568th Friday Blog Roundup

I decided to go with the slacker costume for Halloween because I can layer it with long underwear and a t-shirt and flannel a la Bender in Breakfast Club.  I’m always cold, and I didn’t want to be cold walking around.  Plus, I dress up in my Ravenclaw robes on a normal day.  Like… for work.  Uh… because I work out of the house and therefore no one knows that I am working in Ravenclaw robes.

I will have someone take a picture and post it.  My Halloween costume, I mean, not my normal work clothes.

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I’ve been hesitant to see Pan because I think I will end up a blubbering mess in the theater while everyone else stares at me in disbelief.  (This scenario already played out recently with Inside Out.  And… uh… most movies.)  And then I read this post.

I love that this story about Lily Allen’s son who was born still is woven into the movie.  I had chills go down both arms when I heard the opening.

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NaBloPoMo sign up opened on Wednesday, and it has been a mad stream of people joining the list.  It’s always a fun month, though tiring.

Traci York had a wonderful post this week about consistent blogging, and how blogging with frequency truly does change the traffic on your blog.  The numbers don’t lie: by writing more, her yearly views jumped from 200 to over 5000.

Do you have to blog daily?  No.  I blog 5 days a week, and Traci blogs 3 days a week.  The key is consistency: writing several times a week, week after week after week.

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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 in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Infertile Once Pregnant” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Lori!
• “Battle Wounds” (Bodega Bliss)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Too Many Fish to Fry has a beautiful post about resilience.  She writes, “There’s nothing like failure and grief to make you feel completely alone. We always are, of course, alone but there’s a specificity to pain which reinforces this reality.”  She gives a lot of advice in the middle of the post, and surely something in the list will resonate if you’re going through hell.

Articulation has a post about the difference between being busy and being productive.  It’s an important distinction, and one that I struggle with as I overload my figurative plate in order to always be busy.  Because maybe… gasp!… I will be forced to think too much if I sit still for too long.  It’s a good read and an interesting discussion topic.

A+ Effort has a post about checking off boxes on the foster care form.  I love the way she takes what could be a sobering moment and turns it on its head, showing the other side of all of the problems that make people fearful.  Love this post.

Lastly, Grumpy Rumblings has a post about the middle school years, linking to a video of John Green talking about growing up.  As I said over there, it was hard to go through it myself the first time.  It’s equally hard to watch people I love going through those years now.  It’s about the heart combating against rational thought, and the old scars of middle school rubbing against the world now.

The roundup to the Roundup: Opted for the slacker costume.  Gorgeous song from Pan.  NaBloPoMo really will increase your blog traffic if you keep it up.  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 October 23rd and October 30th) 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.