’s nice to already have at least some of the remedies you’ll need to get through the day when you wake up feeling terrible in a few months.

Projects and Distractions. Longterm readers know how restless I get at the end of every winter. One of the ways I’m planning to combat cabin fever this year is to have a list of movies to watch, recipes to try, and other fun ideas to perk me up at the end of February when I feel like spring is never going to arrive.

Your list is probably going to look quite different from mine, but now is a wonderful time to start writing it if there are things you want to accomplish over the winter or if you get a little blue by the end of it.

Put It All Together

The nice thing about having all of these lists compiled is that you don’t have to run around and check off every entry on them right away. Most of the major gift-giving holidays are still several months away, and the season won’t start changing for at least another month as well.

I keep a short list of what I’ll need on my cellphone and start paying attention to sales well before I actually need to pick up that item. Shopping isn’t something I find relaxing or entertaining, so I try to do it in small bursts. I enjoy shopping a lot more if I can pick up one item on sale and then ignore the rest of my list until the next time I notice a good deal or feel like browsing a different store for 10 minutes.

There have been times when I came up with creative gift ideas simply by giving myself plenty of time to think about what that person would actually enjoy and happening to run across something that would suit them well. While some people seem to enjoy last-minute shopping, I think there’s something to be said for taking your time and not buying for a dozen different loved ones at once. It also makes for a better shopping experience because December is such a hectic month in the retail world. I’d much rather avoid all of that frenzied energy and return to my list in January when things calm down.

The other nice thing about this tactic is that it gives you a lot of time to think about whether you actually need item X. For example, I’ve been mulling over the idea of  buying walking sandals for several years. There are always a few hot days every summer when I wish I had a pair, but so far I haven’t wanted them enough to justify spending the money on something I’d only use a handful of times a year. (On the flip side, I am very grateful for my prescription sunglasses every time I put them on and get a break from the glare of the sun. They’re worth every penny, and then some!)

I hope this post has inspired you to start thinking about the shifting seasons to come. I’d love to know what your plan is for the winter. When do you start planning ahead for it?

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

Sleepy Heads via Modquokka‬. If we all lived in the same neighbourhood, I’d invite everyone over to my house to eat homemade chocolate chip cookies while I read this aloud to you.

Mango Nightmares. This is one of the funniest and most baffling things I’ve read in a long time. Do any of my followers have nightmares if they eat mangos?

Eating Habits – Clean vs. Unclean via TakingtheNicki. What a healthy way of looking at food. I really love it.

Two Singles Mean a Lot via infinitewords14‬. This post was so vivid that I felt like I was standing alongside the author as he decided what to do when he noticed a stranger who needed help.

The Summer People. The perfect thing to read at the end of summer.

49 False Health Myths Debunked by Science. I believed quite a few of these when I was a kid. Did you used to believe any of them?

What have you been reading?

In as little as three decades, much of the Middle East and North Africa will be too hot for humans to survive, forcing people to flee in droves, according to stark climate predictions released last month.

From: Swathes of Middle East and North Africa Will be too Hot for Humans as Early as the 2040s.

This article has been weighing on my mind today.

August in Toronto is hot and humid. We’re currently in the middle of another heat advisory. When this happens, the city offers free air-conditioned places for people to cool off during the day. Our public pools are often kept open later in the evening as well.

Even with these precautions, about a hundred and twenty people die in Toronto every year from illnesses related to the heat. Most of them are homeless, elderly, or have underlying health problems. Millions more of us cope with the heat without any major issues, so it’s easy to sweep it under the rug and forget how dangerous hot weather can be.

There is a hard limit to how much the human body can take, though. We’re beginning to see what that limit is in the Middle East and North Africa.

The humanitarian and environmentalist in me is cringing at the thought of all of the suffering to come. First, people and animals are going to die terrible deaths through no fault of their own. Then entire cities that are going to be abandoned because of their harsh climates. The ecosystems in those areas will permanently change as well. I don’t expect every species to die out, but I think we’ll lose enough of them to disrupt the local food chains.

I wonder how far this uninhabitable zones will spread. While I don’t think climate change will cause humans to go extinct, I do think it will make life much more difficult for the generations to come. They’re going to live on a planet that is hotter, has more unpredictable weather, and has fewer species than it’s had in a very long time.

As a writer, I wonder what it would be like to be the last person to leave one of those communities. How long will it take before humans – or maybe another sentient species altogether – rediscovers them and pieces together the story of how they were created and why they had to be abandoned?

I don’t have any answers. None of this might occur after all. Maybe a team of scientists will invent something that scrubs all of the excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reverses the effects of climate change. (Wouldn’t that be cool if it were possible!)

But it is something I think about a lot as I drink extra water and try to stay out of the sun.

I’m not annoyed by people who Instagram their food, but this video was still incredibly funny and well done.

The Alexxcast is a podcast by my Twitter friend, Alexx. I love the description of it he has on his blog, so I’ll repost part of it here for my readers:

I, and my rotating cast of guests, discuss forteana, books, mysticism, booze, metaphysics, spirituality, movies, writing and other random nonsense. 

Listening to the Alexxcast for me is like eavesdropping on someone else’s fascinating conversation without having to pretend that I can’t hear what they’re saying for the sake of politeness.

(Yes, I am an unrepentant eavesdropper, but I never repeat what I hear or mention it to the people who had that conversation again. Your secrets are safe with me. Ha!)

For those of you who aren’t yet intrigued, here are seven other reasons why you should give this podcast a try:

1. He is extremely active on social media. I don’t know about you, but I have a strong preference for online personalities who are closely connected to their audiences. If a podcaster, blogger, or Youtuber responds when I ask a question, I get excited. It’s cool to have that kind of friendly relationship with a web celebrity.
2. He is open to suggestions and audience questions. There have been times when he’s asked his followers what the topic should be for his next show. When people reply with ideas, he takes them seriously even if they’re not stuff he’d typically talk about. I really like that openness to new ideas and perspectives. It keeps a podcast fresh.
3. He is intelligent and well-read. While I definitely don’t agree with all of his ideas, it’s always thought-provoking to see how he’s come to his conclusions and why he thinks the way he does. Alexx makes me think about why I believe the things I do and stretches my mind.
4. He is skeptical.  If you told him the sky was blue and cloudless today, he’d go confirm it for himself before assuming it was true. I deeply respect people like that.
5. He is totally honest. If something is shitty, he won’t beat around the bush. He’ll tell you exactly why he thinks it horrible, when it devolved in something that deserved to be described as feces, and what should be done to fix it.
6. He knows how to follow a rabbit trail. Not everyone is capable of continuing to be funny and interesting when they wander away far from what they were supposed to be talking about, but Alexx is one of those people.
7. He can talk about anything. Someday I’m going to fully test this theory, but I have a strange feeling that he could make a podcast out of even the most loosely connected concepts. If I asked him to find the link between sharks and people who use Ouija boards to speak to the dead, he’d somehow be able to come up with a great story about how those two things are connected.

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

WunderGuy vs. the Brain Tumor via MuseInks‬. I found this post while scrolling through the #MondayBlogs hashtag on Twitter earlier this week. I don’t actually know the author or her family, but I’m still relieved that they were able to share an update with their followers.

Scratching Beneath the Surface of Motherhood Regret. This was something I noticed as a child, and it bothered me quite a bit. While it wasn’t my main reason for deciding never to have kids, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t sway me heavily in that direction. Hopefully you and I both live to see the day when society realizes that this is a problem and takes real steps to change it.

The Mystery of Carl Miller. I absolutely love these kinds of family mysteries.

The Chapel in the Middle of Nowhere via bethjusino‬. There are so many story possibilities in the photos in this post. I loved letting my mind wander a while after I finished reading it.

Stop Worrying. This made me chuckle.

From Presumption of Guilt & the Question of Noncompliance via ShykiaBell:

Noncompliance isn’t always a result of disrespect or an attitude problem. I know this first-hand based on an experience my husband Max (my then-boyfriend/legal alien) and I had with police way back when he and I were dating.

What have you been reading?

Don’t worry, this is a spoiler-free post. If you haven’t seen Star Trek: Beyond yet, I’d definitely recommend checking out.

I’ve been a fan of Tommy’s videos for a while now, and I have shared a few of them on this blog in the past.

I had a more positive impression of Star Trek: Beyond than he did. The writing struck a nice balance between introducing new fans to the franchise and making inside jokes that would appeal to casual (or serious) fans. The storytelling was handled nicely, and I thought the casting choices were great as well.

If you’ve seen this movie, what did you think of it?

I’m running low on blogging ideas at the moment. This sometimes happens during the summer, but for some reason it still catches me by surprise.

What would you like to see me talk about in the near future? I’m open to just about anything!

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

Six Simple Sunday Habits To Set You Up For A Productive Week. I’ll be trying these this week. Will you?

How To Make The Most Of Your Neighbor’s Backyard While She’s On Vacation via MeghanSaraK‬. Too funny.

The Tearooms That Changed the World via julietgreenwood‬. Were you aware of this part of history? I sure wasn’t.

The Local Search for Ultimate Bliss via Megan__Cutler‬. The koi fish were my favourite part of this post. I could spend all day watching them swim around. They’re such interesting animals.

The Class Politics of Decluttering. While I still not entirely sure if I completely I agree with this, the author does make some excellent points about how money affects what we’re able to buy.

Why Turtles Evolved Shells: It Wasn’t for Protection. This would be an interesting prompt for a short story.

From Keep Norwegian Weird:

This is a story about a small language being slowly overwhelmed by English, written in English by someone whose mother tongue is so stiff from lack of use it’s hardly serviceable. The irony isn’t lost on me.

What have you been reading?

A friend of mine mentioned this game yesterday, and I was immediately intrigued. It combines gratitude and mindfulness in such a social and interesting way.

The 100 Happy Days Challenge is simple. Every day you tweet about something that makes you happy. Be sure to include the hashtag #100happydays in your tweet.

According to the official rules, you’re supposed to include a photo of the thing that made you happy as well. Many of the things that make me happy aren’t physical objects, so I’m not yet sure if I’ll be sharing a picture every day.

I will be participating in this challenge, though.

Coronation grapes were what made me happy today because they remind me of my childhood. My grandparents make delicious, homemade juice from these grapes every year. Sometimes I’d sneak over to their arbor and eat a few grapes from the vine when no one was looking.

I hope to see some of my readers join the 100 Happy Days Challenge as well. It would be wonderful to hear about what’s going well in your lives.