Lydia Schoch

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

How Neil DeGrasse Tyson Are You? This is the first time I’ve ever recommended a BuzzFeed quiz on my blog. I scored 11 out of 26, which apparently makes me pretty Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Ha!

Why I Picture My Inner Critic As An Evil Disney Sidekick via 10minnovelist. This is great.

When Bad Thoughts Happen to Good People. I agree 100%. It’s taken me a very long time to get to this point.

We Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy. Is it weird for me to think of this as fun? I’m really motived by the little things in life.

Decade Old Negatives Found in Thrift Store. Go take a look at these photographs.  It’s a long shot, but wouldn’t it be cool if one of my readers recognized the woman in them? The guy who found and developed them thinks these pictures were taken sometime between 1940 and 1950.

From Is It Rude to Say No?

All right, what about hugging. It’s bad manners not to want to hug someone, right?

As a matter of fact, indiscriminately wrapping your arms around people is not only horrible manners, Miss Manners herself would describe it as assault. Offering is okay, sure. But refusing the hug is perfectly fine manners.

What have you been reading?

Photo credit: Caroline’s Cakes.

My blog is 5 years old this week!

If we all lived in the same neighbourhood, I’d invite everyone over for ice cream and devil’s food cake. (Seriously, though – doesn’t this cake look delicious?)

Let’s talk about some blog business.

On a silly note, by far the most unique phrase that has lead someone to this blog over the past year was synonym for stepping on toes that starts with u. I still haven’t been able to think of any words that fit those criteria.

It looks like my Link Love section needs to be updated . If you’d like to have your site included in it, leave a comment below.

I’ve been busy writing my next book. I’ll leave the details a mystery until I’m further along in the process, but I think you’re going to love what I’m working on.

My mailing list has been sorely neglected these past few years. Can anyone offer advice on how to restart an old mailing list? I’d like to get back into the habit of sending it out occasionally again.

On a more personal note, what have been your favourite posts from this blog over the past year? Share them below if you have any.

Thank you all for reading my blog over the years. I really appreciate all of your comments and links to my site.

TYPEWRITERHEAD from Eric Giessmann on Vimeo.

A man with a typewriter-head tries to get rid of his out-of-control thoughts.

This short film reminded me of two things:

1) what it feels like to ruminate and worry.

2) what it feels like to be in the middle of a writing project that isn’t going the way you want it to.

The ending reminded me so much of what it feels like to finish a story, but I can’t say anything more about that without giving away spoilers.

I was amazed by how accurately it captured all of these scenarios. I’d highly recommend checking it out if you’re even slightly interested in any of these topics.

Photo credit: Tiia Monto
& Anna Frodesiak.

Life is smooth here in Toronto. It seems like a good time to talk about what’s going right for me.

Why does this post have a rabbit in it, you ask? Well, they’re my favourite animal. They make me happy. No, I don’t have any rabbits of my own. Small, furry things tend to make me very itchy, so I rely on other people to share cute pictures of their bunnies with the world. Luckily, the Internet is full of such photos!

My spouse and I have found a good balance between spending time with friends and enjoying quiet moments alone at home. It’s something I’ve been trying to figure out for a while, so it’s nice to see things fall into place there.

Almost all of my favourite fruits and vegetables are in season now. I’ve been scarfing them down so regularly that my diet is almost vegan these days. If eating seasonally and locally was always this easy, I’d do it year-round!

Last week’s heat wave has given way to temperatures in the 30s on the Celsius scale. (That’s roughly 85-95 degrees for those of you who use Fahrenheit). I am so much happier living with these numbers!

My word count is finally picking up. I struggled with a story for a few months there before deciding to move onto something else temporarily. It feels really good to write regularly again.

The first season of Fear the Walking Dead will be premiering in just over a month. I’m a (tentative) fan of The Walking Dead, so it will be fascinating to see where this spinoff goes. So far I’ve avoided any major spoilers about it. I can’t wait to compare it to the original. Here’s hoping for more character development and less gore.

What about you? What has made you happy recently? What is going well in your lives?

Here is this week’s list of blog posts and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web. I can definitely tell that a lot of people are taking blogging breaks over the summer. It’s been a little more challenging for me to find good material to share with everyone recently, although I definitely enjoy  sifting through all of my sources.

Resilience Is Futile: How Well-Meaning Nonprofits Perpetuate Poverty I’m not surprised by this at all.

It’s 104 Degrees Outside. 10 Reasons Why That’s a Good Thing. Last weekend Toronto felt like it was 104 degrees outside when you factored in our extremely high humidity. I found this post while googling something related to this topic and thought my readers would enjoy it.

Blind, Orphaned Red Fox Kit at Buttonwood Park Zoo. It’s been a long time since I shared a cute animal video with my readers. This one made me want a pet red fox. They’re so playful and cute.

They All Scream For Ice Cream…In Hell via Austin_Hodgens. This was great.

From The Myth of the Ethical Shopper:

First, we wanted them to ban all the terrible things we read about in magazines. No more child labor, choked ventilation, abusive bosses, confiscated passports. Companies should apply U.S. working conditions or, at the minimum, follow local laws where they operated. Second, we wanted them to send inspectors to see if those commitments were being met.

And most companies did these things. That was the easy part. The hard part, it turned out, is that these structures aren’t designed to make factories take better care of their workers. They’re designed to make factories look like they are.

What have you been reading? How do your reading habits change from one season to the next?

I’ve often wondered what happens to checked luggage.

It probably isn’t treated quite the same way that this robot treats the bags it is inspecting, but I still had a good chuckle over the idea. This was definitely worth the two minutes of my time to watch it.

Readers, do you have any plans for summer travel? What do you think happens to your checked luggage once its out of your sight?

© Nevit Dilmen.

This past weekend was an absolute scorcher here in Toronto. With the humidity it felt like 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) yesterday and 38 C (100 F) on Saturday.

If you’ve never felt those kind of temperatures before, imagine walking into an oven as it is preheating. The air is so hot, muggy, and thick that it almost feels like you’re trying to breathe with a wet napkin over your mouth and nose. Every single breath you take is soggy and sweaty.

Our air conditioner has been running 24 hours a day which almost never needs to happen. Normally it works so well that I get too cold with it on all the time, although this weekend it struggled to keep up with the heat and humidity that Mother Nature has been throwing at us.

We’ve been eating a lot of popsicles, ice cream bars, salads, fresh fruit, and other meals that don’t require heating up the kitchen too much. The blinds are closed. We’ve put off all unnecessary errands and excursions until a later date. It’s just too hot to walk around outdoors unless you absolutely need to do so.

Of course, I can’t complain too much. I know people who have muddled through this heat wave without any air conditioning at all! The very thought of that makes me shudder.

I will be so glad when the temperatures fall to a reasonable 30 C (86 F), 90% humidity and all.

For those of who you are also in the middle of the Dog Days of summer, how are you staying cool?

For my readers in Australia and New Zealand, how would you feel about sending us a taste of that winter weather? 🙂

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

Before I share the links, don’t forget to go download your free copy of A Dark Corner of My Soul if you haven’t done so already. This book will remain free until July 25.

The Doctors Whose Patients Are Already Dead. This sounds like such an interesting line of work.

What It Really Means to Eat a Big Mac at the Arctic Circle. I lived in several small towns growing up, but none of them were this small or isolated.

Grateful for Our New Faucet…and Water via HMJonesWrites. The weather has been hot and humid here in Toronto this past week or two. Reading this post reminded me of just how grateful I am to have air conditioning. It would be a truly miserable summer without it! What are you grateful for?

On Giving, Boundaries, and Mutual Respect. What a fascinating post. This is a NSFW link, but it is really good.

From The Dark (in)Side:

Light is not synonymous with good. Fear, anger, hatred, and suffering have their place. Suppression of those things tips the balance away from seeking solace in the shadows, from seeking wisdom in the depths.

I highly recommend checking out this video.

What have you been reading?

I have something exciting to share with my readers today.

My friend, Michel Weatherall, recently published a book of poetry.  As you can see from the cover, he asked me to write the forward for it. I was thrilled to help him out with it!

What I like the most about this book was how dreamlike the poems were. Nightmares can change suddenly when you’re in the middle of one. A new hiding spot suddenly becomes dangerous. An escape hatch magically appears just when you think the monster is going to catch.  This collection handles those shifts expertly.

The most interesting part about it, though, was when Michel described how he came up with his ideas for certain poems. I really enjoy hearing how other creative people find inspiration. It really can and does show up everywhere.

From July 18 until July 25, this book will be free on Amazon and Kindle.

Anyone who enjoys dark poetry should check it out.

Happy reading!

Photo credit: Qwertyxp2000.

This blog was inundated with spam over the weekend.

I’ve finally cleared out everything that shouldn’t have been posted here.

I think I managed to get rid of everything that offered to make certain parts of the human body larger or show people how to to make $701.49 in their spare time without accidentally including anything legitimate in the deletion process.

If I have made any of your comments disappear by mistake, let me know.