Tag Archives: Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

I’m going to assume that everyone already knows about practical ways to stay warm like wearing multiple layers of clothing, choosing thick, warm socks, and doing something active like cleaning or exercising to get your blood pumping faster.

Eating hot, hearty meals is another trick up my sleeve on cold days. If you like and can eat spicy food, that will make it even more effective.

Filling foods that take a long time to digest really go a long way in warming someone up. This is even more true on days when you know you’ll be spending more time outside than usual. It’s much easier to brace the cold when your stomach feels like a happy little furnace that filled with fuel.

I do not know why spicy meals are even better at doing this. Maybe it’s because they make your mouth and esophagus feel extra warm while you’re eating them?

At any rate, some of my favourite things to eat on cold days are chili, stews, soups, spaghetti, and other dishes that have a nice balance of complex carbohydrates, fat, and lots of protein from meat or beans. If you pick the right ingredients, you can get at least one serving of nearly every food group in a single meal as well which is an awesome bonus.

Stay warm, friends! If you live in a part of the world that is not freezing right now, I am just a tad jealous of your balmy weather.

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Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Welcome back, everyone! I’ve missed this challenge while it was on break for the winter holidays.

Let’s take a quick look at my 2021 goals.

• I did a pretty good job of exercising (almost) every day and finding the good in the world in 2021.
• Meditation was not a habit that stuck, so I’ll try again with that this year.
• I did get vacccinated against Covid-19 last year and am currently waiting for a spot to open up so I can get my booster shot.
• I tried as many new things as I could given the circumstances. Most of them were food related!

What are my goals for this year?

Meditate Daily. I need it for so many different reasons, one of which I’ll mention below.

Grow Leaner and Stronger. I gained weight, lost muscle mass, and ate more junk food last year because cooking and eating delicious meals were some of the few safe things to do in lockdown. I’m working to reverse those trends in 2022. Since I’m already exercising, I really just need to clean up my diet in order to hopefully become healthier and feel better soon.

Find an Effective Treatment Regiment for My Migraines. I was finally officially diagnosed with migraines in 2021 and am currently working with my family doctor to find the best combination of medication, dietary changes, meditation, lifestyle changes, and other treatments to reduce how often I suffer from them and how painful they are.

Spend at least 15 Minutes a Day Practicing Spanish (and more if possible). I’ve done it every day so far this year! Maybe I’ll be able to count myself as somewhat fluent in it by the end of the year?

Make One New Friend. When I was a kid, I never would have guessed how much harder it is to make friends as an adult. If I can meet just one person who becomes a good friend in 2022, I’ll be thrilled.

Go On More Hikes and Nature Walks. This is something I find both relaxing and invigorating. I can’t wait until the weather warms up enough for me to go wander around outside again.

How about all of you?

Long and Short Reviews has released the list of topics for their third year of Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge posts.

If you’re having trouble reading the graphic above, scroll down for a transcription of it. Everyone is welcome to join in at any point of the year for as many or as few of the prompts as you wish! I know this is short notice for tomorrow’s prompt, but luckily it seems to be an easy one. 🙂

The fun begins tomorrow, so stay tuned.

 

January 

5 – Your Goals for 2022

12 – Books You Want to Read in 2022

19 – What Inventive Ways Do You Have to Keep Warm?

26 – Best Book, Movie, or TV Show from 2021

 

February 

2 – Your Theme Song for This Year

9 – Ways to Show Someone You Love Them

16 – Favourite Book Genre and Why

23 – Something New You Learned Last Year

 

March

 

2 – Tell Us Something About a Pet

9 – Book Setting You’d Like to Visit and Why

16 – Something “Lucky” That Happened to You

23 – Your Favourite Podcast and Why

30 – What Mythological Animal You’d Want as a Pet

 

April

 

6 – A Unique Talent You Have

13 – What’s On Your TBR List

20 – One Meal Everyone Should Try

27 – Book, Movie, or TV Show You Can’t Wait For

 

May

4 – Best Mother in a Book, Movie, or TV Show

11 – Do You Believe in Aliens? Why or Why Not?

18 – What You Do When You’re Not Feeling Well

25 – Favourite Quote from a Book

 

June

 

1 – Book, Movie, or TV Show Set In or Near Your Town

8 – Design Your Perfect Wedding

15 – Best Father in a Book, Movie, or TV Show

22 – Your List of Auto-Buy Authors

29 – A Real Life Event That No One Would Believe

 

July 

6 – Have You Met Anyone Famous? Who?

13 – Character in a Book You’d Love to Meet and Why

20 – Describe a Perfect Weekend Getaway

27 – Show Us Your Bookcase(s)

 

August

3 – Weirdest Food You Love

10 – Thoughts on Fan Fiction

17 – Where Would You Spend One Day in the Past?

24 – Bookmark, Scrap Paper, or Dog-Ear?

31 – A Plot Line You Refuse to Read/Watch and Why

 

September

7 – A Plot Line You Love to Read/Watch and Why

14 – What Makes You Pick Up or Buy a Book?

21 – Least Favourite Chore and Why

28 – Using the Library vs. Buying Books

 

October 

5 – Something from Sci-fi You Wish Were Real

12 – Do You Buy Books New or Thrift Them?

19 – Fantasy Animal You Wish Was Real?

26 – Scariest Real Life Ghost Story

 

November 

2 – What Sci-fi/Fantasy Book You’d LIke to Visit

9 – Best Way to Spread Love of Books

16 – Favourite Social Media Platform and Why

23 – Overused Character Stereotypes

30 – Share Your Morning (or Bedtime) Rituals

 

December 

7 – Best Fictional Siblings and Why

14 – Your Favourite Crafty Thing to Do

 

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Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A quick note first: if you see this, Tanith, know that I try to leave a comment on your posts every week. I’m not sure if they’re getting through.

Some books are funny the first time but quickly lose their lustre. Others are most amusing to readers at very specific ages or developmental stages in life. They might not be so much fun if you return to them one, ten or twenty years later.

Then there are those few, precious books that transcend age and pay no mind to how many times you might have read them before.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy  by Douglas Adams has made me laugh just as hard every time I read it. My fifth experience with it was every bit as humorous as my first one.

Here are a few quotes from I like to reference in ordinary conversations:

“The Answer to the Great Question… Of Life, the Universe and Everything… Is… Forty-two,’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.”

 

“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

 

“Don’t Panic.”

 

“Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”

 

“A towel… is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.”

 

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Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

How has this year passed by so quickly? It seems like 2021 just began.

Here are some of the things that spark my creativity.

Quiet Time Alone. That is to say, I must be alone and in a quiet environment. Just one of these two things is nice and can go some of the way to refilling my introverted needs, but I need both for my creative juices to really start flowing.

No Pressure. The more freedom I give myself to write whatever I want, the more I can get written.

Amusing News Stories. Truth is stranger than fiction sometimes. Why not use it as the basis of a new story?

Kernels of Truth. A lot of what I write is inspired by true events. Someone who has known me for years might pick out a scene, a setting, or a snippet of  a conversation from something that actually happened, but all of the scenes before and after it will be pure fiction.

Justice. Real life isn’t always a fair or just place by any means, so I find comfort in generally making things turn out all right in the end in the worlds I create. What makes this interesting is that some of the books I read do not follow this same pattern at all! I think there’s plenty of room for all sorts of tales in our world.

 

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Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Canada celebrates Thanksgiving about six weeks before the United States does, but the types of food typically served at both of these Thanksgivings are pretty similar with one exception which I will take note of in my next paragraph.

Some Canadian families serve butter tarts for or as part of their dessert at Thanksgiving. I can’t eat them due to my milk allergy, but I keep hoping one of our local vegan bakeries will make a version of them I can try someday. They do look good.

I always enjoy eating pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes with gravy, dinner rolls, ham, fresh salads, and roasted vegetables. (My family would switch between serving ham and turkey depending on which one was on sale before Thanksgiving, so they’re both Thanksgiving foods to me).

I have neutral feelings about sweet potato casserole (generally too sweet for my tastes), canned cranberry sauce (sometimes too sour) and roasted turkey (often too dry). These are foods I’ll take a small, polite serving of but generally skip over when it’s time for another round of food.

I dislike fresh cranberry sauce because of how sour it is, so this is something I quietly leave for others to enjoy.

My grandparents tend to serve apple or other types of fruit pie at Thanksgiving as well. This seems to be a fairly common thing in the Midwest, although I don’t know if the same can be said for other parts of the United States. Maybe one of my fellow Americans can say?

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever tasted a pie I disliked, fruit-filled or otherwise. They’re all delicious to me!

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Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Ebooks are my first choice because they enable me to carry hundreds of books around with me wherever I go. It’s easy to bookmark where I stopped reading, and I never have to worry about having an allergic reaction to them.

With that being said, I did begin to learn to enjoy audiobooks last year. It’s nice to listen to a story unfold while you’re doing chores or taking a walk, especially if it’s something I’ve read many times before.

Sometimes I get distracted while using audiobooks, so my preference is to save them for rereads of old favourites. This way it doesn’t matter if I accidentally tune out for 10 minutes. I’ll still know what happened and what will happen next.

Paper books often cause uncomfortable allergic reactions for me if they have any mold, mildew, or dust in them at all. The older a book is, the harder it becomes to completely avoid these things in them. My immune system is pretty sensitive to the slightest whiff of this stuff. If only I could somehow monetize that superpower!

I tend not to read paper books for this reason unless I’m travelling somewhere that doesn’t have reliable internet or electricity. With that being said, they’re an awesome choice if you’re going camping in the middle of nowhere or if the power goes out.