Category — Friday Blog Roundup

I decided to go with the slacker costume for Halloween because I can layer it with long underwear and a t-shirt and flannel a la Bender in Breakfast Club.  I’m always cold, and I didn’t want to be cold walking around.  Plus, I dress up in my Ravenclaw robes on a normal day.  Like… for work.  Uh… because I work out of the house and therefore no one knows that I am working in Ravenclaw robes.

I will have someone take a picture and post it.  My Halloween costume, I mean, not my normal work clothes.

*******

I’ve been hesitant to see Pan because I think I will end up a blubbering mess in the theater while everyone else stares at me in disbelief.  (This scenario already played out recently with Inside Out.  And… uh… most movies.)  And then I read this post.

I love that this story about Lily Allen’s son who was born still is woven into the movie.  I had chills go down both arms when I heard the opening.

*******

NaBloPoMo sign up opened on Wednesday, and it has been a mad stream of people joining the list.  It’s always a fun month, though tiring.

Traci York had a wonderful post this week about consistent blogging, and how blogging with frequency truly does change the traffic on your blog.  The numbers don’t lie: by writing more, her yearly views jumped from 200 to over 5000.

Do you have to blog daily?  No.  I blog 5 days a week, and Traci blogs 3 days a week.  The key is consistency: writing several times a week, week after week after week.

*******

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:

• “Infertile Once Pregnant” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Lori!
• “Battle Wounds” (Bodega Bliss)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Too Many Fish to Fry has a beautiful post about resilience.  She writes, “There’s nothing like failure and grief to make you feel completely alone. We always are, of course, alone but there’s a specificity to pain which reinforces this reality.”  She gives a lot of advice in the middle of the post, and surely something in the list will resonate if you’re going through hell.

Articulation has a post about the difference between being busy and being productive.  It’s an important distinction, and one that I struggle with as I overload my figurative plate in order to always be busy.  Because maybe… gasp!… I will be forced to think too much if I sit still for too long.  It’s a good read and an interesting discussion topic.

A+ Effort has a post about checking off boxes on the foster care form.  I love the way she takes what could be a sobering moment and turns it on its head, showing the other side of all of the problems that make people fearful.  Love this post.

Lastly, Grumpy Rumblings has a post about the middle school years, linking to a video of John Green talking about growing up.  As I said over there, it was hard to go through it myself the first time.  It’s equally hard to watch people I love going through those years now.  It’s about the heart combating against rational thought, and the old scars of middle school rubbing against the world now.

The roundup to the Roundup: Opted for the slacker costume.  Gorgeous song from Pan.  NaBloPoMo really will increase your blog traffic if you keep it up.  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 23rd and October 30th) 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 this post about selling your clothes on Facebook blew my mind.  I didn’t realize this was a thing.  I should add that I never got myself together for the whole donate/sell thing last spring.  I mean, I got myself together in the sense that I have a very detailed to-do list of what needs to happen, but I work full time and I’m with the kids the rest of it, so there never seems to be a huge chunk of time to take care of stuff like that.

But if I could sell it a little at a time over Facebook?  That would be worth it.  If I sold 10 items at a time, shipped them at the end of the week, and was done with it?  That would be totally, completely worth it.  And I could do the decluttering slowly in drips and drabs.

Has anyone done this?  I’m so excited that there are dedicated groups specifically for this.

*******

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.

Non Sequitur Chica has a pre-beta post about Symptom Spotting.  What a perfect term for it.  She points out that “Of course all of this could be over if I went out and bought a pregnancy test, but I refuse to spend the money. I’ll find out via phone call in a little over 24 hours anyway.”  It’s a familiar post, one I think most people will connect to in some way: that moment of limbo before you know.

Life and Love in the Petri Dish has a post about egg donor compensation, discussing the recent New York Times articles.  She writes: “Besides $35,000 being way more than we could ever afford, it seems ethically dicey to be priced beyond a certain amount (on the other hand, I was saddened that at least one woman in the article was compensated only $2,000 for her cycle, which seems far too little).”  Mo raises a lot of excellent questions; ones without easy answers.

Lastly, Infertile Girl in a Fertile World has a post about going on birth control after infertility.  In one way, it is about control, though she points out, “I may not have had much say in getting pregnant but I can certainly prevent it. It’s a bit of a false sense of control though; I may be able to choose not to get pregnant right now, but if and when the time comes that we want to try for another child I’ll be thrown back to the land of IF.”  In that way, fertility feels more like a seesaw, with the brain sometimes having the upper hand, and other times, the body.

The roundup to the Roundup: Selling your old stuff on Facebook.  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 16th and October 23rd) 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.

A few weeks ago, I won the crown on Battlefish’s blog, which is fitting since… you know… Stirrup Queens.  Queens.  Crown.  Get it?

Anyway, we hatched a plan for the crown.

I love this plan.

Somewhere over in Finland, there is a woman who is finishing her last round of chemo.  And she is going to get the crown.  But she’s not getting it from me and JustHeather.  She’s getting it from Thomas, as a very early (like 5 months early?) Random Act of Kindness.

Every year, there is a Random Act of Kindness Day in the spring:

March 9th Random Act of Kindness Day for Thomas was an AMAZING success in 2015! In honour of Thomas’ 10th birthday, more than 11,000 people pledged to change the world one act of kindness at a time on March 9th in his memory – and they did! We hope just as many people will join us again on March 9, 2016.

Kindness is something that should practiced every day, of course, but we’re asking people to be a little extra kind on March 9th. You don’t have to be anywhere specific or do anything specific – just look for ways to be kind wherever you are in whatever way you can.

So… in a small way… it’s sort of from all of us.  To this random woman.  Who has no clue that she’s going to get this big wallop of love.  I love our community.

*******

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:

• “She Wants You” (Heart Cries)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Pages, Stages, and Rages has a rallying cry, comparing gun violence in America to our very own Hunger Games.  She talks about the comparative passivity and points out, “Since the horrific massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school there has been 142 school shootings.  That’s one per week.”  Not about infertility, but it is about sustaining life.

Lavender Luz has a post from the perspective of a birth mother speaking about open adoption and things she wished she had done differently in her own situation.  It’s an interesting read; obviously personal to her own life, but there is advice to discover, too.  It sort of makes you look back on all difficult relationships and wonder what you would have done differently with the knowledge you have now.

Lastly, PALS has a post called “Permission to Parent” about parenting after loss.  She writes, “I do see the irony in the fact that I gave myself permission to grieve, but I’m not so forgiving in allowing for imperfect parenting on my part. Or even the idea that these challenges and struggles are simply a part of the parenting process, regardless of what it took to get to that point.”  It’s about being grateful and realistic.

The roundup to the Roundup: The surprise crown.  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 9th and October 16th) 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.

One of the claims to fame of my state is that it is the final resting place of Edgar Allan Poe. He was born in Boston, but his grave is in Baltimore. Every year on his birthday, someone used to leave three roses and a bottle of cognac. No one ever knew the identity of the person, called the Poe Toaster, and the tradition went from 1949 to 2012. The torch may have passed to more than one person during that time.

But for the last few years, the Poe Toaster hasn’t shown up.  The Maryland Historical Society is holding auditions to revive the tradition. I don’t know how I feel about it.

My first instinct was to enter, but then I thought, doesn’t the tradition lose something in turning it into a contest? There was something so sweet, so heartbreaking, about an unknown person leaving behind these sentimental objects on the grave.  A contest in the style of American Idol?  Doesn’t the tradition lose something in the process?

F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda are also buried nearby, too.  Don’t I live in a fun, literary place?

*******

I did a guest post this week over at One Step at a Time.  You can check out my thoughts on parenting after infertility.

*******

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:

• “34 Things I’ve Learned in 34 Years (Part Two)” (Real Life & Thereafter)

Okay, now my choices this week.

A Half Baked Life has a gorgeous post about feeling helpless in the face of troubling moments around her.  The sound of crying emanating from a house, twins who have lost their mother, a friend assaulted, and a small girl needing 7 sutures in her chin.  Please go over and read the whole thing.

My Path to Mommyhood both remembers the only time she was pregnant (and wondering if it would be the only chance she would get) and considers what if she had released herself from pursuing pregnancy earlier.  She writes: “Sometimes I think about how much the desire to be pregnant took over navigating our journey, and if I hadn’t wanted that experience so badly, if I could have seen the baby for the bump instead of the forest for the trees, we could have been parents sooner.”  It’s an emotional post.

Hapa Hopes has a post about doing a FET and sorting out how she feels about being back at the clinic.  She writes, “I just know that I stood at that desk scheduling FET class and words like saline ultrasound, E2, FSH, and PIO were pouring out of my mouth like second nature again and I hated it.  We’re heading down the gauntlet one more time and I fucking hate the gauntlet.”  There is so much to connect with in this post.

Mrs. Spit has a post about being knocked off balance.  I love this: “My mistake was thinking of grounding as one and done, fire and forget, steady state.”  It’s an important read about embracing those times when we feel off balance.

Lastly, Articulation has a post about needing a pause button.  As someone who often feels too full, who wonders how it will all get done and if I’m even doing it “right,” there was so much I related to in this post.

The roundup to the Roundup: The choosing of the Poe Toaster?  I did a guest post.  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 2nd and October 9th) 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.

Judging for the 2015 IF Comp, a big interactive fiction competition, opened yesterday.  I said that I wasn’t going to vote this year, and then changed my mind when the games went up because I’m weak-willed like that.  Oh, and there was a horror game I heard about that I wanted to play.  So now I’m going to try to play all 55 games.

BUT.

There is a point to this.

As I was scrolling through this year’s games, I saw one called Switcheroo, and it’s about foster care and adoption.  It made my two IF worlds — infertility and interactive fiction — collide.  I was so glad to see that subject matter represented on the list.

I haven’t clicked on it yet so I don’t know how it will go, but you can play it online.

*******

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:

• “The Focus of Tears” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Northern Star!
• “Not Just Another Mommy Blogger” (Mine to Command)
• “Transitions” (When Why How Baby)
• “On the Night of My 37th Birthday” (Mrs. Spit)
• “What I’ve Learned About Grief…” (Chicago Tribune)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Trisomy 18 Loss – Music and Musings has a post about not knowing how to get started with adoption.  She explains, “I feel like looking into adoption is like trying to untangle a string of Christmas lights (one not put on one of the handy-dandy light rollers, of course). I am just looking at the lump of wires and bulbs, still haven’t even found the plug on one end.”  It’s about looking for answers and finding more questions.

No Kidding in NZ has a hard post about mothering her mother.  She so eloquently says, “But it is not lost on me that this will be my only experience of mothering anyone, when things happen in reverse, and there is no great joy (and even the little joys are disappearing daily), and there is in its place only sadness.”  I wanted to envelop her in a hug, virtually holding her as she holds her mother.

Dear Noah has a post about people assuming that she is done grieving the loss of her son because a certain amount of time has passed.  She writes, “What do you mean ‘when I was grieving?’  I am grieving.  No past tense here.”  It’s really a post about meeting people in the space they’re in rather than tugging them to the place you want them to be.

Lastly, Inconceivable has a complementary post about stating she’s okay because people need her to be when she’s not really okay.  But this post blew my mind with this thought: “It perplexes me, the cultural demand for openness, the popularity of memoirs or the expectation of ‘authenticity’ in so many contexts, but while the People magazine article clawing open a celebrity sells or the confessional blog post goes viral, seeing that same exposure live so often produces the almost reflexive but you’re okay now, right?”  We ask for all the nosy details in the lives of celebrities, but we shy away from hearing the gritty details from the people around us.  I thought about this for days after reading it.

The roundup to the Roundup: Foster care/adoption interactive fiction.  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 September 25th and October 2nd) 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.