614th Friday Blog Roundup

I tried something new this week, something that promises to change my life.  I baked my challah early.

I knew I wouldn’t have time to make the challah for Rosh HaShanah and cook everything else, so I went online to see if other people had solutions.  I found a board of rebbetzins and learned that people who bake their challah every week are chumps.  These women churn out dozens of challot at a time, baking once a month and having bread for weeks on end.

They were arguing over whether it’s better to freeze the dough or freeze the baked challah, and they seemed to be split 50/50.  I went with the bake-entirely-and-freeze-immediately idea.  You take it out in the morning, and it comes to room temperature during the day.  You can throw it into the oven after your meal is done for a few minutes if you want to serve it warm.

We’ll see how it goes.  Perhaps this will change my life.  Or perhaps our challah will suck on Rosh HaShanah.

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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:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

Non Sequitur Chica has a very honest post about parenting a second child.  I love it when women state their truth and open the door for others to say, “me, too” vs. to sit silently with the thought that they are the only one struggling.  She writes: “But man that guilt is tough. Guilt for not wanting to be on maternity leave anymore. Guilt from wanting to get away from your son (even for a few minutes) to get a break. Seeing other new moms on FB isn’t helping because they seem to have their shit together way more than me.”   Thank you for putting this out there.

The Empress and the Fool has a post about a Real Housewives message board and the divisive way the women on the board process one reality star’s IVF experience, an observation she came to after watching the actual episode.  She asks, “Why are we – as women, as human beings – so inclined to divide, categorize, measure and rank, organize experiences and their validity into a hierarchy?”  She admits that the situation left her with more questions than answers, but they’re really important questions that warrant a deep discussion.

A+ Effort is also tackling the idea of another child from a different angle, looking at the facts and adding them up to find what is best for her family.  It is a system that has clearly worked well over the years, and her family is thriving thanks to decisions they have made along the way.  But it’s also a post about the heart and the brain fighting each other since they rarely get along and agree to a single plan.

Notes from the Ninth Circle has a post about taking Clomid for the first time despite being in the infertility world for a long time.  She writes, “Papa Bear asked me how I felt after taking the first pill yesterday.  I didn’t really know what to say.  I didn’t feel bad, but I was afraid to feel good.  The best description we could come up with between us for how I felt was ‘guarded’.”  It’s a post about trying to figure out a path forward.

Lastly, Baby With a Twist has a post on reading about transgender parenting from her vantage point as a mother after surrogacy.  She admits to her own feelings about how the world processes motherhood and states, “If I – a cisgender woman – feel like this, I can imagine how my trans sisters feel.”  It’s a great post about how various groups can work together to create a new vocabulary.

The roundup to the Roundup: Changing how I bake bread. 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 September 23rd and 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.