I underlined a passage in Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke. The main character asks her mother how she made adulthood look so easy and effortless. The house was clean and orderly, the kids were cared for, and the mother worked full-time. The mother points out that what her child perceived wasn’t how the mother remembered things, but she tells her daughter her little secret:

“Whenever I was reaching my wits’ end, I would pause for a moment and do you know what I would do?” Her voice lowered to a conspiratorial register. “I would imagine I was being watched.”
I opened my eyes and frowned at the tiles on the bathroom floor. “Watched?”
“It’s lonely, you know. Housework. But it felt a bit less lonely when I pretended I had a little audience sitting on the couch with me. Watching me vacuum or take out the trash. Cheering me on!” (page 191)

We know that the daughter will become an influencer in the future, so she clearly took her mother’s advice one step further to get an actual audience cheering her on, rather than just an imaginary one. But it was a strange phrasing: Being watched. That you pull your shit together and present the best version of yourself because people will know if you don’t.

It gave me pause when I was reading.

I have been trying to make a conscious effort to weekend better. I’m sure it won’t stick — life has a way of getting in the way of plans — but we’ve been able to string together a few weekends in a row of watching soccer, reading books, visiting friends or family, and eating uncomplicated meals. I felt so much better after we did it once that I’ve been trying to build it in, week after week.

It feels like weekends keep coming up as a theme. There was a piece on how weekends are important because everyone is off at the same time, so it’s a way to cement your network. And another in the Times on French Sundays, as opposed to British Sundays, which sound close to American Sundays.

The author writes:

One of my favourite expressions in French is faire la grasse matinée. It means “to lie in”, but translates literally as “to have a fat morning”. And that is truly the way to do it. This Sunday, why not give the French way a go? Turn off your alarm, go for a stroll with no destination in mind, stop at a coffee shop (no matter how cold the weather is, you must sit outside) and watch strangers go about their business. Go on, eat two croissants instead of just one. Dilly-dally.

That sounds lovely. Yes.

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

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WikiCommute randomly chooses an information rabbit hole to travel down based on the length of your commute, coupled with your reading speed. They build a continuous scroll of random Wikipedia content. Which could be a little dangerous, now that I think about it. Wikipedia is generally safe, but it’s poor practice to leave all curation of information going into your eyeballs to chance.

Nevertheless, it’s a fun idea of filling your commute with random knowledge vs. doomscrolling.

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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.

If 1 dog year equals 7 human years, then a 14-year-old dog would be 98. That’s a very good, long life, and it wouldn’t be a shock (though it would be very sad) if it died. An 8-year-old dog, on the other hand, would be 56. That’s middle-aged, and you would expect (though may not always be lucky) that dog to live many more years.

I’ve been trying to figure out my phone’s age in mobile years. If most iPhones are unusable or dead within 8 years, we can set 1 mobile year to equal 14 human years. A 6-year-old mobile device would be 84. A 7-year-old device would be 98.

Our phones are not that old. Mine is about 4.5 years old, and Josh’s is about 5.5 years old. That would be 63 and 77 in human years. Not that old. Though it’s 63 and 77 years of rough, daily living. Like those devices are workhorses, whereas we have another device that is 98 years old in human years, though we use it less often, so maybe it will live longer?

The point: We are going back and forth on replacing our mobile devices. In the past, I was a run-that-device-into-the-ground kind of girl and only replaced things when they stopped working. But in recent years, I’ve become a replace-things-when-they-no-longer-help-you-do-a-task kind of girl. Our mobile devices are entering that era. Josh does not have a working home button anymore. My emails take 30 seconds to a minute to load. Our devices still have life in them, but they’re struggling. And part of me wants to get every last bit of use out of them, and part of me wants to replace them and have things be easy again. Part of me wants something that works exactly as I want it to work, and part of me doesn’t want to regret spending money on something unnecessary (and then not have that money for something necessary in the future).

It’s hard to know how much my decision is being influenced by the constant capitalist messaging that surrounds us, telling us that we need need need things that are new new new and better better better. And it’s hard to know how much my decision is annoying myself to push back against that messaging.

Quentin’s first birthday happened this week. He was super confused about our birthday lawlessness (unlimited treats! parsley with breakfast! head rubs all day long!) and now super confused that all of the birthday excitement went away. The best was when people FaceTimed him, and he stood on his hind legs, his mouth half open, staring at the screen with his ears flicking because he kept hearing his name but couldn’t see a person.

Look at this face:

Happy birthday, Quentin Aeneas.

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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:

• “Unexpected Disclosure” (Infertile Phoenix)

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Road Less Travelled has a very sweet story about a KitKat theft, which was her mother’s favourite candy. She even traveled with her own stash because apparently KitKats are different country to country. I love the idea that her mother orchestrated the heist from beyond.

Lastly, Bereaved and Blessed defines her year with a word every blogoversary, and she is on #19. I want to hear what led to improvising, but nonetheless, go wish her a happy blogoversary.

The roundup to the Roundup: Happy birthday, Q. 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 10 – 17) 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.