Some people have shared this video expressing sadness over the way we spend our time, but I’m not sure why we feel activities need to remain the same. I mean, sure it’s a little depressing to see sex fall off the screen, but for every loss (hanging out with friends) you also see a smaller amount of time devoted to activities that used to eat up much of our day (housework).

Also, this is the collective trend, not the personal trend. In my own world, I read for more than two hours per day. On the weekend, that number is much higher. I don’t need anyone else to spend the same amount of time I do on that activity as long as I can spend that time on that activity.

And take all of it with a grain of salt. Sleeping doesn’t feature on this 24 hour list. Or bathing. Or getting dressed. There are a lot of time-consuming activities missing from this list.

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

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It’s a Monday, which means I am likely sharing a game. This one is super challenging, but I love it. You have to get from Point A to Point B, naming all the countries in the proper order.

One mistake I kept making at first was starting with the wrong country or filling in the countries between willy-nilly. To get a perfect score, you need to get the route in the correct order in the shortest number of moves.

Enjoy.

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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.

Once upon a time, Burrito Brothers dotted the city, and people would line up in the early hours of the morning for delicious post-bar meals. And all was well.

There were many Burrito Brothers locations in the city. They opened. They closed. But there was always the store on Capitol Hill. It had been there forever.

We were telling the kids about Burrito Brothers — they had it once at the Union Station location when they were in early elementary school — and we looked it up to see the closest location so we could go for a meal, and we learned THAT IT HAD CLOSED FOREVER FIVE HOURS EARLIER.

I feel like we somehow caused this. Or maybe we just felt a disturbance in the air, and it made us start talking about it. I will never get to have another spinach burrito, and I am so sad.

I now have both kids back for a short time before they go back to college. The Wolvog boarded a flight while I was doing yoga, and I got to watch him cross the sky during the workday via a flight tracker. My heart cracked open when he bounced up the steps to give me the biggest hug.

He can now commiserate with his sister about being bummed to be back in suburbia vs. make her jealous because he was still overseas, wrapping up in-person work in his lab before transitioning to remote work on the project.

I didn’t think I’d survive having them that far away, but I did. They matured and grew more into themselves and impressed me beyond measure. I love watching them figure things out.

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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.

And now the blogs…

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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:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

I found Bereaved and Blessed’s post on using the last of her parents’ floss stash very moving. She writes, “This week, three years after my mom’s death and five years after my dad’s, I finished the last container. It’s another bittersweet reminder of both what I’ve lost and what my parents left me through their deaths.” When they bought it, they had no clue how their daughter would come to think of them every time she flossed her teeth.

Lastly, Kmina’s Blog returns with an update. She says what so many of us are thinking: “Adulting sucks. I want my money back, I was sold a chimera that does not fit in any way what reality is now. I am not older and wiser. I do not have things figured out. I cannot have it all. Being slim and healthy and fit is very hard.” The post is hard because life is hard. Go give her a hug.

The roundup to the Roundup: The Wolvog is back! 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 July 24 – July 31) 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.

This is a monthly series, published near the end of the month summarizing what I found, ate, watched, googled, and felt this month. New categories added from time to time.

Books Added to My TBR (e.g., books I just learned about that I’m excited to read… maybe)

• Death on the Royal Yacht (S.J. Bennett)
• Main Characters (Bobby Palmer)
• I Can’t Believe I Don’t Have a Boyfriend (Harry Trevaldwyn)
• Such a Nice Girl (Andrea Mara)
• Hide and Seek (Andrea Mara)
• The Mortons (Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld)
• Windsor vs. Windsor (Bert Tyler-Moore)
• Light Years (Hattie Williams)

Notable Meals (new recipes, old favorites, and restaurant items we ate this month)

• Soft serve ice cream at Jimmie Cone.
• Burrata and nectarine salad on butter lettuce.

Television, Movies, and Music (watching and listening)

• The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins is really funny. I know zero about American football, so I didn’t think I would like it. But they almost never talk about football. Tracy Morgan and Daniel Radcliffe are fantastic.
• We finished Widow’s Bay. That was the best thing we saw all year. It’s creepy more than scary, and you’re laughing too much to be tense. I cannot wait for season two.
• We loved Make That Movie. Some episodes were better than others. We especially liked Bog Prom and the Yooglet.

Added To My Ongoing Mix Tape

• Spin the Bottle (The Juliana Hatfield Three)

Tabs I Left Open (things I Googled and left up on the screen)

• A poem by Edward Lear.
• The Wikipedia page for the Saxons.
• A walkthrough of runestones in Sigtuna, Sweden.
• A menu for a nearby sushi restaurant we haven’t gone to in years.
• A sandwich from M&S that the ChickieNob wants me to recreate.
• Gudrun Sjoden clothing site.
• A socca recipe from The Kitchn.
• Evans and Peel Detective Agency’s site, a themed speakeasy in London.

Micro-Joys

• Ordering books and having them arrive in the mail.
• Hugging the kids after many weeks away.

Mood

• Trying to set a limit on how many things I’m worried about.

What about you? Let me know what you’re eating, seeing, listening to, googling, feeling this month.