Greetings from Alaska. Sort of.

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The cover of Fodor's Travel The Complete Guide to Alaska Cruises

As this blog post goes live, I’m on a cruise ship navigating the waters of the Alaskan coast and enjoying what I’m hoping is a relaxing vacation and not two weeks of seasickness. I’ve never been on a cruise before, so who knows? Given where I’m at, I decided to make this post about Alaska. I’d put up a travel guide, but our Alaskan travel guides are pretty old; the internet exists, is far more up-to-date, and you have access to it if you’re reading this post, so it feels pretty pointless. Although I will have to pay for internet on the cruise, so I suppose there is value in packing a physical travel guide if you’re actually on a trip. They don’t leave much to talk about, though, so that photo on the left acts as a link to the Alaskan travel guides we’ve got.

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The Best of Two Great Worlds: Storywalks 2024

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Cover-image-for-French-book-Rikki- Rouquin-et-Rocco
Credit: Scholastic Canada

It’s Storywalks season! Now that summer is right around the corner, the annual tradition continues with a long list of participating parks and nature areas to enjoy. For those who may be unfamiliar, a storywalk is like a deconstructed dessert. What’s that you say? What do I mean by that, you say? Well, buckle in and let me tell you. Imagine a picture book that’s been unbound and turned into a series of two-page spreads. Then, picture these spreads turned into boards, rods inserted in the bottom and artfully arranged along one of Vaughan’s beautiful nature trails. It’s the best of both worlds (to borrow the parlance of our dear Hannah of Montana) — relaxing, getting exercise outside, and reading a story all at the same time. What follows is a comprehensive list of the selected stories and their corresponding locations. They will all be in place by mid-June! Maybe this year there’s an enticing book at a park you’ve never been to? There’s plenty to choose from below. Or, here’s an outlandish idea, what about a storywalk tour of all seven parks?

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My Quick & Easy Guide to Curing Housework Boredom

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If you’re anything like me, there’s always one thing that you end up dreading throughout your week: the ever-growing mountain of household chores. Whether it’s the dishes staring at you judgmentally from the sink or the endless piles of laundry, it’s just always there and it’s tough to find any fun in it. It’s why it usually stays that way, at least until Mount Housework decides it’s time to have its weekly avalanche. Plus, add in either a move or a renovation like I am next month, and it just makes things worse.

A-black-and-white-cartoon-of-a-cat-sitting-in-a-chair-with-headphones-on

I sometimes try to fill the time with music, but you need to be in the right sort of mood to listen to it. Plus, after the tenth time of having a verbal struggle with Google Home where it’s determined to send you to the abyss of YouTube’s repository for strange cover bands, you end up wanting to listen to anything but. That’s where I found myself when I stumbled upon the wonderful world of podcasts (ironically, thanks to YouTube. Sometimes the algorithm knows what it’s doing).

The great thing about podcasts is you can take them pretty much anywhere no matter what you’re doing, so long as you have a phone and some headphones (hooray for mobile entertainment!). There’s such a wide range of podcasts too, from self-help to science lessons to my personal favorite, the fiction stories. I think there’s something to be said about how full circle these kinds of podcasts are, taking so much from radio theatre from the 1920s. But that’s another blog post for another time. I’m here to introduce you to my go-to for making housework anything but a pain and a bore: the fun world of aural storytelling.  

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