595th Friday Blog Roundup

It’s Friday the 13th.  I have a compulsive need to say that every Friday the 13th.  As you were.

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Hey, remember that whole “do yoga, drink water, get sleep, eat well” thing I was doing?  It didn’t last long.  I’m still doing yoga every morning, but after weeks of drinking huge amounts of water, I’m back to forgetting to drink anything until around 3 pm when I suddenly remember that enormous cup in the kitchen.  I also haven’t layered in a proper bedtime, which should have happened by now.

Forget the whole food thing.

Gizmodo had an interesting article about why we stay up past the point when our body is telling us to go to bed.  I do this.  I know I’m tired, but I stay up anyway.  I definitely don’t get 7 hours, though a lot of that has to do with the fact that it takes me a long time to fall asleep, and then I’m not very good at staying asleep.

I would like to learn how to be a better sleeper.  I wish there were sleep classes.

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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:

• “That Day” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Nonsequiturchica!
• “I Want My Kids to Struggle” (Lavender Luz)
• “Starting Conversations” (Bent Not Broken)
• “Week in Review: Motherhood After Infertility” (Leah Campbell)
• “Microblog Mondays: Unnecessary Competition” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)
• “Taller Than I” (Mrs. Spit… Still Spouting Off)
• “Not Having Children” (NotQuiteOld)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Outlandish Notions has a beautiful, poetic Mother’s Day post that made me feel as if I was lying in the hammock, watching the trees as I rock back and forth.  You’ll need to click over and read it to feel it, too.

River Run Dry has two posts this week on the idea of softening.  She points out that soft usually has negative connotations; someone wishy-washy, poorly defined, incapable for standing up for herself.  But as we all talked about it, she realized how tension was affecting her.  She explains: “I can’t believe I never saw this before now. It’s so prevalent in my day to day life, but I never saw it before.”  And that is the beauty of conversation online, which sometimes feels like the backyard fence.  Sometimes you just need to hear, “me too.”

Infertilityhonesty writes about being wished Happy Mother’s Day as a random greeting in May.  She wonders, “what I would say if someone addressed me personally (“I’m a survivor of infertility, so for me it isn’t”) to the greater conundrum of identifying the issue and coming up with a social protocol that includes us all.”  It’s a great post about seeing the holiday through a different lens.

Lastly, Articulation wonders why the really important things in life don’t come with an operating manual.  Moreover, there seems to be people (though I would guess that it’s just an outsider’s perception, and the person living their life sees it in a different way) who can riff on life without an instructions, churning out moments without falling flat.  It’s a great post.

The roundup to the Roundup: It’s Friday the 13th.  I need sleep lessons.  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 May 6th and 13th) 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.