I’ve never been a big game show person, but we ended up watching old episodes of The Chase because every hotel in Ireland seemed to show hours of episodes each night. It’s a trivia show that ranges from popular culture to history and literature to sports. We started shouting out the answers along with the players. The stakes felt high. I’d go to shower and rush back into the room to ask what had happened to the team. Had they been able to beat the chaser?

Our Four in a Bed. We watched bed-and-breakfast proprietors give each other hotel advice in a friendly competition to be the best value for money. And I looked forward to it, my time with random hosts. What had gotten into me?

I’ve had a hard time returning to my regularly scheduled program. I cannot seem to shake post-travel fatigue, read intense books, or consume the news. It’s like my brain is telling me to be gentle with it. Don’t jostle it or challenge it too much. Give it a hot water bottle and let it watch game show episodes from 2009.

Would I have felt this way if I hadn’t given myself a break? I think so. I think my brain was heading this way months ago. I just gave it permission to take a break

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

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I have no memory of how I found this site, but it pulls up the most popular page on Wikipedia the day before. It’s interesting to try to figure out why everyone was searching for it. Sometimes it’s easy — it’s the World Cup, and it’s a football player — but other times it feels sort of random. And then strange when you see that 300,000+ people all had the same thought.

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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.

Pre-Internet, if I was going to another country, I bought two things: a Let’s Go guide or similar book and a phrase book. I needed the Let’s Go guide to find places to stay and know what to do, and I needed the phrase book because I was going to try as hard as possible to at least start the exchange in the other language.

I stopped getting the Let’s Go guide when we could book everything before we left the country. But I also let the phrase book go at some point. The internet and apps have made it easier than ever to learn another language. Or, at least, the basics provided by those old phrase books. And instead of learning more, I learned less.

I saw a great list of “side quests” you can do if you feel stuck on a project to get yourself out of your head, and one of the options was to learn 10 words in another language just because. I kind of love the idea of returning to this tradition, if not with a whole phrase book than at least with a phrase sheet. 10 words before the next trip.

I’m doing nothing for this weekend. I’m not going downtown to whatever is on the Mall. I’m not watching fireworks. I’ll read a book and bother the guinea pig, but that’s about it for this holiday weekend.

Do you have any plans?

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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.

A Half-Baked Life has a post about abiding. Being present and supporting a person is something that happened via her blog. She writes: “This space and the community I found through it have been so important to me for over fifteen years that it’s hard not to acknowledge; it’s also shaped the person I’ve become far beyond the page.” It’s a gorgeous post about how writing and reading can change who you are.

The roundup to the Roundup: No weekend plans. 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 June 26 – July 3) 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 don’t usually reflect on items I’ve purchased as I’m using them, but these three things made the trip so much better that I feel like I need to put it down here, too.

Tom Bihn Side Hustle

This bag fit so many things, hugged my body, never got in the way as I walked, and was accepted as a bag in all museums. It got soaked in the rain, and everything inside stayed dry. It never felt heavy on my shoulder. It really is the perfect bag.

Alpha Keeper Belt

I am someone who stresses a lot about my passport due to too many friends/family members having their passports stolen. I could barely feel this belt the moment I put it on. I sometimes forgot to take it off when we got back to the room. It was that unnoticeable. It made me feel super safe.

New Phone

I agonized over getting a new phone. Did I really need a new phone? My other phone hadn’t died yet, and I usually only replace a phone when it becomes literally unusable. As in, it won’t turn on. But I decided that life was short, and I was going to get a new phone before we left. I didn’t get something super fancy, but the photos were definitely higher quality, and it made such a difference to not have emails take a minute to load.