If you peruse the “guinea pig tricks” online forums as I do because MY PIG IS A BRILLIANT, PUZZLE-SOLVING MACHINE, you know that pea flakes are one of the tools you use to train your pig to be an adorable, curious, trick-performing lump of pure love. Pea flakes are dehydrated, flat peas, and other guinea pig parents promised that they were catnip for pigs.

The bag with the best label art at Chewy only came in an 8-ounce size. Not a problem. Our pig was going to love these flakes, and we were going to be thrilled that we had a stash of flakes equivalent to about 6 bags of dehydrated blueberries at Trader Joe’s.

I couldn’t wait to open the bag when it arrived. I had talked about these pea flakes with Quentin nonstop. I had to deliver the goods.

He hated them. Absolutely hated them. Took them in his mouth and buried them in his bedding and then urinated on them. I tried breaking them into smaller bits (hard to do because they’re already tiny) and mixing them with his dried food. He ate around them and then dumped out the remaining flake dust on the ground. I even pretended to eat one while I said, “Mmmmmm, this is great people food.” But the pig refused to try it. He liked taking them in his mouth, allowing them to dangle from his lips, and then dropping them. Just to waste them.

I’m glad we committed to housing a mountain of pea flakes.

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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.

In Search of Motherhood broke my heart (which was, admittedly, already broken, too) with her post about a lie we tell our kids. She writes: “Tomorrow I will lie to my children. I will tell them that they are safe, that the terrorist attack can’t happen at our shul or at their Jewish day school, that our security is tops.” It is on my mind every single day, and it is exhausting and depressing.

Lastly, No Kidding in NZ writes about a book from one of my favourite authors — David Nicholls. It is admittedly in third place, but third place David Nicholls is eons beyond other writers. She writes, “How nice to see ourselves reflected in a book in a calm, non-histrionic way, when childlessness was not the central feature of the book, but it was a very present, talked about, and acknowledged feature that contributed to the richness of the characters and story.” You Are Here is a great book if you’re looking for something that will transport you (and maybe transform you?)

The roundup to the Roundup: Quentin rejects pea flakes. 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 March 13 – March 20) 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.

I saw this on Modern Mrs. Darcy, and it spoke to my heart. It was about setting a ritual for turning 50. The question asker made the assumption that people aren’t enthusiastic about turning 50, which isn’t true. I feel like there are a lot more “how did I get here?” moments around turning 40.

But I loved this question because when I turned 50, and now for almost two years after, I feel like my birthday focus has been to give my younger self the things she dreamed about as a child. Which makes me sound like two different people, but you know what I mean. I wished for things as a kid, and as an adult, I go and fulfill those wishes.

For instance, we’re planning a trip to Cornwall because 8-year-old Melissa has always wanted to go to Cornwall. 8-year-old Melissa also wanted a pet lemur, so she doesn’t get all of her heart’s desire, but I’m trying to give my former self the things I hoped for once I reached adulthood.

There is something emotional about coming full circle like that. In nodding to your past self and saying, “I’ve got you covered.”

What did you wish for as a kid? And have you given it to yourself?

As I say every month, I’m shamelessly stealing this idea from Jessica Lahey. She has a recurring monthly date where she reviews all the books she reads that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better at doing this.

So. I’m going to review them here and also online, but I’m going to do it a little differently. I’m only going to review the stuff I really liked. I don’t see a reason to spend my time writing about something I didn’t love; it’s just using up more of my energy. So only positive reviews.

These are the books I liked (or mostly liked) from February.

Just Watch Me (Lior Torenberg): 4.5 rounded up. There is a great note on the acknowledgments page where the author admits they probably wouldn’t like the character Dell as a real person, and that is how I felt, too. They worked in the story, and I felt for them despite all of their terrible decisions and selfishness. It’s an addictive story, and I stayed up way too late trying to finish it. Excellent job.

My Husband’s Wife (Alice Feeney): Feeney can be hit or miss for me, and this one was a hit. This is one of those books where each twist makes you want to read another chapter, and you constantly have to rethink what you think you know. But there are also a bunch of plot holes that keep the whole story from knitting neatly together. Those “but wait… you said over here…” moments. But they are all holes that could have been patched. So let’s pretend they’re not there. If you like thrillers, you’ll probably like this one. It’s a good one.

Belgrave Road (Manish Chauhan): This story will stay with me for a long time. Mira and Tahliil made me think, and my heart hurt for each of them, even as they hurt other people’s hearts. There were many threads that I wish I could keep following and know where they led, but that is life. Sometimes the story ends and you don’t know.

Royal Spin (Omid Scobie and Robin Benway): Totally unrealistic and as enjoyable as The Royal We. I’m trying to think of something more profound to say, but that’s really my review in a nutshell. Sometimes you need to read a bit of solid, enjoyable fluff and this was solid, enjoyable fluff. Well done.

What did you read last month?

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

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Peaklet is a game you play AND contribute to. Each day, you get an opinion or a factual question with many possible answers. For instance, what are the longest books in this list? And then there are maybe 12 – 20 choices. Your job is to rank the top five by size. So choose the five longest books, and then put them in order from longest to shortest of the long books.

After each guess, it tells you whether you chose a correct option in the correct place, a correct option in the wrong place, or an incorrect option. You get five tries to get the items in order.

BUT. After you play a round, you get a survey on some days. The answers to that survey become a future question. For instance, I ranked my top 5 favourite animals out of a list of 20ish animals, and days later, I got to guess what were collectively the top 5 animals.

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.

Josh Wardle, the creator of Wordle, is back with a new game called Parseword. (Thank you, Austin, for the heads up!) It’s a single clue of a cryptic crossword, but a lot less frustration because hints abound. This game would be a great way to get good at cryptic crosswords because it helps you see the wordplay used to set up those clues.

Take your time moving through the robust tutorial. It removes all the frustration of getting into a new game. I like this game because you can start it, walk away, think about it, and come back. I’m not a fan of games with timers. I like to enjoy the experience and not rush through things.

Make sure you explore the “references” button in the top right corner if you get stuck.

Enjoy!