Category — Friday Blog Roundup

Many many (many many many) months ago, multiple branches from an enormous pine tree behind our house fell off and exploded in our backyard. The tree owner repaired the fence and patio. We have not yet figured out what we’re doing about replacing the plant that was killed in the fall.

We’ve been asking for years for the tree to be taken down because it looked ill and leaned over our house with each storm. If it fell altogether, it would land on the house. They finally agreed to take down the tree.

A crew showed up on Monday and climbed the tree, first taking off the limbs and chopping down the trunk as they climbed down. My stomach was in knots for them. But in a few hours, the tree was gone, leaving only wood dust in the backyard.

I’m sad about the tree but also relieved. This tree freaked me out for eleven years.

*******

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.

Finding a Different Path writes about balancing the safety of sticking to your comfort zone to the excitement of new adventures and how the outside world sometimes impacts those decisions — from the huge (world stress) to the personal (avoiding the “family friendly” spaces and all that they bring). As someone who thoroughly enjoys going back to places and loves the lack of stress that comes with knowing a place, I stand behind this 100%.

Lastly, The Next 15000 Days thought she lost a part of herself, but it was there all along. Sometimes you need to go out into the world to get that reminder that side of you was with you all along.

The roundup to the Roundup: Goodbye tree. 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 June 20 – 27) 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.

Every Saturday morning, a bookstore I love sends out an email with a link to notable books published that week. It’s how I choose books for the most part for my TBR. Due to a time difference, I can usually check their site on Friday nights near midnight and see that week’s list, and on particularly hard weeks, I let myself peek at the first six to eight books before I go to bed.

Last Friday was one of those Fridays. I opened the link, but it showed me the books from the week before. Drats. The booklist wouldn’t be up until morning. But the next morning, when I received the newsletter and followed the link, it took me to the previous week’s books. The page hadn’t been updated. I tried multiple devices. I tried clearing caches. I tried powering down my phone and turning it back on. I tried all of the things.

And then, I am embarrassed to admit, I wrote the helpline for the bookstore. Was it an emergency? Absolutely not. But was I panicking, hitting refresh over and over again as if it would summon the list? Yes, I was. I became that person who writes the helpline because she missed her book list.

Someone at the helpdesk wrote me back the next day, thanking me for alerting them to the issue with the page, and they wrote me back a few days after that to let me know the link was ready to go. Happy browsing.

All was well again in the world.

*******

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…

*******

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.

Infertile Phoenix captures a moving moment on Father’s Day. She was at a restaurant last weekend, sitting at the bar with her boyfriend, surrounded by other local people she knew. A cute child at a nearby table started interacting with one of her friends, who also was sitting at the bar. After the family left, her friend reminded her that it’s not only women who feel wistful when they look at the road not taken: “I’ve done a lot and I’ve seen a lot… [somewhat of a long pause] But I never had kids.” It’s a great reminder, beautifully written.

Lastly, Grumpy Rumbings has a bit of found poetry, capturing a relationship through messages. Loved this.

The roundup to the Roundup: Routine thwarted and fixed. 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 June 13 – 20) 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.

It’s Friday the 13th, and as always, I have the compulsion to point that out in the Roundup when the date aligns. It’s not as if you don’t have a calendar or that the date even means anything. But I got it out of my system. Carry on.

*******

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…

*******

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.

Scientist on the Roof muses about what it’s like to be an extrovert amongst introverts. I related to this: “Having conversations can be a lot of work (I have to talk! and ask questions! and then ask more questions! it’s exhausting!)” People often talk about it the other way around — being an introvert surrounded by extroverts — but I hadn’t thought about the opposite situation.

Lastly, Bereaved and Blessed answers a set of reflective questions, something she has done every five years. She explains, “When I turned 40 and 45 I wrote and shared reflection posts here on my blog, which turned 18 this year. I decided to do it again, as I appreciate being able to revisit what I was thinking, as well as feeling, back then and how far I have come since.” It’s a long posts, and I love this question at the end: “What is your heart telling you that you need right now?”

The roundup to the Roundup: Friday the 13th. 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 June 6 – 13) 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.

Thank you for the birthday wishes. It was a strange birthday because of something that happened last Friday night. We were driving on the main road through a residential neighborhood. There is a 25 mph speed limit on the cross streets and a 35 mph speed limit on the main road we were driving.

Every once in a while, you’ll have a person going over the speed limit who tries to pass you on this main road by driving either on the shoulder or in the median. Annoying and illegal, but you can see those people behind you before it happens.

That isn’t what happened this time.

This time, as we were approaching a cross street — one of these 25 mph residential streets off of the main road — a car drove across the road we were traveling on at 80-ish mph. A half second later, we were through the intersection, and they were already almost out of sight, two or three blocks away. There are always stop signs for each of the residential streets. Therefore, you can usually see someone waiting to turn onto the main road. But in this case, they skipped the stop sign and traveled across the road, going quadruple the speed limit. If we had been a split second faster, we would have likely been dead.

I jerked back in my seat when it happened, even though the car wasn’t hit. On Friday night, I was sore. By Monday morning, my back was on fire, and I couldn’t straighten my arm. I needed round-the-clock Advil to get through Saturday and Sunday and then moved to just Advil at night to sleep. I didn’t really return to feeling mostly normal until Thursday.

Please drive carefully. There are other people on the road, and we all just want to make it to where we’re going.

*******

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…

*******

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.

Magpie Musing’s sister died, and she has a beautiful post about her. This part made me cry: “Go forth with love. See a movie, plant a perennial, bake some breadsticks, mail a postcard. Advocate for the voiceless, volunteer with a local organzation. All of these are the little acts that a good person does, day in and day out. And these little acts into the future honor the past.” Send a lot of love to her.

Lastly, Infertile Phoenix looks back on the ten years since her last treatment, namely, how working with kids has changed. She writes: “I LOVE kids. I love working with kids. I love parents. I love supporting parents. But the truth is, I don’t like a lot of people’s parenting.” It’s hard to spend time around something that makes you upset, but good to have learned something about yourself and the boundaries you need to put into place.

The roundup to the Roundup: Please drive carefully. 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 30 – June 6) 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.

I just spent the last 10 minutes writing a long story and then decided not to post it. Backspaced the whole thing away. On one hand, what an enormous waste of time. On the other hand, I saved you from a boring addition to the story about the shark. So you’re welcome because I assume you would thank me for not having to read it.

*******

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…

*******

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:

• “I Forgot How Childlessness Felt When I was Young” (Childless by Marriage)

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Road Less Travelled takes a quick peek at a book cover and ends up seeing something very different from its title. I do this all the time. Infertility and loss on the brain.

Lastly, I may be overly emotional since losing Beorn, but Finding a Different Path’s post about Lucky dying moved me to tears. Animals, like Lucky, have personalities. They bring joy. They leave behind stories we retell for years and years. She writes: “I had to take a break from writing this post because it made me so sad. But also, it makes me happy to remember him. Lucky was a hugely special part of our life.” Sending a lot of love.

The roundup to the Roundup: Saving you from boring stories. 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 23 – May 30) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week. Read the or