If August 2023 was a month that I dreaded for years, May 2024 is a month I’ve looked forward to for… well… not years. But certainly months. Pretty much since August 2023.

This year has felt like one of those confidence courses they string up in trees where you wear a harness and walk across a wobbly log suspended twenty feet about the ground. I’m not a fan (you’ve probably guessed) of confidence courses, though there is something about that moment when you step off the wobbly log onto the stable tree platform, and your whole body shakes as the adrenaline drains and you think, “I did it. I actually did it.”

Unlike a confidence course, I will need to do it again. When you don’t like something, it doesn’t really help to think about how you got through it last time. But August 2024 feels far enough away right now that I’m just going to enjoy trying to shove their belongings into a storage unit and jumping into the car, celebrating the start of summer. Soon soon.

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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second, helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Well Received” (Infertile Phoenix)
• “The Invisible Load” (The Road Less Travelled)
• “The Brambles” (Stirrup Queens) – thanks, Jess!

Okay, now my choices this week.

Grumpy Rumblings has a thought-provoking (and purposefully controversial) question: “Do people really love it when bad things happen to people and hate it when good things happen to people?” An interesting conversation is happening in the comment section (just like the old days!), so jump in.

Lastly, Finding a Different Path is celebrating her birthday (happy birthday!), and she muses on being close to “old enough that the x-ray technicians don’t ask if I could be pregnant.” [Side note: Do not get me started on getting charged for a pregnancy test pre-MRI EVEN THOUGH I COULDN’T BE PREGNANT. Grrr…] Here’s to celebrating (instead of dreading) growing older.

The roundup to the Roundup: It’s finally May 2024! Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between April 26 – May 3) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week. Read the original open thread post here.

A few years ago, while we were in France, Josh gently broached the topic of finding things to do once the kids left for college. We put a few things on the list while I sobbed on a bench in Perros Guirec: We would learn all about tea. We would take up birdwatching. I would volunteer with horses.

Over the years, we added things to the list. I would learn how to identify trees by their leaves. We would learn a new language. I would take up jewelry making. And I would try a bellini.

I don’t drink alcohol, but I thought I’d like a bellini. So it went on the list.

It’s not a secret that I didn’t do well with the twins leaving. I became deeply depressed before senior year began, and I’ve been struggling all year with them away. Josh and I haven’t expanded beyond the tea we already drink daily. We halfheartedly look at birds without knowing what we’re seeing. I have not been near a horse beyond the wild horses in Chincoteague. I cannot identify trees or make jewelry. I haven’t even done what I usually do, such as seeing friends or putting together a photo album after a trip. I just haven’t had the energy to do anything beyond the bare minimum.

But a week ago, everything lifted. Nothing changed — the twins are still away, though we’re in the home stretch before they come home for almost four months. But I woke up one Saturday morning and felt different. I opened my computer and started writing a new book. I churned out over 11,000 words in the first week. I started reaching back out to friends. I looked forward to Pesach instead of dreading our meal for two. I started smiling and meaning it.

While I’ve checked nothing else off the list, we added bellinis to our seder menu. Is it kosher to have prosecco as the wine? Is it kosher to add peace nectar to the glass? Possibly not, though we couldn’t find any rules against it. We went for it so we could check something off the list. Baby steps. Maybe next year, we’ll check off two or three things.

I don’t know how I will be in August. If this is just a temporary lifting of my feelings because I know the twins will be home soon for a long visit. But I am hoping that my body and mind are starting to adjust to this new normal. And I’ll take the lightness while it is here.

I mostly liked the bellini. Not enough to have another between Pesachs, but it’s nice to have a new tradition.

I read an interview with an author about her book, The Silence Factory, about a spiders’ silk that can be woven to create a fabric that blocks out sound. So silence becomes the ultimate luxury item, which it is, even in the here and now.

It’s one of the only times when not having something makes you richer than someone who does. Quiet is a corner office with a door. Quiet is a penthouse apartment above a city. It’s easy to create noise but much harder to create silence.

I was drawn to the interview and the book discussion because I love silence. I work in silence. I usually drive in silence. Between noise and silence, I’ll choose silence every time. Or, at the very least, quiet.

What about you?

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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Josh and I were reading an article about how to deter black bears, which Josh called my “how-to” guide so I could do all the things they said not to do. It said (so we will) not to leave out bird seed, chicken feed, dog food, or garbage. Maybe we’ll skip that last one.

But it occurred to me that if we got a dog, we would have a meat-eater in the house. We have had only vegetarian pets who eat the same things we eat. I mean, not all the same things, but I eat everything Beorn eats. Beorn and I often share an apple or vegetables, and he gets pieces of everything I’m chopping up as I cook dinner. He loves when I’m cooking because he knows he will get bits of food.

But if we had a dog, we would have a meat-eater in the house because a dog wouldn’t be happy with a diet of dry lettuce. It made me wonder how other vegetarians handle dog and cat food.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts connected to businesses or sponsored posts.

I am not a manager, but I am happy to work on a team or manage projects. To me, being a manager means I have a direct report and am responsible for their hiring or firing. That has always been an idea that fills me with anxiety, though I couldn’t explain why until I read this great essay that I saw pop up in a few places weeks ago. Read it and let me know if it resonates with you, too. I’ll wait.

I love this: “Whether or not you think about the cannon, the cannon is there. Good managers are aware of the cannon. Great managers are aware of the cannon and aware that their reports are aware of the cannon.”

I think the cannon idea applies to many facets of life, most notably work because the power dynamic is clear. But there are smaller cannons in other places, too, whenever there is privilege or power. You can’t always explode someone else’s life. Still, you can explode their day or their feelings, and being mindful of the cannon is part of being an excellent human who builds trust by preparing people before a cannon goes off (or that it will not go off without ample warning). It means understanding how we have the potential to impact other people and moving carefully and clearly.