Category — Friday Blog Roundup

I downloaded the most brilliant set of apps.

So, I go on the fan sites on Wikia a lot to look up facts when the twins and I are reading a book. (Most resent search: “What happens to Foxface in the Hunger Games?”  Could not remember.)  And I decided to look and see if Wikia had an app in the iTunes store.

Did they have an app?  No.  Did they have like 50+ apps?  Hells yeah.

They had a different app for each individual fandom.  They’re all free.  You download them, and then you can access commonly sought information such as characters, locations, actors (when there are movie versions of the book), themes, etc.  I downloaded some of our favourite things: Doctor Who, Sherlock Holmes, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Hunger Games.  It makes me so happy to see them all lined up on my phone.

And now, when we’re driving somewhere and trying to remember the name of the boy from District 11, someone can look it up on the phone in two seconds.  Pure bliss.

If you’re having trouble finding the individual ones, do a search for Wikia on iTunes, pull up one app, and then click on the developer (Wikia) at the top to see a list of all their apps.

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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:

• “Out of the Shadows” (Inconceivable!)
• “Oh, the Humanity” (Lavender Luz)
• “Two Years Ago and Today” (Torthúil)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Searching for Our Silver Lining has a post about missing the babies who aren’t here.  It is a beautiful post on the process of healing and forgiveness, and she writes, “There are days I think it’s mastered only to pull me back under. Forgiveness is such a funny thing.”  Go read it in full.

The Barrenness has a post about her pregnancy dreams returning.  It’s always such a strange reminder how little control we have over our own mind, despite what some self-help gurus would have you think.  She seeks a reason why these dreams are looping back into her mind after banishing them once before.

Lastly, I usually don’t highlight non-infertility/loss/adoption posts, but this Washington Post article on the author’s sister’s suicide got under my skin.  Rather than sweeping the cause of her sister’s death under the rug, she wrote it into her obituary.  I love these lines: “Here is the truth: You have value. You have worth. You are loved. Trust the voices of those who love you. Trust the enormous chorus of voices that say only one thing: You matter. Depression lies. We must tell the truth.”  My hope (as well as the author’s) is that many lives will be spared from death by depression by writing and talking about it.

The roundup to the Roundup: Wikia apps are so much fun.  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 March 18th and 25th) 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 am in a bad mood after a baking disaster, and I’m taking a break to write this and think.  My two choices are to start over completely — I can see everything that was wrong with this recipe and can correct it with a second attempt — or to try to salvage what I have.  Currently I am leaning toward salvaging what I have because it took me hours to make, and re-making the cookies throws me off schedule.  Plus… you know… I hate waste.  But I’m really cranky about it.

I went with a recipe from the Kitchn.  The recipe was simple enough — a bar cookie — and the picture was beautiful.  With the exception of correcting an amount (I was fairly certain the author wanted me to put a teaspoon of vanilla into the cookie and not a tablespoon), I followed the recipe to a T.  My batch looked lovely… up until the point when I tried to cut it.  And then the various layers fell apart, and I was left with a crumbly mess on the cutting board.

Here’s the thing: A few times, I got my cookies to look like the picture.  And it made me realize that the author of that article probably made several batches to get that one perfect picture.  The rest of her cookies were probably also in pieces.  She just wasn’t showing me those.

And that is the point of this rant.  As much as there are a lot of fantastic recipes on the Internet, there are also a lot of shitty, you-probably-shouldn’t-make-this recipes being churned out to fill site content.  This recipe should have been edited until the results were consistent.  Or the author should have been honest and explained that the reason you can only get 12 enormous bars out of a 9 x 9 pan is that if you try to cut the cookies any smaller, they’ll fall apart.

But moreover, what cooking sites need to realize is that they do not need to produce content at a frantic pace.  I would rather they take their time and put up one cookbook-worthy recipe per week than throw up 6 half-baked recipes in a single day.  In fact, I am suspicious of any cook or baker who posts too frequently because doing so means that they aren’t taking the time to truly test and perfect their recipes.

That’s the end of my rant.  I went through my feed reader this morning and unsubscribed from about 8 blogs that post unusable recipes, and added 2 that feel a lot like Cooks Illustrated in that they point out all the ways they have failed when making the current recipe.  I need more bloggers like that in my feed.

*******

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.

*******

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:

• “Helping Ourselves” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Our Wish has a post responding to a song her husband sent her, a sweet moment except that it contained a line that gave her pause.  They are doing a donor egg cycle, so she knows that her “beautiful baby” will not look just like her.  But it’s an interesting post about how her mindset has changed since they’ve made the decision to proceed with another woman’s eggs.  And I especially love this line: “It’s just our reality and my heart accepted it long before my brain did.”

Notes from the Ninth Circle points out that while some people want to banish the “shoulds,” there are actually a lot of places where “should” defines the moment.  She should have her baby with her.  She should be able to conceive again.  It’s a tiny post that makes you think.

Lastly, Infertilityhonesty has a post about a moment that came up in her yoga teacher training.  She explains: “There’s always that question, at least for big mouths like me, when embarking on new social situations, of how and when I’m going to initiate people into my reality.”  She comes out to her classmates about her loss and her grief, and as she says, “I get to be here, participating in life truthfully, just like everybody else.”

The roundup to the Roundup: Cranky with dishonest food photography.  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 March 11th and 18th) 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.

On Tuesday night, for about two hours, Freddie Mercury was alive.

My dad and I got tickets to the one-night-only showing of Queen’s December 24, 1975 Hammersmith Odeon concert.  My dad used to buy me Queen records at Peaches, which was a now-defunct Rockville record store where all the albums were stored in wooden fruit crates.  (Excellent for splinters!)  In elementary school, I told my teacher that my favourite song was “Bicycle Race” but it was really “Killer Queen” and still is.  Plus I liked to look at the fold-out poster that came with Jazz of all the naked ladies.

So to say that I was excited for this event was an understatement.

But first I had to get there.  It wasn’t that far away, but the traffic was so terrible that my heart was pounding thinking that I wouldn’t make it in time.  I was averaging three miles per hour.  But I got there and found a parking space and found the theater, and we plopped down in our seats a few minutes before show time.

And then we waited.

And waited.

And the people around us started muttering about something being wrong with the broadcast.  For 20 minutes or so, we didn’t know whether they would be able to air the footage, and I just wanted to sink down onto the floor and cry.  Which I know sounds very dramatic, but I had been so looking forward to this event.  A non-viewing would have been the straw that broke the camel’s back on my crappy day.

Except it didn’t because the management came in and told us they had worked it out, and then suddenly Freddie was on the screen!

So the film began with a documentary.  They interviewed the three remaining members of the band today and showed old footage from interviews in the 70s.  And it was great except… it was running for a really long time and I started panicking that this was it: that it wasn’t the actual concert itself but instead a documentary about the concert.  Sure, they were showing tiny clips from the show, but the vast majority of the half hour was just the band members talking about the making of the first four albums.

Then the credits started rolling and someone in the theater shouted, “It better not be over!”  But when the credits finished up and those first chords of “Now I’m Here” started, my heart exploded.  There was Freddie on the screen with his mullet (what an unfortunate choice) and his skin-tight satin body suit with no visible panty lines, and Roger Taylor sending up a spray of water with his drums.  (Roger Taylor is like Aquaman.  Totally cute but you may miss him because he’s overshadowed by the Superman-like Freddie.  So I’m telling you, look at him.  Because totally cute.)

Anyway, it was a really really good night, and just made me so sad that Freddie’s voice is gone.  Recorded, yes, but I’d rather still have him here.

*******

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.

*******

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:

• “Having 3 of the 5 Instead of Having it All” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Northern Star!
• “MicroblogMonday: Signs and Symbols” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Will Carry On has a post about two visits to the cemetery to visit her children’s graves.  She writes about trying to break up the ice covering their markers and admits: “I’m not sure what came over me. Perhaps it was maternal instinct, but I couldn’t have that layer of ice suffocating my babies. I realize how silly that sounds, and even knew it then. I mean, how could they suffocate, when they’re already dead?”  She counters that visit with a return to the cemetery.  It’s a post about the many facets of grief and finding beauty in the sadness.

Life and Love in the Petri Dish has a post about the ups and downs of a donor egg cycle that speaks volumes about the hidden story behind the public’s understanding of infertility.  It’s the sort of post I want to send out to everyone and say, “This is infertility.”  Not the glossy stories told after the fact, but these gritty moments in the thick of it all.

Hope Floats Among the Cherry Blossoms has a post that made me say, “me, too.”  It’s about how all of our lives are on a timer, and she wants to spend as much time with her parents while she still has them.  She asks if she is the only person who thinks this way, and my answer is that I think about stuff like this a lot and take proactive steps so I never have regrets.  Plus my parents are really cool and I genuinely like hanging out with them, such as going to concert movies above.

Lastly, Project Progeny has a brief, sad post where she admits: “When I start to think too much, to feel too much, the gremlins in my head start talking – ‘You could be replaced by a brick and nobody would even notice the difference’.”  But clearly I would notice the difference since bricks can’t write poignant posts.  Which leads me to believe that there is really no one out there who could be replaced by a brick and have no one notice.  Just a thought.

The roundup to the Roundup: One night with Freddie Mercury.  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 March 4th and 11th) 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 joined LinkedIn this week.  I don’t know why I resisted for so long considering that I’m a freelancer.  That site was essentially created for people like me, and yet I would ask Josh to poke through his account to find stuff for me whenever I needed it.  No more.  I am now a big girl with my own big girl account.

So if you are on LinkedIn and would like to connect over there, please click over and hit that blue connect button.  I’m not giving LinkedIn access to my address book, choosing to manually add everyone rather than have the site send a message to several thousand people on my behalf.  So… um… help me find you.

*******

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.

*******

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:

• “Stop Asking Why” (In Due Time)
• “Men Are Like Waffles” (Waiting for Baby Bird)

Okay, now my choices this week.

No Kidding In NZ has a post about being the keeper of memories for her family after her mother’s death.  It resonated with me because (I think) I play this role in my family, being the keeper of the family tree and the collector of photographs and audio interviews.  She wonders if she has become a keeper due to the fact that she doesn’t have children, but I ultimately think my reason for doing this is the same as her reason: “Doing it out of love and a feeling of connection, a belief that the past will matter to the future. That without the past, there is no future, even if personally, I am not going to be part of that future.”

Bent Not Broken recounts the conversation she had in her head vs. the things she said aloud when her sister complained about life after pregnancy and birth.  While her other sisters were difficult during pregnancy but amazing after delivery, this one sister was the reverse, implying through pregnancy that they would be able to easily navigate the chasm and yet complaining to her sister once the baby arrived.  It’s as much about the things that are left unsaid as it is about considering the world from another person’s point-of-view.

Lastly, Two Adults, One Child has a post about how miscarriage made her an accidental expert, and how what she thought was set aside from her life, no longer affecting her, bubbled up as grief when she had to use her expert knowledge to comfort a friend through a loss.  She explains, “But then I realized that those very thoughts and emotions are what makes me the perfect person to help her through this.  She can tell me everything she is feeling, and I won’t judge her, because I’ve felt those things, too.”  Loved this post.

The roundup to the Roundup: I’m on LinkedIn.  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 February 26th and March 4th) 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.

The ChickieNob gave me an excellent “would you rather” that I now turn over to you: Would you rather accidentally destroy the Mona Lisa and not serve time (since it was a bone-headed accident) but everyone in the world who cares about the Mona Lisa would hate you, or would you rather serve 60 years in jail for an unrelated reason but everyone would support you through that jail time?

Out and about but despised?  Or behind bars and loved?  It’s a tough call.  Tell me what you’d do, and I’ll tell you my answer.

Updated: I don’t think people are considering the magnitude of the question. You’d be out and about, BUT no one would be on your side. Your family would hate you. You would have no support system. It would be difficult to get work or find a place to live. I ultimately decided against jail, but she made me think long and hard about what it would be like to essentially be in a jail-like situation without being in jail.

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I know talking about dreams is one of the most boring things in the world to everyone but the dreamer, so feel free to skip this section.  But Wednesday night, I had a dream that we were having dinner guests, and as the meal started, I brought Truman into the kitchen and set him in the salad bowl.  I hadn’t ribboned the lettuce, so he was able to dive underneath these full leaves of lettuce and start eating his way up from the bottom of the bowl.

Our dinner guests were horrified, but I kept saying, “Isn’t it so cute?  He has a piece of lettuce on his head.”  And they would counter, “You are eating food that is covered in guinea pig urine.”

I just want to state for the record that I would not eat a salad that Truman had peed on.  But I kinda sorta would buy him his own salad bowl and let him eat dinner with us that way.

*******

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.

*******

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:

• “Middle School” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Catwoman73, Charlotte, and Infertile Girl
• “The Risk of ‘Someday When’” (Emily Long)
• “Top Ten Reasons Why This Infertility Survivor is Not Intimidated By Menopause” (Infertilityhonesty)
• “Walking (Imperfectly) In Her Shoes – 2016” (Pastpresentfuture)
• “All the Ways to Wait” (My Path to Mommyhood)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Riding the IVF Roller Coaster has a moving post about the continual realization of “never again.”  She says it perfectly: “As much as I hated the stupid IVF torture, I miss the microscopic bit of hope that comes with it.”  It’s a tiny post that packs a punch.

Much Ado About Nothing has a post about her own fertility juxtaposed against her daughter’s reproductive health.  She explains, “It is a really weird place to be, having a child old enough to have the same hormone imbalances as me, and seeing doctors to straighten them out for two totally different reasons … So lots of wonky hormones in my house right now.”  The post was food for thought for anyone parenting after infertility, and wondering (if you built your family through sex or fertility treatments) if you’ve passed along the same problems.

Lastly, A+ Effort’s post about the Jungle Cruise is brilliant, and I really hope that Disney listens up when it comes to that ride.  It’s amazing that this post even needs to be written; that Disney didn’t take steps to fix this ride before being asked.  She writes: “Make Disney not just safe for kids’ bodies but good for their souls.”  I’d add to that, make Disney safe for all of our souls: adults and kids, alike.  No one needs to know they participated in dulling someone else’s sparkle.

The roundup to the Roundup: Would you rather: Mona Lisa or jail?  Truman salad bowl.  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 February 19th and 26th) 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.