Category — Friday Blog Roundup

Chanukkah begins this weekend.  The ChickieNob mentioned before school one day this week that I hadn’t put up any decorations, and she would really like me to put up the fabric menorah — the sole decoration that I schlep out year after year.

I’m not really a decorating sort; in daily life or for any holiday.  But this is the one decoration I own for what may be my least favourite holiday.  It’s not even a holiday — it’s not like you would ever take off work to celebrate it.  But since the kids were born, I’ve put up this fabric menorah, and I promised I would take care of it while she was at school.

I went in the cabinet to grab it out, and my heart stopped.  The decoration wasn’t there.  The chanukkiahs were there, a few dreidels were there, but no fabric decoration.  I opened up a few other cabinets, wondering if the fabric menorah survived the purge last spring when I gutted the cabinet.  I knew the Purim decorations were recycled, but did I get rid of the ChickieNob’s fabric menorah, too?

20 minutes of frantic searching and a false alarm text message to Josh led me to what I had affectionately dubbed the Jew drawer, a drawer in a dresser that I tucked all the random kipot from weddings.  Apparently I had also thrown the fabric menorah AND a handful of challah covers in there (so that’s where the challah covers went…) last spring when I set up the drawer.  Chanukkah saved.

It made me rethink the holiday a bit.  I didn’t want to celebrate it when I thought I could celebrate it, but I sure as hell wanted to celebrate when I thought the Chanukkah decoration was missing and the holiday was going to pass without it.  So, yeah, though I sometimes slack on it, I’ll light the candles this year.  I promise.

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The BlogHer Writing Lab launched this week, which is like all of the good parts of NaBloPoMo (community, support, advice, prompts, information, accountability), without the drawbacks of NaBloPoMo (month-long commitment, guilt, stress), plus a lot of extra stuff as we spread the focus to all types of writing: blogging, social media, books, scripts, poems, etc.

The nicest thing is you tailor it to your needs.  Hang out in the Facebook group 24/7, commit to a weekly challenge, only blog on Tuesdays — it’s up to you.

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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:

• “Pilgrimage” (Infertilityhonesty)
• “Rent-a-Mum” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Raven!
• “Sometimes We Have to Talk About the Hard Things on Social Media” (BlogHer)
• “Heart-Sore, Heart-Sick, Heart-Broken- Levels of Grief” (Catch, Neuter & Release)
• “Thanksgiving Thoughts” (My Path to Mommyhood)
• “Nurture Yourself” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “Bookapalooza” (Lavender Luz)
• “Island Farewell” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Jess!
• “Thanksgiving Weekend Recap” (Bent Not Broken)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Thanksgiving obviously featured prominently on blogs this week.  Neither Here Nor There has a post about the holiday from the perspective of an adult adoptee, balancing her full family.  I thought it was a lovely and insightful post about reunion, but moreover, I loved this thought: “Finally walking through the pain of grief unlocked my ability to feel and embrace the love that my family(ies) were trying to show. The love I so wanted to be able to feel and embrace and return.”

A Little Bit More is looking for a word that describes her role in life.  She explains: “There should be a name for an aunt like me, who is a second mother to their nephews/nieces…who is caught in this delightful and dreadful in-between place where I am partially a mother, but not quite one.”  I suggested More-Than Aunt (MTA), but surely someone else could come up with a better term?

Makingbabiesishard writes about how infertility affects the whole family as she navigates everyone else’s excitement and expectations as she tries to build her family.  She writes, “Desperation to make all these wonderful people in my lives grandparents, aunts, uncles and grand-aunts and grand-uncles. Such longing to make my wonderful husband a father.”  I think this post will resonate with a lot of people.

Lastly, A+ Effort has a post that stuck with me a long time after reading it.  I kept turning over the incident in my mind.  I don’t want to summarize it because I think it would ruin the impact of the story (and the assumptions people make about what they think they see), so please just go over and read it.

The roundup to the Roundup: Going to celebrate Chanukkah this year.  BlogHer Writing Lab.  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 27th and December 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.

It is so quiet on the Internet today.  Facebook is already hopping with pictures of people who have been up all night for Black Friday deals, but the blogs are quiiiiiiiiiiiet.

Do you guys play Candy Box?  I leave it playing in the background while I’m working.  Every so often, I take a break and tend to my lollipop farm or go on a quest.  I’ll warn you if you begin playing it (and you should because it’s the sort of game that gives more than it takes), it has a learning curve.  When you first start playing, it won’t make sense.  What you need to understand is that the story is unfolding in real time.  And there is a lot more to do than eating candy, but you need to wait for it.

For instance, I have a lollipop farm and a diamond sword and 7-league boots and a key.  I’ve planted my lollipop farm to over 100,000 lollipops, and I’m producing them at a rate of 100 per second.  This morning, I’ve been hanging out at the sorceress’s hut to have her put a spell on my sword.  Plus I like that the Candy Merchant looks like an ASCII version of the 4th Doctor Who doctor.

It will take an hour or two of game play before you get to a fun point in the game, but once you’re at the fun part, you remain at the fun part forever.  So let it play in the background, plant your lollipops, and enjoy.

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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.

*******

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:

• “571st Friday Blog Roundup” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, 35jupiterdrive
• “I Was That Girl” (The Barreness)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Bent But Not Broken has a post about Facebook’s memories feature throwing her back into a moment she’d rather forget, especially as it dredges up a slew of realizations.  It’s a wonderful post about being tossed back into a moment and applying what you know now to the past.

The Next 15000 Days has a post continuing a story about a man she met at a dinner in March.  (So maybe read that last link first, and then go to the middle link.)  They talk about their regrets or lack of regrets.  She writes: “I spent a whole decade regretting not having children. But now I am done with regrets. I did my best to get a child, but it wasn’t written in my destiny. It was not meant to be. What should I regret?”  And then she explains his side of the story.  I can’t really describe this well; I think they’re just two posts you need to read and experience and think about.

Lastly, the Empress and the Fool had me by simply referencing the Odyssey, but she took this post to such a deep level.  It is stunningly gorgeous; a comparison of journeys and what is learned along the way.  I love this consideration of our own personal lotus-eating: “I’m caught somewhere in the debate between terming this ‘avoidance’ or ‘self-care’.”  Read this post.

The roundup to the Roundup: Enjoy Candy Box.  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 20th and 27th) 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.

This has been a hard week to stomach social media and politics and opinions of the general public. It’s not that I haven’t observed disturbing statements on Facebook prior to this point, but I’ve been more disillusioned with politicians and citizens in general when it comes to discussion concerning the Syrian refugees.

These are people who have nothing, who have lost everything, who are terrified and uncomfortable and have been living with uncertainty for months or years or lifetimes, all because they were born in a certain place at a certain time.  This could be you if you had been born to a different family.

None of us know how our lives will turn out; how current events will change our situation.  It would behoove us to show compassion.  When people show compassion, it is much more likely that compassion will be there waiting for you when you need it.  If people withhold compassion, it perpetuates a system void of kindness.

I don’t know.  I had to shut down Twitter and Facebook a few times this week, which rarely happens.  Sometimes the conversation online saves me.  But then there are weeks like this week where words harm more than help.

*******

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:

• “Circle Game” (Stirrup Queens) — thanks, Infertile Girl!

Okay, now my choices this week.

Searching for Our Silver Lining draws a parallel between the hatred displayed in Paris and tensions within her family.  She writes, “One thing that continues to baffle is how insistent those who foster hate and anger are of their position. There’s a certain pride they take in causing destruction and pain, as if it somehow justifies their own feelings.”  This idea of creating pain to justify their own pain stuck with me for a long time after reading this post.

Waiting for Baby Bray has a very raw post about hitting her lowest point and feeling broken.  I love this post for its honesty.  It takes a lot of strength to be able to write a post like this; to know yourself this well and to give this piece of yourself to others in case stating the words helps someone else, too.

My Path to Mommyhood has a post about mourning the finality of never being pregnant.  It has been happening in stages, and reaching this recent level comes about from needing to make a decision about frozen embryos.  She comes to a place of peace by the end of the post: “I will move through this, I will heal and not be split, no matter how infinitesimally, between the hope for a pregnancy and the reality and beauty of adoption as our best choice for parenthood.”

Lastly, Infertile Fantasies is in the process of donating her frozen embryos, and she writes about infertility from the other side this time as a donor.  She writes about finding other donors, and what she is learning from the conversation: “We can tell you that embryo donation is harder than you think. And not always the right decision. And other times, despite the difficulties, it is.”  Moreover, I love that she links to a decision tool.  There needs to be more conversation, more consideration, more support in helping people decide what to do with their frozen embryos.

The roundup to the Roundup: I can’t handle reading what some people are sending out into the world.  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 13th and 20th) 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.

Enough time has passed that the vast majority of people who watch Doctor Who have gotten to the last two episodes of Doctor Who — “The Zygon Inversion.”  But if you haven’t, skip this section.  You know, spoilers!

On the bulletin board in the office of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, the same image appeared many times, altered slightly on each piece of paper.  It was the man from Ever Dream This Man.

The hoax was debunked years ago, but I still love to freak myself out reading the site.

Especially fitting since it’s Friday the 13th.

Isn’t it odd that Doctor Who would use that image in the background of the episode?  Characters kept standing or sitting in front of the bulletin board, so it kept appearing in the scene.  Almost like they wanted the image to seep into the back of our brains.  Why is no one discussing this online?  Am I really the only person whose eye went directly to that image?

*******

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:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Road Less Travelled has a post encapsulating everything that is wrong with marketing via social media.  Firms and sites can collect thousands of points of data about a person, but a computer will still spit out “grandma bracelet” on the wall of a mother whose child died.  Huge fail, Facebook.

A Half Baked Life has a sobering post about a student who feels he shouldn’t visit the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero, even though he really wants to go there and honour the dead.  She writes, “It made me think about other incarnations of guilt-by-association, and wonder how we can even begin to heal if we can’t even return to the site of our pain, to pay our respects to the dead.”  It’s a really powerful piece.

Trisomy 18 Loss – Music and Musing has a post about what we deserve.  It is a funny word: especially when we apply it to life.   She writes, “It isn’t that simple when deserving is attached to something that can’t be earned by meeting a certain criteria. Who deserves a happy marriage? Who deserves a steady, high-paying job they love? Who deserves a child?  More to the point, who doesn’t?”  It’s a complicated topic but a really good discussion.  The post will stay with you a long time.

Lastly, Solo Mama Life has a post about knowing how to parent.  It’s so simple yet so perfect.  I think I had what I needed so I tend to repeat what I experienced.  But the opposite is true, too: that you can build your parenting beliefs on what you didn’t experience.  Really, go over and read the post.

The roundup to the Roundup: Why is This Man in the background of Doctor Who?  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 6th and 13th) 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.

So I went to the dentist this week, and they offered me an itemized list of services to submit to insurance, even though our insurance will not cover services at this dentist. It’s a good thing I accept the paper.  When I got home, I was looking at the itemized list, I realized they were charging me for services that I never got. That I wasn’t even offered.

I called the office and they took it off my bill.  Well, I’m being optimistic… They said they took it off my bill, but I’m still waiting to see the reimbursement receipt.  Still, it’s a little PSA to ask for that itemized receipt when you go to the doctor or dentist and check it BEFORE you pay.  Even if you’re not going to submit anything to insurance.

I will never pay without seeing what I’m being charged for again.

*******

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:

• “24 Ways Losing My Children to Infertility Has Changed My Perspective” (Infertilityhonesty)
• “My Answer” (Not a Wasted Word)
• “Seven” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)
• “MicroblogMondays: Muscle Memory” (Infertile Girl in a Fertile World)
• “Plans Interrupted” (Project Pomegranate)

Okay, now my choices this week.

A Woman My Age vents all her anger as she watches her mother’s decline.  It is the most raw, moving post that I read all week, made all the more poignant by the post she wrote after her mother’s death.  Sometimes you need to feel that anger.  Sometimes love, indeed, liberates.

River Run Dry has a post about grief.  She writes: “Until I read that blog post, I never realized that my New Years resolutions are my way to try to FIX my grief.”  It’s a really interesting take on the choices we make because we think we should make them, and the choices we make because they are what we actually want.  Moreover, it’s about accepting sadness and carrying it instead of trying to change it.

Lastly, Waiting to Expand has a post about surprises.  You’ll need to read the whole, brief post to get these last lines, but they’re an important reminder: “Life is full of surprises, friends.  Sometimes they freaking suck.  And sometimes, they are breathtakingly beautiful.”

The roundup to the Roundup: Check your medical bills before you pay them.  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 October 30th and November 6th) 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.