871st Friday Blog Roundup

Josh and I slipped away to the beach last weekend. We chose the beach based on the community caseload. We chose the hotel because they had super restrictive COVID-19 protocols. We chose the activities based on the weather. We lowered our expectations, and the vacation rose up to meet us.

I felt my body relax as we sat in the car, facing the ocean, protected by the wind with good books and lime tortilla chips. I felt my shoulders lower and my stomach unclench. We rode bikes through the wildlife refuge, looking for raccoons. We ate ice cream in the room and watched episodes of White Lotus on a tiny screen.

On the last day, I decided that seeing a cormorant would be good luck. Josh thought he saw a cormorant, but he didn’t stop the car, so we decided it didn’t count. As we were leaving the beach, we saw people gathered near a stream, photographing something. Josh pulled over, but only I got out of the car, slipping on my mask and pulling out my binoculars.

I went to the edge and saw that while the people were all photographing a heron, there were also two cormorants paddling around. One took off right when I got there, and the other swam around aimlessly like it was trying to decide whether or not to leave as well. “Is it a cormorant?” I checked with a man standing nearby. He looked over at the black bird. “Yes, a cormorant.”

“I love you, cormorant,” I called out to the bird.

The man gave me a look and moved away.

I’ve learned a lot of things during the pandemic, but maybe the most important one is to spread love, not germs. Even to cormorants.

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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.

Pics and Posts has a lovely reminder to get through stressful times. I agree with her: “I’m convinced that besides the loss and trauma of this moment, much of our sense of overwhelm and anxiety comes from our rush to normal—exacerbated by our not taking time to sit with and process our grief.” Finding those quiet moments of peace in the storm.

In Quest of a Binky Moongee has a post about a moment she never thought she’s see. Her friend has a similar journey of donor eggs and a gestational carrier, and they finally got a chance (thwarted initially by the pandemic) to bring their kids together. She writes, “I think about all the heartaches that the both of us had and how long and how twisted our roads were. The two people who didn’t know whether we’d become mothers have the privilege to see our children play together.” Such a beautiful moment captured.

Lastly, I missed this post by The Barreness last week and only read it this week. She talks about going in for a host of medical exams and the feelings they raised; especially the gynecological exam. She explains: “I know that a lot of my feelings are surfacing from my IF days, when I had most of the people from my county in my vagina, looking around and giving opinions. I can put on a mask, swallow pain, discomfort and make little jokes to deflect real feelings… but I am not so okay with doing that anymore.” She also has questions — go over and see if you’ve experienced something similar.

The roundup to the Roundup: I love cormorants. 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 November 12 – 19) 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.