526th Friday Blog Roundup
Hello, very quiet Internet. Hopefully you’re recovering from yesterday’s festivities. Or non-festivities if you don’t celebrate Christmas. As a bookend to the last post, break down your day into the following categories: high point, low point, best gift, delicious eat.
High Point: Time to read!
Low Point: Not enough hours in the day.
Best Gift: Bought myself “Hedwig’s Theme” as my new wake-up music for my phone alarm. I was my very own Santa.
Delicious Eat: Appetizer-only dinner for Christmas Eve.
You go now.
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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 in order 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. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:
- “Somewhere Tonight There is a Woman” (Waiting for Baby Bird)
Okay, now my choices this week.
Persnickety Chickadee went to Japan for Christmas, but before she left, she gave us a lovely post about the calendar circling around again. She reflects on what has changed and what hasn’t come to fruition yet since her last trip to Japan. I loved the jumps backward in time.
My Path to Mommyhood makes a fair point about the way the general public talks about genes. She writes, “If we can talk about passing genes along so casually, then we should be able to talk about NOT passing those genes on equally as casually, no?” It’s a great post. Click over to read it from the beginning.
Lavender Luz writes about an exchange with her daughter, and how the way she first heard the words were not the way the words were maybe meant. She explains, “I’ve lived on this planet — I’ve thrived on this planet — for a long time. That’s not nothing; that’s not bad sense. In fact, my goal as her mom is that she do the same.” I love the way the words twist in this post.
Lastly, Constant in the Darkness talks about how it is different waiting on the adoption list this time around. I love this so much: “It’s not the ‘longing for another baby’ that’s eating away at me right now … it’s the not knowing when this is going to happen that is. It’s not a new baby that I’m craving, it’s this part of my life, the infertility, trying for a baby, when the hell is this going to be over thing that I really want to put an end to.” You need to read the whole post to understand.
The roundup to the Roundup: High/Low/Best/Delicious Christmas (or Non-Christmas, as was the case for me). 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 December 19th and 26th) 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.
17 comments
Our xmas activities are always on Dec 24th, so we’ve just been chilling the last day and a half. 🙂 I’ve been chilling and trying to take it easy so much that I forgot about my Monday post and just haven’t been able to get myself to type something up on my phone (I’m actually on my computer now, as hubby and boy are sleeping, which I need to wake them…)
Our high: watching our boy have tons of fun. From decorating the tree mostly himself, to unwrapping gifts, to playing in the snow and just having fun.
Our low: the boy having a runny nose with slight fever and some age “appropriate” tantrums. LOL
Best gift: chocolate and time with family
Best eats: OMG! I haven’t stopped eating in days! The brownies and rice crispy treats keep calling my name. 🙁 The pesto torte, mushroom salad, rosolli and casseroles (rutabaga, carrot, sweet potato) are all to over-indulge for!
Oh, and I taught myself, with the help of a video, to crochet a star. 😀
High point – watching the kid enjoy her gifts
Low point – missing my mom, who loved Christmas
Best gift – I don’t know – I got myself some warm pajama tops and a big bottle of olive oil. I am always everyone’s Santa.
We ate appetizers for Christmas too! But the best thing were the desserts – Gooey Butter Cake…yummy!
High Point: It was a tie between the Kids gratitude and my daughter’s painting of payday’s nana. Which brought him to tears.
Low Point: The constant knowing that I would be in the office Friday morning
Best Gift: Another tie…My daughter painted me a lily (my favorite flower) and my son sung us a Christmas song (he spent all December learning “This Christmas”). It was so special that they both gave me stuff money couldn’t buy.
Delicious Eat: Gumbo. I usually make something cajun but this year I talked my sis in law through her first gumbo and she did a fantastic job.
It was a very merry Christmas!
High Point: Family who drove 6.5 hours from the northern suburbs of Atlanta to spend Christmas Eve eating Chinese food with us. The food was good (as always), but the company of loved ones was priceless.
Low Point: The nasty rainy weather. Could have been worse, but wasn’t ideal either.
Delicious Eat: The Crab Rangoon DIL made to compliment our Chinese dinner. In addition, the desserts were marvelous!
Today I am back to my “regular” (holiday) schedule and will be heading out to Dialysis in about a half an hour. This week and next my dialysis days are Sunday, Tuesday and Friday. It seems strange to go on Sunday and Tuesday. Guess I’m just a creature of habit. Glad it’s just one more week.
Thank you for sharing so much of your life with all of us. It’s an amazing journey. Hope 2015 is a good year for you and your family. I’m looking forward to following along via your blog.
High point: the happiness (pure joy, really) projected by E. upon realizing that Santa had brought his Brio double suspension bridge. And having Australian friends spending Christmas with us.
Low point: realizing that E. was actually not very well (and then the vomiting, which still continues today)
Best gift: Tickets to go see our city’s orchestra play music from Star Trek, which I mentioned to Q. months ago I would like to go and see, and he remembered. Spending the entire day without once thinking about the family we will never have.
Best eat: Q. outdid himself. My actual favourite was the bison pie and tourtiere on Christmas Eve, but Christmas lunch (pasta and scallops for starters, then roast beef, stuffed pork tenderloin, potato gratin with smoked cheddar, and kale salad) was completely amazing too.
Oh Mel, thank you! You always make me feel normal by validating my posts! Hugs!
High Point: sorting books, the lovelies
Low Point: saying goodbye
Best Gift: bought myself an old Olympus camera in the last week or so, circa 2006, for $20
Delicious Eat: casserole o’carbs. (layer stuffing, then corn, then potatoes, serve with protein of your choice, I choose pretend sausage.) It is bad, bad, very bad. And so good. Tonight: leftovers.
Wait, I’m changing my High Point to this: I read all the comments on this post. And then I cried. There are still good people in the world. http://thebloggess.com/2014/12/if-you-need-help-or-if-you-want-to-help/
High point: Seeing my Mum really enjoy her gifts (book and calendar)
Low point: A toast in memory of a friend that felt like an afterthought.
Best gift: A singing bowl from my father.
Delicious eat: Roast beef with family.
Very quiet, indeed!
Thank you for the shout out :-). Might be today’s high point!
Yesterdays High Point: Being with my sisters and chatting with a dear (and distant) friend.
Low Point: Anxious energy pre-present opening.
Best Gift: down comforter
Delicious Eat: my aunt’s Kahlua Chocolate Cake. Salivating here.
My high and low points were the same. I loved watching my two nieces and nephew squeal with delight while opening Christmas presents. Then I shut myself in the bathroom and cried over my own inability to have a child. Bittersweet!
Best gift: Amazon gift card. More Kindle books!
Delicious eat: Dad’s scalloped potatoes. YUM.
http://www.amateurnester.com/2014/12/thoughts-donor-cycles.html
High Point: Snuggling with my husband on the couch, watching Meet Me in St. Louis, and thinking about how different next Christmas will be!
Low Point: Watching me mom cry over nothing by herself in the kitchen because she drank too much, as usual.
Best Gift: Besides this bean? My brother got me Rosetta Stone to learn Italian ahead of our trip in April
Delicious eat: After fleeing the mama-drama and my brother’s house, hubs and I came home and had the coconut cream pie I had made earlier that morning for dinner.
High point – Christmas Eve trip to the zoo and our annual fondue dinner
Low point – dealing with overstimulation and well meaning gparents who interfere
Best gift – Roku 3 from my ILs. (We are often late adopters of tech gadgets and I am excited to play with a new one!)
Best eats – my mom’s apple crisp. It’s a tradition and something that’s very homey every year.
About quietness. It’s interesting this year as I have been diligently not checking social media or been online too much. It was on purpose, and the best decision considering something that occurred on tw.itter that was not fun to witness.
High Point: Also, time to read… Late to the party but really getting into Game of Thrones.
Low Point: Realizing I am not 25 anymore and experiencing a killer hangover after a fun night of cocktails with friends. Beware the champagne cocktail…
Best Gift: A sculpted metal owl lamp (sounds tacky but it’s beautiful) that I admired in a store and my husband NOTICED and went back and bought it and it goes perfectly in our “guest room.” It may have made the tears come for many many reasons, mostly good.
Best Eats: We tried a recipe for Chicken Marbella… A completely delicious recipe that sounds very strange (green olives, capers, prunes, brown sugar, garlic…) but came out AMAZINGLY delicious. It was seriously, seriously good.
Thank you for including me on the roundup! I am super honored. Strangely, I think people in my family who read it actually took a bit of offense and felt called out, which was so not the point but again speaks to the whole uncomfortableness of openly discussing genes or not-genes. Argh. Thank you thank you for sharing!
High point: Summer finally arrived.
Low point: Seeing my mother (who has Alzheimer’s/dementia) further deteriorate since my last visit just a month or two ago.
Best gift: My husband and I decided to give each other vouchers for massages (and I’m going to add a facial to that) to have in the New Year. I’m looking forward to that.
Delicious eat: Strawberries, raspberries, and pavlova. Can’t beat a kiwi summer dessert if you have a sweet tooth.
I’ve been reading but didn’t have enough time to comment much or record any posts to share. Sorry.
High: We got to celebrate Christmas as a family of four for the very first time. I’m not counting last year when the babies were only 2 days old and in the NICU.
Low: We all stayed home from family Christmas Day celebrations because we were sick.
Best Gift: my babies
Delicious eat: We went out to dinner with Hubby’s parents, Grandpa, and Aunt on Christmas Eve. It was the first time out with the babies. They did AMAZING! We had Mexican food.
High point: Spending time with the Little Princesses (Parents’ Neighbours’ Daughter’s two little girls).
Low point: My mother & dh seemed to be competing for the moodiness title, particularly in the leadup to Christmas. 🙁 Once the day was over and the pressure was off, the tension eased a bit, thankfully.
Best gift: Pandora silver bangle from dh with a beautiful snowflake charm. I have a “regular” Pandora silver bracelet already, and I’m going to transfer all my Christmas/winter charms to the bangle. 🙂
Delicious eats: My parents make excellent Christmas Eve & Day dinners. 🙂 We had pickerel (walleye) for Christmas Eve with perogies, and turkey with mom’s excellent gravy & stuffing on Christmas Day.