Category — Friday Blog Roundup

First and foremost, before we get down to the Roundup Extravaganza, I want to thank everyone who Facebooked, tweeted, posted, purchased, emailed, talked about, and cheered on Life from Scratch when it was the Daily Deal.  It felt like my Bat Mitzvah; I felt so loved, so cared for.  You made me want to sing my Torah portion…  I mean, give you all a hug.  So thank you.  Thank you thank you thank you.

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As I said last week, in lieu of the normal Roundup, in order to celebrate the 400th (which is really the 300th) Roundup, we’d have an extravaganza where people could honour the posts that have stuck with them over the last 100 weeks or so.  So, without further ado, the Roundup Extravaganza.  And no, the list isn’t closed; it’s just getting started.  It may take me a little bit to upload them to the list, but check back all weekend since I’m sure more will go up soon.  To add another post to the list, fill out the form.

1. From IF to When
2. by the brooke
3. Bio Girl
4. The Shifty Shadow
5. The Road Less Travelled
6. Write Mind Open Heart
7. the misadventures of missohkay
8. Three Little Birds
9. Hapa Hopes
10. Nest Building 101
11. Chasing Our Stork
12. The Infertile Voice
13. Bloodsigns
14. What the Blog? – Jennandtonica
15. Single Infertile Female
16. Stirrup Queens
17. Stirrup Queens
18. 88 Highbury Corner
19. The 2 Week Wait
20. Creating Motherhood
21. To add another post to the list, fill out the form.

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The normal Roundup will be back next week, which means the normal second helpings will be back too.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between June 29th and July 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.

This is the 399th Friday Blog Roundup, by which I mean it’s actually the 299th Friday Blog Roundup.  Many years ago, the numbering went off the rails and it jumped 100 Roundups.  But I can’t really go back to fix it because there was a Roundup already labeled the 299th Roundup.  It would mean changing the number on several hundred Roundups, and as much as I love all of you, I wasn’t going to do that.  So this is really the 299th Roundup, which makes next week the 300th Roundup (called the 400th Roundup).  Still an impressive feat all things considered.  How many blog projects last six years and occur weekly?

To celebrate, I’m going to ask you to find one post between now and next Wednesday on someone’s else’s blog within the last 2 years (going for the last 100 possible Roundups) that you still think about.  But here is the fun part…

• You’re going to submit the URL for the post.  Make sure you have the permalink that takes you directly to that post and NOT the main URL for the blog (main URLs will not be uploaded).  Yes: https://www.stirrup-queens.com/2012/06/supreme-court-affordable-care-act-and-infertility/.  No: https://stirrup-queens.com
• And submit the blog title — NOT the post title.  The list will be a gathering of blog names, and you won’t know which post it directs to on that blog until you click over to read.  Yes: Stirrup Queens.  No: Supreme Court, Affordable Care Act, and Infertility.

Think of it like a Christmas crackers blog list — you don’t know what you’re getting until it pops open.

When you know which one you want to submit, please click here and fill out this form.  Don’t overthink this one because I can only take submissions until next Wednesday evening (let’s say the cut-off is 9 pm EST).  The list will appear next Friday in lieu of the normal Roundup.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Lesson 36: Choosing to Live Child-Free” (The Stir)
• “Hey Everyone!  Train Wreck Over Here!” (Mommy Odyssey)
• “Nada” (Kmina’s Blog)
• “Thank You, Leslie Brown” (Life As I Know It)
• “So You Want to Feel Normal Again” (Infertile First Mom)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Baby, Borneo or Bust has a brilliant, thought-provoking post on internal vs. external change.  She writes: “I have come to realize that as much as external change is important and rewarding, internal change is even more vital and exponentially harder.”  It’s a post that explains why we bring the weather with us, even when we switch locations.  Why we can’t un-run ourselves.  I love love love this post.

Searching for Our Silver Lining has a raw post about stopping fertility treatments and what comes after.  She marks the end of those 2 1/2 years stating: “There have been tears and anger. Despair and numbness. We both feel lied to, blaming ourselves and the world for this pain. Yet, in the end, both Grey and I know that this is the end. We’ve fought a good fight; it’s time to let go.”  It’s about finding the ability to let go.

Mrs. Spock has a post about wrapping her brain around a change in life plans, something that many of us have had to do numerous times.  She admits: “It is difficult to re-program my brain. I had never expected a family of four, so I don’t have those memory banks full of daydreams with a family of four. Something always seems missing. How very human of me.”  It’s beautiful, lilting writing.

If You Don’t Stand for Something has a great post about becoming an aunt-by-choice to her fictive kin, and how she turned out to feel different from how she predicted.  She says, “Something happened between prepping for the momma’s baby shower and now and things are so much smoother and the baby stuff surrounding her is so much easier on me.”  It comes down to feeling understood, feeling heard.  Amazing how that can release you to feel so much love.

Infertile Fantasies has a post about using her leftover embryos amongst other things.  There is a lot to chew on here.  But I love the points she makes about finding that balance between being everything to her children and reaching a point in life when she needs to also return to having some of her own achievements and milestones.  Gorgeous post.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled has a brilliant post about her confidence over the years and how she feels that with age, she is fading aside as younger, faster people move into the slots she used to occupy.  But how that lack of confidence may not necessarily be a bad thing.  She so eloquently states: “In some ways, age and experience do bring wisdom. But in other ways, I find the older I get, the less confidence I have. Perhaps I’ve seen & experienced too much to be too certain or confident of anything any more — least of all myself.”

Who cares about the summer slowdown when moving slower makes people write such dense, wonderful posts?

The roundup to the Roundup: Tell me one post you still think about from someone else’s blog and honour their writing in the Roundup Extravaganza next week.  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 22nd and June 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.

I am not balancing life well at this moment in time.  I started the week off strong, but then work and obligations overtook me.  I found myself thrashing about in a sea of words and code, with timesuck maelstroms dragging me under.  I would go to bed at 1 am and then wake up at 7 am and try to get more work accomplished and couldn’t get a hold of my life.

This meant that I was incapable of purchasing soap.

Crap, you think as you read that: does that mean Melissa didn’t bathe all week?  No, I showered, using Josh’s bar of soap the first day.  I was then caught by Josh and it was implied through the way he incredulously intoned: “you used my soap?” that I was not welcome to keep using said soap.  I then switched to a travel bar that I unearthed since I couldn’t get my shit together to go to the store.  Until one night late in the week when I was out, and I nipped into the drugstore to grab a two-pack of Dove.

The next day, I stayed in my pyjamas until 4 pm — as did the twins — while I finished a project.  Exhausted and mentally fried, I climbed in the shower to clear my head before I tackled the next task.  And as I soaped up my body, I noted that the soap did not smell like my normal soap.  Nor did it feel like my normal soap.  This soap had flavour crystals or something that looked like little drops of Certs Retsyn. (How horrified am I to Google that and discover that Retsyn is copper gluconate.  I don’t know what the hell that is, but it sounds like metal.)  And it was scratching me.  My soap was literally scratching me.

After the shower, I fished the box out of the recycling pile.  It turns out that I not only forget my pants on long trips, but I can’t purchase soap when I have too many projects going at once.  I apparently purchased an exfoliating bar, so I will be spending the next few weeks buffing my skin since I don’t have time again to buy more soap.

But as a side note: do you have your own bar of soap in the shower, or do you share one with your partner?  I’d love to know the breakdown of how many people share or hoard their soap.  We are soap hoarders here (though I am also a soap stealer when I need to be).

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Father’s Day” (Our Tiny Angels)
• “Overjoyed” (Finding Our New Normal)
• “And Another One” (For the Love of Baby Liam)

Okay, now my choices this week.

My Lady of the Lantern has a lovely, lilting post about the realities of her life.  About the push and pull of life: she wants the cream on bread, she knows she shouldn’t have the cream on bread.  She wants to return to work, she doesn’t feel settled returning to work.  I loved the simplicity and the rhythm of this post.

No Kidding in NZ has a post about confidence that resonated with me.  The post also provides you with a way to look at your own confidence levels.  She writes, “And the emotions of pregnancy loss and infertility, failure and self-doubt as a woman, all these emotions pulled my self-confidence down.  Initially, I was scared to go out, scared to meet people, in case the tears came, in case the awkward comments and questions were delivered.”  I appreciated the rawness of her confidence dissection.

Lastly, last weekend was Father’s Day in the United States and A Little Blog about the Big Infertility has a moving post about Father’s Day, her father, and a song from the Lion King.  She writes about her daughter, “Even though V is not biologically related, every one in my family notices she bears a resemblance, physically to my dad. And you may think this is weird, but sometimes she stares off into space and smiles like someone is there, and I wonder if he isn’t watching over us.”  The post made me want to reach through the screen and give her a hug.

And a side note because this video is so much fun, from Pretend to Enjoy (a non-IF blogger, as far as I know):

Taste the Rainbow – Stop Motion Candy and Paint from Jennifer Dorsman on Vimeo.

The roundup to the Roundup: Do you share soap, or so you each have your own bar of soap in your house?  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 15th and June 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.

The Wolvog’s team ultimately lost, but — come on — it was their first season, and they were number two in the division.  That’s amazing.  They went from Bad News Bears to a well-oiled machine.  In the final game, the Wolvog had two times up at bat; two amazing hits.  He had a forced out at home on the second hit, which was hard to take.  But he pulled his shit together and went out and did some amazing fielding in the next inning.  And that’s all that really mattered to me; did he try hard, did he shake off the disappointments, did he support his teammates.  And yeah, the icing on the cake was that he got better skillwise during the season too.

A few weeks ago during one of the championship games, the Wolvog stormed out of the diamond when he was tagged out on first, crying as he threw himself into the dugout.  And Josh took him through Tom Hank’s famous, “there’s no crying in baseball” speech from A League of Their Own. (And yes, in that moment, all the parents whipped out their cell phones and played it for the kids from YouTube.  Ah… technology.)  We borrowed the movie from the library, and they loved it.  Hardcore.  Thought it was one of the best movies they ever saw, and they’re trying to watch it for a second time before it has to go back.  Though when that scene came up, the Wolvog rolled his eyes and buried his face in my pillow as if he couldn’t be bothered to watch the advice.

I love that movie so much.  There are dozens of times when my throat starts closing up, either because I am so happy or so incredibly sad for the girls.  My favourite line in the movie is when Dottie Hinson’s husband is back from the war, and she takes it as an opportunity to leave the team which has become too emotional and difficult a space.  Jimmy Dugan, her manager, finds her slinking off and calls her on it.

Jimmy Dugan: Shit, Dottie, if you want to go back to Oregon and make a hundred babies, great, I’m in no position to tell anyone how to live. But sneaking out like this, quitting, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Baseball is what gets inside you. It’s what lights you up, you can’t deny that.
Dottie Hinson: It just got too hard.
Jimmy Dugan: It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard… is what makes it great.

Oh my G-d, has there ever been a better line?

The point of this story comes back around to the forced out.  The bases were loaded, and the Wolvog was on third.  The boy at bat bunted, and the ball dropped directly in front of home plate.  The catcher picked it up and stood on base as the Wolvog ran toward him.  And halfway down the base line, facing the boy standing on the plate, I could see the idea click in the Wolvog’s head and he started to pick up steam.  So he came barreling down to the base, and slid into home as violently as possible, kicking out his leg to bring the catcher down.  The catcher dropped the ball, and the look of glee that passed over the Wolvog’s face as he got up — in those two seconds before the out was called — were priceless.  He literally thought he had just reenacted the final scene between Kit and Dottie in A League of Their Own and got the run, not understanding the difference with a forced out.

Hence why the tears were so intense; because he had not only slid for nothing, but his movie moment hadn’t come true.  Still, best moment ever to watch.

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Speaking of good movies, we’ve shown them E.T. as well and have Back to the Future (skipping the shooting of Doc) in the queue.  We’ve done a bunch of cartoon ones like Snoopy.  All of Star Wars.  Ferris Bueller isn’t appropriate yet, right?  Nor is War Games?

What other movies from the past — think late seventies to early nineties — would you add to our queue?

Updated: moving the movie suggestions from the comment section into the post so others can easily find them as well.  Thank you so much for these because I had forgotten about most of them.  Keep them coming!

• Goonies
• Space Camp
• Flight of the Navigator
• Princess Bride
• Labyrinth
• Karate Kid
• Neverending Story
• Land Before Time
• Parent Trap
• Field of Dreams
• Big
• Mrs. Doubtfire
• Hook
• The Sandlot
• The Last Unicorn
• An American Tale
• The Man from Snowy River
• Black Stallion
• Incredible Journey
• Ghost Dad
• My Girl
• The Secret Garden
• Jumanji
• Fly Away Home
• Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
• Bedknobs and Broomsticks
• Short Circuit
• Escape to Witch Mountain
• Babe
• Wall-E
• Stuart Little
• Charlotte’s Web
• The Cat from Outer Space
• The Rescuers
• The Secret of NIMH
• Flubber
• The Muppet Movie
• The Last Starfighter
• Little Big League
• Billy Elliot
• The Journey of Natty Gan
• Honey I Shrunk the Kids
• The Mighty Ducks
• D.A.R.Y.L.
• Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (might be a bit too soon)
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Soul Surfer
• Les Miserables (Clare Danes and Liam Neeson version)
• The Blind Side
• The Railway Children
• Swallows and Amazons
• Adventures in Babysitting
• Pollyanna
• The Sound of Music
• Mary Poppins

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “DWYNTD Parenting (or Yes, I Just Learned about Natural Parenting)” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Lori!
• “And, Then, We Had to Give Our Son CPR” (Trying Not to Scream)
• “Go to the Head of the Class” (Silent Sorority)
• “Attachment” (Sprout)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Tales of a Cautious Optimist has a particularly good piece of advice for dealing with infertility that stems from a Sex and the City episode.  It’s about finding how you — in particular — reboot.  She writes, “The list goes on and on, but the point is when you board the infertility train, disappointments, setbacks, and feelings of failure are inevitable… and the only way to survive is to Breathe and Reboot.”  Go read the post in full.

A Half Baked Life asks a few really really interesting questions in her post about what bloggers owe each other in terms of the truth.  She examines a blogger’s trial-by-other-bloggers (though… in a way… we would be the jury) in regards to her bankruptcy hearing.  She explains: “And yet, we hold bloggers accountable to certain standards, don’t we?  To standards that we don’t even use, perhaps, for celebrities, whose images are more obviously cultivated for public consumption?  Just like we expect the Girl Scouts to act a certain way even when they’re not in uniform?”  It’s a really thought-provoking post.

A Thousand Oceans has a post about the missing parts — both of a painting and the holes in her heart.  It is a heartbreaking post about a portrait that goes unfinished after the birth and death of her twins.  This thought was particularly gorgeous: “I really didn’t want to spend any time looking at the self-portrait, which I had not seen nor really thought about since I was pregnant with the twins. I could not, however, ignore the obvious irony of my own missing parts in the painting.”  Sending love to A Thousand Oceans for the missing parts.

Lastly, Bébé Suisse has a post about what time means to her as they approach their unfulfilled due date not pregnant.  It’s about the hard choices we have to make, the retrospect that comes afterward, and the decisions that still loom as we spin the dozens of plates in our lives, hoping none will topple off their sticks.  She adds: “Life is not just about well-timed sex, as much as it can sometimes seem that way, and this is the moment for me to look beyond that part to the others that make up a well-rounded existence.”  I think many will relate to this post.

The roundup to the Roundup: The hard is what makes it great.  What movies should we show the twins?  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 8th and June 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.

Thank you for the birthday wishes last week.  I’d love to tell you all about seeing the amusement park pieces, and show you all my lovely photos… but we didn’t go.  The day before, we headed up to the actual old park grounds (most of which was now a shopping mall) to see the ruins.  The only thing that remained in good shape was the entrance castle.  We walked around the fence, peeking in at the forest growing over the ruins, and I felt in that moment that I had my peace even though it didn’t look like the Enchanted Forest at all.

The next day, the day we were supposed to go to Elioak, the Wolvog had his baseball game postponed due to weather, and we spent the day in the house, waiting to hear when he’d be playing.  At one point, we could have slipped out to the farm, but I sort of didn’t feel like it was where I was supposed to be in that moment.  We stuck around the house, and I got everyone to clean for three straight hours.  And then the Wolvog’s baseball team won their game, and we screamed our heads off.

The next day, we went to Nationals Park to celebrate my birthday again, and Lombardozzi and Harper kicked off the game with back-to-back home runs as the first two hits.  Literally, first two hits of the game were both home runs.  In the same vein as not needing to go see the restored pieces of the amusement park after seeing the ruins, I sort of didn’t need the Nats to win after that opening.  It was that good.  Oh, and they didn’t win.  But what I’m saying was that it didn’t really matter because that opening was so spectacular; just as seeing the ruins of the amusement park were enough in the moment.

So, all in all, a great birthday.

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Josh and I don’t really do gifts on birthdays or holidays.  We just give gifts whenever we feel like giving a gift.  I made a joke on my birthday that he should trot downstairs and get my gift, and he said, “okay” and left the room.  I thought he was joking too, but he came back in with something behind his back, which ended up being one of the best presents ever.

Back in graduate school, I translated a story by Etgar Keret that appeared in Rechov as part of my translation project.  In it, there was a word that I CLEARLY did not know: kalashnikov.  I couldn’t find it in any dictionary, nor did any of the people I asked know it (granted, they were all peaceniks… which might have been the problem).  But time was running out on turning in the project so I left the word in pencil all over the draft of the translation.  Untranslated.  And not spelled correctly either because I was sounding it out from the Hebrew.

My professor sat me down and mashed his lips together and finally said, “Melissa, do you not know what a kalashnikov is?”  So I admitted that I could tell it was a noun, and it was clearly important to understanding the character, but I had no idea what this thing was.  And finally he said, “seriously?  It’s a gun, Melissa.  It’s a gun.”  And this became a big joke amongst my friends.

And then, early on in my relationship with Josh, we went to hear Nathan Englander read from For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, which is this fantastic book, and the whole evening made me fall in love with Josh a little more.

So for my birthday, Josh got me copies of Etgar Keret and Nathan Englander’s newest books, and had the men sign them for me.

So… yeah… he hit it out of the park with a kalashnikov with that one.

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I went back to the White House on Thursday for their Women’s Health Townhall, which was thought-provoking.  I need to pull my pictures from the camera and organize my thoughts on it.  But it raised some really interesting questions about infertility specifically in looking at women’s health in general.  More on that soon.

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 And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Anatomy of a Hater” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)
• “Right When” (Mrs. Spit)
• “Somebody’s Baby” (Baby, Interrupted)
• “A New Day” (Freckled Citizen)
• “94 Days” (The Koob Triplets)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Dragondreamer’s Lair has a post about her unseen scars; the ones caused by infertility.  It caused her to doubt her body, to be able to trust in statistics, and to feel unburdened joy over someone else’s pregnancy announcement.  It’s a beautiful post about the far-reaching effects of infertility.

Doping for Baby has a post about moving in and out of being affected by infertility.  She writes, “It’s funny, just when I think I am centered and in a place of acceptance about our currently infertile situation, I become overwhelmed with it all.”  It’s the unknowns that undo her, that get through the armour of calm.  Such an honest, raw post.

Write Mind Open Heart provides a release for her shame, and counsels, “It’s time to neutralize by shining light.  Often, in the light, the things we are most embarrassed by or even ashamed of suddenly seem not so dark, so charged, so burdensome.”  It’s a great reminder, and her comment section is also becoming a dumping ground for other people to release their hidden shame.

There were two great graduation-from-the-clinic posts — one last week and one this week.  Waiting for Little Feet has a post about that final ultrasound at the RE’s office.  It Is What It Is (Or Is It?) also has a post about that final appointment.    Both posts capture that bittersweet wonder of leaving a place that you both love and hate at the same time.  It’s the place where your child originated, and it’s also a place that no one wants to be.  But still, saying goodbye can be so damn hard.

Lastly, Holly’s Narrative Dream has a post about letting go of all her old baby things and accepting the future for what it is.  She writes, “My daughter won’t field calls from her sibling when she’s older and counsel him or her on their love life or job. She won’t be able to bitch about her aging parents and how stubborn we are or deaf we are becoming. She’ll stand on her own. She’s stronger than me, and I handle everything. She’ll be fine.”  It’s a lovely, brief post.

The roundup to the Roundup: How I spent my birthday.  Josh’s fantastic gift.  And thoughts from what I realized about infertility from the Women’s Health Townhall soon.  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 1st and June 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.