610th Friday Blog Roundup

So a few weeks ago, Josh and I had a date night.  After we ate really good sushi, we sat in the parked car and I outlined all the ways I was unhappy with things in life.  I had pushed myself out of my comfort zone, trying too many new things at once, and I was not only longing to get back into my comfort zone, but to also finish reading a freakin’ book.  Usually summer is a time that I tear through books, but we had gotten lazy and usually watched television in the evening.  As a result, the number of books I read this year was embarrassingly low.

I am slowly returning to writing fiction, but I’m also returning to reading fiction.  Every night, we’ve declared screens off at a set time, no exceptions.  The twins need to have screens off by 8:30 pm.  We need to have screens off by 10:45 pm.  In both cases, we read before bed.

Not only are we all sleeping 20 times better (the twins used to stay up until 11 pm stating they couldn’t fall asleep), but I’m actually getting through books again.  I’m really excited to look at my TBR list rather than feel suffocated by it.  It’s a nice feeling.

I’m going to trim a bunch of news sites out of my RSS reader so I only have personal blogs to read.  I’m trying to get back to what really matters to me so my screen time is used well.  Wish me luck.

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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:

• “Dialectic” (The Empress and the Fool)
• “Thinking About Blogging” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Baby, Borneo, or Bust has a post about being unable to sleep because she has a lot on her mind.  She writes, “I am trying to figure out what is bothering me, what problem, what stress, I am holding too near.  But I can’t put my finger on it.  It’s everything.  It’s nothing in particular.”  But I also love the release at the end; that realization that sometimes simply writing it down and taking it out of your head makes the difference.

Every once in a while, Infertile Fantasies pops up with a post, and they’re always good.  This week she wrote about closure, about waiting for closure or creating closure.  This part of the post made me weepy: “I want to thank you all for helping to be our closure. I can’t say that enough. And I include in that the wise woman whose words I’ve discussed here. Truly, you guys are my stars and you’ve aligned for us.”  Me, too.

Lastly, River Runs Dry has a really scary story about witnessing a car accident.  I had chills run down both arms reading these words: “I work really hard at staying alive. I exercise every day, prepare healthy foods for my family and eat very little junk food … It could have been me yesterday, and I could have walked away from it like the guy did, or I could have been really, really hurt. Or I could have died.”  It’s a sobering post about the things outside our control.

The roundup to the Roundup: Screens off at night means I’m reading books again and sleeping better. 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 August 26th and September 2nd) 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.