746th Friday Blog Roundup

I went down the rabbit hole twice this week. The first was looking up Brideshead Revisited, a book I’ve never read and now totally want to read. (Or, more accurately, I would love Jeremy Irons to read it to me so will need to purchase from Audible.) A character in a book was reading it, so now, once I start reading it, it’s like a book inside a book inside a book… if that makes sense. I’m picturing it like two mirrors facing each other, reflecting the reading of Brideshead Revisited 1000 times.

The other rabbit hole was the Holocaust document archive. I found both brothers. One ultimately died at Mauthausen. The other went from Flossenbuerg to Buchenwald. And in finding these brothers, I also found their sister and now I’m exploring her story and two of her children. (One other child got to Israel, another got to Paris, and the third died of natural causes.) Various family members have sent me their notes over the years, and using old census forms, scanned records, and conversations, I was able to put all the siblings in birth order. And now they are in a neat row, lost information known.

I feel like I end the week with more order in it. And a book to read.

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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:

• “Happy Retirement, Dr. Ob-Gyn” (The Road Less Travelled)
• “Regulating What We Don’t Understand” (Stirrup Queens) — thanks, Jess!

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Uterus Monologues has a post about the logistics of life after a miscarriage, namely, her inability to plan a holiday because… what if? She writes, “Even things you know in your rational mind are statistically very unlikely seem eminently possible in pregnancy after loss(es). Bad luck is your entire evidence base. And as for the thought of actually miscarrying again while away….” Her description of your life shrinking––that is exactly it. It makes your world feel so small. As well as her description of how it feels to go away and unplug from the endless cycles and family building thoughts.

The Gayby Project is back with a post! She writes, “But I’m back, and I need this space. And I need the friendships I once built here, even though I think many of ‘my people’ have moved on from the blogosphere. And so, maybe there will be new people who I will find and who will find me?” Indeed! Clearly all of us. Her child’s diagnosis has thrown her for a loop, and she needs––like so many of us––to talk it out to find sense. Go circle the wagons.

Lastly, No Kidding in NZ writes about the Pain Olympics and their purpose. She explains, “Playing Pain Olympics helps me to put my own pain into perspective.” She continues later with the point: “Someone else can’t put your pain in perspective for you! … Equally, I can’t try to tell anyone that their pain is less or more than mine (even if I think it). I can however tell myself where my pain fits on the scale.” It’s a beautiful post, marking the Pain Olympics as a part of the healing process.

The roundup to the Roundup: Brideshead Revisited and family members found. 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 May 24th and 31st) 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.