1034th Friday Blog Roundup

The Fords love a good spreadsheet; the more tabs, the better. Colour-code it, and the Fords bliss out. So it should come as no shock as we come closer to adding a new guinea pig to our family that I added a new tab to the guinea pig spreadsheet with potential names.

For the record, while everyone has mocked and rejected some of my name offerings, no one has added their own.

The spreadsheet has columns for the name, notes about the name (think of it as the elevator pitch), and possible nicknames. We like to gather four possible names and then see which one best fits the pig.

It is really hard to wait until we’re a pig-full house again.

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

And now the blogs…

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

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

Apron Strings for Emily has a series of posts about her beautiful dog, Kirby, who died a few months ago. The letters posted earlier in the month, but they only entered my feed reader this week. A few of the letters talk about infertility, and I think many will relate to the way an animal companion (still testing out terms) can bring comfort and tie someone to community. She writes: “Many women or couples felt uncomfortable when they found out we had no kids; we were less relatable … But WOW, that changed when you became part of our family.” Click over to read how Kirby the Beagle helped her form connections.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled covers the Canadian elections, which are run so differently from American elections. She outlines how they vote — for a single person (the local Parliament member) via paper ballots. It’s cool to read about another county’s system.

The roundup to the Roundup: Coming up with potential guinea pig names. 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 April 25 – May 2) 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.