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)

• One Love (Matt Cain)
• The Margaret Code (Richard Hooton)
• Sharpen Your Knives (Lauren Ho)
• Just Another Dead Author (Katarina Bivald)
• Murder Takes a Vacation (Laura Lippman)
• The Queen Who Came in from the Cold (SJ Bennett)
• One Death at a Time (Abbi Waxman)
• The Usual Desire to Kill (Camilla Barnes)
• What a Time To Be Alive (Jenny Mustard)
• Death and Other Occupational Hazards (Veronika Dapunt)
• Acts of Cupidity (E.S. Drake)

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

• Tomato risotto and a fig and burrata salad for Pesach.
• Southwestern salad with cilantro lime dressing.
• Vegetarian “chicken” parmesan. (I know… sounds odd. Tastes great.)

Television, Movies, and Music (watching and listening)

• White Lotus 3. Finished it. Do not understand why Rick went to Thailand now vs. years ago but enjoyed it nonetheless.
• The Diplomat 2. Finished it. The second season felt a little uneven, but we’ll definitely watch the next season when it comes out.
• The Pitt. Started it. It’s intense.

Added To My Ongoing Mix Tape

• “Made in Thailand” (Carabao)
• “The Pit” (Dead Milkmen)
• Gil Shaham and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra playing Concerto in F Minor, Op. 8, No. 4, R 297 from Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” (Largo)

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

• A Google search on jackalopes because I thought it was a real animal (a small wild hare?) and discovered it was not.
• Checking a statement that neutering extends the life of male guinea pigs. Unlike dogs and rabbits, it does not.
• An article about how Lay’s is now selling All Dressed chips in the US.
• The menu for a new ramen restaurant.

Micro-Joys

• Another Beorn story — Beorn couldn’t eat his beloved vitamin C tablet. He normally begged for it every morning. One day, I had the idea to dissolve it in water — it took about an hour — and then thicken the solution with a little critical care. I have it to him with a syringe, and he got to enjoy the taste of his tablet and get the super important vitamin C. I felt like a superhero.
• Having my nephews hold my hands while we were crossing the street.
• Lunch with my niece at a cute sandwich place, relaxing in the sun.

Mood

• Pretty damn sad after worrying through Beorn’s infection and then losing him. This has not been a good month.

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

I read a story in a newsletter and then tried to explain it to Josh as we drove home one night from a concert. The writer talks about a dog scared of people entering the house.

Instead of shutting the dog off in a room, a trainer worked with the dog, and he now has a place to go when he gets stressed out. The owner says, “Place,” and the dog walks to their bed.

It doesn’t stop them from getting stressed out, but as they get stressed out, they take breaks until they can release the stress and stay where they are comfortable. Their “place.”

You can read the technique here.

The writer goes on to explain how she uses the same concept on herself when she’s getting anxious. She allows herself to get anxious, acknowledges that she’s getting anxious, and then steps into a mentally calming place. Repeat until you can stay in the mentally calming place and leave the stressor somewhere else.

I think it comes down to acknowledging the thought instead of trying not to think the thought, which is a core practice within meditation. But it helped me to envision myself creeping up to the thought, feeling scared, retreating from the thought to a safe space to take a break, creeping up again, and repeating until I can leave the thought behind and gaze at it neutrally from a safe space.

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

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This fun game comes with a warning. The game resets every day at 5 pm ET (or maybe it’s 5 pm in your time zone), which means if you play it one day in the evening and then open the game the next morning, you won’t find a new board. I wish all games reset at midnight in your time zone.

Anyway.

If you were looking for something akin to Wordle but with colours, play Colorfle. It’s really hard because you have to mix the colours in the correct order to get the colour on the right side of the circle.

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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.

Things feel hard right now. For everyone. On the personal, local, and world level.

And I thought this post about how everything will be okay and how our reaction to a situation is a secondary (not primary) source of pain; one that we can work with even if we can’t stop the first type of pain (the situation) from happening.

After going through some possible what ifs that stem from the fear response, he points out that those worst fears are not how life works. He writes,

If you were to think back on all the moments where you thought everything collapsed, how do you explain the fact that you’re still here standing today? … There’s a great irony to thinking that your life is unbearable because your very existence means that you are already bearing it. The very fact that you’re here right now is proof that you have what it takes to endure and overcome your hardships.

It’s a great read to bookmark and return to the next time you look at life and think, “How are we going to get through this?”

This weekend, I’ll hit my 1,500th day of closing all three rings in a row. What this means is that I stood up 12 or so times per day, exercised 30 minutes per day, and burned 220 calories per day. The first and third goals are pretty easy to hit without trying, but that middle goal — exercising for 30 minutes — means that I went for a walk or did yoga 1,500 days in a row. Even when I got my COVID vaccine and thought I was going to pass out. Even when I was sad or tired or short of time.

Fine, there’s usually one day per month where I bullshit my way to that goal, but even with 12 bullshit days per year, that’s still something to celebrate.

I’m going to celebrate by sitting! And eating ice cream!

I am both happy I started this and regret that I started this because I sometimes feel ruled by my watch. Like when we go to the beach, and I just want to plop down in the sand and read, but I first have to go marching down the shoreline and back for at least a half hour so my watch doesn’t send me messages like: “You can still do it, Mel.” But I’m also moving more, and that was the whole point of the reminder on my wrist.

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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.

The Barreness recounts a scary health situation. She was admitted to the hospital for observation after landing in the ER with tenderness connected to her autoimmune disorder. This was the line that gutted me while reading: “I sat in my room alone for a while, quietly crying, sitting in the strangeness of the morning that had unfolded. A whirlwind of people, drugs, questions…. What had just happened? What was happening?” My heart went out to her, thinking about sitting with those unknowns and strangeness. Don’t worry — the post lands in a good place.

Lastly, Middle Girl writes about a birthday celebration for her 70-year-old cousin. I love this: “A joy-filled event. Love in action!” Love in action is the best way to describe a birthday event.

The roundup to the Roundup: 1,500 days of exercise in a row. 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 18 – April 25) 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.