Category — Friday Blog Roundup

My parents found me chocolate fudge Yasso bars for my birthday.  They are everything I hoped they’d be and more.  So chocolate-y, so yogurt-y.  I wanted these because they have 6 grams of protein instead of 5 and only 80 calories.  That’s healthy, right?

As Josh says, we are now moving towards an entirely Yasso-based diet.

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I found a new game.  It’s called 1010, and it’s like Tetris for people who don’t like to be rushed.  You have to fit the pieces together to fill a row (which then clears the row but doesn’t drop the pieces) but there are no timers or falling pieces.  You only get three shapes in your queue at a time.  Once you fit them somewhere on the board, you get another three pieces.  I am terrible with this game but love to play it.  I started with the free version but then went for the paid version so I wouldn’t be distracted by ads.  That’s dedication.

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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:

• “It Takes a Village” (Real Life & Thereafter)
• “MicroblogMondays: What to Say?” (Because I Can’t Have Babies)
• “Leaning in vs. Filling My Cup” (A+ Effort)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Kmina is back with a post.  She muses that while she has been able to record parts of her life on Instagram, she has hit a snag at doing the same on her blog.  I love this: “I have changed, I can’t say how, or when, or why, not even when I realised it. It was a subtle change, like getting grey hairs, one does’t get them all at once, but come they do, and the change is permanent, despite the efforts to hide it.”  This grey haired lady says glad that you’re back even if you’re not back.

A Woman My Age has a post about how the topic of adoption rarely comes up on the playground, though she slyly points out: “Women are rarely direct, though, don’t you think?”  And then she segues into an interesting place where it has come up.  We can have the best laid plans of how we are or aren’t going to talk about something.  And then life gets in the way.

In Quest of a Binky Moongee has a post about a trigger that popped up where she least expected it.  She normally finds it difficult to navigate babies and pregnant women, but this time, it was observing an interaction between an 8th grade boy and his parents that caused a lump to form in her throat.  It’s a raw, honest post.

Lastly, No Baby Ruth has a post about a lesson learned from her daughter and how it drives her to be a good example.  Sometimes we need those external reminders of how others see us to motivate us to continue on.  So next time you’re wondering whether you should compliment someone, the answer is “please do.”

The roundup to the Roundup: I have chocolate Yasso bars.  1010 is a fun game.  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 29th and June 5th) 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’ve been following the iOS9 leaks with great interest because my phone — a phone I have no intention of replacing despite its age — is the oldest product supported by the current OS.

Will my phone be pushed into extinction by this new update? Maybe, says some pessimistic sources. They’re downright gleeful over the idea that people will need to purchase a new product in order to have a functioning phone.

But then there are the gentler, hopeful, unicorns-trailing-rainbows versions of the upcoming OS rumours which make it accessible to everyone, even those with older products. “Apple is going to make their future operating systems last longer so people will invest in products like the Apple Watch. I mean, who would buy such a thing if it has such a short life span?”

Uh? A lot of people? Judging by sales?

I don’t like change, so I would greatly appreciate the second version of the OS being the correct version of the OS. I guess we’ll know some time next month when they make the formal announcement.

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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:

• “Play Time Troubles” (Live Life) — non-IF
• “The Quiet Ones” (Too Many Fish to Fry)

Okay, now my choices this week.

I also bookmarked Too Many Fish to Fry’s post, “The Quiet Ones.”  Because it’s true — the people who speak the loudest aren’t the only ones in the room.  She writes, “We live in world that rewards noisy people.”  Her post is an excellent reminder to not overlook the people who don’t bubble up in your Facebook feed because they post less often or who aren’t the center of conversation in the room.

Illustr8d has a moving post about the unfortunate lessons she has learned in life and how they have, in turn, made her see the world in a new way.  Humans are resilient, and our ability to find grace and hope even during unlikely times is a small good thing.  Go read the post in full.

Lastly, Surviving Infertility gives us the two sides of her heart: the negative and the positive.  She could easily tip one way or the other, but I love this post that walks the line between the two, showing the complexity of a life.

The roundup to the Roundup: iOS9 is coming… will my phone still work?  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 22nd and 29th) 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.

My car needed to go in for service this week, which meant that I had to drive Josh’s car for a day.  Josh’s car was my car, once upon a time, but when we got a new car many years ago, I took the new one and he took my old one.

Because I am an adult with 25 years of driving experience under my belt not to mention the former owner of the aforementioned car, it shouldn’t have been that difficult to slip behind the wheel again.  But it was.  It felt so strange.  It was like cooking dinner using someone else’s hands.

It is such an odd experience to drive an unfamiliar car.

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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:

• “Knowing That You Truly Want It” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)
• “On Parental Holidays” (Just Stop Trying and It Will Happen)
• “FET #2: The Womb of Doom” (Beyond the Parentheses)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Lavender Luz responds to Dear Abby’s flippant advice to an adoptee.  Instead of telling the teenager just to forget about her feelings until later, she gives him/her concrete advice on dealing with his/her complicated emotions.  It’s a great post.

Happiness and Food has a post about the yin of life; those moments when you’re not trucking along, you’re not engaged in forward movement, you’re not seeing your hard work pay off by moving you closer to a goal.  It was sort of the perfect post to read when you feel like you’re not moving forward, and honouring the importance of the space you are in at the moment instead of wishing to be someplace else.

Popcorn Ceiling Life has a post about the loss of her brother on his birthday.  She explains, “Sometimes I feel it all at once. Sometimes I don’t feel it all.”  It’s a moving post about experiencing a moment when she notices the gaping hole his absence has created in her life.

Lastly, Me Plus One recounts an exchange with her daughter that is both sweet and heartbreaking at the same time.  In a game of pretend, her daughter talks about missing a beloved family member.  She says, “I know she’s gone, Mommy. Let’s just pretend she’s not. Let’s pretend she just went away. Let’s pretend she’s in S’awaii & she can come visit.”  Go read the whole post.

The roundup to the Roundup: Driving an unfamiliar car.  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 15th and 22nd) 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.

My brain has been on the Amtrak train crash.  That’s my train — the one I take when I go to New York.  It is hard to read about the passengers who died; to think about what their families are going through right now.

It is scary because thousands of times a day, we put our trust in other people.  The other people on the road.  The people in the driver’s seat.  We put our trust in machines and buildings and roads and bridges.  There is so much trust we extend to others, and then something like this happens and it makes me want to curl my trust up inside my hand like an empty paper straw wrapper.  I want to fold my trust against my palm or tuck it away in my pocket.  It is really hard to go out there when you get these moments that remind you how interconnected we are, how dependent.  We each affect everyone else’s life.

Sometimes I don’t know what to do with that idea.

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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:

• “Positive I Don’t Have a Uterus” (The Toast)
• “Not a Distant Memory” (Mine to Command)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Invincible Spring has a post about alternate worlds.  It’s a theory I’ve always loved.  She draws comfort from it, writing: “It also means someplace my 4.5 year old son is playing amiably with my one year old daughter. Someplace S is alive and growing and laughing in something other than the breeze that sways the trees.”  It’s a gorgeous post about a thought-provoking idea.

I really liked Bent Not Broken’s post about Mother’s Day.  There were a lot of post-Mother’s Day posts this week, and this one summed up what I think a lot of us felt.  We got through it.  And it’s rarely as bad as we fear.  An ordinary day (well, except for the mimosa), with reading and shampoo shopping and a little bit of sadness.  But ultimately okay.  And over.

Lastly, River Run Dry has a must-read post about the vitriol we bring online as we discuss events, fomented by the presentation of subject in the media.  She explains: “It’s just been recently that I’ve been feeling like one big nerve ending whenever I go online.”  How do we find solutions when we’re all yelling to be heard?  You’ll chew on this post for a while.

The roundup to the Roundup: It’s hard when you realize how much we need to trust one another.  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 8th and 15th) 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.

Today is Truman Day in Missouri. We like to celebrate it over here in Maryland as a nod to our guinea pig, Truman. (Though we think our 33rd president was pretty swell, too.)  Though Josh claims that every day seems to be Truman Day in our house, today he is getting extra cuddles, extra cookies, and extra time listening to guinea pig videos on YouTube.

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We’re caught up on Sherlock and now awaiting new episodes, which won’t come for almost another year.  I’m not really a fan of mysteries or crime shows, but I love Sherlock, especially the episode with Irene Adler and the Hounds of Baskerville.

I know we can revisit the characters through old episodes, but we all know that it’s not the same thing as watching it the first time.  Am I the only one who misses characters — not the show, itself — when the episodes run out?  It feels like two friends have moved far away; somewhere without telephones or Internet.  I miss the ritual of spending time with them.

*******

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:

• “A Snapshot in Time” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “Choose Joy Recap” (Amateur Nester)

Okay, now my choices this week.  Just in case you need a distraction on this most-difficult of weekends, there are a lot of posts in the Roundup.  I couldn’t narrow it down to my usual 4 and instead let everything bookmarked land on the list.

A+ Effort has a post about race that is… amazing. It’s simple, it’s short, it says so much in such a small space. To me, it’s a must-read for everyone.

Today’s the Day has a post about body image.  I am so glad that she decided to post the picture of herself because every shape of body should be represented in running photos.

My Path to Mommyhood has a post about how infertility has subtly changed her personality, shaping the way she approaches hope.  It’s about finding the balance that protects her heart while still allowing her to be herself.

Wild and Precious Life has a brief post about the unfinished nursery that made me cry.  These are the lines that gutted me: “I struggle with the urge to finish the nursery. To hang their names on the wall, to reorder the returned cribs. To unfold the handmade blankets.”  Please read the whole thing.

Two Kids and Counting… Slowly has a post about hitting the end of the brainstorming road, and not seeing how they’ll ever have another child.  She explains: “I am not even numb, it’s just like… a big I’M OUT OF IDEAS flashing across my brain … I’m just out of any other feelings about it.  Is it possible to run out of feelings after a long time dealing with something?”  I love this description of finding yourself at the end of your thoughts.

The Lewis Note also has a post that made me weepy about doing the laundry while not knowing if the child she is fostering will remain with her or go back home.  Every load of laundry brings her closer to that decision, and she holds the tiny items wondering how many more times she’ll get to wash and fold them.

A Separate Life asks an excellent question: how often are you in your photographs?  Do you ask others to take a picture of you when you travel?  Do you take selfies?  I’ll admit, I take many pictures and I’m in very few.  Maybe I should change that.

Lastly, Baby-Making Merry-Go-Round has a sobering and important post of what it feels like when you are being tested for cancer.  It begins: “In a nutshell, it’s a mixture of feeling sick to your stomach, mixed with moments of shortness of breath, following by long deep breaths. I think that’s the basic feeling.”  Please go over and read the whole thing, and then stick around and leave a message of support in the comment section.

The roundup to the Roundup: It’s Truman Day!  Do you miss television characters when a show is over/goes on hiatus?  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 1st and 8th) 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.